The Londoner

Altogether now...'Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner, that I love London town.....'

In fact that's the only bit of the song I know which is well poor for a boy from Streatham.

But during my time Streatham has become St Reatham and wildly unafffordable unless you happen to have been a boy from Streatham who done well.

Well over the years I have been done.

None more so than Sunday night as I waited for the 390 bus to take me from the glittering building that is the Guardian's new home at Kings Place up towards Highgate where I am in half-term residence with the brood.

The new shiny HQ is in the middle of an urban wasteland that would just love to be a hinterland.

It will be transformed. But change is a coming via somewhere else. And we may have to wait a long time before we see the dazzling array of gastro-pubs and glitzy bistrots.

The 390 bus stop is a lonely post. It is on a narrow strip of pavement bordered by a big fence. The traffic whizzes past. And I saw a lot of whizzing last night as I waited and waited. And waited.

Eventually the bus came. I thought the cold had affected my eyesight as it looked like a very long bus.

But nay, my senses were still operational it was just that two 390s came at the same time.

As I was getting off the bus at Archway I asked the driver about the delay and he told me there were problems on the Bayswater Road over which had snarled up progress.

I was neither shocked nor narked. I knew the score.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner.....