27th December 2008

Last commute of 2008, last issue of 2008, and probably the last thing posted here for 2008. Merry new year, and all that.

When I first moved to The Big Office In Soho I was taken for an induction meeting. After all the usual office stuff (lift with your knees, don't try to repair the copier with sellotape, don't sell your security pass to tramps) we inductees were given a warning about working in this part of town. It could be roughly paraphrased to "we have security staff for a reason, so be careful when you're outside". Those new to London might well have come away terrified.

By and large, though, this slightly porn-y end of Soho is a good place to be during the day. We're surrounded by excellent, cheap restaurants (whether Cali-Mexican, Japanese (especially Ramen) or just great sandwiches), and the only near death experience I've had so far involved a reversing courier van attempting to smear me across the road in front of the John Snow pub (it turns out my "fight or flight" response is rubbish: all I did was bang on the back of it as I was pushed along, shouting "fuckingshitfuck" – "stop" would probably have been more useful).

Walking south to Charing Cross means crossing through probably the single dodgiest part of Soho, surrounded by brothels and hugger-muggers, but between the hours of 7am and around 8pm there's really no cause for any great concern as long as you stay the hell away from the public toilets (side note: some of the tramps appear to even have keys to the toilets, although where they got these from we have no idea).

The area is changing, too. It's not exactly gentrification of the "Daily Mail readers eye property prices" variety, but over the past year a few of the dodgiest places, including the one really visible clipping bar, have finally been closed down. You have to wonder what'd happen to the place if the sex industry left, though – maybe the streets would be subsumed into the Carnaby Street Tourist Hellhole (TM), or maybe they'd just become empty backroads. For the moment, though, everything's becoming slightly festive, albeit in a slightly unusual way. Merry Chrimbo, Soho.

Yesterday morning we got a Government press release: "Government saves the Pint and the Mile". This morning, the Express takes the story and runs with it while flicking V signs across the channel as it goes. Lede paragraph:

"THE British pint, mile and ounce were saved yesterday as Brussels finally quit trying to kill them off."

Fourth para, quote:

Shadow Innovation Secretary David Willetts added: “The pint, the mile and pounds and ounces are part of our country’s rich traditions and it’s great they have now been protected from an absurd attempt by the EU to get rid of them.”

So, EU tries to force UK to go metric, UK resists. Got it. But in the seventh para:

"Yesterday MEPs voted to back the view of the European Commission that letting us keep our imperial system would have no real effect on the wider EU market."

Those damned Eurocrats, telling us Plucky Brits (copyright The Sun) to keep our imperial measures. Er, what?