City of London Festival Starts June 19th

The City of London Festival – an annual celebration of the arts and culture in the Square Mile – will begin this Friday (June 19th) and will feature a packed programme of the activities and events lasting through to early August.

The Festival will kick off at noon on Friday with an opening procession from the steps of St Paul’s, led by the “funky percussion duo” Bang On!

Also on Friday, the exciting-sounding  Street Pianos Project begins. Fifteen pianos will be placed around the City available to anyone to come along and partake in an ad hoc singalong.  Let’s hope the sound of fat fingered amateurs attempting “Roll out the barrel” does not become too irritating too soon.

The pianos will be around until the middle of July before being donated to local community groups and schools.

Here at TheCity.co.uk, on our What’s On pages and on our Twitter account, we will be highlighting selected events from the Festival calendar. To see the programme in its entirety, visit the COLF website.

Grow Your Own in Guerrilla Gardens

The Guardian reports that the City of London Corporation is to encourage local residents to grow their own fruit and vegetables, and in the absence of any local allotments, new spaces may be created at the building sites of stalled developments.

The paper quotes Sue Ireland, Head of Open Spaces, as saying:

“There are plenty of temporary sites awaiting development and there is no reason why, if carefully done, they could not be turned to other uses… We are trying to identify a site on the edge of the Square Mile that would be vacant for between 18 months and two years. Grow bags are one possibility. They could be butted up together and moved as and when the developers need to start work.”

Would you welcome the opportunity to grow fruit and veg in ad hoc allotments in the Square Mile?

See the full Guardian story here

Spitalfields Market Music Festival

What is it with the hay fever this year? Most years I get a few sniffles, though nothing a quick trip to Boots couldn’t sort out, but over the weekend heading out of doors with anything less than a deep-sea-divers suit on caused my face to explode in a liquidy, tissue-destroying mess. As a result I didn’t exactly enjoy the weekend sunshine but now that I’ve found some more anti-hayfever drugs I’m all up for the remainder of the Spitalfields Market Music Festival, which comes to a close on Friday.

Probably the most accessible part of the festival for City folk is that all of this week there are free lunchtime gigs outdoors at the market between 12.30pm and 1.30pm. In addition to that there are evening concerts and for those who don’t fancy sitting down after a day behind a desk there are musical walking tours to be had as well.

If you, like me, work “the other end” of the City then going more than 400 yards at lunchtime can seem like a strange idea but I’d seriously recommend it, particularly if you haven’t been to Spitalfields Market before.

Spitalfields Market “Summer 09″ Music Festival
http://www.spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk

Open Squares in the City – 2009

Open Squares is an initiative to open up gardens and green spaces across London to the public, some of which aren’t usually accessible. 2009′s Open Squares is taking place this Saturday and Sunday (13th/14th June).

Once you buy a ticket, you visit all of the gardens involved in the scheme – the gardens in the City are:

• Christchurch Greyfriars Rose Garden
• Clearly Garden
• Fann Street Wildlife Garden
• Finsbury Circus Garden
• Postman’s Park
• St Dunstan’s in the East
• St Jodeph’s Garden
• St Paul’s Cathedral Churchyard
• Salter’s Gardens
• Innter Temple Garden
• Lincoln’s Inn Gardens
• Maughan Library and ISC Garden
• Middle Temple
• West Smithfield Garden

Find out more at Open Squares – If you visit any of the gardens, why not come back and post a comment to let us know what you thought.

Leigh Pitt Honoured in Postman’s Park

A City worker who died whilst rescuing an 9 year boy who had fallen into a canal will be honoured today at Postman’s Park.

Leigh Pitt worked for outsourcing company Williams Lea at Merrill Lynch and was aged 30 when he died in the accident two years ago. It happened in the Broadwater Dock canal in Thamesmead, near Leigh’s home.

“Postman’s Park”, as it is known, celebrates the herorism of ordinary people who lost their lives saving other people and is is located between King Edward Street, Little Britain and Angel Street.

The new plaque being laid will say:

Leigh Pitt (30)
Reprographics Operator, Anson Place, West Thamesmad, London, lost his life on 7th Jun 2007 attempting to rescue a 9-year-old boy who had falled into a deep lock at the Broadwater Dock, West Thamsmead, London.

Hat tip to the Evening Standard

European Election Results 2009

Elections to the European Parliament took place last Thursday, and 2095 votes were cast in the City of London. It was a good night for the Conservatives, as they scored 32.4 % of the vote (628) – over twice as much as Labour who received 16% (336).

Labour were edged into third by the second place Lib Dems who gained 19% with their 399 votes.

The Greens came fourth with 14.6% (305) and UKIP gained a 8.8% share – far lower than their national average. The controversial British National Party mustered only 2.2% from voters in the Square Mile.

Click here for a full break down of votes cast in the City of London.

Crisis Square Mile Run 09 Raises Money For Homeless

The 17th annual Crisis Square Mile Run took place on Thursday 4th June, with 2700 runners pounding the streets of the City to raise money for a good cause.

Chris Cook won the men’s race, completing the 3.75mile course in 24m 31s. Gillian Curr was the victor in the women’s race with a time of 26m 25s

Find out more about the Crisis Square Mile Run and register for next year’s race.

Ride The North Devon Surf in The City of London

North Devon is, apparently, home to some of the finest surfing beaches in the UK and in order to tempt you down there for your credit crunch friendly holidays, NorthDevon.com is embarking on a tour of the UK and they’re bringing their Brush Board Surf Simulator with them.

The North Devon Rush Hours tour will arrive in Finsbury Avenue Square, in Broadgate, on Tuesday 16th June and give you the chance to watch, or try, the only Brush Board machine in the UK.

There will be surf videos and experts on hand to talk to, as well as information about places to stay in North Devon. You can win a surfing holiday in Devon if you enter their competition and there will also be some giveaways on the day.

North Devon Rush Hours
Finsbury Avenue Square, London – Tuesday 16th June

The Tube strike is on?

So this is it. It seems like the negotiations between the RMT and TFL have broken down and we’re in for two days of testing Londoners’ ingenuity as to how to get to work. If you work close enough to the mainline station you come in to then you’ll be laughing but if the tube is your regular poison then I don’t envy you. It’s still not 100% certain that the strike is going to go ahead and there’s always the possibility of a last-minute reprieve but in many senses damage has already been done in unsold tickets for the England v Andorra game, to name but one high-profile victim.

Riddle me this though. The Evening Standard says that the RMT balloted “up to” 10,000 of its members about the proposed action and the RMT web site reports that 2,810 members voted in favour of a strike with 488 opposing. Now to my mind that’s not an overwhelming endorsement of industrial action is it?

So where does that leave us? From what I can see the RMT is run by a vocal minority living in the nostalgic afterglow of the tube strikes of the past while the majority of RMT members don’t care enough about their fellow Londoners to bother to vote. Your average John and Jane Commuter will have to put up with this foolishness for a few days and if your boss puts a black mark against your name for having the bad luck to turn up late, or finds somebody else to do your job, then don’t think that the RMT or its members are going to cry any tears over it.

So what do you think of this whole mess?

Police Appeal for Witnesses to Bus Accident

City of London Police have appealed for witnesses to come forward after a pedestrian received life threatening injuries after being hit by a bus at the junction of Old Broad Street and Liverpool Street.

The pedestrian was struck at about 1.45pm on Monday 1st June.

Sgt Bill Holder said: “The collision happened outside the busy train station at a time when many City workers and visitors will have been on their lunch breaks. We need to hear from anyone who saw the incident.”

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact the investigating officers by calling 020 7601 2222 or call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

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