The Big Smoke

If you’re planning to go to Amsterdam, Barcelona, New York, Paris, Prague or Rome sometime soon, you might want to take an up-to-date city guide with you. Even better, you might want to take a FREE up-to-date Time Out city guide with you.

If this appeals, come to our office (251 Tottenham Court Road, underneath the neon sign) this Friday between 11.30am and 3.30pm and we will replace any non-Time Out travel guide with one of the above. The first 2,000 people will also get a copy of the excellent ‘London Calling’ book, which includes a brilliant essay by me about London football.

More info here.

Diamond Geezer’s explicitly geeky annual tube week includes a withering review of a new book about the tube which contains some elements he appears to recognise.

James Ward has a lovely post about trying to track down the previous owner of a book he bought in a second hand bookshop in Soho.

London Reconnections on the last bendy 38, due to be scrapped this weekend.

Transpontine on the ‘Croydonisation’ of Lewisham. Yes, it is a real word.

Former Time Out-er Jessica Cargill Thompson on How To Be Unemployed. Includes handy guide on what to watch on daytime TV.

After six weeks’ online 'pop-up' space kindly donated by Time Out, today my weekly story, Happiness Is An Option, moves to its permanent home here.

Over this period, the question I've been asked most - other than when will Marianne and Archie get together – is why write a serial at all? Doesn't it fall somewhere between short story and novel? And, anyway, who in 2009 has time to read hundreds of words of fiction during a tea-slurping online graze?

I wasn't sure. But Woody Allen once said that 80 per cent of success is showing up, and even if the experiment was an utter failure, I figured it was worth a try. An itch must be scratched, after all. And the story’s very London feel is driven by the fact that my passion for the city hasn’t waned even though – or maybe because – I've lived here for nearly 30 years. So it seemed natural, as they used to say in Time Out’s Big Smoke section, to make London 'the star'.

For the uninitiated, Happiness Is An Option is a simple tale revolving around the inter-connecting lives of half a dozen characters, each with a singular view on life, and London. Take our protagonist Archie who, in the first chapter, climbs Parliament Hill as he tries to work out why his girlfriend has walked out on him. Or naïve Marianne, who's escaped a sleepy seaside town (and obsessive ex) to make it in Dalston. Or Ben, who has fled a relationship – and humiliating secret – when he shows up on old friend Archie’s doorstep.

A huge number of people have emailed feedback and suggestions about storylines, so thank you. And thanks to the hundreds of you reading – every week the readership has increased (the pleasures of Wordpress!). But I now I need your help, so if you want to be added to the weekly reminder email alerting you to each new chapter, click here.

Will Archie finally meet Marianne? Will Rose ever return from Mersea Island? Will Joe get caught up in a shoot-out on Kingsland Road?

It’s a double special this week, so stay tuned.