Samuel Johnson once said when a man is tired of London he is tired of life. Not so. When a man is tired of London, he’s tired of having no life.


But I suppose back in 1750-whatever, a pint would not have set him back £3.80. Rent on a tiny two-bed flat would not have been £1,100. I doubt foxes would have nibbled through his bin bags and left trails of tellingly grey pants, leftover rice and rotten mackerel tails across the road for him to clean up, shame-faced, in front of the neighbours. He’d not had the pleasure of whiling away hours on the underground, sometimes moving, often not, packed in and pressed up against miserable strangers in order to reach a grim 3rd floor office to work such long hours he forgot what friends looked like and they forgot to invite him to parties. No, all he had to contend with was TB and the pox. And he only had half a million Londoners to be jossled by. Pah!

I’ve been in London for five years - starting off at Elephant and Castle (time from moving in until being mugged: 5 days), then the Isle of Dogs, Limehouse and now Ealing. And I'm tired. I want to get back to the north west. I’m talking about Manchester, not Golders Green. Except it's proving quite difficult...