Village People

Recently I posted a parcel to a most unusual address in London, a strange and magical place known as 'Wandsworth Village.' If you check Google Maps, the Post Office or Wandsworth council websites' you will find no trace of this mystical hamlet. Although I can recommend the council's handy interactive maps which allow you to locate your nearest grit salt bin. If there is another overnight freeze or your street is invaded by giant flesh-eating slugs neither black ice nor carnivorous gastropods need worry you again.

There are some hints of this so-called village of Wandsworth: local businesses that call themselves bizarre affectations such as 'Cafe du Village Wandsworth', an eaterie that has recently closed. No doubt it fell victim to the crippling contradiction of giving your restaurant a fake Gallic name that includes a letter, 'W', that is not found in the French language.

So other than linguistically-challenged cafe owners, why had the my parcel's recipient insisted on this odd address, when normal folk would use the simple borough and postcode combination. Technically you don't need to use the borough at all, postcode and house or flat number are all that you require, but it seems alien to have only alpha-numerics designate our homes as if we were all robots or drug controlled slaves in the dystopia of THX 1138. So let's stick to boroughs.

But my parcelee had not stuck to boroughs when he emailed his address; nope he was freestyling his location. It's most baffling when the city in question is London, which in my totally unbiased opinion as  Londoner born and bred who has lived here his whole life, is without a doubt the greatest city in the world. (And yes I've been to most of the other contenders. Sydney, for example, is wonderful city sadly filled with Australians. Paris is crammed with French people, alas).

It's as if living in one of the greatest cities on the planet is not enough and these lovers of the village suffix have to carve out their own little corner, signally to the world that they are not like the rest of us vulgar city dwellers. To an estate agent, the word 'village' tacked on the end of an area means a bump on the sale price, because it is also a code. It's a way of white middle-class, educated people telling others like themselves that there is a part of town where you are likely to find a second hand book shop, overpriced organic cakes, brand new furniture for sale that looks battered and broken on purpose and nightlife revolving around cheese tastings or mandolin recitals. There is also a one in two chance of a decent theatre.

As we have all been thinking about the dappy, delusional dame Samantha Brick last week, one phrase springs to mind: get over yourself. Cities are exciting and interesting places to live, precisely because they are not exclusively filled with rich, white folk who left to their own devices create environments so mind-numbingly dull you end up secretly craving a higher crime rate just to liven things up. If you want to live in a village populated with people exactly like you, go and live in the Home Counties; if you live in a big city, celebrate the fact. To quote Groove Armada, 'if everybody looked the same, we'd get tired of looking at each other.'

Large cosmopolitan cities such as London are one of humanity's greatest inventions, alongside Wikipedia and enormous but affordable flat screen TVs. To all those villagers, be  glad you're part of something bigger than yourself and drop the village people act.