As far as I can tell, "The Sticks" = "Anywhere outside of the M25", but the stigma somehow gets worse (Stickier?) the further away from this concrete ring you travel.
So by the time you get to the Cotswolds, as far as people in our own capital city are concerned, all we do here is occasionally munch a few carrots here and there, wear dirty and ripped dungarees and mostly get about from field to field on our tractors. Which we apparently refer to as "Tra-errrs". We'll meet up with our farmer friends at the respective corners of our land, say 'Oo-arr...' in a knowing way whilst nodding slowly and gazing into the distance, then head to another field and repeat the process with that neighbour. Finally, we'll shoot a rabbit with our 12-bore shotgun and take it home to skin and eat for tea that night.
My colleagues sometimes seem to conveniently forget that we do have technology in this part of the world as well, and that I actually work for the same company as them where I advise on secure business internet and hosting solutions, platforms, cloud computing and all... *yawn* (boring myself again). Most of the time this is just to open up an opportunity for a bit of banter which I very much enjoy, but I can't help but wonder sometimes that they actually believe it all a bit more than they let on...
I've always thought that there is some secret in London that I am missing for so many people to want to live there, or for the millions that do to actually want to stay there and shout about how great it is.
But is it? Is it really? I don't think so and have rapidly come to the conclusion that I'm not missing any secret at all - you just need to be a certain type of person to actually WANT to stay there and make a life in the place.
I'm off to London tomorrow to show my colleagues down there that I still do exist, that I do know what a suit is and that I don't actually smell of manure. I hope. Am I looking forward to it? Not really. Let me explain why, drawing from previous trips and experiences.
- I have to get up earlier than usual. Never a good start. OK, I admit, not London's fault, but I ain't happy about it.
- Trains, Tube and Public Transport. I hate trains, and I dislike any sort of public transport intensely, mostly because when it fails, it tends to fail on an epic level. If I'm driving somewhere and get stuck in a jam or the car breaks down (not happened yet but might), at least I am in control and responsible for the situation, or potentially I can make a choice to try alternative routes. Not so with public transport. And as for the Tube - convenient, yes, I give it that. But try travelling during busy periods in the heat of the Summer (assuming we get one). How I love the clammy feel of my shirt and suit sticking to me whilst pressed up against several other bodies with my face in someone's armpit - usually the guy built like a brick out-house wearing no sleeves so his armpit-hair starts tickling my nostrils. It then turns into the "Please God Don't Let Me Open-Mouth Sneeze Into The Brick House's Armpit" game. Bad times.
- Let's ignore the Tube and the Taxis and take a wander on the streets and meet all the happy go-lucky people! Fail, on several levels:
- The air is so pollution-filled your lungs start to immediately collapse
- Assuming you survive the smoggy atmosphere, you quickly learn another fact - NO ONE OUTSIDE IN LONDON EVER SMILES. And God forbid even attempts to make eye contact. Even if you succeed at this rare challenge, it's usually seen as an act of aggression and the person you looked at will then proceed to beat you to death with his little fold-up bicycle.
- EVERYONE is always in a big rush to get where they're going. It's a real push and shove or be pushed and shoved world out there.
- No-one speaks to you. Unless they are with you, or mugging you.
- It's too noisy! On the few occasions I have stayed overnight in London, the ambient noise consists of sirens (not the good kind) and murders. And that's it.
- It's too big. Whilst choice and convenience are obviously good things and beneficial, there is such a thing - a very real thing - as too much choice and London absolutely has too much of everything. Even deciding where to get lunch from can be a mammoth task if you don't shut your brain down quickly and settle for the Subway around the corner.
- It's too threatening. You can't go anywhere without seeing large groups of hoodies, drunks or murderers. Half the journey planning is spent dynamically adjusting your path to cross streets or take alternative routes to avoid being killed.
- The taxi drivers, who have an amazing ability in terms of memorising streets and knowing every possible and alternative path to get you from point A to point B, are all insane. Many a time I have been treated to tales of how the driver's family was in the drugs business, or how the coppers have been round recently, or how they know someone who has beaten up someone or been beaten up recently whilst on a 900mph ride back to Paddington station. One such trip consisted of the driver literally flooring it all the way and doing nothing but cackling madly, only subsiding into silence when working out the change he owed me for the fare.
Compare that to my little town where I can park. I have clean air. I have a bit of choice (or at the very worst I travel for 15 minutes to another little town) over anything be it food, clothing, household goods, electricals, restaurants. Where people lazily wonder around even during the week, not in a rush. Where people actually look at you and return smiles - even initiating conversation of all things. Where you don't feel threatened at all, even if you're in town in the middle of the night; walking past a group of teenagers the most you have to worry about is one of them - having not seen you - wandering into your path.. and then apologising for doing so. Where the nearest Police force is based 20 miles away, as it is hardly ever needed.
I feel relaxed where I live, and it's not just because I'm used to it. In London I am almost constantly tense, only ever relaxing when I start to see green things outside of the train windows.
I love visiting London - it's great for big shopping trips at seasonal times of the year. It's great for a weekend break - treating myself and my wife to a nice hotel, with good food, and maybe catching a theatre show (-10 man points). It's somewhere 'different' but not in the middle of nowhere. So visiting, fine. I get that. I like that. I understand that. I just couldn't live there. It would drive me mad and I think that within a very short time-frame I would just not want to converse with people. Not want to smile at them. Not even want to make eye contact with them. If I had to venture outside, I would get from A to B as quickly as possible without taking any further note of the people or anything else around me. I can see a pattern here.
In my opinion, London living is for people who want to maximise their contacts in terms of business acquaintances so that they can 'do lunch', and 'network', and/or for people who love the night-life, taking 30 minutes to get served at a busy bar, shouting to talk to anyone, drinking until the small hours, maybe looking for quick, no-strings-attached relationships all the way through to their forties and generally spending most of their time either stressed out or in a busy bar.
To me, all of those people absolutely have their priorities wrong. But, as always, this is just an opinion.
If that's what London is all about - they can have it.
I'll be on my Tra-errr.
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