LONDON BRIEFING February 2005

News this month

Mourning

The London Stock Exchange ceased trading, double-decker buses pulled off the road and the London Eye slowed to a standstill on January 5th as the city observed three minutes of silence for the victims of the Asian tsunami. Fifty-three Britons are known to have died in the disaster and a further 413 were missing as of January 18th. Many South-East Asians living in the capital have also lost friends and relatives: one Sri Lankan businessman told reporters how his wife and almost 100 family members were drowned after the tidal wave swamped his village.

Assistance in identifying the victims' bodies has been provided by forensic experts from the Metropolitan Police. A temporary morgue was set up in Chelsea to receive bodies flown home. The devastation caused by the Asian tsunami has prompted some observers to ask whether London is adequately protected against flooding. Though the Thames Barrier provides some defence, the Environment Agency is considering building a ten-mile-long flood barrier from Southend in Essex to Sheerness in Kent to guard against rising sea-levels.

Miserable not merry

The festive season proved a miserable period for many of London's bricks-and-mortar retailers. Figures published by the London Retail Consortium (LRC) on January 17th showed that December sales in the city centre were 2.5% lower than in 2003. This was despite extensive discounting and other promotional schemes in the run-up to Christmas. Dubbing it “one of the worst Christmas periods ever”, David Southwell, the LRC's director, pointed the finger at last year's interest-rate rises, fears about the housing market and increases in council tax. He also highlighted a decline in foreign visitors caused by the dollar's downward spiral and the growing popularity of out-of-town shopping venues.

Free rags

London's commuters may soon have a wider choice of free newspapers after the mayor, Ken Livingstone, said he'd tear up an exclusive deal with the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT). Under current arrangements, DMGT pays £1m a year to distribute its free newspaper, called Metro, at stations across the capital. But the monopoly has been criticised by rivals and is being investigated by the Office of Fair Trading. Mr Livingstone's announcement appears to have pre-empted a decision by the government body.

The news will please Richard Desmond, owner of Express Newspapers, who wants to launch a free afternoon paper to compete with the Evening Standard (also owned by DMGT), which costs 40p. A new title could be on the stands within eight to ten weeks. The London Underground could gain as much as £6m by allowing more free newspapers to be distributed from its stations—though don't expect fare reductions anytime soon.

Battle of the bourses

Will the venerable London Stock Exchange (LSE) capitulate to a continental rival? In December, Deutsche Börse, owner of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, approached the LSE with a £1.35 billion ($2.6 billion) takeover bid. The LSE's board of directors rejected the offer, saying it was too low, but the two sides have continued talking. Big questions about how a merged exchange would be regulated and whether efficiency gains will be passed on to investors must be resolved first.

Deutsche Börse's supervisory board approved the bid on January 17th. But some of its investors are opposing the proposed takeover, arguing that the bourse's spare cash should be used to buy back its own shares. (Deutsche Börse does not require their consent.) A second suitor has meanwhile emerged in the form of Euronext, a Paris-based exchange group that already controls Liffe, London's derivatives exchange. Online bookies have it as the slight favourite; overall odds of the LSE remaining independent have widened to eight to one.

Hadid it

New cultural buildings are a rarity in central London—the last big one to be commissioned was the British Library, in 1978. Now, however, the South Bank is set to gain a striking new landmark in the form of the Architecture Foundation's exhibition centre. At a ceremony on January 12th, Rowan Moore, director of the non-profit organisation, announced that the £2.25m structure would be designed by Zaha Hadid, a London-based architect and winner of the prestigious Pritzker prize. Her bold, geometric design was praised for combining “an emphatic presence and form with visual permeability and public accessibility”. It was chosen from 208 entries.

The building will be Ms Hadid's first permanent commission in London. In recent years she has shed her tag as the world's best-known “paper architect” (that is, good at dreaming up unbuilt projects) by constructing striking creations such as Cincinnati's Rosenthal Centre for Contemporary Art and the Bergisel ski jump in Innsbruck. Funding for the exhibition centre will be provided by Land Securities, a property developer that's reshaping the surrounding area.

Wait and see

Pedestrians and vehicles will mingle in a radical redesign of Kensington's Exhibition Road. Under the revolutionary scheme, spearheaded by the borough council, all barriers and signals separating the roadway from the pavement (including the kerb) will be removed to create a “shared space” with cars. Those driving will be asked to observe a maximum speed limit of 20mph.

The concept behind the redesign is that drivers and pedestrians will be more cautious because they'll no longer assume they have right-of-way. Despite predictions of chaos, similar schemes in the Netherlands have made car journeys quicker and cut traffic-related accidents. Britain's Royal Automobile Club says it will be watching the trial closely. If successful, “naked roads” could be introduced elsewhere in Britain. Kensington & Chelsea council has already earmarked Sloane Square as the next venue for the concept.

Catch if you can

February 2005

Turks: A Journey of a Thousand Years, 600-1600

Until April 12th 2005

It hardly seems like coincidence that this exhibition coincides with Turkey's trajectory towards European Union membership. But its name may be misleading: the “Turks” here are not merely from what we know of as Turkey, but from the legacy of the long migration of the Turkic peoples from Central Asia to Anatolia and the Balkans. Expect plenty of artefacts from the Turks' conversion to Islam and their establishment of the mighty Ottoman Empire. As such, is as much about the Silk Road as about Istanbul, from where many of the pieces are on loan (courtesy of the Topkapi palace).

It is a fantastic display, albeit overwhelming. Chinese porcelain sits alongside Venetian glass, stunning textiles, intricate armaments and Ottoman religious ornaments. Most interesting are the 14th-century drawings of Muhammad Siyah Qalam (“Muhammad of the Black Pen”), depicting the mysterious world of the nomads who controlled trade along the Silk Road.

Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD. Tel: +44 (0)870 848 8484. Open: Sun-Thu 10am-6pm, Fri-Sat 10am-10pm. See the sites for the Royal Academy and the exhibition.