The British Craft Beer Challenge Festival

pee1_pee1deaddollsclub BRITISH CRAFT BEER CHALLENGE FESTIVAL
THE ULTIMATE CELEBRATION OF THE BEST OF BRITISH BEER
THE CHALLENGE IS ON!
**ROUND TWO – GREAT BRITAIN VS USA**
THIS SATURDAY 6TH JUNE – 12PM – MIDNIGHT
 
THE BREWHOUSE –  LONDON FIELDS
TICKETS: Earlybird beer & food £7 // on the door £9 // beer challenge entry £3
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The British Craft Beer Challenge is the ultimate beer test that will bring brews from around the world together in a head to head challenge. The search will be far reaching to all corners of the globe bringing the best beer from around the world to one spot in East London, the culturally vibrant Hackney.
pee1_GRENThat’s why we will be recruiting all beer lovers, occasional fans and total geeks – to assist in our search at a series of events held at The Brewhouse across the summer of 2013. We’re selling just 500 tickets per day to this event which promises to be a modern celebration about all that is great about contemporary British craft beer.
Unlike other international beer and brewing awards the British Craft Beer Challenge will invite the opinion of the most important beer fanatics of all – you,  the everyday drinker – to cast their your on your favourite beer.
In case that is not enough reason to bring the family and friends along each event will see an array of local food producers and musicians ready to provide the perfect accompaniment to a challenging day!
You’re local British brew needs you this Saturday!
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EVENT LISTINGS INFORMATION:
WHAT: The Great British Beer Challenge Festival – GREAT BRITAIN VS USA
WHERE: The Brewhouse – The Railway Arches 369-370 Helmsley Place E8 3SB
WHEN: Saturday 6th June
PRICES: Earlybird beer & food £7 // on the door £9 // beer challenge entry £3

Vanessa Vallely Interview: Founder of We Are the City – Part One

I met Vanessa in the City. She is fashionable, warm, friendly and passionate. I came to interview her about her amazing site for women in the City: wearethecity.com. A place where women can find help and advice with their work, life and careers.

Vanessa Vallely:
“There are three core values that I had in mind when I set it up that hold true. One, that we provide a platform for female entrepreneurs to get their products to market on the basis that it fits into our members’ demographic. We do that by taking away hefty advertising fees for them and to give female entrepreneurs a bit of a leg up. We are also a conduit to charities to get to high net worth women. We will actively promote any network or any organisation that is free that will develop skills for women. So probably 40% of what we do on the website falls into that value set, that is really important to me.”

Frost: First of all, what are you wearing? You look great.

VV: “I am wearing a Britt Lintner dress with my normal Gucci shoes and scarf. She is a fantastic designer. She set herself up a couple of years ago doing dresses and managed to get her collection into Harrods, although she’s  taking some time out because she’s raising some small children.”

When did you know you wanted to go into business?

“I left school at 16 with just a couple of GSCEs and headed out into the city with 15 pence and a bag of ambition because I wanted to change my lifestyle and my mum’s as well. We come from a very socially and economically-challenged background, so I knew that I wanted to be successful, I knew that the financial district was two miles away from where I lived and that was where I was going to start.

“I actually realised I wanted to develop the website three years ago due to my frustration with not having a site that covered everything in my life. There needs to be a bit of lifestyle in there because let’s not hide it, I am a woman. I need to eat, I need to have my hair done, I need to find a dentist. But I also wanted to upskill myself outside of my corporate environment, so how was I going to that?

“Women’s networks, courses I could go on –  for me it’s frustrating. If I Googled that information, I would spend hours on the internet. I wanted to find it all on one site so my husband said, ‘Why don’t you create a website for women?’ and we built it together.

“So that’s when I knew that I wanted to work for myself. I love my corporate job and run the website outside of work.

“My aspirations in 10 years time are to be the CEO of a charity, because I do a lot for charity still.”

Tell me about being a Pearly Queen?

“It has been in my family for 100 years. The Pearly Kings and Queens were started by an Orphan called Henry Croft and he used to sew buttons on his suit, he was a rat-catcher in the markets.

“If you think about London 100-odd years ago it was still markets, no superstores or anything. So he used to hang around the markets with the costermongers who were the apple sellers. They used to sew buttons on their suits and were called flash boys.

“If the costermongers were down on their luck, their entire family was affected if someone was ill. There was no social security then, so he used to raise money in the markets for his fellow orphans. Eventually he was so much in demand, he couldn’t be at all the markets, so he made head Pearly Kings and Queens of each of the 20 boroughs of the London of the time and they’d raise money for individuals in that borough. My granddad was pearly King of East London and he passed that title to my father and my father passed it to me.

“I have been a Pearly Queen since I was three years old. I was Pearly Queen of Hoxton until this year when I gave that title to my 11-year-old daughter and I have taken the City of London from my dad. So we still go out and put our buttons on for various charities. I don’t quite sing and dance the way I used to, but it is a lovely part of London heritage and we are as famous as the Chelsea Pensioners, so why not do it? The fact that I have a profile in the City helps because it could die out with people getting old.”

I read that you could see the city from….

“I could, from my tower block window. I lived on the 18th floor and could see NatWest tower. I used to say to my mum, ‘I am going to work there one day and I am going to change how we live’. My first job was in that building.

I drive past there now and I look up at that tower block and I think, That’s where it all began’. We were broke half the time. There were lots of people with challenges and me and my mum were one of them, but bit-by-bit we made it out through sheer hard work. Most of my childhood was spent going to school and then cleaning betting shops until 11 pm. I don’t know if my mum still has it, but I think there’s a picture where I am holding a mop that is bigger than I am. I still love to clean – mopping and stuff like that.”

Was it hard getting to where you are now? Any reinforced ceilings?

“Yes, in the City I was different in a time when diversity wasn’t really appreciated. I didn’t speak the right way, I didn’t look right, and had a bit of an attitude. I was quite precocious and quite a forceful individual because I wanted to get ahead. I never had a college network to back me up, I never knew anyone, so I had to fight my corner a little bit harder.

“There were individuals who I worked for along the way who told me I can’t do what I have done. They said I’ll never succeed or I’ll never cut it or I’ll never get that job. I love people like that because they fuel my fire and I love to say to them, ‘Well, actually, you were wrong’.”

It’s all connections isn’t it?

“Absolutely. And I spent the past six years building those connections, not just for me, but for other people. I find people jobs, I mentor, I connect businesses, source providers. I spend probably 30% of my week connecting people to others. That’s why my strapline is ‘Make The Magic Happen’. They can go off and do stuff together. They call me a ‘contentpreneur’. I enjoy doing that and enjoy hearing about what other people have done as a result, because I feel like I was part of it.”

I heard that you were the most connected women in London….

“I do know a lot of people. I do agree that there are only three degrees of separation. I can get to most people if I need to. But I don’t call on favours often. I only call on them when I need them. I am more likely to be found giving favours or doing stuff for other people. That’s my model and I enjoy doing it.”

What do you think made you successful?

“Passion and drive. But also I open most conversations with, ‘what can I do for that person?’ and I think what you end up with is thanks. You are good to other people and they want to help you back. Also volunteering for things other people didn’t want to do. People would say, ‘oh, I don’t want to do that’ if there was a project that was really messy. I was the first one with my hands up, because I think you learn so much as a consequence of being in a mess, fixing it, and getting yourself out of that mess.

“I have always volunteered for projects that other people don’t want and for things I don’t necessarily have the expertise for. There are things I have worked on when I’d have to come home and study. I would read books and call on my network, saying, ‘Can you help me understand this stuff?’. I am not a hugely academic person, but I get things done and I have people skills. I get along so well with people. I think if you approach it a certain way, then people will help you.”

What do you think about the global economy?

“I think we’re in a tight space. I think we have been in a tight space since 2008. You look at what happened with the banks out there, Northern Rock and stuff, it has had a knock-on effect. It’s wider now, it’s countrywide, Portugal, Greece, Ireland.

“I think it’s a tough place to be. I think it’s a tough time for businesses, but I also think tough times are the best place to grow sometimes. You are starting from a very low point. I think there are people who will thrive as a consequence, but we have to watch what we are doing. It’s difficult. It’s difficult for public services, schools, I mean I do a lot of work within charities who have had their funding cut. I think the whole world is feeling the pinch. It’s a scary place to be.”

What was the original idea behind Wearethecity.com?

“It was my frustration that there wasn’t really a website for women. There wasn’t something that showed me a one-stop shop where I could make a change. There are now 20-30 charities that we promote and we have over 200 writers.

“These are girls that have never written for publications before and are amazingly talented. Some of them want to share their experiences and they are writing about a myriad of things, those problems that women face in their careers, life, childcare, elderly care, career aspirations, setting up a business. We are giving them the opportunity.

Wearethecity has grown from being a website that was built on an £8 a month web builder tool that anyone can get off the internet to a website that gets a million and a half hits every single month.

“Let it be noted that I have not done it on my own. There wouldn’t be a me without my husband. He built the website, he is the technical person, he has a full-time job, he believes in the power of women, he believes in me and it is a very supportive partnership. That enables me to do what I do. It is shared responsibility. Yes, when the kids are away we have an argument about whose week was more important, but he is a massive support, I couldn’t do it without him.”

How do you juggle kids with a career?

“Again, it’s a tough one. The kids come first. They have to come first. You have to spend quality time with them and it is quality time. I get up at 5:30 in the morning, generally I am pulling letters out of school bags, I write a few cheques, and I get prepared. I have a childminder that comes at 6:30, I literally hand over as I am walking out of the door. I get into work at 8:45 and I do my full day job. I see people, I do work on wearethecity on lunch breaks or after work, so I don’t mix the two.

When I am here in work, I am here in work. I do my emails on the train. I get home at 7. I see the children, the childminder goes. We tend to do a lot of quality stuff. We go to the theatre and we travel a lot because we live in quite a middle class white area and I grew up in the culturally mixing pot that is Hackney. I don’t want my kids growing up thinking the world is flat or white. I want them to have an appreciation of different religions and cultures. We cook a meal from the culture that we are visiting and then we travel there.

“My kids have a huge world map, probably three feet by two feet, that I bought them a few years ago. Every year, we choose two countries and then we go through a process. They do a little project, we talk about it, we cook a meal and we go. My kids can navigate Heathrow airport, Gatwick, Stansted like you would not believe. It has helped them to grow up. I want them to be the kind of individual who would see a person properly, for what they are, not what they look like or what their beliefs are. That is very important to me.”

Do you think the City is a good environment for women?

If you think of where we came from in the last 40 years, from being able to vote and stuff like that, I still think it is sad that we have to celebrate en masse when a women gets a board position. I would rather that was the norm.

“I also think women in my position should be role models and mentor these women because we need to build the next generation – that next pool of talent – or we’ll never get women who are ambitious enough to get onto boards.

It’s a good spot for women. The young girls that I talk to are coming out with different dreams and aspirations, with a ‘why can’t I?’ attitude, which I like because I think women should continue to push boundaries and I fully support that.”

What advice would you give to other women in business?

“Don’t take no for an answer. Try to remove the emotion. With some things that happen, it’s very easy to get a bit deflated. They just have to dust themselves off, get up and keep trying.

“Networking is one of the most important tools. Meet people, even if you can’t see an immediate need for your business. You never know when that person’s name is going to come up, so spend a lot of time networking with the right peer group. Keep those relationships warm, don’t be transactional, keep in touch even if it’s not a close contact. If it’s a peripheral contact, keep in touch every six months. Drop them an email saying. ‘I thought of you’, that sort of thing. That is massively important.

“Don’t give up. If you have a dream in your head, think about, ‘How do I get there?’. You may be back at the start and your dream is two miles ahead, so how do we get to mile one? Who do we need to help us to get there? What do I need to learn?

“Visualise that short-term goal, but keep the long-term one in mind as well. You just have to keep pushing on. It’s not always easy. I’m not perfect. I had times when I put my head in my hands and thought, ‘Why am I doing this?’  Or when I want to give up, that network around me are the ones that give me the push. You need to push on. That is what I give to my network now.”

I know what you mean, I have times when I think, ‘I can’t do this’.

“But then one of your friends will be strong and they will say, ‘Yes you can’. Then they might have a moment. I think it’s a fantastic time for women, and again, if you hang out with the right set of women who support women, it’s a fantastic place to be.”

It was Madeleine Albright who said there is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women [Vanessa finishes the quote with me]

Absolutely. And she’s spot on. She said a lot of profound things. She is one of my women that I aspire to. She’s amazing.”

It is an annoying myth that women don’t help other women.

“I can honestly say 99% of women I associate with are absolutely supportive. If we don’t make a difference, if we don’t support other women, if we don’t tell young girls that they can do it, and influence and navigate….

“I don’t think a woman should ever change her make up. I look back at the pictures of me early in my career and I look like a guy, I have a pinstripe suit on. The only thing that says I am feminine is my hair and a bit of make up, because that’s how I thought I needed to be. In order to succeed, I needed to be one of them. I needed to be a ball breaker, I needed to be, ‘I don’t care. I’ll sack that one and I don’t care’.

But you know what? I am absolutely proud to be a woman. Unfortunately, women get labelled very easily, so if you are outspoken about something, you are having an emotional breakdown. If you react to something in a certain way: you’re sensitive, so it is very easy to slap a label on women, and I am like, ‘Why can’t my outburst be described the same as yours? I have a label and you are just being seen as being passionate. There is no difference.”

It’s like that quote: a women who has an opinion is a bitch, but a man with an opinion is strong.

“Exactly. A man and women can say the same statement and people will go ‘Ooh!!’ to the woman and with a man they just say, ‘Alright’. They see things how they are and won’t bat an eyelid. It is easy for women to be labeled and it’s a shame, it shouldn’t be that way.”

Part two is here.

Adam Deacon Profile | Film

In the film Payback Season, actor, director, writer and BAFTA-Orange Rising Star award winner Adam Deacon plays the lead role of Jerome Davies, a young man who has risen above his harsh beginnings of life on a council estate to achieve celebrity status as a premier league footballer.

Adam describes the role: “Jerome is living the high life, he’s got the lovely car, the penthouse flat, but fundamentally his family are still living on a council estate, and he has to go back there. I think Jerome’s dilemma is trying to balance his old life with the new life. Old friends start appearing and before you know it he’s involved in extortion. Jerome has tried to leave that life behind him. For me, it was really nice to play a ‘normal’ character; I wouldn’t call Jerome humble, but he’s just trying to do his thing. I also enjoyed playing a character who spoke proper English,” he laughs. “I am not playing the typical ‘d’you get me Blud’ thing, we were actually asked to tone it down.”

“I think it’s a great story as well, you don’t often get to hear about what happens to people on the other side, and I am sure this sort of thing goes on…it’s a great part to play especially after Anuvahood. It’s also nice to get a romantic role, in some of my films I get a girl, it all goes wrong and I’m gone, so it was really good to have a proper romance for once, and Nichola is a lovely girl as well,” he says.

“I definitely believe it’s a story that needs to be told; I am strong believer in films having a proper story, it’s no good just having a kid running round with guns and knives, we have to start thinking out of the box”

Deacon is currently writing another comedy film. “I made a lot of films last year for other people, and this year I have kind of got my heart set on an Adam Deacon film,” he laughs. “These are exciting times.”

Deacon has come a long way from his Stoke Newington School where he was deemed “a joker”, his natural antipathy to academia exacerbated by the “madness” at home. At 12, noticing his enjoyment of music and drama classes, his head of year suggested he apply for the weekly after-school course at the nearby Anna Scher School. He took a Saturday job to pay for a preparatory summer school and was immediately fast-tracked on to the course by Scher herself, who he portrays as a cross between a mentor and a fairy godmother.

“She’d get the rowdiest London street kids – who were in trouble with the police and stuff – and get them to read scripts properly,” he says. “There were kids there with jobs on EastEnders but she never let anyone act starry, or do stuff for money: she wouldn’t let kids do adverts before they were 16, in case they didn’t know what they were selling. I owe everything to that woman. If that opportunity hadn’t been there for me at a young age, I might have ended up inside,” he says ruefully.

Deacon, from Hackney, East London, began acting at the age of 12. His early career included work with Y Touring Theatre Company, with which he appeared in a number of tours including Cracked by Nicola Baldwin.

Deacon made his name as the lead in Noel Clarke’s Adulthood and co-starred in West 10 LDN, a Kidulthood-like TV program made by Noel Clarke. He has also starred as ‘Bones’ in an MTV show called Dubplate Drama. His next role was in 4.3.2.1, a heist movie, released in June 2010 which also starred Tamsin Egerton, Emma Roberts and Noel Clarke, who directed the film.

Recently Adam co-wrote, co-directed and played the lead role in Anuvahood, which was released on March 18, 2011. The film is described as, ‘A pulls-no-punches, coming-of-age story centering on one directionless hopeless shotter, who finds his true worth in the face of urban adversity.’

Adam has featured in various music videos including; Bashy’s “Who wants to be a Millionaire” and Chipmunk’s Chip Diddy Chip. He is also a musician and musical performer most noted for his two tracks on the soundtrack to Adulthood. The tracks are: ‘Adamhood’ and ‘On It 08’.

His television roles include The Boarding School Bomber and more recently The Royal Bodyguard starring David Jason.

The Tallest Man On Earth album details announced | Music News

Swedish troubadour The Tallest Man On Earth has announced details of his forthcoming album and has released a track, ‘1904, available to listen to at Rolling Stone’s soundcloud page.

The album is titled ‘There’s No Leaving Now’ and will be released on 11th June via Dead Oceans Records. Recorded in his home studio in Dalarna, Sweden during the dark winter months at the end of 2011 and start of 2012, his 3rd album is at turns stark and haunting, joyous, wry or reverent, with Kristian Matsson’s wordplay and deft guitarwork front and center.

‘There’s No Leaving Now’ track list:
1. To Just Grow Away
2. Revelation Blues
3. Leading Me Now
4. 1904
5. Bright Lanterns
6. There’s No Leaving Now
7. Wind & Walls
8. Little Brother
9. Criminals
10. On Every Page

The first recordings from The Tallest Man on Earth surfaced in 2006 via a self-titled EP released on the Swedish independent label Gravitation, which was then followed by a full-length, ‘Shallow Grave’, in 2008 to much acclaim. In early 2010, Matsson signed with Dead Oceans and released his second album ‘The Wild Hunt’ and its follow-up EP ‘Sometimes the Blues is Just A Passing Bird’ which took him to an even greater audience, appearing at international festivals like Coachella, Green Man, and Roskilde as well as appearing on Later with Jools Holland, and a sold out show at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire as well as supporting Bon Iver on tour.

The Tallest Man on Earth will be touring throught the rest of 2012, heading to the UK to play various festival shows as well as a gig at the Hackney Empire on 3rd July.

Links:

Facebook page

Official Website

Myspace page

Riots Will cost Taxpayer £100 Million, Mark Duggan 'Did Not Fire at Police'.

Mark Duggan ‘did not fire at police’

It has emerged that Mark Duggan had a blank-firing gun which had been converted to hold live ammunition

16,000 police on duty in London

England game against Netherlands at Wembley tomorrow called off

Jamie Olivier’s restaurant in Birmingham was targeted by rioters

Police Cells are now full and 44 more police officers have been injured

Three people arrested for attempted murder of police officer

Cost of cleaning up the riots could cost taxpayers £100 million

Prime Minister David Cameron has recalled Parliament for Thursday so he can make a statement

Sloane Square Tube station was among dozens that were closed last night during the rioting

Youths congregating at Piccadilly, riot police are there

People urged to stay indoors

In Clapham youths went on the rampage trashing dozens of shops and walking out stolen goods.
Residents complained that police were very slow to respond as a Debenhams store was ransacked.

This morning Clapham high street was cordoned off as a investigation and the clear-up got underway.

Rioting began in Hackney at about 4pm yesterday when hooded youths began hurling missiles at officers and setting fire to bins and cars. Masked rioters on BMX bicycles armed with batons attacked a crowded London bus during the evening rush-hour, chasing terrified commuters as they tried to escape.

Some of the thugs were as young as eight and they forced the driver to stop the double-decker by pelting it with champagne bottles stolen from a nearby Tesco. About 40 passengers ran away, some carrying their children.

Within hours similar scenes erupted in Lewisham, spreading to Peckham, Deptford and Croydon.
Hundreds of fires were started all over the capital, North London; Camden, Woolwich in the south, in West London; Ealing. People were forced to take the law into their own hands to protect themselves and their family.

In Dalston and Hackney, shopkeepers fought back against looting youths and protected their businesses. Surrounding areas were pillaged as members of the town’s large Turkish community stood up outside their homes and businesses to protect them.

Home Secretary Theresa May said this morning that there had been 450 arrests in the last two nights but she ruled out bringing in the Army and using water cannon. She told BBC Breakfast:

‘British policing has always meant and always depended on the support of local communities and that’s what we need now.’

She told Sky News the capital needed ‘robust policing’ – and claimed that police budget cutting had not had an impact on the violence.

‘Don’t let police budgets be used as an excuse for what is going on on our streets is sheer criminality and nothing else.’

Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP and former Army officer, hit out and told the Telegraph that tougher policing should be used.

He said: ‘I find it strange that we are willing to use these sort of measures against the Irish yet when Englishmen step out of line and behave in this atrocious and appalling way, we are happy to mollycoddle them.’

Met Police Assistant Commissioner Stephen Kavanagh seemed to contradict the Home Secretary and said using the military had not been ruled out.

‘All options were discussed last night and that means, not that we’re doing it, the people of London need to know that the Commissioner and his management board team are considering everything and working through those options as we go forward,’ he told BBC Breakfast.

Mr Kavanagh said it was ‘a shocking and appalling morning for London to wake up to’ and he was struck by the ‘sheer scale and speed with which the attacks took place across London last night’. It ‘was truly unprecedented’

He said there was a ‘changing nature’ in the make-up of the rioters, with the profile changing ‘dramatically’ last night from 14 to 17-year-olds to ‘older groups in cars doing organised looting’.

He added: ‘And there was the far more focused attempt at injuring London Ambulance staff, there to help the community, trying to injure Fire Brigade officers and, of course, police officers.’

In Birmingham, West Midlands Police said it had made about 100 arrests and confirmed that a police station in Handsworth, Birmingham, was on fire. Merseyside Police said there were a number of incidents in South Liverpool and that cars had been set on alight.

Somerset Police reported 150 rioters were in Bristol city centre, with main roads closed and a number of shops damaged.

Councilors have said it will cost £227,000 to repair Tottenham

There is a brilliant article here on how the poverty these kids have is moral, not financial.http://www.thecommentator.com/article/359/london_rioters_are_the_pampered_children_of_the_welfare_state

And the Telegraph has a brilliant article with pictures of london before and after the riot

You can help people made homeless by the London riots by donating bedding, clothes, etc to Apex House, 820 Seven Sisters Road, London N15 5PQ

Londoners Life 9 by Phil Ryan

Of all the London phenomenon I’ve chronicled recently, there is one that has been gathering pace. It’s called Business Change.

I’m suddenly more aware of the breathtaking and surprising speed that familiar haunts, restaurants and bars seem to be going out of business, closing down and then getting replaced by a new business. I only note it down now after a recent few trips into town that left me sad at the disappearance of quite a few of my regular haunts and drop in places. Cafes, book shops, restaurants and music equipment places all suddenly biting the dust. You head to an old familiar café hoping to get egg and chips and suddenly it’s a trendy new Japanese hairdressers decorated in black and silver with bright cartoon characters on the windows offering wakami face tugging and Nintendo hair stress with kodo roots and sea turtle mud. All very disconcerting.

I know it’s a recession year unfolding, but it’s very London in the way that there seems to have suddenly been a speedy pick up in the opening and closing rates of so many once great places. It’s as if the capital is sensing blood in the water. The old and sick are culled (sadly often by the chain groups) and the whole place seems to be getting blander and less original by comparison.

We all know that London constantly changes – just look at the sprawling developments in regeneration areas. Even bits of the new Stratford are starting to look quite pleasant. Actually, scratch that. It’s still a dump, but now with an inappropriate huge shopping centre and bits of Olympic nonsense being stuck around the place.But it’s funny how a couple of converted factories or hospitals reborn as apartments seems to immediately change the tone in an area – even if it’s only very surface to start with. Hackney and Battersea has enclaves and pockets of said new conversions but are both still struggling. So-called luxury developments can only achieve so much. The muggers just seem better read – now quoting Monica Ali and The Secret as they rob your wallet.

But the onward rush of change and the trend to new designer living has a lot to answer for. One of my prime examples is Paddington Basin. Now changed – from an admittedly smelly canal side dump – but changed to a monolithic mixed office and apartment, antiseptic, dystopian, concrete wasteland -replete with confusing enormous steel statues and various bits of naff looking public ‘heritage’ art.

As you enter, you find great grey pebble-dashed wind tunnels threading through various soulless glass and steel monoliths that abound the place, all giving it the charming air of a car park designed by Philip Starck, The Mad Hatter and Mr Angry. And the entire place is complete with faux cobbles and café canal side living (ie chain outlets sticking tables outside). Sadly, the whole place has slightly less atmosphere than Jupiter. You can see baffled canal side walkers leave little leafy and cute Little Venice and then turn up in what appears to be an architect’s giant scale model of dullness and concrete. “It’s all neat and clean and functional,” they tell me. But then so are abattoirs,  which it sort of gives the half air of being modelled on – only without the welcome death at the end after spending any time there. But that’s London. Changeville.

And if you needed more proof of changes, look no further than the past few year’s restaurant trends. Scores of Thai, Vietnamese, Mongol Grills and Pan Asian buffet places appearing and disappearing within a two-year period. Now it’s the Lebanese wave I’m noticing. They’re popping up everywhere. Nice, but generally overpriced. And often with the hookah pipes outside, gently wafting aromatic smoke down the street. And snapping at their heels, those very cool-looking Japanese places. All Zen and noodles with raw everything (just saving on the gas bill I’m guessing. Personally, I like my food cooked).

But don’t panic. There are still places that show no sign of seemingly changing one iota. South Kensington and its environs is a case in point. I had the dubious pleasure of being taken to a basement restaurant down that way last week. The prices? Unfeasibly high. The place? Packed to the rafters with an orderly line patiently waiting by the till area when we arrived. The noise levels? Slightly above that of runway one at Heathrow. And the food? Italian pizzas mainly – but disguised as high fashion cuisine. And then that bizarre welcome. Table for six? Yes, of course, but you’ll have to leave at 10.00 sharp (it was 8.00). The people with me seemed unsurprised. Didn’t they mind?, I asked. “No,” they chorused. “It’s a London thing.”