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THE wonderful new look of the £29 million shared road space along Exhibition Road in Kensington is costing an extra £800 a day…to clean. The high grade Chinese granite stains easily picking up chewing gum and skid marks when cars brake.

You'll never have to wait for your next pint again

The Thirsty Bear at Waterloo is London’s first self-service pub… each table has an iPad and a choice of beer taps (you can also order bottled beers, cocktails and food). Open a tab and your bill is swiped for each 0.1 of a pint. On the site of the old Stamford Arms (62 Stamford Street, SE1 9LX), it is the brainchild of the Robot Pub Company.

Art By Animals

If you don’t know much about art, but you know what you like, head over to the Grant Museum of Zoology in W1, which is featuring an exhibition of paintings by orangutans, chimpanzees and elephants called Art By Animals. Apparently elephants can be trained to paint the same thing over and over again, but apes prefer abstracts and are more creative…

Steve Wheen's pothole garden clothes line

Or you can compare the animal’s work with that of Steve Wheen who insists he is not the first guerilla gardener but has set up a website to showcase his work creating tiny gardens in potholes in the capital’s roads and byways.

Greenwich is to get a new beach – the biggest in Europe, set to open in May. It will have an Olympic-size volleyball court and there are plans for a restaurant and live events stage for 5,000. Delta Wharf, overlooks the Thames and covers almost four acres.

Transport for London has kicked out a plan to hike taxi fares by 22 per cent for the Olympics, probably on the grounds that no one is going to be moving anywhere fast while the games are going on anyway…

With take-up on office rentals collapsing across the City – Knight Frank has admitted they were down 27 per cent last year – developers have been eyeing up the Square Mile to turn it into flats and condos. New revamps are underway at Moorgate, Liverpool Street and a residential tower near the Barbican.

Clapham it seems is now the capital of Ireland for ex-pats. Statistics from Dublin suggest 1,000 people are leaving the Emerald Isles every week and heading for an SW postcode.