thelondonpaper - Birthday in London
2006-11-29

This entry was written for thelondonpaper and was printed in the December 5, 2006 edition. You can read the newspaper version HERE

We went down to London on Monday to see the Violent Femmes play the Shepherd's Bush Empire. They still rock even though they're old and fat.

We also walked past the sushi joint where that Russian spy was poisoned with polonium-210. Even condemned buildings are trendy in Piccadilly circus. The entire storefront was covered in a black box with white writing on the front. It looked more like a new store was about to open than a radioactive death box.

Drinking in London (even Hammersmith where we were) seems more civilised than in Nottingham city centre on a Friday night. You notice a distinct lack of doughy, cackling, hens stuffed like sausages into sparkly, way too small, way too revealing, evening wear.

You don’t see any 200lb, balding, 40-year-old douche bags sporting England shirts bounding about the streets like overgrown teenagers knocking over rubbish bins, necking Stella and beating the bejeezus out of each other.

Why not? Where are London’s yobs? Why isn’t central London overrun with white trash yobs like Nottingham at night? Was there some secret London yob embargo I hadn’t heard of?

And then it all became clear when I went to a taping of the Paul O’Grady show.

There are chavs in London. They're just not allowed to walk the streets. Instead, they are corraled into television studios where they aren’t a danger to anyone except, perhaps, Henry Winkler and Dionne Warwick. Genius.

I had never been to the taping of a television show before so I was excited. Not quite as excited as the doughy, sparkly shirted girl in front of me or the toothless benefits thief to my left, but excited nonetheless.

Warm-up guy comes out and he is pumped. He tells us to cheer loudly, then cheer softly. He makes crazy promises of Champagne and even works in a few off-colour jokes about immigrants. Under normal circumstances, that may have been frowned upon, but this is a television studio audience. Yobs like jokes about immigrants. Yobs also like booze. Oprah gives out cars to her audience, but Champagne isn’t bad. “It’s like being on Oprah junior”, I thought to myself.

We were then told to clap, then shut up, clap, shut up, say “oooooooh” and then “RISK IT!!”, then clap again, then shut up again. It was like being worked over by a German dominatrix. By the end of it, I felt, well... violated, frankly.

A few eczema infected dogs and a dreadlocked kid who couldn’t pronounce “herring” later, and it was over. I was exhausted. We all filed out quietly. No Champagne, but everyone was too drained to notice, most of the audience members were likely involved in a 12 step program of some description, anyway.

The solution to Nottingham’s yob problem is obvious. Forget the rehab clinics, build more television studios.