Boris Johnson

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we’re a little Northern country that financially punches above its weight, combining sophistication with brutish selfishness, and in uncertain times we timidly retreat to a level of safety. Last night we did it again; after six weeks of campaigning that might have stood for the very model of democracy […]

I met production designer Anton Furst on the set of Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’. He explained to me his vision for Gotham City. It would have been built upon so many times that the oldest, most classical parts would be in darkness, while the private penthouses would reach the sun at the top. The more he […]

  This just in: ‘Boris Johnson’s office said that since he was elected, the number of Londoners living in areas exceeding legal limits had halved.’ It doesn’t say whether this is because he’s killed them or they’ve had to move to cleaner areas. The row is over new figures just out pointing to Oxford Street as […]

The double-decker bus is inextricably linked with that song in my head, probably because at the age of seven I queued up to see Cliff Richard in ‘Summer Holiday’, and when director Peter Yates turned his monochrome footage to colour with the approach of the bus, we felt as if Britain had just driven out […]

Cassetteboy is back, bringing my first laugh-out-loud moment of the day. Well OF COURSE we all hate Sebastian Coe but this is still surreal genius. As is the TV series ‘Twenty Twelve’, which should be a box set.

With the mayoral elections coming up, let’s take a quick look at the candidates. Boris has a mad middle name (de Pfeffel), is charismatic because he knows how to work the press, and swiped all Ken’s credit for getting London cycling. Nothing sticks to the old Etonian and he’s notable by his absence as much […]

This is how Leicester Square looked during the strikes of the seventies. It’s not much different now, except that tourists have replaced the binbags. Actually, if you look carefully you’ll see that the surrounding buildings were a lot nicer then. Now, thanks to excessive plastic signage, the rampant spread of outside drinking areas, takeaways, mimes […]

I’m a bit mystified by the Mayor’s determination to make us all get on bicycles. Both Boris and Ken are cycling fans, but I don’t know anyone who has ever used one to get to their office in London. This rack in Soho doesn’t seem to be going down too well. I watched two trucks […]