Dear Londoners — Whether you're going to be eating Crêpes Suzette at the Ritz or sugar and lemon in the comfort of your own flat, we hope you're as excited as we are for Pancake Day tomorrow. A sweet treat wasn't always the main appeal in the capital, though. For centuries, Shrove Tuesday used to mean one thing: vicious, bloody, life-threatening football.
In a precursor to the jostle you might see on the pitches at Hackney Marshes on any given Sunday, a mob of men and boys would kick a pig's bladder around the streets come Shrovetide, breaking both windows and each other's bones. It got so chaotic that King Edward II ended up banning the game within the walls of the City of London in 1314 (official wording spoke of a “great uproar in the City through certain tumults arising from the striking of great foot-balls in the fields of the public… from which many evils perchance may arise”).
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Despite the ban, Shrove Tuesday football games lasted well into the 19th century, particularly in south west areas of the city, before gradually dying out. Let us know if you see any resurgence among the gilet-wearing bankers who now throng the old City's streets, though.
Speaking of things now consigned to history, your response to our weekend read on the last day of Brixton News, the specialist magazine kiosk and beloved community in the tube station, has been wonderful. "In a city as transient and anonymous as London, it’s easy to overlook these small pockets of community. Articles like this are wonderful reminder that they exist; helps you see what really matters," said commenter Wanda.
Hannah Williams
And now, though we can't promise it'll be as fun as running after a pig's bladder with a screaming mob of Londoners (though we'll try our best), your full Monday briefing...
Mood-boosting Orchestral Music with Chromatica Orchestra this February
Brighten those last few days of winter with Chromatica Orchestra, London’s newest orchestra dedicated to championing outstanding early-career players, soloists and conductors. This February, they bring a kaleidoscope of vivid sound to Battersea Arts Centre with "Songs and Dances", an electrifying evening of raw, spirited and beautiful Eastern European folk melodies, featuring luminous vocals from mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean. Plus the programme opens with Ravel's iconic and irresistably hummable Boléro. As a reader of The Londoner, you can get a taste of Chromatica and attend one of their vibrant concerts for just £10 — see the link below.
Exclusive: Jewels and luxury watches stolen from Hatton Garden on Thursday evening
Footage of the Hatton Garden robbery (Video: The Londoner)
Topline: A Hatton Garden jeweller's was robbed last Thursday, The Londoner can exclusively reveal. Wielding knives and a hammer, thieves broke their way out of Danesh International Jewellers at 5.15pm before fleeing on foot.
They stole several high value watches and a ring in the raid. At this point the value of the items isn’t clear, and Danesh International have refused to comment.
Context: The heist comes amidst a surge of brazen robberies on London jewellers. Men wielding sledgehammer smashed their way into Gregory & Co. Jewellers in Richmond on the morning of Saturday 31 January, whereas a moped gang drove straight into the Rolex store on Bond Street last month and made away with several watches.
“It’s very scary,” said one nearby jeweller in Hatton Garden, who didn’t want to be named. As Peter reported last Friday, Hatton Garden has seen a surge of young luxury watch traders disrupt the area in recent years. They’ve brought new money and buzzy social media content, yet ring shops and longer term businesses in the area complain that crime has followed them.
Peter Carlyon
The risk of robberies is a constant worry, says Adam of 57 Jewellers, but “especially in the winter”. With shops closing around 5.30pm or 6pm, “they’ve [the robbers] got about an hour in the darkness”, he explains. For a full insight into all the spills of Hatton Garden’s luxury watch boom, you can read the original piece here.
How did it happen? The thieves appear to have posed as customers to make their way through the security doors. In footage obtained by The Londoner, the men can be seen smashing their way out of the locked security doors clutching armfuls of jewellery. As they left, they struck a staff member: a man in his 70s, who was not seriously injured. Area security reportedly attempted to halt the robbers, who fled on foot, but were threatened with machetes.
Have they been caught? No arrests have been made yet, the Met confirmed this morning. In a statement, they said that “officers were on the scene in eight minutes. Specialist detectives from the Met’s Flying Squad are investigating the robbery and we have increased patrols in the area by uniformed and plain clothes officers.”
The wrath of Khan
Sadiq Khan has given the strongest indication yet that he is planning to run for another term as mayor when his current one ends in 2028. In an interview with the Standard, Khan said he had “already worked out” his campaign for the next City Hall contest and wanted to stay in the job “as long as I can deliver”. Obviously, it isn’t a definitive answer either way, but he did confirm he has no plans for a Burnham-esque return to parliament as an MP. That means, seemingly, Khan’s only options left would be stepping back from the frontline and seeking out a cushy job in the House of Lords, a consultancy somewhere (the closest thing most politicians get to retirement) or to continue in the role.
The question is: where will the latest development leave the countless would-be future mayors who have been feverishly briefing the national and regional press about Khan’s imminent retirement and their potential bids for the top job?
Good (bass) vibrations?
Last month, The Londoner exclusively broke the news that the World’s End pub, a community favourite in Finsbury Park for its sports coverage and live music, was facing a license review and potential limited operating hours due to noise complaints from a single neighbour.
Since our initial story, we’ve managed to tease out more details about the case by trawling through the records of Islington council. It turns out the complaining neighbour in question had bought his flat next door to the pub just a year prior. They claimed that almost immediately the bass from the live music next door had been unbearable. Even when the pub lowered the live music’s volume, the resident supposedly increased the “bass levels” to the point where the “vibrations” could be felt in their bed. They claimed that when mixed with “cigarette and cannabis smoke drifting into the entrance” of their home, “shouting and crowd noise” and “intoxicated individuals lingering” outside the pub, it had left their home on the busy Stroud Green Road “incompatible with normal residential use”.
Well, this week, we have news (and uncharacteristically for a London licensing battle, it’s good news). After a hearing of Islington council’s licensing committee packed with dozens of pub supporters, the World’s End has been allowed to continue with live music until an earlier cut-off of 11pm, while it installs new soundproofing in the venue.
How Barking council’s multimillion pound industrial megaproject fell apart
Long term Londoner readers may remember our coverage of the costly mess that is Barking and Dagenham council's BeFirst framework. Back then, we reported how the deeply indebted council — then run by Labour’s Darren Rodwell — had funded a programme of new developments, built by private developers. We found that the developers chosen had spent thousands of pounds lobbying and giving gifts to Rodwell and his allies. One firm, McLaren, even hired Rodwell’s daughter just as they were awarded hundreds of millions in taxpayer-funded contracts from the scheme. And to add insult to injury, the buildings built in the programme were riddled with dangerous defects, including collapsing balconies.
Well, in the year or so since our original reporting, things have gone from bad to worse. One of the main projects in the scheme was called Industria — a £32m “pioneer project” built by McLaren that promised sustainable industrial working spaces to local businesses. Yet an FOI request shared with The Londoner by local campaigner Matt Lismore found that only a fifth of the spaces had been let, and the site has lost the council £289,000 a month in its first year of operating. A spokesperson for Barking council stressed that they were dealing with a “challenging commercial property market” which had affected its vacancy rates.
Quick hits
- A measles outbreak has hit Enfield, where less than two thirds of children are fully vaccinated, reveals the Enfield Dispatch.
- The capital is in a new renaissance, according to the chairman of the City of London.
- A handful of schools in Putney are at risk of closure due to low pupil numbers.
- Senior Reform figures attended the launch of the How to Launder Money book.
- There’s been a spate of fatal stabbings across south London over the weekend.
- London’s housebuilding is slumping to record lows. The Financial Times tried to work out why.
- On a recent jaunt through Regent’s Park, we saw (and heard) a number of Lamborghini supercars doing high-speed laps of the Inner Circle. Live around there and know any more about it? Let us know.
Know more about the above stories? Or have any tips about anything else? Let us know using the anonymous form, emailing our editor or WhatsApping us at the link below (+44 7347 026 424).
A big announcement 🚨
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To launch it, we need 500 people pledging to support the new title. We're sure there must be readers on our list who have links to Leeds — could you help us get it going? Click the link below, and please share it with anyone you know in West Yorkshire.
In case you missed it…
- At the weekend, we went back to meet Pritesh Patel on the final opening day of Brixton News, the iconic newsagents inside the south London tube station that we revealed is being de facto evicted after 36 years thanks to a 300% rent increase.
- Hatton Garden is London's most historic jewellery district. Now a generation of hustling young traders have turned the area on its head. Read Peter Carlyon’s full dispatch.
- There’s a rot eating away at the capital’s most iconic buildings. From the Ritz Hotel and BBC Broadcasting House to the streets of Mayfair and the West End, Regent Street Disease has become the multi-million pound structural defect no-one wants to talk about. The Londoner found out more.
Wining and dining
With endless offerings and non-stop openings, we all know that deciding where to eat and drink in the capital can be fraught. We want to make it easy — so every week we’ll give you our insider guide to the city’s best spots.
One perfect meal: One of the least appealing qualities to London’s fast-paced food scene (aside from the queuing) is how, when a restaurant has become your go-to place for a specific dish, it either closes down or inexplicably changes its menu. Case in point: I knew that I could always get an incredible bowl of vegetarian Dan Dan noodles at Baoziinn (not so easy to come by, even now) on Little Newport Street in Chinatown. I went reliably for at least two or three years, before the branch closed — and its other locations removed the dish from their menu (all sites of the restaurant have now shuttered, seemingly). Then, in search of a similar kick, I moved further afield, to Mao Chow’s in Hackney. When that closed, I was distraught. Was I to give up my dream of noodles?
Luckily, the team behind Mao Chow opened a new restaurant, just up the road near London Fields. Named Facing Heaven, it’s an all-vegan Sichuan restaurant which, thank god, includes excellent Dan Dan noodles on the menu; all lip-numbing Sichuan pepper and chewy, slippery noodles. The decor is a little unremarkable (a mix between American dive bar and diner) but the atmosphere is buzzy and intimate — and most importantly, the food is reliably delicious.
One perfect pint: We’re in mourning here at The Londoner. For a long time, Frances Bacon was the resident pet pig of the Conquering Hero in the southern tip of Norwood. Frances was a beloved icon here at Londoner HQ, not least for his propensity to steal pints from unwary customers, drunkenly headbut those customers and then go rifling through the back of the bar looking for peanuts or crisps to snack on. Which is why it broke our heart when we very belatedly found out this week that he had passed away, peacefully surrounded by his pub family.
A new pig has arrived at the pub in many months since — Piggy Stardust — but if you decide to visit to meet the new porcine pub resident, we think it's only right that you raise a glass to the fallen hero.
Our favourite reads
The Battle of the Boshes — Laura Beveridge, Dispatch
Thomas Skinner and Big John aka (John Fisher) are two east End men famous on the internet for eating big dinners and saying “Bosh”. Now, they’ve evolved into a proxy for the left and right’s claims to speak for real Britain. This piece in the Dispatch was a good breakdown of how exactly we got here.
In Whitechapel, a new England struggles to be born — Euan Dawtrey, New Statesman
Right wing politicians, both domestic and international, have an obsession with Tower Hamlets, the east London neighborhood they see as a no-go zone and the front of some sort of Islamic takeover of Britain. This piece in the New Statesman cuts right through the hysteria by speaking to the local community (mostly Bengali) about life in the area and the nuances and complexities of their multicultural identities.
To Do List
- Last Thursday was Gromit’s birthday. If you — like everyone else in The Wrong Trousers — forgot, then maybe to make amends you could head to the new Wallace and Gromit exhibition at the Young V&A in East London, which charts the history of the iconic duo. Grab tickets here.
- It’s Lunar New Year (otherwise known as Chinese New Year) on Tuesday and there’s a whole gamut of different events — including parades, floats, public performances and special food markets — running in Chinatown to celebrate. If central London isn’t for you though, there are events all over the capital — Londonist has a breakdown here.
- If you want to arrive at Chinese New Year as a winner, Tuesday is also pancake day. Head down to Leadenhall with three friends and you can compete in the historic annual pancake race (like an egg and spoon race, but substitute pancake flipping for balancing). On the line is a £50 bar tab to the nearby Lamb Tavern and an inscription on their golden frying pan trophy.
From the archive
At the Londoner, we pride ourselves on the ability to pull back the curtain on how London’s most iconic sites operate. Well, back in 1980 the Blue Peter team spent a day with the team that cleans the face of Big Ben while with no harness or safety equipment other than what is, essentially, a wooden plank tied between two ropes. Not one for the faint of heart.
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