Weekend roundup for 19 March

Featuring dozy peers, confusing Cock and micro bars

Welcome to your handy digest of everything that’s happened in London this week.

If you’re receiving the full roundup (which includes all the arts and culture updates as well as the latest food and drink news and the long read of the week) then thank you very much for supporting independent writing about London. If you’re not a paid subscriber already and you want to read the full issue (and start receiving our mid-week issue as well), then you can make that happen by clicking this:

News bits

🚨 The Met apologised this week to the black schoolgirl who was strip-searched by two officers after being wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis when she was only 15. The incident, which happened at secondary school in Hackney in 2020, was deemed to have been “unjustified” and racism was said to have “likely” been a factor.

🚨 Meanwhile, the three Met constables (two of whom are still serving) entered not guilty please when they appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, charged with sending “grossly offensive” WhatsApp messages with Sarah Everard’s murderer, Wayne Couzens. All three will now have a two-day trial in July.

👮 While all this goes on, the job of replacing Cressida Dick is reportedly being held up by pay out haggles. Apparently Dick is protesting that she “is entitled as a matter of principle to have the terms of her contract honoured” (i.e. get more money), while the mayor disagrees.

🚉 The RMT has got into another row with TfL this week, after Commissioner Andy Byford announced that “outsourcing contractor ABM will continue to employ tube cleaners”. RMT argues that this means they are “denied decent wages, company sick pay or free travel on TfL services” and have called on the mayor to overturn the decision “or potentially face another strike on the tube”.

😴 At the start of the week the Ealing peer Lord Young of Norwood Green was blocked from taking part in a House of Lords debate after he fell asleep. Apparently a Government whip had to send him a note to wake him up.

🚖 Uber’s London licence is set to expire on 27 March and, as the company prepares to renew it, the App Drivers & Couriers Union has written to the mayor claiming that the company has failed to abide by the Supreme Court ruling from February 2021 that said they must pay drivers at least minimum wage and holiday pay from the period of log on to log off. The union is calling on the mayor and TfL to “immediately set tough but fair conditions on Uber’s licence”.

⚫ We’d almost forgotten about the Sphere, the 90m-tall giant blackhead that will double as a concert venue and “giant glowing” advertising hoarding. But the people of Stratford haven’t. Apparently there have been 850 objections lodged against the scheme so far, but that hasn’t stopped it being recommended for approval by planning officers, which means it will now be ruled on by something called the London Legacy Development Corporation’s (LLDC) planning committee on Tuesday.

🏗️ The Hong Kong-based developer Far East Consortium (FEC) has paid £95.7m to take over the running of Vauxhall Square in London from Chinese property developer R&F Properties who haven’t made any progress on the site since 2019 (they’ve also had similar problems at the One Nine Elms site).

♻️ A disused petrol station on Borough Road has been turned into an “Ecover Refillery” where people can refill their laundry liquid and washing-up liquid bottles for free (as long as they’re Ecover obviously). While you’re there you can also take in the “remarkable wall-hanging plant installation.”

🦫 We’ve waited ages to use the beaver emoji! Two beavers (one male, one female… for obvious reasons) were released in the grounds of Forty Hall Farm in Enfield on Thursday in an attempt to revive the population (which was “hunted to extinction in Britain in the 16th century”) and “help restore nature and river habitat and reduce the risk of flooding.”

👔 Harry Styles has opened his first shop in London. The store at 81 Redchurch Street in Shoreditch will sell Styles’ Pleasing clothing and beauty brand.. but only for a few days. In fact it closes tomorrow, so if you want a bottle of Harry’s Acid Drops Lucid Overnight Serum, then you’ll have to be quick.

Art and culture bits

🍆 It seems no one can quite make up their mind about Cock, the revival of the Mike Bartlett comedy starring Taron Egerton and Jonathan Bailey at the Ambassador’s Theatre. The Times only gives the play two stars (“The truth is it seems dated”) while The Guardian gives it a middling three stars (“the central angst-ridden axis of the play seems less of a conundrum these days”), and so does the Telegraph (“liberalism’s leaps and bounds have lent a sepia tinge to its focus on bisexuality”). The Independent goes one star better (“Bartlett’s script rarely feels dated”), but the FT is really impressed and awards the full five stars (“Questions of sexual identity and labelling have only become more fraught since the play’s original staging”).