Last Friday I was in London. London is a city I’ve never really liked. I’ve never really been able to put my finger on the reason why, but I suspect it’s something to do with the bustle and the pervading sense of grime and dirt. You can never quite escape the weight of all those people. A population of nearly eight million is something you can smell in the air and feel in the ground beneath your feet, it’s an ever present fact pushing down on you. The sense of unease and oppression I feel in London is likely rooted in my roots as a quaint country lad. Throughout my life the only cities I’ve had regular cause to visit have only had populations around the 250,000 mark, some 30 times less than that of our heaving metropoloid capital. The population density of London according to data from 2009 is 12,773 souls per square imperial mile. Do you know how that compares to my quaint northern homeland? It has a population density of 160 people per square mile. One hundred and sixty! It is perhaps no small wonder then that London puts me on edge and fills me with an unspoken bitterness. Perhaps there’s also a small current of paranoia there too, as if I think the Southrons are out to get me; Northmen do not really belong in such a place as Old London Town.

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