Good Afternoon.
An air of unreality pervades our programme tonight, in a broadly positive way.
We continue to report on the brutal murder last evening which saw a young man stabbed to death on Oxford Street.
The unreality is that it was not in a dingey stairwell, as night fell, but on London's busiest shopping street and in broad daylight.
Next, we report on a meeting held this very morning by Boris with his Crime Busters. Following our talk with Deputy Mayor Ray Lewis on youth crime and his challenge to "watch this space", we did. Reality suggests politicians make promises and talk. The unreality is that , following that meeting, lo and behold, the Met' mapped out policy proposals to up the ante on battling youth crime. They say they were going to anyway but it is as if the advertising manager at Ronseal had taken over the policy unit at City Hall.
Faye, our elegant and erudite leader, said it was a "chicken and egg" situation. But whether Oxford Street was the chicken and City Hall the egg was not clear to her. Nor to any of us.
I trust in the farming and biological skills of Harris and Marcus to hatch a couple of brilliant bits of reportage for you.
Unreality of a constitutional nature is up next. Ian Smith was the white minority leader of Rhodesia, told by the UK to give blacks the vote. He refused and declared independence. He didn't declare UDI as many say because the D in UDI stands for DECLARATION. That would be tautology. Anyway, it eventually led to Zimbabwe, Mugabe and the current horrors. Less cataclismic was Passport to Pimlico based a true story that the next in line to the Dutch royal succession must be born on Dutch soil. When the wartime Queen of the Netherlands was about the give birth to the heir presumptive, a room in Ottawa, where the family was in exile from the German occupation, officially became Dutch territory. The actual film is set in Pimlico, where a delayed bomb explosion reveals a hidden vault containing treasure and an ancient document proving that the land was granted to the Duke of Burgundy in perpetuity and so was French!
Spool forward to Norton Folgate in Shoreditch and meet the splendid people of that borough who say they have similar ancient rights of independence, are not French and don't want a near billion pound development on their doorstep. It is the stuff the UN was set up to resolve but Liz has an initial stab.
Finally, the unreality of a highly trained and fiercely brave parachutist landing, by accident, on the roof of Aston Villa's stadium and then turning into another sort of hero - a charity fund-raiser. You'll want to meet him and Phil does the introductions.
Fatpig is a term of abuse but also a film, I am told. I think I being had but apparantly not. Lucy has a glint of the mischievous in her eye but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.
Which I won't offer to Robin who says it will be nice again tomorrow. How unreal is that?
Nothing unreal about London's papers.... apart from pages 4, 7, 9 and 13 - 23.
Catch it all at six and have a final, very real chance to win 50k for your favourite local charity.
Reality checks at 6.
Alastair and katie.
