London

Night out
North
Comedy venue
Downstairs at the King’s Head in Crouch End. A viciously low-ceilinged venue under a now-revamped boozer, with a consistently high standard of comics.
Club
Canvas. This huge venue (formerly Bagleys) is a great space for one-off parties, mini-festivals, and the weekly rollerdisco sessions. King’s Cross is where it’s at.
Venue
KOKO. Following a £5 million revamp, what was once the Camden Palace is now a state-of-the-art gig venue. It used to be a Victorian theatre, so it’s hosted everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Madonna. Ha!

South
Comedy venue
Banana Cabaret at The Bedford. Gets top-name comedians, and it’s ten times bigger than the King’s Head.
Club
Ministry of Sound. This legendary club-turned-megabrand has rediscovered a sense of direction with the likes of its power-packed new Friday nighter, Switch. Yet another excuse to visit Elephant & Castle.
Venue
Brixton Academy. Still the venue that every live act visiting London wants to play. Also, its art deco interior is where the video for Billy Ocean’s ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going’ was filmed.

North wins! Feature continues

Politico
North
Top liberal Thomas Paine began writing ‘The Rights of Man’ in a room above the Angel Inn on Upper Street. For doing so – and even though he’d already invented the smokeless candle – Paine was denounced in Parliament and threatened with arrest, until Lambeth lad William Blake advised him to flee
the country.

South
Blackheath-born suffragette Emily Davison served nine prison sentences. She also hid in the House of Commons broom cupboard on census night in 1911 in a bid to have the House recorded as her home address – a memorial to her has since been placed there. Her politicking ended at the 1913 Derby, when she died running in front of the king’s horse.

North wins!

Power
North
Government
Easy one. The House of Commons and Number 10. Plus the secret bunker under Whitehall.
Spies
MI5 is based in Thames House, on the north side of Lambeth Bridge. It’s responsible for the defence of the nation.

South
Government
Forget Number 10 – it’s City Hall that matters. Ken is far more powerful in London than Blair will ever be.
Spies
MI6 on the south side – so important that it’s already been attacked with rockets.

South wins!

Quote
North
‘The fields from Islington to Marybone/To Primrose Hill
and Saint John’s Wood/Were builded over with pillars of gold/And there Jeruslalem’s pillars stood.’ William Blake, ‘Jerusalem’.

South
‘The south remains relatively unknown to other Londoners, except as a source of disquiet… the northern bank has been “privatised”.
To the south, however, there is interchange and animation.’ Peter Ackroyd, ‘London: The Biography’.

North wins!

Shopping
North
Record shop
Pure Groove. This little store on the Holloway Road made its name selling electro house, but branched out into indie rock to become one of the best places in London to buy seven-inches from the hottest new bands.
Shopping centre
When it was built in 1976, Brent Cross was the largest enclosed shopping centre in the UK. It has 110 stores, and pioneered the concept of late-opening.
Department store
Selfridges, the shop that coined the phrase ‘The customer is always right.’

South
Record shop
Beanos. With four floors of rock, hip hop, house and soul, this claims to be the ‘biggest secondhand record store in the world’. And any place that can bring that accolade to Croydon deserves respect.
Shopping centre
Worship at the new retail cathedral. With 330 shops, Bluewater rightly touts itself as ‘the most innovative and exciting shopping and leisure centre in Europe today’. So it’s in Kent? We’re still having it.
Department store
People may browse in Selfridges, but when you want to do actual shopping you can’t go wrong with Debenhams in Croydon. It even does flowers.

South wins!

Sport
North
Sporting arena
Lord’s. The home of the Marylebone Cricket Club (since 1814) is the home of cricket. What more do you want?
Football Team
Arsenal FC (13 titles, ten FA Cups and four other trophies).

South
Sporting arena
The Oval. Granted, Lord’s is more iconic in cricketing circles, and the Oval has the dubious honour of being the site of England’s first defeat by the Australians in 1882. On the other hand, the Oval was where Kevin Pietersen hit the 158 that won back the Ashes, so that’s the argument done with.
Football team
Millwall FC: Second Division champions, 1987-88 season. But if you want to have a chat about who’s ‘better’, pop down to the new Den next Saturday afternoon and we’ll discuss it.

North wins!

Stats
North
Tallest building
Canary Wharf, 235m
Population
2,431,000 (2001 census).
Secondary school
Henrietta Barnett School for girls and St Michael’s Catholic Grammar School are among the top 20 in the country for GCSE grades. Your kids won’t get in, but it’s still nice to know.

South
Tallest building
Guy’s Tower, Guy’s Hospital, 143m.
Population
2,497,000.
Secondary school
The fantastically named Tiffin Girls’ School and the Nonsuch High School for Girls. Though both sound like they could be very good at Quidditch, neither ranks higher in the league tables than their posh northern counterparts.

North wins!