Wednesday 7th January  6:14 am Good Morning

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Nelson's Column September Saying Tanks for the Mammaries 12th September 2007 And 'Nuts' to the arms dealers Military vehicles have always been popular with men of a certain disposition, especially when women in skimpy outfits are also involved. Curiously enough, along with the survivalists, rugby players, and suburban mouth-breathers who glaze over at the sight of any copy of Guns & Ammo, hippies also seem to adore tanks. The KLF used to drive to raves in a particularly garish pink tank, there are almost as many APCs as camper vans at California’s ‘Burning Man’ festival and now London’s own mild-mannered activists The Space Hijackers are joining the party: every Nuts-reading man’s dreams came true at the ‘Defence Systems & Equipment International Exhibition’ (the London Arms Fair) when a tank rolled up to the ExCel centre, with a leggy redhead in a PVC nurse’s outfit perched on the turret. It was a cracking little stunt, whose military-style planning involved Facebook groups and a decoy tank rolling through the Channel Tunnel. Altogether, it showed a lateral thinking and sense of humour that was sadly lacking in the worthy but rather dull Heathrow Climate Camp last month. Certainly, I would have had absolutely no idea there was an arms fair happening in my city if they hadn’t done it. But the question remains: why do hippies love their tanks so much? Why should these peaceable types be so very excited by a four-tonne killing machine? Partly, of course, it’s because it allows them to get into the kind of arguments that make bureaucrats look really silly (in this case, it was to do with the complicated question of whether it was illegal to sell a tank at an arms fair), but there’s something deeper at work. The cuddly activists, whose previous events have included such terrifying protests as the Trafalgar Square Pillow Fight, and the Circle Line Parties, sat on top of that tank with expressions of pure glee. The answer, of course, is that they were discovering a pleasure normally denied to those who lead a moral existence: the simple happiness that comes with getting behind the wheel of an enormous, extravagantly polluting vehicle. A tank is the ultimate extension of the bull-barred ‘Chelsea tractor’: a 4 x 4 with a massive gun stuck on the front, able to take up both lanes of the road, impossible to overtake, and ending every journey with the remains of other people’s Smart Cars needing to be picked from between the tracks. It’s a taste of the lads’ mag lifestyle, the ultimate tester for the soul of anyone who is used to the chill and terror of riding a bicycle through the London traffic, and I suspect there may be a few of those boys and girls scanning e-bay for a cheap Range Rover this week. We’re all to be grateful to the Space Hijackers for their selfless gestures in raising our consciousness, but I do worry that in saving our souls, they may have damned their own. One More Drink and I'll Be... Bemoaning your desperate need for a holiday over a bottle of wine after work takes on a whole new meaning when you can actually see the places you’d rather be! This is the concept from new trendy members bar twentyfour:london, near Carnaby Street, which projects films of worldwide locations around the walls. No need to leave London, you can just pretend you’re sipping your cocktail in Hawaii and then get a cab home. Forget the Olympic Torch, London’s got Art The 2012 Olympics is a good excuse to throw some more money (not taxpayers’ cash I hasten to add) at great big (possibly steel) sculptures for people to gawp at. I’d hate to call it competing but it has been casually thrown in that there’ll be something as big as the Angel of the North, Antony Gormley’s creation overlooking the A1 in Gateshead. Maybe Gormley can make a replica angel for the M25… All the world’s a platform I thought the Tube had reached the dizzy heights of its creative side with its ‘Poems on the Underground’ campaign but never underestimate the determination of marketing people to popularise art. The latest inspiration from the Royal Shakespeare Company is the Shakespeare Tube Map (coming to a mug or T shirt near you), which plots the Bard’s characters onto an interconnecting diagram like the famous Underground map. Starting at Richard III and making it to Prospero is only for the serious Shakespeare traveller. 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