London Hate

I used to resent London when I lived in the North but deep down I always knew I was just jealous.

Story of my life, really...

I hate a lot about it, but mainly because I don't live there and so when there am always hobo-ing, ie am street-level the whole time. I hate its self-importance, but then what's 'its'? I should just spend less time in Fitzrovia.

that's what i used to dislike about it, too.

What do I HAAAATE about London? I hate SO MANY PEOPLE IN MY WAY ALL THE FUCKING TIME, JUST MOVE IT, JUST GET OUT OF MY WAY, I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE ON YOUR WAY TO WORK, TOO OR JUST A TOURIST GAWPING AT BUILDINGS, JUST GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY. That is my number one hate about London.

Cabbage to thread.

I began to see the beauty of smaller towns and value what they had to offer. I particularly valued the fact that there was a lot going on near where I lived and I had to explain to ppl who originated in small towns that suburban London could be very dreary and boring - ppl from small towns whom I met at uni automatically thought of central London, not knowing and considering the suburbs.

I think when I went to Bristol and Oxford I forgot about the good stuff about my childhood - a loving family, no serious illness, good academic record at school - and concentrated on the bad stuff - being forced to do things I didn't like, other kids giving me grief. I put this together with the hustle and bustle and pollution and the drear of certain sections of suburbia and concocted a "London bad, small towns good" model in my head. This model was in no small way susbstantiated by the fact that I was undoubtably having a better time in Bristol and London, making lots of good friends and generally having a happy time.

Fast forward a few years. The veneer of Oxford had faded to some extent. The novelty of living in a small town had gone. It's a very transient place and many of the ppl I'd met had moved away. But at the same time I was no longer skint all the time and so could spend more money on travelling and having fun. I think joining sinister and ILX and going to more social events in London have led me to places in London that I never went to as a kid and in many cases couldn't (pubs and clubs). So I guess now I have the best of both worlds....I live and work in a small place and so don't experience the London commuter hell, but enjoy "dipping into" London on a regular basis.

x-post, argh...

I never go out in Oxford, Mark, only in London (and I've cut down on that), which gives me a stupid perspective on both.

The rest of London is OK. Sometimes very very good indeed. I've never experienced commuting there though.

Scalextric and Tom Petty better?

My bad commuting days were bad because they took me OUT of London; I'd have been happy to suffer the Bank branch bottleneck if I'd pitched up in the city itself. I suspect I'd dislike London more if I was a driver.

These days a part of me feels compelled to move there and be involved; that part of me is smaller than the part which likes to walk the coast path or intends to go kayaking down the Ex to Turf Locks. My 'dream' isn't to live in a big city apartment or townhouse, it's to have an old cottage in the middle of nowhere with plenty of space and air and water.

I love London, but miss the sea.

I grew up in a fairly middle-class square mile of Catford with an oddly villagey feel to it and NO DISTINGUISHING FEATURES WHATSOEVER. It was half an hour's walk from the nearest station and there were no pubs or really anything to do at all. Going back there still feels vaguely oppressive, to the extent that for a while I preferred to live in Canterbury for the vibrant urban atmosphere.

The tube journey on the Piccadilly from Turnpike Lane into central London always seemed to go on forever - not helped by the huge gaps between Turnpike Lane and Manor House and Caledonian Road and Kings X. I contrast this with the short journeys I now make on the Tube of an evening from Baker St to wherever the FAP's @.

EXACTLY what I found most unsettling about London. I grew up in the Southern US where people are very very careful of each others' space, looking where you're going, even watching out for their kids. Bumping into someone or even a close call is very bad manners.

I never noticed so much until I moved first to California, where I was constantly commenting on the way people couldn't seem to be bothered paying attention to where they were going, and I was having to dodge a lot. Then I moved here to DC, where people are also pretty stupid about it, and in NYC they're a little bit worse but to actually collide with another person is still pretty rare.

In London I was bumping into at least one or two people every day, it seemed. I like to think I can move out of people's way if I see someone in a hurry not paying attention, but I guess I'm not fast enough for you lot. Seriously, I know the pub closes at 11 but you can always drink more tomorrow.

Quality of life is surely being able to live a life you enjoy, without too many restrictions preventing you from doing what makes you happy. For Momus, say, this may be city-dwelling. For me I doubt so.

I am very fortunate not to have a real commute, but I am 15 minutes' walk from Edgy Style Mag offices and 45 minutes' walk from the office I'm consulting for. Also due to the prevalence of Routemasters in my area the ride to town is often a free one.

Kate, there is FANTASTIC housing stock in Matt DC areas like Brockley (land of BIG HUGE TREES) and Peckham Rye/Nunhead has some of the most beautiful green space next to decent housing you'll ever see. Also amazing is Rye Lane for African and Viet shops.

Personal space... god that is the biggie. I could shout for hours about it. But these days, I just tend to hit people with my umbrella or my bag if they don't watch my personal space.

Good call on Peckham Rye, but then I would say that since I have recently moved into a lovely flat with delicious views over the park.

vs

I understand that people go on holiday to rest and enjoy themselves. But you know what? You want to rest and enjoy yourself? Go do it somewhere where there are not PEOPLE TRYING TO GET TO BLOODY WORK. No one comes to London for rest and relaxation. Not unless they're so stupid that they deserve to be shouted at.

(x-post)

Haha, I also have about a dozen swans living outside my window, not to mention signets, goslings, etc.

(there is also a difference between wanting to relax and not wanting to be verbally abused!)

THESE FUCKS WOULDN'T PULL THAT SORT OF BEHAVIOUR IN A CAR IF THEY WERE PULLING INTO THEIR OWN STREET, WHY DO THEY DO IT HERE?!?!?

"Yes. Now fuck off."

Kate, dunno, but there are tourists looking into my front room all day.

no id just be my usual charming, placid self and rely on my natural niceness to win them over.

My own hugely subjective criteria for good city living would go something like this: an exciting urban 'buzz' to the place, great affordable restaurants and bars, lots of culture going on, in general a good variety of things to do; affordable housing; affordable and efficient public transport; lots of good public space; lots of greenery and nature; manageable levels of stress and general good-naturedness of strangers; pollution under control; good weather; the sea and beaches not too far away; great places to go for weekends away.

Sydney scores poorly in some of those but in general it does better than London. I like London, I love visiting it, but if I had to give just one reason why I don't really want to live there, it would be the endless drizzly grey winter where it never really gets light and in any case gets dark at four, I just find it too fucking miserable.

It's not that you outer zone people are more relaxed coz you had to take a while to get somewhere in the first place, it's coz you have somewhere relaxed and uncrowded to go back afterwards. I have fantasies sometimes about going on holiday somewhere really quiet and suburban and getting drunk and throwing up on their lawns and pissing in their doorways and standing milling around between their front doors and their garages, gawking up at the sky with a pathetic expression and a map.

I'd like to take the opportunity to be smug about things like the art & music scenes being better here because I've never been to Sydney and don't know what I'm on about.

i told yo all hackney is very nice, didn't i?! this might be stretching it a bit, but it's still god's own borough, for me.

Somehow I manage to get to my fucking workplace in the morning (in downtown Washington DC and it's summertime) without charging through people with my mobile up to my ear like a fucking ape.

Anyway Kate I'm sure your attitudes re: us idiot tourists were more than ably expressed by the lovely chap who gave me a nosebleed out of the blue on the walk home from the FAP.

I guess it was pretty fucking dumb of us, all told. Somehow managed to have an enjoyable time but I suspect that had to do with the company we kept. Next time perhaps we'll pick some spot where we WON'T BE IN THE WAY OF ALL YOU PEOPLE TRYING TO GET TO FUCKING WORK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING AFTERNOON. AT THE FCUK.

Weekly passes are now £9.50. Up a whole quid. You can still travel at the old rates, but you have to buy advance tickets and stand on one leg or something.

Hackney is OK, but God's own borough? Is this one of his tests?

It's not just tourists, it's fucking suburban fucks who think they own the pavement like they own the road and are NOT LOOKING WHERE THEY ARE FUCKING GOING.

I've lived in Zone One since 1995.

Parts of Hackney (where I lived before Z1 bliss) are as leafy and Georgian and posh as Islington, especially the houses bordering de Beauvoir, Victoria Park, Clapton Square/Dalston Lane and London Fields.

I know it's ratty to yell at obstructive tourists on escalators but when I was a tourist here I did have some awareness of my surroundings and the people therein, which meant nobody ever had to tell me off for holding up pedestrian traffic. D'oh.

Tim, it's about time Peckham Rye started 'happening' - fourteen years ago when I saw the place for the first time it struck me that these were beautiful houses 20 minutes from town that seemingly nobody wnted to buy.

Now I'm going to shamefacedly pretend I did not get incensed AGAIN for no reason and do some actual work, or some such.

Dicky Knee's solid Peckham, Choumert posse. You might be right about schools: some friends of my brother were moaning the other day about how they have to go to some church at least once a month for the next nine months in order to get their kid into the school they want.

I'm in zone 4 but bcz I don't commute during rush hour its fine really. And then I always have a book.

There are far too many people here tho'. Stayed for a while in toronto in 2002, and it was a smaller and nicer version of london. however, the record shops were not as good.

But its fine really.

But London sucks ASS next to Paris.

I thought we all agreed that Clapham was the worst part of London? or Camden maybe (oh for the divert the Thames through Camden thread)

!!! i had no idea about that either.

i'd like to see the good bits of south london. i hope matt's mooted blackheath fap happens.

Camden should be razed, leaving Jamon Jamon standing alone.

Oh yeah, Eltham is nasty.

Second blackheath fap.

The less abt charlton, plumstead and woolich the better.

Hopkins is droll.

I like what Mike G said about the donkey.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner.

Thing is, when you are buying a home you have to do two things first: you worry about what the actual housing stock looks like, then you worry about what the neighbourhood will be like in 10 years. If your home passes those two tests then you have the OH JOY of the next stage.

Balls, sez I. Bostall Woods, Shooters Hill, Lessness Abbey Wood, Eltham's art deco palace.

massive x-post (will concede the point about the urban bits being a BNP stronghold)

I like the little side streets around Wapping, and Greenwich as you head a bit towards Woolwich, like you can pretend you're about to be knocked out and awoken on a ship bound for India, or something.

I read about it in a book t'other day.

it is larger

the houses are more modern and presumably look more alike one another

it has even less in the way of infrastructure.

I like the little streets in greenwich behind the Cutty Sark pub (in fact where Robbo lives) They have that feeling that Matt describes.

I wonder what it was like.

Shame its full of cunts, though. I love that eerie ghost town feeling at the weekend as well.

Last time someone tried to get me to move I put in pretty stupid salary demands, which they actually considered. I dunno. It just doesn't appeal - they really would have to compensate me for having to live there.

And anyone annoyed with the people hanging around your work - my ex works in parliament, and I don't think you could really ever match the annoyance she seems to build up!

Cycling round the city on a Sunday morning os a fantastic thing to do.

I definitely spend a lot of time hating this city. Yes, this is primarily because of the transport, but also because I find it filthy. I realise I am hard to please coming from Canada (which fares so well on that 'quality of life index' thingy), but I do expect a little more effort from the public. Seeing people just throw shit on the ground WHEN THERE IS A BIN RIGHT BESIDE YOU infuriates me. Don't even get me started on the dog shit. I also find the layout of the city confusing - streets changing names, etc. Any city on a grid system (particularly NYC) is so much simpler. Thing of Thing is OTM about the winter - grey, rainy, depressing, etc. I actually think I prefer the freezing cold/snowy winters back home (sometimes). And I hate the fact that it is so crazy expensive here. Of course I knew this before moving here, but even now that I've got a pretty good paying job, I still find I'm tight for cash, and it's not like I'm living like a rock star or anything. I have no idea how people function in this city on salaries of, say £15k a year (or less). I also hate how stupidly drunk people get here. Even when I've had a few drinks I still notice a shocking degree of drunkenness and binge drinking around me. Maybe this is a by-product of people trying to drink as much as possible before 11, I dunno. Speaking of which, I just can't get used to bars that I like closing at 11 on weekends. I can sorta understand it during the week (I do like going to gigs and being in bed by midnight), but on Friday/Saturday? Come on. I don't like going out at 7 or 8 in the evening, since I'm too used to hanging at home or at friend's places first, then going out around 10-11. Sure, I can go to a 'club', but a lot of the places open late aren't always where I want to hang out (and they can have cover charges).

Lately, though, I'm loving it. The fact that it is Spring has helped a lot. Here's what I love:
-There is a lot of green space. When I was in Brixton I liked Brockwell park, now I'm all about Highbury Fields.
-Borough Market is incredible. I've been to lots of markets and this is my favourite. Also cool because there has been a trading market of some sort on that site for about 2000 years.
-Laid-back approach to drinking. Canada is quite puritan in this respect. If you took your pint from a bar out onto the street in Toronto, you could be fined, assuming some staff member didn't give you a strong talking-to first. Plus you can't even buy bouze unless you go to government-run shops that have restricted hours.
-Restaurants - lots of great places, and all types of food (if you can afford it).
-History. I love walking past random buildings and realising that they have been there for hundreds of years - the country I'm from didn't even really exist barring some happy native people and a few adventurous French and Brits roaming around.
-Friendly people. This will probably seem wrong to many of you, but I actually find people here very friendly. I guess it's partly a factor of it being a very touristy and transient city - lots of people like me, living here for fun, not really permanently. It may also help that I have a 'foreign' accent, so people are very chatty with me (more so when they find out I'm Canadian and not American). If I strike up a conversation with strangers here, for the most part they just roll with it. If you try this in Toronto, you will be met with a harsh stare amounting to "what do you want from me?", which sucks (although Toronto is bad at this - the rest of Canada is much friendlier). And related to this - to be blunt - it's easier to get laid here.

So yeah, I also have the love/hate thing going on.

its a scenester girl at 4am, make up smudged, been a long night, but still high

and its resilient. what area of london is as resilient as camden?

Kate, just go to the fish4 home site and start punching in postcodes. Tons of estate agents in Walworth Road. I have some idea of what you've got to spend and there were Victorian conversions in Peckham and yeah, some architecturally satisfying Streatham wonders for even cheaper but do try Norwood and Penge and Forest Hill too.

King's Cross is going to be one big building site in a couple of years time, when its developed I can see its trendiness factor rising exponentially.

Oh, that and the Safeway the size of the Brunswick Centre!

Clapham, Camden and Hammersmith are all fine, often pretty

i always shuddered whenever i passed Bermondsey/South Millwall on the train to Mottingham (also grim)

Sorry for trying to derail this thread. I should go back to my househunting thread. I want the top floor of a pretty little Victorian rowhouse with pointed windows and maybe a gable. I just don't want to be as far away as Croydon!

On this subject, I took a boat trip from Westminster to Kew on Saturday with the auld folks and I could not flippin' believe the relentless parade of luxury riverside apartments from Chelsea onwards. There's practically nothing else on the north bank of the Thames for miles. (The crew member doing his amateur guide thing, 25 minutes in - "This is where I shut up and man the bar cos there aren't any more interesting buildings on the river, they've all being pulled down to make way for luxury flats.") There was one fabulous deco block near Chiswick which I guess has some sort of listed status and has survived the cull. Not that I know what was along that part of the river before the 80s/90s glass'n'concrete riverview pad boom.

Yes, yes, yes to Forest Hill/Honor Oak Park. Thornton Heath is between and Crystal Palace and Selhurst - or, less kindly, en route to Ikea. It's a bit odd.

Well, the little museum in the middle of the roundabout at the top of Dollis Hill is good. Lots of photos / drawings of Wembley pre (first) stadium and Watkins Tower. The Empire Pool before it became Wembley Arena etc.

I've noticed that. Getting around Dalston (eg through the shopping centre or past the bottlenecks around McDonalds and Boots) can be infuriating. Has anyone ever been stopped by that little guy in the wheelchair who shouts out 'scuse me..scuse me' before asking for money? He often sits outside the entrance to the shopping centre or at bus stops. The true Dalston-ite has learned to ignore him even if he's yelping 'scuse me' at you from three feet away.

BUT.. having periodic back problems has made me aware that not everybody can get out of the way as swiftly as people in a rush would like. And bashing into random strangers because you've had a bad tube trip is just fucking childish.

I like Oxford Street. That's because I like shopping.

I don't like Streatham or South London much (although I'm from there so maybe that's why I don't like it). My mother (who lives in Streatham) has been to Merton Abbey and told me about it a few times.

SW8 has quite a bit of residential - tucked between Wandsworth Road and South Lambeth Road. Some of it quite posh. And of course loads of council flats..are they not 'residential'? I work round there and I like the area.

Apparently the opening of the fucking Gagosian on Britannia Street is the catalyst for change in King's Cross (oh no NOT the Eurostar no surely not). But King's Cross has always had its cool bits: the first stretch of Caledonian Road with all the Ethiopian food, Tony's Hemp Shop, Keystone Crescent, Paolina Thai on the King's Cross Road, Percy Circus, the Peabody/Council housing and secret Asian shops of Cromer Street, the hotel atop St Pancras, the galleries and photographer studios which have always been in Britannia Street and the Cubitt remnants in the streets behind the top end of Gray's Inn Road.

What I do miss is arch parties in the workshops and studios off Pancras Road (like Tony Mar¢us and pals gave). All that's evoking that for me is the KUNSTHALLE arch which is all that's left of a fairly cool building.

I hate London because punch-ups are "just a bit of fun." I hate London because of the obnoxious meat-heads who think three beers on an empty stomach entitles them to the top floor of the bus. I hate London because rebellion seldom extends further than that. I hate London because everything's been sorted out long before you got here, and will rumble on long after you've left.

This is the thing I was talking about - I think its the most fantastically incongruous building in London. How long's it been there for?

Kew Bridge - the water mill etc.
lovely CHiswick and it's tiny hidden Russian church, dope ice cream parlour (apple pie ice cream mmmmmm) and that whole stretch of the Picadilly/District (never been to Chiswick House tho)
Hangar Lane's old posters in the tube station dating from decades ago ('the hive is awake, why is not the city astir?' says one)
Acton Central station (level crossing)
view of ascending/descending planes from Perivale and Greenford stations
Hoover/tesco building
Boston Manor station art deco facade
Gunnersbury Park

Everyone who's ever even been to London is a dirteh wankah!!!

Oh, the Furniture Depository is gorgeous. Hate once again has been conquered by love on this thread.

Putney rocks more though. It's pretty much perfect.

Yeah, it's childish. I don't do it on purpose--see all the above about how crowded Oxford St. etc is--I blame London moods for those times it happens to me and I don't care--i.e. don't take it upon myself to apologize, just keep on my way. Hence the Hate.

sorry about x-posting with all the luv.

Ah, the tourists never quite make it down to my southern-most tip; I have lived here on & off for about 20+ years and I still havent been to Wimbledon Tennis (though my Nan works there)...

Putney rocks more though. It's pretty much perfect.

I love being down the river there, but I find it all quite chi-chi now. My Nan has lived there for 60 years, and its funny to see a one-time slum get so so so posh.

(you don't support AFCW yourself?)

x

maybe it is a bit better, but you still have conflict between ethnic groups themselves - unless what I read about Asians and Africans in Hounslow and Southall (just for example, and can't remember the source i'm afraid) was merely stirring up based on nasty agendas.

I don't know how people know each others' alter egos etc -- eg. how Tim H knows that Stewart is Enrique. I can never keep up with that kind of thing.

I feel that I agree with Enrique about 'monoculturalism'. This is a whole issue in itself, maybe, and potentially a tricky one. In fact - a POTENTIAL BANANA SKIN. But I don't think that being in a place where many cultures seemed to have very visibly gathered would necessarily make me feel better. On the other hand, I don't want to knock those cultures (good luck to them), or to imply that a place that only ostensibly has one culture is necessarily good (it might be dire; it might be a culture you didn't like?).

One thing that that last para showed me, which I perhaps already knew, was the problem with using the overly capacious, imprecise word 'culture'. Perhaps other words would help to think through the issue better. For instance: does one want to have a wide choice of foods from around the world? And if they are available, does that mean that the place is multi- (not mono-) cultural? (I don't know.)

I am VERY reliably informed about Southall: all internecine Punjab war carries on as if nobody has moved ('muzzies' v. 'Singh-mans' v. 'those BJP assholes') and there is some conflict with Somalians.

But I think that I agree with Stevem: the difficulties of definition, logic etc that he is pointing out were perhaps what were bothering me too.

Haha, I am so going to write a song now called 'I Love You, Details Later'.

not sure but what appeared to be the one Iranian restaurant on my local stretch went ablaze a few months back causing that stretch to be cordorned off and i had to walk home from the foot of the ladder (not a big deal, only 10-15 mins uphill)...does make you wonder tho. big excellent Turkish bakery thrives while a more conventional 'British' one has remained shut for some too. and there's only one Tandoori, only one Italian (again both look great, i esp. recommend Bianca's for nice cheap pizza and what have you).

now i have my reason to continue living

*places fishing rod back to side*

i used to hate oxford circus too, but i have learnt to avoid it during the really crazy busy times, and during the slightly less busy times, although still annoying i learnt to realise that i was one of them. and it has the biggest topshop in the world. in fact i think i only ever go there for that, and h&m, so i guess i don't have to walk through too much of the place.

and a lot of my friends live here, that helps too. london is a lonely place when you know no one.

I ahve a great deal of putney hatred. They should just dump it in Esher or Basingstoke. Wandsworth itself downs't inspire nearly as much Ire and Richmond and Barnes are lovely.

like double entry and all that?

I don't agree with Stevie's equation of cultural diversity with 'conflict', but that might be because I'm taking 'conflict' in its worst definition and he meant something more benign.

[pinefox: try selecting 'show all details'. then you can see that enrique is still logged in as himself, so you know who he is.]

xpost

The POTENTIAL BANANA SKIN was for me - not for him. It meant: if I say I don't mind 'monoculturalism', I could find myself slipping up. In deep water. Hot water.

It also meant: the CONCEPTS here are tricky - what do we mean by Culture? - etc.

It (I) certainly did not mean that people who like diversity have anything to worry about as a result of liking diversity. It meant, roughly, the opposite.

Richmond and Barnes I find really weird and Edwardian and yeomanish and... monocultural actually.

Palmers Green is nice.

i did who to the what now?

x-post

I don't think the streets of Palmers Green have any redeeming features. Certainly not the pubs.

I think my general inability to hate London has to do with the absences brought on by boarding school, uni in Manchetsr (which I loathed) and 6 months and counting in Ghana. However, London peole (like many non-London peeps really) can leave a lot to be desired, though oddly less so than a few of the non-London populations I've been around. I do wish the tourists would shove off half the time and yes, Oxford Street will forever remain a nightmare.

Actually, I did kind of hate London around 13-14 because people from school would show up almost anywhere I went to remind me how "uncool" I was.

i think some banana skins have more potential than others, depending on what you want to do with them. Stelfox knows what i'm talking about, even if i don't.

S: Old Brentford

Like I said in that thread... the only person who would tell me to "get bent" in regards to London is a typical Londoner who has never been North of Watford and seen what a shit hole their city actually is.

!!!!!!!

thats almost my commute. hornsey rise---hounslow (used to be on great west road too, by gilette corner)

but wait, why dont you get the victoria down to vauxhall and then the train to brentford, that would be quicker.

Brilliant, we both enjoyed the moment. Except him.

eh xpost my typing fingers are lame

From way upthread. Can't remember who said it, but the answer (as well as Southfields) is Twickenham.

** have never noticed this problem in Putney regarding 'ruggerbuggers' the few times i have been out there. why are they supposedly so amassed here (just easy Twickers connection?).**

I don't see any large numbers of tight-head props when I go to Putney, maybe I'm missing summat. In fact Twickenham is only full of rugby folks on match days. i.e about 8 weekends a year. Not that I mind.

**Twickenham is a bit too far out**

No that was in the sixties, stevem.

I was personally very happy when I lived in Palmers Green - I'm sure that makes a difference.

Again, in my experience, the pubs and bars of Putney do seem to fill up with 'ruggerbuggers' on a big matchday - boat race day is even worse.

sup a pint while swooning enviously at the thames-adjourning houses that graze the water with their voluminous and green gardens!

Well done though for striking a blow against the terrible forces of opperession, Bela.

xpost

I wouldn't pick Clapham out of sheer inverse snobbery.

White on white translucant black capes, the bats have left the belltower.

Ok, 'snob' is a bit strong, I withdraw it. And yes, Clapham is actually pretty racially diverse, there are a lot of black people living there. Similarly Battersea. Take a stroll down Battersea Pk Road one day.

i'd take the place too, if it was free, as in your scenario. would i pay to live there instead of elsewhere? no. would i pay the inflated prices required to live there? no.

i have no problem with class war.

Alternatively they may think, hmm, move to Clapham, none of them there.

Muswell Hill is a pretty good place to live, it's clean-ish and it's pretty decent price-wise, about the same rents as Wood Green/Turnpike Lane and a lot nicer, but that's cos there's no tube station I suppose... since I bus to work and I can get the bus to most parts of central London easily that doesn't bother me tho...

I used to live near Kilburn tube, loved living there too but it was a bit pricey. Very convenient all-hours off-licence!

EALING IS BEST!

I disagree! Try Acton more, the Viaduct, Southall, Osterley.

I know I'll never convince people, but there's way much more in West London than 1930's semi's. I'm sad that ILX and I will never see eye to eye.

Steve, Acton Mainline dude?

i like it round there too. at one point my work journey involved walking from East Acton to Acton Central (when the bus didn't come) and on a sunny day this was v pleasant (despite having to cross the A40).

Then I moved to Twickenham, and boy was it a shock when there was a rugby match on. The place would get absolutely trashed - we often had men urinating against our back gate - the streets would soon be awash with beer and vomit. It was awful.

My only explanation for this is that footie fans are used to getting pissed all the while so they can handle their drink. Whereas your posho average rugger fan just isn't used to drinking, so they completely lose it.

My definition of hell: the annual Army Vs Navy rugby match at Twickenham. Still brings me out in a cold sweat...

Though, I would not hold my breath for a West London FAP.

Haha MarkH, the only time I ever went into the Fox in PG was when myself and two of my friends were coming down after a v. heavy acid experience - we cld almost taste/smell the bad vibes! But I'm not esp. a pub person, so the lack of good boozers didn't really bother me. Plus, I forgot the Record Detective Agency, best name for a rec shop evah!

I shld say that my antipathy towards the ruggerbuggers of Putney has nothing to do w/ class and everything to dear w/ a fear and loathing of groups of drunken shouting arseholes looking for a fight or a fuck. Besides, living on the Fulham Road as I did for five years kept my middle-class war hatred well and truly stoked, w/out any help from the twats of Putney.

mark, there is no need to be mean to me

Did I mention I liked the place?

Hmm. Where did you live in TW1 Mog? From that kind of behaviour I'd say you were close-ish to the ground or station? I've lived in 3 places here and never had a problem

**My only explanation for this is that footie fans are used to getting pissed all the while so they can handle their drink. Whereas your posho average rugger fan just isn't used to drinking, so they completely lose it.**

I think it's sheer quantity.

**My definition of hell: the annual Army Vs Navy rugby match at Twickenham. Still brings me out in a cold sweat... **

But at least the crowd is relatively small for that one. The one that most residents hate is the Varsity match - you tend to get more occasional drinkers there or youngsters who overdo it.

Mark you are letting your carefully-cultivated icy cool veneer slip here a bit.

?! matt dc has made my first point for me. but my second point: much as i dislike both, i find the rugger buggers infinitely more annoying, and i can't believe i'm the only one.

Tim, i know, i guess i mean the pubs that look more like nuclear bunkers.

'Boston Kickout' is about as reliable in its depiction of the town as 'Here we go round the Mulberry Bush'. EM Forster grew up there (the original Howards End is about half a mile from my old house) and so did the Fields of the Nephilim.

I used to be terrible ashamed of the place, but now I feel it has a kind of perverse antiglamour. I would quite like to write a book about New Towns.

what do you mean Jerry? it wasn't filmed on location? i didn't know HWGRTMB was set there too (assuming this is what you mean)! i welcome your mooted New Town opus tho.

What a nasty bunch you all are. I didn't have a go at any single one of you, but you're all queueing up to lay into me. It's all about the easy targets, innit?

This is the only place name which sounds like a verb. The verb "to epp". Have you been epping lately?

Fulham and Putney are probably the parts of London I would most like to cut out and quaterise from the corpus that is London.

bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce

bounce bounce

(it's the weather)

I don't get upset if people have a go at the area I live in, no. They do so regularly, yes. I think they have bad taste when they do so, yes.

"Hipsters" are the easiest target on the whole of ILx.

You sort of have to in Oxford.

And Tim, you got awfully hoity toity about modern art.

if it has a london postcode, it is london. we've been through this before. if it has a different postcode, it isnt london. its all about the postcodes. london and greater london are not the same thing, in thw same way that manchester and greater manchester are not the same thing, unless we are going to start calling wigan and rochdale manchester now?

mary, you have been through stevenage on the train!

To be fair, he argued coherently and calmly why he found not the position "I don't like x" offensive but the position "I don't like x and anyone who does is obviously a gullible fool" offensive. The position "I don't like Putney and anyone who does is an idiot" has not been explicitly made here; whether one draws the inference depends upon the reader.

Can't someone get a map and look at the county boundaries? I don't believe it is about postcodes (Birkenhead changed from L to CH a few years ago - it's still Merseyside and intimately connected to Liverpool on a governmental basis, not Cheshire and connected to Chester).

i agree with Gareth about the postcode thing. i'm not that happy referring to Bromley or Ruislip as London - Greater London of course, tho in certain contexts, they are London. Amersham really is taking the piss tho.

Its a slightly different sort of posh to, say, Kensington and Chelsea - I don't really see the kind of braying sloane stereotype too much, mercifully. I've never been to Putney, but I somewhat doubt its Etonian CityBoy central.

I'd take Blackheath over Putney etc any day of the week.

However, Potters Bar, which *was* in Middlesex, didn't become part of London but became part of Herts. Go figure.

If someone outside London asked me where I lived I would say London (and did when a nipper living in zone six Hertforshire - like ethnicity it is self defining to a point). SOmeone from Rochdale probably would not say Manchester as an answer to the same question.

stevem also a sweetie.

And to confirm - yes we do get to see Canary Wharf in the far off distance

it's on the same side as the Stow perhaps, you Eastern scumola

I lived above the Café Del Mare on York Street. We had the Hogshead practically next door so it was always hell on match day - and we would always get people pissing against our back gate. That aside, I loved Twickenham. As for whether it's in London, I say: if you've got an 020 phone number, you're in...

A good example of this is my flat, which as far as I know has always been E17, but was originally in Essex, until they messed around with boundaries.

London is very sunny today. Perhaps it is because of... Venus?

Definitely in the clear: Gareth, SteveM. Updates welcome from the man himself.

i was watching michael howard on the news last night and he said something about shagger having support in the outlying areas that can vote and i thought "the suburbs are shit, and the right can have them"...

Hey! Some of my best friends are self-consciously hip 20-something fashion victim cunts!

I've loved London since I was small. I used to spend hours just looking at maps of the centre. It is big, it is dirty and overcrowded and it is very hard to feel as though you belong and shake the loneliness when you first get here, but I couldn't live anywhere else now.

It does have a lot of wankers (of all kinds, city boys, Sloanes, fashion-types, art hags, Portobello Princesses, Camden goth kids and so on and so on). But, I actually think I like this. Why be dull? London gives the (mental) space for everybody to really go for their thing.Can you imagine this city if everybody chose to wear Gap and stay at home in front of Friends every Friday?

(For the record, random strangers laugh at my clothes far, far less in London than anywhere else I've lived.)

Looking back I think your "what a nasty bunch you are" was rude and unwarranted but I didn't state it that baldly because I was trying not to be that direct, I thought it might rile you.

(peers of the realm can now, of course, vote)

also on the news there was talk of some granny-farming going on, and the funny blonde presenter woman whose name escapes me said it had taken place in a "hair comb" rather than a "care home" which made me laff.

I am not sure it matters much, at the end of the day, either. The sun is shining. Let us be positive.

(Plus, also, some of our windows are jammed.)

Sunday papers on a Saturday night. Best thing about living in London. It's a bit like that short lived tv series where the guy found tomorrow's newspaper on his doorstep each mroning. Then he would avert disasters. He was cool. About 5.45pm on a Saturday it was on and I miss it so.

But then I don't hate London in any way.

Ha ha, to justify my London Hipster hate, I'm going to look at a flat in Stoke Newington tonight. Dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians!

People will slag off areas purely because of the people they see living there, choosing not to take into consideration issues like how nice the area is (visually, culturally etc. - tho obv. this is subjective). Clientele appears to be the prime factor in judging quality of location. This is used in all areas e.g. 'Club X is a shit club because it's full of wankers' not 'Club X is a great club, shame that many of the people who go are wankers'. I don't like this but oh well.

Never felt even mild culture shock. Never felt the least bit of homesickness, or loneliness. Always felt I belonged there much more than I did in Singapore, my actual country.

St Pancras station in the morning sun as you stagger out from The Scala. The little bombed-out ruined church (I forget the street name now) smack in the middle of the City, even better if you're there on Sunday. The Sir John Soanes museum. Lock-ins at The Pride Of Spitalfields. Berwick Street early in the day, when even Music And Video Exchange hasn't been messed up yet. Summer gigs at Somerset House. Wimbledon. FREE MUSEUMS. Primrose Hill on a clear day, so much better than the fucking London Eye it's almost criminal.

I would give almost anything to be back there, but unfortunately I don't have a couple hundred thousand Singapore dollars to spare to buy myself out of my scholarship bond.

Hate? I don't even know the meaning of the word.

http://www.nodata.org/honey/sinister/mhonarc/199808/msg00667.html

Happy Daze. Worryingly, that was 6 years ago.

Putney : No rugger buggers around. I saw 2 fops though.
Fulham : Very quiet - saw some Italians and also pointed out the way to Stamford Bridge to 3 Aussie tourists. Thought about calling in to see if the new manager has a vacancy in the squad for a big striker. I had visions of nodding in a Damien Duff cross at the shed end. Then I remembered there is no shed anymore. And I'm 42. Fucksticks.

Nice bookshops, cafes which didn't scream intimidation and evidence of local nightlife. I didn't see any big supermarkets (I know there's one up towards Stamford Hill) but there was a big organic foods shop and loads of little fruit and grocerers.

I also didn't mind Clapham, which I was quite near me as well. There's a lot of Clapham hate around here, and I don't get it. It seemed nice enough to me - stuff do to, nice places to live, easy-ish to get into central London, etc. More importantly, I have many good friends living there, so I could care less how low or high it sits on the hip-o-meter...

stevem very OTM here, in particular the 2 magic words "they see". Like, everyone hates on Hoxton because of all the fashion hipsters there. Now yeah, I know the type of people you're talking about, but there a lots of other types of people that live there as well, you just don't notice them. And what the hell is wrong with being in a so-called 'hip' area anyway? Think of me what you will, but I'd rather live in Hoxton or Clerkenwell over, I dunno, South Ken, Fulham, or anwhere suburban. I'm not saying those areas aren't nice - they are. But I just wouldn't feel comfortable there - like I don't belong.

But feel free to ignore me - I'm a foreigner from a shitty, crime-ridden Toronto suburb so my tastes are obviously skewed a little differently...

rob - why would you feel like you woudn't belong in south ken/fulham/suburbs, if not because of the people you perceive as living there?

I said I couldn't live there. I probably couldn't. It does look like a fairly good place to have a night out - good cinema, lots of live venues, etc. - but I've never considered it as a place to do so on a regular basis because it's *far* for a North Londoner. Given a choice between the West End, Hoxton or Upper St within walking distance, and Brixton on a bus, I'll pick a drunken night out in the one of the above.

But, for living there, it seems to have many of the problems I hate about living in Central London - noise, crowds, being a party-pen for imported hipster wankers - without the obvious benefits of being able to walk to work. I could not live in Brixton without using public transport. If I have to use public transport, I don't want to live in a party pen.

OK, maybe my comparison of Stokey to Brixton was unfair because I experienced Stokey on a Tuesday evening and Brixton on a Saturday afternoon. But still.

I *don't* get the feeling that vast amounts of wankers come from all over London looking for a hip party-pen in Stokey. It seemed to be a bunch of weirdoes who just gathered there *because* it was remote.

stokey is nice. efes bar used to be good when it was the after hours quickspace/stereolab hangout.

Aren't the people surrounding you part of the area, and therefore not nice people and a nice place to live are opposites? Or is it axiomatic that this being London, neighbours are not actually part of the area - it's the physical infrastructure etc that counts?

And x-post... psychogeography, dude. The people *are* the place, and the place *is* the people.

Point taken Toby. But it isn't 100% about the people. Yes, the people are part of it, but it's the whole package. It's just not 'me', and unfortunately, that's a fairly intangible thing that is hard to describe here. I guess it's a combination of my upbringing and the places I find myself drawn to for whatever reason. FWIW, I'm not a class warrior - I can have a good time hanging with friends on skid row in an authentically derelict warehouse, as well as city, pin-stripe friends in fancy bars in Chelsea, Fulham, etc. My primary problem with the latter is mostly a matter of finances - going out in those areas can be very expensive, and I just don't have the cash.

My friend Ella is taking a job in Putney and is just the sort of person Ed and Suzy would wet themselves over. So that's one more diamond among the turds :)

The people *are* the place, and the place *is* the people

maybe, but then there are enough different types of people and enough different ways of avoiding the stereotypes you dislike in London for this to not be that much of an issue as far as i'm concerned. comes down to a more profound sense of where you feel most comfortable perhaps (not being able to live south-east of the south-east, if you see what i mean).

I learned a valuable lesson in life. I cannot live above a pub (or in a place where the entire neighbourhood serves as a pub or party pen, such as Hoxton). It does not matter if the clientelle are couriers or lawyers or dirty dronerock boys. I don't want them outside my window when I am trying to relax.

If all these criteria are met in a way that suits me, then I really don't care too much about the people - they can be rich, poor, hip, dull, black, white.. I don't care. Chances are it will be a mix of all of the above, with only slight concentrations in one group or the other, which one can easily ignore if this is a problem for whatever personal reason.

Couriers are mad and the single most dangerous thing about central London roads, just ahead of cabs.

I don't require absolute silence, I do require not living within 20 feet of a mob. It's astonishing how I was able to have that kind of peace in Bloomsbury (mostly, except when the students kicked off across the garden), in Swiss Cottage, in Islington, none of which are exactly suburbs.

jamaicans = good record shops and food
jews = good bakeries
irish = good pubs

all this = happy me

the addition of turks and vietnamese in hackney makes every day a relative (we are taking about me, after all) joy.
in any case, steve, i'm just stating my own preferences. people take what they want from where they live. if you don't want noise, though. london probably isn't the best place to live, period!

(x-post)

My back garden is silent apart from birds and the odd neighbour-noise.

Although a few miles away is Heathrow flightpath hell.

Plus, dudes, the parks. Does no-one care about being near greenery? It's fantastic!

(x-post - I am literally under the Heathrow flightpath, but now concorde has stopped flying, I barely ever notice the planes, and never as a bad thing)

See, this is something very helpful and very true.

My new flat will be exactly half way between Blackheath and Lewisham and therefore I'll be able to be a social dilettante and straddle both worlds simultanously. Also I will be all of five minutes walk away from Independance on Lee High Road and a top Nigerian restaurant and likewise a short walk away from big fields and kite fliers. Perfect.

The Borough of Lewisham contains more Irish people than Dublin, I am convinced about this.

The view over the park from our back window is a great thing too, which helps forget the urban sprawl.

One of the things I dislike the most about North London - by which I mean Finsbury Park, Holloway, Wood Green, Islington, Stoke Newington etc is how you never seem to be far from a really unpleasant main road. Its not South London bias - I hate the Walworth Road area and the Old Kent Road as well - but that bit of North London seems to have loads of them.

perhaps i've got used to Green Lanes as well - it doesn't strike me as that unpleasant. maybe i'm not such a psuedo-snob after all.

FUCK

RIGHT

OFF

cowardy custards

We-ell, except it has regulars from at least three continents.

Dave was indeed OTM.

i haven't contributed to this yet, but that's because i'm totally in a 'i love london' phase right now, which was helped along by having a meeting at the county hall on monday and being able to walk across the river to the park and it was just so lovely.

although islington has its downsides (including annoying hordes of people coming to stand on pavements while they figure out where they want to eat/drink/vomit), i wouldn't say i have a bad main road in my regular life. essex road is quiet and has some cool shops, and is uncool enough to prevent most of the visitors from wandering down. upper street is fine except friday and saturday nights, and even that can be avoided by walking on the east side of the street rather than the west.

i'm very happy where i live, which is why i made a big effort to say around there when i moved a while ago.

(xpost a load)

A quiet flat on a quiet square, reveller-free, two minutes from the tube.

This is nonsense.

speak for yrself.

I don't hang out with the Nepalese waiters from the restaurant next door, but I do say hello to them and patronise (?) their fine establishment often. Does this count as mixing? Or should I be inviting them to my garden parties?

(I don't have a garden btw, but then with the gorgeous expanse of Barnes common 5 mins away, I don't need one)

x-post obv

Oh and I loved Primrose Hill long before it was set upon by Kate Moss' friends - I worked there for about two years. I think that's a good place on weekend days.

if you like them, yes, if not, no.

Not really. In any case no-one's got to the nub of what 'multi-cultural' means -- it can't just mean 'has different skin colour', but in practice this may be the only difference. I mean there isn't actually very much exotic going on in the London suburbs, which are far from being exclusively white.

i routinely say good morning to les mckeown when i see him in the newsagent's/good evening if i see him in the offie.

Restaurants here: five Japanese, six pizza, four gastropubs, four Chinese, two Thai, one Russian, countless cafes and sandwich bars, six 'chef' places, three fish and chips, four Indians.

...however i do feel community spirit, it's just that it's [cough, splutter] this virtual community [oh, pass the sick bucket] that means i know more people in new york/glasgow etcetc than i know on my own street, is that bad/wrong/terribly 21st century/just a thing?

so a lot of us seem very keen on encountering/experiencing other cultures. is this at any expense to your own do you ever feel? or is that a non-issue because you don't think of yourself as having a particular culture to subscribe to and display in some way with some feeling (not sure 'pride' is the word), or you do and it's just so evident that you don't have to think about it?

How much socialising any of us ourselves do with any particular racial group is less important than walking into an average pub and looking at the people in there - some will be all-white (generally those with an older clientele, but not exclusively), a few will be all-black, but usually it'll be a mix of black, white, Asian etc - within social groups. If you look into any classroom in London you'll see the same thing - I can see a similar mix happening in my office right now. Likewise, black and Asian kids owe as much to British culture as they do to that or their parents and grantparents - most of the best music that comes out of this country exists for that reason.

Of course there are communities which tend to stick together - Jews in Stamford Hill, Bengalis in Hackney etc etc, but when they ARE insular its usually in the case of those where there's a high concentration of first-generation immigrants, a possible language barrier. Go a generation down the line and thats where things really start. London has a higher proportion of mixed-race couples than most other cities in the world.

(Many, many xposts)

Dave, of course I'm making a sweeping generalisation! I've never understood why that's a criticism, since it's difficult to talk about nebulous cultural phenomena in any other way. And I'm perfectly willing to believe that what I've described doesn't fit you. I'm just of the opinion that it's going to be generally true for a loose majority of people.

Tim, speculating about people's motivations is at the very core of human behaviour, for chrissakes. Or are you a behaviourist?

oh well, that's okay then. i will only talk to white people and listen to music i don't like from now on, in the name of being politically correct.

Of course, this is essentially the debate that's raged over Westwood for the last ten years, isn't it? Where's Carmody when you need him ;)

I'm not a behaviourist but I'm also not some lame-o positivist: "I knew someone who lived in Brick Lane"=> "middle class people behave like 'this'.

Oh dear I've allowed myself to be trolled, haven't I?

But I'm seriously not so bothered about the "cultural tourism" aspect of wanting to live in ethnic areas. It could be even a good thing - as someone pointed out above, when the middle classes invest in an area, the local schools get better etc etc. I just think it's strange that the people who profess to prefer multicultural areas are adamant that cultural tourism doesn't come into it at all, not one tiny bit!

That said if you do move somewhere because it's busy and there's a good mix of people, and then categorically refuse to engage with it, nor make friends with the neighbours, that's pretty bad. Little day to day social niceties help in London.

Young people who come from a very strong cultural background (be it class, race, etc.) often try to escape that strong cultural background by becoming obsessed with a different (perhaps more exotic) culture. See: Momus being obsessed with Japan because he hates Britain and specifically middle class Scotland. Is Dave's obsession a result of his trying to escape his own middle classhood? Don't know, couldn't tell you.

I come from an overwhelming LACK of having any particular cultural background, or having a background which is in opposition to the culture in which I happened to be living. So the above described behaviour (the longing for "local colour") sometimes seems utterly bizarre to me. I can understand wanting to live in a mixed neighbourhood where NO ONE fits in, and therefore everyone fits in. I don't get wanting to go be a cultural tourist in a culture one perceives to be "better" (exoticised different) from one's own.

Equally, I don't think Mark's "fine line" upthread is that fine at all. The distinction seems huge and obvious to me.

Spending time around ethnic areas/people because you are interested in them, aspects of their culture and you are happy to let it make you a better, more knowledgeable, more fulfilled person = classic

Anyone disagree? More to the point, can anyone say they've never honestly done the former?

x-post - dave, the phrase was used knowingly, it's okay, no-one here is a racist.

But Dave, you are utterly terrified of your own middle class-hood.

yeah i can say i've never done this. i am confrontationally uncool. have been since the age of 12 or so.

Well, it depends, but then again the whole culture of London in 2004 is based on a huge variety of people, places, food, culture, clothing, religion etc. Urban culture is shared, that's the whole point, its not like going "oh, I'll have a bit of Indian here and a bit of North African here", its just what happens. I don't understand why people are so hung up on it being this big self-conscious thing.

I'm not sure anyone really disagrees with Mark's boiled-down argument, although I'd add that assuming someone is reacting to their middle-class white upbringing through cultural tourism and obsession with exoticism because they have an interest in black culture = dud also.

x-post, heh

does this mean we all regress socially and retreat cliquewards at FAPs in a perverse way? last night at The Cardinal i was once again somewhat taken aback by the way in which the Mark S/Martin/Tracer birthday contingent was so big and perhaps intimidating to other people in the otherwise quiet pub?

This will x-post to fuck, but whatever...

x-x-xpost

Jeez, there was a FAP last night? Was there a thread about it that I missed, or am I even more unpopular than I thought?

I also find that I 'interact' more with people in mixed areas, because I think that I have more to learn from them. I talk with waiters, shop-keepers, fellow drinkers, etc without thinking about it. But I'm kinda a friendly guy anyway, so whatever... Chatting with middle-class white people isn't as interesting to me because I kinda get the drift with their world view, and would rather know more about the world I live in with people who have lived in different places, since I can't afford to travel everywhere all the time. One day I hope to. Again, say what you will about me for liking this travel - I'm a middle-class white 'tourist', but what the fuck can I do about it? At least I (and everyone else on this board I'm sure) are 'tourists' to some degree out of genuine interest and respect for other cultures, which as we know is a helluva lot better behaviour than some people in 'white culture' (stupid American tourists - I'm looking in your direction).

WHAT? All the time. Why not? Actually this happens more often when I booze locally, rather than in town.

Neighbours - the idea of not knowing yr neighbours I find v sad. You spend so much time in close proximity, you ought to make an effort. If they don't want to know on the other hand, well fine, but I'd hate not to have tried.

This kind of hints at the most dangerous line of thought available in this area, which I'm sure is not SteveM's line of thinking. The answer is no, I haven't felt 'my' culture, my background, threatened, weakened or compromised by living in a diverse area in any way whatsoever. Genuinely.

Many many posts ago I mentioned how I grew up in what was probably as close to a monoculture as England has to offer (nb: I mean England, please don't be cross, Scottish/Welsh people). I found it frustrating and monotonous and as a result I do value diversity. This doesn't mean I've rejected the culture I grew up with at all, as anyone who knows how I spend my weekends will attest. In fact it's quite the opposite: I feel much more positive about my background in the context of living around a whole bunch of other cultures (also positive), and am much more productively engaged in it than I ever was when I lived there.

The phrase "cultural tourism" is, of course, not value-neutral, it implies a lack of engagement and a superficial approach to the other cultures around you / us, primarily for show. If I didn't engage with the cultures around me, if I didn't engage in some way with different cultures' ways of being then I wouldn't feel the benefit of living where I do. And there is a benefit, yes, and I'm aware of it, and maybe that's selfish in some way but it's not about looking cooler, it's about feeling happier.

I don't really understand what this means.

Stelfox OTM

x-post

somewhere you can call home. for me, it's hackney.

ILX is filmed before a live studio audience