Culture clubbed

I cried last week for the first time in months. I wasn’t crying for the two million unemployed people in the UK, or crying because Foxtons has opened one of their multicoloured real estate showrooms right around the corner from me. (A tip for Foxtons: I won’t pay 100k extra just because you offer me a latte.) I cried because my Sky TV box wouldn’t work.

At the risk of making myself sound even more pathetic you should know that I didn’t cry because I injured myself trying to repair the box, or because I was frustrated at my inability to repair it. I cried because I felt lost. I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself for the rest of that evening. It was raining outside so I couldn’t go for a walk. Not that I should have to, if Sky was working there probably would have been a great show on about walking.

When you ask most people why they moved to London their answer will invariably involve one of three things; work, love or a chance to live in one of the cultural hubs of our time. London’s status obviously coming into question this week as Dixie Fried Chicken opened up their 50th store here. Another sure sign that London is losing its status is that visitlondon.com listed this shrine to lard as a ‘restaurant/brassiere,’ as opposed to the place you go when you are so drunk that even the local kebab shop won’t serve you.

I came to London for all three of these things, well four if you count the Dixie Chicken experience. Let’s just say that I have since discovered that the first two can’t satisfy me (the jury is still out on whether the Fried chicken can nourish my soul), so I am relying on culture to enrich my life. Yet I realised this week that my idea of culture is an overpriced pay TV subscription, I didn’t even take out the optional ‘culture’ package. How is it possible that anyone who lives in London can end up so void of culture?

A contributing factor to my shallowness (apart from just being thick) maybe that like all Londoners I often simply find it hard to make my way around the city to go culture hunting. We spend so much time travelling underground --that eventually life at street level becomes a little disorienting. This is the reason that you see people scrambling for the tube stairs so quickly; there is something comforting about signage that tells you where to go, where to stand and even how you should hold your handbag. Life above ground has become far too complicated.

The tube has also messed with our sense of direction, and ability to gauge distances. Most tube stops are only hundreds of yards apart, but the tube map was designed by someone who wanted passengers to be convinced that they were travelling great distances to justify the extortionate ticket prices. As we fear getting lost (or fit) if we walk further than 100 yards, we will gravitate towards anything close to the tube station. How else can Primark at Marble Arch or Leister Square be explained? So no matter how amazing the Imperial War museum may be, unless they move it half a mile I ain’t going.

You also have to look very hard to find actually find culture in London. London is a bit like one of those holiday brochures that mislead you by getting you all excited looking at photos that are thirty years old. When you get there things aren’t quite as the photos led you to believe.

Postcards of London feature all the wonderful traditional things that one might expect to find - Beefeaters, Palaces, scones and pots of tea. All these things do exist and are wonderful, but you have to look at little bit harder to find them. They are hidden behind chain stores. Chain stores are an architectural cancer that is ravaging the city of London.

Every High Street in London looks exactly the same as the next; the only thing that varies is the number of muggings. The exception to all this is the truly magical Primrose Hill. Primrose Hill is notably the only town in the UK to successfully oppose the opening of a Starbucks. Not surprising when you know who the locals are: Robbie Williams, Sadie Frost, Kate Moss and Jude Law. I am not sure though why these people, of all people, would say no to an espresso.

I read this week that Starbucks was planning to expand further around London. There are currently eight Starbucks within a ten-minute walk of my flat. So I can only imagine that they have planning permission to build stores in people’s lounge rooms. Maybe they thought it necessary, as so many of us are left house bound by our Sky subscriptions.

Just when I think I am being a bit harsh on us Londoners I recall the woman I saw the other night at the pub. A well-dressed middle-aged woman was snuggling up to the fire with a book. She had a smile on her face, the kind of smile which only comes when two characters finally get together after hundreds of pages of agonising unrequited love, or when you have solved a murder that would have had Miss Marple dialling 118 118. Then I realise that this woman is reading a copy of ‘Tesco Spring/Summer Catalogue.’ I now no longer question the study released recently, which claims an immigrant’s grasp of English actually decreases after spending time in London.

After my incident with my Sky Box I took out a weekly subscription to London Time Out magazine. If ever I was stuck for something to do again I would be able to refer to this social bible. Maybe I would even make an effort to turn my Sky off more often. My first copy arrived this morning after what seemed like an eternity. I tore it open with the enthusiasm of a four year old at Christmas one who had eaten its body weight in sweets. I flicked through the glossy pages and then I sat down on my sofa and not surprisingly read the TV guide first.