TimeOut London Readers' poll

Wandsworth Borough Council says a planned lap-dancing club in its high street is inappropriate. Is it?

A) Yes, they're misogynistic

B) No, it's just entertainment

Need no help this week - obvious answer is B

You've never been to Wandsworth have you? I used to live just down the road from it (in Southfields) and it is an absolute hell-hole.

You can put a Waitrose in Wandsworth, but it is still full of scratters and wrong'uns.

I don't see that a strip club would lower the tone.

It does have the lowest council tax in the country though.

Indeed i have been to Wandsworth and Wandsworth Common long ago when it was still rather dicey for London

Wandsworth common's the nice bit. They wanted to open the Gashpoint in Wandsworth High St

why would such a gritty area that presumably needs all the influx of money that such a place would bring in - why would they oppose this, which i think and you would know i think is common in London?

Where's the beef?

Wandsworth Council is the most right wing in the country - so that's probably why they knocked it on the head.

If you want to see mangey old Growlers you'd have to go to the Queen Anne in Vauxhall. ( A London institution and a rite of passage)

Wandsworth High St is a traffic through-route, and the kind of shopping that you would expect on a "High St" disappeared long ago. It has a rather forlorn appearance as a result, and neighbouring it is one of the bigger council estates in the borough.

But all around it is one of the most expensive and swanky parts of London, and the Council wants to keep it that way - especially since the Town Hall and Council chambers aren't that far away from where this club is likely to be. You've probably seen them countless times in films and on TV, by the way - they're a rather grand 1920s construction that frequently serves as Mussolini's offices and the like.

From what I recall, the Council used to license a sex shop of some sort somewhere round there, but I suppose the customers for that tended to be quiet people in raincoats who arrived discreetly by bus. A lap-dancing club tends to attract loud-mouthed show-offs in penile-substitute cars. Rather reminiscent of the Tory councillors' hangers-on and crawlers-up at election night at the Town Hall, now I come to think of it.

From what I recall, the Council used to license a sex shop of some sort somewhere round there,>>>>>

It's still there. It's in East Hill. Apparently.

Cholmondley - still a paid up member of the Putney Conservative Association until January.

cholmondley - still a patron of Wandsworth's tawdry sex shops as well it seems

Nah it's too far. There's one in Lewisham if I felt the need.

Well, there you are. Now you know what election nights at Wandsworth Town Hall bring you into contact with. Mind you, in 1997, I had the pleasure of telling David Mellor that my radio had just announced the Tories had lost Wimbledon (for US readers, imagine Orange County voting for Hillary).

I didn't much like the Mellorphant man. The new MP is nice and pretty, so that's good and the natural order has been re-established.

Cholmondley - looking forward to the elctoral meltdown facing Gordon Brown and Boris as mayor.

Cholmondley - looking forward to the elctoral meltdown facing Gordon Brown and Boris as mayor

What does Gordon Brown have to do with London Mayor election?

As i remember my personal hero, Red Ken Livingstone was elected inspite of ferocious opposition from a then very popular Tony Blair

Boris appears, from what little i know of him, a laughing stock and i'm sure most Londoners are much more discriminating in chosing their leaders than you - and think a Tory Mayor may cut benefits or wages for the typical overpaid underworked civil servant

Ken has no power over me. Thank God.

Boris will win as people will want to give Brown a kicking.

Do try to keep up, Pal, Ken and the Labour Party sort of kissed and made up (or at least, Blair's attention was diverted elsewhere) by the time of the 2004 election.

The only way Boris will win is if he simply says nothing between now and the election, because he is - frankly - a complete arse. Mind you, that appears to be his current game plan, much to the annoyance of more traditional campaigners in his party.

Pat i sincerely cherish this forum as a way of keeping up - not afraid to make mistakes as then i learn from them

But can Red Ken shut up? Seems to be a bit loquacious?

thanks for updates

And my my removed vantage point it seems Red Ken has a lot of accomplishments:

Olympics coming

Tube, buses getting more money due to Congestion charge

has called the American Ambassador a chiseling little crook

seems to have revitalized Trafalgar Square with lots of activities there

and festivals like the Thames one i wandered into a few years back

Booming economy

Museums free

Etc.

And London would seem to me to be a largely liberal town with all its ethnic groups and blue collar areas like some of Wandsworth - especially Greenwich.

So how does Boris, speaking or not, have a chance - I don't know much about Boris nor have i heard him or seen him speak, etc. But he sounds like a gadfly

A serious question?

Accomnplishments?

"Olympics coming": You call Soviet style reserved lanes for bigwigs an accomplishment?

"Tube, buses getting more money due to Congestion charge": Not so. The congestion charge is scarcely paying its way

"has called the American Ambassador a chiseling little crook": The ambassador is only doing the job Foggy Bottom tells him to. The US isn't the only charge-dodger: just the only one Livingstone goes out of his way to insult. Unlike the Cuban and Venezuelan dictators he cosies up to or the African kleptocracies whose parking offences he ignores

"seems to have revitalized Trafalgar Square with lots of activities there" SO?

"and festivals like the Thames one i wandered into a few years back"
Nothing sums up Livingstone (and the gullibility of foreign visitors) better than this. First held in 1996 (four years before we even had a mayor), by 2002 it had morphed into "The Mayor's Thames Festival", as if he had anything to do with it. The little shyster's always been a slimy, lying toad: the only difference between now and 25 years ago is he's now a slimy, lying toad some people are daft enough to believe

"Booming economy" In spite of the SLT, not because of him. And since it's boomed pretty well in step with its two younger, duller, near-identical triplet siblings (New York and Hong Kong) for the past ten years, it's got more to do with being a globally trading city-state on the edge of the world's three major economies than anything any government can take credit for

"Museums free" What's that got to do with him, either? National museums have been free everywhere in England since 1998, when the SLT was still in the political wilderness (and didn't even lobby on the isue, which was just as well if you're foolish enough to think free admission's a good thing, since his involvement would have undermined any lobby he got near). They're funded by the national taxpayer. The only free museums in London that aren't funded by the centre are funded by private foundations (like the Wellcome or, arguably, the Soane) or the City of London (the London Museum).

Well Red did hire American Keilly to straighten out the Tube!

give him credit for something

and he did did he not rid Trafalgar Square of those rats with wings?

And efforts like trying to help diversify London's practically all white Black cab drivers by giving help to buy scooters and get thru the rigorous three-year or so Demonstration thing.

Hopefully London's legions of ethnic groups will appreciate his social policies more than folks in the hills outside of London