Friday 9th January  22:48 pm Good Evening

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Nelson's Column 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. 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!