North London v South London - The debate
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By Time Out editors. Illustration Ed Marshall
Posted: Fri May 1 2009 -
Time Out's Michael Hodges and Alan Rutter go head to head to explain what's wrong with North and South London
North London sucks | South London sucks
'North London sucks,' argues Michael Hodges…
So what’s wrong with north London? Partly it’s the place (an easy place to get to by black cab, I believe, a service still denied to those of us foolish enough to live beyond the Thames’s swirling waters). Take Parliament Hill. It’s not much more than a hillock compared to the towering peak Greenwich Observatory sits upon. Yet in film, books and plays it is endlessly celebrated.
And Hampstead Village. An obvious target? Yes it is, and all the more reason to attack it. Self-regarding, snobbish, chocolate-box streets, chocolate-box pubs, sanitised and swept free of any vigour or vim. Or Camden Market? A woeful flea market, engineered to offer exotica and the whiff of danger to people who are not really sure about either exotica or the whiff of danger. Here you will encounter the Peruvian Hat, a sort of knitted headwear with ties that hang down at the sides. Fine in the windswept Andes with the chance of snow blowing up from Bolivia and a group of agitated llamas gathering around you with murder in their eyes, but the mark of an arse in an urban environment. Although it is a handy identifier in a fist fight. Feature continuesAdvertisementOf course hitting people just because they are from north London is wrong. And anyway it’s not the majority of people who live in north London who annoy – there are thousands of people who live useful lives in Tottenham and Barnet – but a particular kind of person who lives in a particular kind of way: the north Londoner. He or she will know the best coffee bars in Milan, yet be unable to name one of south London’s many wonderful pubs.
They will express support for Arsenal football club (never Tottenham), yet know nothing of the game. The contents of their wardrobes will be predominately dark; names like Betty Jackson and Prada will appear there. There is a strong chance of a Japanese print in the downstairs toilet. And you won’t find them in Tottenham either, but in very specific areas: in Belsize Park, in Primrose Hill and in Tufnell Park.
Take Lemonia in Primrose Hill, the house restaurant of the north Londoner. Who could complain about the fantastic Greek food at very reasonable prices, pleasing decor or the friendly service? Certainly not me: move the place to Peckham and I’d be in there every night. No, the problem is the ‘loyal tribe’, as one pro-north London website has it, that uses Lemonia. That’ll be ‘Jude Law, Ewan McGregor, Gwyneth Paltrow, Daniel Craig, Paddy Campbell and the PM and Sarah to name but a few!’ A few? That’s more than enough. They haven’t even mentioned Chris Martin.
If you add the slightly less galling Stephen Fry and Geri Halliwell to the array of north London celebrities, you’ll find it runs the full gamut from classy to common (in south London we have that blonde woman who’s quite funny and, well, that’s about it), yet despite their social differences they all a share a similarly enraging worthiness.
Because north Londoners don’t just eat in Greek restaurants and make odious pop records. They also care deeply about (my capitals) THE LESS FORTUNATE. You know, Tibetans, African people, little seals that get their heads bashed in. Some are even left wing; in fact wealthy north London is packed with socialists. Grand old socialists like Michael Foot, but also less grand, younger socialists who earn £120,000 a year as arts administrators and, strangely, find nothing as hateful and unpleasant as exposure to the working class. The same class, if memory serves, that socialism is suppose to propel to the commanding heights of the economy.
Not in north London it won’t. And even if it did, north Londoners would still benefit, as they dedicate much of their spare time to pretending to be working class.
That is why there are so many ersatz versions of the working man’s caff, from which the actual working man has been eliminated (see ‘socialism’ above), featuring checkerboard tablecloths and organic, free-range versions of real food. The bacon will be hand dried by Wiltshire yeomen, the sausages rolled by Tuscan peasant maids on their inner thighs. The tea will be so fairtrade that several Kenyan villages can now boast a Jacuzzi in each hut thanks to the proceeds. Breakfast will cost £19.47.
However, since they are in the press so often, it is relatively easy to see beyond such lifestyle trappings – along with the pointless recycling, organic wine and other eco-concerned affectations that do little to mitigate the environmental damage wreaked by the Volvo in the driveway – and discover what actually matters to north Londoners.
Hampstead residents Radio 1 DJ Edith Bowman and her boyfriend Tom Smith, of a pop group called Editors, are perhaps archetypal north Londoners. Rather than ‘feeding the world’ or ending communist China’s oppression of the Tibetan people (and how oppressive is it to remove a medieval government run by monks where women hold no power?), their real concern appears to be getting planning permission. In their case, for a basement.
And last year, over in Islington, Derek Draper and Kate Garraway were reported to be ‘delighted’ and ‘excited’ when, after a passionate campaign – at one point Garraway shouted at council officials – they contrived to get planning permission for an extension so their baby could have his own room. The baby, I note, is called Darcey.
However, it’s not the interesting names for their children, or the self-obsession – all those diets, all that idiot yoga, the tantric sex – but the self-righteous hypocrisy of rich north Londoners that is truly unbearable. They want to save the world but still send their children to public school. They claim to be true metropolitans yet cluster in exclusive villages.
This isn’t urban life, it’s a cod bucolic nightmare populated by rampaging egotists who, understandably, would be beaten about the head with yellow murder boards if they ever strayed south of City Hall. This is north London, and it sucks.
Agree? Disagree? Tell us below.
North London sucks | South London sucks- Add your comment to this feature
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73 comments
Haha sounds like the writers jelouse of South, he's pissed cos North London in reality is the souless, boring, non interesting part of London. South has diversity, in culture & in the fact the areas have their own 'feel' to them, South has character, North is just...North, its all the same, name a part of North that stands out above the rest of north? I was in North London the other day and it just all looks the same, depressing, boring, and echoed. Also, please dont count central, West, North West, & East as part of 'North' simply because its north of the river, as that is just stupid, lol. Out of all of London, I personally find North the most unappealing, and the people, the most stuck up, posh, & fake of all Londoners. They just wish they could boast the character and endearment of true Londoners, the ones from SOUTH!...haha.
Thanks Josh for telling it like it is. As an Eastender I am fed up of being roped in with North London just because East London is above the river. The East End unlike North London is cutting edge like you said and interesting. I would not move anywhere to a postcode beginning with N, simply because it really is dull.
As a South Londoner, I have to say this was a very well-written, funny and perceptive article! I especially agree about how North London is compact and densely populated right up to the edge of the city (although there are exceptions, like Totteridge, which actually feels like a bit of Bromley that somehow got dislocated).
But South London's appeal comes from the fact that it is more like separate towns rather than a continous sprawl. A trip from Wimbledon to Bexley feels like a cross-country adventure, and that's the appeal.
I think the main difference is that North London is en route to the rest of the country, whereas South London is merely en route to Brighton and the English Channel. You really notice it on a trip back to London from the North. It takes you almost as long to navigate a few miles across the river as it does to zoom down the M1 from Birmingham into Hendon.
Why is it when ever this debate comes up, people always seem to neglect places like Blackheath and Greenwich? We are certainly South London, and most probably even more distanced from the likes of Richmond and Wimbledon than most "north" Londoners. Both by public, and private transport
south london is full of posh twats. merton, wandsworth, fulham, merton and westminster. north london is real london. hackney, harringey, islington and camden.
another southern snob
hampstead is north west you idiot. north london is islington, harringey and enfield .
North Londoners shouldn't really appropriate central london. it's not north london. Furthermore to talk of north London is a bit of a misnomer. West Londoners and east Londoners, probably the more interesting areas north of the river, wouldn't consider themselves north londoners. North London is that dull place north of central London and squeezed between the rich west and the cutting edge east.
Carlos please do not be tired of life!
We begin as London began - with the Thames, on the Thames. Silvery lifeline, main highway, chief processional route, the Thames is, quite simply, London's Grand Canal. Tower Bridge, where we embark, and Westminster Bridge, where we go ashore, bracket London and to take ship on this stretch of water is to glissade down the centuries. Here kings and queens were borne in painted and gilt state barges; on the one shore, Wren's St.Paul's Cathedral engraved the sublime against the London sky; on the other, Shakespeare wrought his magic, "not of an age, but for all time!" The Thames knew great men and women in death, too: these waters bore Elizabeth I's funeral and Nelson's and Churchill's. And hand in glove with the history...the most famous of all London views, as throat-catching today as it was to Wordsworth 200 years ago: Earth has not anything to show more fair. Ashore, we take in the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, St. James's Park, Whitehall, Buckingham and St. James's Palaces, the Mall and Trafalgar Square. As ever, the sights behind the sights is our watchword. In short, this is the walk that most memorably captures London's inimitable mixture of idiosyncratic detail and grand, powerful statement.
O.Wilde
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Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This city now doth, like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
Open unto the fields and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did the sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Wordsworth
I'm surprised the writer (celebrities aside) was positive about Lemonia. We went there once and will never go back - awful! Holy Bush in hampstead is a must.
Emptiness, soullessness, and pretention - real London!
I just want to clear up a big misconception regarding South London and the tube. Certain areas of London do not have a tube line not because nobody wants to go there, but rather nobody wants to go to these areas because there isn’t a tube. The cart is being put firmly before the horse. South London is built on softer, more waterlogged land than the north and when the bulk of the underground train system was being constructed it was deemed simply too difficult and costly to try and tunnel through many of these areas. This together with the fact that historically places like Peckham (believe it or not) where actually very affluent, and the local snobs campaigned against the intrusion of any public transport into their posh little enclave. Peckham for instance was one of the only places in London to be spared from having its iron railings melted down to produces arms during the first world war. So there.
Last time l woke up and smelt the coffee, Stamford Bridge was in fact NORTH of the river? I am a converted south Londoner, just by the simple fact that people smile and talk to each other in south london. North London is plainly fairly dull
I agree with both...it is a question of what u can afford - as usual...but if u have to pick a side - at least improve it...
Is Cockfosters not a "name that should be a joke"???
I actually remember it appearing in a Two Ronnies sketch.
For QOTL I suggest he takes Omega 3 fish oil to calm down at first. His anger may hurt him. Then following:
1) Put your preconceptions aside.
2) Put your own perspective aside.
3) Don't respond as if the perceived criticism or accusations are diected at you..
4) Try always to remain neutral.
5) Avoid the urge to step in and "correct" the other person's views.
Remember, every person views things in his or her own unique way. Their perspective may be different from yours.
Treat the other person as a teacher. He or she is teaching you about his or her feelings and perceptions. Through such sharing of feelings and inner thoughts, people deepen their level of intimacy and trust in one another.
6) Ask questions until you are sure the other person has said everything there is to be said about the conflict, from his or her point of view. When the other person seems to have had his or her say, ask: "Is there any thing more you want to add?"