Sax in the City tonight!

I’m looking forward to this evening. A lot. In case you weren’t aware Leadenhall Market have been holding “Sax in the City“, which is an overflowing bounty of lunchtime jazz, and this evening is the pinnacle of the event, namely the big evening bash.

Now some of you may still be lingering under the philistine misapprehension that jazz is inpenetrable music best played in darkened bars but It starts at 6pm and features a number of great acts with unassuming legend Steve Gregory in the lineup.

To quote from his bio:
Best known as the session musician who played the famous saxophone solo on George Michael’s “Careless Whisper”. Steve has also played on many other hits such as Queen’s “One year of love”, Alison Moyet’s “That ole devil called love”, Van Morrison’s “Hymns to the silence” and Chris Rea’s “Fool if you think it’s over”. If you enjoy Eastenders re-runs you might even see Steve backing Letitia Dean in the Vic!

There are other bands too with “Cattle Market”, winners of the 2009 Cheltenham Jazz Festival, featuring prominently and “Client Number 9″ on last and DJ Mark JB in between times.

Even if the idea of the music doesn’t immediately float your boat you should do yourself a favour and come along to enjoy the atmosphere as the bars will be open, they’ll be food a plenty and magicians will be wandering through the crowd plus it’ll be a chance to see one of music’s real characters.

You’ll need to go here if you want to see the programme for the evening and register to turn up.

Rain, rain, go away.

If you trudged into the office in the rain this morning you, like me, might be wondering where the “Barbeque Summer” that the Met Office was promising back in April. Given our typically British fascination for weather the news seemed to visibly lift the faces of glum office workers and provide visions of summer frolics, happy garden parties, the delightful scent of family barbecues and lazing in pub gardens on sunny Sunday afternoons. In June we could have believed it was true with the blazing, sunny days and assorted Government health warnings so let’s just remind ourselves of that glowing press release that the Met Office put out on April 30th (not 1st) shall we?

The coming summer is ‘odds on for a barbecue summer’, according to long-range forecasts. Summer temperatures across the UK are likely to be warmer than average and rainfall near or below average for the three months of summer.

Chief Meteorologist at the Met Office, Ewen McCallum, said: “After two disappointingly-wet summers, the signs are much more promising this year. We can expect times when temperatures will be above 30 °C, something we hardly saw at all last year.”

Although the forecast is for a drier and warmer summer than average it does not rule out the chances of seeing some heavy downpours at times. However, a repeat of the wet summers of 2007 and 2008 is unlikely.

Well, they were right in that we’d get some “times” where temperatures were over 30 degrees as Wisley recorded a high of 31.8 degrees in June but saying he would “not rule out” some heavy downpours seems a serious underestimation in hindsight as some areas received twice their average rainfall, even in sunny June. You could probably sum up that forecast as “It might be hot, then it might not” and that “Barbecue Summer” was cooked up by some gormless intern in their press office but everyone will remember reading the “Barbecue Summer” quote in the news with, perhaps, some simmering resentment.

The BBC News website has also had enough and taken the Met Office to task:
The Met Office also says temperatures have been around or above normal, and that the end of August might be better again. It did indeed stress at the time of the summer forecast in April that the odds of a scorching summer were 65%. It explains that it coined the phrase “barbecue summer” to help journalists’ headlines. But this has come back to bite the organisation because many people do not feel like they have been enjoying a “good” summer, especially compared with previous searing years.

Indeed. According to the mean temperatures 2006 was the warmest July going and on current form this one won’t compare though with predictions like that perhaps they could get a job in the City…

Is the wet summer affecting your holiday plans?

Met Office Summer Forecast - 30th April 2009
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20090430.html

BBC News - Met Office Cools Summer Forecast
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8173533.stm

Mean Temperatures for July to 2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8127386.stm

Google News articles on “Barbecue Summer” (via bit.ly)
http://bit.ly/kNogk

What’s On This Week: July 27th - August 2nd 2009

Eclectic is the name of the game this week with a real mixed bag of things happening in The City.

On the educational front the Museum of London are uncovering some Thames Treasures with a whole raft (geddit?) of guided tours and workshops designed to bring the river to life.  For the children there are opportunities to learn about weapons, boats and other cool stuff at the weekend drop-in sessions whilst the more grown-up kids may prefer the lunchtime guided tours that focus on the history of the river from prehistoric to medieval times.

Fans of theatre are also in for a treat, as the Old Red Lion Theatre is hosting no less than 3 productions this week. ‘Les Chaises’, from Tuesday to Saturday, is a triad of short pieces centred on the chair: I know it sounds a little odd, but it’s all in context - one focuses on her late father’s chair, another on a psychologist’s couch and so on.  There’s also the fun looking ‘Darwin -The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Survival of [R]evolutionary Theories in The Face of Scientific and Ecclesiastical Objections: Being a Musical Comedy About Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)” - the title says it all really.  Finally there’s the debut of ‘Art House’ by a young Australian playwright, exploring themes of betrayal and sisterhood in this promising thriller.  And if all that doesn’t satiate your thirst for theatre, The Bridewell Theatre is still showing their 1950s take on Much Ado About Nothing, lunchtimes until 7 August.

Music lovers, well specifically folk music lovers, will also be spoilt for choice. The Betsey Trotwood in Clerkenwell will be hosting French folk-pop songwriter Francoise on Tuesday evening; he’s a big myspace hit and is about to release his album via an indie label, with this the London leg of his UK tour. The Slaughtered Lamb is also holding a trio of gigs from Monday to Wednesday, with a mix of well-credited folk bands and a Bowie-esque electro-pop singer.  Told you this week was an eclectic one!

Did we miss anything? Post other stuff happening this week in the comments below. To get future events featured in this weekly post, email whatson@thecity.co.uk

City of London Board Game Launched for Charity

A new board game called “City of London” has been launched in aid of Lord Mayor’s Appeal Charities. In it, your aim is to become the Lord Mayor of London, and to do that you secure ward seats, win elections, become a Freeman and more before getting to the top job at the Mansion House.

Multiple choice questions about the Square Mile need to be answered in order to progress through the game, with the 25 wards, the Old Bailey and the Guildhall all featuring on the attractive board.

The Lord Mayor’s two charities that will benefit from the sale of the game are St John Ambulance London (Prince of Wales’s) District and The Lord’s Taverners.

Designed for 2-4 players aged 10 and above, ‘City of London’ is available at the special price of £25.00 if ordered in advance via www.lordmayorshow.org and collected from The Mansion House, or at the retail price of £29.99, post free. It’s also available from Guildhall’s Library and Art Gallery shops, St Paul’s Cathedral shop and, from August, at John Lewis and Peter Jones in London.

Ian Pay, The Lord Mayor’s Appeal Director says, ‘We think that ‘City of London’ is the perfect gift for anyone interested in the City of London or who professes to be an expert on the ‘Square Mile’. It’s also a great way of supporting two hugely worthwhile charities, discovering facts about the City and having fun at the same time.’

City school abuse scandal

It seems like there may have been the wrong kind of sex in the City as the papers have been humming with the news that the City of London School for Girls has been rocked by the allegations of an inappropriate relationship between a 26-year old teacher and an under-16 year old pupil. The woman was apparently arrested on Monday and has been suspended pending further investigations although that point seems somewhat procedural as the school heads into the summer holidays.

Today’s Daily Mail has named the teacher concerned:
“Helen Goddard, 26, a trumpeter known as ‘the jazz lady’ by her pupils at the £13,000-a-year City of London School for Girls, was arrested on Monday and released on police bail”

Whilst the investigation is yet to determine exactly what went on I’m sure the school will be hoping that it’s robust response to the allegations will allay the fears of parents and also demonstrate to the various City institutions that support it that they have handled the situations well.

The school has 700 pupils aged from 7 to 18 and has been on its Barbican site since 1969 and is a very highly-rated school indeed which has top-rated examination performances and has had agony aunt Claire Rayner, TV presenter Claudia Winkleman and singer and musician Dido as pupils in the past.

There’s some confusion over exactly when the school started as their own website has the confusing sentence:
“Founded by a City merchant, William Ward in 1881 City of London School for Girls opened in Carmelite Street in 1894”

Eh? The Time quotes the 1881 date but the school seems to consider its birth year as being 1894 though as they recently celebrated their 110th birthday in 2004-2005.

City of London School for Girls
http://www.clsg.org.uk/

The bonuses are back in town

The New Yorker has given us a treat in the form of a fake Goldman Sachs internal memo, Goldmans famously having bought themselves back out of US government support and now starting to splash the cash about again.

It starts off simply enough:

“We had a few hard months there, didn’t we? They regulated our corporate jet so that we could no longer use it to fly from hole to hole on the green. Dave had to drain his money pool to half capacity. I stopped injecting gold into my blood. They don’t call it a recession for nothing. One day, we’ll look back on the year we received only five-figure bonuses and laugh. ”

Then it moves on to the real gold of the piece:

“So I ask that, in celebrating our raping of the stock market, we show restraint in the following ways:

• Please limit high-fives and chest bumps to a dozen a day.
• Don’t wear your crowns, except around the office.
• Stop paying for things in Monopoly money—I understand it is the same as real money to us, but there have been some complaints.
• For now, let’s take down the giant scoreboard that reads “Main Street: zero. Wall Street: a billion gazillion bajillion.” “

And finishes off with this touching note:

“I’d like to thank everyone who made this possible—for a second time. Respect to President Obama for keeping us in the green. Thanks to the big guy upstairs (me). And let’s not forget all the ordinary Americans, who, for some unfathomable reason, have refused to put us behind bars. We are literally taking money out of their wallets. Seriously, with these returns we are making Madoff look like a little kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. Amateur! ”

Great piece of writing by Farley Katz and a brilliant fake. It is fake, right?

The New Yorker - Fake Goldman Sachs Memo http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/cartoonlounge/2009/07/goldman-sachs-internal-memo.html

The “Great Inbox Filler of 2009″ - Nominations?

One of the pleasures of working in the City is having loads of contacts to keep up a happy banter with by email but do you ever find that someone sends you an email joke and within a week you must have seen it at least a hundred times? Well the flavour of the month on that count is the “swine flu alert” one going around. The punchline either seems to be “Person surives swine flu with some after-effects” or “Don’t go to work if you wake up looking like this” but if you haven’t been blessed by this particular email I’ve included the picture so you can now send it to your colleagues.

Probably the most annoying, and gross, one that was going around a while back was entitled “Spiders in Iraq” showing a soldier holding up a pair of Camel Spiders and the email came with a colourful narrative explaining how they injected anesthetic into a limb while you were sleeping and then ate the flesh off it and other spectacular feats such as running at 25mph while emitting an ear-splitting scream or jumping several feet into the air.

To show that there is some sanity on the internet Snopes.com disassembled these various claims and exposed them as huge exaggerations or downright lies but either way it clogged up my mailbox for ages and I grew bored of sending back the explanation from Snopes. Anyway, now you’ve got the picture and the lin’s below so you can either choose to send the real facts to all the annothing people who sent it to you or you can rebrand it as “Spiders in Afganistan” and pass it round pretending to be hot-off-the-press news!

Have you got any favourite email jokes or ones that drive you to distraction that you’d care to share?

Snopes.com - Camel Spiders in Iraq
http://www.snopes.com/photos/bugs/camelspider.asp

Stunt Rider Jumps Tower Bridge

Renowned stunt rider, Robbie Maddison, achieved a first last week when he performed a spectacular backward flip across a partially closed Tower Bridge. The Australian FMX legend got an upside down view of the iconic bridge and the Thames below as he made the jump across. See for yourself in this video below:

What’s On This Week: 20th July – 26th July 2009

The weather may not have been too encouraging this past week but we Brits are well used to soldiering on through July with cheery optimism and in that vein, there’s plenty happening to celebrate the Great Outdoors in the City this week. 

The prize for ‘most gung-ho’ (aka brave) must go to the Barbican for their ‘Do Something Different’ weekend, a range of free activities from the festival standard dancing classes and al fresco live music to the less conventional staring contests, ice-cream making sessions and sandcastle building competitions.  There’s obviously a family focus but the live music sessions run well into the evenings and promise an energetic and lively collection of Brazilian Music and brass ensembles that will appeal to all ages.  Just pretend that golfing umbrella is really a giant cocktail umbrella… 

Barbican’s neighbours, Guildhall School of Music, are also venturing outside this Thursday for their ‘Inside Out: Picnic Music’ concert on the steps of LSO St Luke’s.  The up-tempo young Matt Fripp Jazz Trio will be providing the soundtrack to your cucumber sandwiches with a mix of Jazz, Latin and Bossa Nova in this laid-back, free lunchtime affair. 

The Exmoor Singers are feeling a little more cautious and have chosen to bring the outdoors indoors with their ‘Echoes of Nature’ concert on Monday at St Giles Cripplegate.  They’ve chosen an interesting programme of folk-ish choral music inspired by the natural environment, ranging from play-it-safe Benjamin Britten to the remember-we-used-to-sing-it-at-school ‘Who Killed Cock Robin?’, a brave choice by even the daring Barbican’s standards.

Top 5 Places To Sit And Think In the City

I like thinking. I find that it keeps me out of trouble a lot of the time and has even led to some excellent life, and career, enhancing decisions but one question that exercises my brain is where are the best places to sit and think in the City?

Flying in the face of popular opinion I don’t think that a pub or wine bar is the best place to think about, say, relationship woes because although the word thinking and drinking both end the same way the results rarely do. Now I’ve got that off my chest here is my list of favourite spots for a little summertime thinking.

1) St Alphage’s Highwalk
This out-of-the-way spot is devoid of grass and high on concrete but tucked away above London Wall it’s a quiet spot to sit and reflect in the sunshine away from the masses though if you want to imagine you’re in rolling countryside then you’d better have a very vivid imagination. There are a fair number of benches or you can sit on the low and reasonably comfy walls and if you haven’t got anything else to think about you can think about who St Alphage was.

2) Finsbury Square
Who couldn’t love the appeal of sitting out in the open with the occasional clack of bowl-on-bowl from the bowling green. Plenty of benches and lots of grass to sit on with the odd ice-cream van dotted around the area. It’s a great people-watching spot too so if that’s your thing then this should be high on your list.

3) Finsbury Circus
Between Moorgate and Liverpool Street this has to be the City’s nicest place to relax and ponder the meaning of LIFFE but it can get busy and if you can’t get there early in the lunchtime rush you’ll need to be prepared to sit on the grass or hover around to get a space on a bench. It is a prime spot though so even if you don’t make it a regular haunt you have to do it at least once to see why it’s so good.

4) New Change
The gardens and benches around New Change and St Pauls are great places to hide away. It can be a busy spot and the closer you get to St Pauls the more tourists you’ll have to contend with but it’s still worth grabbing a sandwich from a cafe in Watling Street and sitting outside for a while.

5) Postmans’ Park
A recent addition to my list of places to visit it gets its name from the heroic deeds of everyday postal workers and has numerous benches and a fair amount of grass to sit on with the added attraction of being the only place on my list with a small fountain and ornamental pond. Tucked away round the back of St Pauls it tends to be quiet and isn’t a sun trap being hemmed in by City buildings.

Let me know if you’ve got your favourite spots!

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