The British Museum bans bums on steps

 
4 November 2013

London’s theatreland may be doing better than expected during the Olympics, despite the dire predictions of Andrew Lloyd Webber, but the Londoner was saddened to find that even the steps of the British Museum, normally teeming with tourists, are bare.

However, on closer inspection it turns out that this was not because of over-zealous warnings about the capital being packed but over-zealous application of health and safety laws.

The British Museum has put up new signs, painted in municipal green, advising people not to sit on the steps as it’s an emergency exit.

It wasn’t a problem in 1997 when Kate Moss did an iconic photoshoot in a Union Jack sweater to launch London Fashion Week, nor was it a problem in the 1860s for Karl Marx when he took a break from writing Das Kapital to eat his sandwiches.

Given the neoclassical frontage of the Museum, designed by Sir Robert Smirke in 1823 and finished in 1852, is about 50 yards wide, it seems excessively cautious. But the museum will not be moved. “It is a long-standing policy for about 20 years, just for safety reasons, if people need to leave the museum,” says a spokesman. However, it has been barely enforced until now. “Security guards encourage the public to sit in the landscape and on the lawn as they are the designated areas.”

RIBA looks to Lord Coe to get fair deal for Games architects

RIBA president Angela Brady is taking on the Olympic Delivery Authority in a last-ditch bid to lift the ban on British architects who worked on delivering the 2012 Games from promoting their work until the end of the year.

Brady has written to Lord Coe, who is an honorary RIBA fellow, and John Armitt, chairman of the ODA, following the Government’s admission that it is not even trying to have the Olympic marketing ban overturned as a matter of urgency.

Ministers have said they are in negotiations with the British Olympic Association (BOA) and International Olympic Committee (IOC) to relax the marketing rules which restrict the use of the Olympics to the sponsors long after the Games are over.

“Coe is my last hope,” says Brady. “If Seb can’t overturn it, no one can. I met him at an Olympic reception at the Irish Embassy six months ago and he said, ‘If there’s anything I can do, Angela …’ Well, there is, and I’ve told him so.”

* Joan Collins, 79, is full of praise for our Olympians. “What amazing bodies on those #Olympic athletes , ain’t no fat there ! “ she tweets.

Bollywood star will have to box clever

Legendary Indian women’s boxer Mary Kom competes tomorrow in the Olympic flyweight semi-finals but even Bollywood superstar Abhishek Bachchan, pictured, can’t find a ticket. Abhiskek, son of Amitabh Bachchan — the even bigger Bollywood box-office draw who carried the Olympic torch through the streets of Peckham in the relay earlier this month — says India isn’t getting downhearted at its paltry three medals, despite being the second most populous nation.

“There’s no need to be angry,” he told the Londoner. “It is with support, dedication and encouragement that we can continue to grow.

“One in every six people on Earth is Indian. I’m sure we can churn out an Olympic football team soon.”

Rower shows off his golden gong

Andy Triggs Hodge, who helped trounce the Australians in the men’s coxless four on Saturday, is not afraid of burglars. He keeps his two Olympic gold medals — he also won one in Beijing — on his bedside table. “But if that is going to appear in a newspaper, perhaps I should dig up a floorboard and hide them there,” he told me.

Hodge showed the Londoner his 2012 gold medal at last night’s party hosted by Olympic sponsor Omega in Soho, where his team-mate Pete Reed also made an appearance, before heading to Shoreditch to meet long-jump gold medallist Greg Rutherford for the Stone Roses’ secret gig. As Reed raced off, Hodge said: “He doesn’t even know who they are.”

* The Foreign Office usually has sweeping views of Horse Guards Parade but can William Hague see the Olympic beach volleyball? Whitehall sources say Hague’s office is on the right side of the building to see all the action. “It’s just possible that he might be able to glimpse the big screen perched on top of the stand,” says a Foreign Office spokesman. “Otherwise we can see nothing.”

* Soldiers drafted in to protect the Games have inflicted barracks-style torments on their G4S “partners” after being driven to distraction by the student army. One of the Forces’ finest disclosed: “We picked up one G4S student, put him inside the security scanner and threatened to turn it on. They keep confiscating water bottles so we filled one with a certain yellow liquid and cut a hole in it. When it spilled over the G4S lad, he said ‘I’m covered in apple juice’. I told him ‘Er, actually you’re not!”

Book now: Ken to appear live on stage

All political lives end in failure, observed Enoch Powell. But clearly he was not as aware of the personal appearance circuit as Ken Livingstone.

The former Mayor of London is joining the likes of Felicity Kendal, Christine Hamilton, June Whitfield and former England goalkeeper Peter Shilton to appear on stage as part of the An Audience With … series, which celebrates its 10th anniversary under the doughty stewardship of producer Clive Conway.

A source has confirmed that Ken has agreed to one date in the near future in which he will discuss his life and career with a paying theatre audience.

The Londoner is hoping that the precedent of Iain Duncan Smith is nothing to go by. The Conservative MP, who had been newly relieved of his party’s leadership, garnered just 67 paying punters in the 2,381-seater Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

* Farewell to Robert Hughes, the Australian art critic best remembered for The Shock of the New BBC series in 1980, who has died aged 74 in New York. The tributes will no doubt come pouring in but early out of the starting blocks is, oddly, Bret Easton Ellis, enfant terrible of the US literary scene. “The only time I came in contact with Hughes was in 1991 when he threatened to leave Random House if they published American Psycho,” he tweets. Hughes was clearly a man of taste.

Exit the only Tory feminist

When Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman declared: “You can’t be a Conservative and a feminist” last month, the Londoner wondered how Louise Mensch — mother, writer and rising star of the Commons — would react to such a statement. “Would you have a view on this you would like to share?” we enquired.

Mensch is hardly publicity shy but her office emailed back a few days later to say: “Really sorry but Louise does not have the time/availability for this at the moment.” Mensch announced yesterday that she would be stepping down as an MP because she couldn’t marry work commitments with her family life. Her husband is based in the US and she is going to join him there with her children. Harriet Harman must be grinning.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in