“My first pop concert” is a rite of passage that, to judge by our fellow Jubilee line passengers on Sunday night, all crop tops and Hula Hoops, generally takes place between “my first grown-up tooth” and “my first kiss”.

For my wife and I, and our friends Jack and Lucinda, this educational step took place somewhere between “my first dinner party” and “my first intimation of mortality” — for somehow the full-on pop spectacle had passed us by until now.

Why renege on a lifetime of musical discernment? Simple. The destination was the O2 and Girls Aloud — and the exacting rock fan makes an exception for Girls Aloud, paragons of popular music and beacons of 21st-century womanhood that they are.

I began to suspect that Kimberley, Cheryl, Sarah, Nadine and Nicola were worthy of non-ironic consideration on hearing their 2005 single Biology, which, for spirit, honesty and inventiveness puts 99 per cent of modern rock music to shame.

My admiration only increased when I happened to meet the band’s main songwriter, Miranda Cooper, at a gig in Shoreditch a month ago (not for Girls Aloud the shallow protest that they write their own songs — they entrust them to true craftsmen). I complimented her on the clever rhyme scheme in the delightfully seedy song Watch Me Go. She was delighted I had noticed this quirk, and revealed she is a stickler for proper versification: “Like ‘friend’ does not rhyme with ‘when’,” she maintained. This is not the sort of thing that keeps Kings of Leon up at night, I daresay.

Leaving it to the experts has further advantages. If you go to see Kings of Leon, chances are they will have scribbled together their set list on the tour bus. There will not be even the most rudimentary dance routine.

At a Girls Aloud gig, hundreds of skilled pros — choreographers, costume designers, pyrotechnicians — have crafted each aspect of the show so you are at all times entertained. This is a supremely pleasurable experience. When it goes wrong — poor Cheryl experienced hydraulic platform malfunction during The Promise — it is hilarious. When it goes to plan — the video backdrop to Love Machine proved amazingly phallic — it is also hilarious.

And yet for all the artfulness of the show itself, the band, who worked like dogs, never come across as anything less than their unpretentious selves.
On top of all this, it is a bonus that the girls are quite nice to look at. As Jack and I tried to place the quintet in order of comeliness, we did not know whether to be delighted or dismayed that our partners joined in.

A LONDON LIFE
31st March

"WHOSE STREETS?" "OUR STREETS!" They didn't feel like our streets just then. My wife and I had travelled to Hyde Park to witness Saturday's Put People First march, the peaceful demonstration before the more controversial G20 protests planned for tomorrow. Only there was not much marching to be had.

Just Tony Robinson on a stage, a smattering of banners and, up near Speakers' Corner, a group of 100 or so black-clad anarchists, circled by the police.

"The march has finished, nothing more to see," one of those coppers warily informed us.

That's funny, there were supposed to be three hours of it left — and we doubted justice for all had been wrapped up by lunchtime and everyone had quietly gone home. But our further questions were ignored, for police eyes were now on the anarchists, who were gearing up to hold a mini-rally. We stayed to watch.

"Comrades!" said a crude sketch of an angry man, climbing a stepladder. "Don't think this is over. Today is a just a curtainraiser for Wednesday! We're not even in our f***ing seats yet! This is going to be a three-hour f***ing epic with a f***ing toilet break in the middle of it!" "I'm going to get a cup of tea," whispered my wife. "WHOSE STREETS?" "OUR STREETS!" yelled the anarchists.

As we walked off through Marble Arch, it was hard to shake the memory of the last time the streets really did feel they belonged to us, on the million-strong Iraq War demonstration of February 2003.

My wife and I had split up the year before but we agreed to a truce that day and marched together from Camden Town with carefully orchestrated groups of friends. In the multitude, breathtaking in its diversity and unity of aim, something was renewed. We felt part of something larger than ourselves. We got back together soon after; war began regardless.

On Saturday, the weather — blazing sun one minute, hail the next — seemed to reflect changeable hopes. The themes of the protest were too various, too vast and vague. Feeling despondent, we decided to call it a day.

Then we heard music. We watched as a vast column of protesters came up Park Lane — charities, workers, families, students, striding forwards to a glorious soul anthem. The police had seen fit to separate this group from the main march but only the very paranoid could have perceived a threat among them. Will they make any mark on the G20 leaders? Some hope. But sharing our umbrella with strangers in the crowd as it began to rain, at least, for a moment, it felt like our street after all.

* * * * * * * *

Post-script:
ON THE day this was published on the Standard website, I received a comment criticising me for criticising the police tactics. This is my reply (the original comment was deemed offensive and removed by the moderators)... I only publish it as it makes more explicit what I was hinting at in the original piece, and it seems quite relevant now in retrospect.

"I have nothing but respect for the police - I think it's our duty to respect our public servants - and, as you will gather from above, deep scepticism towards the anarchists. But with these protests, all police communications have talked up the possibility of violence - and on Saturday, the tactic appeared to be to keep the peaceful, family-oriented march from gathering any momentum.

What do these tactics achieve except make the rogue fringes spoil even more for a fight and keep ordinary, peaceful protesters away? In a democracy, it is the police's job to enable peaceful protest, not make it harder."

And look how that one turned out...

A LONDON LIFE
7th April

"AH YES," said my wife, casually, having regaled me with the details of a day of novel-writing in cafés.

"And the washing machine is broken." Delivered so sweetly, so nonchalantly, and yet what an indictment of my manhood, what a challenge to my sense of self-worth! I did not even have to prod the device, full of grey, sodden clothes, to know that this was a problem more vexing than the Schleswig- Holstein question.

My father would know what to do.

He is of the generation who did woodwork and metalwork at school, which involved building things; we did "craft, design and technology" classes, which involved devising strategies for planning how to build things. He can install a dishwasher, rig up a table, rewire a utility room; I might be able to knock up a rudimentary marketing strategy. I am a walking metaphor for Britain's industrial decline — and had no bail-out at hand, for my parents are on holiday.

I ruled out calling my landlord, an excellent man, ever-ready with an extension lead and a plunger. Since his uncomplaining toil to remedy a certain blocked toilet, I have felt too shy to ask his assistance. As for a professional plumber — not a chance. Don't they know there's a credit crunch on? And so I opted for the best strategy I know: wait and see.

Perhaps, out of the suds and sludge, there would grow a solution? Day one, nothing moved. Day two, still no change. Day three, nothing to report. Day four, wifely pressure building. On day five, I cracked.

I opened the door and a torrent of soapy grey water flooded my feet. I found the instruction manual, which informed me that a blocked pump was the likely cause of our woes. There was nothing for it but to get on my hands and knees. I removed the front panel with a spoon, having no screwdriver, and set about opening the relevant bit.

"A little water might drip out," counselled the manual. A bloody great deluge, in fact.

As I began to mop up, steadying myself on both hands, I experienced a series of jolts. Mystifying! Then it occurred to me. This was a practical demonstration of the conductive properties of water in action.

I re-read the manual: "Always turn off and unplug the washing machine before draining." Having done this, averting certain death, I poked the spoon into the pump and dug out a long lost cufflink — the source of all our miseries! I plugged the machine back in and clicked on. It began to whirr. "Wow! Well done," said my wife.

Frankly I'm still on a high.

There's hope for our generation yet.

A LONDON LIFE
14th April

THERE are not many chefs who will enter their dining room wearing a Dennis the Menace pinny, hold an unusually bounteous vegetable aloft and say: "Look at this broccoli! It's bloody massive!" Then again, there are few chefs who will invite 12 strangers into their pretty poky sitting room, tell them to mind their housemate's guitar and feed them six courses of exquisite Japanese food and not even bother presenting a bill. But Horton Jupiter is one of a new wave of gastronomes willing to bend the rules.

In Cuba, such home-dining establishments are widespread, while many opened in Italy after the smoking ban came into force — but in London, the "scene" has only grown lately thanks to enthusiastic bloggers.

One, Ms Marmite Lover, operates out of her house in Kilburn, while the Mobile Restaurant throws unusual happenings in the Hammersmith area. Effectively, as one tends to be invited through Facebook, one is going to a private dinner party, which circumvents any legal restrictions — and the clandestine element and the homespun kookiness of it all make for a pretty delectable treat.

Having located Mr Jupiter through careful Googling, my friend James and I managed to nab a table at the late sitting last Wednesday. Late sitting? Yes, he's turning tables, which as anyone devoted to Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares knows, is a mark of ambition.

As the early party were still mingling outside, and the venue was an ex-authority Hackney flat, the place had the appearance of a squat party but Horton's assistant Rachel soon instilled a relative calm. "Can I help?" I felt compelled to ask— but all that was required was nipping to the kitchen (where Jupiter was doing something alarming to a radish) to find a bottle opener.

We shared a table of six with two delightful young couples who lived up the road, and were soon exchanging anecdotes and tips on local gastronomic pleasures.

It was impossible not to be charmed by the extraordinary range of dishes Horton prepared in that ordinary kitchen, however. Notable were the radish deftly adorned with apple and lemon; an explosive wasabi and leaf arrangement; and amazingly deep mushrooms marinated in soy and mirin — all exotic, delicious, vegetarian, and stunningly presented.

As is traditional in Japan, after the little delicacies came rice, wonderful miso and pickles to fill you up — then strawberries, a hot salty sauce and "erm, chocolate buttons", explained Horton, "cos I couldn't find any starfruit — and everyone likes buttons, don't they?" Come the saké, the six of us were getting on splendidly, agreeing to go and watch Jupiter's band and plotting to open up a stall at Stoke Newington farmers' market and take food supply into our own hands. We departed giggling in pure delight. Even now I wonder if I dreamt the whole thing.

[Forgive the non-postings... I hadn't been putting my columns up here as they now go up on the main Standard website and didn't want to double up. However, after the first day, they disappear in the ether, so as a record, here are the last few...]

A LONDON LIFE
21st April

THERE are few places I would rather be than up a tree. It is finding a reason to be up a tree which is tricky — and I found one on Sunday in the garden of my friend Robin Grey, author of the blog Hackney Permaculture, which details the joys and travails of creating a small farm in his backyard.

Robin has persuaded his next-door neighbour to knock down their shared fence and collaborate on a permaculture plot. Where once there was a slab of concrete, now there are salad beds, raspberry bushes, runner bean poles and a pond. Amazingly, his landlord doesn't mind, which shouldn't be amazing, but is.

He has performed all this with help from local co-operatives such as Growing Communities, a volunteer-run open farm in Stoke Newington, and initiatives like "Seedy Sunday" — not a sabbath of debauchery, but a regular plant swap on London Fields.

The idea is that pooling resources is the best way of tilting food production towards self-sufficiency.

Whereas gardening for the last generation was a private business, for the younger generation it is a gently radical, communal activity.

Today, a knowledgeable local named Ken has dropped by to plant willow and perform surgery on a troublesome elder (tree, that is, not someone's gran). Why toil on a stranger's private garden? Well, Ken has no patch of his own and a day's digging in the sun is reward in itself.

To compound his environmentalism, Robin is a vegan (I try not to hold it against him), which is problematic in a British climate.

The sources of protein that a vegan relies on, such as soya beans, must be imported from far-f lung corners of the world which, you can imagine, is the sort of thing that exercises the vegan greatly.

A solution to this is "leaf-curd", a protein-rich, tofu-like substance extracted from leaves. According to an evangelical document we found on Google, it is the food of the future: cheap, versatile and amazingly nutritious. It can be made from almost any young leaf — including those of the voracious lime tree in Robin's garden, which was all the excuse I needed to scale the thing.

We should all spend more time up trees. Not only does it make you feel like Ray Mears, it is educative — at last I established that the lime tree has nothing whatesoever to do with limes — and therapeutic.

As for the "leafu" — the washed, liquidised and strained leaves yielded a bowl of mulch (superior fertiliser) and around 200ml of potent green liquid. When boiled, the nutrients in this solidified into a substance we stir-fried with purple sprouting broccoli and noodles.

It was not revolting — and that felt like a good day's work.