🍺 Let’s start with pubs - and the moves afoot to protect our lovely locals

ACVs or Assets of Community Value, are a way for local groups to protect places that offer a valuable contribution to the local social fabric, so pubs are a popular nomination.

This week, our in-depth story looks at the work going on to register more local pubs, and the success stores that abound, despite all the doom and gloom.

From the return of the Black Cap to the mystery over the new owners of the Elephant’s Head read the full story on Camdenist today, and do share it to support the cause, too.

• 👨‍🎨 We met artist Lewis Hazelwood-Horner, pint in hand, at a suitably rowdy great local boozer the other night. His evocative paintings of pubs (pictured at the top of the newsletter) can be bought on his website and are also on show at the RBA Annual Exhibition 2024, which is on at the Mall Galleries just by the ICA from next Thursday until 9th March.

FOOD & DRINK

Pan Asian on Parkway + bug specials

🍥 Only a few short months ago, 103 Parkway launched as a posh sushi joint after lengthy licensing wranglings with obstructive locals. It all looked very nice, but clearly didn’t make much of an impact, since the place has already had a complete reinvention. It’s now a pan Asian brasserie known as Gharr, and while sushi is still very much part of the menu mix, there are also Nepalese curries and soups, too.

🪳 According to the guys behind week’s hottest new restaurant opening, Yumbug, insects are the future of meat-eating, and so to demonstrate how tasty they can be, they are now serving up a menu of cricket-based tacos, bao buns and burgers up in Finsbury Park.

🍕 Mornington Crescent’s vampire-themed pizzeria Lost Souls has been shut for ages following a devastating fire last year, however they are now beginning to rebuild and plan to reopen soon - you can follow the progress via their Instagram.

COLLABORATE

📊 This week’s 1-click poll

MORE EVENTS, EXHIBITIONS & RELEASES

🪑 Midcentury design is being celebrates at the Vintage Home Show at St Mary’s church in Primrose Hill on Sat (24th), bringing independent dealers in retro furniture, lighting, ceramics, textiles and art to tempt you with a purchase or two.

🎪 It’s the annual Heritage Fair up at Lauderdale House on Saturday 24th (with a family day on the Sunday) offering a chance to discover the rich history of the house, and it’s surrounds of Waterlow Park and Highgate.

🧠 The new free exhibition at the Francis Crick Institute opens next week (Sat 2nd March). Hello Brain highlights the pioneering work in neuroscience that’s going on upstairs, exploring the most complex part of our body around key themes like sleep, pregnancy, old age and perception.

🎶 Hot on the heels of being awarded his own spot on the Camden Music Walk of Fame in the summer, locally-raised musical hero, Eddy Grant, is to release his seminal, multi-platinum LP Killer On The Rampage on all digital platforms for the first time ever today, 40 years after its original release.

MUSIC

The pick of the week’s local live gigs

🎤 ‘Arab-futurist songstress’ Felukah brings her Egyptian sounds, from poetry to rap, singing to political activism, to Dingwalls on Sunday evening (25th) alongside President T at an event dubbed Cairo Rap X British Grime Live

🪕 Globe-trotting Brit folk troubadour Daniel Kemish (pictured) returns to plays his first UK gig in five years at the intimate Green Note this Wednesday 28th.

🎤 Long-standing UK Hip Hop icon Jehst returns to Parkway’s Jazz Cafe on Wednesday (28th) to perform tracks from his untouchable six LPs over the last 20 years.

🎷 Enjoy a night with The Reliables, who play with musical loops as the underlying building blocks for their live jazz, bringing looped influences from all over the world to Hampstead Jazz Club on Thurs 29th.

CAMDEN DIARY

The iconic BT Tower is going to be reborn - once more

The weekly column: reflections on living, working and playing in the borough…

WEDNESDAY: It was revealed, seemingly out of the blue, that the BT Tower is being sold to a hotel group. In many ways this is rather wonderful. We all know how repurposing defunct infrastructure, such as the Victorian railway warehouses of King’s Cross, or the former Midland Bank building in the city, now plush Soho House spot The Ned, can give these structures a new lease of life. But this one, originally known as the Post Office Tower, of course, has only been in situ since the 1960s. It demonstrates the exponential march of communications technology in the years since. The microwave transmitters have long been removed, fiberoptic cable doing the job with far greater capacity these days. And the famous revolving restaurant hasn’t been open to the public since the IRA bomb of 1971, although there have been plenty of private events up there in the last 50 years. With Heatherwick Studio (of Coal Drops Yard and plenty of other glam local projects fame) in the design driving seat, it will be interesting to see how the tower changes once more. The news also uncovered some tasty facts, including:

• The tower was the tallest building in London until the 1980s.

• As a key part of the nation’s communications infrastructure, it was technically a state secret for years, albeit a rather overbearing landmark one. Taking or storing photos of the tower was a breach of the Official Secrets Act and it wasn’t even featured on Ordinance Survey maps until the mid 90s.

• The revolving restaurant was originally managed by Billy Butlin, yes he of the eponymous holiday camps.

• The hotel group who have acquired it have interesting form, also running New York’s lovingly converted TWA Terminal building as a 60s air travel themed hotel and museum. They promise that the public will once again have access to the BT tower - or whatever telephony-related moniker they choose to rename it under - when the new hotel opens…

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