London Tonight Tonight

Good afternoon.
An old friend of mine, the late former Speaker of the House of Commons Jack Wetherill told a lovely story at the expense of American tourists. When showing some of them an original of the Magna Carta in his rooms, they'd asked when it was signed. "1215", he correctly replied. "Gee", said one, looking at his watch. "Just missed it!". It was a little after one o'clock. Americans love the House of Commons and are convinced Big Ben is the clock tower and not the bell. They also love the Globe, brilliant and accurate representation that it is of Shakespeare's Tudor south bank theatre. Say Deptford to most and they'd glaze over. Say it's where the author of "Doctor Faustus" and "Tamburlaine" was brutally murdered with a drunken stab above the eye and their eyes, too, would cloud over, as must the eyes of the author of those fine pieces as the blood dripped from his fatal wound. Christopher Marlowe was a gem of a playwright, his life cut short in a bar-room brawl. Others say he was assassinated for spying but I prefer the Pewter Plot to the Espionage Saga. Anyway, all that Deptfordian ignorance is about to change at least among the newspaper reading public in the US because no less an organ than the New York Times has proclaimed Deptford "cool" and "hip". Batten down the hatches and prepare for Bermuda shorts, burgers and big camera lenses as The Cousins sweep East across the Pond. Phil who, like me, thinks we should have resisted a little more in 1776, has our account.
Accounts remain unsettled as far as the relatives of the victims of 7.7 are concerned. Yes, the immediate perpetrators were killed by their own hands, along with 52 innocent men and women. But who helped them and where are they? The authorities thought they'd netted three but a jury disagreed, although it was deeply suspicious about aspects of their travel plans and hobbies. Marcus, as focused as the Gunners attack line, has been deployed and has court verdicts and some of the anger of one of the survivors.
An odd clash also sits in our running order. Our poll, that shows most of you still trust the Met, and next to it, details of the latest youngster, murdered in cold blood. A third of you don't trust the Boys and Girls In Blue - I wonder if that includes the family of the dead boy and/or the scum who did it? Lewis treads a delicate line which, when I last looked, wasn't blue but could have been.
Staying firmly on the right side of the line is the amazing Doreen Lawrence who went through it all, and more, with the murder of her son Stephen more than a decade ago. She is still pushing hard for a better world and told the MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee what still needed doing. She is a tornado for good, that woman, and she blows your way at 6.
Where Glen will be at 6, I am less clear. As told to me in The Meeting, he was "down a hole" but should hurry back to us "like a rabbit".
Now I am somewhere between Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" and the Channel Tunnel on this one. It has something to with luggage. I hope, if he has gone missing, that he has some sandwiches and a bottle of water in his. I suppose we will all find out together before 6.30. Maybe he is in Deptford, attracting Americans?
He could be in Barcelona having spun several yards of line to the Boss. Don't know where his footy affections lie, to be frank. But something big is going down in the beautiful Iberian City tonight in the world of "twenty two men kicking an inflated leather sphere at an area defined by three struts of wood and as much netting as you need to catch a lobster supper". Andy Townsend will make sense of it for you and me. The Oz is more than clear on these matters and I enjoy the warm glow of her knowledge and assuredness in all matters sporting.
We will both enjoy the warm glow of little Imogin Appiah's friends who are giving their all to find a bone-marrow donor for their buddy. This is a life and death one and we've more on it tomorrow, too.
We will also have more of the weather tomorrow but more of what, specifically, I don't know. Cue Robin, the Matisse of Meteorology.
Papers if the machinery doesn't start chewing things up again and that is about it.
The Oz has purchased coffee and nuts. There's something wrong with the coffee so we'll either be with you at 6, in Court or in Hospital. My money is on the former as we are both made of sturdy stuff but who knows.
The nuts seem both fine and appropriate.
Til then, then..
Alastair and Alex