Serving Fitzrovia since 1066
By our culinary correspondent Harry Speed It is not often that one attends a tasting and leaves questioning the very possibility of frying an egg, yet such was my fate after an evening at The Existential Chop, Fitzrovia’s most self-important butcher. The event was billed as a “Dialectical Tasting,” and promised a pairing of artisanal…
By Sandringham Jeff, cultural affairs correspondent In an age of ceaseless chatter, Fitzrovia has taken the extraordinary step of legislating silence. Beginning this week, a pilot ordinance requires all residents and visitors to observe one continuous hour of “structured quietness” between 3pm and 4pm daily. The policy was conceived by Councillor Peregrine Datchworth, who has…
Sleep has become something of an optional luxury in Fitzrovia this week, thanks to the sudden emergence of what locals are calling the Midnight Bagpipe Club. The group, said to number between four and forty enthusiasts (depending on whom you ask), assembles nightly at the base of the BT Tower and proceeds to play traditional…
By Clement Harbottle, Fitzrovian Affairs Editor For years, Fitzrovia has prided itself on being one of London’s most walkable neighbourhoods, a place where Georgian charm mingles with artisanal cafés and the occasional confused tourist looking for Oxford Circus. But beneath the aroma of flat whites and the chatter of office workers on Charlotte Street lies…
By Clement Harbottle, Fitzrovian Affairs Editor Fitzrovia, never shy of a quixotic invention, has once again delivered a marvel destined for the annals of genius. Local designer Susie Polteen, already celebrated for her Dogbrella, has unveiled a sequel: the Catbrella, the world’s first umbrella specifically engineered for cats. A Leap Forward in Feline Meteorology “Dogs…
By Clement Harbottle, Fitzrovian Affairs Editor In an unprecedented act of civic innovation, Fitzrovia’s Charlotte Street will soon play host to “Silent Thursdays,” a weekly day in which all talking, honking, humming, and whistling will be strictly forbidden. The plan, spearheaded by the Fitzrovia Noise Abatement Society (FiNAS), comes after years of complaints that the…
By Celeste Bramwell, Senior Urban Affairs Correspondent Fitzrovia has long prided itself on being at the cutting edge of metropolitan life. Now, in a bold experiment, local authorities have announced plans to pilot the world’s first 25-hour day, arguing that “24 hours simply isn’t enough for everything we want to do.” Why 25 Hours? According…
By Percival Hume, Culture Editor The latest proposal to emerge from Fitzrovia’s ever-inventive civic imagination is not another new transport scheme or an ambitious architectural folly, but something far more ethereal: an official neighbourhood scent. The idea, floated by the Fitzrovia Cultural Committee during its quarterly meeting at a café where no coffee is served…
By Our Wellness Correspondent Fitzrovia is no stranger to eccentric ideas, but the council’s latest pilot scheme has left locals blinking. This week, Westminster Council announced it would be trialling the UK’s first “Wellness Traffic Lights” at the junction of Goodge Street and Charlotte Street. Instead of the standard red, amber, and green signals, the…
In a bold fusion of urban planning and aquatic exuberance a proposal has emerged from the Fitzrovia Summer Infrastructure Imagination Sub-Committee (a group of retired architects and one man named Crispin with a degree in fluid aesthetics) to install a gigantic water slide curling through the neighbourhood – beginning, naturally, at the top of the…