Next week starts the London Film Festival. In fact, its the 60th LFF. A- n’anniversary version. So the BFI have decided to add something new. As well as screening the movies at the usual; Leicester Square Odeon, NFT at the Southbank, various other high profile movie-emporia, they’re adding a new one to the list. Except its not built yet. The pic is what it looked like last night. And the festival starts on Wednesday. But don’t panic, on Monday it was just a flat piece of land.

Park-land in fact. Cos they’re putting up a cinema in Embankment Gardens. The little park, my own best secret place (even though its often jam-packed with tourists, commuters and winos), that is hidden between Victoria Embankment and the Strand, by the Savoy. Its beautiful there. Really beautiful. They must spend about a million quid a year on flowers, bushes and trees. They only plant ‘mature’ and they only plant ‘symmetrical’. Add in a truly wonderful array of sculptures, scatter around some discarded Special Brew cans and you have a little bit of peace and quiet and aesthetic wonder hidden between the River and the ‘shops of horror’ on the Strand (don’t like shopping, especially don’t like generic shopping).

Last week they un-planted half the beds in the park. Ooooooh. But they do that often. End of season re-plant usually. But no, not this time. This time they’re planting metal sheeting and steel scaffold. And they’re putting up a movie-house. I’ve seen images of it on the BFI site and its gonna be… well, its gonna be a proper movie-house. Big, tiered seating, big screen, Dolby wi-fi, ultra-HD, super surround-sound, silicon-chippy, fuck-off quality. And did I mention: ‘big’. Its fucking massive.

And I don’t know why; that made me very happy. In an ‘I heart Lundun’ kind’a way. You wanna show movies; I’ll build you a new cinema. Gimme 4 days.

I wish the BFI could run the roadworks department.

What doesn’t make me happy is needles. And this afternoon I’m joining Bradley Wiggins and getting some cortisone. Its being pumped into my wicked shoulder. Oh fucking joy. Needle the size of a… the size of a temporary cinema.

Happy (???) Friday

A xxxx