Oriental City has been under threat for so long, but it is finally to close at the end of May, to make way for soulless flats and a DIY superstore. (There aren’t enough DIY superstores in London apparently, so a one-of-its-kind shopping centre has to be leveled to make way for one).
I’ve been going there regularly for at least ten years, but today was the last time.
There aren’t really any alternatives. Chinese Wing Yip, down the road, is expanding, but they don’t have the other shops or non-Chinese food. Japanese TK Trading is miles away.
Thanks to ex-Mayor Ken Livingstone for valiantly defending the store — oh no, in fact he approved the planning application. Well, he’s been thrown out of office now, but his stupid planning decisions like this and others will linger on.
George wanted to talk to me about the Great Spam Archive, all the spam I’ve collected in my inbox since August 1997 (archive by date), and I was happy to oblige. I ended up going to Broadcasting House this afternoon, and being interviewed by Eddie Mair about my “favorite” spam, and why on earth I started to collect it (answer: I simply never delete any old email).
The process is a bit strange — they sit you in a sound-proof booth and you talk to the presenter over a microphone. (Eddie was sitting in another BBC studio). The whole interview lasted perhaps 10 minutes after which Eddie politely thanked me and I left. Now I guess they cut the ‘umms’ and ‘errs’ out and cut it down to a 1 or 2 minute slot. I’ll find out soon — the broadcast is due on-air at 5.30pm (in about an hour).
Update
Well, it’s over. They edited it a lot to make me sound intelligent .. I’ll have an MP3 clip from the show up shortly in case people want to listen.
Update #2
No sound file posted by the BBC yet, but they’ve put some background information up on the iPM blog here.
