Good evening.
If, as you are watching tonight, your little darlings are doing their homework - tell them to "look away now"! We report on Tiffin Boys' Grammar School in Kingston and their decision to ban homework on the grounds the children should get it all done at school and then go home and relax.
Faye, looking a little city-like in a sharply tailored pin-stripe jacket, but still very "street" with the old leg squeezers, says it's her favourite story of the day but "once you've said it, that's it" she fears. Not, dear Faye, if you are aged 5 to 18 me thinks!
I suspect a very long waiting list next year.
Talking of waiting, the de Menezes family today finally got the inquest they had long demanded into the death of Jean Charles. It is to be hoped the poor, distraught souls have brought their toothbrushes because this one will run and run. Harris is our man on the spot and for him, and I suspect most of you, what is even more interesting than hearing again what happened to poor Jean Charles, is what the findings will mean for the beleaguered Met and their even more beleaguered Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair. Opening skirmishes at 6.
We may be witnessing the opening skirmishes in a revived property market in London. Sellers are asking 4% higher prices than a month ago but buyers are yet to respond. We will ask Louisa where we are and where we may be heading.
Gary Foster thought he was heading for a cure for his testicular cancer when he put himself forward for a drugs trial at University College Hospital London. Instead, a computer glitch left him dead. His mum's reaction is fascinating and humbling. Piers shares it with you.
Points were shared in the match between Reading and Watford at the weekend but shouldn't have been. Watford thought they were heading for a hard-earned three points when a most bizarre thing happened. We are all accustomed to sportsmen screaming, with certainty, that the most unlikely successes be granted to them - "Howzat?" bellow the cricketers when the ball clearly missed the bat or the leg was clearly not in the way of the wicket; rugby players writhe in muddy and bloody agony swearing on their mothers' lives that the ball was over the line before they were brought to a brutal halt; and some football players would put the entire Royal Shakespeare Company out of work with their protesting antics over penalties, off-sides and "our throw-in" issues. Glen explains how a linesman and a referee did "the incredible" and how a manager has offered "the unlikely", by way of compensation.
Finally, and it really is a matter of finality, the eco-graveyard. Does it accelerate our very personal and very final contribution to the nitrogen cycle, I asked? Not entirely, I am told, but headstones are made of biodegradable wood and caskets .... too much news from "the other side" I thought. But it seems they are all the rage in London and the South East so Liz went to meet their maker, firm in the belief that the appointment with her maker is many decades hence. For myself, I am less confident of longevity but I like the idea of trees and shrubs in graveyards rather than frightening Victorian marble gargoyles and angels. It's just the boxes and their contents I am not too good at discussing....
I think that's it , but I've come over all morbid.
So, Chrissie's weather and some silly fashion photography in London's papers may do the trick.
We used to have a studio director, a Scot called Dan, who would wail "We're all doomed", Dad's Army style, when the going got rough. But, philosophically, of course, he was right.
So join us at 6 for a full London Tonight - you have nothing to lose!
Alastair & Katie
