Category: london

Vote… but not for Boris!

Ken LivingstoneToday is election day and for those people who don’t live in London, it’s to vote for a new mayor.

Altogether there are 10 candidates, but it’s effectively developed into a two-horse race between the current mayor, Ken Livingstone and bumbling Boris Johnson.

The unthinkable looks as if it could well happen, because Boris Johnson is in the lead and highly likely to win.

And that frightens me… a lot. How are people taken in by him?

His slightly daffy schtick is wearing really thin. Anyone who has reached the position and status that he has doesn’t get there by being thick.

Ken, on the other hand, was born in London and has spent his entire life trying to make life better for those who live there.

Maybe he’s made mistakes, but then so has everyone, and I seriously can’t see how Boris could be any better as a candidate.

And even if you don’t want to vote for Ken as first preference, pick him as your second preference.

And, for god’s sake, please don’t vote Boris!

Dark-eyed and rootless

I’ve been thinking recently about roots and being settled. I live in London, and consider myself a Londoner, which in itself might sound as if I feel as if I belong in our fair capital, but to be honest, I don’t.

I was born in Kent and lived there in different places for the first 10 years of my life, then moved over the county border into Surrey, where I stayed until heading off to university in Sheffield.

I then moved back to London for a couple of years, before relocating to St Albans for a while, and then returning to London.

The problem is, I’ve never quite stayed anywhere long enough to feel settled and put down ‘roots’.

I don’t feel particularly at home in London, even. And the question is, why?

I think that maybe some of it has to do with how connected I feel to the community I live in and the people around me. If I left tomorrow, I’d feel no emotional pull to my current place and area of residence.

And that’s the key… emotion. What does it actually take to produce that kind of feeling about a place or an area? The thing about emotional memories of a place is that they can never be quite recaptured.

I went back to Sheffield a few times after graduating and it was never the same. The people weren’t there any more, the odd pub and shop had changed and, more to the point, I no longer lived there.

I do actually hope I find somewhere that I feel happy and rooted in at some point… I just haven’t really found it yet.

020 ‘is’ the number

For those of you who don’t live in London, this won’t mean much, but I’ve been getting increasingly annoyed at the ignorance surrounding the capital’s telephone dialling code.

Here’s a typical example from yesterday. Having moved in the last week or so, I’ve had to update my address details with numerous companies, which also entails changing contact numbers:

Customer Services: What’s your new number, sir?

Me: It’s 020 865X XXXX

Customer Services: So that’s 0208 65X XXXX

Me: (with a resigned tone) Yes, that’s what I said

You see, everyone thinks that the dialling code is 0207 or 0208 and it’s not – it’s 020!

This may sound like a petty, small thing, but it’s not. When the powers-that-be changed the dialling code around 10 years ago, it was to be prepared when the numbers started to run out. This mean that they could numbers other than 7 and 8 after 020.
And that is what has started to happen. For example, the media company IPC has recently moved offices and changed numbers. Their new switchboard number: 020 3148 5000 – now that’ll freak out the customer services departments, won’t it?

CS: What’s your number, sir?

IPC: 020 3148 5000

CS: OK, that’s 0208 314…

IPC: Noooo, 020 3148 5000 – there’s no 8

CS: But you’re in London – that’s 0208, isn’t it?

And so on…

I know in the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal, but it’s the numerical equivalent of missing apostrophes, in my view. The Lynne Truss’ of this world hate it when people write things like, “Its my birthday” – why should this number problem be any different?