Weekend roundup for 26 February

Includes hydroponic herbs, misleading museums and reinvented wraps

With everything that’s happened this week it has felt a little strange to write about Tube strikes and the new Ikea store. But that’s what we’re here for, and it is possible to be engaged in global affairs and also want to know about what the weirdest thing to come out of London Fashion week was.

This week, as well as all the latest news, our Arts & Culture section has the story of the blogger who is taking on Jack the Ripper and a great account of what it’s like working at one of London’s less reputable museums. While in the Food & Drink section there’s the rapper taking on wraps and a fantastic long read about London’s ‘worst-rated restaurant’.

If you want to read the whole thing (and get access to all our paywalled articles) please subscribe for £5/month or £50/year:

News bits

🇺🇦 On Wednesday evening there was a demonstration outside the Russian Embassy in Kensington (above), with hundreds protesting Putin’s actions. On Thursday that protest had moved to Downing Street and the mayor was opening his remarks to the London Assembly by calling the invasion of Ukraine a “dark day” and urging the Government to “impose the hardest possible sanctions against all those linked to President Putin in London and across the country.” That same day, Boris Johnson stood up in parliament and, with seemingly zero shame, told the City “to prepare to implement a tough new wave of financial sanctions if Russia launches a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”

For more on those oligarchs resident in London (and their connections to the government), see our issue from Wednesday:

Welcome to Londongrad, home of tax-dodging robots, super-rich cellists and bust-loving billionaires

Meanwhile the Mirror decided that instead of doing any actual journalism, they would use a website called Nukemap to helpfully visualise what would happen if a nuclear missile hit London.

👮 Through all this, the Met is somehow still finding the time and energy to take potshots at the mayor. On Wednesday Sadiq was “accused of not following due process” over Cressida Dick’s resignation by her second in command, Sir Stephen House. The mayor’s office shot back describing the claim as “entirely incorrect” and reminding Sir House that “the mayor is democratically elected by millions of Londoners and it is his job to hold the police to account – and he will continue to do so.” Meanwhile those millions of Londoners willed them both to stop bickering like children and sort it out.

🚇 On Thursday the RMT union confirmed that talks had broken down and the “mass walkout” by TfL staff will go ahead on two days next week. On Tuesday 1st and Thursday 3rd walkouts will start at one minute past midnight and end at one minute to midnight, but of course there will be disruption on the Wednesday and the Friday as well.

🏡 Some good(ish) news now: New data released by the Combined Homelessness and Information Network showed that “fewer people were sleeping rough in London for the first time between October and December 2021 compared to the same period in 2020.” For the background on this see our issue from January 10.

🏦 Something ‘positive’ to come out of Brexit? Bankers in London are going to get bigger bonuses. We’re sure all those ‘red wall’ voters will be overjoyed.

🚂 It looks like the push to get people back to working in offices is being hampered because many train services are still running reduced services and that’s causing overcrowding. Who could have seen that coming?

🇺🇸 At a press conference for the third season of the series Atlanta, Donald Glover and his co-writers said they had been racially harassed outside a bar in London on their first night here. More details on what happened here.

👨‍🌾️ There’s a new ‘urban farm’ on Floral Street in Covent Garden where you’ll find “over 120 edible plants” (mostly herbs right now) growing through the use of “innovative vertical, hydroponic systems”.

🇸🇪 Ikea have definitely opened something in Hammersmith. Depending on what you read, it’s either a ‘shopping mall’, an ‘immersive Swedish experience’ or just, you know, a shop. The main headlines are: No, there is no one-way system; and yes, they do have meatballs.

Art and culture bits

From the series, Ensemble © Susie Stone. More info below.

🤪 The ‘Surrealism Beyond Borders’ exhibition has opened at the Tate, and it seems to have hit the right note with reviewers. Four stars in the Telegraph (“visionary and surprising”), four more in the Guardian (“a tremendous work of scholarship”), and four more in the Independent (“put together with style and curatorial nous”).