Screwfix - new branch.

I work in one of the nicer bits of London - Covent Garden general area. It's not unpleasant and I'd rather be there compared to say Wimbledon or Kingston, but the crowds do do my head in. All in all I'd rather work in Tunbridge Wells - same level of vibrancy, cafes and general niceness with a LOT less busy-ness.

But, if you were able to work in TW, it would be serving coffee in The Pantiles or painting somebody's nails.

Fairy nuff. But I get the impression Bill has never lived in London.

Friends would be the main thing at my age. But I still enjoy the facilities.

I'd not call it that noisy here. And most cities are polluted and overcrowded.

We have Youngs and Fullers round here. Local pub a choice of guest beers. More than, I'd bet, the average country pub.

Yes - I fear that is essentially true...

Either that or work for an insurance company (we have a couple of major ones).

Odd you mention Wimbledon. The village and round the common are one of the most expensive bits of suburban London, so some must like it. I do. Kingston is more of just a shopping centre - but close to plenty nice parts.

I do like the West End, but only to visit. I'd not like to work or live there.

I'll have to try and catch up with you for lunch. I come to afternoon meetings in Southampton Street about once a month.

If you check the local papers, Kingston is basically drugsville with regular stabbings and fights (it used to be a nice town, decades ago).

Wimbledon - the part you speak of - is undoubtedly nice - but I'd not like to hang around the main part too much after dark (used to work there).

Of course - you have my email :)

Not for any longer than strictly necessary.

But I'll be honest, I did have some good times. On one job I used to spend the evenings in a pub just off Greys Inn Road doing my paperwork. Star turn was the pub dog, which would bound down the stairs when the owner call it, jump onto a bar stool, and lap the pint of Guiness he had pulled for it. Eventually it would fall off the stool and stagger off.

And there was a pub somewhere up in north London, at the end of the street where I was living. It was terrific. They had an old geezer playing the piano and everyone had a sing song, all the old songs.

I did have some interesting times when I used to work away from home. I did a series of jobs on the outskirts of Liverpool, and I stayed in a house belonging to a woman who had been the daughter of my pal's landlord when he'd been at uni up there. She was in her late thirties, and she decided that she wanted a child. However, as an extreme feminist socialist who was obsessed with the idea that white people (such as herself) were bad bad bad, and an associate of 'Degsy' as she called him, she decided that the best father was the Hindi law professor who lived next door. So the deed was done, several times apparently, (without artificial aids) and the half-cast child was duly born. The child is now a wonderful young woman, utterly beautiful, an academic star, and I'm pretty sure that she will rise to the very top of the Labour Party, so just watch this space.

Not content with one child, the woman, presumably having tired of making children herself, adopted two more. To me the outcome proved that genetics matters more than environment, because these two, who came from scumbag families, had exactly the same upbringing as the first child, but they have grown up to be utterly worthless members of society, and the woman is now a grandma rather earlier than she should have been.

Bill

It's full of students. ;-)

What to you call the main part of it? Can't say I know any part of London I'd be worried about when it gets dark. Anymore than being worried about it in daylight.

Right. So you obviously know all of London. Enough to make a sweeping statement. ;-)

The with the station in :)

Can't say I know any part of London

Tower Hamlets...

Ah. Right. Can't say I've found that scary.

It isn't necessary to know every street in a town to know that it's a s*it tip.

Bill

I'm not sure that's true, where do you get that idea from.

Well we want a life where everything doesn't shut at 9pm and there's choices of where to go.

wonder why that is.

All true and that's the attraction.

What's this BBC propergander that everyone want to watch countryfile.

I'd rather have that that the stench of cow s*it 24/7 or be flooded every time a drop of rain falls.

No because it's not really needed for most people, of course there are some people that can't live without a car according to them.

Value is just a price you put on it when you need to sell it. Which is why London house prices are so high because peolpe value them more in that there's more do see and do locally amonst other things.

No it not. because if I wanted to go to a west end show then I'd cost me far less than if I had to drive in from outside london, find somewhere to park.....

Of course, Bill. No different from your views on blacks, etc. They're all the same.

So you're saying that having a car really is impossible, or at least impractical. What do you do when you want to

-- travel at a moment's notice to the deathbed of a provincial relative?

-- buy a secondhand fridge?

-- take the dogs to the vets?

-- sing loudly as you get to your destination?

Bill