Living in London

Samuel Johnson famously said, in conversation with his friend Boswell:

"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

The short form is often quoted as part of an introduction to London:

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life."

In either form the meaning is clear; in 1777 (September 20th, to be precise) London was considered, by a biased observer, to be about the most interesting place a man could choose to live.

What does that mean for the rest of us? Anything at all? I suppose 235 year-old quotes might sometimes be illuminating but this one, particularly in is shortened form, is merely witty. London in the 1770s was probably a great place to live if you had plenty of money, much as it still is, but a pretty lousy place to be if you were at the bottom of the pile.

So what is it that I like about this noisy, dirty, expensive, crowded, polluted and impersonal city? Most of my family live in small rural towns and villages in Hampshire, West Sussex, Lincolnshire and Surrey. They like the peace and quiet of the countryside with its tractors and birdsong and pesticides, the sense of space and lack of crowds and the almost total absence of community amenities. Strange.

All of these things are fairly obvious to a casual observer - they're simply the main differences between city and countryside living. What's less obvious is that we, living five miles from the centre of the biggest city in Europe, actually have easier access to green spaces than all of our rural relatives put together.

How can this be? Surely, out in the country, everyone can spend as much time as they like in green fields and woodland? Well, no, not really. If you live in the countryside you are basically surrounded by the agricultural equivalent of an industrial estate. Fields, meadows and coppiced woods might have paths through or around them but you can't roam freely across them - they're working lands, not pleasure gardens, and they're largely off limits. You can look, but don't touch.

In contrast, within a short walk (along tree-lined avenues) of our flat there are two large parks, Peckham Rye and Dulwich Park, and two fairly substantial woods, One Tree Hill and Nunhead Cemetery. They are all open and free. They have tennis courts, cafes, sports fields, bike hire shops, running tracks, exercise machines, Japanese gardens, bowling greens, woodland walks and boating lakes.

So why do people live in the country? I think it must be the sense of space and the silence. Which is great, if you like that sort of thing, but occasional doses are good enough for me; I'd rather live in a city with a decent collection of shops and a fast Internet connection.