Corva/Hooks

• West End Girl, Native Londoner. Corva's most often seen around the north heart of things, landscape-wise: the City of London, Kensington & Chelsea, Tower Hamlets. Hackney's promising these days. She knows the fly-over boroughs and will merrily describe them precisely as such.

• Music. She's got some connection or other to the London music scene, or once did. Gig players and music historians might bump into her or maybe recognize the name from somewhere in a vintage edition of a city gossip rag. She also sings sometimes if she feels like it, preferring smaller older clubs and live venues.

• Daughter of a Military Man. Odd, that, given her sometimes-sticky fingers. Her formidable father was a Yeoman Warder and she frequently visits his grave over in Abney Park. She does like cemeteries, but only by day, and knows every inch of the Tower itself as if she was born there.

• Style. She has her own, of course, because that's only right and proper. It's not art, so much. But if you have a keen eye and a way of winging it through London's fickle flavors -- and seek the same in others -- you're in good company. Her appraising eye is legendary in some circles.

• Gossip. She loves it. Indulges in it. Scavenges it. Breathes it in like it's damp London air and often trades it generously once she gets going.