Perhaps my daily commute to the Big Smoke is why my absence
from this blog has been so uncharacteristically prolonged. But then again,
perhaps not. I like to leave you guessing.
There is, however, a distinct element of truth to say that
‘Londoners’, if I can call them that when the vast majority appear to live at
Bromley South, scarcely seem to have the hours to breathe. There’s no time to
pause, no time to engage in any kind of meaningful dialogue with meandering
tourists save the odd point and directional nod, no time to languish over
lunches as they check their watches in the queue at Prêt à Manger, and certainly no time to be scrutinised for my own
observational purposes. Pity, really, as these people are such a rare breed of
human being. Their character and diversity astounds me every day.
Casting all that aside, I’m going to give it a go anyway.
And why not, indeed? Those folk from Pompey who sit on trains for hours at a
time to earn the gloried name of City Workers, those eager young graduates with
a standard 2.1 and a dive of a flat in Clapham, those bigshot Suits who take
the Waterloo And City line just to prove a point...they’re all classed as
Londoners nowadays. Heck, I’m one of them. I spend two hours a day commuting
from a rural Kentish village. I pass the evenings in ‘quirky’ pubs and pop-up
restaurants checking the National Rail app on my phone. I still live with my
parents. The fact that I aim to move to Zone 2 or 3 within a few months is
neither here nor there. I, my friends, am a Londoner with the best of them.
The question is, which category do I fit in to? I’m a
‘yo-pro’ of sorts, granted (for those of you who don’t know, that’s ‘young
professional’, where have you been?), but as a trainee journalist I’m not quite
at the dizzying heights of a 25-30k grad scheme, nor do I wear, nor indeed own,
a trouser suit. The very thought of such a garment makes me feel queasy. I’ve
got nothing in particular against Clapham as a location, but I like to think
I’m at least a little different to the ranks of barely pubescent graduates on
Boris bikes who navigate the traffic in their hi-vis waistcoats each morning,
Starbucks card in wallet, trainers at the bottom of suits and a roll up towel
in their briefcases; cardboard cut-outs of a London business ideal.
Does that make me a ‘hipster’? Well, I do like East London.
What I don’t like are sunglasses in winter and mismatching socks on show over
brogues. I don’t care if they were sold as a set at your local vintage flea
market, go out and regulate the colour scheme of your footwear like everyone
else.
So where else do I belong then? North is for students, and
South is mostly Made In Chelsea. Then
there are the people who claim they live in ‘South-East London’, when actually
they mean Bexley. If we’re going down that route I may aswell claim that
Maidstone is London. Why on earth the Oyster card only works up to St Mary
Cray, I’ll never understand, darling. It surely can’t be because I live in
Kent? Oh, no. Perish the thought.
I suppose, then, that I’m just your bog-standard commuter
for now. Those that come from a non-descript suburb and brave the wartime
conditions of First Capital Connect trains on a daily basis in order to achieve
that idealistic but often completely unsatisfying town-country balance. In some
ways, these people are the worst. They want the best of both worlds, yet are
the first to complain when their meticulous routine goes wrong. ‘Electricity
Faults’, ‘Tree On The Line’ and ‘Excess Moisture On Rail Tracks’ are all
regular crises. ‘But it’s so lovely,’ they cry when confronted. ‘I can spend my
weekends by the sea.’
Buy a beach-hut down Margate then, love, and don’t moan
about the Tube.
