What have you missed since November 6th?

Moped snatches of mobile phones continue to be a problem. One poor woman had her phone snatched outside Wickes on West End Lane.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s ongoing imprisonment in Tehran hit the headlines this week. In a gaffe, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said she was ‘training journalists’, which was seized on by the Iranian authorities as confirmation she was spying. He apologised and may be going to Tehran along with Richard, Nazanin’s husband.  Michael Gove is coming under fire on the issue.

Richard is also very concerned about his wife’s mental and physical health, with recent discoveries of lumps in her breast.

Another West Hampstead sunset thanks to StevieJLowy

A West Hampstead mum, suffering from cancer, was overwhelmed by a crowdfunding drive to raise money for childcare costs for her twins. It’s reached £8,000 with a target of £10,000. You can donate here.

Bienvenue Maison de la Vie (new cafe on the KHR).

Gung Ho, the chinese restaurant, is being reduced in size, apparently part of it will become an architect’s office.

We have heard that Salt House on Abbey Road has been sold to property developers.

A planning application has gone in to redevelop the Gondar Gardens reservoir (the fourth or fifth…) into luxury retirement flats (with an in-house chauffeur service). More on this next week.

There are moves afoot to rename the Minster Road Nature Reserve after Jane Evans who did so much to get it set up.

Anyone seen this earring?

Dexter the cat was found!

Gay West Hampstead 1. Joe Orton lived on West End Lane with Kenneth Halliwell (and for much longer than he lived in Islington)

Gay West Hampstead 2. Keith Vaughan artist, lived on Lyncroft Gardens. His photos are the subject of an exhibtion.

Paddington 2 opened to applause all round (think the Friends of Fortune Green has its movie for next August sorted!). The voice of Aunt Lucy is West Hampstead’s own Imelda Staunton.

Happy 100th birthday to West Hampstead resident Norah. She recalls back in the 1930s, West End Lane had ‘three butchers, a dairy and a haberdashery’. No change then – we still do: Brinkworth Dairy and the butchers at the farmers’ market + two permanent butchers and .. the Village Haberdashery).