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With a huge heads up to the brilliant @thebikeshow, I finally managed to indulge my twin passions of cycling and cappuccino, with a Saturday morning spent slurping coffee at Look Mum No Hands!

Part cafe, part bicycling workshop, the Old Street establishment is fast becoming a central meeting point for London cyclists. It offers somewhere to meet up for fellow riders, share road experiences and refresh, before rolling out once again.

Cafes that cater for cyclists are surprisingly rare. There’s Cafe St Germain at Crystal Palace, although this is more a cafe of coincidence, serving as the regular roll out location for the mighty Dulwich Paragon.

With my morning cycling companion @richardgallon cutting a swath through the back streets of the city, we pulled up outside Look Mum, and locked up our Raleigh rides. As you would expect, parking provision is ample, both outdoors and indoors within the spacious set up.

Bicycles old and new hang from the walls and the ceiling. Some of these are for sale, some are historical reminders as to how far, and yet also how little cycling has changed over the past one hundred years.

We ordered an espresso and a cappuccino, and then chose to soak up the morning sun, sitting outside towards the front of the cafe. Despite being positioned in the centre of Old Street, there was still a feeling of tranquilly and shelter away from the main stretch of the road.

Bicycling books, magazines and clothes are all for sale. Races are also shown on the main projector. Time was running against me, but I was intrigued by the live screening of the Tour of Poland later in the afternoon.

In a week where cycling within London has hopefully become more inclusive, it was reassuring to see that Look Mum has little of the snob factor that can sometimes become absorbed within cycling circles. Our couple of hours spent drinking coffee saw a range of different riders and bicycles enter the building – road racers, fixies, Brompton boys and girls, weekend hybrids, MTB’s and even a couple of those very nice bicycling Bobbies.

The coffee was the quality that you would expect for the £2.40 price; the food looked incredibly tempting. The sausage pie in particular almost got the better of me, but I feared it would slow down my return passage climbing the category one climb that is the North side of Blackfriars Bridge.

A morning of gossip soon passed. The guys in the workshop worked on a couple of bikes right next to where we were sitting. They were approachable, and happy to answer any basic bicycling questions. It is this shared sense of community that will hopefully keep Look Mum in business, once the current buzz of bicycling in London calms down once again.

With Old Street being something of a regular route for many London cyclists, Look Mum already has a potential passing trade. The coffee and cycling culture now established should hopefully see the business continue to build.

Chapeau!

Monday morning and so it must mean that it’s time for a trip to the Museum of London.

Lordy.

A quick rally around of the troops, and we soon had two London bloggers and a bit, all bound for EC2; the fine @Darryl1974 and, um, @AnnaJCowen both accompanied me to my favourite London museum.

What I absolutely adore about the MOL is that is *the* museum for Londoners. It has no pretensions to take arid artefacts and present them as some great moment of social history. It simply tells the story of London, as experienced by everyday Londoners.

Back in the day job and I usually visit the MOL a couple of times a year. There’s a huge gulf however in safely guiding the kids over to the Great Fire exhibit, and then having a whole Monday morning to yourself to see what else is on offer.

The recent refurbishment has somewhat passed me by. I didn’t see what was wrong with the old exhibits, and to be honest, after my Monday morning trip, I didn’t actually see anything new of great significance.

The massive sprawling map that greets you by the main entrance is a work of art in itself – nope, it *really is* a work of art, lovingly printed on to a vast canvas and spreading out to show the entire South East in micro detail.

We spent at least five minutes marvelling at the map, and then five minutes further coming up with a list of other London bloggers that I bet would spend at least double the time taking in the delectation of the cartography.

What then followed was a quick spin in the time machine as we raced from Roman London through until contemporary times. Men in skirts ‘aint really my thing. It was more of a gossip with the good @Darryl1974 as we ploughed through Ancient, Middle Age, Medieval and Jacobean London.

I’m more interested in modern day history, and so we took it at something of a more gentile pace come the turn of the nineteenth century. This is where the MOL becomes political with the suffragette and Trade Union movements first both appearing in tandem.

The Struggle for the Living Wage placard could equally apply to Lambeth 2010, as it did to old London town in 1910. Likewise for the exhibits depicting the appalling state of social housing.

Fearful or rejecting all that had gone before, it was still the 1960′s, ’70s and ’80′s that I was interested in. It’s a mighty long way from mini-skirts to Miss Dynamite, and I know which of these still holds more contemporary relevance.

The early covers of Time Out reminded me of the downward social history trajectory of the magazine. A poster for the Rock Against Racism gig at Brockwell Park in the summer of ’94 reminded me of my age. @richardgallon probably actually wore the original Stations of the Crass T-shirt on display.

Much of the new MOL appears to be of the dreaded interactive variety. At least this will keep the kids happy back in the day job, when they bore of the endless Great Fire images.

But it is still the old style exhibits that kept my interest. The MOL is the type of attraction that you can visit and re-visit each month, each time finding something new and fascinating. In true timeline fashion, @AnnaJCowen and I are fast running out of diary space to take in future MOL visits. Time to make some personal history of our own…

Great Titchfield Street, W1, The Way We See It.

“Great Titchfield Street runs from Oxford Street almost right up to the Euston Road. It is a street that has a sense of hustle and bustle.

Developed by the Dukes of Portland, the street actually appears in Rocque’s famous map of London of 1746. The street was always home to London’s fashion and garment industry, but now your more likely to find digital agencies and post-production suites.

The street does however keep it’s tradition and variety of eateries. If you can think of it, you seem to pretty much be able to get it here. Of particular interest is the Scandinavian Kitchen if you’re look for something a bit off-beat.”

Houndsditch, EC3, The Way We See It.

“An ancient street in the middle of the City with two very modern additions this week. Houndsditch is so called as it was once a ditch on one side of the London Wall, it grew so full of waste (let’s be nice about it) and dead dogs that it got it’s name.

It’s pretty much like any other City side street, until you reach the Liverpool Street end, where rises the rather ugly Heron Tower. What it lacks in aesthetics, it does make up for in size, being the tallest building in the City and the second in the UK.

At the other end is another new development, St Botolophs, which is nowhere near as tall and also, sadly, rather faceless.

Apparently as you near Bishopsgate there are gaps between the buildings. These are said to be the sites of plague pits.”

Great Ormond Street, WC1, The Way We See It.

“I really enjoy going to famous London street that for some reason, you probably never visit. Great Ormond Street is one such street. It’s most famous inhabitant is the Children’s Hospital. It was founded in 1852 as the Hospital for Sick Children.

One source of income for the hospital comes from J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. In 1929 he gave the rights to the book to the hospital on condition that they didn’t disclose how much they made from it.

The street it’s in is in two parts, dissected by Lambs’ Conduit Street and the part to the east is a wonderful, if short, stretch of residential properties that take you back into a bit of a different age.”

I really rather enjoyed a boozy intellectually stimulating Monday night out at The Groucho.

Gosh.

The occasion was for the book launch of the lovely @girlonetrack‘s second publication, The Girl With a One Track Mind: Exposed. The narrative picks up from the gross intrusion by The Sunday Times in outing Abby Lee as Zoe Margolis.

Having written about celebrating female sexuality, the fallout led to Zoe losing her job, having to backtrack and address past relationships in the book, as well as being demonised as a promiscuous female.

Thankfully the hypocritical agenda put forward by The Sunday Times wasn’t a lesson in morality that most like-minded people subscribe to. Out of an incredibly stressful period for Zoe and her family, the author has emerged to publish a second book, as well as carving out a successful career as a commentator and advisor on sexual health.

The Groucho on Monday evening was something of a celebration for all that Zoe has been through since The Sunday Times outed her some four years ago. Friends and supporters came along in large numbers.

Zoe’s case is a fantastic case study of how controlling your own online identity is so vital when up against the forces of mainstream media misreporting. The gathering at The Groucho reflected this, with old school bloggers mingling with media personalities who are sympathetic to Zoe’s experience.

Having been advised to “dress smartly’ for the occasion, I was rewarded with the wearing of a cravat scarf by being doorstopped by Heather Brooke.

“You’re wearing a cravat!” was the introductory remark, of which there wasn’t really any answer.

I didn’t recognise Heather, but after bumbling along about what had brought me out to support Zoe, I soon realised that Heather is @newsbrooke, the incredibly talented journo who is responsible for pretty much cleaning up Parliament.

Blimey.

Other great conversations followed with @cathredfern, @JonnyB, @miketd, @sashinka and @gordon. Plus @girlonetrack of course, who I think did rather well in making some crucial points, despite being tired and emotional towards the end of the evening.

There is a woefully twisted irony in Zoe being subjected to yet another gross mistrust of twisted media values, during the very same weekend that her book addressing irresponsible reporting is published. For legal reasons, we were unable to talk about recent events.

I left the Groucho just in time for the last tube home, proudly walking out with my sponsor’s goody bag from Durex. Having a company responsible for promoting safe sex aligning itself with Zoe, speaks volumes about the misguided attack by The Sunday Times.

Back at base and I fumbled around a bit in the Durex bag.

Cripes.

Where on earth does that go?

I have much to learn.

Another weekend, another @billybragg gig.

Blimey.

After taking on the RBS bankers at Speaker’s Corner, and then offering real redemption for prison inmates, it was Back to Basics with Billy Bragg, and back to the day job for a ULU gig on Saturday night.

Sort of.

The show was in support of raising funds for fighting the BNP at the general election. It’s the kind of gig that Bill has put himself up for throughout the past twenty-five years.

You need funds to fight the forces that want to upset our social cohesion. It also helps to have a one-man band full of charisma to spread the message, and one who has resolutely refused to compromise and allow his principles to be diluted.

I often watch Billy Bragg and come away wishing that our politicians were more like him. But it’s a messy business politics. It’s all about power, posturing and back scratching. Billy Bragg deserves better.

The gig itself was Billy Bragg at his best. There’s nowhere to hide on stage for one man and his guitar. The set mixed up Life’s a Riot with Brewing Up and even some Mermaid Avenue.

The message was anti-fascism, pro-compassion and a belief in community. Politicians have changed policies, and big business has taken control of our society over the past quarter of a century. The solution remains the same. Billy Bragg put it across perfectly on stage at ULU on Saturday night.

In the absence of any political party being brave enough to put forward a genuinely progressive agenda ahead of the election, it’s a sorry state for democracy when we have to rely on a pop star to raise the profiles of the issues that matter.

Billy Bragg’s tireless campaigning against the payment of million pound plus bonuses to the bankers of the nationalised RBS Bank, has forced politicians to debate the issue.

But Saturday night at ULU was all about stopping the BNP in Barking and Dagenham, Bill’s home patch. With the general election nothing but a “wishy washy choice between two parties that are the same,” the real issue in Essex is stopping the fascists.

It is here where BNP thug Nick Griffin is trying to get elected as an MP with a mandate for racism. With the Labour party weak on the ground, now is the time to expose the BNP for all the hatred that it represents.

April 17th is a key day in the constituency. It has been put aside to campaign against the fascists that want to take control of Barking and Dagenham. Put aside serious concerns over Tory funding, Nu Labour’s love affair with big business and the LibDems, well, I’m not entirely sure about anything to do with the LibDems – fighting fascists in the crucial battle at the general election.

As yer man said on Saturday night:

“Wearing badges is not enough, in days like these.”