Monday 19th June 2006

Trained to London having taken advantage of Michelle's advice and booked a cheap first class seat in advance on the internet. I don't know how I've managed to travel to a fro London for all this time without having realised you can do this so economically, but it's a modern miracle, you can book two single first class seats for the same price as you'd pay if you turned up at the station and bought standard class. Once on board however, you can really start to cut costs because first class passengers get a meal and all their drinks for nothing. The single ticket was £28, and so I set about consuming £28 worth of stuff to make my journey theoretically free. It was a less than sober Stanley that departed at Euston.

Myths about London:

1. It's unfriendly.

I don't really know where this comes from. I think because it's on such a dramatically larger scale than anywhere else in the UK (Seven million people, Greater Manchester has less than a million, Liverpool half a million, places like Nottingham about two hundred thousand) that it's impossible to draw any comparisons with other urban areas and so people are slightly afraid of it. I think also that it has a kind of untouchable, mythical status in the eyes of people that don't or haven't lived there, and this leads to mistrust. But people need some sort of reason to mistrust and dislike London and so they say people are unfriendly - it seems like a good reason to dislike somewhere. Having lived in London for a few years, I can absolutely say this isn't true. Londoner's aren't unfriendly! I think people get bumped in the back once coming up the escalators at Piccadilly Circus and write the place off as intolerable. Go to a park, sit outside a pub on a sunny evening, London isn't in the least unfriendly.

2. People don't talk to you.

I was talking to a taxi driver in Liverpool about this. He said "I went on the tube and no-one was talking to one another." Go on a Liverpool train and people aren't talking to each other! Who talks to strangers on a train? London's a busy place and you use the tube to have a sit down, read the paper, listen to some music... It's not a debating chamber. I think that Londoners, being diverse and more multi-cultural than anywhere else in Britain are generally excellent at talking to one another, and to visitors. Londoners are proud of their city and so happily talk it up to anyone who cares to listen. And cockneys, as a race, are hardly shy. It's rubbish that people don't talk to you, so long as you're friendly. Complete myth.

3. Londoners don't like people from anywhere else in the UK.

Hmmm. I can see where this once comes about but it's pretty much rubbish. It comes about because of the pride and the belief that not only is London the best place in the world (which is an impossible argument, what do you quantify that on?) it's also the best place to live and it would be folly to live anywhere else. This isn't true, because you live where suits you best, but Londoners will tell you London is the centre of the universe. I thought so. But there's nothing wrong with pride, Scousers will insist Liverpool is the best place in the world, Mancs and Glaswegians the same, but this can get translated as arrogance and therefore give Londoners the air that they can't understand you living anywhere else or coming from anywhere else. This isn't the case, they just like London over anywhere else. Also, London's a melting pot. No-one that lives there comes from there so it's silly to think they don't like people from the provinces - they're all from the provinces themselves.

4. London is expensive.

Yeah, that's not really a myth, but it's all relative. A pint costs more because the overheads are higher. The overheads are higher because the building's in one of the world's greatest capitals. You're not really being ripped off.

That's that sorted out then. London is okay.

Stayed in a small hotel in Paddington and embarked on a crawl around a few pubs, The Fountains Abbey and the utterly uninspired Sir Alexander Fleming before heading up through Little Venice to Maida Vale, visiting The Warwick Caste, Warrington Hotel and Prince Alfred. The Warrington Hotel brought back memories, I was last there when I was 16. Hasn't changed in the slightest.

Feeling pleasantly drunk I tubed into town for a couple of martinis at The Dukes. Good Lord above, they're like elephant tranquilisers. But you hit the dirt happy. There was a pretty and charming Dutch girl in the bar who was very keen on chatting until her boyfriend, who was English and an awful person, turned up - didn't like me talking to her - and made her leave. I had a good mind to lob a lemon at the back of his fat head as he stormed out but The Dukes isn't really the place for bar brawling.

Then I got chatting to some Americans... Then I really can't remember anything else. I don't remember leaving. I think the Americans bought be Champagne because I made up some outrageous lie about being on the Jay Leno show next week. Good God, the stories you tell... God bless The Dukes. It's rare for me to not remember leaving somewhere. Those drinks are like a fist.

I'm off to America now, I write this at Heathrow. Obviously I'll write something every day but I don't know where and when I'll be able to get online and update. It might be a few days. Oh come on now, wipe those eyes.

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