london city highlights...mind the gab

I live in London, England. Finsbury Park in N. London (pronounced "Norf Laaandon") to be exact. 10 years ago Finsbury Park was one of those areas that became infamous for it's seedy streets. In those days you had to avoid the area because it was full of crack whores and wannabe gangsters. For years I thought that all the closed roads near my flat were part of some elaborate one-way system. In actuality, the roads were closed to stop the kerb crawlers from picking up a "special friend." It's strange, I don't remember the real estate agent mentioning it.

The main reason that Finsbury Park (read it backwards, out loud) is now the coolest place on earth (and it doesn't even have a McDonalds!) is because of the students. Do you remember them? Lovable, spotty, perhaps single, 18-year olds experimenting with mind-altering books and convincing themselves that paisley is brilliant (which it is).

Well, about 7 years ago the government decided that any and all of the colleges in England could, if they wanted, become Universities. Consequently, every last god forsaken shit-hole of a college turned into a University. This led to a slight decrease in tone in the English education system. suddenly, there were 72 squillion Universities to choose from (of which only 10 were any good). You can now enroll in a degree course if you can spell you own name correctly. I'm not joking. I heard that you can get a nursing & nannying degree at a London University with two E grade levels. This would not be challenging to anyone with two brain cells to rub together (one braincell per level?).

Lo and behold, down the road from sunny Finsbury Park was the North London Polytechnic, which of course is now the University of North London (UNL). But where on earth were all these student types going to live? I think they all got together and brainstormed. A thought evolved, it eventually became a word, and that word was "cheap." Next thing you know, they're swarming here, bothering the whores and giving the area a worse name than it already had! But to be fair to them, now the locals mug the students instead of me (quite rightly, too). So they moved in and they've lived here happily ever since (8 to a room) The problem is that they haven't attracted the right sort of business.

And what is the right sort? Everyone knows students are permanently broke. This is absolute, unless it involves any (or all) of the following: sex, drugs, music, paisley. The students'overpowering need to smoke skunkuntil they're blind, drink Stella Artois lager until they pass out, piss themselves and fuck anything that moves (yes anything, bisexuality is "de riguer" at universities these days) leaves Finsbury Park with one half ecent pub, a posh version of KFC called Nando's ( same shit, it just costs 2 quid (pounds) more, that's some capitalism for ya) and a vegetarian Indian restaurant called Jai Krishna, where you can feed every one you know for 15 pounds. This means that there can't possibly be enough students here. If there were, then there really should be shops of the Gap or Starbucks-caliber around the neighborhood.

So what am I going on about? Basically, I want more students around here! I want nubile 18-year-old females wandering down my street alone and looking gorgeous. I want loads of pubs and clubs and kebab shops to open up to cater to their every whim. Fabulous neighbourhood restaurants and bohemian cafes for them to smoke roll ups in. And at the end of it all, I want to go to every one of them, to immerse myself in their culture. And why do I want to do this? I want to be ten years younger. It's sad.

Abban Brennan