Tag Archives: london

Aside

Too much love

A girl I know vaguely posted recently on FB: ‘I have a visitor, who wants me to show her the things I love in London. Help! I can’t think of anything.’

This post has irritated me for the last 3 days. Who can’t think of things they love? I can, this very moment, think of 400 things I mildly like. Let’s say ‘love’ is 8.5 and above. I can tell you 50 things, without even pausing to think, that are a 5.5. These aren’t even things I particularly care about. In fact, they are things like being able to eat an avocado on the one day it is ripe, or managing to put the clothes drier up without it falling on my poor toe. These are things I am too emotionally lazy to muster any real feelings about. But love? Things I love in London, and would want to share with a visiting friend? Here, without any sort of thought at all, are some of the things I would suggest to this girl, if I were the sort of person who suggested things helpfully, rather than ranting about people’s inadequacies behind their back. (The two are naturally mutually exclusive).

1. The absolute terror when a mildly fat woman is standing near you on the tube, and you’re not sure if she’s pregnant or not, and whether you should offer her your seat.

2. The smell of fresh bread when you walk into a big Sainsburys,

3. The £10 tickets at the National Theatre, where I once went on a date, only to bump into the parents of one of my closest friends. The play had a simulated sex scene.

4. The free food samples in Selfridges Food Hall. If possible, wear several layers when going to Selfridges, then effect a number of cunning disguises to get more free samples.

5.

Lounging on the deckchairs provided in any of the Royal Parks until the deckchair money collector approaches menacingly, at which point it is imperative to feign total incomprehension and a lack of English, luxuriating in your final stolen moments of comfort.

6. Pub quizzes. Because I haven’t even properly got going.

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August 8, 2013 · 11:30 am
May 29, 2012 · 11:01 am

Not all those who wander are lost

The British Library have these new posters all over London:

I love them, even though I usually am lost.

I spoke to my little sister last Friday. ‘I’m back,’ She announced. I hadn’t realised she had been away, but I’m socially flawless, so I quickly said, ‘From away,’ In an authoritative tone. My little sister ignored me (she is much less socially flawless) and told me how much she was enjoying Caitlin Moran’s book, ‘How to be a Woman’. ‘I’m seeing Caitlin tonight,’ I replied. There was a short pause. (Another example of my little sister’s difficulty in abiding to the normal limits of social politeness). ‘Why do you always do this?’ She whined. (See- I told you- no manners whatsoever. Luckily, I had the social graces to carry us forward). She’s one of the guests on Stuart Maconie’s event. It’s at the British Library. You can come if you want.’ ‘I’m in Manchester,’ My little sister said crossly. ‘I live here.’

Annoyingly, she wasn’t lying. She does live in Manchester, but like most snotty Londoners, I find it difficult to accept that there’s anything that really, actually exists outside of the tube map.

Ironically, the talk, entitled ‘The Boys Aren’t Back in Town’ was a discussion of place, identity and ambition and the women who were talking were Laura Barton, Grace Dent, Lauren Laverne, Caitlin Moran and Miranda Sawyer, all of whom moved to London from the mythical ‘regions’.

As expected, the talk was interesting, intelligent and entertaining- a particular highlight for me was Lauren Laverne explaining how her kids (born and brought up in London) have a different accent from her. ‘Why do you talk funny, Mummy?’ They ask. ‘Is it because you’re Sunderlish?’

I feel Lauren’s kids and I have the same, delightfully inclusive views on ‘away’- by which, of course, we mean anywhere we can’t locate on the tube map. Although, after Stuart’s event, I feel well-equipped to venture to ‘the North’- or at least as though I might survive my time there. Almost. Though perhaps I shouldn’t reply to what I am assured are ‘cheerful Northern locals’ who ask if I need help by telling them sternly, ‘Not all those who wander are lost’.

 

 

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