Fitzrovia goes Ga Ga goo

By Our Pop Prince, Guy O’Connell

Fitzrovia is gearing up to go Ga Ga.  Lady Gaga, the uber-trendy warbler famed for her fashion and her hits alike, is reported to be moving in.  If true, the best -selling singer behind tunes such as “Bad Romance” and “Born This Way” will become not just our newest neighbour, but the latest in a long line of creative types who’ve made our ‘hood their home.
From Charles Dickens and Virginia Woolf to Malcolm McLaren (the founder of the Sex Pistols,) by way of Dylan Thomas and Oscar Wilde, many have moved to Fitzrovia to seek their muse.

Here at FN our humble team now wonders where the 25 year old New Yorker might stop by – or put another way – where might the mighty Gaga go go?

GOO GOO GAA GAA

A must-see for Gaga is “So Tiny” – a must-go for new Mums.  A photo outside the shop and showroom at 64 Great Titchfield Street will earn her a fabulous headline as she heads to the butcher to buy meat for her latest dress.

TESCO SAINSBURY’S WAITROSE MARKS AND SPENCER

For a woman who likes to wear steak, specialist butchers are hard to find.  But there are special offers at all our local supermarkets, and she may well snap up a two-for-one when considering how to stitch the perfect Fillet Corset or Rump Mini Skirt.

Tesco and Sainsbury’s do have a cut price shelf for prime cuts late in the afternoon.

GOBLINS AND GAA GAAS

Rathbone Place is a real destination for anyone in music.  The friendly team at Hobgoblin Music at 24 Rathbone Place will be sure to keep her in tune.  Just down the road she can meet the musicial types at Ivor Mairants too.   Stay sharp Gaga, no need to be flat round these parts.

CIAO BELLA !

Born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, the pop icon must check our thriving Italian scene.  She may choose to become a member at the Family Run Fitzrovia Restaurant, for a slice of real Italy.  The small bistro at 29 Tottenham Street is one of many shrines to Italian food.   In ICCO, students mix with dispatch riders for a real slice of London with a slice of pizza thrown in. From Sergios to Zizzi and on to Sardo, and Da’Paolo, Gaga could explode if she ate in all of them in her first few weeks.  Reading this list, you’ll have your favourite too from Carluccio’s and Strada and on to the Spaghetti House, there’s an Italian round every corner.   Fill your boots, Gaga, all 26 inches of them!

GAGA GAWKING

Gaga will have to take her place among the other celebrity faces of Fitzrovia.   She could pop round to see Guy Ritchie, the ex husband of one of her inspirations Madonna, or discuss lyrics with the writer Ian McEwan or performance with actor and TV man Griff Rhys Jones.

OMG!  VINTAGE FASHION!

For a woman spotted wearing a telephone hat, or a unicorn horn wimple larger than the BT Tower, Lady Gags will go gaga for the fashion here in Fitzrovia.  From Oxfam on Mortimer Street to YMCA and Bang Bang on Goodge Street she could check in with six decades of clothes in just six minutes.  If you’re leaving clothes for charity Gaga, please leave them in shop opening hours.   What a way to make an entrance to the area, with a donation of a couple of sets of 16 inch heeled hoofers!

THE FAME GAME

Lady G whose debut album in 2008 was “The Fame” is the perfect mixer for the cocktail bars, pubs and lounges of our home turf.  Many an evening drinking here is spiced up by a cheeky little B List bubble.  But Gaga is gold, and the list of drinking haunts is too long for this edition of FN.  But already The Evening Standard have suggested she calls in at London Cocktail Club or Bourne and Hollingsworth.  But we at FN are more robust, we recently called a pub crawl of all forty or more pubs in Fitzrovia and soon a crawl of bars is planned too.

So if you’re on your way here Gaga, welcome.  But in your own words, the pavements round here have trod to some very famous heels.  As your own “Born This Way” would have it:  “My Mama told me when I was young / We are all born superstars.”