Islington: Fifth Worst Place To Live In UK?

In Britain, we pride ourselves on the wonderful quality of our mainstream media output. In recent years, however, much to many commentators' chagrin, there has been a dearth of original programming, and an horrendous glut of copying. In the prime-time battle of the channels, there is now so much repetition of format, with the same small group of identikit TV-friendly presenters shoving their well-fed faces into one slightly different program after another, all on the same basic set of "domestic" themes, that a dreadful homogeniety is now the norm. Comedians Mitchell and Webb created a hilariously sharp send up of this tendency, spoof programs like "People Buying A House And Then Living In It".

One such team working for the usually half-decent Channel 4 have just run a program based on "rock solid" research which shows that this place of mine is situated in the fifth worst borough in the UK. The "worst" list (according to Allsopp and Spencer) runs as follows:

• Hackney


• Tower Hamlets


• Merthyr Tydfil


• Newham


• Islington


• Middlesbrough


• Nottingham


• Strabane


• Blaenau Gwent


• Manchester

Unsurprisingly, this has people from these places up in arms defending the honour of their patch. Regular readers will know that I do not hold back in my criticism of London; but I can understand this defensive reaction, and I think it has to be taken in context. These TV types make a living from peddling snobbery.

Those condemned to remain in these festered isles, either through poverty, lethargy, or liberal guilt at the huge carbon dioxide footprint our nation is excreting, are forced to find somewhere to squat, someplace to spit the chicken bones and dump the plastic bags in Blighty. This is generally referred to as home. At the same time, the huge cost of living means that we are in record personal debt (total UK personal debt in September exceeded £1 ¼ trillion for the first time) with households in London costing 20% more than the national average, and house-buying eating up around 30% of total income.

So, after paying your mortgage, food, fuel and transport bills, you are not left with too much and the only thing to with your leisure time is turn to the internet, read a rag, or watch TV. Apparently western Europeans as a whole watch 12 hours television a week. The result is that, as we stay home, unable to go anywhere else or do anything else through lack of cash, we are forced to watch endless hours of "property porn" catering to dreams of a better life somewhere (anywhere) else where mortgage payments are reasonable, and the fabulous profits to be made from ascending the ladder cheer everyone up at the end of the half hour, and especially those who are about have the electricity cut off.

TV is dead on it's feet, and yet around these parts, despite being cash-strapped and stuck here, we are very much alive. We are surrounded by urban beauty which is lost upon these would-be pundits, embedded in a multi-cultural community that they cannot comprehend, and united in our rejection of this false doctrine. I could endeavour to enlighten these mistaken TV presenters, but it would be without much hope of success, since their smugness will remain until the rising tidewaters of total public rejection lap stinkingly around their pomandered nostrils, and future history condemns them to serving time in an old second-hand HD DVD shop, flogging rejects from the BluRay wars to scrape enough together to pay off their debt to truth.

Here's something that happened yesterday - timely proof that Islington is both charmed, and magical.



I have been to all but two of the places listed, and I can guarantee you one thing - you won't find much snobbery in any of them.

Islington snobbery TV