But sustainability is also firmly on the city agenda, particularly in terms of building design and lifestyles that minimise energy use. And, “like an envelope over-riding everything, there will be changing conceptions of place, space, time and tempo driven by technological advances”.It is a utopia, he says, that already exists in the dispersed experience of global best practice. There is a vital role for inspiring architecture “that speaks to a city’s soul and identity”. But Landry’s off-the-cuff examples are hardly the usual, glitzy suspects. He mentions the “township Bilbao”, the Gugasthebe Arts Centre in Langa, Cape Town, and the eco-house in Leicester.Yet these good examples are hard to see, or learn from.

“We see instead the city as a place of fear, crime, pollution and degradation with unsolveable problems pounding us into passivity,” he says. “Creating the conditions for innovative problem-solving architecture requires a new approach to urban planning. This will mean the ‘recombination of the old and new imaginatively’ through interventions in and around existing buildings. And history can be mined for the future in many other ways,” he says “It’s an asset and erasing memory for its own sake a waste. The past is left too exclusively to antiquarians, nostalgics and historians.”Charles Landry’s The Creative City: A toolkit for Urban Innovators, published by Earthscan, will be launched at the conference, Creative City’ in Huddersfield , May 25-27..

Tony Blair is in a no-win situation. He could ignore the polls that suggest the honeymoon period with voters is well and truly over, hang a closed sign on the door of Number 10 and look forward to getting on with bonding and caring for the newest member of his family while ensuring the rest of them still feel much-loved

Tony Blair is in a no-win situation. He could ignore the polls that suggest the honeymoon period with voters is well and truly over, hang a closed sign on the door of Number 10 and look forward to getting on with bonding and caring for the newest member of his family while ensuring the rest of them still feel much-loved.
Yet as Blair said himself: “I don’t ever stop being Prime Minister Even when I am on holiday I do several hours work a day. Of course I want to spend more time with Cherie when the kid is born to help out and I will do that.”And even if you’re not the Prime Minister of England, the first few months with a new baby make you feel like a refugee in your own home: with nerves frayed, emotions running high, and sleep deprivation putting a surreal slant on the day.Technically speaking, Mr Blair is entitled to 13 weeks unpaid leave before the child reaches the age of five. But any number of fathers can testify that this just isn’t practical Work goes on Life goes on. Tony, like every other new dad – the kind who wants to get involved, do his bit, change nappies, feed the baby – will have to take each day as it comes. And improvise.Andy Grappy, 39, is a tuba player in the musical Chicago.

He lives in Stamford Hill with his partner Angie and their two children, Ella, two and a half, and Amber, five months.”My wife went into labour with Ella the week Chicago opened, but I was told I was not allowed to miss the show to be with her. I found that incredible, and I was very angry.”I sat there managing to play – no bum notes or anything – with my mobile phone and pager on I sat there worrying that I wouldn’t make it for the birth And I couldn’t think of anything worse. After the show I rushed over to the hospital and arrived with just one hour to spare The following day I still had to do the show. I’d only had one hour’s sleep, so there were lots of bum notes that night.”I also teach in the day, which was very hard on all of us.

There were times when Angie had been with Ella all day and needed a break of some sort. I would come in from teaching, be there for one hour and have to go off to work again. Sometimes Angie would be in tears.”I found myself getting up at night even when I didn’t need to But I wanted to be there, to do my bit It’s hard when you’re tired You get irritable. You do your best, you want your relationship to be as loving as it ever was But it does suffer And you want to be there to get to know your child as well. The only answer is to take time off – in the end I cut back on the teaching, though I still do four days a week, and when Amber was born, I took a whole week off from the show.”The only nightmare now is when Angie and the children are all sick together, and I have to take time off to care for the carer. Then I have to pay someone to play my part, as unfortunately we musicians are classed as freelance. I don’t think any new EU directive is going to help us.”Chris Taggart is the editor of parenting magazine Junior.