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No Smoking, No Ducks, No Barbecues

content@LondonTown.com — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The first to go were Shisha pipes, the exotic, sociable, bubbling way to take a massive hit of smoke without coughing, or smelling of anything worse than apples. Apparently, it's marginally less healthy than a Winehouse-scale crack binge, but it feels fine, and was becoming the chic way to meet friends without having to drink. The smoking ban killed it: you can still have shisha at outside tables, but this summer they might as well have suggested smoking underwater. All those lovely little cafes around Regent's Park and Shepherd's Bush, which sold mint tea, and ridiculously sweet honey-based snacks to go with your apple tobacco, are closing down for good - no doubt to be replaced by yet more branches of Starbucks.

The next blow came when the EU announced that the duck ovens used in Chinatown failed to comply with some health and safety directive or other. Now, I've eaten those ducks, those gorgeous, oily, crisp-fatted ducks, dunked in salty-sweet Hoi Sin, and there is nothing about them that could possibly comply with anyone's concept of health. There's been a stay of execution, announced this week, that has allowed Peking Duck to stay on the menu for now, but the most popular dish in Chinatown could well be on the way out soon, and with it most of the decent cheap restaurants in the West End.

And now - reported this week in Time Out - we discover that Korean barbecues are to meet the same fate as Chinese ovens. This, if you haven't yet encountered it, is a particularly inspired piece of traditional South-East Asian wackiness in which diners are brought a selection of marinated meats to cook at their own table. They've sprung up all over Soho, and make an inexpensive, sociable and relatively healthy alternative to Chinese food. Apparently the gas burners, made in Korea by some fabulously hi-tech corporation, and costing 500 pounds a pop, haven't been certified as safe, and so all these restaurants are going to have to close down.

I've already written about the smoking and drinking-on-public-transport bans, in a kind of abstract, doesn't-affect-me-but-what-about-the-poor-teenagers way, but this latest round of health-related meddling is starting to directly impact on my social life. If I wanted every coffee shop and cheap restaurant to be some identikit high street chain, I could go and live in the suburbs. The whole point of London, the reason we put up with the staggering rents, the Tube strikes and the charity muggers is the constant excitement of new discoveries, the compression of thousands of nations into an area the same size as Luxembourg, and the endless sparking of the new ideas against ancient traditions.

I would suggest that when an entire cuisine is being ruined by a rule, it's the law that needs to change, rather than the restaurant.

Boys and their Toys

If you think all those City boys are managing assets and closing high-end deals then you're wrong; what they're actually spending their long hours doing is melting down their Oyster cards and attaching the chip to their watches, so they can swipe in-and-out with their Tag Heuers. And all this with just a jar of nail varnish remover - imagine all the bankers queuing up at the cosmetics counter in the Boots on Cannon Street when they found out! The more Blue Peter option is to make a fairy wand with the chip inside and look as though you are getting through the barrier with magic�

London on the World Stage

London is obviously getting its finger out now that China has set the precedent with the most spectacular (and expensive and controversial) opening ceremony in history. Well, the advertising campaign to entice visitors to the capital in 2012 should do it�if the image of the globe with the Thames running across it didn't, unfortunately, remind people of the picture off the title sequence of 'EastEnders'. Still, at least the strapline makes the link: 'From the Mayor's Thames Festival to the Chelsea Flower Show, to the Notting Hill Carnival, there's a world of celebrations in London.' Catchy!

To be, or not to be�

Some dirty underground brickwork, apparently Tudor, is said to be the foundations of an east London theatre where Shakespeare himself was known to tread the boards. The site, somewhere in Shoreditch, was uncovered with much nodding of heads from archaeologists and ooh-ing from thespies like Sir Ian McKellen. Legend has it that after a spat with the landowner in 1599 (planning permission was still an issue back then!), the Lord Chamberlain's Men, which included Shakespeare, dismantled the theatre in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve and shipped the wood across the Thames - a bit of putting the pieces back together and the Globe was born!

The Olympics

content@LondonTown.com — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

It's hard to keep up with all the Olympic excitement - what with 'Super Saturday' followed closely by the imaginatively titled 'Super Tuesday', altogether a 'super' time was had by one and all. But no matter what the papers call it, there's no denying Team GB delivered a gleaming pot of gold that we could all get excited about. Cue rousing 'Chariots of Fire' music. As pay back for their sporting success these athletic heroes are getting an open-bus victory tour around London - as well as some major sponsorship deals and a pair of Jimmy Choos for that swimmer from Mansfield.

Londoners have been keeping up with all the action and podium news on big screens in Trafalgar Square and Canary Wharf, watching everything from air pistol shooting to synchronised swimming. We've lived through the highs: medals in cycling, rowing, sailing; and the lows: 14 year old diver Tom Daley and his partner Blake Alderidge squabbling, Paula sobbing and Andy Murray double faulting.

Even if you're not normally an avid arm chair sports enthusiast you can't help but get excited about the Olympics. The worldwide nature of the competition coupled with the fact it only happens once every four years inevitably mean the tension mounts and emotions run high. Flag waving, whooping (the audience) and tears (the competitors) soon follow.

I've noticed changes in my sport watching habits, I've become strangely gripped by activities I wouldn't normally bother with. At Athens four years ago weightlifting was the surprise attraction; seriously, don't knock it until you've tried it - well, watching it anyway. This time round it was ping-pong, and not just for the comedy value either. I was glued. It may have funny sounding names like whiff-whaff and flim-flam but table tennis is a serious sport, especially in the host country. Buoyed up by the crowd and struggling to keep up with the fast moving blur of a ball, it didn't take me long to see ping-pong's appeal.

But the excitement is not just about Beijing, the four-year build up to London hosting the games in 2012 has already begun. With the end of the closing ceremony in China the official countdown to 'our turn' begins. The spectacular opening party at the spaghetti-like Bird's Nest in Beijing and state of the art staging has set the bar high. Of course we know that 7,000 Morris dancers aren't going to match up but we're not going to let that stop us trying.

And we're trying quite hard. We've got a Zaha Hadid designed swimming centre, not to mention the 80,000 seat Olympic stadium and, casting aside concerns about 'but how much is this going to cost us?', we can even start looking forward to the sporting spectacle. Sure, we'll have four years of headlines concerned about budgets and targets, plus plenty of Boris bashing but in the end, even if it's a patch on what we've seen this time around, the Olympics in London will be well worth watching.

Fit for a Queen?

Ah, the fourth plinth debate! They do say that all publicity is good publicity so rumours that a statue of the Queen riding a horse (with Corgis?) - she would only be immortalised in cast iron after her death - could topple modern art off its pedestal are just the thing�Some arty type said that that it would be 'a great shame' if the art was stopped - next up is Antony Gormley's plan to have the plinth occupied 24 hours a day by members of the public, who can stand there for an hour 'being art' - but I wonder if anyone has asked Liz if she wants to join Nelson and the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.

We're Sooooo Rock 'n' Roll

I thought 'being a rock star' had lost its cool in the 60s and 70s; that guitar-thrashing had been long ago replaced by moshing, but even that's a little bit 80s and perhaps nowadays it's all about the iPod disco. But apparently rocking still holds some street cred and the particular streets to frequent if you want to bump into an aging rocker or a modern day one having trouble opening his eyes (Pete Doherty) are those around Shepherd's Bush. Around 'the Bush' as the locals call it, there's one rock star for every 1,222 residents - the highest ratio in the UK - so move over Manchester (some upstarts called Oasis!), London's rocking.

Boris Takes off his Stabilisers

Oh, worry of worries. There has been some hoo-ha about a Tim Parker standing down from the post of First Deputy Mayor - he was meant to run Transport for London - but what concerns me is not whether he quit because he understandably couldn't be within a two foot radius of Boris or over some other political wrangling, but that, once again. Boris has sole responsibility for the Tube. He said that being personally involved was 'crucial to being an effective mayor' - that may be so but no one said anything about him being effective. Does anyone else see impending disaster down the track as officials jump ship, London grinds to a halt and Boris is left, alone, still smiling and still clueless?

Sandwiched Out

content@LondonTown.com — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

'The End is Nigh' or so it seems for those sandwich board men on London's busiest shopping streets. Traditionally used by doom mongers to warn the rest of us about the impending apocalypse, sandwich boards are shortly to meet their own untimely end. By mid August Westminster City Council plans to rid Oxford Street and Covent Garden of those unsightly signs - now more commonly neon coloured and informing shoppers of a bargain 'Golf Sale' just around the corner.

Placards on Oxford Street have been part of London's street furniture for more than 100 years. Granted they make the street look 'cluttered' - the justification for slapping them with a �2,500 fine - but so do plenty of other unsightly additions. Chewing gum, cigarette butts, people gobbing and, well� people in general. The 100,000 shoppers you have to dodge past just to get from one end of the street to the other are very un-feng shui. I suppose it would be ridiculous to ban them.

There are plenty more irritations that living in London entails - the 'Sinner, Winner' guy at Oxford Circus and the free newspapers thrust into your hand at the busiest public transport hubs are two that immediately spring to mind. But is the pole bearer - or the human advertisement - really the worst of them? And so bad, in fact, they need to make up laws to ban them?

I'd argue that they perform a public information service. OK, so you might not want to know where the 'Golf Sale' is but plenty of people do (or presumably the shop keeper wouldn't pay someone �4 an hour to stand there with a neon sign all day). Holding a board upright for eight hours a day while avoiding streams of stressed out shoppers hardly seems the most rewarding job but it's still work for plenty of people - most newly arrived in the country - keeping them off the streets, metaphorically at least.

Once, freemen of the city were granted such freedoms as being permitted to herd their sheep across London Bridge. Merrily they could swagger around the City with their sword drawn and get uproariously drunk without fear of arrest. Now we're not even allowed to stand in Covent Garden with a piece of cardboard strapped to our chests.

It strikes me that getting rid of the billboard-on-legs is just another case of the 'bah humbug' spirit that sees such innocent things as the sound of the ice cream van reduced to a mere four seconds. As if their seasonally affected wage wasn't precarious enough, ice cream sellers are - like the sandwich boarders - having their means of making a living swiped from under them.

Just think of the untold damage these kind of petty laws are doing to the city's entrepreneurial spirit. Next, we won't be able to buy an umbrella from a street stall that springs up in the middle of a downpour. Or those sugar coated roasted chestnuts will suddenly disappear. Then where will we be? Cold, hungry and sodden, that's where.

When you're dodging out of the way of the cut-price theatre tickets sign, stop, look and appreciate it - most likely this'll be the first time you've done this, if we're honest, as well as the last. What you're looking at may have little artistic merit, printed in an unremarkable font and could possibly be hand written in black marker pen. But just think, London will be a less colourful place without it. And now how are you going to know when the end is nigh?

Stars of Screen and Stage

London's theatres had more people through their doors in 2007 than ever before and this - cue a Royal Box full of reality TV stars with jazz hands - helped along considerably by tickets sold off the back of 'Grease is the Word' (you guessed it, finding Danny and Sandy for 'Grease') and that other terrible one 'Any Dream Will Do' for Joseph-wannabes. Surely Shakespeare is doing theatrical somersaults in his grave, or at least a soliloquy or two, to prove that London's theatre scene is indeed worthy of record-breaking praise but that all of London's a stage, above and beyond 'The Sound of Music'.

Could I See You by the Lake, 3pm?

Do you remember getting excited at school when your teachers said you could have a lesson outside? St James's Park recently hosted the grown-up version of this by setting up an al fresco office. It's all part of a campaign to get Londoners to make the most of the capital's outdoor spaces and we like the gimmicky 'nature' of it all but, in reality, no one ventures outside their stuffy offices to actually work - so they could have forgotten about the Wi-Fi and boardroom and just put out some more deckchairs.

Top Architects Choose Un-shaky Ground

Richard Rogers' Terminal 5 at Heathrow hasn't made the shortlist for this year's Stirling Prize, awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects, but perhaps it's for the best that this salt is not rubbed into that particular wound; labelling the sparkling-new, really rather large terminal architecturally attractive in some way could really send the Heathrow protestors over the edge. Much safer water is the nomination of the Royal Festival Hall for its iconic revamp, restoring it to its 1950s splendour and doing the South Bank proud in the process; it's the only older building in the running.

The Show Ain't Over 'Til the Fat Lady's on Page 3

content@LondonTown.com — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The first night of a new Royal Opera House season is, traditionally, an occasion when the wives of Russian oligarchs and top City bankers take the chance to show off their jewellery in the bar, sneer at each others' handbags in the toilets, and then sneak off in the interval, leaving a second-half audience of three octogenarian baronets snoozing in the stalls.

The eagerly-anticipated new production of Don Giovanni (eagerly anticipated by the half-dozen people who actually know anything about opera, anyway) at the Royal Opera House is going to be a little different. The only way to get hold of a ticket is to buy a copy of 'The Sun' on 30th July, and enter yourself in the lottery.

That's 'The Sun'. Home to Dear Deidre, Desktop Keeley (Google it), Page 3, and such noted opera critics as Jeremy Clarkson and Lorraine Kelly. The current top Arts stories on their website right now are 'Madonna in Meltdown', 'Brooke to Bare All for Playboy' and 'Miley May Strip for Film Role'. The most recent mentions of 'opera' in the paper have been about Britain's Got Talent's Paul Potts (fair enough, but it is a year since he won it), and 'Pamela Anderson goes bra-less for night out at Opera'.

The theory (based, I suspect, on watching the opera scene in 'Pretty Woman') is that if you get White Van Man and Essex Girl to come and see 'Don Giovanni' just once, they will immediately swap their alcopops for Chateau Lafitte, buy a Hampstead townhouse, take out an annual subscription to the ROH and start reading Gramophone magazine instead of 'The Sun'. The concept that people might choose not to go to the opera because it's expensive and a bit boring is obviously not one that has been much considered by Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas DBE and her merry band of trustees.

So when the show opens on 10th September, what can we expect in London's most magnificent auditorium? There will be lots of journalists from the 'Guardian' and the 'Telegraph' wandering around frantically looking for interviewees who work in chip shops, and there will be plenty of City gents and oligarchs who bought their tickets on e-bay. There won't be anyone who wouldn't normally have turned up, since asking your butler to pick up a copy of 'The Sun' is not a challenge that would tax the wit of even the most antique opera-lover.

I suspect, in fact, that this stunt is going to backfire spectacularly. For all its faults (intermittent truth-stretching, obsession with breasts, borderline fascism) 'The Sun' is completely compelling reading. I fear that rather than getting a whole new audience for 18th-century Austrian opera, we're going to see lots of broadsheet readers converted to the tabloids. And from there it's just a short step to being unable to head out to Opening Nights at Covent Garden because it's Big Brother Eviction Night on Channel 4.

Today's Rubbish News, Tomorrow's News on Rubbish

Here's a shocker - giving away millions of newspapers in central London is creating loads and loads of paper that's not being recycled. Commuters, after having the freesheets thrust into their hands (never mind the latte and briefcase!), are not seeking out recycling bins but scattering the newspapers they probably didn't want in the first place around town. The 70 bins were installed quickly enough when Westminster Council told The London Paper and London Lite that their distribution could be restricted but now it appears they're expecting them to be filled too.

On Tap

There's been a definite move to "just a glass of tap water please" in recent times but it now seems we can omit the "just" from that sentence in London restaurants as though we're apologising for ordering something that's free; obviously meaning it could never be as good as their glacial fresh-from-the-Schlatenkees bottled water. We snootily snub water, ice even, when we're in Europe, in case of a "jippy tummy" - it's as if we've always known that London's tap water is the only type to be trusted but now it's a fact; according to the people-in-the-know-about-water, it's the best in the country.

Four Years and Counting...

Word is out that our Ken (Livingstone, lest we forget) is looking for a job... nothing quite so ironic as Tony Blair becoming a Middle East envoy or as predictable as his recent attempt to take over the airwaves. Nope, it seems all he wants is his job in City Hall back. He'll have to wait till 2012 of course - just in time for the Olympics, so hopefully that'll take over from the rancour over bendy buses - but it appears Ken has already started an early campaign trail which involves, well, whining about Boris really.

Love All at Wimbledon

content@LondonTown.com — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Walking past Wimbledon Park you might think there's a big Cub Scouts' outing, or possibly a new solution to the housing problem. But check your diary and you'll soon realise that this is Wimbledon fortnight, two weeks of tennis championships when the whole country prays that Andy Murray won't pull out with a sore thumb� or knee� or back� or whatever and actually wins the whole major Grand Slam. Slam dunk.

Ah yes, the gentle twang of felted rubber on cat gut resounding over SW19 can only mean one thing, the annual tennis love-in is upon us. The new tented village populated with mad keen tennis fans has drawn comparisons to Glastonbury, though presumably without the Hare Krishnas and LSD. But that aside, the temporary tented home to hundreds of tennis nuts has done away with one Wimbledon tradition - the queues.

As much a part of the famous tennis tournament as the covers going on, strawberries and cream, and seeing Cliff Richards in the stands, the lengthy queues are quite legendary. But this doesn't mean they'll be missed.

This year, those waiting to get into the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club had another surprise in store, Amanda Holden showing them her knickers. That Athena poster has a lot to answer for. Apparently, the 'Britain's Got Talent' judge had been getting lessons from our old sporting hero Tim Henman, especially for the event - well, now that he's hung up his trainers he's got sod all else to do.

Even if you don't like tennis for the other 50 weeks of the year, Wimbledon still manages to excite the crowds. Not only can you see some world class action, it's also a great excuse for putting your feet up and watching a bit of telly. So what if you don't know what 'deuce' means, there are plenty of other things to look at. For the men, there's an abundance of long legged, taut and toned tennis totty to keep them glued to Centre Court. Female watchers are well advised to keep an eye on Rafael Nadal. His bicep hugging sleeveless tops may not be to my taste but I have girlfriends who admit to melting at the mere flex of his upper arms.

When I was at Queen's the other week, for example, a friend recounted how she bagged herself one of Nadal's wristbands when he flung it, post-match, into the crowd. Slightly embarrassed, she admitted that - after one too many Pimms - she'd elbowed aside old ladies in her desperation to bag his soiled sweat band, shouting "It's mine!". But she still has it. Framed. Surprisingly, it doesn't smell of BO, or so she assures me.

All the South Bank's a Stage

The South Bank of the Thames is set to get another theatre to add to its already flourishing arts scene - the National, Old Vic, Young Vic, Royal Festival Hall and Shakespeare's Globe provide an impressive line-up of venues but there are big plans afoot to transform County Hall into the Greater London Theatre. Used to staging farces in the time when the Greater London Council resided there, the new arts centre will have to put on a good show to compete with its prestigious neighbours but with new writing and outdoor productions on the agenda, it's already got the bohemian spirit going on.

Computer Crash

We all know that Facebook has the potential to cause trouble, whether it's being 'poked' by your ex or photos of that drunken office party being 'tagged' to all and sundry, but this really is taking it to a whole new level. Police officers (18, no less) joined a Facebook group called 'Yes, I've had a polco!' - polco, obviously, standing for police collision - and posted photos and messages about their spectacular crashes. Disciplinary action has been taken with four of them given 'words of advice' - presumably, something about road safety in London and how car crashes aren't really that funny. Surely that was covered early on in their careers.

Certainly Modern, but no Tate for Battersea

For those of us who love the industrial look of Battersea Power Station (me! me!), the thought of turning it into something resembling a rocket launch pad (meant to be a glass chimney, I think) makes us turn our noses up at the newness of it all. That the building will produce renewable energy is bandied around to get us all on side but this is really just to cover up the 'mixed use development' (shudder) that the businessmen are planning - a hotel, luxury apartments, shops, even a Tube line going straight into the building. What's wrong with art galleries in disused power stations, anyway?

Miller Puts the Heat on Tennant

content@LondonTown.com — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Amusing theatrical fossil Jonathan Miller has been in the papers this week, attacking West End theatre producers for their 'obsession with celebrity', after they chose to go with David Tennant and Jude Law for two forthcoming productions of Hamlet, instead of his latest prot�g�.

Commentators have focussed on his snooty dismissal of Tennant as "That man from Doctor Who", and overlooked the fact that Miller is, of course, completely right. If you can't make an Event of a production, then your show is pretty much doomed. If you want a hit on your hands, you either need a Doctor Who star (Hamlet, Treats, Under the Blue Sky) or to break some major sexual taboos (Blackbird and That Face, for example, which consisted entirely of characters screaming at each other as if they were in a nightmarishly extended Eastenders family scene, but still pulled in the crowds with their whiffs of incest and paedophilia).

But everybody knows whose fault this is, and it's not "celebrity obsessed" producers or audiences. It's Jonathan Miller, and all the other critics, directors, actors and assorted Groucho Club regulars who spent the entire 80s and 90s whinging about the lack of subsidies for theatre. They finally got their money a decade ago, and the result is that you'd have to be completely insane to watch a serious play in the West End.

Gloomy edifices like the Palace Theatre feel like sets in some site-specific Victorian nightmare play, rather than places intended for public enjoyment. Bottlenecks in the crowds mean that by the time you've left your seat in the interval, you're obliged to go back in. Low-ceilinged corridors and Grade I listed plumbing ensure that there's a lingering smell of toilets in all public spaces. And the tickets cost about fifty quid. Who on Earth is going to put up with that unless there's a Hollywood star and at least ten song-and-dance numbers?

Compare this with a trip to the National Theatre, the Young Vic, the Menier, or any of the other Lottery-funded venues, and you'll see why nobody goes to see drama in the West End. Chic bar areas, beautiful restaurants, riverside terraces for the smokers, free music, and the chance to spot crusty old celebs like Jonathan Miller sipping gin and tonics and saying how Chekhov was much gloomier back in his day. It all adds up to a far superior experience. For a tenner, if you book at the right time.

So if Miller wants to rescue his beloved West End from musical remakes of classic movies (woo!), jukebox shows based on clapped-out boybands (yay!), and Jude Law (phwooar!), then he's going to have to accept the closure of his beloved National. Or just stop moaning, and enjoy the most brilliantly varied theatrical city in the world.

You're Hired!

As if we're not all still reeling from our great city being run by an over-sized public schoolboy (yes, Boris, that's you), Labour must feel that they have to do something�anything to overshadow Ken's defeat. And they have! There have been some mutterings that Sir Alan Sugar could be asked to stand in the 2012 elections - maybe Ken just wasn't quite controversial enough and some well-timed bursts of 'You're fired' reverberating around City Hall will provide the edge Labour needs.

Up, Up and Away!

If you happen to see a 75 metre-long white bubble floating above the Thames out of the corner of your eye, aliens are not arriving in London. It's just a German airship. It's certainly one way of seeing the sights with an hour-long flight taking passengers from the airfield in Upminster over to Buckingham Palace and back, but there's only a small window of opportunity to climb aboard in July and August as the airship can't fly in bad weather. And we thought the Tube was unreliable!

You can't judge a book by its cover anymore�

Gone are the days of spending hours browsing bookshelves for the right tome to take on your summer hols. Soon, it could be rather like going into Starbucks and ordering a coffee. The aptly-named Espresso Book Machine does exactly what it says on the tin - it prints books in seven minutes (okay, not quite as quick as a skinny latte!) - and it could be coming to a Blackwell bookshop near you. With the penchant nowadays for putting coffee shops in bookstores, it could be a case of 'Espresso or War and Peace, madam?'

Booze Banned on Buses

content@LondonTown.com — Tue, 27 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

For Marcel Proust, it was the taste of a Madeleine cake that drew him irresistibly back into reveries of his childhood. For me, and many other Londoners, it is the smell of alcohol on the bus. It's not quite as romantic as Marcel's memoires de temps perdus, but the heady, sticky smell of a bottle of alcopop, combined with gentle swaying motion of the top deck, creates an instant jog of memory to giggly teenage journeys into the West End.

At this fledgling stage, we couldn't afford the drinks in the bars, so we had something on the way there instead, and great fun it was too (certainly more enjoyable than the later part of those evenings, which generally involved standing in Zoo Bar being leerily chatted up by middle-aged drunks).

Boris Johnson's official line is that banning booze on buses and trains is a 'zero tolerance' crackdown on 'intimidation'. He seems to believe that the worst thing about public transport is the sight of a sleeping tramp cradling a Special Brew, or a group of tittering middle class schoolgirls, proving how grown-up they are by drinking bottles of WKD.

Aggressive drunks on buses and trains are, of course, a real nuisance, and it would be lovely to get rid of them. But the tube and bus drivers' union have already said that their members get more than enough grief in the course of their duties, and they certainly won't be enforcing this new rule when they don't fancy it. In other words, they'll happily tell groups of harmless teens to put their booze down, but when it's a squad of skinheads in Chelsea shirts necking Stella and vomiting on the seats, they'll develop a sudden blind spot.

So just when teenagers have been granted the right to travel for free, they're having one of the great joys of teenage travel removed. It'll be back to sitting on benches in Leicester Square for the pre-Zoo Bar drink, until someone bans that too.

Spitting DNA Images

Bus Drivers are to be given DNA kits to help catch people who spit at them, in a repulsive, but probably very effective initiative to reduce anti-social behaviour. The 'spit kits' (yuck!) are already in use at Tube Stations, where recent delays have created something of an epidemic of bad-tempered spitting incidents. All 7,000 busses in the London fleet are to carry the kits. Hopefully, they won't come up with a new verse for 'The Wheels on the Bus' to describe them.

Livingstone Radio Show

It's a long tradition for talk radio hosts to divide their audiences, usually by being outrageously right-wing. LBC's latest pundit, however, will be infuriating listeners from the other half of the political spectrum, in the three-hour-a-day Red Ken morning special. The former London mayor describes his show as an opportunity to 'detox' after listening to the poisonous Nick Ferrari.

EU Ban for False Quotes

Ever wondered why the dreadful musical you went to last night had such glowing reviews on its billboard? It's because of a popular practice known as 'cherry-picking' in the PR world, or 'lying' to everyone else. Classic examples include the review of Guys and Dolls: "Frank Loesser's great musical from 19560 is hilarious� Grandage's production often falls flat", which appeared on the billboards as "'HILARIOUS', Independent on Sunday". The practice is being outlawed by new EU directives, so promoters are going to have to find some new way to cheat us out of our money.

Same Again?

content@LondonTown.com — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Usually, receiving an invitation to a free lunch would be a good thing - don't let anyone tell you there's no such thing. Free food satisfies both the glutton and the spendthrift in me. But this week a beautifully designed invite to the opening of 'The Lawn' didn't prompt the usual drools of anticipation, quite the reverse.

The reason? 'The Lawn', a re-vamped restaurant at the delightful Fulham Palace is about to be Oliver Peyton-ed. While I have nothing against the man himself - don't take it personally, Oliver, I'm sure you're a lovely guy - what really upsets me is that this beautiful caf�, a favourite haunt of mine, is going the same way as the rest of the UK high street. By that I mean the taking over of the chains.

As far as I'm concerned, they might as well be replacing this beautiful and historic drawing room, the place where the bishops of London have taken tea for centuries, with a Starbucks. As one identikit high street looks so much like the next it can be hard to know where you are. It's especially confusing for people of my parents' generation who can often be found wondering in circles.

While Oliver Peyton doesn't have the same 'one on every high street' saturation as that ubiquitous US coffee shop chain, his name is attached to a string of eateries in the capital, all of a certain type. Somerset House, Inn the Park, Meals at Heals and two restaurants at the National Gallery all come under the Peyton & Byrne machine. Once again, we're in danger of getting the same old thing all over again. It's ironic that the bloke who started out as groovy party guy and owner of Atlantic Bar & Grill has gone all tea and cake at some of the city's most established old haunts.

What I don't understand - and object to the most - is why change what is already operating quite effectively as a much loved and popular caf�? Delicious cakes and indulgent muffins are successfully served from the existing caf� at Fulham Palace with no branding or marketing necessary. For the past few years, this high ceiling-ed drawing room has been my secret hideaway, a place where I could pretend I'd been invited for tea by someone posh. Now, I fear, the Peyton machine is about to invade that privacy and take away what I love about the place.

I experienced the worst aspect of Peyton-isation first hand the other day when I went to Manchester Square for an idle Saturday morning wandering around the lovely Wallace Collection - possibly my all-time favourite way to wile away an hour or so on the weekend. Pausing for a quick cup of tea and a croissant in the glass atrium restaurant run by (you guessed it) Mr Peyton, I was shocked when the bill for two came to a whopping �10. For two teas and two second rate croissants. And we had to ask three times before being served. It was enough to put me off coming back� ever.

It's not just Oliver Peyton who's at it (see, I told you it wasn't personal). Gordon Ramsay is just as bad. The agitated chef is obviously on a one-man mission to turn the capital into one big Ramsay themed restaurant. You're not safe, even if you get out of the country. On your escape you'll find his Plane Food at the new terminal 5 and then get more of the same in New York and Paris - it's as if he's spread via Heathrow over to the US and France.

What I want to know is, how can he be in all those kitchens at once? And if he can't be (which he can't, for obvious reasons) then are you really getting a 'Ramsay' meal in one of his restaurant? Or are you just paying for the name? Or possibly to see what all the fuss is about. Probably to have a gawp at who else is eating there while you're at it.

A small victory was celebrated when the Hayward threw out Starbucks in favour of a more individual caf�, a late licence and even some live music thrown in. What a mis-match that Starbucks was for an art gallery that prides itself on pushing boundaries and one which regularly shows the very best international contemporary art.

This is exactly the kind of anti-big brand backlash I would like to see extended to our national properties and parks. Boycott yet another identikit caf�, rescue us from repeat edition restaurants. It may be too late for our high streets but the city's national institutions should be saved from the same old, same old.

Don't Banksy on it

Bristol-based graffiti artist Banksy made his name by avoiding the limelight. Notoriously shy when it comes to identifying himself, it's surprising that he put on such a public display as the Can Festival. For the graffiti fest under Waterloo station - in a tunnel owned by Eurostar - Banksy invited a bunch of his fellow urban artists to redecorate the place. Perhaps more criminally, the Tate Modern's current street art show, displayed on the outside of the former power station, doesn't include a single work by Britain's best loved graffiti genius.

Cult is a dirty word

It is, apparently, an offence to hold up a placard with the word 'cult' on it. That was the 'insult' objected to when a 15-year-old boy stood outside the London headquarters of the Church of Scientology. He held aloft a sign which read 'Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult' and was duly handed a summons for it. Valiantly and intelligently fighting his corner, the youngster fired back that a court ruling by a family judge in the High Court in 1984 had described Scientology as a "cult" (while also calling it "corrupt, sinister and dangerous"). Sadly, this wasn't enough to preserve his right to peacefully protest. Later, charges were dropped.

Who let the dogs out

Even if you've never been to Walthamstow dog track you'll be sad to learn that it's due for redevelopment, leaving just two dog race tracks in the capital, at Wimbledon and Romford. The 'gentrification' of the area - a more genial sounding word than homogenisation - will no doubt see the track, an essential East End experience since 1933, turned into yet another modern building block. The final greyhound race will be run in mid-August and the track handed over to its new owners on September 1st. Get there before the place goes to the dogs.

By George

content@LondonTown.com — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100

On St George's Day I woke up to the good news that Gordon wants us all to do a bit of flag waving for our patron saint. Usually the only time you see large scale waving of the red on white St George's cross, is during the World Cup - you can't get away from it then, hanging from every other house and fluttering out of car windows. I'm all in favour of reclaiming the flag from unruly football fans but I think Gordon could do more. Doesn't St George deserve a public holiday? Or more accurately - because how much use is a day off to a long-dead saint - don't we?

I've dutifully signed the online petition and am waiting to see if online petitions ever get you anywhere. Still waiting� Cynics may reasonably argue that backing St George's Day as a Bank Holiday has little to do with national pride and more to do with getting an extra day out of the office. And they'd be mostly right. But there's a bit more to it than that. It's also about pondering what it means to be English at a time when we're not sure what that really it's all about. Importantly, it's also an excuse for a jolly old knees-up - something the English are very good at.

Like most English people (well, I'm half English but who's counting) I'm not usually one to celebrate the old Turkish dragon slayer - more of us mark Guy Fawkes than St George's Day, apparently. But, in the interests of research, I went along to the mayor-backed celebration of Englishness in London's Trafalgar Square, a tasty showing from traders more usually found at London's larder, Borough Market.

Looking like it'd be a wash-out (very English), I set out with an umbrella (English too) only to discover it turned out nice again (even more English). Among the very English entertainment were nattering old ladies brewing tea, green grocers selling books by the pound (lb not �) and a giant compost heap, all over-looked by an ice cream van. Best of all were two men in bow ties, centre stage, doing a hilarious musical recital which included very un-PC lyrics about blowing up aeroplanes with bottles of Evian. Brilliant. If having St George's as a day off means we can do more of this kind of thing then I'm signing up right now.

I couldn't help noticing, with a wry smile, how few people visiting the market - aside from the traders - who were actually sporting any kind of St George's cross - I counted three. Mainly they were baffled tourists queuing up for a bit of food. So it seems there's more raising awareness work to be done.

In a bid to beef up George's profile - bet Boris wishes he had this PR machine behind him - English Heritage has waded in on the subject, producing a 'Top Celebration Tips' guide to the saint's day. Dragon chasing, eating very English food - try chicken tikka masala - and downing essentially English drinks - lashings of ginger beer or a good old fashioned pint - are among the recommended ways to celebrate. It sounds as incongruous as the Famous Five having an awfully exciting adventure slaying fire breathing mystical creatures on Brick Lane. But the fun doesn't stop there, English Heritage has even commissioned an 'Ode to St George'. 'The True Dragon', a kind of 'Jerusalem' for today, with its wistful pondering on 'England's valley full of light', brings a patriotic tear to the eye. Oh go on Gordon, you're a Scot, you must understand how much we need a day off for Eng-er-land.

Handbags at Dawn

It's been a tough few weeks for BAA, not to mention the unfortunate holidaymakers who thought they'd be jetting off from Heathrow's shiny new Terminal 5. As we mentioned last month, it's always been a controversial project with green protestors and people from Hounslow (living under the flight path) but add 28,000 misplaced bags and Naomi Campbell throwing a strop in first class and you've got, well, utter chaos really.

Brucie Bonus!

Ah, the Palladium and Bruce Forsyth. It's like the Globe and Shakespeare, Buckingham Palace and the Queen, Ken and City Hall�it was definitely "nice to see" him back at the theatre where he became a household name with 'Sunday Night at the London Palladium'. This time, though, he was receiving a BAFTA - a Fellowship award, no less - following in the eminent footsteps of Morecambe and Wise and Charlie Chaplin and with Dame Judi smiling on. What a night for our Bruce!

Just a Plane Tree

We know this is Mayfair - London's poshest postcode - but the fact that a tree has been valued at �750,000 puts the predicted property crash in perspective. The plane has stood in Berkeley Square since Victorian times and it's very nice and all but maybe using the capital asset value for amenity trees system is going a little too far� Still, we don't want those nightingales to stop singing!

Back to the 80s

content@LondonTown.com — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The French always have to go one better, don't they? We had Konnie Huq and some burly men in tracksuits introducing the new Olympic sport of the 100 metre dash-and-beat-
up-a-hippy. It was pretty exciting stuff as our Konnie nearly had the torch wrestled off her, just as she was struggling through to the finish line.

In Paris, on the other hand, they first had riot police smashing batons into hundreds of protestors. Next, they had to extinguish the torch and put it on a bus. Finally, in a scene that could have come straight out of a Luc Besson movie, rollerblading, wall-scaling Green party members managed to hang an enormous Free Tibet poster off City Hall, forcing them to abandon the ceremony that was supposed to take place at the end of the torch's journey.

(Incidentally� extinguishing the torch so that it could go by bus? Surely that isn't quite right? As far as I can remember, the idea was that they lit the thing in Greece, and then it passes the spirit of the Olympics on to a fire that burns all the way through the games. Surely when they light the big flame in Beijing, it's not going to be the sacred spirit of the Olympics burning there, it's going to be the sacred spirit of the French safety matches they used to relight the thing.)

It's been a good month for protestors throughout the Capital. The airport expansion lot got their extra publicity from Terminal 5 going tits up, and every child in the Capital is getting a free holiday as the teachers seem to be set on a proper one-day walkout. Along with the fact that people actually seem to care about an election, it's like the 1980s nostalgia thing has slipped over from music and fashion into politics.

Blair is Drawn

Not really the kind of portrait Cherie Blair would want to look at over her morning cup of coffee - her husband looking decidedly worn out and preoccupied, as though the years in office have been etched into his face. Lucky, then, that the official portrait by Phil Hale will hang in the Houses of Parliament - a stark warning to Mr Brown, perhaps, and maybe an attempt by Tony to retouch his image?

Curry Crisis

One thing that you're guaranteed if you head to Brick Lane is a curry; a choice of freshly prepared, spicy, delicious curries, at that. But now it seems London's Indian chefs ensconced in kitchens up and down the "Curry Mile" could be under threat. Not only is there a worldwide shortage of rice (how can you have a curry without rice?), but new immigration rules could make it harder to recruit Indian chefs. Surely Britain will never stand for that!

Passage to India

Forget Paris and Brussels, that's sooooo last season! The latest train ride to do is the 23-day one from London to Bangladesh, being described as "the world's greatest railway journey" by er� people who love trains. By the time you get there you'll have pretty much have used your annual leave for the entire year and there are some security concerns on the Iran-Pakistan border (apart from the fact these lines still need to be linked) but, hey, you'll see a lot of countries whizzing past.

How do You Solve A Problem Like Medea?

content@LondonTown.com — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It's always difficult to take actors' union Equity seriously, because their president is Harry Landis, better known as Felix, the genial Jewish barber from EastEnders. You keep expecting press statements to be interrupted by Grant Mitchell bursting in and accusing him of being a pervert.

This may be the reason why the demand for an increased minimum wage for West End actors has been ignored - the theatre companies were probably too busy asking what happened to his burgeoning romance with Blossom Jackson to listen to Felix's demands, and now a West End actors' strike is on its way.

Equity want a 44% hike in their minimum wage, which does sound a bit above the going rate at a time when many theatres are tightening their belts. But the actors are currently on �381 a week, which will keep you going for about 20 minutes in London, if you're really good with money (and if there are any actors in London who are good with money, I've yet to meet them).

It's the age-old problem of industries where the children of the rich are prepared to work for free. Practically all the work in publishing and journalism, for example, is now done by squads of indistinguishable Tarquins and Jemimas, doing 6-month unpaid internships and living on their parents' money. Equity are just trying to stop their members being undercut by egregious floppy-fringed Etonians with flats in Pimlico.

But the problem is that the theatre companies are as skint as their actors - and one of their biggest expenses is paying large casts for big productions. The only way to get a new show time to bed down in the West End is to publicise it with a six-month dose of reality TV: fine for big names like 'The Sound of Music' and 'Grease', but I'm not sure ITV's Saturday night audience is ready for 'Whom the Gods Would Destroy, They First Make Mad: the Search for a New Medea'.

So the choice seems to be between giving in to Equity's demands, which means a West End entirely populated with stage remakes of American movies, or replacing all our actors with chinless wonders from the Home Counties. Personally, I think I'm just going to start going to the cinema more.

Carry On London

Fifteen years after the travesty of 'Carry On Columbus', the creaky slapstick series is being revived yet again for Carry On London. The film is to be set in the capital and they're getting over the death of almost the entire original Carry On crew by hiring a new generation of� er� stars, including Shane Ritchie and Swedish glamour model Victoria Silvstedt. Oooh, matron, ding-dong, etc, etc.

Death Sentence for Death Metallers' Home

It's been a long time coming, but the death sentence has finally been officially sounded for The Astoria. Somebody at London Transport has decided that Tottenham Court Road station is just too horrible (fair enough), and will have to be extended into the space currently occupied by the legendary rock venue (not fair at all. Why couldn't they have used that horrible chippie on the corner instead?). There are plenty of new venues springing up in London, so the bands will be alright, but we're worried for the teenage metallers from the Home Counties, who've traditionally gathered on the Astoria's steps, and who are quite unhappy enough already.

Black Comedy

The highly anticipated West End show 'God of Carnage', starring Ralph Fiennes, Tamsin Greig and Ken Stott, had a true first night nightmare, as the assembled press were treated to a powercut. Having re-rigged the lighting and switched to an emergency generator, they managed to continue in semi-darkness - and got some excellent reviews for their trouble.

Flight Fantastic

content@LondonTown.com — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This month we got a glittering new airport - well, terminal but who's counting? Designed by one of our most lauded architects and opened by Her Majesty the Queen. Drum roll, please. Yes, Heathrow Terminal 5 is upon us. Rejoice! Or maybe not. Those in the flight path and Heathrow protestors - not to mention the people living under the melting ice caps - might be forgiven for being less jubilant.

Before nose-diving into a frenzied recycling episode in a desperate attempt to compensate for all those extra emissions, I comforted myself with a closer inspection of the gleaming beauty of Rogers' new structure. Much has been made of its modernist and pioneering feats. It's the first straight-through check-in (which makes me wonder why all airports aren't built this way), the first project of this scale delivered on time and on budget - Google 'Wembley Stadium' for an example of what happens when the opposite is the case - and you can check yourself in online; goodbye surly check-in lady.

Gone too are the seemingly endless miles you have to schlep from check-in to gate number 101. Here, the planes come to you - for all but one fifth of passengers, the remainder of whom have to get the bus. For most, when the pilot announces over the intercom that your aircraft is 'taxi-ing' to the airport now at least the word makes sense.

Accusations of the new terminal - the size of 50 football pitches - being one giant shopping mall are music to my ears: Tiffany's, Harrods and Paul Smith are all setting up shop in the place with Gordon Ramsay providing the 'Plane' food (geddit?) and McDonalds' golden arches nowhere to be seen. The message is clear: ignore the doom and gloom financial headlines predicting frantic belt-tightening times ahead: come, fly, shop, spend! Everyone knows killing time between check-in and take-off is best dedicated to duty free shopping - go on, it's as if the sales are on.

Cut-price electrical goods and cheap cosmetics aside, the new T5 will increase passenger numbers, though perhaps not in their droves; we have to open up a new runway for that. Without the third landing strip, Heathrow's crown as "busiest international airport in the world" will slip in the next three years. And that's a bad thing?

One frightening statistic puts the CO2 emissions from the proposed additional flights from Heathrow's third runway at the same level as the whole of Kenya. That's a whole country. A whole country that's a whole two and a half times the size of the UK. From just one of our airports. Hardly something to be proud of.

Describing the new terminal as "a living, breathing advertisement for Britain's ambition," in the words of Mr BAA big wig, gives a clue as to the chief motivating factor. This shiny, new monument to modernism clearly has plenty to do with our nation's desire to be the biggest and the best - borne out of an outmoded "Britannia rules the waves" mentality. We're not as mighty as we once were, so what? This "mine's bigger than yours" attitude should logically stop when it comes to noisy, dirty, polluting air travel.

It's as if those politicians instrumental in deciding environmental policies have got together, looked at the figures and concluded: stuff the protestors, stuff the emissions, stuff global warming - there's too much hype about that anyway. So the result is our glorious new airport terminal. For many foreign visitors the first thing they'll see when they land in our country is this magnificent Pompidou-esque glass and steel structure, the first impression will be one of "ambitious Britain, proud to be the world's worst aviational polluter, bar none". Oh and the shopping's good too, if only I had some money to spend.

Some Solace for Latest Bond Flick

The latest Bond movie, partly being shot at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire since November last year, has been given its official title: 'Quantum of Solace'. A reference to Bond's broken heart (reference the final scene of 'Casino Royale', the most recent Bond movie). More interesting snippets from the set include a quote from Mathieu Amalric, playing the villainous Dominic Greene, who told reporters his character had "the smile of Tony Blair and the crazy eyes of Nicholas Sarkozy". A more frightening prospect than Jaws' murderous metallic teeth we think.

Election Fever

No, we're not talking about Barack and Hilary, we've got election fever of our own. Though admittedly not as headline grabbing, London's mayoral race is hugely significant for the city's inhabitants. On May 1st we'll find out who wins the battle of Bumbling Boris vs (allegedly) Corrupt Ken. Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, firmly in the Ken camp, has been busy rubbishing Boris' transport proposals, "Boris Johnson's transport policy is in tatters given this extraordinary underestimate of the cost of his bus policy by �100m a year," Kelly said in response to Johnson's plans to bring back Routemaster buses. Great idea, Boris, as long as the maths add up.

Spitfire Sparks Fly

A group of RAF men gathered in Trafalgar Square this month with a full-size replica Spitfire. Their point? To highlight the lack of recognition of neglected RAF hero Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park. They've got their eye on the square's fourth plinth, currently filled with a piece of contemporary art - 'A Model for a Hotel' at present - changing every year or so on a rotational basis. With the other three plinths filled by Army and Navy figures it would be fitting, they argue, to have an RAF hero to stand alongside. Keith Park, the man proposed, played a pivotal role in saving the country from a Nazi invasion in the Battle of Britain. Honouring him is "a matter of national honour", they believe.

Dark, Satanic Turnmills

content@LondonTown.com — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It has been some years since I had to consider how my feet would feel after dancing from midnight until dawn when choosing my shoes. But the news that Turnmills was to close so soon after the King's Cross Goods Yard clubs (Canvas, The Key, The Cross) still came as a shock. About half of London's major all-night clubs have disappeared in the space of three months.

It's hardly surprising that these labyrinthine venues are shutting their doors: my generation is now much happier sipping cocktails somewhere salubrious than bouncing around in a former factory, and the young, so I'm told, think that electric guitars are the future.

Nobody is going to much miss those chillout rooms full of sleazy dreadlocked men offering massages to anyone in a skirt, or the stench of sweat on the dancefloors, nor yet the music that had been carefully subdivided into 1000s of indistinguishable sub-genres with names like Darkcore and Dubstep. In any case, you only have to hop on a plane to Eastern Europe if you want to experience a place where these phenomena still flourish.

Yet there is much to regret about the slow death of dance music in the capital, not least the stunning buildings that housed these clubs. There was something very special about the way that going out in London meant a descent into the bowels of our city's industrial heritage. Turnmills is an extraordinary Victorian edifice, while the Goods Yard clubs were housed in a set of arches and warehouses that still remembered the days when the Industrial Revolution was fed by thousands of trains from the North of England.

I worry that today's skinny-jeaned youth won't get the same thrills from their corporate-sponsored gigs at the O2 Dome as we had from these gothic underworlds, with their great brick arches, and mazes of UV-lit corridors. The idea that dark, satanic Turnmills is to become a set of trendy offices, where designers in thick-framed glasses will have brainstorming sessions, is truly depressing.

Though perhaps not quite as depressing as the way that I've obviously turned into a dismal old nineties nostalgist, moaning about how the youth of today don't know how to have fun. If anyone spots me putting on an Underworld album and telling a bemused teenager that it's what PROPER music sounds like, please have me shipped off to the Ministry of Sound immediately to remind me just how horrible the superclubs often were.

Underground but not Undercover

You'd think it unlikely that anything could make London's Tube commuters more frustrated or irate but, for a while there, it looked as though London Transport was going to ban nudes too by censoring a poster of Venus wearing nothing but a knowing look as part of an advertising campaign for the Royal Academy's Cranach show. Luckily they have relented 'given its context' - thank goodness for that, imagine the tedium of just having Mayor Ken's 'Poems on the Underground' as company on your way to work�

So much art, so little space

Nigella knows how to whip up something out of nothing and husband Charles Saatchi is certainly not just sitting around eating her choco-hoto-pots either. Nope, he thought he'd take on the Tate Modern (as you do) by opening a new art gallery in Chelsea. Saatchi has already got a couple of shows in the pipeline for when he opens in spring - contemporary Chinese art, new US artists, Indian art - you better watch this space!

There's a storm brewing!

Us Brits just love to chat weather - bemoaning the great British summertime, going camping in a lake of mud and what we're especially fond of is when the whole rail system grinds to a halt because the wind has blown some leaves onto the track. Well, now we can expostulate about the climate to our hearts' content at the Museum of London with a new exhibition about our weather, appropriately titled 'Weather Permitting' - it's brilliantly quirky and informative and a great way to spend a rainy summer's day when it opens in June.

A Diamond in the Drink

content@LondonTown.com — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It was a bad week for boozing Britain as reports just out show that our national partiality for getting slightly sozzled has escalated out of control. The news will hardly come as a shock to anyone who has been out in Soho on a Friday night. More surprising is that you can spend �35,000 on a single drink.

Lucky, lucky, lucky Kylie was given the (world's most expensive?) gold leaf encrusted cocktail at her post-Brits bash while hundreds of her guests were left stranded on the pavement outside, struggling to get in. What could possibly give a mere cocktail such a hefty price tag, you'd be forgiven for asking. Well, since you ask: Louis XII cognac, half a bottle of Cristal Rose champagne, brown sugar, Angostura bitters, oh and an 11-carat diamond ring at the bottom. It comes delivered not just by any old barman but a barman flanked by two security guards. How delicious.

This was certainly one of the more glamorous alcohol-related headlines in a week when intoxication reports grew more alarmist each day. "More than half of 13-year-olds have drunk alcohol", and "The BMA says Britain is in middle of alcohol 'epidemic'" and then "BMA hypocrites want to extend their HQ licensing hours", daily headlines informed us. Reading the small print, apparently, women in their thirties and forties are to be the target of a government anti-drinking advertising campaign, warning of the risks of breast cancer or liver failure. Yikes. I was deeply concerned about the teenagers downing cider in the park a minute ago. Now I'm more worried about my own levels of fermented grape juice consumption.

So what if I have a chilled glass of Pinot Grigio in the evenings? Admittedly it's more like every evening plus a couple more on the weekends - topped up by a few very large vodkas if I'm having a big night out every couple of weekends. Still, where's the harm in that? Everyone else is doing it. Of course I'm not completely complacent or unaware of the potential damage it can do - on a purely superficial level (though admittedly not the most important) is the one I'll almost certainly notice first, it's terribly ageing.

But I did manage to ditch the white wine witch recently - for a month anyway. On the advice of my acupuncturist, I spent four weeks on the wagon, not a single drop of the special brew passed my lips. I surprised myself, who knew I had such deep-reaching levels of self-control. But once I'd started it was easy. The hard part wasn't not drinking, it was not drinking and having a life. In fact, the only discernable difference was an allergy to going out.

Sitting in the pub nursing a cranberry juice is possibly the least amount of fun a girl can have on a night out. Dinner parties aren't exactly a barrel of laughs either without a Chardonnay to act as social lubricant. The challenge was finding things to do that didn't revolve around a glass of crisp, dry white. Trips to the cinema increased, tea and coffee dates replaced cocktails and cavorting in clubs. In short, I became more staid and sensible (read old and boring) in one dry month than I had in the previous drink sodden twelve. And, guess what? I didn't come away with renewed energy, my complexion didn't glow and not one single person asked me if I'd been away on holiday.

In an attempt to curb our alcoholic excesses, the super of the supermarkets, Tesco's, has proposed that the government step in to stop their two-for-one cut price offers on bottles of wine. The pubs and bars have already abandoned it, now this spells the end of happy hour down at Waitrose too. So, what's left to look forward to? Saddo night at the bingo? Give me a �35,000 cocktail any day.

A Woman's Work

The first female Serjeant at Arms has been appointed to the House of Commons almost 600 years after Henry V inaugurated the role in Parliament. Jill Pay will be up-to-speed on all security matters and she'll get to carry a mace and a sword (presumably just for show and not for security matters). The 40-strong security team, who the new serjeant will be in charge of, is jokingly referred to as "the men in tights" because of their uniform of breeches, stockings and buckled shoes - all primed and ready for action then!

One is not Amused!

News just in: Prince Charles does not want to live in a high-rise block, even if it's the penthouse. The future king has attacked towering skyscrapers blighting London's skyline, in one case threatening to overshadow the true tower - the Tower of London - with a 160-metre skyscraper. Even the views from Clarence House and his mother's pad Buckingham Palace could be obscured and what would one do then?

In-flight Entertainment

Forget 007 doing loop-the-loops and mortal combat in the skies above London; this is more handbags at dawn air hostess style. British Airways is said to be incensed at Bond producers signing a second deal with rival Virgin Atlantic - BA even cut the scene of Sir Richard Branson walking through an airport in its in-flight showings of 'Casino Royale' so 'brace' yourself for even more toys being shown the emergency exit as new Bond film 'Quantum of Solace' shoots skyward.

People Wanted for Plinth

content@LondonTown.com — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

If the latest proposal by Antony 'spot the' Gormley goes ahead, Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth will become a living sculpture, with 8,760 people standing on top of the column over the course of a year. This is just a proposal at the moment so his work currently looks like a mini plinth surrounded by a safety net - as if some unseen trapeze artist is swinging dangerously overhead - but the idea is an entertaining one, not least because it must be giving the health and safety sticklers the jitters.

Identifying one of Gormley's statues on the London skyline became a favourite pastime for Londoners last year. Wandering over Blackfriars Bridge or sauntering along the South Bank gained an added purpose not to mention artistic merit with Gormley's larger than lifesize statues to seek out. Raising our collective gaze from our shoes skyward helped too to lift the spirits.

Gormley's plinth proposal is an altogether more democratic piece of public art. Instead of bronze casts of Gormley's own body taking the limelight, Joe Public will get to act as the art. The idea is that each person - chosen by lottery - will be allocated their own hour up there, alongside the lions and famous bronze military men. They'll, literally, be put on a pedestal in one of London's most prominent squares - and can claim to have stood where David Beckham once did (well, where his effigy did, but still...). The offers are sure to come flooding in.

The successful volunteers will be allowed to do whatever they want - which is the point at which I hear health and safety taking a sharp intake of breath. Who knows what kind of 'X Factor' rejects will make their way up there, keen to vent their frustration at Simon Cowell's cruel rejection and inability to see their talent? It could be opening the floodgates for every slightly delusional and certifiably unhinged wannabe to give their doesn't-bear-repeating audition another go.

Whereas previously only conquering generals and governors were honoured with a place on a plinth in Trafalgar Square, now anyone could be elevated to that status - if only for an hour. It's the logical conclusion of the democratisation of our public spaces, an inclusive measure and one that we're seeing more of. Just around the corner, Leicester Square, home of London's movie premieres, is set for a �18.5 million makeover and, in a case of reality imitating reality TV, how that money spent is up to us. Yes, folks, the decision is yours - let's just hope it's not one of those dodgy phone lines where your vote doesn't actually get counted but you will, don't you fear, get charged for it anyway.

Leaving aside its cinemas and some truly awful chain food outlets, the square is to become a centre of culture, music and performance. Really? Can we dare to hope that the tacky pizza places, burger joints and bars I wouldn't be seen dead in will be ripped down in favour of creating an altogether more sophisticated ambiance? Get voting now and we can make it happen.

Hang on a minute, on closer inspection, we can have our say but only on the green bit in the middle (it's too much of a stretch to describe it as parkland) - oh, and the half price ticket booth. The artist's impression of how it might look has fountains and some grass� so pretty much what's there now. Then there's talk of a white granite 'ribbon' seat. All this for a mere �18.5 million. A bargain.

A Little Premature, Some Might Say

Well, this is one that's sure to provoke a reaction. A new play titled 'The Death of Margaret Thatcher' is coming to the Courtyard Theatre in February to examine the potential impact of this event. Lord Tebbit has been quoted as saying 'Margaret Thatcher is not dead' and then mutters something about her being reinstated at Number 10, whereas playwright Tom Green simply thinks that it will be interesting when she does die, which is presumably why he wrote the play!

The Face of Theatre

We love a crumbly old building - it speaks of our heritage and we can still see the beauty in any church/theatre/palace/old ruin so we get a little uppity when we're told they need a bit of work. But, apparently, it's not just a bit of work - West End theatres need a whopping �250m of repairs to drag them into the 21st century. Still, theatregoers don't seem to mind with show attendances reaching record numbers last year.

You'd Expect a Mansion for That Price

A 'flat-pack' home being installed at the Tate Modern certainly won't solve the affordable housing shortage. Designed by architect Jean Prouve in the 1950s to solve the housing problem in France's African colonies, it was too pricey to provide homes to a mass market - and that was before it acquired its �2.5m price tag at auction in New York. It was discovered, complete with bullet holes, in Brazzaville, Congo and it has now been elevated to 'Art' status on the South Bank with an entourage of highly-skilled workmen, or maybe artists, to put it back together.

Boo! Hiss!

content@LondonTown.com — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this week, Arts Council head Peter Hewitt put on the year's least popular stage show in living memory.

His matinee at the Young Vic in Ken Livingstone's "We're Cutting All Your Funding and Spending it on the Olympics" met with a chorus of boos from an audience that included Sir Ian McKellen, Kevin Spacey, Joanna Lumley, Richard Briers, Caroline Quentin, Sheila Hancock and Jonathan Pryce. Sheffield Theatre's director Sam West even leapt onto stage to express his disapproval.

It's not just regional theatres that are suffering from the cuts - Richmond's Orange Tree is losing nearly a fifth of its funding, and The Bush is set to suffer a potentially fatal 40% cut.

And yet� in a couple of weeks, the giant Lyttleton Theatre at the National, a tenth of whose funding would probably keep the Bush going for a decade is to put on a production of Peter Handke's 'The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other', which they describe as:

"Twenty-seven actors, 450 characters and no dialogue: a play without words by the great experimental figure of European theatre."

To you this might mean very little: an easy decision to steer well clear of the National Theatre for a month or so and rave reviews in The Guardian and Time Out to read and shake your head at. It's a little tougher on those of us who occasionally get called upon to write reviews, since there's always a risk of having to actually sit through the bloody thing, trying to think of something nice to say about it, since it's clearly Art.

Bur more importantly, this kind of grimly self-important theatrical navel-gazing is a quite extraordinary way to spend a subsidy. No dialogue? 450 characters? Could you not just sit on Eros and watch the tourists bumping into each other around Piccadilly Circus to get that kind of entertainment? And then there's opera, which currently absorbs about a sixth of London's arts budget so that fat hedge fund managers can take a break from their mistresses and treat their wives to a night of exquisitely tasteful boredom. Or contemporary dance, which is either dull or pornographic. And while I'm quite happy with the latter, I'm not sure I really need quite so much of my income tax to be spent on it.

The process by which theatres' subsidies are calculated currently makes about as much sense as a Beckett monologue. I propose a simpler method: for every use of the word 'abstract', 'experimental', 'ground-breaking', 'avant garde', or 'wordless' in a review of a show, the theatre gets 1% of its subsidy passed on to a smaller venue. And 'physicality', 'serio-comic' and 'radical' count for double. Problem solved.

Off the streets, into the Dungeon!

A controversial idea bandied about for the London Dungeon's Jack the Ripper show would take reality entertainment to new levels. Think 'celebrity judge' Billie Piper, star of 'Secret Diary of a Call Girl', think prostitutes on London's streets, think auditions and you've got a ready-made formula or recipe for disaster - yes, that's right, real-life prostitutes to become the imaginary ones in the show�what is it they say about all publicity being good publicity?

The Art of Shopping

Sometimes it looks as if Selfridges' famous window displays are works of art and now they actually are. But, of course, the luxury department store's latest display is nothing to do with publicity and everything to do with the art (spot the cynic). Charitably, they are giving this space, named the Wonder Windows, as a showcase for up-and-coming young artists who might otherwise not get such a prime exhibition spot.

Muscling In

It seems that an 'alien species' of mussels in the Thames are flexing their�er, shells and threatening native species. Apart from being surprised that anything can actually survive in the Thames, there has apparently been a zebra mussel invasion, according to the Marine Conservation Society, which is surprising as they come from south-east Russia. The greatest danger from the little blighters is to the depressed river mussel - no wonder they're depressed!

Tate That - A Hirst for Art

content@LondonTown.com — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Anyone else think that the proposed extension to the Tate Modern resembles nothing more than the final stages in a game of Jenga? After the universal acclaim architects Herzohg and Meuron received for their subtle sympathetic conversion of the Bankside Power Station into one of the world's great galleries, the Swiss architects have reverted to behaving like Modern Architects should, and decided to add a massive children's plaything to a dignified and graceful building.

The extra space is going to be used for restaurants (fair enough - with no entry fee, they need to find other ways to raise money), spaces for performance art (shudder), and 'extra space for the gallery's expanding collection.' This also seemed like a pretty silly idea, given that, as much as we love the Tate, it is one of the most enormous man-made spaces we've ever encountered. However, this week's news that Damien Hirst is to donate four new works to the gallery (with Tate director Nicholas Serota smugly hinting at more to come from his contemporaries) puts a new spin on it.

A cynic might point out that at Hirst's age he probably didn't really fancy having a huge formaldehyde tank containing a sliced and pickled cow in his living room, nor a canvas made from fly corpses over the mantelpiece. Still, it's a generous gesture by any standard: even with a personal fortune thought to hover around the �200 million mark, �4 million of art is not to be sneezed at.

As Saatchi's energy has declined - almost certainly a result of the enormous meals Nigella keeps feeding him - the artists in his stable seem to be rejoining the world of publicly-owned galleries. If we are to have a whole new batch of Lucasses, Chapmans and Whitereads, it seems entirely apt to put them in a flashy, self-indulgent and hyperbolically modern building. And maybe, like Hirst and his contemporaries, the Young British Artists who scandalised the tabloids with 'Sensation', it will come to be as comforting and as soothing a part of our national artistic landscape as the National Gallery.

Climb Every... Office Block

As Christmas consumerism reached its peak, a mystery climber scaled 20 storeys of a 27-storey retail and office centre in Victoria Street, Westminster, without the aid of ropes or safety equipment. Amazed shoppers and workers looked on as the human Spiderman mounted the summit and turned to wave at crowds below.

It's Hammer Time at Hotel

Collectors are gearing up to grab a piece of history as London's Savoy closes its doors and auctions off its fixtures and fittings to clear the decks for a �100 million refurbishment. The 3,000 items - from an oak dance floor and a 24-light chandelier that illuminated notables such as Noel Coward and Anna Pavlova, to the entire contents of the Monet suite where celebrities from Harry S Truman to Charlie Chaplin stayed- are expected to raise up to �1 million.

Whacko JackO2

Rumour has it that 2008 will see Michael Jackson moonwalk it over to London to perform a series of shows in the city's mammoth 20,000-seater, O2 arena. If speculation is to be believed, the pint-sized celeb will hot-foot it to the capital to follow in the equally as nimble footsteps of purple-prancer Prince who performed a 21-day residency at the recently revitalised venue last summer.

Christmas Shopping

content@LondonTown.com — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

This year, like every year, I thought I'd get organised and do my Christmas shopping early. Wouldn't it be great to avoid that last minute dash around the shops, I thought. In fact, I'll be so clever, the internal dialogue in my head went on, I'll avoid the shops altogether. Instead, I'll do everything online; it's all the rage these days. No bruised ankles and frayed tempers for me. Or so I thought.

It's four shopping days till Christmas and I still haven't got half way down my 'to buy' list. Dammit. It's not even a very long list, just immediate family, so why has the predictable annual panic taken hold?

Looking on the bright side, the sales have already started - which might, if I'm honest, explain my reluctance to get organised and do my Christmas shopping six weeks in advance. I blame my inner skin-flint. It's like a test of patience between the shops and the shoppers to see who can hold out the longest. So I've stared them out, beaten them at their own game and the prices have been slashed. Now I've got four days of running around the shops grabbing all the bargains before collapsing in a heap under the tree.

The only snag is I suspect I'm not the only bright spark who's had this idea. A quick straw poll of my friends confirms this. Not one of my equally cavalier friends can meet up for a sneaky pre-Christmas drink, they're all too busy going� you guessed it, last minute shopping. "Am just sadly defeated by my list of things to do," emails one friend, cancelling our drinks date the very day we were meant to be meeting up, "and I haven't even started on buying Christmas presents either. Panic." Under normal circumstances I'd be annoyed by the last minute notice but, as it happens, I couldn't have put it better myself.

Some clever websites have made my Christmas shopping job much easier by publishing lists of the sales and where best to bag a bargain. Top Shop, hmm� I don't think I'll find anything for Auntie Judy in there but it'd be such a shame to let those half price party dresses by Kate Moss go to someone else. And so much better to get them now, before they've been trashed by everyone else riffling through them. Wait until after Christmas and you'll only be left with the man-handled scraps.

Walking down Oxford Street from H & M to Zara en route to Debenhams, I spot the 50 per cent off signs up at French Connection. No matter that I already have five bags hanging about my person. Suddenly it strikes me that I haven't actually bought a single thing for anyone else. Some quick mental arithmetic and I realise my present cost per head will have to be trimmed to take account for my reckless and entirely selfish present purchasing. What can you actually get for �10? Not much, I can tell you.

By five o'clock the Saturday night before Christmas I'll be throwing the budget out the window and panic buying three-for-one offers from Boots. And don't forget, the very day after all those presents that have been so agonised over have been ripped into (and soon discarded), the January sales begin�

Merry Christmas everyone!

Trafalgar's Birds Dropping

Is Trafalgar Square's resident pigeon population starving to death? Tests carried out on five of the area's dead birds revealed "empty gizzards" and "poor bodily condition", which the Pigeon Action Group state is the direct result of a feeding ban implemented by mayor Ken Livingstone. Since it became illegal to feed the birds in 2003 the number of pigeons in the square has dropped from 4,500 to 400. A candlelit vigil held in the square marked the demise of the capital's most famous flying rodents.

Hanger Lanes of Horror

With its multiple intersections, complex lane markings and excessive filtering system, West London's infamous Hanger Lane Gyratory has been officially named Britain's most terrifying road junction. Following Spaghetti Junction in second place, Marble Arch and Elephant and Castle ranked 3rd and 4th for motoring fear factor.

Tate Gains Weight

With the promise of a �50 million investment from the Government, London's Tate Modern is on course for a �215 million extension in time for the opening of the 2012 Olympics. With 11 floors, the proposed Jenga-style structure on the South Bank aims to ease overcrowding and offer more space for the gallery's extensive collection.

Mind the Gap

content@LondonTown.com — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

In the early nineteen-eighties, my Aunt Holly was station manager at King's Cross. It was one of those days when it seems like travelling by tube is a weird Kafkaesque torture, devised by a chippy Northener as a punishment for everyone living in London. After ten hours of insanely hard work, in a station whose platforms were packed a dozen deep with furious commuters, all of them hurling abuse at any LT employee they saw, she got on the tannoy and announced:

"We really are sorry for all these delays. If it's any consolation, this is as horrible for us as it is for you."

I think I might have been rather pleased to hear this if I'd been a commuter that day. Holly's bosses, however, were not. She received the mother of all bollockings, missed a promotion, and it hung over her, to some extent, for the rest of her career,

So I have a certain personal sympathy for 'voice of the tube' Emma Clarke, stitched up by the Mail on Sunday, and then sacked for including some spoof announcements on her website, . The MP3s on her site offer the sort of very mild humour that anyone who has ever blogged about London's transport network ventures approximately 3 times every column: Americans talking loudly, pervy men staring at women's chests, and so on. If London Underground hadn't suffered such a substantial sense of humour failure, they would have been heard by practically nobody - unlike her most famous works ('Please stand clear of the doors', and her biggest hit to date, 'mind the gap') which have been heard more often, by more people, than anything by Elvis or Michael Jackson.

Hopefully the fifteen minutes of fame she's had from this will help to get her some more work elsewhere, but above all, the wave of sympathy she's had from commuters all over the Capital should give LT a chance to shake up those announcements anyway. Add some humour, or maybe bring in a few celebrities. It would be almost impossible to keep up that rush hour rage if Stephen Fry's cuddly tones were informing you of 'passenger action at Oval', for example, or if the lovable Geordie voiceover from Big Brother was letting you know that it was 'Signal failures causing delays to the Eustuurn soorvice".

I think the best solution would be 'King's X Factor', a nationwide talent search for people to deliver the perfect announcement, concluding with Rhydian going head to head with Chico in a grand 'The next station is Theydon Bois' finale. Emma Clarke and my Aunt Holly could be judges.

Track and Feline

Work on the Olympic site is continuing apace - good news if that 2012 deadline is to be met. But who's thinking of the poor cats who may get stranded there? More than 5,500 people it seems. That's how many have signed a petition to let animal welfare workers onto the site to assess the number of moggies who might be there risking any number of their nine lives dodging the bulldozers.

Double, double, toil and trouble

Patrick Stewart, starring in the title role, and Rupert Goold, directing, did the double for Macbeth at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards announced this week. The bloody Scottish play showed no signs of its reputation for bringing bad luck and it was smiles all round. Winning best actress was Anne-Marie Duff for her Joan Of Arc at the National Theatre. This officially makes Anne-Marie and husband James McAvoy one of Britain's most talented and best loved luvvie couples - it's all a far cry from the 'Shameless' days.

The Plinth and the Kapoor

Tracey Emin's unmade bed could be the next 'artwork' to adorn the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. Let's just hope vigilant community officers don't mistake it for that of a homeless man and encourage it to "move along now". A shortlist of six artists has been drawn up which sees Emin pitted against 'Angel of the North' creator Anthony Gormley and Anish Kapoor - who put a giant gramophone horn in the Tate's Turbine Hall; try doing that on a plinth.

London On A Tray

content@LondonTown.com — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Forget diamonds, butlers are a girl's best friend. They're there to pick out your outfit for you, iron your newspaper and do all the heavy lifting - not forgetting the important duty of answering the door; well, it can be very tiresome getting up, operating the handle and putting on the welcoming smile. The modern day butler is also on hand to solve any quandary, from dating advice to what to wear with those skinny jeans. Sweetly, he would never ever say the skinny jeans should be left at the back of the wardrobe.

Have you noticed though how few of these modern day heroes are around today? Not a lot. I sadly haven't been keeping one in the space under my stairs and, come to think of it, haven't seen one since the Jeeves and Wooster days.

Luckily, and just in time for Christmas shopping - so exhausting - Regent Street is putting on a weekend butler service to help alleviate the shopping stress for us damsels in search of some retail comfort. Next time you're stranded between Massimo Dutti and Max Mara, desperately trying to hail a cab, get the butler to do it for you. It'll save you from the indignity of flailing your arms around in public.

The team of seven (any connection to the dwarfs, do you think?) smartly uniformed helpers would put Santa's elves to shame. Working hard to find your perfect presents, they can advise on where to get those Wedgwood plates for gran, Austin Reed suit for him or the iPod phone for the luckiest person on your list - surely the most longed for gift this Christmas. The personal shopper just got replaced.

It's all wonderfully decadent and old fashioned but it doesn't quite go far enough. What I'd like to see is free rickshaw rides between the shops - walking is even more tiring than getting the credit card out. And what with London Transport costs, it'd be so much more helpful than someone just pointing you in the right direction. What? I have to walk there? How about some refreshments on the way too; butlers carrying silver trays of mince pies and champagne are what's called for - then London really would be a capital worth coming to. Prince Harry might even be tempted to leave Chelsea (not Chelsy - not so soon after the reunion, anyway) and head to Regent Street for a spot of crimbo shopping with the hoi polloi.

Holidaying in some smart places, as you do, one of the most luxurious things you can do is have a bath drawn by the butler. Think it's silly? Honestly, if you get the opportunity, try it. The closest I can compare it to is having a cup of tea made for you. Tastes so much better than when you make it yourself doesn't it? It's one of those things that's just true. Like that damn elusive sock that gets lost in the wash leaving you with a draw full of mis-matching odd ones. No one knows why it's true, it just is.

If watching Britain's most famous living butler, Paul Burrell, bush tucker trialling in the jungle has tarnished your image of these honourable gentlemen, think again. Or, better still, stroll down Regent Street and have your shopping carried for you. Next stop, Bond Street.

Ewan Sells Out

Demand for tickets to see Othello at the Donmar Warehouse has become so feverish that tickets are going for upwards of �100 for the sold out show. The excellent Chiwetel Ejiofor plays the title role and Kelly Reilly is Desdemona but surely the main attraction is Ewan McGregor who stars as Iago. Last seen on the London stage in the award-winning 'Guys & Dolls', McGregor returns to the stage after a two-year break. Prior to that he last trod the boards in 2000 in the West End production of 'Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against The Eunuchs'. No wonder tickets are exchanging hands for five times their original price.

(Don't) Chew On This

A food supplier delivered rancid meat to top London hotels, government offices and hospitals including the Treasury, Westminster School and The Dorchester and Claridges hotels. A former employee of the now defunct McLaren Foods, described the rotten meat they would deliver in the following delightful terms: "Every time you opened the door it would hit you straight away." On one occasion Claridges sent back an order of 250 sirloin steaks because they were green. Steak well done, anyone?

Who's Rubbish at Recycling?

In the same week that Greenwich was named the greenest borough in the city - and Tower Hamlets shamed as the least green (making it the brownest?) - it was revealed that more than half of central Government offices have no idea if they even have a recycling scheme at all. Not only that, Britain lags behind the rest of EU on recycling household waste; on average, more than a fifth (approaching 23%) gets recycled - one of the lowest rates in Europe. With this in mind Tower Hamlets' pitiful 11.8% is indeed rubbish.

Leaving the Station

content@LondonTown.com — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0100

In a couple of weeks' time, the first Eurostar train will pull into the gloriously restored St. Pancras Station. It's a new route which shaves 20 minutes or so off the trip to Paris (or Brussels, if you're that way inclined, though I don't know anybody who ever has been) and the building is one of the absolute gems of London's Victorian architectural heritage. St. Pancras is the only station in the Capital that could ever match up to the grandeur of Paris' glorious Gare du Nord at the other end, and it's quite right that this is the first view that foreign visitors should have of the city (though immediately descending to the rat-tastic labyrinth of King's Cross Tube might be a bit of a shock after such an immaculate first impression).

It does, however, beg the question of what on Earth we're going to do with the old Eurostar terminal at Waterloo. The building cost �130 million and won both the RIBA Sterling Prize and the Mies van der Rohe Award when it opened. Just 13 years on, it's to be closed down, unless some viable use can be found for it. There were some vague mutterings about turning it into a shopping centre, until it was quite rightly pointed out that there would be a limited demand amongst retailers for spots at the wrong end of a 400 metre-long boomerang-shaped glass corridor. Hiking stores might be able to get customers in, but I can't imagine the average British shopper trudging all the way up there.

The answer lies in one of the other unfortunate consequences of the new St. Pancras. The frantic gentrification of Soho and Shoreditch made King's Cross the last genuinely sordid neighbourhood in Central London. Massage parlours, mad tramps and massive warehouse raves gave it a grimy feel that's hard to find anywhere else. All of this atmosphere is in the process of being driven away. The half-a-dozen nightclubs that occupy King's Cross Goods Yard are being closed, and zero tolerance policing is cleaning up the streets.

Meanwhile, Waterloo, for all its incredible theatres, concert halls and cinemas, always has a slightly soulless, central-planning feel to it. It's like a Thames-side Milton Keynes - lots of exciting concrete shapes, but the people look a bit lost.

So to kill two birds with one stone, let's turn one end of that Eurostar terminal into a massive nightclub, a great snaking three-room extravaganza, with those clear roof panels so you can see the sun rise. And at the top end, we can have a really top-class homeless shelter for all the victims of the King's Cross gentrification, giving those hookers and hobos somewhere to rest their heads after a long day's work adding spice to the Southbank's excessively spotless streets.

Smokin'

Halle Berry must have wondered if it was a stunt show just for her as swathes of black smoke billowed across Leicester Square on the night of the premiere of her new film 'Things We Lost In The Fire'. It must have also seemed a bit too close to (her Malibu) home, where fires have been raging. The (just off) Leicester Square fire was actually the result of the kitchen of restaurant Apogee going bang but the old adage must still ring true for Halle and co - all publicity is good publicity!

1966 was a good year�

Whether you were at home, down the pub or trying to hide under your duvet and pretend it wasn't happening, you couldn't have escaped the BIG sporting weekend (footie, rugby and that Hamilton bloke driving very fast!) It's lucky us Brits are a resilient lot (or used to decades of losing) - the fact that we crashed and burned in all three events didn't seem to faze us, we just carried on drinking - London was heaving with pint-swigging 'we've done quite well' fans.

A Track through London

The idea might seem like a bit of a dream at the moment but thoughts of a London Grand Prix have once again resurfaced, thanks to Formula One veteran Bernie Ecclestone. I can imagine tourists snapping the not-so-hairpin turn at Oxford Circus (well, people pose proudly at the one in Monte Carlo) and remembering the straight between Top Shop and Selfridges as the place where Hamilton sped to victory - oh, maybe it is just a dream.

The Sky's the Limit

content@LondonTown.com — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0100

London will get its first Supertall in 2011. Even if you don't have your architects' dictionary to hand you can imagine what this means. One very tall building. The Shard, or 'Shard of Glass' to give it its official title, at London Bridge Tower will be the first building in the UK to break the 1000ft barrier, dwarfing the current tallest record holder, 1 Canada Square, standing at a measly 771ft. If you suffer from vertigo, look away now.

If, however, you enjoy a 180 degree panorama, you'll have plenty of places to choose from in the next five years. With 40 towers rising over 300ft currently planned, or proposed, within London - and 20 of those within half a mile of the Thames - London's skyline is set to get bigger but I can't help wondering, is it for the better?

Currently, London is a wonderful higgledy-piggledy hotchpotch of houses. There's a mish-mash of Medieval mixed with modern, Georgian squares and Victorian terraces with some truly awful 1960s blocks thrown in. But even they have their place - the Hayward Gallery and Royal Festival Hall blocks have become beloved, just another freckle on the face of London's idiosyncratic cityscape. Perhaps not surprisingly though it's some of those sixties eye sores which are being disposed of to make way for the new breed of big buildings.

Superstar architects like Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano have been drafting ever higher scrapers in the space race for the sky. Piano bills his Shard as "a small vertical town" built to house 7,000 people. It all sounds terribly futuristic, like something out of a sci-fi adventure where monorails carry people around vertically and horizontally. Shudder.

Idly scrolling through the forum on www.skyscrapercity.com the enthusiastic chorus of 'couldn't it be bigger?' began to unsettle me. Alarm bells were beginning to ring. At the risk of sounding like a reactionary, isn't pretty damn tall tall enough? Why does everything - from burgers to buildings - have to be super-sized?

These neck-craning buildings have already been given some imaginative titles. Sounding more like a hair-raising ride you'd find at Alton Towers than an office block, soon names like "Helter-skelter" and the "Pinnacle" will become part of the national language just as the "Gherkin" already has. These two great peaks sounding for all the world like a white knuckle experience will stretch upwards from Bishopsgate. Joining them are Richard Rogers' "Cheesegrater" at 122 Leadenhall Street, and Raphael Vinoly's "Walkie-Talkie" nearby at 20 Fenchurch Street. The City's current landmarks like Lloyds and the old NatWest Tower will be looked down on by their new lofty neighbours.

Sitting on the fifth floor of LondonTown towers, I enjoy a wonderfully elevated view over Leicester Square, looking towards Trafalgar Square I can see Nelson on top of his column. So comparing this view five floors up to the dizzying vista from the Shard's proposed 72nd floor is enough to make my head spin. Vertiginous doesn't seem a tall enough word. No wonder they added the 'super' in front. The plan to give public access to the 72nd floor is at least a commendable one - once it's built we can all enjoy the view from the top. Though let's not forget unless you're inside them, these buildings will block out - not enhance - your views of the city.

The worry isn't so much the touching-the-void nature of this club, it's the sheer number of towering blocks that are proposed. Though construction has yet to begin on most, we are set for these towering buildings to rise up from the City to Waterloo and from Paddington to Islington. If just a handful were going up it might be quite fun - the silly, fairground names alone are entertaining enough. While the designs vary from spectacular to remarkably unremarkable the views will, no doubt, be breathtaking - equivalent to a rotation on the London Eye. No, the problem I have with the scrapers set to dominate our skyline is that there are so many of them. Get ready for the invasion of the sunlight catchers. Let's just hope they don't suffer the fate of the sixties signature blocks - and get turned to rubble a mere fifty years later.

You've got to be cracked!

You'd think if you were going to the Tate Modern to see the latest installation (Doris Salcedo's crack in the floor) you might know to step delicately over it, whilst obviously muttering about what it's saying about racial division. There are even leaflets warning against getting too close to 'the art' but three hapless visitors just walked on by and tripped into the crack, which runs the entire 167-metre length of the Turbine Hall!

Youth on her side?

This is no Harry Enfield-esque Tory Boy - she may be 18 but Emily Benn is (obviously) female, a Labour candidate and appears to be well-versed in the art of political manoeuvring (she is Tony Benn's granddaughter after all). This young lady from Croydon does not see her age as a disadvantage, far from it, and is intent on running in the next general election. Watch out Gordon�

Budge over, you're in my lane

Any Londoner will tell you that the M25 is the dullest motorway on the planet (after all, it does go round in a circle). Factor in Friday night rush hour traffic and you've got a motorist's nightmare, so any proposal to alleviate the gridlock is welcomed with horns hooting and engines revving. The scheme being considered is to open up the hard shoulder as an extra lane when things get chock-a-block - should work like clockwork�

The Play Within A Play

content@LondonTown.com — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0100

There hasn't been a clash this good since, well, since Blur and Oasis battled for Britpop, Jordan took on Posh in the quintessential cat fight, I'm afraid even Ken and Boris can't compete on this one. News that Jude Law and David Tennant are both to play Hamlet for the Donmar Warehouse and the Royal Shakespeare Company respectively (don't get too excited, the shows are a long way off) has ignited a long-dormant glimmer, maybe even a spark, in journalists' eyes. This is the stuff of dreams ('perchance to dream' to get Hamlet in there) are made of. The stage is set, all the main characters have been cast and we're hoping for some foot-stamping artistic temperaments to erupt. I can hardly contain my excitement!

There's enough mileage in this theatrical set piece to keep us going all the way to opening night and beyond. Pictures of Jude and David will appear side by side in every newspaper, Kenneth Branagh (director of the Donmar production) will say things like "Jude is an actor of extraordinary subtlety" or maybe Gregory Doran (the other director) could say "Hamlet is, in essence, a play about people who are trapped". The thing is our Hamlets won't even have to open their prose-filled mouths to be pronounced a triumph of casting or an unmitigated insult to Shakespeare's masterpiece.

There's something historically mystical about London's theatre scene (the smell of the greasepaint 'n' all that) - all those theatre greats treading the boards lends a certain anticipation to a night at the theatre. We truly believe that we might witness something magical - and sometimes we do. Theatres will be packed out with merciless critics, luvvies and a few hundred girls who just fancy the pants off one or t'other of them.

So let's not be na�ve enough to think that this hype will die down. This is Hamlet, Shakespeare's greatest of tragic heroes, the real deal. Consider John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier - their Hamlets have gone down in history, spoken of in hushed tones, a backstage whisper even, revered as 'great Shakespearean actors', their voices taking on lives of their own�Reviews aren't going to be forgotten by the next morning. There'll be enough comparisons to keep theatre critics critiquing for the next, say, 100 years, theatre students will never tire of writing essays on this (I should know, I was one!) and people will talk of Tennant's Hamlet or bring up Jude's 2009 season as the tortured prince. (Ah, tortured prince, now I know why Jude's been cast!)

So, the choice is Jude or David - there's no sitting on the fence, 'To be or not to be', you can't vote for both. I think Jude would stand a chance if he actually didn't act, he could just be himself - maybe Branagh could find a way of phrasing this. His best theatrical moments come in 'real' life (did anyone see him on Parky?) with bursts of pure luvvie angst, taking it all a bit too seriously and philosophising to avoid the real issues - how perfect for Hamlet's soliloquies! I think he is well-suited to the 'Alas, poor Yorick!' scene - I can almost imagine him picking up a skull, staring intently at it and then launching into a lament about the fragility of life. We also shouldn't bypass his pretty boy status when considering his suitability for the role - er, maybe he'll look good on stage.

And then there's David 'time traveller' Tennant. Well, he's 'the Doctor' - lines like 'For who would bear the whips and scorns of time' take on a whole new meaning for starters. I'm imagining trying to jump into a phone box to escape hairy moments like killing Polonius or telling Rose (now Billie Piper as Ophelia would be a stroke of genius) to 'Get thee to a nunnery' (this would only happen if David got confused, of course). He's got the whole geek chic thing going on - Hamlet would definitely have that bedraggled skinny suit and Converse trainers look if he was a 21st century student (just throwing in some ideas for Doran's interpretation). But I was encouraged to discover that he's well-versed in the art of good ole Wills, having dabbled in a couple of RSC seasons back in the day. Y'know, nothing special, just Touchstone in 'As You Like It', Antipholus of Syracuse in 'The Comedy of Errors' and ROMEO. Well, I think we may have found our Hamlet�

Booty Bags

Designer Luella Bartley must have thought her already bright star was rising after a return to London Fashion Week and a new store in Mayfair but she was dealt a cruel blow when said shop was targeted in a smash and grab. Today's thieves must have expensive taste as Luella's designer handbags are the latest fashion victims in a long line of raids, which have seen jewellery, shoes and cashmere stolen.

I Predict A Riot

Not exactly Sienna Miller's most glamorous look (rather lovely patchwork-style jerkin springs to mind) but what would you expect in a film called 'Hippie Hippie Shake' with a scene recreating the 1968 peace demonstrations against the Vietnam War. London's Grosvenor Square, home to the American Embassy, was once again closed off as it was besieged with protesters and mounted police but, this time, all in the name of art and a true-to-life reconstruction of the event.

An Exclusive Double Act

Naomi Campbell knows how to 'work' the media and a little bit of royal blood can go a long way in grabbing a headline or two - especially if it's all in the name of chaaaaaaarity. The London Fashion Week show saw Fergie and daughter Princess Beatrice saunter hand-in-hand down the catwalk (both wearing black chiffon Dolce & Gabbana dresses) to much appreciation from the A-list crowd.