LISTED LONDONER MY LONDON
BUSINESSMAN IVAN MASSOW GIVES US HIS CAPITAL HIGHLIGHTS…
Portrait by CHRIS JEPSON
Where do you come from originally? I was born and raised in Brighton. When I was a school kid the Daily Express announced that one in four people in Brighton were gay. I was standing with three school friends at the time. Where do you currently live and when did you move there? I live in Clerkenwell. I moved here because I’ve tended to live in Soho/Mayfair most of my adult life and I felt it was time to become a proper Londoner. I’ve enjoyed it so much that in September I’m moving to a new house on Hoxton Square. I will miss Waitrose though. What’s the best thing about living in London? I’ve lived all over the world in some fantastic cities…. New York, LA, Paris, and Barcelona. I still love all those cities (well, not Paris), but London has everything: indoors, outdoors, you can walk and you can drive. It has culture; it has Gok Wan. You would need to be bored with life to be bored with London.
…and the worst? Chelsea. It’s strange, but when I was growing up as a comprehensive lad from a rather depressed background, all I wanted to be was a Sloane Ranger. I wanted a Barbour jacket, a Renault 5 and a black labrador. Now, I can’t begin to understand what I was thinking. I was such a prick! What are your favourite restaurants? Scott’s, The Ivy, Caprice and The Wolsley. Mainly the Ivy though – even if no one goes there anymore. They’ll be back! Where do you go drinking? Sadly, I drank my lifetime’s share about three years ago. Ho hum! So it’s the café on the corner of Frith Street for me now. I’ve been a member of the Groucho Club for 15 years and, although I don’t really ‘drink’ there, it was my UK home for almost three years while I was exiled in Barcelona, so I owe it a debt of gratitude and some of my post still goes there.
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Favourite tourist haunt? I still love Soho, but it is for tourists. To be honest, I love all of London now. I spend days upon days cycling around. Favourite green space? I’m a big fan of all the little parks and squares. Clerkenwell Green, Hoxton Square, Soho Square, Lincolns Inn Fields. Hackney Fields, Victoria Park… they’re all great. Where do you escape the city? I’ve decided to make London my home fully, which means not having a place in the country at all. But I do keep horses in Sussex still, so I get up at 6am to go hunting every Saturday. Sorry about that. What’s the most you’ve paid for a cab, and to where? It was £350 for a black cab to take Banksy to Oxfordshire, wait and return. If you were mayor for a day, what would you do to improve London? Create more river taxis and just make better use of the Thames. It used to be our principal highway and has sort of died or been handed over to tourists. Oh, and I’d make Covent Garden a proper market again. It’s like some sterile piece of shit now. And I’d do something about Carnaby St. London needs to be kept vibrant and not turned into an English Heritage exhibit.
Name a place or location of sentimental value to you… Denmark Street. It was where my partner Jamie died 15 years ago. I say a little prayer every time I walk past. Favourite London song… ‘A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square’. What’s London’s most beautiful building? Senate House, UCL; and the Institute of Architecture’s gaff on Portland Place. And the BBC building. Basically, if it looks like a despicable military dictator may have chosen it as a headquarters, I love it. Are you single, dating or partnered? Partnered, but we keep it quite secret.
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