Morning:
14°c
It didn't have the right ring about it. "Amy Winehouse, Barnet". It sounded as wrong as "Prince William, Catford".
And so it was that the genteel suburbs of Barnet, home of good state schools and not too many lock-ins, failed to hold Winehouse in thrall, and back she went to Camden.
At the risk of sounding pedantic, whatever the tabloids might claim, Amy actually went back to Chalk Farm. When it comes to the boozy antics of today's youth, Chalk Farm always seems to get misrepresented as Camden, but as a Chalk Farm resident, I feel we should be accurate. Yes, Camden was the home of Britpop (its principal drinking den, The Laurel Tree, is indisputably near Camden Town Tube), but that was 10 years ago. These days, everything centres on The Hawley Arms, a good half-mile up the road. The Hawley is that rare thing in London: a pub that is still packed, its loyal clientele so devastated when it burned down last year that they lobbied the local council to get it rebuilt again, and threw a big party once it had been.
Still, The Hawley alone doesn't explain Chalk Farm's appeal among the crazier members of London's party scene. Even caners have to eat sometimes, and this is where the Marathon Kebab House comes in. Henry Holland had his birthday party there, while Pete Doherty often pops in for a doner.
From incoherent kids to intellectuals spilling out of the Roundhouse, all human life is here. Richard Curtis will never make a film about Chalk Farm but that's precisely why I love it. Like Amy, I'd choose it over Barnet any day.
* British retailers might be languishing but the Italian superbrands are still living la dolce vita. On one stretch of Sloane Street it is as though the recession never happened. Missoni has just opened its first London store at No 193; Dolce & Gabbana is re-opening its revamped boutique at No 175, and at No 18, the new-look Gucci store was unveiled over the weekend, a 20,000 sq ft temple of glass, mirror and tone-on-tone bronze. Meanwhile, the rest of Britain's high streets turn to ghost towns. I don't suppose Gucci fancies opening a branch in Torquay?
* Here's a tip for anyone too skint to venture to the Fat Duck: get yourself to Popham Services on the A303 instead. For a mere £5.95, you too can sample the culinary skills of Heston Blumenthal thanks to his splendidly revamped Little Chef restaurant. Granted, the food on offer isn't so much molecular gastronomy as bog standard classic British but, still, we had the time of our lives. My steak pudding was divine, while any place that serves ice cream topped with popping candy deserves a medal for transporting children to such ecstasies that they barely noticed the journey back to London.
