It’s Prince Rogers Nelson (his father played piano in the Prince Rogers Trio, something of which he was patently very proud) sometimes known simply as Prince, and 4 a while known only as , which roughly translates in dingbat language to ‘the artist 4merly known as Prince’. While most of London seems to have gone in search of the sun, Prince has come in search of London, and he’s camped out in the metropolis 4 21 nights. Oh yes – and it’s 31 years since the diminutive one’s first album – so as a result the tickets are £31.21, 4 which u also get a free copy of his new album Earth, which is almost impossible to buy in the UK since it was given away with the Daily Mail, 4cing his UK distributors to withdraw it from sale. And where r we? Well it’s the national disgrace 4merly known as the Dome (or should I say Millennium Dome?). U remember - that political hospital pass of all time that the outgoing Conservatives handed to Tony Blair’s bushy-tailed Labour boys and girls in 1997. The place where the twice-resigned cabinet minister Peter Mandelson famously promised we would play ‘Surfball’, the sport of the twenty-first century. The site of the fiasco on the night of 31st December 1999 (hang on, is that why Prince chose the venue?), when a promised river of fire turned out to be nothing more than a damp squib, preceded by huge transport delays 4 all the high society liggers who had tickets (including, naturally, Tony Blair and Her Majestyness). And of course the scene of a ten month debacle when punters failed to materialise to visit a hugely over-budget exhibition that was talked up by Tony Blair as "a triumph of confidence over cynicism, boldness over blandness, excellence over mediocrity". But in a masterstroke of Orwellian manoeuvring worthy of 1984 history has been rewritten, the Dome (I think there will soon be a law preventing Citizens from using that word) disappeared, 2 b replaced by the O2 Arena, “a world class entertainment destination” – and “the first purpose built music venue since the Royal Albert Hall in 1871”.

It’s absolutely huge inside. We’re sitting almost centre-stage (the auditorium is seated in the round, but we’re happily at the ‘front’) high in the vertiginous upper tiers. Amazingly there are rows and rows of seats behind us. It’s rather like being inside the bowels of a Sci-fi B-Movie space station – if u peer into the dark distance, u can see columns of tiny figures endlessly marching to and fro (it’s the beer-swilling hoards heading to bar and bog) – with a roof that disappears into a futuristic metallic superstructure. It is of course packed. And it’s Friday. And it’s only the second night of the residency. So to say there’s an air of excitement in the place would be something of an understatement. It’s more like frenzy, fuelled I have to say by the weeks of hype that have led up to these gigs and, I observe, copious amounts of booze. When the inevitable dancing (I use the word loosely) starts, it’s a wonder that someone doesn’t take a serious tumble (there are a few brave attempts).

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