for leaving London

The election result: I sense London won't get a cheaper, or nicer city to live in anytime soon.

"That's four pounds fifteen please," a barmaid in a nice enough but generally unremarkable Central London pub asked.  For one pint of beer.  One pint of beer.

Fuck this shit, I thought, articulately and handed over a note, morbidly depressed.

Today I wanted to buy some wrapping paper.  I hate buying wrapping paper: paper for putting round a gift which gets torn and thrown away without a thought.  Shops in London don't appear to be selling rolls for under £2.99

£3! for paper which will be ripped and thrown away inside seconds.  You could get, ooh, half a pint of beer for that.  Surely those cheapy pound shops will do better deals, where are they?  Where are they?  This is symptomatic of living in a nice, affluent area of South West London, granted, but they don't appear to exist here.

There are reasons other than expense, but it's not an inconsiderable one in the For Leaving London column.  If you don't need to live here and don't massively enjoy it, day-to-day, don't.

For staying

I'd quite miss my football team, the one  I play for.  There's a sense of community, albeit one which is entirely masculine and often full of total bullshit, that I get there and nowhere else.



It takes time to establish and get to know people in a club, feel comfortable and confident taking the piss, especially if you move around different teams within a club.  I'm just about there now, not unpopular, but I feel set to vanish.