The smart jewellers of Bond Street, Conduit Street and Grafton Street in Mayfair have allowed students from the Royal College of Art and Central St Martins to take over their window displays for a week.

At a private view last night, top-end jewellery shops such as Asprey, Chanel, Cartier and Tiffany were full of students and tutors from London’s top art colleges.

My highlights included a display of intricate paper bees; a rotating case with magnifying glasses trained on a diamond bracelet; and an interactive TV screen where you could see yourself in a princess-like tiara.

The Street Lights project runs until 15 May 2011

Last night I had my first taste of food from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan at Samarqand restaurant.

As it turned out, Central Asian cuisine wasn’t drastically different from anything I’d had before – the menu included dumplings, noodles and kebabs – and the sleek decor and friendly staff combined to make a very enjoyable evening.

We started off with vodka-based cocktails as recommended by our enthusiastic waiter (we agreed with his choice). There’s a lounge area if you’d just like to sample the excellent cocktails.

I picked vegetarian options from the menu; Lazzat (fried aubergine salad) to start and manty (steamed pumpkin dumplings) for main. However, our waiter was adamant that lamb is the real speciality at Samarqand so my friend dutifully ordered lamb shashlik.

Portions were on the small side but the food is quite heavy so there were no worries about it being filling enough.

We were recommended the Napoleon cake for dessert which contains layers of puff pastry and cream, and that the waiter told us is just as good as the one his mum makes in Uzbekistan! He also egged us on to try zebra chocolate cake – a chocolate sponge with a light chocolate filling. Both desserts were rich and sweet.

We took the richness off the dessert with a pot of delicious jasmine tea, served the traditional Uzbekistani way: poured into small bowls and back into the tea pot three times before drinking.

Samarqand has lots going for it; It’s very reasonably priced (even more so when you take into account its Central London location) with main courses from £9.95 to £13.50.

I also liked the laid back atmosphere – this would be a nice venue for after-work drinks and meeting friends for dinner. And it’s handily located just five minutes’ walk from Bond Street tube.

I was also impressed by the service – the staff were friendly and attentive and our waiter in particular went above and beyond to make sure we had everything we wanted, and even threw in a bit of Uzbekistan history with dinner!

Samarqand, 18 Thayer Street, W1U 3JY

Louisa Nigro, senior brand manager for Monopoly told me: “It’s the 75th anniversary of Monopoly this year so we decided what better way to celebrate it than to solve the mystery of where is Go in London. We worked with the Ordnance Survey people and they used their geometrics and figured out it was actually Queen’s Walk.”

Much to my chagrin as I walked past Go, I was not handed £200 by a kind banker, but there are plenty of other activities capturing the essence of Monopoly lasting until 5pm today.

Nigro said: “We’ve turned Queens Walk into an area of Monopoly madness today including our Monopoly jail, a cash-blowing globe with Monopoly prizes, a Monopoly-branded bus to take people around the landmarks on the board, and also free parking on Regent Street.”

There’s also a chance to play the new version of the game called Monopoly Revolution which has a round board, sound effects and music.

With Go’s location found we can’t help wonderin where the jail is located. Do you have any ideas where it is?