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May
Booze Banned on Buses 27th May 2008
Sobering times for party people in motion
For Marcel Proust, it was the taste of a Madeleine cake that drew him irresistibly back into reveries of his childhood. For me, and many other Londoners, it is the smell of alcohol on the bus. It’s not quite as romantic as Marcel’s memoires de temps perdus, but the heady, sticky smell of a bottle of alcopop, combined with gentle swaying motion of the top deck, creates an instant jog of memory to giggly teenage journeys into the West End.

At this fledgling stage, we couldn’t afford the drinks in the bars, so we had something on the way there instead, and great fun it was too (certainly more enjoyable than the later part of those evenings, which generally involved standing in Zoo Bar being leerily chatted up by middle-aged drunks).

Boris Johnson’s official line is that banning booze on buses and trains is a ‘zero tolerance’ crackdown on ‘intimidation’. He seems to believe that the worst thing about public transport is the sight of a sleeping tramp cradling a Special Brew, or a group of tittering middle class schoolgirls, proving how grown-up they are by drinking bottles of WKD.

Aggressive drunks on buses and trains are, of course, a real nuisance, and it would be lovely to get rid of them. But the tube and bus drivers’ union have already said that their members get more than enough grief in the course of their duties, and they certainly won’t be enforcing this new rule when they don’t fancy it. In other words, they’ll happily tell groups of harmless teens to put their booze down, but when it’s a squad of skinheads in Chelsea shirts necking Stella and vomiting on the seats, they’ll develop a sudden blind spot.

So just when teenagers have been granted the right to travel for free, they’re having one of the great joys of teenage travel removed. It’ll be back to sitting on benches in Leicester Square for the pre-Zoo Bar drink, until someone bans that too.
Spitting DNA Images
Bus Drivers are to be given DNA kits to help catch people who spit at them, in a repulsive, but probably very effective initiative to reduce anti-social behaviour. The ‘spit kits’ (yuck!) are already in use at Tube Stations, where recent delays have created something of an epidemic of bad-tempered spitting incidents. All 7,000 busses in the London fleet are to carry the kits. Hopefully, they won’t come up with a new verse for ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ to describe them.
Livingstone Radio Show
It’s a long tradition for talk radio hosts to divide their audiences, usually by being outrageously right-wing. LBC’s latest pundit, however, will be infuriating listeners from the other half of the political spectrum, in the three-hour-a-day Red Ken morning special. The former London mayor describes his show as an opportunity to ‘detox’ after listening to the poisonous Nick Ferrari.
EU Ban for False Quotes
Ever wondered why the dreadful musical you went to last night had such glowing reviews on its billboard? It’s because of a popular practice known as ‘cherry-picking’ in the PR world, or ‘lying’ to everyone else. Classic examples include the review of Guys and Dolls: “Frank Loesser’s great musical from 19560 is hilarious… Grandage’s production often falls flat”, which appeared on the billboards as “‘HILARIOUS’, Independent on Sunday”. The practice is being outlawed by new EU directives, so promoters are going to have to find some new way to cheat us out of our money.
2009
2008
23rd December
January is on the Horizon
20th December
Merry Christmas
26th November
All The World's A Stage
20th November
Surviving the Crunch
24th October
Boris v Jingjing
17th October
Soaps in Pole Position
23rd September
Chips too Chavvy for Chelsea
16th September
The London Restaurant Awards
26th August
No Smoking, No Ducks, No Barbecues
20th August
The Olympics
24th July
Sandwiched Out
17th July
The Show Ain't Over 'Til the Fat Lady's on Page 3
26th June
Love All at Wimbledon
16th June
Miller Puts the Heat on Tennant
27th May
Booze Banned on Buses
20th May
Same Again?
23rd April
By George
11th April
Back to the 80s
28th March
How do You Solve A Problem Like Medea?
20th March
Flight Fantastic
20th February
Dark, Satanic Turnmills
6th February
A Diamond in the Drink
21st January
People Wanted for Plinth
14th January
Boo! Hiss!
2007
28th December
Tate That - A Hirst for Art
20th December
Christmas Shopping
27th November
Mind the Gap
26th November
London On A Tray
26th October
Leaving the Station
14th October
The Sky's the Limit
26th September
The Play Within A Play
19th September
Fashion, Frocks and Celeb Shocks
12th September
Saying Tanks for the Mammaries
24th August
Heathrow under Siege
17th August
Gormless
10th August
Losing Face
24th July
Are We Reaching Boiling Point Yet This Summer?
13th July
Red Ken versus Blonde Boris
22nd June
Last Orders at the Fag Machine
11th June
London the Musical
21st May
What Lurks Beneath
10th May
The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of
27th April
London’s Walk on the Wild Side
20th April
Stand Behind the Yellow Line
13th April
Like Water for Chocolate
23rd March
So, Another Magazine
16th March
Avoiding iContact
23rd February
Sex and Art...
16th February
C-Charge Protest Fails to Bring Down Government
9th February
Live Earth London
26th January
A Vote for Shilpa is a Vote for Britain
18th January
Carriage on up the West End
2006
29th December
Food for Thought
22nd December
A Poisonous Marketing Campaign
15th December
In for a Penny, In for Five Pounds
17th November
Big Department Stores Leave Santa Out in the Cold
10th November
Failing to Save the World
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
16th September
Lite the Blue Paper and Stand Well Back
9th September
Of Poles and Twiglets
25th August
Free Fares For the Fat and the Fashionable
11th August
London Friendly
4th August
Archway To Organic Heaven
21st July
London - Celebrity Frat House
7th July
Out of the Galleries into the Streets
23rd June
Mayors, Nightmares and Marias
16th June
Downright Rude in Paris and London
9th June
Enter the Inferno
26th May
Curvaceous Border
12th May
Vegging Out
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
24th March
Political Correctness Reaches New Heights
24th February
A Stadium's Tale: Cup Final Goes West
17th February
Modern Musicals are Rubbish
10th February
The City-Side Alliance
20th January
February Sales
20th January
Moby Sick
13th January
Glass Half Full
3rd January
Three Cheers for the Tube Station Workers
2005
22nd December
January Bites
16th December
A Remarkable Year
25th November
And a Partridge in a JCB
11th November
Driving Miss Sadie
4th November
Spam, Spam, Spammity-Spam, Shakespeare, Zorro, Chico and Rasputin
28th October
Trick or Treat?
21st October
We Don't Mind a Little Delay...
14th October
Final Resting Place for Young British Artists
16th September
Just a small urn for me, please barman
9th September
DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!
2nd September
The Free Tenor
30th August
Samba Rhythms Breaking Out All Over The Stadium
20th August
Getting Behind the Iron Farce
10th August
Mystery Play is No Sell Out
29th July
Moving On From 7/7
22nd July
Get loaded in the park
15th July
Victoire!!
24th June
New Balls, Please
17th June
The End of an Unsightly Era
10th June
The Hooded Law
31st May
Widespread Diso-’Beeb’-ience
20th May
Pass the Pepper Spray
20th May
Black Theatre Breakthrough
27th April
Five More Years
20th April
Dancing with Idiots
12th April
A Youthful Look at the Theatre
30th March
Musical Communion
23rd March
Big Guns Back in Town
10th March
Celebs in the City
28th February
There's no business like showbusiness!
22nd February
Ken You Believe It?
10th February
Make Poverty History
28th January
Loving It!
21st January
The Great West End Ticketing Scandal
14th January
The Triumph of the Ordinary
2004
30th December
Party Pooper
23rd December
The Second Battle of Trafalgar
16th December
Sadie's Year
28th November
Ripper-Watch
21st November
Kinky Boots
14th November
Smoked out
22nd October
Yuppie Meal
15th October
Fines of Fury
8th October
No Twist in the Turner
17th September
Battleships, bloodsports and Batman
10th September
Clique Week
3rd September
Return of the Bard
20th August
Politics Takes Centre Stage
13th August
Crisis in Theatreland
6th August
Journey's End
23rd July
Healing Waters
16th July
Mandela Statue in Doubt
9th July
From Art to Ashes
2nd July
One Hurdle Nearer to Gold
 
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