London Tonight Tonight

Good afternoon.
When I was younger I quite often left a ten shilling note in my jacket pocket so, weeks later, when I wore the jacket again, hurrah, I was ten shillings better off than I thought. For younger readers, there used to be 20 shillings in a pound and a ten shilling note was a lovely pinky red piece of paper worth 50 p in new money which would get you a pint and a packet of pork scratchings. For even younger readers, a jacket is an outer garment that does the same job as a hoodie but always allows a view of one's face.
There are, as I write, a lot of people rifling through every single jacket they can find at the LDA because they have not misplaced ten shillings/50 p but 200 million times that amount. Some are saying "I'm sure I put it there...", others, "have you tried that really very big biscuit tin....", even "Thought of checking under the mattress...?" But, no, they can't find it. Of course it may have simply been pinched but no-one is saying that yet. Seems to us a better bet than a Blackpool beach donkey in the Grand National but who are we to say? Well, we are your voice and your guardians so we shall unleash the forensic and journalistic skills of Harris on the case and see if he can find the cash or the culprits.
Now I am old, I often find myself telling my children to turn the taps off. I care for the planet but I also care for the fact that I am billed by the water company via a meter. If I don't pay I imagine they'll turn the flow off. Well, apparently not. They can't, in law. Water is , in a way, a human right. I always thought there were a range of philosophical and intellectual flaws in the privatisation process let alone the dubious economic merit of taking a monopoly from one sets of hands and putting it in another set of hands. Hey ho. Anyway, those clever profit-maximisers at Thames water want all that changed and they are seeking a change in the law to allow them to take a great big spanner to the supply of those who refuse to pay. Those who "can't" would escape their opprobrium so there's another blank cheque for the lawyers. Little if any of it makes a litre or pint of sense so my hopes lie with Phil, who likes a little of the clear stuff with his scotch.
There is a type of shop that says a lot about you if you shop there. Do you buy your pants at M&S or Ralph Lauren? Your cheese at Tesco or Harrods? Your TV and audio gear from Comet or direct from Bang & Olufsen? If you shop at Abercrombie and Fitch you no longer buy a classic rain-coat but you are a bright young Metropolitan type with high disposable income and as much cool as Phil likes with his scotch. You expect the staff to adopt a simpatico tone and manner. So a beautiful young woman with an artificial limb would spoil your entire experience, wouldn't she? No, I didn't think so. But that, in essence, is the case of the company in moving the one-armed stunner from the shop-floor to the stock-room. She is fighting back and we are with her - in the sense we are watching her case in court though, come to think of it, we are probably "with her" too.... Robin dolls up to give ear.
If the UK has the worst drug problem in Europe it follows, as night follows day, that London probably has the worst drug problem, as a city, in Europe and in the UK. I think all of the above are true and truisms. What I didn't know was that the UN are worried about it and that worries me. Julie wears the Blue Beret.
We've some fabulously brave children whose dare-doings I will not reveal suffice to say it would give Enid Blighton a whole series of story ideas for the Famous Five.
Lucy's got La Roux - who promise to be the new Eurythmics - as tantalising a prospect as you could hope for given the brilliance that was Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart.
We've got Chrissie at Hampton Court, doing her Henry VIII to the weather's Anne Boleyn - love you and hate you!
The Oz is again preparing for what to do when THINGS GO BADLY WRONG... is she turning into a negative talisman - or Tasmanian, perhaps? I do hope not as I am deeply fond of her. She will return, I am sure, whilst others will not - at least in rehearsal terms.
See you at 6.