When a man is tired of London, it's probably because he's spent more than an hour there. My hasty update of Samuel Johnson's famous observation is admittedly unlikely to enter the Oxford Book of Quotations, but it may, I suspect, at least ring the very faintest of bells in the minds of those who have ever lived, worked, or merely encountered someone who has lived there. I proffer this thought against the general background of the upcoming mayoral elections, on 3 May.
I find London exhausting. Confusing. Impermeable. Off-putting. Enticing. If this sounds curious, it's probably because I've only ever actually been to London on four occasions. On the first of these, I bought a hotdog outside Buckingham Palace for £2.50. This, I suspect, marked the beginnings of my own hard-edged brand of republicanism. On the same occasion, I received my official Legoland driver's licence. You can imagine my shock upon discovering the blasted thing isn't even valid. In such a wild and tumultuous crucible my queasiness about London was inculcated and began to flourish.
But I'm rambling somewhat. If London is the greatest city in the world, why are those poor, busy, frustrated, hard-pressed Londoners forced to choose between the bad joke that is Ken Livingstone and the bad joke that is Boris Johnson? I made this point on Twitter yesterday and had literally some retweets and replies. One quite rightly suggested that this Manichean choice, shit and shit, was not really the fault of ordinary Londoners. I agree. I admit my sentiment was rapidly approaching the analogy of blaming the proceeding generations of ordinary Germans for the crimes of the Third Reich, a philosophical, moral and historical position I'm deeply uncomfortable with. (Thankfully nothing of that this year, except when Ken briefly called Boris Hitler). I can't imagine being a voter and staring blankly at the ballot paper come that fateful Thursday. Decide, mortals: the sub-Wodehousian, comically buffoonish, piccaninnies-and-watermelon-smiles BoJo, or the Jews-won't-vote-Labour-because-they're-rich, al-Qaradawi-embracing, grossly indulgent, shiftily-tax-evading Red Ken? Of course, as autonomous individuals you'll technically speaking have plenty to choose from - Brian Paddick, Jenny Jones, Siobhan Benita, BNP, UKIP, abstention, desecration. But it'll always, forever, wind up swinging back to the blue corner against the red corner. A plague on all their houses. Punishing the sons for the sins of the fathers. I'm just free associating in my very own little Euripides play here.
My advice? Come northward. Move the capital elsewhere. Plenty of countries get by perfectly well having capital cities that are decidely not their largest cities. The United States. Australia. Canada. Brazil. Park the new capital in the north, perhaps roughly equidistant between London and the border with Scotland. Say, for argument's sake, in Buxton, Derbyshire. The fact that I live here is entirely coincidental. Strip London of all the perks and attraction and glamour and reputation. Give it some breathing space, a rest. Cut ordinary Londoners some slack. Help kick-start the economy here in the north (we're flagging, by-the-by). Things might well become more sensible and practicable. The London mayoral contests would no longer be the electoral equivalent of cocks-on-the-table, or my cock's bigger than your cock, to restrict my analogies to the general crotch area. It may then attract some more decent, more thoughtful, more compelling, more feasible, less ridiculous, less polarised, less o tempora, o mores! sensations than heretofore. Plus, we do some great pasties here up north.
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