Hands up who can’t believe that Christmas is just over a month away? OK, OK, put your hands down, you’re embarrassing yourselves. But hey, it’s a shocker. Suddenly the shops are full of tatty trinkets, decorations and mince pies and the annoying ‘holidays are coming’ ad is back on TV. Surely it’s still February 2008 isn’t it? What happened to the year?

Still, despite the credit crunch and the pain that is hitting Westfield for several hours with pocket change, trying to make it stretch to everyone you have to buy presents for, there is a happy note to this year’s festive season. There are plenty of …

Sorry to keep harping on about it, but let’s face it, as Christmas approaches all anyone cares about is the credit crunch and the economical future of London and the UK. Working on the bar section of View London every day means I can see first-hand the effect of the credit crunch at London bars. There are some tough times ahead; as everyone starts to lower their outgoings the first area to be hit will inevitably be going out. As it is, an amusing news piece recently showed that the most commonly shoplifted items from supermarkets now is baby food, replacing alcohol for the first time. Well, it tickled me, anyway.

Whereas restaurants across London are now doing special money-off deals (even the …

Anyone who’s been on a night out down in Leicester Square on a Saturday night will have seen, first hand, exactly why Britain has such a bad reputation as far as drinking goes. I personally often have to deftly step across a pile of sick when walking around certain areas of Central London – it really makes for good times! However, are the new proposed government reforms to stop binge drinking for the common good or just another example of the UK morphing into a nanny state?

I only had to pick up a paper a couple of months ago to see splashed across the headlines that there were calls from MPs to introduce a London happy hour ban. More recently, however, reports have been released about proposals that include stopping free beer and wine …

Last weekend, I headed along to Islington’s Beer Exposed, a wonderful exhibition dedicated to – you guessed it – beer! For someone who’s more of a fan of the grain than the hop it was quite an experience, wandering around, glass in hand, drinking all kinds of beer. And I was pleasantly surprised to find I actually really enjoyed many of the varieties on offer. So there IS more to beer than Stella!

It got me thinking about London’s beer culture. What with it being Oktoberfest and all – every beer fan’s favourite time of the year. In England we’re known as a bunch of beer-swilling lager louts with bellies extending so far from our mid-riffs we can barely …

Oh God. It’s almost October, we’re now officially in Autumn (um, I’m still waiting for the summer!) and the mornings are starting to get uncomfortably dark. At least there’s Christmas to look forward to… Oh wait, the credit crunch – come on Euro Millions!

However, all is not doom and gloom. Belgo (yes that’s the group who also own Bierodrome) is celebrating the best of all beer festivals – Oktoberfest. Now we’re talking. They’ve recruited Beerologist (Best. Job. Ever!) Sam Hjelm to hunt down the best Belgian beers around, including Trappist …