Wednesday 7th January  12:49 pm Good Afternoon

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Nelson's Column September DRINK! DRINK! DRINK! 9th September 2005 24 hour boozing comes to London Town Well, this week the newspapers have finally woken up to the implications of the new 24-hour-licensing. It seems amazing that it’s taken them so long to spot this important story, especially given the amount of booze most journalists put away, but it set me to wondering just what effect this will have on London. Will we become, as the government assures us, a Southern-European type of city, where people start their evenings at midnight, drink a couple of beers through the night, while chatting amiably about art and philosophy, and finish up with a plate of oysters by the river, before soberly heading home, their shirts still tucked into their white jeans? Or will we be the kind of place the tabloids are warning of, a sink of drunken depravity, where every Saturday night Burberry-clad gangs, insensible with alcohol, turn Central London into an orgy of vomit, fighting and public sex? I can’t picture either scenario myself. Londoners are too naturally reserved for that ever-so-sophisticated Mediterranean way of life. How many people do you know who got together with their current partner while stone-cold sober? I do know men who can pull without a couple of early drinks to lower their inhibitions – but none of them are English. Equally, we’re way, way too cool to become a city of drunks. Our artfully ripped jeans fall apart at the slightest provocation, our bimonthly haircuts need to be blow-dryed into place and fiddled with ten times a night, and our taste has to be on alert all night long, just in case we stray into a bar that stopped being fashionable two weeks ago. We simply can’t take the risk of staying out drinking too long, and actually letting ourselves go. I would guess, in fact, that the English will continue to call time at eleven o’clock of their own volition. The only real change that the new laws will have on our lives, is that the tabloid newspapers will fold one after another, as their journalists, incapable of resisting the lure of booze, drink themselves into a stupor every night. Blockbuster's Breakfast A portrait of Harry Potter author, JK Rowling, is one of the National Portrait Gallery’s latest acquisitions. A notoriously private figure, Rowling is captured sitting at a table in her home, eating a boiled egg with toast soldiers. McCabe and Mr Miller 80-year-old Hollywood patriarch, Robert Altman, has announced he will make his London stage directing debut next year. The “action painter” of American cinema will direct one of Arthur Miller’s final plays ‘Resurrection Blue’ at Kevin Spacey's Old Vic. Contract Car Culling Residents of Orford Road, Walthamstow, were left high and dry when contractors removed their cars without notice or warning during the night. Every car on the street was relocated so the road could be resurfaced. December 2008 23rd December January is on the Horizon 20th December Merry Christmas November 2008 26th November All The World's A Stage 20th November Surviving the Crunch October 2008 24th October Boris v Jingjing 17th October Soaps in Pole Position September 2008 23rd September Chips too Chavvy for Chelsea 16th September The London Restaurant Awards August 2008 26th August No Smoking, No Ducks, No Barbecues 20th August The Olympics July 2008 24th July Sandwiched Out 17th July The Show Ain't Over 'Til the Fat Lady's on Page 3 June 2008 26th June Love All at Wimbledon 16th June Miller Puts the Heat on Tennant May 2008 27th May Booze Banned on Buses 20th May Same Again? April 2008 23rd April By George 11th April Back to the 80s March 2008 28th March How do You Solve A Problem Like Medea? 20th March Flight Fantastic February 2008 20th February Dark, Satanic Turnmills 6th February A Diamond in the Drink January 2008 21st January People Wanted for Plinth 14th January Boo! Hiss! December 2007 28th December Tate That - A Hirst for Art 20th December Christmas Shopping November 2007 27th November Mind the Gap 26th November London On A Tray October 2007 26th October Leaving the Station 14th October The Sky's the Limit September 2007 26th September The Play Within A Play 19th September Fashion, Frocks and Celeb Shocks 12th September Saying Tanks for the Mammaries August 2007 24th August Heathrow under Siege 17th August Gormless 10th August Losing Face July 2007 24th July Are We Reaching Boiling Point Yet This Summer? 13th July Red Ken versus Blonde Boris June 2007 22nd June Last Orders at the Fag Machine 11th June London the Musical May 2007 21st May What Lurks Beneath 10th May The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of April 2007 27th April London’s Walk on the Wild Side 20th April Stand Behind the Yellow Line 13th April Like Water for Chocolate March 2007 23rd March So, Another Magazine 16th March Avoiding iContact February 2007 23rd February Sex and Art... 16th February C-Charge Protest Fails to Bring Down Government 9th February Live Earth London January 2007 26th January A Vote for Shilpa is a Vote for Britain 18th January Carriage on up the West End December 2006 29th December Food for Thought 22nd December A Poisonous Marketing Campaign 15th December In for a Penny, In for Five Pounds November 2006 17th November Big Department Stores Leave Santa Out in the Cold 10th November Failing to Save the World October 2006 27th October Frozen Prawns and Melting Icecaps 20th October Predatory Pelicans and Happy Woodland Folk 13th October Hope at last for east end of Oxford Street September 2006 16th September Lite the Blue Paper and Stand Well Back 9th September Of Poles and Twiglets August 2006 25th August Free Fares For the Fat and the Fashionable 11th August London Friendly 4th August Archway To Organic Heaven July 2006 21st July London - Celebrity Frat House 7th July Out of the Galleries into the Streets June 2006 23rd June Mayors, Nightmares and Marias 16th June Downright Rude in Paris and London 9th June Enter the Inferno May 2006 26th May Curvaceous Border 12th May Vegging Out April 2006 21st April The Camden Crawl 17th April Down the Pan 13th April I Want to Break Free 9th April Big Brother seems to have been left in a bar somewhere 7th April Don't Box Me In March 2006 24th March Political Correctness Reaches New Heights February 2006 24th February A Stadium's Tale: Cup Final Goes West 17th February Modern Musicals are Rubbish 10th February The City-Side Alliance January 2006 20th January February Sales 20th January Moby Sick 13th January Glass Half Full 3rd January Three Cheers for the Tube Station Workers December 2005 22nd December January Bites 16th December A Remarkable Year November 2005 25th November And a Partridge in a JCB 11th November Driving Miss Sadie 4th November Spam, Spam, Spammity-Spam, Shakespeare, Zorro, Chico and Rasputin October 2005 28th October Trick or Treat? 21st October We Don't Mind a Little Delay... 14th October Final Resting Place for Young British Artists September 2005 16th September Just a small urn for me, please barman 9th September DRINK! DRINK! DRINK! 2nd September The Free Tenor