“Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere..”

Paul Revere’s ride, as retold in Longfellow’s poem, together with the Boston Tea Party are two of the iconic events leading up to the American War of Independence. On April 18th 1775, Paul Revere set off to ride to Lexington, Massachusetts to warn of the approach of British troops intent on the arrest of Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Sixteen months earlier, in December 1773, the destruction of tea at Boston harbour became a turning point in the struggle for independence of the United States from Britain. Known subsequently as the Boston Tea Party, a group of men had boarded three ships carrying taxed tea to Britain and destroyed the tea by throwing it into the harbour.

These days the Tea Party has other connotations but my reasons for being in Boston this week are professional rather than political.

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We have all heard about Silicon Valley and some of us have even heard about Silicon Fen (the area around Cambridge which is home to many dotcom and other technology start ups) and a few will even have heard of New York’s Silicon Alley!

However, just when you thought you were safe, along comes the Silicon Roundabout, the name given to the booming Old Street/Shoreditch area on the northern edge of the City of London.

Roundabouts are becoming somewhat of a recurring theme in this blog (it is only a few weeks since I was singing the praises of Nashville’s Music Row roundabout) but this roundabout doesn’t yet have the same cachet, sitting as it does in the middle of the busy intersection of Old Street and City Road, and above the entrance to the underground station.

I have worked in the area for some years now and I must confess I have never thought of it as a particularly noteworthy or pioneering area. Indeed, it could be said that after many years of upgrading the Tube, there is one station which really needs a make over, and that is Old Street.

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One of the most striking sights in Nashville, Tennessee is Alan LeQuire’s bronze statue of nine nude figures in the centre of the Music Row roundabout. Apparently the statue caused a certain amount of unease amongst the locals when it was unveiled in 2003 but it is certainly dramatic to view at night especially after making the acquaintance of too many Confederate Widows.

I should explain. Apart from a lot of walking the halls at ILTA in Nashville last month there was time for a couple of outings, one to Jimmy Kelly’s, a wonderful steak restaurant followed by drinks at what GQ magazine has described as the best bar in America, the Patterson House. While there I was persuaded to try a mixture of gin, lime, honey syrup and Pernod – a drink which goes by the extraordinary name of “Oldest Confederate Widow”.

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