Town Versus Country

Did any of you ever read 'The Tale of Johnny Town Mouse' by Beatrix Potter? It’s adapted from Aesop's Fable 'The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse', and is a sweet story of two mice cousins who go to visit each other in their very different habitats – one in the city, one in the countryside, and after various hijinx they return to their respective homes convinced of the superiority of their own environments.

Johnny Town Mouse, by Beatrix Potter

Unlike the mice, I’m always torn between town and country – both of them have so many plus points it can be hard to decide where you’re best suited. I’ve been a Londoner since I was nineteen, and in the past few years have been witness to a fair number of friends decide to up sticks and move to, well, the sticks, as they tire of London life. It does force you to consider the same question: should I stay or should I go?

On the down side, London is obviously crowded, and getting more so every day. It keeps sucking up outer boroughs the way Mordor sucked up Middle Earth (first ever Lord of the Rings reference, score!) until eventually it will form one big, depressing mega city, which will take three days to commute across and contain half the UK population. That’s too many mofos infringing on my space, man. Stop walking in front of me in a zig-zag motion!

It’s also, at the risk of being obvious, too expensive. Imagine my reaction when I found out that a friend’s four bedroom Victorian house in Yorkshire cost LESS than I was paying for a halls of residence single bedroom in Tooting.

It’s exhausting. It’s dirty. It takes an hour to get anywhere. It’s too big to ever really know properly.

Sometimes I dream of waking up to sunshine on grass, and a window looking out onto fields and woods. I dream of walking early in the morning and being alone with just the wind rushing through the branches of trees. Mayday fairs by the river such as we had in the village where I grew up, bats flying through the night air on summer evenings. Bonfires in autumn and the sound of geese migrating for the winter. Nature nourishes your soul, refreshes, speaks to something elemental in your being and communicates a vital truth about your place in the universe.

But there are many reasons to love London too. To describe them would probably read like a love letter to a city, where I could list its many attributes but would fail to capture the true essence of what makes it so special. If I had to sum it up in one word it would be – variety. There is so much to do in London.

Last Monday I gathered with friends in the imposing Neo-classical courtyard of Somerset House where, along with 2,000 other people, we laid out a picnic on a rug and waited for nightfall to watch a screening of The Red Shoes at the outdoor cinema.

The week before, a friend and I met at night and walked along the buzzing, vibrant Southbank. Alive with buskers, skateboarders and crowds of social Londoners spilling out onto the pavement, we walked to the Globe for a midnight play of The Tempest. It was . . .  magical. Blessed with a warm summer evening, we watched incredible performances by some of the best actors in the world, as Prospero, Ariel, Miranda and Caliban breathed life into the most beautiful words ever written in the English language.

I recently hopped on the tube to the National Portrait Gallery and took in the BP Portrait Award exhibition. Afterwards I could have been standing in the Tate Modern turbine hall within thirty minutes, or in front of the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum. All for free!

In art galleries, I feel like I am in my natural environment. As a person who wanders through life permanently lost, with no sense of direction, I suddenly find in galleries that I get my bearings. My internal map kicks in and I feel most like myself - a fish who has just discovered water. Could I live without being able to do this as a whim on a weekend morning?

Tomorrow I’ll be wearing my preppiest 1960’s outfit and heading to Future Cinema’s staging of ‘Dirty Dancing’, where they’ve recreated Kellerman’s in Hackney - complete with mambo lessons, beach volleyball, end of year show, ‘spontaneous’ dance mob, and after party in the ‘staff quarters’. Bring your watermelon. I ask you, who wouldn’t want to go to this??

In September I’ll be dancing like nobody’s watching as Simian Mobile Disco come to The Old Queen’s Head. The month after I’ll be sipping cocktails in the basement of Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club whilst imagining I’m a sophisticated femme fatale in a speakeasy (What? I imagine these things).

Do you also fancy pretending you’re in a speakeasy during Prohibition? There’s at least two club nights for that. Want to dress up like a consumptive bohemian in Belle Epoque Paris? There’s a night for that too. Want to lounge on the rooftop beach of the Roundhouse, then nip off for some liquid nitrogen ice cream? You can do so without even leaving my neighbourhood.

I’ve barely even skimmed the surface – the architecture, the music, the art, the food, the fashion, the parks . . . city lights on a winter night, walking with a take-away cup of hot coffee through the busy streets, the steam and smell of vendors selling roasted chestnuts at Christmas. Columbia Road flower market on a Sunday, the view from Waterloo Bridge at night, vintage shops on Brick Lane, evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament, Portobello Road,  Hampstead Heath, Primrose Hill, Borough Market, Brixton Village, and the temples to consumerism that are Selfridges, Liberty and Harvey Nichols, all lit from within with a holy light. And let’s not forget the people who make up this ethnic soup of a city. I’m not sure I want to move somewhere populated in the main with white middle class people who wear Barbour jackets and shop at Boden.

I think just from writing this I’ve convinced myself that I have a few more years of London life left in me. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll ever turn into that country mouse and flee to greener pastures.  I like having the option available, but for now town is best.

What about you - do you love London? Hate London? What are the best and worst bits of where you live?