This is the velodrome where Chris Boardman rode through a wall of noise to the ultimate Hour record in 1996, where Yvonne McGregor stormed to a world pursuit title in 2000 at the start of the Lottery-funded gold rush, where the British cycling revolution had its apotheosis in the 2008 world championships and won half of the 18 golds on offer.
Voltaggio tends to order the biscuits with maple-sausage gravy and foie gras: the ultimate wee-hours, Denny's-style binge.
At Chanel, the cafe society ladies of the last pret-a-porter show were replaced by croupiers and gamblers at a casino, the ultimate after-hours haunt.
And then, on another level entirely, there is this – the most audacious of showstoppers, with every single element of the series locking together to make for the ultimate darkest hour.
As an aspiring writer at the time, for me this episode was the ultimate one-hour lesson in dramatic writing: interweaving multiple story lines, everything ratcheted to maximum conflict and tension, our regular characters pushed to places that reveal new facets about them that we never knew, belly-laugh humor, dialogue that conjures Odets -- both street and almost poetic at the same time.
"In our hearts, we'd love to be Robin's character in the movie -- to be the ultimate father twelve hours a day, to stay home and play with the kids".
Arthur exuded a moral authority and wearing a jumpsuit, he reminding me of the Lone Ranger, a hero leading the fight against land abuse through nurturing healthy soils... then I noticed his boots: substantial support, waterproof leather sealed in perfect rubber soles, the ultimate for working long hours in the year-round rain.
"STATE OF PLAY," a political thriller starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck and Helen Mirren that opens on April 17, is the ultimate makeover: a two-hour movie, set in Washington that used to be a six-part BBC mini-series.
James Mahon explains why he moved to Wiltshire, some 80 miles away from his job in London while Belinda Aspinall from Life After London explains why the ultimate home is an hour away by train.
Every Monday night for the past eight television seasons, Jack has been for us what after last night he'll never be again: the ultimate man of the hour.
