Oh no the lights have gone off at Piccadilly Circus.

The lights have gone off at Piccadilly Circus.

Oh no the lights have gone off at Piccadilly Circus. Will life ever be the same? Will London ever be the same again. I know it's only a temporary measure but how we are ever going to survive without those flashing, winking, blinking, dancing and singing lights that have always provided the West End with so much illumination and character? Can there be anything as remotely uplifting and morale boosting as that festival of colour, that riotous explosion of reds, greens, blues and whites? For decades the lights at Piccadilly Circus have been our window on the world, that identification with the very best that the West End can offer.

The lights at Piccadilly Circus are a perfect representation of London life and the way London sees itself. Without those lights London would not only be extremely dull and essentially depressing it would plunge the whole of the metropolis into a very demoralising darkness. Most Londoners and tourists look up at those magical brand names and shout out our recognition of the London we've always loved.

For as long as I can remember Piccadilly Circus always meant Coca Cola, that brilliantly red glowing symbol of my childhood and your childhood. There were the jagged lines that zig zagged around those bold Coca Cola letters, the images playing with our subliminal emotions. But predominantly Coca Cola was always unmistakably red. For years the red lights would flash and flicker, tease and tantalise with their playful pronouncements.

As you came out of Piccadilly Circus Tube station you would become immediately aware of just how much London enjoyed the sweetest fragrance of Coca Cola. Throughout the 1960s,70s and 80s your senses would be seduced by something that could have been bottled and certainly was. The lights in Piccadilly have always been alive and well, powerful testaments to the London Electricity Board and generating a message that was much more profound than any of us could ever have imagined. But Coca Cola conveyed an air of rich celebration, of raw energy and quite literally, a colourful exuberance.

I'm not sure how Londoners will cope without its lights but we'll see it through. We'll tolerate this unfortunate but slight inconvenience because maybe we've always tolerated setbacks. After all during the Second World War Piccadilly turned into a sorrowful land of darkness and grief. But now over 70 years later the twin forces of technology and modernisation have combined to leave Piccadilly in another dark age.

It does seem that without the Piccadilly Circus lights London has lost its soul, its motivation, its nerve, its reason for existence. How the lights have re-assured us, made us feel good about ourselves and others around. There is a heart beat and healthy vibrancy about the lights that London just can't get enough of. Maybe the great writers have spent many an hour, toying with different superlatives and yet still unable to put their finger on it.

It's the way they glitter and shimmer on those wet, wintry evenings, shivering in puddles and then suddenly spinning and whirling incessantly in the natural glow of a late November evening. There is a wonderful urgency and fantasy about the whole experience that can never be truly matched anywhere.

I could go on endless lyrical raptures about Piccadilly Circus but I think it probably knows about its fascinating light show, its sheer advertising bravura, its reckless adventure into the wondrous world of new horizons and ground breaking innovations. Maybe this is why we first became hooked on the Piccadilly Circus lights all those years ago when London, during the 1960s, just exploded and the rest of the world gazed at us with endless astonishment.

We all know about Coca Cola but how could we forget Bolivar, Timex, Schweppes, Spearmint gum and a whole variety of nods to rampant commercialism and sponsorship? At times you were almost swept along this by this tidal wave of temptation and in your face visibility that rocked you back on your feet with a supernatural force.

As a child my late and wonderful dad would take enormous pleasure from the Piccadilly Circus lights. In many ways it was rather like my gentle introduction to the West End. This was a private invitation to a world that had hitherto felt very special but at the same time enclosed. Suddenly wintry Sunday evenings became  supersonic and jet propelled, galvanised into life.

So now the Piccadilly lights have been switched off and it is difficult to imagine how we'll manage with this loss, this detachment from something we'd become accustomed to, a dramatic departure from a London that was deeply lovable. How are we ever going to cope without the Piccadilly Circus lights. It'll be like a Manchester City without a Sergio Aguero, tennis without Sir Andy Murray, cricket without its finest batsmen and rugby without its most aggressive prop forwards. Simply unthinkable.

It is time to count down to the day when those lovely old lights are switched back on and London salutes to its homage to electricity. How I'll miss the Piccadilly Circus lights. I'm sure you'll all miss them as much as I do. The rumour is that it'll be this autumn. I know Eros is counting down the days. Let there be light.