Letters from the editor

My mornings, from the moment I wake up, to the bit where I get to my desk, are meticulously planned (some might say unappealingly robotic) drills. I know at what time I should be grinding coffee beans (6.45am), how many minutes I have to walk my dog (25) and the number of ‘Off Menu’ episodes I can get through on each walk to work (almost one). When I know I’m running behind, I speed up. At this point I feel compelled to mention: I am actually quite fun at parties!

I say this only because the other day I was stood in a local caff’s queue, a disgraceful four minutes behind schedule. In front of me, an old bloke was taking ages chatting and I felt myself lose patience. How dare this geezer chinwag about Arsenal’s form while I, the editor of Time Out, needs his damn croissant now.

I am, obviously, a hateful monster. The truth is that caff (and places like it) offer a vital social service to loads of Londoners in need of human contact. And Christmas, with its images of familial tenderness and warmth, is a shitty time to be alone. I’ll be thinking about that when I cast my votes in our Love Local awards. Because one day I might need that caff chat myself.

We all have our guilty eco-confessions. Maybe you’re not too fussy about what you chuck in with the recycling. Or perhaps you sometimes splurge on ‘fast fashion’ because your winter glow-up demands a black turtle neck. I am guilty of both. I also eat red meat, own a dog (who eats red meat), purchase out-of-season produce, have a phone, enjoy the convenience of single-use items like kitchen towels, run occasional small loads in the washing machine and want to have children one day. 

And yet here I am, smugly introducing a special, sustainability-themed issue of Time Out. Does all of this make me a ‘hypocrite’? Yes. But does it make me a bad person? Also yes.

 Luckily our city has a conscience. In this issue we introduce you to the trailblazing Londoners organising events, inventing products and reimagining food, so that our descendents have a fighting chance of not inheriting a flooded hellscape. Hopefully by introducing you to these innovators and future leaders I can feel approximately 15 percent less guilty about the fact I don’t unplug my electrical appliances before going to bed. And until we achieve systematic, governmental change, that’ll have to do.

Londoners are hopelessly addicted to convenience. And by ‘Londoners’, I of course mean ‘I’.

After all, why shouldn’t I be able to summon a gourmet Chinese meal to my mouth with a few lethargic prods of a touch screen? What’s that? My spoiled, fat dog Kronus has run out of shamefully expensive kibble? I’ll just press a button and some guy in a van will soon bring more. Technology is so hard-wired for convenience these days that I don’t even have to press a button. I can probably just wink at my phone. It knows what I want.

It’s no surprise then, that the current shortage of milkshakes, petrol, poultry, taxis, timber, drivers, fizzy drinks and people has shocked folks like me to our privileged, lazy cores. But it has provided an opportunity for reflection. This isn’t the moment to kick off because you’ve had to wait two more minutes for your extra-hot, oat latte. Instead, let’s show love to the Londoners, working behind the scenes with less support, less time and more stress than ever. No shortage is worth making someone’s life a misery. Unless the beer runs out. Then we riot.

Because I’m not technically ‘good at my job’, I don’t usually mention the cover of the magazines in these letters. I prefer to prattle on about some trivial detail of London life that’s relevant to me and maybe eight other people. As I say: not good at the job.

I’ll be making an exception to that rule for this issue. Not for the obvious reason. The obvious reason would be that we’ve got Lashana bloody Lynch on the bloody cover! A proper west Londoner, star of the world’s biggest blockbuster, an objectively excellent human being, dropping in on Time Out? That’s super.

The less-obvious reason: having Lashana on the cover carries what I can only describe as an epic significance. The film she’s in, ‘No Time to Die’, was one of the first things to be delayed because of the pandemic. We first met Lashana nigh on two years ago. And now, several more chats and a global crisis later, we can finally have her on the cover of Time Out. To most people this here is ‘just’ another fantastic edition of the city’s favourite magazine. To us it represents a bit of closure. Sorry for all the sincerity; back to banging on about pubs next week.

I adore London (handy, considering my job) but sometimes it all gets a bit much, doesn’t it? Those accursed days when pedestrian traffic lights refuse to go green, all your pints taste soapy and the Central Line platform is three businessmen deep when you arrive. Those days when London seems eerily intent on breaking your spirit.

Chances are that recently, those days have been unusually frequent. London’s antagonistic streak has been mercilessly ramped up by the pandemic. Like lonely lighthouse keepers, we’ve been locked up with London and no one else for what feels like years. Everything about it is starting to do our heads in. Even the shape of the Thames is annoying. Too damn bendy! If London was a person we’d currently be screaming at it for breathing through its nose too loudly.

Luckily, we can now mask up, hop on a train and leave London whenever we want. And you know what? After a full day of pottering around a town with exactly six charming cobbled back streets, two decent pubs, three-hundred screaming children and one crowded stone beach you’ll be missing the overcast skies of our great capital in no time. Soapy pints and all. 

More than ten million Londoners have now been vaccinated. That’s great. Fucking great, actually. Less great is the fact that the capital still lags behind the rest of the country in terms of uptake rates. At the time of writing about 1.3 million Londoners remain entirely unvaccinated. We need to do better.

The disappointing part is that plenty of people aren’t getting vaxxed by choice. Is this you? Are you walking around boasting about your ‘perfectly healthy immune system’? Get vaccinated. Don’t quite trust the science? Get vaccinated. Concerned they’re putting American microchips in your bloodstream? You’re an actual idiot, get vaccinated.  

Not getting vaxxed because you’re not worried about the virus is like a Roman legionary not joining the shield wall because they personally have never seen a Pict tribesperson. Yeah, great that you feel no fear or danger at all, but you’ve left a vital hole in an otherwise impregnable defence, ripe to be exploited by spear-wielding woad-covered Celts. People like you brought down the actual Roman Empire. And now you’re going to make sure we have table service forever. Don’t be a twat: get vaccinated.

So then, ’Freedom Day’. Lovely concept but shame about the name. It sounds a bit brash, a bit (whisper it) American for London. The words sits awkwardly on our shabby city, like a mongrel dog in a sparkly top hat. Or when you hear someone in a greasy spoon ask for a flat white. Wrong.

But, as usual of course, my opinion does not matter. At all. ‘Freedom Day’ is a massive deal. The moment we’ve been craving, after what feels like four hundred years of stifling (but entirely necessary) restrictions. Yes, we need to still take care. And yes, vulnerable people still need protecting. But I can now once again go and destroy my hearing watching Space Witch at the Devonshire Arms (while wearing a mask, natch).

Freedom in London, true freedom, means having the time and the money to take yoga classes, get a massive round in, go for a long stroll in the park, stay out all night or impulse purchase a Minimoog synthesizer. In other words freedom in London is a privilege. So let’s keep in mind our fellow Londoners who, for whatever reason, lack the means to fully enjoy what so many of us took for granted for years. Freedom is a beautiful thing.

It’s no coincidence that London’s most London-y places are also the most well-used: parks and pubs. Part of the appeal of a pub is that every chair, every table, every ‘DRUGS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED ON THIS PREMISES’ sign has been looked at, pawed, adored or ignored by thousands of pint enthusiasts that came before you. It’s comforting to connect momentarily with your fellow Londoners, even if ‘connecting’ entails sitting on a sagging chair that’s had more beer spilled on it than a security guy on mosh pit duty at Camden Underworld.

Nothing in London should be too new or pristine. No one thinks the unnervingly neat Jubilee Line extension truly belongs in London, do they? It’s like a guy that’s turned up to a bohemian beach party in a white tuxedo.

Post-pandemic it’s natural that we’d want to surround ourselves with newness. But that doesn’t mean abandoning our pasts like a bin bag of DVDs outside Oxfam. London’s past is what defines it and this summer the city wants for you to go out and rediscover it. Yes, it’s battered around the edges and seriously rain-damaged in places, but that’s how we like it. London is a second-hand city.

So close, London. We are so, so close. Close to that moment when you won’t have to go back for your mask every time you leave the house in a rush. When you can visit the pub and not have to download an app to get a pint. When theatres and football stadiums won’t have to operate at a loss. And crucially, when you can dance about in a basement like a chimpanzee hopped up on orange juice. That’s how I do it, anyway. You may well possess qualities like ‘rhythm’ and ‘dignity’.  

I wish someone had told me when I was younger: no one cares if you can or can’t dance. Unlike crossing the Euston Road or ‘taking a gamble’ on an improv comedy night, getting it wrong does not have disastrous consequences. In fact, the opposite is true. Bad dancing encourages others to join in. Like the opposite of a flash mob.

London won’t be properly London again until its venues are heaving with breakers, boppers and ballerinas. After months of not feeling free, the sense of agency that comes with thrashing around like a malfunctioning dog will feel amazing. If we have to wait a bit longer to have that back safely? I’ll take it.

Have you ever watched a really, really boring film?

I’m not talking regular boring. Not like a misjudged Nordic crime drama or some documentary about a band you’ve never heard of. I’m talking headache boring. Preternaturally dull. A film that hurts to endure, such is the sadistic power of its tedium. A film like this eight-hour documentary about a factory in Virginia that manufactures bowling alley equipment.

Friends, I’ve seen that film.

Despite my notoriously miserable face I am an advocate for positive thinking. Yes, this year sucked. Yes, almost everything life-affirming about London was curtailed, diminished or banned. And yes, now when I unintentionally glance at a reflective surface, I see a disheveled, twitchy gnome where once there stood a giant (or at the least, a slightly less disheveled, happier gnome.) But unless we find some way to feel positive about the future, the present becomes a grim place indeed.

This year, unable to rely on the conventional triad of friends, nice food and booze, Londoners had to find new ways to channel positivity. And, for some people, that involved Time Out. If this was you, then we thank you. Thank you for letting us into your life, and allowing us to be the mystical conduit that connects you to the impossible, infinite, irrepressible city in which you live.

This week also marks my one year anniversary as editor of Time Out London. Despite sub-optimal circumstances, I’ve had an absolute blast. Chatting to you each week has been my way of staying positive. And If I ruined your favourite magazine, well, it was hardly the worst thing that happened this year, was it? Unless it was. In which case I’m sorry.

Chances are, you’re reading this just before everything in London opens up again. What are you most looking forward to? Eating food that you didn’t cook yourself? Watching a film outside of the context of your living room? Eventually going to the theatre (for those who don’t remember, theatre is a form of live entertainment that involves small tubs of ice cream, periods of sustained bowing and LOUD VOICES)? 

Somewhat unexpectedly, I’m gagging to get back into my local gallery. I’m not even a particularly arty person (friends have described me as ‘incurious’ and ‘aggressively shallow’), but there’s something about surrounding oneself with top-notch visual culture that does the soul a world of good. Either that or going for a pint with my girlfriend and dog (two different beings, by the way). Both activities would be great.

And credit to you lot: Londoners have coped with the last few months admirably. I mean, we’ve all developed a sort of permanently crazed expression and I’m not sure if anyone’s properly brushed their hair since mid-October, but we held it together, didn’t we? See you out there and stay safe.

As one of London’s foremost ninnies, I like to shop in the city’s nicer places. Not posh or expensive places. Nice places. The type of places that have spent their business loan on personalised tote bags and a signature store fragrance. The ones that have an espresso machine by the till, even if they are in no way a cafe. Where they’ve put more time and effort into their shop’s Spotify playlist than their balance books.

These places all have something in common (beyond the fact most people find them ‘pretentious’ and ‘hateful’). They are, like most small shops run by human beings not board rooms, local businesses, part of a community, owned by people who know and love the area. That’s why, when I waste tenner on some minimalist stationary in that shop in the alley behind Sadler’s Wells, I don’t feel (too) guilty.

Why am I prattling on about stationary? It’s because this year, when it comes to buying gifts, we at Time Out want you to go totally “local”. London’s beloved businesses, shops and venues have had a torrid time recently and this is the perfect opportunity to give them a hand. So if you’re going to spend, spend with the little guy. 

One day soon London will return to normal. Think about that. Bus seats won’t be covered up. Our theatre stages will be full of actors doing bad American accents in Arthur Miller productions. Waiters won’t wear plastic welding masks. Rappers will rap, guitarists will shred and DJs will pretend to twiddle the cross-fader. Comedians will once again be able to die on their arse in front of 20 people above a pub in Soho. You’ll not wince every time people on TV shake hands.

I cannot tell you when this day will come. But come it will. Because everything ends. And in the meantime we make do with the quiet, semi-shuttered winter city we currently call home. We still have our parks (best in the world, no contest), we still have bone-broth ramen delivered to our doors and, crucially, we still have each other. London’s most valuable commodity is Londoners, and, Lord knows, those are not in short supply.

So talk to each other. Talk to strangers. Talk to me, if you like (disclaimer: many people who know me would strongly advise against this). Our city is brilliant, our city is strong, and so are you.

Is it just me, or is everyone a bit down in the dumps at the moment? Maybe ‘down in the dumps’ is an understatement. Maybe ‘emotionally paralysed by a nameless, creeping dread’ is more accurate. The future is an ill-defined, capricious shadowbeast at the moment, and nothing messes with our collective sanity like uncertainty. 

So, for no other reason that to cheer you up, here follows a list of London things that still make me smile; when Tube drivers mumble inaudibly over the tannoy and everyone in the carriage looks at each other and rolls their eyes; the continued existence of ‘Garfunkel’s’; massive dogs on public transport; anyone who refers to Gordon’s Wine Bar as ‘this little place I know’; putting popadoms under curries and crunching it all up at Mirch Masala; middle-aged fanboys attempting small-talk with Thurston Moore in Stoke Newington; the fact that somehow there’s still a vintage pornography shop on Holloway Road; trying to work out if that couple on the next table are on their first or second Tinder date.

Ultimately London itself still makes me smile. Not constantly. I don’t walk around grinning at car crashes, for example. But at a time like this I think it’s vital to find a way - any way - to love the city you live in. I hope Time Out helps.

What does your future London look like? Moving walkways, obviously. Flying gizmos? Holographic Sadiq Khan, standing astride the Thames? Traffic lights replaced by looping Tik Tok clips and WAP gifs? As a spoiled, heterosexual white man, my ideal future is one that caters solely to my interests. No cars (I like walking.) Challenging jazz played in all public places (everyone loves challenging jazz.) Young people forced - by law - to treat me with respect and not roll their eyes every time I desperately reference ’WAP’ (which is often). 

The more I think about it, the more it seems to me my mental image of an ideal city doesn’t involve travelators, jazz and laser pyramids at all. It just involves loads of people treating each other with respect and kindness. A city that doesn’t make you feel like the slowest, crappest rat in the rat race. A city where the planners understand that sometimes the best cafe on the block isn’t the steel-and-glass ‘espresso bar’ but the shonky little one in the park, with the guy who takes fifteen minutes to make one cup of tea. A city where your worth is not relative only to your wallet. Alright, and maybe one travelator. 

‘Cheap’ gets a bad rap. We’re told that it’s artless, sweaty and embarrassing. Probably made from non-breathable materials. Cheap has issues. Cheap is what your spinster great-aunt Mildred mutters when she sees the way young people dress these days. Cheap will need to be replaced inside of a year, according to the plumber. Cheap tricks, cheap shots. Dirt cheap. 

But cities, by their nature, need cheap like zoos need non-exotic animals. No one’s come to see the shire ponies, but it can’t all be arctic tigers and endangered neon dolphins. The wallpaper of everyday life is not daubed with gold leaf, but Dulux*.

Cheap food is the most necessary bit of all. Many of my happiest London memories are from my youth, before I became a warped, hate-filled media hypocrite. I didn’t think of food as ‘cheap’ back then. It was just food. A meal’s value isn’t connected to price. It’s about the memories you make while eating it. And if those memories are made with hot grease running down your forearm as you squat in a Brick Lane gutter, devouring a meat-like substance like a dog, then, friend, this city has helped me eat like a king.

* Other mid-market paint brands are available

Lots of people associate ‘local’ with the countryside. It’s a word that brings to mind sepia-tinged bakeries, chuckling vicars, welcoming pubs and that one League of Gentlemen sketch which is never going to leave the public consciousness.

The truth is, the city does ‘local’ better than the countryside. Rural folk, with their make-believe Postman Pat fantasies, are in denial. We know the reality of country life: driving three miles to a gigantic Sainsbury four times a week and then visiting the only pub within walking distance even though the beer’s off and the owner’s racist. 

Cities, by comparison, are teeming with genuine local spirit. People say London’s unfriendly? Rubbish. We just have stuff to be getting on with. If we all stopped and chatted to everyone we half-recognised on the way to work, London’s economy would grind to a halt. You might never know the name of the lady who owns that caff on your street, you might might never even speak to the bloke you nod at on the Tube every morning, but it doesn’t matter. You’re part of each other’s lives. That’s community. This is our local.

We’ve all had those moments. Those moments where you question your decision to live in a city like London. Where you take a cold, lingering look at the place with freshly unsympathetic eyes, like a wife who’s just seen her husband of twenty years for the first time without his wig.

After all, what’s the point living where the weather’s objectively ‘nice’ for approximately three weeks of the year and it’s only a matter of time before a pint costs seven quid? A place where your life occasionally feels like a Monzo-and-Pret-powered stress tornado?

Friend: there is a point. The point is the people. The myriad relationships (no matter how tiny) that bind us, Londoners, together. It’s there, buried in the knowing looks, the friendly words, the same polite exchange you’ve had with your newsagent every week for three years. It’s there when I walk to work and see strangers picking up this mag (it’s all I can do to resist running up and hugging them, but there’s never been a worse time for that, has there?) Connecting with your fellow Londoners, even fleetingly, is what makes it all worthwhile. If Time Out helps do that, well, I couldn’t be prouder.

What was your immediate reaction to lockdown? I’m not proud to admit that mine was ‘annoyed’. Annoyed at the universe for unleashing a devastating pandemic at such an inconvenient time for me personally. Being made editor of Time Out just as all of London’s restaurants, pubs and venues shut felt like getting a job as chief dodo correspondent or manager of the chocolate teapot factory.

Times are tough.

Every evening I try and take a walk around the city. My heart breaks on every street. The plucky restaurant, kept afloat with someone’s life savings. The pub that barely breaks even put pays its staff well. The gallery that’s so niche it shouldn’t exist but somehow does. The heavy metal night held in a Mare Street backroom. These eccentric, passion projects represent this city’s mad side, its best side, and they are now under threat. To me, that means the city is under threat.

And then there’s the loneliness. The Londoners out there, going through this on their own. The other day, I chatted to a very old Irish lady in the supermarket. She was shaken up and teary, unexpectedly emotional in the same way many of our parents will be (I know there have been a lot of FaceTime tears spontaneously shed already). In the old lady’s basket was one packet of pasta and one tin of beans. ‘It’s all I need,’ she said proudly. ‘I’m not selfish’. I wanted to tell her to get more, but I didn’t. Now I wish I had.

One day soon Time In will be called Time Out again. Until that day comes, we will help and support Londoners cope with this catastrophe. Time Out will still be giving you best of the city, whether or not the city is at its best. If you’re on your own going through this, I urge you to put get in touch and let me know how I can help. I look forward to hearing from you.

You might have heard: the city we love is in trouble. Like you, I don’t know how long this state of paralysis will last and I don’t know how how bad it’ll get before it improves. 

I wish I could buy you a beer and tell you everything is going to be all right. The truth is, like you, I don’t know what next week holds.

What I do know is that London has faced far worse. Our city’s history is a litany of cataclysms. Fires, plagues, riots and war. In every instance we have emerged stronger. This will be no different. London’s greatest asset is its people, a hotchpotch of cultures and influences. As long as we look to each other for strength, reassurance and - most importantly - humour, nothing can defeat the city.

Special mention must also go to small businesses up and down the capital. The niche galleries, indie cinemas, awesome cafes and specialist shops, whose owners and staff are undoubtedly feeling the squeeze right now. You make this city what it is and we have no intention of abandoning you in these uncertain times. Time Out is here for you guys, and we intend to support you in any way we can.

And finally, we’ve changed our logo to reflect these rather bizarre circumstances. Usually all we do is bang on about going out, but if the empty restaurants and deserted pubs are anything to go by, leaving the house might not be on everyone’s agenda. Whether you’re self-isolating or not however, Time Out is still dedicated to showing you the absolute best of this city. That will never change.

Stay safe everyone. I’ll buy you that drink once it’s all over.

Spring doesn’t come easily to London. By mid-March, as other European cities erupt into flowery euphoria, London blooms begrudgingly, like a surly teenager forced, against its will, to change into clean underwear. Try not to think about Parisian boulevards, lined with miles of cherry blossoms, Seville and its thousands of orange trees, or the Purple Azaleas cascading down the Spanish Steps of Rome. London, for what it’s worth, has that one really flowery pub in Kensington. 

That’s not to say we don’t care about Spring. We have an absolute city-wide thirst for it. I don’t think anyone in the world needs Spring like a Londoner. I’ll wager that when you looked out the window at 5pm last week, and saw that it wasn’t already dark, you literally smiled. You may have even turned in your chair and said “it’s not dark!” to no one in particular, like an enraptured simpleton seeing daylight for the first time.

We love Spring because, by the time it rolls around, we have forgotten London can be anything other than a wet, dark maze. Keep your orange trees; bring on the light. 

Somewhere on the fringes of Soho sits an unremarkable cafe that represents, to me, the ultimate in comfort food.

There are no head-height servings of parmesan or coma-inducing curries. What it does have is a bitter, some might say badly made, Americano. And to me, that particular Americano embodies comfort.

I’ll explain. While our predecessors associated the c-word with sensible jackets, warm baths and reasonably priced hotel rooms, the current generation is more likely to think of the TV show Friends or the voice of their favourite podcaster (hello, Josh Clark). Comfort represents not just cosy physicality, but also an easing of the soul, whereby all of our digital dread, climate terrors and societal unease melts, like so much hot cheese, into momentary, blissful insignificance. The opposite of watching Question Time, basically.

That cafe, by the way, was situated between the college in which 24 year-old me studied part-time, and the office where I had my first journalism job. Every Monday, I would leave the former and head to the latter, with just enough time in between to sit and enjoy a coffee. I will always associate that cafe with that feeling of not needing to rush, and nobody needing anything from me. In London, that’s comfort.

By the time you read this, I will have completed a three-day trip to Porto, with my girlfriend. She does not know about it yet and, crucially, is “not good” with surprises. Combine this with my holiday habit of making catastrophic blunders, and it’s safe to assume that, should there be no ed’s letter next week, she has pushed me into the Douro River. I have drowned.

Holidays are stressful. And everyone knows the most stressful parts are: getting there; getting settled and getting home. A three-day holiday which solely consists of these phases in quick succession is asking for trouble, the equivalent of queuing for entry to a theme park, queuing for one ride and then queuing to leave.

There is one time-honoured holiday headache that has vanished. If I make a rash, knee-jerk decision to visit a Portuguese city, I no longer need to spend the hours before my flight feverishly Googling “cool museums”, or getting cafe recommendations from that guy on Facebook who replies to everything, despite meeting me only once in 2009. I work at Time Out now. Time bloody Out. If I do end up floating in the Duoro, it won’t be because I didn’t know any cool bars.

I have, in my life, co-habited with a great many people. Tall people, tiny people, noisy people, people who were so quiet as to barely exist. Friends, if you can think of an adjective, chances are I have lived with someone who had it as a defining character trait.

When I see them lined up before my mind’s eye, a phantom army of fallen flatmates, one thing stands out. The diversity. I have shared a fridge with the French, cooked with Koreans and drank in silence with Fins (as far as I can tell, this is Finland’s national sport). My beef shin ragu has been forced on men and women from Eritrea, Taiwan and Italy. I’ve bickered over cleaning rotas with Ghanaians and been kept awake by Japanese house parties. I might never rack up enough air miles to be considered a “man of the world”, but I am a man of London. Truly the next best thing.

Each of my flatmates taught me something about the city I still occasionally take for granted, each of them helped me be a better Londoner. Apart from the Korean guy who used to go missing all the time. He was just a pain in the arse.

We live in a dark city. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In my opinion, London’s streets look their best on cold and gloomy winter nights. No less an observer than Charles Dickens admiringly called it a “black, shrill city…with no vent in the leaden canopy of its sky”. Joseph Conrad rejoiced in London, “half lost in night”.

However, even those literary mega-lads would admit it can all get a bit much. Especially during the dreaded month of February. February, beginning just as the New Year buzz finally runs out and the consequences of your Christmas profligacy are felt in a now-throbbing overdraft. February. Objectively the crappest month, what with its weird length, chronic drizzle and almost-sarcastic celebration of “love” slap-bang in its middle. February. 

The good news is that eventually February will end. And by the time it does, your days will have improved by two extra hours of sunlight. Imagine! In the meantime, don’t despair at the darkness that defines our alleys and side-streets. London’s true light shines from the people filling its beer gardens, cafes and parks. It’s a mix found nowhere else. Our world has never felt brighter.

Like many of you, I listen to podcasts during my commute. I’d love to tell you that I subscribe to world news briefings, Asian market reports and breathtakingly impenetrable “tech trend” updates but the majority of what goes into my ears is shockingly silly. I am a shallow man.

But that’s what morning journeys are for. Calm spaces that exists between the ever-churning twin storms of home and work. Imagine my despair last week then when I lost my headphones and had to endure my hour-long walk unaided by audio. With no distractions available I decided to do something odd. I listened to the city.

London sounds amazing, it turns out. No, not the sirens, backfiring motorbikes and that one detested bar near Angel that blares dubstep into the street. The hum behind all that. An ever-present, droning roar of distant activity. It’s a portal, carrying with it the sounds of Saxon markets, Tudor pleasure gardens and post-war pubs. The look of London may be in constant flux, but its hungry, lively voice remains reassuringly the same. PS I have since gone back to headphones. As I say: shallow.

Are you well?

Ask a Londoner that question and more often than not they’ll say “yeah fine” or, if you’re lucky, “bit knackered, actually”. We don’t discuss our issues. The kneecap that crunches when you sit down. Your habit of waking up at 3am inexplicably drenched in sweat. A nagging fear that everyone at your new job editing a London magazine genuinely hates you and thinks you’re a chump. All of these things stop us from feeling ‘well’ but we would seldom dare divulge them.

We may never overcome our in-built reservedness. The ice-cold Huw Edwards that dwells within us all. Unlike our Californian cousins, a Londoner could never keep a straight face while saying “I need to discover a self-space wherein I can nurtured and be nurtured”. I find it hard to even tell people what I do for a living without feeling like some kind of repulsive blowhard.

Perhaps this is not so bad. Maybe ‘wellbeing’ is more than talking like one of Gwyneth Paltrow’s inspirational fridge magnets, but instead simply admitting “yeah, actually I do quite fancy not having a stress headache at 4pm, every Sunday”. We all could use a bit of that.

Are you still feeling fresh for 2020? Still basking in New Year’s afterglow, emotionally buoyed by a sense of limitless opportunity? If you answered ‘yes’, you might be a Londoner.

Despite its sullen reputation, London is a city powered by optimists. The tone was set by our seventh-century predecessors who dutifully rebuilt the place every time Vikings rocked up and smashed it to pieces (which happened a lot). Innumerable fires and plagues in subsequent centuries failed to harsh the city’s buzz. See also our stubborn refusal to adopt an underground sewage system (despite the Romans already inventing one for us), meaning our ancestors woke up every day to the sight and smell of a fast-flowing river of human excrement. You’d have to be a positive thinker to live with that.

Like them and like you then, I am an optimist. This news might surprise friends who have described my face as “inexpressive” and “depressing to look at”. To me though, being an optimist in London isn’t about smiling non-stop like a coked-up Redcoat. It’s about making peace with a city that never stops building, talking or moving. It’s about the very real possibility that every and any day in London could be the one where your life changes for the better forever.

Surprise!

Wait, don’t call the police. I’m allowed to be here. I’m the new editor of Time Out. Some of you might recognise me from another, now-vanished weekly magazine. Others will have no idea who I am and may, quite reasonably, recoil in horror at the unexpected and unwelcome sight of my face. To the first group I say: nice to see you again. To the second I can only apologise for ruining your morning.

Editing Time Out, communing with you right now, is an immense privilege. I was born in London, went to university here, and have always considered The Big Dirty Bastard* my home. Cut me and I bleed that algae that turns the Regent’s Canal green every year. I regard a five-pound pint “quite good value”, know the backstreets of Soho better than my own mother’s face and, like you, have no idea why there are suddenly so many Bubble Tea vendors. 

This is a gorgeous, iconic publication and I can’t wait to see the places we can take it. My wish is to forge a true and lasting bond with you, the reader. Whether you’re here for a week or, like me, here for a lifetime, I hope to help you make sense of this stunning and stressful city. I hope to help you love London like I love London.