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THE LONDON BLOG

"there is in London all that life can afford" -
Samuel Johnson, 1777

Gentle reader, as 'blogs are now too fashionable to ignore we've decide to start one ourselves. If no-one reads it we'll stop it. You have been warned.

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September 16th So the BBC finally admit what every astute viewer has known all along: that it's speaking rubbish. We've long monitored the weather on the BBC Online website, comparing it with the much better predictor of looking out of our window. On days when the BBC assures us that it's sunny outside and we really should be wearing a tee shirt and shorts, through the oblong window (you have to have spent your childhood in Britain to understand that arcane reference) it's cold, wet and windy. Even looking at the 'Current Nearest Observations' which are taken a mere 500 yards from our office one begins to sense that the BBC is pumping out optimism rather than fact.

Now, scientsts (everything the BBC does that is about science has to include that phrase) admit that the accuracy of the 5-day weather forecasts is akin to the annual predictions of Tim Henman's chances at Wimbledon. You'd be better with one of those little Swiss Chalets where a Nazi banker comes out if it's wet (or the international criminal court has ruled against him) or Heidi comes out if it's dry. Or feeling your bones, or tuning in to the spheres or, well just about anything actually.

Actually the folklorists get one up on the meterologists: their prediction based on nature seem more accurate. But then anyone can be accurate over a 24 hour period. What's needed is a bit more accuracy over a 5-day period so people can plan their holidays. Of corse it doesn't really matter to the Brits because holidaying in the UK is so expensive that we all just hop on a Ryanair or Easyjet flight to, well frankly, anywhere. Even Tokyo is cheaper than London. You can have a week in the South of France for less than the cost of a weekend in Brighton.

WHich leads us on to our final point: when planning a holiday in the UK try to spend the shortest possible time her and be as busy as you can. Unless you have a trust fund or your name's Clinton in which case spend, spend, spend.
September 18th The patron saint of London, Ken Livingstone, who, like Blair, under the cover of being a socialist is making pacts with evil businessmen and those who prey on Londoners, says that the already exorbitant bus and tube ticket prices will have to rise as much as 20%. And he plans to extend the Congestion charge zone outwards to the west (this will largely affect the rich so it's not to be sneered at so much). In fact, like the DDR, with its lifeline motorway to Berlin, a 'charge-free' corridor will run down the centre of London, clogging Edgeware Road, Park Lane and Lambeth with traffic desperate to find a way across London without having to pay.

We have no trouble with the concept of a congestion charge, just the shitty way it's applied. And the rising costs of public transport, which it was meant to cross-subsidise. We don't have a car, but we have to pay the congestion charge for goods that are delivered to us, as we live within the zone, and the increased prices within the zone. We also take public transport and now have to pay twice the going rate in Tokyo to travel into the centre. It's the worst of both worlds. And when we do venture out on our bike, the condition of the roads is so dangerous that we have to keep our snout fixed permanently to the handle bars to avoid pot holes, and can't watch out for lorries.

The similarities between Blair and Livingstone go further: Ken has not intervened to stop London being smashed up and rebuilt by developers: you can't trust the local Authorities, they're corrupt at a personal and a corporate level (see the dreadful saga of Spitalfield's market). What was needed was a Mayor who would stand up for London against the wreckers and their balls. What we've got is someone who is so anxious not to offend big business that he's worse than a tory. Sad but true.

The only thing that isn't making us glum at the moment is the thought of the new theatre season: the brilliant Festen, which was the last great film of the 20th century, has been resurrected as the first great play of the 21st, on Shaftsbury Avenue, with a cast to die for and a script worthy of Rattigan.
And the best of the crop of new work is filtering back down south from the Edinburgh festival: our current favourite is 'The Translucent Frogs of Quuup' a spoof Noel Coward semi-musical about a 1920's bank clerk who takes his new bride up the Amazon. If you don't get the joke, or if you come from Kansas, it's not for you.

September 27th New on the block is a noise map of London. If you are visiting this would be of particular interest in connection with your hotel or rented apartment: you can now see if you need earplugs. You can access the map(s)on http://www.noisemapping.org and feed in a street or postcode. You can then zoom down onto the very building you will be staying in. If you want to know more about noise (and think you know how a baby crying compares with a motorcycle reving up) then the BBC Science website (human body section) has a lot of detail, as well as a lot of psych tests which would keep you busy for a few hours.

Latest plans for the West End are to model bits along the lines of Las Ramblas in Barcelona. A pedestrianised corridor from Regent's Park to Piccadilly Circus with a series of squares along Oxford Street. This would be fine if the local councils weren't so silly over eating outside. All over London you will see pubs and restaurants with signs outside explaining that they have had to close their outside tables or remove chairs because of over zealous councils. And of course the councils put a tax on outside eating, charging the restaurants, already crippled with high rents and therefore high local tax (calculated in proportion to the rent, not the size or utility of the property).

The scheme is to be overseen by the same architectural Guru who 'did' Copenhagen, a rather boring city in our view (Malmo, across the water is much better). The initial report describes London as 'a maze of obstacles, poor access, overcrowded streets, narrow footpaths, dangerous road crossings with a chronic lack of seating' that's part of London's charm: the real problem lies in the application of aggressive and cultish management techniques by greedy and corrupt local councils.