Weekend roundup for 19 June
Includes piazzas, pizzas, protestors and portals
👮🏻♀️ Following the independent report into the murder of private detective Daniel Morgan, the Home Secretary announced she’d written to the Met Commissioner to “demand a detailed response to the panel’s recommendations”. Priti Patel has also asked the police watchdog, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, “to consider how best it can look look at the issues raised by the damning report”.
Don’t expect too much from the HMICFRS (their track record isn’t great) and don’t expect Cressida Dick to be going anywhere anytime soon. Despite many calls for her to be held to account, as Vikram Dodd points out in the Guardian, “Dick has previously survived what many thought would have ended her career” (the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in Stockwell in 2005), and the Commissioner has already announced she has no intention of resigning, insisting she is an “honourable person”.
👮 Sticking with the Met for a second: A man has been charged after the BBC journalist Nick Watt was abused by anti-lockdown protesters outside Downing Street on Tuesday. The Met initially tweeted that its officers “were not in the immediate vicinity of the incident,” but after everyone with eyes and an internet connection pointed out the fact that there were literally dozens of officers stood right there, it deleted that tweet and issued another statement saying the force would be “reviewing our actions with a view to improving the policing of events”.
🚦 The big news of the week has to be the plans to pedestrianise part of Oxford Circus. There’s a lot of fluffy language (stop saying ‘piazzas’!) and ‘indicative’ artist’s impressions (see above) around this announcement, but the basics are: the sides of the junction that face Oxford Street will be pedestrianised, while Regent Street remains as a normal road. The plan is for the two sides of Oxford Circus to be completely car-free from November, and a competition is being run to come up with plans to revamp the area. Oxford Street Tube could also get some new entrances.
🚴 The other big transport-related news is that TfL has won its appeal over the Streetspace programme. It would take us at least two newsletters to give you the full story on this, but the basics go like this: In January, a High Court judge ruled that TfL’s programme to promote active travel (temporary cycle lanes, wider pavements, the controversial Low Traffic Neighbourhoods…) was unlawful. But TfL appealed the decision and on Wednesday they won that appeal, prompting Sadiq Khan to declare that the decision, combined with his reelection, “forms a double mandate allowing us to continue with our bold measures.” The taxi industry (which brought the action originally) is less happy, and there’s a chance this could now go to the Supreme Court.
🚕 The Daily Mail has been digging into Uber’s London prices after “Londoners hit out” at the company for “costing more than a black cab”. Basically, what the Mail ‘discovered’ after taking a bunch of Uber rides at different times was… surge pricing. “MailOnline has compiled Uber receipts revealing how typical prices have not increased - but surge charges can see a journey double in price,” said the paper, before noting that, with lockdown easing, there’s more surges happening (they could have saved themselves a bit of time and read this New York Times article, as exactly the same thing is happening there).
🏗️ In the early hours of Tuesday morning, a 69-year-old, pro-Palestine activist climbed to the top of a crane at One Nine Elms (reports on the height of the crane have varied, but you just need to know that it’s a really high crane). He eventually spent 37 hours up there, unfurling a Palestine flag and recording some frankly terrifying video.
⛴️ On Wednesday we told you about The Canal and River Trust’s plans to reduce moorings for people living on boats along the River Lee. Cyclist magazine claims the removal of 500 or so homes from the river could also lead to an increase in “violent theft and other serious crimes” on the river, as there’d be fewer people in the area, particularly at night. Ironically This Is Money ran an article this week explaining why houseboats could be the next property boom.
🏢 We’re not avid readers of ArabianBusiness.com, but this week the site spoke to Simon Murphy, CEO of the company behind the Battersea Power Station development. In the article Simon is very keen to boast that his company has “taken this old derelict building in Central London and created a community,” … and then he mentions that 20% of the properties have been sold to ‘Middle Eastern investors’. (A reminder that, during construction, the development company reduced the number of affordable homes it originally promised by 40%, citing ‘technical issues’).
🚇 Crossrail testing has ramped up. The number of test trains running through “the central core tunnels” has recently doubled to eight trains per hour. As always, Ian Visits has all the details.
👗 The 'fashion rental service provider’ Rotaro has opened a pop-up on Carnaby Street so they can host “creative workshops and panel discussions addressing sustainability” (as well as rent you clothes from the “best and brightest brands”) More details here.
💰 If you have a Financial Times subscription the paper has published a couple of good London-related features this week. The first, Inside London’s Docklands, traces the “transformation of this once derelict wasteland into a commercial and residential powerhouse,” while the second, Booming Brixton, examines how gentrification has “encroached on the heart of the UK’s African-Caribbean community”.
🐶 We promised you some nice dog news this week, so here it is: Battersea London has opened a ‘hydrotherapy suite’ to “help dogs with injury rehabilitation, weight loss, muscle pain, general fitness and mental wellbeing”(and also to provide LiB readers with cute pictures of wet dogs).
Arts and culture bits
🎭 The pictures of the restored Trafalgar theatre (above) were released this week, and it does look pretty impressive. The work has restored the 1930s detailing that had been hidden for 90 years, and what was the two small spaces of Trafalgar Studios is now a single “630 seat art deco wonderland.” More pictures and video here.
💽 First ‘best of’ list of the week is from the Guardian, who asked the author and photographer behind the new book London's Record Shops to mark Record Store Day by choosing the capital’s 10 best independent record shops .
🏝️ Also from the Guardian, their architecture critic takes a look at the garden island that’s been built over the Hudson River in New York, and asks: did London “miss a trick or dodge a bullet” when it abandoned the Garden Bridge?
⚛️ Most sci-fi story of the week: PORTAL is a non-profit initiative that aims to build a “bridge leading us to the awareness of unity,” and to, erm… “transcend this sense of separation and be the pioneers of a united planet,” (watch the video to find to a tiny bit more about what this this actually is). Right now there’s a ‘portal’ between Poland and Lithuania, but the site promises one connecting London to Lithuania ‘soon’.
🎡 Camden Market may be getting an ‘observation wheel’. Apparently the Market’s landlords have put forward proposals for a “giant new installation to be built by 2022,” that would feature “glass pods that are themed on a musical artist or genre that depicts Camden’s longstanding music heritage.”
🎫 The Arcola Theatre in Dalston has announced plans for “a brand-new outdoor performance space and bar”. The new space, called Arcola Outside, will be built on a site near the existing theatre’s main building and will “be covered by a giant roof structure, offering protection from the weather whilst maintaining excellent airflow”. If you want to help make the space a reality, the theatre is looking for donations and sponsorship.
💰 Another week, another ‘immersive experience’. This time it’s Netflix’s Spanish-language drama, Money Heist, that’s getting the interactive treatment. Money Heist - The Experience will apparently be housed in “one of the most iconic venues in London” (any guesses?), will last between an hour and 75 minutes and, as well as letting you live out all your armed robbery fantasies, there’ll also be a “themed bar with appetisers and bespoke cocktails”. (N.B. The Doctor Who immersive experience just opened, and so far the reviews have been decidedly lukewarm.)
📸 Hoxton Mini Press, the amazing indie publisher behind One Hundred Years: Portraits of a community aged 0–100 by Jenny Lewis (see our interview with Jenny here), have just announced the publication of two new beautiful guides: An Opinionated Guide to Sweet London and Parklife: A love letter to London’s green spaces.
🐻 Dogs in swimming pools not enough for you? How about models in oversized animal heads wandering about Trafalgar Square, playing musical instruments in Piccadilly Circus, and boozing it up in Soho? (It’s a campaign for Stella McCartney).
Food and drink bits
😢 The Sticky Mango restaurant in Waterloo will be celebrating the life of Anthony Bourdain later this month “with a special menu inspired by the chef-restaurateur and fundraising for hospitality mental health initiative the Burnt Chef Project.” The restaurant’s owner has also commissioned a mural to be painted on the front of the restaurant (above).
🍕 Top Californian chef Nancy Silverton is bringing her Pizzerria Mozza to the Treehouse Hotel near Oxford Circus. Hot Dinners has all the details about why this is a ‘big deal’ and what will be on offer (it’s not just pizza).
🇬🇷 London Eater reports on the “miniature Santorini-on-Thames” that has popped up just south-west of Tower Bridge, as part of the Summer by the River event. Although it’s designed to “represent a collage of Mediterranean coastal towns” London Eater notes that the this faux “continental public piazza,” (there’s that word again) is actually part of a huge “pseudo-public space, one of a growing number of privately owned developments designed to look and feel like public land”.
🦐 Over in Islington a new oyster spot has opened up in the form of Raw Boys. The concession inside the Boutique Grocer has a raw bar serving a range of British oysters as well as shellfish, smoked salmon and some mean looking Bloody Marys. If you live within three miles of Islington, they also have a subscription service that delivers “12 of our Oyster of the Month, plus a matching wine” to you every month.
🐣 “Cult US egg-based restaurant chain” Eggslut is opening its third London location this summer. The spot near Old Street will serve up signature menu items including “The Fairfax - a sandwich made from soft scrambled eggs with cheese” and “truffle and rosemary sea salt potato hash browns”.
🚚 Staying in Shoreditch: a new outfit is taking over the old truck yard where Dinerama was until last year. LaLaLand’s incredibly vague website just says that it will be “a multi-level street food market experience opening in summer 2021” alongside a hastily-Photoshopped artist’s impression. We’re guessing it’s Los Angeles themed?
🍷 Hector’s is a new wine bar and bottle shop that’s just opened on Ardleigh Road in Dalston. Well, right now it’s just a bottle shop, and it will remain that way for a few weeks at least. But there will be a bar eventually, and it will be serving up wines by the glass and bottle alongside small plates (obviously - there always has to be small plates).
🏆 The second ‘best of’ feature this week comes from Forbes and their list of London’s Most Glamorous Restaurants. Worth it for the way they describe Hakkasan’s location on Hanway Street as “tucked away downstairs at the end of a dark lane”.
Long read of the week
Esquire has a pretty amazing feature on the ‘Condom King’ whose business helped to saved hundreds of thousands of lives during the ‘London Rubber Wars’ of the 1980s.
