Jackie Leven's 72nd Birthday

Moonidus invites people to an informal gathering at Leven's bench in Soho Square (south side of the gardens) for his 72nd birthday (Saturday, 18 June 2022), at midday, possibly followed by the Nellie Dean pub in Dean Street. The replies (2–6 June 2022) are mostly apologies because of distance, combined with toasts and reminiscences. Gatz relates that in the Facebook group “London Urbanist Oddities” a cousin of Leven's responded to a photo of the bench; he had not known about it. Razor Boy and others only came to Leven through the free CD from The Word magazine. SteveT again mentions his ticket for a Birmingham concert that was cancelled shortly before Leven's death.

The most productive strand concerns the second bench, on Paxos: Bogart was on Corfu in 2022 and wanted to visit the bench and the taverna that Leven is said to have frequented there; Moonidus had read that the bench had been damaged. Bogart then relays a notice (translated from Greek) from the Paxos municipality: the bench designed by Sam Khaleq and paid for by Deborah Greenwood, at the entrance to the Old Customs House in Loggos, suddenly disappeared in early November 2021; a fisherman from Gaios found the backrest on the shore; the residents wanted to restore it at their own expense. Chrisf finally quotes from an Ian Rankin interview in The Times (4 June 2022) in which Rankin calls Leven underrated and points to Straight Outta Caledonia.