Any old irony? Singalong fun in Trafalgar Sq

The St George's Day celebrations in Trafalgar Square yesterday were rather fun (right). They included a selection of classic music hall songs, enjoyable without needing any old irony.

Of course, the big problem with Trafalgar Square is the bike parking. There's none in the square itself. The few miserable racks opposite the National Portrait Gallery are always full, even the street furniture and trees (below right).

The handful of spaces behind the National Gallery often do have vacancies, mostly created by bikes being stolen off them.


Still, the music hall songs were a treat. But we think some of them need updating for 21st-century cyclists:

• My old man said report that van
• Any old chromoly?
• If it wasn't for the cars parked in between
• My old Dutch bike
• Wotcher - knocked down on the Old Kent Road
• No bike parking down at the Old Bull and Bush
• A car alarm went off in Berkeley Square
• Let's all go down the Strand (next Critical Mass)
• It's a long way to Tipperary by the Sustrans route


And the most famous cycle song of them all, Daisy Bell, certainly needs a makeover. (I pontificated about this in detail in a recent column for Cycling Plus.) Here's a better set of words for the cycle-based relationship of today:

Daisy, Daisy
Text me your answer quick
Last night's hazy
So is your Facebook pic
It won't be a stylish speed dating
I've got no credit rating
But have some booze
Show your tattooes
And we'll snog on our bikes in pub-lic

Bit of trouble with the last line, I'll grant you. But Marie Lloyd could've carried it off, no doubt.

Trafalgar Square: No free lunch, but free bike parking

For once, you could park your bike in Trafalgar Square yesterday. The Feeding the Five Thousand event had commandeered the square with skiploads of edible fruit and veg which, like one third of all stuff grown in the UK, would normally be thrown away for cosmetic reasons.

They were turning all this into a free lunch for anyone who turned up, to draw attention to the amount of food wasted in the rich world, which just by itself contributes something like 10% of greenhouse gas emissions.


Either the recession is biting harder than we thought, or Londoners just can't resist a freebie, because the queues were of post-office proportions, winding round more than two sides of the square.

Unfortunately I didn't have the time to invest just to get a biodegradable paper plate of veg curry, wodge of bread, and complimentary banana, apple and handful of loose grapes.

Anyway, I had some leftovers waiting for me in the fridge, and it didn't seem right to throw that away in order to stop food waste.


Clustered round the square's great Christmas Tree was a tent village of rather damp climate change protesters. You have to be pretty determined to draw attention to global warming when it's freezing cold.


On the central stage was an entertaining demonstration of how a simple adjustment to your bike can turn it into a pedal-powered blender, suitable for turning fruit into a smoothie.

You just put a glassful of water and three pieces of fruit into the blender, pedal furiously for two minutes, and hey presto! A glassful of water with thirty pieces of fruit in it. And a lot of froth.


There were two blender-bikes in the square, and you could have a go yourself. I did manage to score a freebie biodegradable disposable plant-based plastic glass of someone else's legwork. So no such thing as a free lunch for me, but there was such a thing as a free smoothie.

And, to be fair, it was rather tasty, though my idea of a bike-generated smoothie machine would still involve cycling to Argos.


And, as the pleasant young steward handed me my gratis goblet, he smiled and said, Thanks for coming by bike, and it all felt worthwhile. Even if you can't park your bike there the other 364 days a year. Maybe they should leave up that sign that says 'This is rubbish'.

Good use for the Fourth Plinth: Make it bike parking

Trafalgar Square is a magnificent centrepiece to London, and so much better since they pedestrianised its top end, in front of the wonderful (and free) National Gallery. However, when it comes to the detail of bike parking, it's as hazy as a Monet Thamescape.

There's a handful of racks off its top right-hand corner opposite the National Portrait Gallery, but at peak times - such as yesterday evening, when we dropped into this year's (free) National Portrait Awards exhibition - these are full of bikes. As are the trees, the railings, the lamp-posts, and even the keep-left bollard. Yet there's plenty of pavement space that could be used for more racks, for example behind the new beam-me-up-Scotty entrance to St Martin-in-the-Fields's crypt. Bike parking is in outrageously short supply for such a visitable part of London.

But don't worry! Thanks to Antony Gormley's new artwork One and Other (right) the problems are solved. The work consists of members of the public, drawn by lot, occupying the empty fourth plinth for an hour at a time over the next few weeks. And no, I don't mean that by organising your slot right you might be able to take your bike up there with you.

No, the stroke of genius is that One and Other is so tedious you immediately want to cycle somewhere else. Most people simply don't have a clue what to do once they're up there except smile nervously and talk to their friends on the mobile; it's very poor entertainment. Give it a miss. A plinthcam runs 24-7 on Sky Arts TV channel, which is handy, because you can give it a miss on there more conveniently. ("This is a live webstream that may contain offensive content", it warns; replace 'offensive' with 'boring'.)

And if that doesn't work, Westminster could always try the sneaky 'bike parking' trick offered by the developers of a new student block for 850 Kings College residents on Denmark Hill, south London. Now, Southwark Cyclists recommends installing 130% cycle parking spaces for this kind of development, in other words just over 1,000 spaces. But Kings are only offering 250 spaces - most of which are, if you inspect their proposals, not bike parking at all, but tiny lockers 'for folding bikes'. Brilliant!

Getting to the bottom of London's central point

The official centre of London is a horse's bum.

Westminster has lots of quirky things to entertain you as you wander round it in desperate search for some cycle parking. Here at the bottom of Trafalgar Square (serviced by a measly handful of stands up by the National Portrait Gallery that are always full) is that very centre: the point to which a 'distance to London', notionally, is measured. It's the origin of the national roadmap; England's kilometre-zero. And that point is a gelding's backside.

It is, of course, the horse underneath the statue of King Charles I (right), riding defiantly to his execution in 1649. He was dispatched at what is now the Banqueting House, a short trot down Whitehall. There's something equivocal about the statue: is it a stern reminder of the brutality of a kangaroo-court execution, or a commemoration of the people's rough justice? Either way, I'm all in favour of preserving the monarchy. I've heard formaldehyde does the trick.


It's appropriate then that from here, directly below the equine posterior, you can see both our ruling institutions: the Houses of Parliament down Whitehall, and Buckingham Palace through Admiralty Arch and along the Mall. It's the only spot in London with this double vista (right). A tempting thought for anyone with a howitzer.

The horse-bottom zero-point is celebrated by a plaque (bottom of top photo). Its punctuation-free text looks to have been drafted by a lawyer:
CITY OF WESTMINSTER
ON THE SITE NOW OCCUPIED BY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES I WAS ERECTED THE ORIGINAL QUEEN ELEANOR'S CROSS A REPLICA OF WHICH STANDS IN FRONT OF CHARING CROSS STATION MILEAGES FROM LONDON ARE MEASURED FROM THE SITE OF THE ORIGINAL CROSS


The original Eleanor's Cross stood from 1290 to 1647. The replica – the original 'Charing Cross' – is in the unloading area in front of Charing Cross station, a few yards north-west, though it's currently smothered in scaffolding.

According to the BBC website, from here it's 198 miles to Liverpool, 1118 miles to Rome, and 10,500 miles to Sydney, and according to Google Earth it's 250 yards to the nearest bike parking. That was full, but I found some more up in Mays Court, yon side of the Coliseum, and had a quick drink with a friend for five hours. So this morning, boom boom, I'm a little horse too.