Sara O'Reilly

Soho's Curzon Cinema and a chunk of King's Road aren't the only well-loved bits of London at risk as a result of the proposed route for Crossrail 2. A great swathe of Wandsworth Common has been earmarked for a ventilation shaft. Surely Wandsworth Common isn’t on the route? The plan emerged when TfL announced that they are considering an alternative route that would go via Balham rather than Tooting. It would turn Wandsworth Common into a building site for five years without the benefit of creating a new transport link (you can already travel from Clapham Junction to Balham on the Overground). So we’re guessing the locals are up in arms? Yep. This is Nappy Valley, remember, and – apart from the loss of well-used open space – this would turn what is currently a route along the common used by hundreds of families headed for the seven schools in the immediate vicinity into a building site for five long, dusty, noisy years.    What's to be done? TfL has been slow to keep the people of SW11 and SW12 properly informed – so campaigners have organised a blizzard of flyers and they’re urging everyone affected to complete the questionnaire on Crossrail’s consultation site (the consultation closes on January 8 2016). Jane Ellison, MP for Battersea, seems to be sitting on the fence but MP for Tooting and mayoral hopeful Sadiq Khan supports the original Tooting route. That would genuinely open up new public transport links, including to St George’s Hospital. Sounds like the stakes are hig

With Notting Hill Carnival a fading memory and ages to go till Halloween, you’re probably looking for an excuse dress up and party. So we offer you Talk Like a Pirate Day (Saturday September 19). Never heard of it? What island have you been stranded on? It’s been an official Thing for eons – well, since 2002 anyway. It started in the US as a bit of nonsense among friends, got the wind in its sails when it was picked by a radio station and has happened every year since. All you need to do to join the gang is to introduce the odd piratical term into conversations with your nearest and dearest ('If you don’t pick up your underkecks pronto, you’re likely to find yourself walking the plank' – that sort of thing). Level two involves taking it outside the home. Try addressing the postman as 'Matey'; greet your neighbour with a cheery ‘Shiver me timbers, it’s pissing cats and dogs this morning’; swagger into the pub and order a tot of rum. It doesn’t matter if you don’t speak fluent pirate – you can fill any awkward silences with expressive variations on 'Aar'. Having fun? Dive deeper: dig out your most flattering striped tee and knee-high boots. Accessorise with a hook/cutlass/eye patch and stride around singing, ‘What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor?’. Obviously, if you already have masses of tattoos and/or an impressive beard, you’ve got a brilliant head start. In the mood for a spot of carousing or voyage of discovery? We can’t guarantee buried treasure but we’ve put together

September's Totally Thames festival shines a spotlight on London's great liquid highway, offering up 170 events to watch or take part in. Sara O'Reilly picks five brilliant things from the programme to tempt you down to the river this month. Watch the world go by  <img id="ca04ffff-f125-0253-f402-657f99b318d6" data-caption="" data-credit="" data-width-class="" type="image/jpeg" total="121353" loaded="121353" image_id="102850420" src="http://media.timeout.com/images/102850420/image.jpg" class="photo lazy inline">   The Great River Race is London's marathon on the water, with the same great mix of iconic backdrops, elite athletes and charity competitors in mad fancy dress. An amazing variety of vessels take part, from simple skiffs to Chinese dragon boats. This year the 330 crews will take to the water at Millwall Slipway, E14 at 10.45am, finishing at Ham House, Richmond, TW10 at around 1.40pm. There'll be a cannon broadside to welcome the winners, plus food, drink and family entertainment. www.greatriverrace.co.uk. Sep 12. Free. Empathise with strangers  Dragan" data-width-class="" /><img id="63ee3778-c10e-d746-d930-add944fe48f8" data-caption="" data-credit="© <a href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/draganbrankovic/13294215203/&quot;>Dragan</a>" data-width-class="" type="image/jpeg" total="96211" loaded="96211" image_id="102850422" src="http://media.timeout.com/images/102850422/image.jpg" class="photo lazy inline"> © Dragan  Organised as pa

Behind-the-scenes life at the National is like a permanent piece of site-specific theatre with a cast of a thousand. What you see as part of the audience at Denys Lasdun’s 1970s concrete edifice is just the tip of the iceberg. Daily backstage tours with guides who really know their stuff offer insights into productions past and present as well as revealing some of the building’s secrets. Katy Dillon Afterwards, treat yourself to tea overlooking the Thames at House, the NT’s newest restaurant. Someone’s had a lot of fun devising the menu, which includes a champagne cocktail and tips its hat to several of the theatre’s most successful productions. After a sensational pork pie and some sandwiches, including a green eggs and ham one referencing Katie Mitchell’s adaptation of the Dr Seuss classic ‘The Cat in the Hat’, you’ll be served an ‘interval’ ice. Then it’s time for the sweet stuff: Marble Mouthfuls (inspired by Professor Higgins’s elocution improvers in ‘My Fair Lady’) are rich chocolatey chunks and the bees from the National’s rooftop hives are working their stripy socks off to ensure steady supplies for a confection that pays tasty tribute to ‘A Taste of Honey’.      Katy Dillon       The teas stick to a pre-determined formula but the tour content depends on what’s currently in production. Sometimes you’ll find actors rehearsing on stage, other days there’ll be a backstage drama in progress. We learned masses on our visit – although didn’t manage to identify the secre

As flour queens across the land settle in for a new season of 'Bake Off', the Art Fund is also gearing up to harness the seductive power of cake with the return of its Edible Masterpieces campaign. The fundraising initiative asks people to come up with confections representing artworks and it went down a storm when it was first introduced last year. We were so fired up here at Time Out we got three of London's best bakers involved for a piece in the mag. They really came up with the goods, producing Marc Quinn's Self '2006'  (The Tattooed Bakers), 'The Rokeby Venus by Velaszquez (Kooky Bakes) and Julian Opie's 'Alex, bassist. Dave, drummer. Graham, guitarist. Damon, singer' (Crumbs & Dollies). It seemed almost wicked to eat the gorgeous creations but – while Time Outers appreciate art, they also march on their stomachs. When we were finally able to bring ourselves to stick the knife in, those cakes tasted just as good as they look. The Art Fund has refined the recipe a bit this year and they are looking to crown one appetising artwork the Ultimate Edible Masterpiece. You can be as imaginative as you like when it comes to subject matter – think paintings, ceramics, sculpture, architecture – and your entry can be savoury or sweet. We'd love to see St Paul's rendered in cheese straws or a baked Alaska representation of Bacon. You get the picture!   The competition costs a tenner to enter (upload photographs here) and you'll be in with a chance of winning a great prize package t

Tough luck, grown-ups! London's funnest new attraction is just for kids. But we've got the lowdown on wacky social experiment-cum-brilliant day out KidZania. KidZania? What's that? It's a theme park you won't have to trek out of town to get to. With branches in 16 cities worldwide, it's about to open at Westfield Shepherd's Bush. An entire city and society in miniature, it's a mash-up of fun and learning designed to give children aged four to 14 a realistic taste of the adult world. Cool – so they can go to bars and get a tattoo? Alcohol's definitely not involved but there is a (fake) tattoo parlour. Kids can read the news in a radio studio, put out fires, take care of babies (they're not real) and staff an operating theatre. They can learn how to perform a tyre change on a scaled-down Formula E racing car, get into police uniforms and scour the streets for clues or head for the kitchens and whip up smoothies, chocolates or pizzas. That does sound quite like real life. What else? If they attend a course at the KidZania university, they get paid more. Oh. It's starting to sound a bit serious now. Yes. The thinking is that children can only aspire to what they know. Kids get to experience masses of new things and in the process they discover that work pays and fun costs. Do they pay for each activity individually? They do: on arrival they open a bank account and withdraw their Kidzos. Each of the 60-odd activities lasts 15 to 25 minutes and the most popular ones cost more. But