Fox Hunting

A Soho institution is in peril. The Intrepid Fox, a quirky, idiosyncratic gothy pub which stands on a site that has contained a pub of one sort or another for three hundred years is being forced to close next week. The reason for this is not diminishing custom, nor a lack of interest from the landlord or his staff, it is that some miserable property developers have seen an opportunity to make a quick buck by converting the building into the inevitable block of flats, and the miserable swines that owned the lease saw fit to sell it to them.

Why is this necessary? In short, it isn't; it's merely another example of the conversion of the entire county into a McCountry where you live in your blandly designed, slightly modernish flat, buy your coffee from Starbucks, eat at Bella Pasta, drink at All Bar One and where every street in every town looks identical. And I hate it. There is a petition which anyone may sign on the Intrepid Fox's website. If you'd like to, I'd urge you to sign if only to register protest at this continual erosion of all that's interesting and a bit different.