One of the most aggressive places in London is not The City where financiers fire like bullets from office to office nor oxford St  where  wild eyed shoppers stampede like startled buffalo into any coral with a logo.  It’s Euston Train Station,   the funnel of fear that shoots  northerners back up North like rolled up notes in a banks air lock tubes.  Euston station is the most aggressive place in London. It makes Heathrow Airport seem like a playpen.

The fear of London is such that the Northerner has   become the most aggressive defensive and ignorant element of  it.  They’ll tell anyone who’ll listen that London is an aggressive unfriendly place.    What they won’t tell you is how unwilling they are to be part of the solution and how ignorant they are of being a major  part of the problem: ironic that  Rochdale hails itself “birthplace of the cooperative.”

If you’re from  a friendly place why not try being,  for example, friendly.   Why not bring some of that “Northern charm” to  London when you visit or   is it so exclusive that it doesn’t actually stand the rigorous test of , say, a two hour train journey.    

Euston station remains the hellish vortex of vehemence. There’s even armed police there incase it all kicks off.     Most of the Northern inhabitants will trample over their grandmothers to get get the right seat on the train back to their respective cities where they can  moan – no doubt to their hospitalised northern
grandmothers – about how horribly selfish  London is. Meanwhile stingily they stuff their pockets with the gold they’ve taken from it.

I moved to London for love not money and thankfully it gives me both. I know my local shopkeeper. In the metropolis   I am surrounded by experts,  talented individuals who are far better at doing what I do than I am.  And I cherish that.   Maybe what northerners   fear is being surrounded by people more skilled themselves and less concerned with each others doings. 

Confidence is not exercised  by what is known but is invigorated and
flourishes when surrounded by what is not.  I never believed in Northern charm.  As a northerner   “Northerner charm” had  “exclusive club” written all over it in Monotype Corsiva.  If elevated above all else  charm is cheap,  a fake  calling card with a fake address selling a fake product.   If London does anything it reflects who you are and what you are through a lense offering greater context and more detail. What you see when you come to London, most of all, is you.