london belongs to me

Matthew Stone: "A pashernate existence. " Part of the artists collective WOWOW, he described how, coming to London determined to create a bohemian milieu against all the odds, they ended up squatting in a building on Peckham's erstwhile "golden mile" and living the life of Riley. This was quite refreshing after a few more negative speakers: but this was actually a positive side of the event, the fact that it fully took account of the ambivalence of Londoners towards their (un)home: Mark Saunders, a filmmaker, protesting against the level of everyday aggression encountered in the city, and the somewhat illusory and/or overwhelming amount of stuff going on ("Time Out: 1000 things you're not going to do this week....unless you've got a £100-a-week theatre habit") had already pithily expressed this perverse attraction thus: "unfortunately it's a centre". Katherine Hoskins gave a great account of the joys of being a pensioner in London.

Jude Rogers from Smoke magazine let us know what makes her, and this wonderful self-produced piece of Londonophilia, tick.

The exquisitely-named Clifford Slapper (of Raymonds Revue Bar) and Daniel from Cuts gave fond and quite surprising accounts of Soho as a living community (including a barter system - Daniel describing how he used to trade entry to Ronnie Scott's for a haircut for Ronnie), in the past and present, and with an eye to possibilities of the future (apparently famous pub The Coach and Horses is soon to change hands). Daniel, sprinting in having left a customer with wet hair, regaled us with a breathlessly enthusiastic blast of anecdotes: stories of Soho "fixers" who could fix up just anything you want ("eleven men in full cricket gear, inside a boxing ring, buggering each other", perhaps) and legendary nightclub Gossips, where hard-as-nails hiphop homey Tim Westwood began his DJing career with leather trousers, handlebar moustache, and Freddy Mercury accent ("that's how I'll always remember him"!).

The right royal Zandra Rhodes, dressed outrageously in pink with 5-inch-wide slices of agate on her rings, talked about Bermondsey, and the huge pink building she's erected therein.

Lennie Lee, a man billed as a 'controversial artist' (who I've never heard of) launched into an amusing expletive-laden invective: "that fucking bitch the queen is still living in that shitty fucking building up there" provoking the expected response from the pipe-smoking retired major specially booked to react to such "outrage". There was some stand-up shouting on the subject of Iraq (weirdly, this subject seemed to haunt the whole event) and how much Mr Outraged would be required to give Lennie in order for him to leave the country. Lennie didn't really seem to have much interesting to say, and so he ended.

Here is Mr (or perhaps Major) Outraged (apparently a fellow talk radio regular along with John the Cabbie) in a more mellow moment.

At this point, having been waiting since 3pm to be told when I'd be on, I was informed that I was to speak last, after the excoriating republican artist, and, as it turned out, after two shouty performance poets too. This surprise top billing, as well as sending me into an advanced state of nervousness that I had only just shook off with the welcome supply of free gin-and-tonics (no little luxury, considering the prices at this bar), also exemplified the disorganised nature of the event (if it weren't disorganised, why would I have been invited?), but in the end it was probably all the better for it. The curtain dividing behind-the-scenes panic from the stage was certainly lacunary - for instance, whilst the programme (which I didn't appear on due to administrative miscommunication....at least that's what they told me) for instance listed Naomi Hyamson as "sings London Songs", which indeed she did, and very well, it listed Zandra Rhodes as "needs parking space"!