Laura Craik on the temptations and suspicions that keep Londoners up all night

Plus gale-force hairstyles and the city’s scariest sex sessions

20 February 2020

Life in the pan? Congratulations: you’re another victim of the snow Moon.

The recent full Moon threw so many people’s lives into chaos that we should form a support club, only I’m too poleaxed to organise it. Maybe Kelvin Fletcher could: the Strictly winner is in the doghouse for having a late night drink with his dance partner, Oti Mabuse, after being papped with her at 3.30am.

Which begs the question: how late is too late? If you live in London and are in a relationship, sooner or later this issue will rear its ugly, drunken head. We live in a shiny playground of temptations whose siren call can prove so loud that even the most binge-worthy Netflix content fails to silence it. At some point, you’re gonna slide off the sofa and wander gently into that good night. It’s why you moved to London.

When it comes to curfews, every couple have their own rules. Some operate a strictly ‘one night out, one night babysitting’ policy. Others quietly accept that their own preference for early nights isn’t echoed by their partner, who used to go to Shoom and will always be a raver. But in a city of 24-hour enablement, even the strongest relationship can be challenged if one person persists in coming home after hours. Suspicion mounts. Trust wanes. And all because the person loves dancing.

Or do they? And is that all they love? After 20 years in London, this is what I’ve learned. Home by 10pm: wasn’t into it. Home by 11.30pm: was compelled to stay for last orders, but left as soon as they could. Midnight: as above, but was bladdered and stopped off for a kebab. 2am: was having a whale of a time, but nothing suspicious, so check your paranoia. 4am or later: is a raging alcoholic, a cokehead, or having an affair. I’m kidding. Okay, they might be. But they might also be a night owl, as innocent as you, the lark. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. Abraham Lincoln said that. I say: bring on the Chaka Khan.

A windy trump

Having grown out of wearing orange foundation aged 13, never did I think I’d have anything in common with Donald Trump.

But the gale force winds battering London have forced me into a rethink, for when it comes to hair issues, we are one. No hairstyle is immune to 70mph wind, but if you have fine hair, a fringe or an overdue appointment with your colourist, you’re going to look bad.

Which of us, faced with pictorial evidence of ourselves walking valiantly through Storm Ciara or Dennis to the nearest Pret, wouldn’t be tempted to deny its authenticity, as Trump did? ‘The wind was strong and the hair looks good,’ he tweeted. He was 50 per cent right.

What the fox?

You’ve double-locked the door, slugged the CBD oil, doused the pillow with lavender spray, squirched in the ear plugs and are finally ready to sleep. Hhmm. Zzzzzz… WAAAAH! WTF? Suddenly, you hear a piercing scream that shatters your reverie.

Although ‘scream’ is too benign a descriptor for this noise. On it goes, shriller and shriller. Someone is being murdered in your garden. You rush to the window. And then you see them: two foxes, having a shag. I’m all for procreation, but why Mother Nature contrived to make fox sex sound like a chorus of small children being abducted at knifepoint, I do not know. For the sake of Londoners’ sanity, I wish She hadn’t.

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Laura Craik on the temptations and suspicions that keep Londoners up all night

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