The writing is on the wall...

Quite literally in this case. This little alley way just off Long Acre in Covent Garden is an odd one. It backs onto a back street full of old warehouses converted into offices and is usually completely empty during weekends despite the hustle and bustle of Covent Garden just around the corner. Someone scrawled their stream of consciousness on the wall in a pretty random way but it makes it strangely intriguing.

The conversation

Here are the two political titans of modern history, Roosevelt and Churchill, sitting on a bench chatting casually, while shoppers rush around with bags stuffed with designer clothes bought in the nearby boutiques. An odd, yet strangely comforting feature in the middle of bustling Bond Street.

The Beau of Jermyn Street

This is a statue of Beau (George) Brummell, the Regency buck, the man who invented the suit, which is worn today by millions of men (and women) around the world. Brummell was the favourite of Prince Regent, later George IV, and the equivalent of an IT-boy of Regency London. The Brummell craze at its height had people crowding at Beau's bedroom door to watch him dress and do his morning toilette. Brummell reinvented the male ideal and brought it back from the depths of the powdered wig and garish clothes of a Regency fop into the heights of what we now know as the quintessential male attire - the two piece suit.

Brummell ended up dying of syphilis while exiled in France for non-payment of gambling debts. He was without his adoring crowd but his influence on male fashion has been remained with this beautiful statue in Jermyn Street - the traditional home of the finest shirtmakers in England. Beau, who used to change his shirt three times a day, would be very proud!