London’s catchily titled ‘Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme’ launches on July 30th but there have been warnings this week that the scheme will be ‘swamped’ by the demand.

Bernie Hanning, whose OY Bike Hire Scheme ran for six years in Hammersmith (prior to being withdrawn to avoid confusion with the Mayor’s scheme) said that 6,000 available bikes would be nowhere near sufficient to cope with the demand from Londoners.

Hanning said, “I would have expected to have far more bikes available. I think 6,000 is not enough if you look at the size of London. To just have the bikes used three times a day you would need 40,000 bikes. They’re expecting to get 10 uses a day on their bikes. That’s very ambitious. Six thousand bikes for the size of London — it’s just going to be swamped (with demand).�?

The scheme charges £1 for 24 hour access to a bike, plus a charge for the amount of usage (an hour is another £1). There will be 400 docking stations across London.

Hanning also warned that the Canadian built bikes chosen for the scheme could be blighted by mechanical failure, and that the decision to supply bikes without a lock could be problematic for people taking them somewhere without a docking station.

Bozza tied up the £25m sponsorship deal for the scheme with Barclays last week. Each bike will carry six Barclays logos, and the Mayor commented “I’m so thrilled to be announcing that Barclays Bank, after years of taking extortionate charges from me, is doing an amazing and wonderful thing. I think there could not be a better sign of Barclays’ commitment to this city, to the environment and to a wonderful means of transport.�?

So, Is Fatboy Slim A DJ has landed – and how! Seems that it’s selling well on ITunes, and now the full video has been released on Youtube. It’s a cracker – our favourite line? “But it was a disaster.”

Makes us weep at the creativity of it all. Back in the day, we released one too you know…

It’s like when England meet Germany in the World Cup, or when Doctor Who encounters the Daleks [Er, I've warned you before about this Doctor Who nonsense - Boriswatch Ed].

It’s that time when someone comes face to face with a feared opponent; their darkest, most dangerous nemesis. And, it could happen again for Bozza in 2012 as Ken Livingstone has this week launched his bid to be named Labour’s Mayoral candidate in 2012.

“Instead of wasteful projects, the obsession with academy schools, the zany floating airport in the Thames Estuary, we must concentrate on defending public services and holding down fares,” said Red Ken as he launched his bid in Croydon. Labour will choose their candidate for the 2012 Election in September, and the only other person do declare their candidacy so far has been ex-MP Oona King, who clearly has far too many vowels in her name to be taken seriously.

So, it could well be a battle royal between the two London Mayoral heavyweights in two years time.  Bring *that* on!

Ken was, of course, London Mayor between 2000 and 2008 before, according to the BBC, he was ‘ousted by Mr Johnson’. Ouch. Sounds nasty….