City Vote ’09 Results

The results of the City Ward elections have been announced, with Labour failing to make a breakthrough after deciding to field candidates in the traditionally non-partisan elections. There were over 17,000 votes cast in the elections, although twelve of the twenty five City wards were uncontested.

Click here to see the full results of the City Ward elections.

More “blarney” than “stone”

Yes, it’s that day of the year again when everyone can pretend to be “Oirish” for the day and drink copious amounts of the kind of stuff that they’d normally avoid in the kind of places they wouldn’t normally go near if they were of a sober disposition. Being one-eighth Irish on my Father’s side obviously makes me an expert on such matters, or at least as much of an expert as most people you’re likely to meet in an “Oirish” pub today so I’ve brought you a couple of suggestions on places to spend your evening! With so many green-adorned Londoners around the place your chances of an authentic Irish St Patrick’s day are pretty minimal so it’s probably best to surrender to the inevitable from the start and just set out to have an “Irish-themed” evening as the chances are that even your local curry house will be pushing the Guiness this evening.

Anyway, down to the nitty-gritty. My nearest Irish pub is O’Neill’s on London Wall and they will be putting on the ‘craic’ today from 11am to 11pm
O’Neill’s, 64 London Wall
http://www.oneills.co.uk/oneillslondonwall/offer/celebratestpatricksdaywithus/

Moving further afield there’s Filthy McNasty’s whisky bar up near Angel, which has been kindly described as ‘rowdy’ and ‘no-frills’, making it an ideal location for the evening’s festivities.
Filthy McNasty’s, 68 Amwell Street
http://www.filthymacnastys.com/

If you fancy heading up to the West End then to my mind the obvious place to go is Waxy O’Connor’s in Rupert Street by Piccadilly Circus where there’ll be live music and more but I’d recommend getting there early as it’s guaranteed to be packed.
Waxy O’Connor’s
http://www.waxyoconnors.co.uk/london/index.asp

Have a great evening, whatever you end up doing, but in the meantime you might want to read up on the controversy surrounding the use of the word ‘craic’ so you’ve got something “Oirish” to talk about in the pub tonight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craic

City Of London Elections – City Vote ’09

It might easily have passed you by in the hubbub of City life but today is voting day in the City of London elections which span the 25 City wards to elect the 100 Common Councilmen, responsible for representing the City’s interests in the Court of Common Council.

If you want to find out more about the City of London’s elections and what it means in real terms then I’d recommend having a look at the Cityvote site on the Corporation of London website.

City Vote ’09
http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/cityvote09/

800 Saxophonists Required

Are you handy with a saxophone? We learn via the Guardian that John Harle has written a piece for 800 saxophones called Leviathan. It’s intended that the piece will be played on the streets of London this June, as part of the City of London Festival.

According to the Festival website, “any saxophonist can take part, regardless of age or ability, all you need is a saxophone!”. For further information and to register please contact saxophone@colf.org

Barbican Australian Film Festival

A good few years ago it used to be the case in City pubs that if a bar was occupied by English people then the people behind it were bound to be Australian, then came the New Zealanders, South Africans adding their style and characters to London life, though now it seems like it’s best to be able to order your pint in Polish!

In honour of our antipodean bretheren (relatives in my case) tomorrow heralds the start of the Barbican’s Australian Film Festival so if you have never scratched beyond the surface of Australian films then I’d highly recommend a trip over to the Barbican where the festival runs from the 12th March to 22nd March. Inevitably the 1994 hit “The Adventures of Priscilla – Queen of the Desert” does feature and with dressing up being positively encouraged there will be a prize for the most dazzling diva of the evening.

Barbican Australian Film Festival
http://www.barbican.org.uk/australianfilm

The CCTV “300 times a day” myth

If you’ve read my other posts you’ll know that the erosion of freedom in the name of so-called security bothers me. All of us in the Square Mile will be on CCTV at times throughout our working day and one oft-quoted figure is that the average person is captured on CCTV 300 times a day. For example the figure was used by the BBC in 2002, the Independent in 2004, the New Statesman in 2006 and The Evening Standard website in 2007.

However that figure has recently come under the scrutiny of David Aaronovitch from The Times who traced the claim back to a book called The Maximum Surveillance Society dating from 1999:
“The footnoted page was towards the back of a chapter detailing a day in the life of a man called Thomas Reams, as he did various things in and around London. By the end Thomas had been filmed by over three hundred cameras on over thirty separate CCTV systems, the authors wrote, adding:
“While this contrived account is, of course, a fictional construction, it is a fiction that increasingly mirrors the reality of routine surveillance.”

What? A fiction! A zillion references to 300 times and it was a fiction! “

Oh dear. Another urban myth then. Like many generally accepted sayings doing the rounds this one’s turned out to have no basis in researched fact.

A challenge then! I did begin to wonder if things had moved on since 1999 so I decided to count the number of cameras I passed on the way from my front door to reaching my desk at work. I didn’t count all camera I passed but only the ones that I seemed to have a good chance of appearing on and the total I came to was 51. If I double that figure for the return trip then I’m still nearly 200 short of the mythical 300 but I imagine that it’s acheivable for people who are on the move all day.

See if you can count the number of cameras you pass through the line-of-sight of on the way to work and let me know how you get on.

Sound of Church Bells Returns

Restored church bells have been consecrated and put in place at the Church of St Magnus the Martyr in Lower Thames Street. The service was conducted by the Bishop of London and attended by the Lord Mayor and sees the return of bells to this historic church for the first time in nearly 70 years.

The restoration of the bells came about after a successful campaign to raise £300,000. Listen out for their chimes across the City.

Find out more

Attack of the office foghorn

A colleague’s just arrived and said that Bank station has been closed and that people were being ushered out of the station because of “an emergency”. The TFL website rather unhelpfully says that the Waterloo and City line is suspended to “to prevent overcrowding at Bank”. Any idea what’s going on?

Anyway, spare a thought for another poor colleague of mine, who I’ll call “Mike”, who fell prey this morning to the office foghorn, who I’ll call Bob. Every office I’ve worked in seems to have a Bob, the type of person who has a voice of such immense volume that it makes a Metallica gig seem like a quiet afternoon in the country. Mike’s a nice bloke and tends to keep himself to himself so it must have been some kind of shock when Bob wandered over to him this morning and said, in a voice loud enough to vibrate the windows:
“So, I hear yesterday’s lunch gave you the squits!”
Mike pales, obviously weighing up whether to attempt to ignore the question (pretty tricky at that volume), deflect the question (not a tactic likely to work with Bob) or just answer it. He plumped for the latter option and ended up explaining to anyone within earshot (e.g. anyone within the M25) how he spent an hour and a half of the very early morning on the porcelain and was left sweating like a long-distance runner, and presumably a lot thinner from the experience. We see him in a whole new light now.

Me? I’d have feigned narcolepsy.

UPDATE: As of 9.15 Bank station was open again. Anyone know what happened?

A modern parable?

I see that Bluu Brasserie on Moorgate is having a half-price food sale this week for breakfast and dinner so if that floats your boat then get on down there. Do drop me an email if you see any good offers around the Square Mile.

Anyway, I hope this’ll make you smile. But wait, there’s more!

Strange City sights

A colleague alerted me to the arrival of a strange pod at the corner of Moorfields and London Wall.

On speaking to the people milling around the booth it’s BBC2 filiming some voxpops for a two-part special on the issues surrounding women in the workplace and they’ve been filming around the country for their research. If you have an opinion on the subject, and who doesn’t, then get down there before 3.30pm today and speak to one of the nice production people lingering around the pod and you might be able to get inside the pod and get yourself on TV!

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