Police have issued this sketch of a man wanted in connection with a jellewery heist on February 3rd. Jewels worth nearly £1million were stolen at knifepoint from Haynes Jewellers, Castle Court, St Michael’s Alley, near Cornhill in the raid.

DI Edelle Michaels from City of London Police who is leading the investigation said: “Witnesses have provided a clear description of one of the robbers and someone will recognise the man in the picture we’ve released today. He is suspected of involvement in a violent and frightening robbery and it’s important that anyone with information on his identity contact us.”

Police now know three men were involved in the robbery. All 3 were dressed like workmen with their faces partially covered, one in fluorescent jacket and trousers. The men took a taxi from close to the scene of the robbery to Tower Hill, where two of the gang left the cab. The third suspect stayed in the taxi and was dropped on Hackney Road at Bethnal Green.

Anyone with information about the robbery or the suspects, or who has information about the whereabouts of the jewellery stolen should contact City of London Police on 020 7601 2222, or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111

For those that knew him, or just the curious, you can visit his website and see the tributes that have been left

Peter Moore - Town Crier
www.londontowncrier.com

Even though it’s centuries later, the City of London is still shaped by the churches built after the Great Fire of London by Christopher Wren and his assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor. Fifty churches were erected by Wren and his office after the Great Fire but sadly some were destroyed during the Blitz in the Second World War.

The City has a cornucopia of churches and former churches: places like St Dunstan In The East, just off Great Tower Street, only the tower and steeple remain and the rest is used as a beautiful garden and Christ Church Greyfriars, on Newgate Street, bombed during the Second World War, still has its tower but the ruins of the rest were also turned into a garden popular with people who work nearby.

St Dunstan in the East

St Dunstan in the East

Christ Church Greyfriars

On the outskirts of the City of London is Christ Church Spitalfields, built between 1714 and 1729 and designed by Wren’s protégé Hawksmoor. It is not strictly speaking in the City of London but is so close to the border that anyone visiting Spitalfields Market, which is in the City, could cross Commercial Street and see it.

Christ Church Spitalfields

St Olaves Hart Street is one of the only Medieval churches that escaped the Great Fire. Dating from around 1450, it is situated near Tower Hill station.

St Olaves Hart Street

The City also has St Bride’s Church on Fleet Street, designed by Wren and is said to have been the inspiration for the tiered wedding cake.

St Bride’s Church

Of course, the crowning jewel in the City of London’s churches is St Paul’s Cathedral. Consecrated in 1688 and designed by Christopher Wren, it survived bombing in the Blitz and is named after the patron saint of London, St Paul. It still commands the views of the Western end of the City of London and, thanks to the building of the Millennium Bridge in 2000, its vista has been improved. A major cleaning operation over the last few years has restored it to its former glory too.

St Paul’s Cathedral

St Paul’s Cathedral

Other churches in the City of London include…

St Botolph without Bishopsgate

St Vedast-alias-Foster

All Hallows by the Tower

Mary-le-Bow

“In a tradition dating back to 1215 and enshrined in the charter of King John, each new Lord Mayor is required to swear a pledge of allegiance to the Sovereign in front of the Lord Chief Justice and Judges of the Queen’s Bench Division. An established highlight of London’s social calendar, the Lord Mayor’s Show attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.”

“Behind the new Lord Mayor, in a procession extending more than three miles, around 6,000 people from all across London will come together to celebrate their city’s proud cultural heritage and to revel in its diverse modernity. With more than 60 participating organisations ranging from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home to the British Red Cross Society, this year’s Show demonstrates exactly why London is widely regarded the most cosmopolitan city in the world and why the Square Mile continues to enjoy its reputation as the pre-eminent centre for global finance.”

The parade starts at 11am, though an early arrival is recommended because of the inevitable crowds, but if you can’t make that then I’d really recommend the fireworks down on the river at 5pm. It’s always a spectacular show.

For a plan of the route and more details of the timings go to the official website:
http://www.lordmayorsshow.org

Bridges provide an important lifeline in the City of London, linking the Square Mile to the rest of Greater London. In fact, the first bridge across the Thames, London Bridge was erected during the Roman occupation sometime between the 1st and 4th centuries AD.

Starting with Tower Bridge in the East, this bridge is the most famous river crossing in London. Opened in 1885 and designed by Horace Jones with John Wolfe-Barry, its familiar bascule design marks it out as the most distinctive of London’s bridges.

London Bridge is the latest of many bridges occupying the site to be given that name with the current crossing finished in 1972 after its replacement was bought by an American and transported brick by brick to Havasu City in Arizona, USA.

The Cannon Street Railway Bridge was built in 1863-6 by John Hawkshaw and John Wolfe-Barry and was widened about twenty years later.

The current Southwark Bridge dates from 1921 and was designed by architect Sir Ernest Hay.

The Millennium Bridge, the footbridge that connects St Pauls to the Tate Modern on the South Bank, was completed in 2000. Designed by engineers Arup, Foster and Partners with Anthony Caro, when it opened, it got the unfortunate nickname of the Wobbly Bridge because it swayed on the first two days of its use. This was corrected and it reopened in 2002.

Blackfriars Bridge dates from 1869 and was designed by Thomas Cubitt. The ghost of an older bridge can be seen with its columns in the water to the East of the bridge.

Pedestrian walkways also play their part in the City of London with many crisscrossing Upper and Lower Thames Street, the road that runs from Blackfriars Bridge to Tower Bridge and back, and Bishopsgate, the major thoroughfare near Liverpool Street.

The event was coordinated with Oxford St and Regent St switch on ceremonies, and sponsored by Disney’s new version of A Christmas Carol.  Stars of the movie turned on the lights at each of the three locations: Bob Hoskins at St Paul’s Cathedral, Colin Firth at Regent Street, and Jim Carrey at Oxford Street.

Couldn’t make it? Here’s a couple of Youtube videos from the event posted by paulmuchmore…

City workers are invited to get involved by stepping out of their comfort zone and “swap their comfortable beds for cardboard boxes” for the night.

The event is being organised by the ABC Trust (Action for Brazil’s Children) and they will be arranging a mix of Brazilian themed entertainment on the night including live music and a performance from the East London Capoeira group.

Each participant will be aiming to raise at least £150 in sponsorship money, with the ABC Trust hoping to raise a minimum of of £15,000 to help provide basic provisions for street children this Christmas.

Andrew Webb – CEO of ABC Trust said “It is vital that people understand that this is not an attempt to undermine or trivialise the issues that street children face, and in no way is it aiming to recreate the everyday life of a Brazilian street child.  The aim of the ‘Big City Sleep’ is to show members of the public what some aspects of life are like for those children who live on the streets in Brazil, the difference is that participants in the ‘Big City Sleep’ can go back to their own comforts and normal life the following day.”

Toby Brown, Spitalfields Estate Director “We are delighted to support the ABC Trust; by using Spitalfields’ public space to host the Big City Sleep fundraising event we are helping to raise awareness and money for some of worlds most vulnerable children”.

To take part in the ‘Big City Sleep’ or for more information, please get in touch: Reference – Big City Sleep, email – lydia.stevens@abctrust.org.uk, or phone: 0207 287 3818

Now TFL apparently saw this as an “operational decision” and didn’t see the need to consult anyone but the subsequent outcry and sound of BoJo hitting the roof has since persuaded them otherwise and they’ll now find themselves ranked alongside the State of Indiana’s who once considered a proposal to set the value of pi to 3 (or 3.2, or 4) for convenience sake…

In other news Land Securities is in process of partnering with Blackstone for the latter to take on half of Broadgate, by Liverpool Street station. Frequent home of lunchtime attractions Broadgate is home to a £2.1bn debt of which Blackstone will apparently take on half and although I don’t imagine it’ll have many, if any, implications in the short-term perhaps its long-term future may now be a bit rosier.

This has attracted the understandable interest of the protesting community and they seem to have chosen a few targets in the City to visit yesterday before heading down to Docklands today. That’s apparently why the City offices of AXA and BT were attacked yesterday as the Metro relates:

“About 60 activists, many wearing masks, stopped traffic as they paraded through the capital to protest against the Defence Systems and Equipment International Arms Fair taking place at the Excel centre in Docklands this week. After storming the BT building in Newgate Street, they moved on to the head offices of Axa Investment Management nearby.”

Probably to their great surprise they actually managed to get into the BT building and the Metro takes up the story again:

A witness at the BT building said: “They came running in and jumped over the security barriers, smashing glasses and telephones. Some of them went up to two floors above, having a look round and writing graffiti. It could have been really frightening but when they started shouting about BT being involved in the arms trade I knew that they didn’t know what they were going on about. Then they must have got bored and left.”

Maybe if an under-employed training company in the City isn’t able to fill its IT and Secretarial courses they ought to offer courses in effective protesting because I’m struggling to find anyone who understands their list of targets and most of the staff at the companies concerned seem entirely mystified about their supposed involvement. Did you know what DSEI was before you read this??

“How about something in the heart of the City like we did last time?” pipes up one smartly-clad participant

“Too old. Been there, done that“ chimes in another.

“Tell you what“. Heads turn to view the new speaker. “Why don’t we get our message across to the City by not doing it in the City. Let’s pick somewhere they might not even be able to point out on a map“.

Climate Camp protestors in the City, not Blackheath

Am I the only one feeling a massive sense of anti-climax about the Climate Camp and it’s decision to set up next to a funfair on Blackheath? I may be missing some ingenious twist to this cunning plan but it almost seems like the decision-making as to where to set up camp has been led by Blackadder’s sidekick Baldrick.

To recap the events so far after playing games with the police on Wednesday by trying to lead them in a guessing game of where the camp was going to be set up they picked the well-known City hotspot of Blackheath to set up camp on the grounds that some protestors did it a few hundred years ago and it’s got a nice view of the City. This was billed as:
The Climate Camp are on the case, join them when they takeover the city of London, the financial heart of global capitalism next week…
Hmmm… If these people were ever to have annual appraisals I’d suggest they’re not making their quotas as from what I can tell most of the 22 identified targets are currently unvisited.

Yesterday morning the BBC reports that around 20 protestors staged a demo on Bishopsgate outside the Carbon Exchange on Bishopsgate and then, according to other reports, went off for lunch and didn’t come back. Sounds like they’ve begun to integrate into City life then!

By contrast Help for Heroes had a collection march of around 100 people which headed through the City on their way to Trafalgar Square. Did the press report that?

While taking pictures outside the Royal Exchange on Wednesday I chatted with Police and journalists and we came up with a list of at least five locations in Central London that would have had:
a) Immediate relevance to one of their targets,
b) Been very photogenic for the benefit of the press,
c) Had a very high footfall so they could get their message across to lots of people,
d) Wouldn’t be a huge disruption so they’d be unlikely to be moved on.

The didn’t choose any of those. Let’s see what today brings.