Skip to main content

London for Beginners - Zeroing In

 With my finger on the pulse of current affairs, I’ve decided to write about what the entire world has been discussing1 – namely the second in an occasional series about moving to London.

You’ve decided to move to the greatest city on Earth (or at least within the M25), but London is big. You can’t just point Rightmove at 607 square miles and hope for the best unless you’ve got a real masochistic streak (or lots of time on your hands). With it harder than ever to either rent or buy in the city, you’ve really got to have your wits about you and focus your search with the kind of pinpoint accuracy usually reserved for targeted projectiles. To help aid your search and narrow down your options, here’s a handy guide to some of the areas of London you may be tempted by.

Clapham

You can’t stay at university forever, but you can move to Clapham and pretend you never left. A pilgrimage many graduates make from university cities across the north, round the South Circular, Clapham is the student part of town for those who have nailed down a place on a respectable graduate scheme. A place where a major employer is ‘Brunch,’ Clapham real does cater to the aspiring management consultant who wants to be able to ease themselves into the world of work. This does lend a bit of a Stepford feel to the area, with the same haircuts and gilets dotted at every bar. Yet, despite all the aspiration feel, it’s also home to one of London’s cultural institutions – Infernos. A place where, if the walls could talk, they’d be arrested for indecency2, it is the last word in disgraceful nightspots. All of this does mean that Clapham is not for anyone concerned about their age. This is a young person’s place, at least as life’s staging post for the comfortably middle class on the way to Beckenham. The other thing to be aware of is transport. It may be on the tube network, but that is more aspirational than transportational.

Stratford

The Olympics were great, weren’t they? Gold medals, the Queen skydiving, George Osborne being booed – all these memories are in the Stratford air3. Once derelict industrial wasteland, now a gleaming tribute to failed Australian real estate conglomerates and Karren Brady, Stratford managed to drag the centre of London eastwards. All the investment for 2012 delivered lots of decent housing, fantastic facilities, and great connections into the city. Yet Stratford has a bit of a Potemkin feel to it. Behind the glass, steel, and concrete, what is there? On paper, it’s a perfect place to call home, but it lacks a character and community. Every bar and restaurant feels like a marketing exercise, engineered by experts to target key demographics and extract the maximum value per seat, whilst producing organically choreographed instagrammable moments. When the Lizzy line is fully up and running, you’ll be able to get into the city in record time. You’ll need it in order to find something to do.

Camden

Camden has an allure to people outside of London that is inexplicable to anyone who has ever experienced Camden. The urban equivalent of the aging punk who now thinks that Jacob Rees-Mogg has some clever ideas, Camden hasn’t realised that it isn’t what it once was. It seems to only exist to rip off tourists, either legally or not. The once eccentric market now exclusively sells Oxford University hoodies and churros. There are still good nights out to be had in Camden, but these are needles in the haystack of mediocre watering holes that exist purely to service organised bar crawls from some nearby hostel. On top of this, it’s guaranteed that anywhere you can find to live in Camden will be either a) some dank room in an exhausted house share or b) a canal boat with limited mooring rights. But despite the air of decay, Camden is for you!

Soho

Are you a wannabe sixties star who is looking for a cheap room and board whilst trying to make it big in the music biz? Have you rented a room above a late-night cinema from a shifty fellow who assures you that nothing untoward happened to the previous lodger? Or do you enjoy writing petitions to Westminster council saying that London’s premier night-time entertainment venue should turn it down after 10pm? If so, Soho would be perfect for you!

Tottenham Hale

Pros: Easy to get to Stansted.

Cons: They closed the Ikea.

Anywhere in West London

Don’t live in West London. It’s practically Reading.

Obviously there’s more to London than just the six areas above, but the above will give you a pretty decent idea of where to live3 if you make the big move.

1At this rate, every opinion on the monarchy it is possible to have has been written, published, reacted to, regurgitated, summarised, expanded upon and parodied already. I can’t compete with the hot take industry.

2And the carpet would beg for mercy

3Or not

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

London for Beginners - Making Tracks

London is intimidating. It’s a large wary mass, hurriedly trying to go about its business before it starts raining. It has its own set of unwritten rules, that for the uninitiated can make any trip to the city a baffling ordeal. So, after almost six years of learning my way around life in the capital, I’ve taken a stab at pulling together my guide to moving to London. Over the next few posts, I’ll dispense invaluable (aka free) wisdom on whether you should move to London, where you should live, what there is to do, and many other vitally important questions. If you’re already here, then you can see whether you should have bothered. Ever since Dick Whittington and his cat travelled down the A1 in search of streets of gold, people have moved to London. Be it in search of fame, fortune or fun; there are a multitude of reasons why people flock here. But is it really a good idea? Let’s review why exactly you want to move. For a job. It is a sad reality that for certain careers, you wil...
Read more

Football's Homophobia Hypocrisy

 Almost a decade ago, I went to watch a football match. Nothing too surprising about that, I was a season ticket holder at Nottingham Forest at the time. Before kick-off, I’d got chatting to the bloke sat in front of me. He seemed fairly polite and mild-mannered; a Sunday at the garden centre personified. We were mid-discussion about the wisdom of the team selection, before he excused himself, and turned to face the pitch. Casper Ankergren, the Brighton & Hove keeper, was kneeling in front of their fans, sorting out his boots. “OI ANKERGREN, I BET YOUR FANS FUCKING LOVE YOU SHOWING YOUR ARSE”, and in case there was any doubt, he added “COS THEY’RE ALL BENT”. He then turned back, and calmly continued discussing the form of Lewis McGugan. That was nine years ago, but it’s also still now. With this as a backdrop, the recent news that Jake Daniels is the first professional footballer in England to come out in 32 years is an incredible act of personal bravery. The reaction and sup...
Read more

Dominion

It’s 27 th December 1 . The grandiosity of Christmas is starting to fade, but the lustre of the new year is still in the distance. You’re bored. Your family are bored. Yet tradition dictates you need to collectively vegetate as a family, like Joseph, Mary and all those interlopers two thousand years back. You all despise board games by now. The pubs are all a little weird. It’s raining. Luckily, TV will help, filling the grey silence with technicolour chatter. And inevitably, there’s a 27 th December film showing. You know a 27th December film. These films can’t be too taxing – 3 days of turkey, Quality Street and alcohol have rotted your cerebral cortex too much to follow anything with a plot. They need to be bright, animated, and feature overly loud actors from American sitcoms. It’s Shrek 3, Madagascar, Kung-Fu Panda, the one with Bruce Willis as an animal, Bee Seinfeld. But the most 27 th December film ever is Despicable Me. If you’ve not seen Despicable Me, Steve Carrell ...
Read more