I often bluff about my extensive travels. Wigan Pier? Of course I have been to Wigan Pier.

When I was invited to breakfast at the Southwark Lido, I pretended I knew the lovingly listed and restored 1930s open air swimming pool, reopened to hardy swimmers.

In reality, I wondered how I could have worked in Southwark for five years without having discovered its lido.

When I arrived at 100 Union Street SE1, the joke was on me.

The quirky developer, Roger Zogolovitch, chairman of Solid Space, had taken the site for which he had consent for offices, flats and restaurants and installed a lido. It was less than a meter wide and as long as the average ornamental fish pond.

As part of the celebrations for the London Festival of Architecture, Zogolovitch had covered the site with shingle and installed 10 beach huts and a few dozen deckchairs. Festival workers lived in the beach huts during the month-long festival.

It was a cheerful way to keep interest alive in one of many hundred of development sites where nothing else is happening in property development.

Zogolovitch was upbeat as the trains thundered behind and above him on Southwark viaduct and the social housing tenants on the opposite side of Union Street must have wondered was going on.

He called his un-started development SoSo to catch the glamour of Soho and Noho.

Yet the whole cheerful open air breakfast was reminiscent of the early 1990s.

Then, everyone enjoyed stories of naïve shed agents who leased out empty warehouses unknowingly for ecstasy-fuelled raves. My own experiences were more cerebral because office agents hired gold chairs and experimental theatre companies to try out new works in unlettable office space.

I have not yet swum in Southwark Lido, and don’t know whether it will be reinstated for the next London Festival of Architecture. But maybe in this downturn, I’ll discover the next Pinter of Ionesco.

Occasionally, I am first into the office at Property Week.  Invariably I am first to leave.

When the computer shuts down at 5.31, there is an hour to idle away between leaving Ludgate House and arriving as first guest at a party.

If the event is in the City, I take sanctuary on a seat in a churchyard.  If it is in the West End I shop at H&M.

But on July 1st I found the coolest place in London for the pre-party hour: More London.

I had only ever been to particular buildings on the south side of the Thames by Tower Bridge, like City Hall and the Hilton, and so I had never appreciated the implementation of the Ken Shuttleworth masterplan. The buildings seem tweaked to frame the Tower of London or the Gherkin.

On the hottest day of the year, children paddled in the fast-running water of the gutters between the buildings.  The water erupted into jets outside the Gaucho and Strada restaurants.  The children ran forward as the jets subsided and were soaked when the water leapt into seven foot geysers. Everyone was part of the fun; fathers rushed with children in pushchairs through the deluge, while mothers stood at the side with outstretched towels.  They were so prepared that it must have been an organised activity. (‘Come on, mummy, we’re going to run through the More London fountains.’)

There were no prohibiting notices, and no evidence of Princess Diana fountain-type accidents as in Kensington Gardens.

The only voice to come on the loud speaker was plumy and familiar.  It came from the Scoop, the amphitheatre beside City Hall.

Mayor Boris Johnson was launching Gay & Lesbian Pride Week.  The Scoop, unlike the fountains, was surrounded by barricades and policed by intimidating bouncers.

The gays and lesbians were falling in love with Boris, who said how much he looked forward to going on their march in this city where everyone can contribute, not judged by their ethnicity nor sexual orientation.   Ken Livingstone could not have put it better.   More London brings out the best in everyone.

A woman speaking in broken English asked me: ‘Who is this man?’

I said that it is the Mayor, and asked her where she came from.

She said she was from the Czech Republic, adding: ‘My friends have told me about this man.  They said they couldn’t believe he was elected.  He’s different, isn’t he?’

The Lawrence Graham press party was different too.  After on-line voting from the guests the lawyers chose a Middle Eastern theme, complete with belly dancers, kebabs in the staff canteen.

Catherine Diggle, the real estate partner, said that she had never seen a better use of public space than More London.

Stephen Stephens said that Lawrence Graham partners had voted to relocate to More London three hours after the neighbouring Norton Rose partners had come to the same decision. Yet only a few partners knew the name of the secretive landlord who bought More London from the Kuwaitis.

As I left with my goody bag containing Turkish delight and a smart pen, the gays were still partying in the Scoop.  I hope that the rest of the summer’s pre-party hours will be as entertaining.