Weekend roundup for 18 June
Featuring wonky Wonkas, fancy pancakes and grime stories
One of the public pieces of art we forgot to mention in Wednesday’s issue was Jeff Koon’s Balloon Monkey (above) which is currently sat in the middle of St James’s Square, waiting to be sold by Christie’s, with all the proceeds (probably between £4m and £6m) going to humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
If you’re not a paying subscriber to LiB then you will have missed Wednesday’s issue and you’ll only be able read around a third of today’s roundup, which means you’ll miss out on things like artistic uncancellings and gastropub controversies. But if you scroll to the bottom of this email you can start your free week’s trial and dive in.
News bits
♀️ At the start of the week the mayor announced his “refreshed” Violence Against Women & Girls (VAWG) strategy, which places “a stronger emphasis on partnership working, prevention and education” and targets “the behaviour of those who perpetrate abuse” (rather than telling the potential victims how to behave). The plan is also getting an extra £17.7m from City Hall’s coffers.
🍫 In Monday’s issue we looked at Westminster council’s promise to ‘crackdown’ on the Oxford Street candy shops. On Wednesday council leader Adam Hug posted the tweet below showing “over £100k worth of counterfeit or illegal goods” that had been seized by trading standards officers (including 2246 counterfeit Wonka Bars). He followed that up by calling on the government to “properly resource Companies House, HMRC and other agencies” to take action on the bigger problem of tax avoidance (because Westminster Council - understandably - don’t want to be paying to take all these shops to court). It does seem that some landlords are voluntarily chucking out their tenants, probably due to the increase in publicity (which might have been Westminster’s plan all along).
🛺 While we’re on the subject of Westminster’s new council making their presence felt: Pedicab drivers in the West End have been “slapped with record fines” after a “council crackdown on ‘rip-off’ operators”. Drivers have been fined over offences including blocking pavements, playing loud music and charging extortionate fares.
🏘️ John Lewis is getting into the housing business. Apparently the high street chain is going to offer build-to-rent properties for “both short- and long-term tenancies, with the option for fully furnished, and rents at both market value and affordable levels”. Two of the initial three locations are in London, with one site in Bromley and another in Ealing.
🛥️ The captain of the ‘superyacht’ that was detained in London the other week for belonging to “a person connected to Russia,” has said that the move was just government “headline-grabbing, clickbait, attention-seeking.” The yacht (which contains an “infinite wine cellar… with 400 bottles”) is thought to be owned by the retired businessman, Sergei Naumenk. But the vessel is “registered to Dalston Projects Limited, a company based in the Caribbean dual-island nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, and carries a Maltese flag.”
🚳 There’s another new map from TfL, this time showing all the routes that you can take a full sized bike onto (hint: you can take a non-folding bike on the Elizabeth between 9.30am and 4pm).
🧳 York’s National Railway Museum is appealing to the public to see if anyone can identify the West Indians portrayed in photographs of “the last boatload” of Windrush immigrants arriving at Waterloo station in the spring of 1962. The museum is also keen to hear “from any Black railway workers – particularly women who worked in station catering – who arrived in Britain between 1948 and 1962.”
🏳🌈 Jeremy Joseph, the owner of G-A-Y and Heaven, said this week that both venues could close down for good. The clubs both shut on the 12th for a week’s break in order to “protect the mental health of staff,” but Joseph also told Virgin Radio that he is weighing up “three to four” options on what to do next, “including closing and selling up”.
🐦 Do you live in Ealing and recently visited Orkney where you picked up an usual electronic device on the beach? Then you should know that there’s a PHD student tracking your movements (including that pizza restaurant you visited on your way back to London) and there’s £100 in gift vouchers for you if you return her bird tracker.
Art and culture bits
🌍 The RA’s Summer Exhibition is here again (in summer this time) but the reviews are very disappointing. In The Guardian Jonathan Jones calls it “a Tory exhibition” as it has the whiff of “Boris and Carrie Johnson… ostentatiously affecting green concerns” (there’s an eco theme to this year’s show). While in the Telegraph it’s just two stars and words like “mediocre”, “dull” and “smug” are thrown about. It’s only in the Times that there’s any positivity, with Rachel Campbell-Johnston giving up four stars and saying that this year’s exhibition “shows us what’s important”.
🎨 Artist Jess De Wahls (who was canceled and then apologised to by the RA last year over a row involving transphobia - and who has a piece in the Summer Exhibition) has written a piece for Unherd about how she was ‘uncancelled’ by the Academy and what it felt like to be at the centre of that particular storm.
🪩 If you’re into photo essays of British youth culture then you might be shelling out a bit of money in the next few weeks. First up is Acid House As It Happened, a new book by Time Out’s old nightlife editor, Dave Swindells, who was there with his camera “when rave hit London in 1988”. The Guardian has some excerpts from the book here.