Mayor Mackie’s first week

LAZZARO Pietragnoli has ticked off his first full week as Camden Mayor unscathed, carefully navigating the World Cup banter surrounding the Italian victory against England, and then his homeland’s failure to beat Costa Rica in the next match, which had the effect of sending England home early. He’s opened summer fairs, given interviews to journalists in Italy, had it clarified that he can oversee British citizenship ceremonies even though he hasn’t been through one himself and seem Andrew Mennear’s resistance to his idea of raising the EU flag above the Town Hall gain little traction.

It has flown by. So before it’s lost to the archives, here’s a reminder of the musical moment he took the mayoral chain from Jonathan Simpson to the strains of Die Moritat Von Mackie Messer. Or Mack The Knife to me and you, the swing-swiped ballad about stabbing the scarlet pillows out of gangsters which began life in a German opera. It was quite a performance.