Wednesday, 13 August 2008

Good News, Bad News

'Good News, Bad News', apart from being the title of a track by 70s rocksters 'Family', is the title of this post.
The more astute among you will have realised this already.
The good news referred to is that the idiots who pushed the lady on to the railway track because she asked them to stop smoking have been nabbed by the Police.
Good job I say.
The bad news?
I've just found out that some bright spark is trying to go all Manhattan on FITZROVIA and rename it 'Noho'.
Wo-ho.
That's a no no.
The residents, quite rightly, are strongly resisting this geographically ridiculous appellation.
'NoHo' works for New Yorkers, because it's formed by being NOrth of HOuston Street while equally their 'SoHo' is formed from being SOuth of HOuston Street. Apparently.
'Soho!', again apparently, is a hunting cry harking back to that area of London's more rural history.
So what did developers here think? That SOHO comes from SOuth of HOxford Street?
'Noho' in London's case therefore means 'nada'.
Talking of history, FITZROVIA (for it is so named) is being rather callously ravaged at the moment (I believe it's called 'revitalisation' or some such nonsense). If this particular course of action is too late to avert, at least have the decency to leave the area with some dignity (and its name, 'FITZROVIA') intact- or watch as 'Noho' becomes either a synonym for 'NO HOpe' or 'NOw HOrrendous'.

2 comments:

David said...

When my publisher moved into Fitzrovia from Soho a decade, the staff were all forced to send out an email referring to relocating from 'Soho to Noho'. Nice to see some marketing twat still pushing the same crap.

Underland said...

'NOHO' = No go. End of conversation. Pass it on.