So, it’s finally happening. Six-and-a-half long years after it was first introduced on the Tube and buses, Oyster pay-as-you-go will be introduced on London’s National Rail routes from 2 January, it was confirmed on Monday. Two cheers – as mayor Boris Johnson quite rightly said, “After what feels like eons of negotiation and much gnashing of Londoners’ teeth we can finally announce the Oysterisation of all London’s rail services. We’ve finally ended the crackers situation of Londoners not being able to use Oyster on every mile of London’s track.”

Actually, he hasn’t – Heathrow rail services are exempted, and so are the fast trains from St Pancras to Stratford International, which begin next month. No East End plebs on those, ta. Our mayor has never been known for being a details man, you see.

I’ve done a summary for greenwich.co.uk which details the effects this will have on SE10’s three National Rail stations – on the whole, you can adapt most of that to any of the zones 2 and 3 stations in this part of south-east London. The full set of fares were covered on this blog earlier this month, and you can see what happened last week when I found one of the readers working at Blackheath.

And there’s even a colourful new map of all the new Oyster routes…

However, the price London’s privately-run National Rail companies – Southeastern, Southern, South West Trains, Chiltern, First Great Western, First Capital Connect, London Midland, National Express East Anglia and c2c – have extracted from London’s commuters shows just who’s really in charge. Not the Conservative mayor, not the Labour government, but these private interests and their shareholders. The new fares system is fiendlishly complicated – more complex than any expert or anorak ever anticipated.

Not only does it punish occasional customers – a trick we’ve seen on London’s transport in recent years, it also completely screws some of their best customers – a prime feature of unaccountable, private monopolies.

Firstly, though, the companies are using the Oyster change to quietly slip through a stealth fare rise. Off-peak returns using paper tickets are being scrapped, in favour of a standard rate closer to what rush-hour passengers pay. To be fair, we’ve been here before. Soon after Oyster was introduced on the Tube and buses, TfL – then with Ken Livingstone behind the counter – jacked up its cash fares to a stonking £4 on the Tube in Zone 1, and £2 on the buses. That was explicitly designed to persuade passengers to switch to Oyster. It took a while for many to accept the change – but the vast majority did, thanks to the huge publicity surrounding each fare change. (And Evening Standard-based outrage, of course; some years before it introduced its own Eros pre-pay system for buying papers at a cheaper rate.)

However, unlike the Tube, boring old mainline trains don’t really make headlines unless they crash, and it’s not in the train companies’ interests to tell people they could save money by switching to a system they didn’t want to have to introduce in the first place, and that isn’t run by them. So while there was a big TfL publicity campaign to get Tube users to use Oyster cards, don’t expect one for mainline trains. It’s not even as if their ticket machines are compatible with them.

And even if you do switch to Oyster, if you travel during the day, you face paying a peak fare if you travel during the morning or, for the first time in decades, the evening rush hour. Peeking at the new timetables, it’ll be 60p cheaper to go home to Charlton on the 1901 from London Bridge than it will be on the 1855. To a Zone 6 station like Crayford, the gap opens up to a yawning £1.70. Not what the suburbs voted Boris in for. That may be a crafty ruse to free up more space for homeward bound commuters, but it’s no good for families taking their kids for a simple trip into town during the school holidays.

A higher farescale for people using both the Tube and mainline rail services in zone 1 is also another sly money-raiser. Don’t fancy the awkward interchange at London Bridge to reach Charing Cross, so want to use the Tube from Cannon Street instead? Delays at Charing Cross, and it’s simpler to use an alternative station? Tough – it’ll cost you.

Secondly, comes the oddest part, the punishing of the railway’s best customers – Travelcard holders. The very best of them, annual ticket holders, hand over more than £1,000 a year to London’s transport organisations, but have as much influence over their train services as someone who prefers to get stuck in a traffic jam each morning. However, for over 20 years, annual Travelcard holders have benefited from a third off mainline travel in the south-east of England. I have a Gold Card (for a couple more weeks, at least) and it’s brilliant. It makes a massive difference if you’re heading out for the day – or even longer – to somewhere like Canterbury, Oxford or Reading, the kind of journey where you might want to plan ahead.

But if you’re heading just a little way out of your zones, even if you have an Oyster card, you still have to go through the same hoops as you would for a night by the sea in Brighton for a quick drink with a pal in the suburbs. Ticket machines won’t sell the extension tickets required, so you need to queue at a ticket office, and ask someone for “return from the boundary of zone 3 to Bromley North, please, with a Gold Card”. All this for a ticket costing about £1.50, which probably won’t get checked at the other end. It is, quite frankly, easier to skip the fare on many journeys in London. Oyster pay-as-you-go should resolve this nonsense – but it won’t. Even though the Oyster smartcard knows it has an annual ticket on it, the train companies refuse to allow Gold Card holders to take advantage of their discounts without forcing them to queue up at understaffed ticket desks. Is this the way to treat your best customers?

And, of course, for all Travelcard holders, there’s the nonsense of the Oyster Extension Permit, not mentioned at all in publicity issued by TfL and the train companies on Monday, but it is happening. If I want to use my Oyster card for that quick drink at Bromley North, I’ll need to find a ticket machine, ticket office or Oyster newsagent, or ask them to load on a pemit, or I risk getting fined by a ticket inspector. The theory is that the rail companies want to protect against fare-dodgers because their stations don’t have ticket gates, but the Docklands Light Railway works very well without ticket gates, and without putting a presumption of guilt on Travelcard holders travelling outside their zones. Diamond Geezer studies just what Transport for London needs to tell its Travelcard holders.

Despite what Boris says, the situation’s still crackers. The fare scale is fiddly for anyone who isn’t a geek like me, people get punished for daring to use two different modes of transport, and people who put thousands of pounds into the railways get treated like children. But who’s going to stick up for rail passengers? London’s media either glossed over or ignored the downsides of the Oyster changes, with the Standard declaring it a “revolution” in a headline probably dictated from City Hall.

In politics, Labour is fatally compromised by the fact that it has created this situation by privatising every single one of London’s rail franchises, bar one – the London Overground service taken back by Ken Livingstone. The Conservatives are similarly silenced by the fact that they invented this insane system in the first place – even though Boris Johnson has said a couple of times how frustrated he is by his lack of control over London’s rail firms. Interesting how both mayors see things differently from their parties.

The Lib Dems have an effective transport advocate in Caroline Pidgeon, but once again, her credibility is undermined by the fact that her party also backs rail privatisation. Which leaves the Greens, my own party, who back renationalising the railways, but are unfortunately very quiet on the issue at a London level, which is something I find perplexing because it’s such a clear point of difference, and a if better-known would be a hugely popular policy.

So London’s voiceless commuters get screwed again, but there’s nobody who’ll really stand up for them. The politician or party who’s brave enough to take these issues on, and keep on bashing away at them, is pushing at an open door. But has anyone got the guts to take up the challenge?

See also: Two posts from Bexcentric, and London Reconnections.

London Eye Photography by Martin Worster, originally uploaded by MartinWorster.

A lovely view of the Houses of Parliament in London taken from the London Eye. It’s a magical view – I half expected to see Peter Pan fly across the roofs…

Day two of the ATP Finals at the 02 Arena in London are over with the first big upset. Robin Soderling who entered the tournament as a replacement for injured Andy Roddick used some effective serves and his big forehand to put away Rafael Nadal 6-4, 6-4. It was Soderling who put Nadal out at the 2009 French Open.
The other group B match pitts Novak Djokovic versus Nikolay Davydenko.

Celebrating the end of Exams, University of Exeter

When I was nineteen, I went to study in Exeter, a smallish city in the South West of England. If I’m honest, I went there because I didn’t get in to study at Cambridge (I’ve just about forgiven them now), and also because when I went down to interview, we won the princely sum of ten pounds each (in today’s money, this is probably nearly a thousand dollars!) in a math quiz, which when then ploughed back into the local economy. Or ‘pub’, as it’s called in the West Country. If decide to study in Great Britain, this is the sort of term you’ll have to pick up. Language can be a slippery fish. Luckily, that’s what we’re here to help you with.

Anyway. Suffice it to say, I grew up south of London, pursued my study in Exeter for four years, and then spent four years living in Bristol before moving to San Francisco. I have a Masters in Physics – can you imagine that? – and a lot less hair than I did when I started. Though, that’s probably genetic, and probably nothing to do with studying in the UK. That suit still fits me, though, which is something I’m quite proud of.

What did I enjoy most about studying in England? I was, and still am, a big fan of crappy indie bands. One of the more underappreciated things about Great Britain is that the small size of the country affords such bands the opportunity to do a nationwide tour in a couple of weeks; in California, for example, this isn’t practical, so unless you live in one of the major cities, you often miss out on the smaller bands, and you almost never see underground acts from the East Coast. In Exeter, on the other hand, you might see a band from the other side of the country within a couple of months of their inception. Thus, the ‘scene’ grows and changes rapidly, as everyone who cares has heard about what’s going on.

So, yes. I still love England (though, the sun coming in through the window of my San Francisco apartment whispers sweet nothings in my ear), and someday I shall return to live. In the meantime, if there’s anything you’d like to ask me, or would like me to write about, please feel free to shoot me an email. Enjoy the site!

Skream is holly shit , a fabulous dupstep dj and producer from the UK , based in Craydon (London) definitely responsible for dubstep genre’s developement. He released an absolutely fantastic album in 2006 on tempa records.The homonym album is just amazing even if you dont know all of the tracks I bet you know Midnight request line which is one of the most popular tracks of the album. I guess for the music collectors this album is a “must have it in my music library” , for dubstep djs , producers and listeners is education. highly recommended /required. You can listen a track from the album bellow

I kväll hade vi bord på Murano, en av Gordon Ramsays restauranger. Vi tyckte det var läge att fira, lite sådär i största allmänhet. Finns ju massor att fira när allt kommer omkring! Vi åt avsmakningsmenyn, och den var väldigt god. Bäst var, enligt maken, pistaschsufflén. Det var dock sista rätten ut, så det fanns knappt någon plats kvar i magen. Bäst enligt mig var en ljuvlig tryffelrisotto.

Pistaschsufflén ses längst uppe till höger. Festliga glassar nere till vänster.

First, a disclaimer: I don’t profess to be any kind of expert in street art. Or even a novice, really. I just know that, when I spot a fresh stencil or spy some sick piece, it makes me smile—and, if I happen to have a camera with me, snap some photos.

I guess the thing about street art is the sense of place it evokes—which one naturally notices more when one is traveling, seeing a city with fresh eyes. As the world gets smaller, regionalism can be hard to find; this is especially true in the Westernized world. Traveling in Western Europe, you constantly see the same chainstores, the small brands, the small fashions—girls are wearing whatever’s hip at H&M everywhere from Malmo to Madison (and I’d like to say myself excluded, but that would be a lie). Street art, whether it’s good or not, shatters through that; its viscerality marks a place, claims it, and if you’re traveling, can often reveal a lot more about where you are than reconstructed period buildings and restaurants with picture menus (really, paella all kinda looks the same).

I hung around some East Bay graf kids for a time, and still smile when I see their tags around town. A repeated stencil, a tag, a distinctive style—they’re like recurring images from a dream, someone else’s dream, and you catch little glimpses, train your eyes to look down alleys and up at overpasses, and you feel like you’re in on something. It grounds you in a very tangible way, connects you with the phantoms that sneak around at 3am with backpacks full of clanging illegality, with their finger-staining passions and illicit dreams. Of course, I was never one of them; a certain romance remains when it’s not you getting arrested or jumped in some strange turf battle. But I will say you interact with a city—its architecture and landscape, its thingness—differently when you’re even vaguely in tune with its street art. And when you’re traveling, it can often be your only contact with the night-crawling kids that in large part create the pulse of a place.

My first stop on my trip was London, where I of course went on an all-day goose chase for Banksy (chronicled here). The hunt also took me past several of these digitized little fellows that I’ve spotted in other big cities.

Super poor picture quality, but what can you expect from a 2am street lamp and a mediocre camera? This I spotted in Madrid, near Plaza Sol. If you can’t tell, it’s two tangoing figures with security cameras for heads.

Granada generally had some piss-poor graffiti and stencils, but this one made me laugh. Totally fitting for a college town.

I spotted this one several times around the beach breakers in Tarifa. The sentiment jived well with the surf-town vibe, and the fact that it was in English spoke to the internationalism of the unassuming little place-between-places.

As you might guess, there wasn’t a whole lot of street art going on in Morocco, or at least in the places I went. What one does see a lot of is stenciled Muslim calendars, on the side of buildings, with icons depicting certain holidays and dates. My favorite was the rose. I of course have no idea what it denoted or what the Arabic says, and retained none of the heavily accented, half-French explanations.

But of course, the best stencil piece I saw was in one of my favorite dirt-road beach towns, Mirleft. Popular with vacationing Marrakeshis, artists, dreadlocked travelers and, well, me, Mirleft seemed a perfect place to find this, peeling away on a side street.

Back in Europe, much of Lisbon’s street art had a distinctive Brazilian flavor, which makes sense considering the city’s large Afro-Brazilian population, and the fact that São Paulo and Rio are some of the biggest and baddest producers of street art in the world. I saw this stencil around the center, around uber-hip Barrio Alto.

And this was a simply incredible wheatpasted portrait over near the Alfama district.

Another college town, Coimbra had a fair amount of politicized stencils. This one was especially interesting given the prevalence of domestic violence in Portugal, and the pervading stigma against seeking help: “Every 2 weeks, a Portuguese victim of domestic violence dies.” The number is a little more somber when you consider the small country’s population of 10 million.

On the flip side, this was just awesome.

And I quite liked this one as well.

But the place that really took the cake was Porto. Good ole unsuspecting Porto, forever in the shiny, smiley shadow of Lisbon. These were all taken near hip-slick-and-cool Rue Miguel Bombara.

The paper cranes were like punctuation, all over the walls of the street, serving as both a kind of visual break and space filler between the other pieces.

This little girl is up a few places; each time, she’s touching something different. From what I could tell, this was the logo of a nearby art gallery/collective.

Possibly my favorite. Simple but expressive, and totally took me aback when I spotted it down an alley.

I don’t know if these reveal any more about the places I was in, but to me they do. And if nothing else, they’re better than cell phone ads.

I got back from London yesterday, where I attended the PTC New Journalist of the Year Awards 2009 in Southbank’s top spot Vinopolis. The event started with a master class with interesting presentations by leading figures of the magazine publishing industry and idea workshops in smaller groups.

After a delicious lunch the award winners were announced. Three of last year’s graduates of my course, MA in Magazine Journalism, had been shortlisted in the category ‘Most Promising Student of the Year’ – but unfortunately none of them won.

Lonely Planet Magazine editor Peter Grunert was highly commended in the category ‘New Editor of the Year’. I took the chance to congratulate and introduce myself to him after the ceremony, as I am going on a work placement at Lonely Planet Magazine in March.

You can find lots of pictures of the event on the PTC website. Click on this image to open a gallery:

I hope I will find time to write a bit more about the master class presentations soon.

our next show is British Contemporary Crafts
in Chiswick Town Hall, good old London Town
next weekend – 27th, 28th & 29th nov

we haven’t taken part in this show before and we
are looking forward to it – the show is now in it’s
10th year, so is very well established and has
some great designer makers every year

{click on the image for more info}

hope to see you this weekend,

sammy & glenn
pachadesign

(full report pending)

The wines we tasted were:

2006 Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference, Amarone della Valpolicella (Sainsbury’s, £14.69)

2004 Massimo Romeo, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano (Berry Bros. & Rudd, £15.70)

2006 Querciabella, Chianti Classico (Waitrose, £16.99)

2004 Argiano, Brunello di Montalcino (Negozio Classica, £38.99)

2004 Rocca di Montegrossi ‘Geremia’, Toscana IGT (Handford Wines, £31.95)

2006 Cantina del Pino, Barbaresco (Waitrose, £24.99)

2005 Paolo Conterno, Barolo (Negozio Classica, £39.99)

Hi. This is my first blog. I really don’t know much about blogging. So I’m just going to type in whatever is on my mind. Thats good, right? It keep the post raw, fresh out of my crazy mind.

Okay.. Here’s the thing. Nobody knows I have a blog. My sister doesn’t know, my Mom doesn’t know. Not a single soul.  So basically this is an anonymous blog, for now. Let this be our little secret, okay? I’m going to be really truthful, and just put everything out there. I have nothing to lose. It’s actually a great benefit for me since it will help me clear my mind. So before I start my little rant about my so called life.. let me start by introducing myself.

I am 20 years old, I was born in Germany. My father is German and my mother is Filipina. My father thought that it was a great idea to send my Mom, my younger sister and myself back to Manila.. so that’s where I grew up. After a few years working as an actress and  being the breadwinner of the family during my teen years, my Mom got married to an Englishman and since then we have moved to England to live as a family. Happy Ending, right? Well not quite.. I wasn’t ready to move to another country and leave my job, my schooling and my friends behind. But I had to. It was the hardest thing I had to do… It took me 2 years of going back and forth of the two countries and alot of running around and wasting time to realize that I can’t keep running from the truth anymore. I live here, in London. It’s starting to sink in, and I’m getting used to the thought everyday. This may sound really shallow, but believe me.. it’s hard. I think I’m very much ahead of my peers because of all the situations I had to go through in my life. I’m not here to rant about not getting the newest Chanel purse or not getting a call back from a guy from class. Although to be honest with you, that is the exterior of me. I’m suppose to play out perfect daughter, perfect girl. I’m a Barbie and I’ve made of plastic. Lot’s of plastic. Nobody knows that a doll can have troubles and like this blog, I’m not about to tell the world who I really am…yet.

The London Daily News is reporting that last year the Metropolitan Police spent over 10 million GBP (that’s over $15 million!) on translation services last year. Crikey!

The following is a list of the main languages the Met are having to translate:

• Urdu
• Slovak
• Russian
• Portuguese
• Czech
• Bulgarian
• Arabic (yay!)
• Farsi
• Kurdish
• Lithuanian
• Polish
• Punjab
• Romanian
• Gujurati

The article seems to take the view that this spending is a waste, but personally I think it’s a good sign that the Met are actually willing to assign this amount of money to these much needed translation services.

Expansion and growth are main objectives in new Sales Director’s role at GTE’s UK office

ORLANDO, Florida — Gas Turbine Efficiency plc (AIM: GTE), a leader energy and aviation products and services, announces the hiring of Lee Wilkinson as Sales Director for the company’s European power generation market. In this role, Mr. Wilkinson will direct business development operations to expand GTE’s power generation business from its North East Lincolnshire, UK office.

In addition to achieving strategic growth goals, Lee Wilkinson has been tasked with increasing GTE’s customer mix and meeting the company’s new business objectives through agreements with utility operations throughout Europe. Through Mr. Wilkinson’s development of market intelligence, GTE will secure its industry leadership in Europe as part of the company’s expansion plans.

GTE announces the hiring of Lee Wilkinson as Sales Director for the company’s European power generation market.

“The European power generation industry can benefit from GTE’s offering of proven gas turbine productivity and environmental solutions.” said Steven Zwolinski, Chief Executive Officer for GTE. “Lee will provide an important link to European customers where the value of GTE solutions is amongst the highest globally.”

According to the European Turbine Network (ETN), fossil fuels will still be the dominant fuel for power generation through 2030 and gas turbines will remain a key technology in this industry. To capitalise on Europe’s power generation needs, GTE is increasing its industry footprint by taking an active role in the development of technologies that can lead to cleantech solutions for sustainable energy generation.

“Europe’s demand for energy will continue to increase in the future and GTE is securing its place in the power generation industry to respond to this market,” said Par Krossling, Managing Director EMEA. “Lee’s incorporation into the team is one more key element in our strategy.”

Before joining GTE, Mr. Wilkinson worked with Pratt & Whitney as European sales manager and with RWE Power International as head of its business development group. Given his knowledge of the European power generation market, he contributes the benefits of existing contacts in Europe, a solid industry reputation and depth of knowledge in a market that offers a high potential for growth. As an accomplished professional, Lee is an Advisory Board Member for PowerGen Europe and holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering.

“The European market is traditionally an early adopter of cleantech solutions,” said Marcus Turner, Chief Marketing Officer. “With close to 4,000 gas turbines operating in Power Generation and Oil & Gas sectors, GTE sees a large market opportunity for continued expansion in this region.”

The growth outlook for the European power generation market is well served by GTE’s expanded product line in clean technology and sustainable energy services. A full description of GTE’s products and services, including case studies, can be found at www.gtefficiency.com.

GTE will be exhibiting at Power Gen International 2009, the world’s largest Energy Industry convention on December 8-10, 2009 in Las Vegas, NV. The company will be located in booth number C3/600, Row 1, in the convention’s expo floor.

About GTE

Gas Turbine Efficiency designs, manufactures and supplies proprietary cleantech energy saving and performance enhancing solutions to the power generation, oil and gas, and aviation industries. The company’s extensive portfolio of patented cleantech solutions save fuel, reduce emissions, increase availability, and extend turbine and parts life. The Group also provides solutions for burning a wider variety and quality of fuels such as liquefied natural gas, clean coal and alternative fuel blends. Products and services developed by our world-class technology team include compressor cleaning and power augmentation systems; fuels management systems; combustion design, repair, upgrade and monitoring; and fluid and control auxiliaries.

For more information about Gas Turbine Efficiency plc and its products and services, please visit http://www.gtefficiency.com.

For more information:

Megan Thomas
Director of Communications
Gas Turbine Efficiency
media@gtefficiency.com
Phone: 407.304.5236

###

Country’s teen queen Taylor Swift is the winner of five American Music Awards, including artist of the year.

Late king of pop Michael Jackson got four trophies during the 37th AMA show at downtown’s LA Live.

The 19-year-old Swift was in London for her Wembley Arena concert tonight and she accepted three of her awards via satellite.

Swift was also named favorite female pop/rock and country artist and favorite adult-contemporary artist. Her album, “Fearless,” won favorite country album.

Jackson’s trophies were accepted by his brother Jermaine, who paid tribute to his late brother by wearing a glittery white glove.

Jackson was voted favorite male artist in the pop/rock and soul/R&B categories. His 2003 greatest-hits album, “Number Ones,” also won favorite album in both categories, bringing his career AMA total to 23, making him the most honored artist in AMA history.

Meanwhile, Adam Lambert has no day-after regrets about his eye-popping performance on the American Music Awards last night.

Lambert writes on his Twitter page, “All hail freedom of expression and artistic integrity.” Lambert’s performance involved shoving a man’s head into his crotch and making out with a male keyboardist.

ABC says it’s gotten 1,500 complaints about Lambert.

His CD, “For Your Entertainment,” is out today.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

"I know that it’s easier to look at death than it is to look at pain, because while death is irrevocable, and the grief will lessen in time, pain is too often merely relentless and irreversible."
—Robert Goolrick

Une petite carte de voeux pour Vinothentic! Une bonne adresse pour les amateurs de bons vins et de bons conseils…

Regular readers of the Whingers’ comments sections may have noticed Sir Andrew Lloyds Credit Crunch complaint that “I pay you to WHINGE, not CRAWL.”

Perhaps this will at least, in part, justify the regular charitable direct debit paid into the Whingers’ joint bank account (Andrew to Phil – what bank account? Do we have a bank account?). But, Sir Andrew, before you withdraw your generous remunerations entirely, you should know that what follows is a perfectly balanced combination of both the W word and the C word.

Do you remember how the Whingers used to moan about the Menier Chocolate Factory’s unreserved seating policy? After putting that right it seems churlish to complain about their online booking system.

But of course we will. Sweet Charity (book by Neil Simon; music by Cy Coleman; lyrics by Dorothy Fields) happens to Andrew’s favourite movie musical, and it’s pretty high up on Phil’s list too so the Whingers were in high spirits when they entered the auditorium on Sunday afternoon for the second preview.

But cheer gave way to despair when they realised that their seats in Row A to the extreme right hand side of the auditorium offered an extremely oblique view of the stage. Andrew had booked online as soon as the booking for Charity had opened and it was galling to see people who had booked weeks after the Whingers sitting in prime seats with great views of the stage. For a moment they even contemplated the benefits of unallocated seating.

Phil was spiralling into a massive grump but perked up considerably the moment the orchestra struck up for the overture. None of your radical four upright pianos reinvention here but a 10 piece band and even from their rubbish seats the sound was gloriously rich and brassy (which seems as good a place as any to complement Gareth Owen on the sound design – perfectly balanced and we could hear every word).

Even the opening scene in Central Park where Charity (Tamzin Outhwaite) is unceremoniously dumped by Man No 1, her boyfriend Charlie (Mark Umbers)  thankfully didn’t feature one of Phil’s theatrical bêtes noirs a park bench as it so easily could have. But it did feature his other theatrical no-go-area: balloons.

Nonetheless Phil was still staying with the show and optimistic.

But then came the iconic and beautifully staged and choreographed (by Stephen Mear) “Big Spender” number which really needed to be seen from the front and the problems (for Phil) really started. Phil kept looking around: what was the noise distracting him? Not only was the view terrible but he was distracted by the cast who were dashing around back stage changing behind a curtain within a few feet of the Whingers.

While Phil could appreciate what was clearly a tip top production, he just couldn’t enjoy it. Even Andrew (who was loving it all) had to admit that he couldn’t see how Charity was getting laughs from her antics in the wardrobe due to the fact that he couldn’t see her at all. Nor could they see Charity in the closing scene of Act 1 where she and the claustrophobic Oscar (Umbers again) get trapped in the elevator.

By the interval the beautifully executed “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This” was running though Phil’s head but for all the wrong reasons and his first action during the interval was to forbid Andrew from ever using the Menier’s online booking system again.

But an angel in the form of Webcowgirl intervened: one of her party was forced to make an interval departure and she offered it to the Whingers. Andrew insisted that Phil take the vacant prime seat, an act of, well rather sweet charity, but one whichAndrew has milked non-stop since (although in actual fact he was just pleased to be shot of Phil and his moaning).

But do you know what:  the second act was a different show for Phil and in his new position he found himself un-distracted by noises off, able to see everything and proceeded to enjoy the show utterly (apart from the director chatting to another creative a seat away). For the rest of the afternoon it was all plain sailing.

Although Outhwaite may lack some of the traditional vulnerability of Charity, she is utterly charming and unlike some leading ladies we’re too polite to mention, she really can sing and dance. She is also very convincing with her chewing gum. Umbers is excellent in his multiple roles (he also plays the film star Vittorio Vidal) and -  in a role that could go horribly wrong – he is outstanding as the bumbling Oscar. Support comes from all directions, not least in the form of the ever reliable Josefina Gabrielle as Nickie and Ursula.

But a big thumbs up to the entire ensemble who are forever rushing on, doing a big dance number before rushing off for another quick change. Style-wise, it’s an impeccable production which nails the late sixties aesthetic perfectly:  Matthew Wright’s costumes are exquisite and the wigs (Richard Mawbey of course) are exquisite.

And the songs are delivered with great panache: Herman’s (Jack Edwards) “I Love To Cry At Weddings” is a triumph and brilliantly staged by director Matthew White. So is “Rhythm Of Life” and even the slightly naff “I’m A Brass Band” doesn’t seem so bad.

One or two notes:

• Give Ursula a blonde wig; she looks too much like Nickie at the moment.
• We can see why you might want to get away from the iconic switch (right) employed to such effect in the film’s Pompeii Club dance scene. Ebony Molina’s Tina Turner wig is great and she dances wonderfully but think of all that fabulous switch-swishing you could do with the right wig.
• La Cage Aux Folles finishes in January. I’m sure the Cagelles could be very usefully employed in the “Big Spender” number.
• Sort out the online booking system.

And then, really, everything will be wonderful. Go see it. From a good seat.

Footnotes

Of course, the best thing about the Menier is that you can hang out in the bar afterwards and watch the cast rushing off home. The Whingers and entourage sat there until the barmaid explained that everyone else had gone home and she would quite like to lock up please.

But not before the Whingers had been collared by Tamzin Outhwaite (left) who insisted on having her photograph with the Whingers while teasing that she didn’t know who or what the West End Whingers were.

Then it was the turn of Mark Umbers (right) who insisted on standing on a box to make himself look taller than the Whingers. We wish it to be known that Andrew and Phil are actually 6ft 3in in their stockinged feet and Mister Umbers is only 5ft 4in.

It was lovely too that New York press agent Adrian Bryan-Brown of Beoneau/Bryan-Brown came over to introduce himself. The Whingers tried to entice him to stay for a drink and a gossip but he may have sensed that he would have had a lot of catching up to do in the drinking department and he made his excuses.

And amazingly David Babani also came up and introduced himself. Andrew took the opportunity to suggest that the Menier revive Kander and Ebb’s 70 Girls 70 but his non-committal response seemed to suggest that he didn’t really do requests.

Before Jack arrived my only experience of Christopher’s had been business lunches.  Its American-style surf and turf menu, efficient service and great location make it a perfect choice for that kind of dining.

Not surprisingly I wasn’t convinced it would be an ideal choice with a baby in tow.  We picked a weekend lunchtime which turned out to be a popular time to go with kids as we weren’t the only ones.   The restaurant is up a set of spiral steps to it’s best to leave the buggy downstairs.  It is advisable to take the baby with you, though.

A high chair appeared without fuss.  Jack was only just starting on solids so I’d come prepared with a pot of mush which seemed to keep him happy.  I didn’t ask the staff to warm it, though I didn’t get the impression that such a request would have been too much to ask.

The waiters are super efficient but not overly friendly: perhaps because they are more used to a business clientele who prefer to be left alone as much as possible.

The toilets are a challenge.  They are surprisingly small for a restaurant of the calibre of Christopher’s and there is little room for changing a baby, let alone a table.   This is definitely a place to go with slightly older toddlers and children who will feel like it’s a proper grown up dining experience.  There are probably better places to go with a small baby.

Rating:

Stylishness: 3/5

Friendliness: 3/5

Feeding Facilities: 3/5

Changing Facilities: 0/5

Food: 3/5

Overall rating: 12/25   ££