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Eye-popping numbers can be powerful motivators, and by crunching the depressing stats about the current rate of nightclub closures in the UK, a stark and shocking New Year’s Eve countdown emerged this week.

If we don’t stem the current tide, December 31st 2029 could be ‘the last night out’. There’ll be no more glorious sweaty, beautifully messy legal late night cultural incubators left.

Fortunately, many of us who owe the best misspent hours of our lives - let alone our careers - to such spaces are mounting a fightback. But the odds are stacked.

As the nation wobbles towards the new government’s first doom ‘n’ gloom-tinged budget, trade organisations such as long-term Camdenist friends the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) are mobilising to attempt to force those now in power to help the sector.

If you think the UK would be irreparably diminished by losing its last late-night dancefloors and safe after-hours hotspots, please sign the brand new petition demanding support and recognition of the cultural importance of such spaces NOW. Even better? Also email your MP.

Trading conditions for social spaces like nightclubs are near on impossible right now. This is no joke or just an ‘overpriced’ ripoff. While traditional neighbourhood media mouthpieces and upstanding community champions have tended towards opposing late night venues, now we need to realise just how important their preservation is - especially in an urban epicentre like Camden.

Nostalgia can be a welcome lever of action to save historic pubs, but what we actually need is boozers that retain the social character of their buildings and surrounds, bolstered by conditions that help make such endeavours vaguely viable in 2024’s climate.

Another long-time friend of Camdenist, indie pub discount scheme CityStack, is also shouting loudly this week ahead of the budget, asking for policy help to keep the city’s best beer pumps flowing.

It might be financially unreasonable for us to be hanging out at pubs as much as we’d like to right now, but with judicious application of attractive discounts, you can at least hunt down a deal. If you’d like to support pubs, snag an ideal stocking-filler gift, and also back the future of Camdenist in the process, join our premium member scheme today and you’ll get a CityStack pack included, plus feel the glow of positive cultural karma for the next 12 months.

It’s code red on a whole heap of issues right now, but our pubs, clubs and music venues need backing from the top - do you think the government can do it?

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FOOD & DRINK

🍳 Let’s claim things have gone ‘cool cafe crazy’

This newsletter is not one to proclaim next big things, jump on hot seasonal trends or chase dull calendar milestones (we’ve not even mentioned any Halloween themed zombie nonsense in the listings! 🎃), but we do feel compelled to point out that there may be a ‘thing’ going on with swish new coffee and brunch-type openings in the area.

🥑 Primrose Hill’s very popular quality brunch spot Alma Cafe have just opened a stylish-looking brand new outpost in King’s Cross, up the top end of the estate on York Way. Expect their usual high standard of egg dishes, premium baked products and wholesome lunchtime sarnis.

🍵 Tucked away on smart old Gloucester Avenue is the new Roots Cafe, promising intentional nourishment and balanced drinking in all it’s speciality lattes, teas and chais. It’s the first part of a forthcoming wellbeing, movement and self-care studio arriving in the old mews later this autumn.

🍥 Fancy a Japanese cake and coffee pop-up in leafy Hampstead? Head upstairs at INÉ on the High Street to discover Karuto, where you’ll find yuzu miso cheesecake, black seseme soya cake roll and loads more sweet treats.

🥞 Recent local arrival Trade are doing brisk brunch business at the foot of Highgate West Hill, offering Heath walkers and weekend-ing locals plenty to savour.

🥯 It might be time to update our previous ‘battle of the bagels’ story, as nascent local chain BBagel prepare to open nearby too, on Swains Lane, replacing the branch of Roni’s (which has the same owner) on the popular foodie arcade.

☕ Remember to drop in to Honest Grind, the socially conscious concession selling coffee and snacks inside the foyer of Old Diorama Arts Centre at Euston’s Regent’s Place. Their trainee staff have all been given radical employment opportunities by the Somers Town-based roastery.

☕ Not only do you get authentic Italian roasted coffee at Mileto, which is part of the Royal Free’s Pears Building on Rossyln Hill, there’s a chance to learn to speak Italian at a community language class this and every Saturday from 11am-2pm.

Got another new cafe for us to cover - email [email protected] and we’ll shout about it here

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MUSIC

🎺 Global sounds, set to astound

🎲 Las Vegas live heroes The Delta Bombers come to play their bass-heavy sounsd that incorporates influences ranging from Johnny Cash to Cypress Hill tonight, Friday 25th Oct at Camden Town’s Underworld.

🎙️ Locally-raised BRIT Award-winning reggae and soul troubadour Finley Quaye plays another of his intimate gigs at West Hampstead Arts Club tonight too, Fri 25th Oct. 

🎸 90s alt-rock is going to be thoroughly celebrated in style on Sat 26th Oct. as EMF, Jesus Jones and Echobelly (pictured above) join forces at Kentish Town’s O2 Forum to all smash it once more, on the same bill for the first time ever.

💃 King’s Cross backstreet gem Jamboree hosts the final day in it’s series of five fundraisers for a fellow cherished-but-threatened KX backwater venue at The Harrison All Day Folk Festival this Sunday (26th) afternoon into evening. Topping the impressive bill are the Gnawa Blues All Stars playing the sacred trance dance music of Morocco.

🎼 London’s 11th K Music Festival has an eclectic line-up of opera, classical, jazz, folk and more proving there's a lot more to Korean music than K-Pop. Wednesday 30th October sees Black String play music that swings comfortably between East and West, Korean folk and jazz at Kings Place.

STAGE

🎭 Things to see on stage (and off) this week

🔭 School friends camping in the woods experience a perfect storm of paranoia, superstition and adolescent insecurity as the try and work out who is actually watching who? Birdwatching is a new folk horro play about the female experience showing at The Etcetera Theatre in Camden Town, 28th Oct - 1st Nov.

✒️ Seikichi is a young tattoo artist and former Ukiyo-e artist of high repute with a longtime wish to “carve his soul into the skin of a beautiful woman” in Charing Cross Theatre’s current production of Tattooer; but he has been unable to find a willing partner/canvas.. until now. Runs to tomorrow, Sat 26th Oct.

🛥️ An evening of top Victorian era entertainment is promised at London Canal Museum on Sat 2nd Nov as ice cream supremo Carlo Gatti’s Music Hall Theatre revives the hedonistic spirit of the big man’s 1860s original variety shows, courtesy of the New Players Theatre Company.

🥳 Bloomsbury Festival concludes this weekend with Saturday 26th’s Discovery Day showing how DJing can help save your life and telling you want you can do while your car drives itself, alongside other mind-expanding workshops and talks. Or try dance-theatre performance Ulyssa at Senate House for an archeological adventure.

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