Music

Still, it isn’t so much Lily’s affection for London that makes her stories interesting, as her total immersion in the city’s culture. She paints a picture of life in her erstwhile manor of Ladbroke Grove as more like an Aaron Spelling version of ‘Hollyoaks’ than the daily grind in a London borough. ‘That Notting Hill/Ladbroke Grove bit, it’s basically a lot of middle-class people that don’t have jobs, so they’re all just kind of hanging around on the street. It’s a really great environment, but it can also suck you in a bit, so it makes you very unproductive. Well, me anyway.’

Lily only managed to get her album together after moving to the equally leafy but comparatively crony-free Islington with her mum (who has split from Lily’s famous dad Keith): ‘It was time to get proactive. I like to be able to get up and go and buy a pint of milk without bumping into 20 people I know. Although now, it’s kinda like I go and buy a pint of milk and mix with 20 people I don’t know!’ Feature continues

But as with the opinions expressed in her lyrics, there is a darker, more thoughtful angle to Lily’s attitude to London life. Considering she’s British pop’s currently most celebrated wildchild, her worldview is touchingly rustic.

‘What’s funny is the American view of the UK,’ she says. ‘The guy with the little chimney sweep hat, going “Awight mate?”, very community spirited. I wish we were more like that, in the traditional sense. But we’re not, and we seem to be getting further and further away from it. You know when you go to foreign countries and you feel a bit distanced from it, that it feels foreign? I’m starting to feel a bit distanced from my own country in some ways. You see all those chains of things and you think: Actually, this is becoming a little capitalist.’

Coming from a conspicuous collector of Nike Air Max 90s, this might seem a contrary position, but it shouldn’t be too surprising on Lily Allen’s lips. After all, her album is littered with bitter loathe songs written in the aftermath of an ugly break-up that just so happen to take the form of chirpy sunshine-pop hits. You get the sense Lily wants life to be a bit more polished than it really is, for things to work out the way people say they will instead of with the usual genuine, messy results. If Lily has a real contentious opinion to express, it’s a charming received-nostalgia for an era in which you could leave your front door open and the sunsets were redder. While her casual comments about drugs, sex and celebrity culture may have seen her tagged as the pop poppet for ASBO-magnets, her attitude towards her own generation borders on the maternal.

To solve our social ills, for example, Lily would like to see ‘more things for kids to do… I think it’s really sad that kids are sitting at home on the computer all day when they could be playing outside in the streets, but they can’t. I think that’s the big issue, there are kids stabbing each other and mugging each other and mugging other people because what else have they got? School doesn’t care about them, they’re not open after hours anyway. There’s no help for anybody, there’s no in-school therapy, there’s no one watching out for what’s going on at home. I had lots of friends who went to Holland Park and I remember it was very much the Indians hung out together, the Moroccans hung out together, the white people hung out together, the posh people hung out together and it was like: Wait a second, why isn’t anyone doing anything to try and get these people to hang out as one? So, it’s all still like going to school…’

This socially conscious line of thinking probably contributes to Lily’s deep love for Carnival. If her songs paint herself as a frustrated romantic, Carnival is her pastel-painted, Vaseline-on-the-lens, Jilly Cooper-scripted version of London life. ‘Carnival and Glastonbury are my two favourite things ever in the world,’ she beams. ‘I’ve been to Carnival every year of my life. I can’t remember one specific year. They all blend into each other.’