Wednesday 19th November  14:35 pm Good Afternoon

on today on tomorrow other dates...

Nelson's Column February Dark, Satanic Turnmills 20th February 2008 A Legend Hosts its Last Parties It has been some years since I had to consider how my feet would feel after dancing from midnight until dawn when choosing my shoes. But the news that Turnmills was to close so soon after the King’s Cross Goods Yard clubs (Canvas, The Key, The Cross) still came as a shock. About half of London’s major all-night clubs have disappeared in the space of three months. It’s hardly surprising that these labyrinthine venues are shutting their doors: my generation is now much happier sipping cocktails somewhere salubrious than bouncing around in a former factory, and the young, so I’m told, think that electric guitars are the future. Nobody is going to much miss those chillout rooms full of sleazy dreadlocked men offering massages to anyone in a skirt, or the stench of sweat on the dancefloors, nor yet the music that had been carefully subdivided into 1000s of indistinguishable sub-genres with names like Darkcore and Dubstep. In any case, you only have to hop on a plane to Eastern Europe if you want to experience a place where these phenomena still flourish. Yet there is much to regret about the slow death of dance music in the capital, not least the stunning buildings that housed these clubs. There was something very special about the way that going out in London meant a descent into the bowels of our city’s industrial heritage. Turnmills is an extraordinary Victorian edifice, while the Goods Yard clubs were housed in a set of arches and warehouses that still remembered the days when the Industrial Revolution was fed by thousands of trains from the North of England. I worry that today’s skinny-jeaned youth won’t get the same thrills from their corporate-sponsored gigs at the O2 Dome as we had from these gothic underworlds, with their great brick arches, and mazes of UV-lit corridors. The idea that dark, satanic Turnmills is to become a set of trendy offices, where designers in thick-framed glasses will have brainstorming sessions, is truly depressing. Though perhaps not quite as depressing as the way that I’ve obviously turned into a dismal old nineties nostalgist, moaning about how the youth of today don’t know how to have fun. If anyone spots me putting on an Underworld album and telling a bemused teenager that it’s what PROPER music sounds like, please have me shipped off to the Ministry of Sound immediately to remind me just how horrible the superclubs often were. Underground but not Undercover You’d think it unlikely that anything could make London’s Tube commuters more frustrated or irate but, for a while there, it looked as though London Transport was going to ban nudes too by censoring a poster of Venus wearing nothing but a knowing look as part of an advertising campaign for the Royal Academy’s Cranach show. Luckily they have relented ‘given its context’ – thank goodness for that, imagine the tedium of just having Mayor Ken’s ‘Poems on the Underground’ as company on your way to work… So much art, so little space Nigella knows how to whip up something out of nothing and husband Charles Saatchi is certainly not just sitting around eating her choco-hoto-pots either. Nope, he thought he’d take on the Tate Modern (as you do) by opening a new art gallery in Chelsea. Saatchi has already got a couple of shows in the pipeline for when he opens in spring – contemporary Chinese art, new US artists, Indian art – you better watch this space! There's a storm brewing! Us Brits just love to chat weather - bemoaning the great British summertime, going camping in a lake of mud and what we’re especially fond of is when the whole rail system grinds to a halt because the wind has blown some leaves onto the track. Well, now we can expostulate about the climate to our hearts’ content at the Museum of London with a new exhibition about our weather, appropriately titled ‘Weather Permitting’ – it’s brilliantly quirky and informative and a great way to spend a rainy summer’s day when it opens in June. October 2008 24th October Boris v Jingjing 17th October Soaps in Pole Position September 2008 23rd September Chips too Chavvy for Chelsea 16th September The London Restaurant Awards August 2008 26th August No Smoking, No Ducks, No Barbecues 20th August The Olympics July 2008 24th July Sandwiched Out 17th July The Show Ain't Over 'Til the Fat Lady's on Page 3 June 2008 26th June Love All at Wimbledon 16th June Miller Puts the Heat on Tennant May 2008 27th May Booze Banned on Buses 20th May Same Again? April 2008 23rd April By George 11th April Back to the 80s March 2008 28th March How do You Solve A Problem Like Medea? 20th March Flight Fantastic February 2008 20th February Dark, Satanic Turnmills 6th February A Diamond in the Drink January 2008 21st January People Wanted for Plinth 14th January Boo! Hiss! December 2007 28th December Tate That - A Hirst for Art 20th December Christmas Shopping November 2007 27th November Mind the Gap 26th November London On A Tray October 2007 26th October Leaving the Station 14th October The Sky's the Limit September 2007 26th September The Play Within A Play 19th September Fashion, Frocks and Celeb Shocks 12th September Saying Tanks for the Mammaries August 2007 24th August Heathrow under Siege 17th August Gormless 10th August Losing Face July 2007 24th July Are We Reaching Boiling Point Yet This Summer? 13th July Red Ken versus Blonde Boris June 2007 22nd June Last Orders at the Fag Machine 11th June London the Musical May 2007 21st May What Lurks Beneath 10th May The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of April 2007 27th April London’s Walk on the Wild Side 20th April Stand Behind the Yellow Line 13th April Like Water for Chocolate March 2007 23rd March So, Another Magazine 16th March Avoiding iContact February 2007 23rd February Sex and Art... 16th February C-Charge Protest Fails to Bring Down Government 9th February Live Earth London January 2007 26th January A Vote for Shilpa is a Vote for Britain 18th January Carriage on up the West End December 2006 29th December Food for Thought 22nd December A Poisonous Marketing Campaign 15th December In for a Penny, In for Five Pounds November 2006 17th November Big Department Stores Leave Santa Out in the Cold 10th November Failing to Save the World October 2006 27th October Frozen Prawns and Melting Icecaps 20th October Predatory Pelicans and Happy Woodland Folk 13th October Hope at last for east end of Oxford Street September 2006 16th September Lite the Blue Paper and Stand Well Back 9th September Of Poles and Twiglets August 2006 25th August Free Fares For the Fat and the Fashionable 11th August London Friendly 4th August Archway To Organic Heaven July 2006 21st July London - Celebrity Frat House 7th July Out of the Galleries into the Streets June 2006 23rd June Mayors, Nightmares and Marias 16th June Downright Rude in Paris and London 9th June Enter the Inferno May 2006 26th May Curvaceous Border 12th May Vegging Out April 2006 21st April The Camden Crawl 17th April Down the Pan 13th April I Want to Break Free 9th April Big Brother seems to have been left in a bar somewhere 7th April Don't Box Me In March 2006 24th March Political Correctness Reaches New Heights February 2006 24th February A Stadium's Tale: Cup Final Goes West 17th February Modern Musicals are Rubbish 10th February The City-Side Alliance January 2006 20th January February Sales 20th January Moby Sick 13th January Glass Half Full 3rd January Three Cheers for the Tube Station Workers December 2005 22nd December January Bites 16th December A Remarkable Year November 2005 25th November And a Partridge in a JCB 11th November Driving Miss Sadie 4th November Spam, Spam, Spammity-Spam, Shakespeare, Zorro, Chico and Rasputin October 2005 28th October Trick or Treat? 21st October We Don't Mind a Little Delay... 14th October Final Resting Place for Young British Artists September 2005 16th September Just a small urn for me, please barman 9th September DRINK! DRINK! DRINK! 2nd September The Free Tenor August 2005 30th August Samba Rhythms Breaking Out All Over The Stadium 20th August Getting Behind the Iron Farce