Honestly, a town (cruelly) nicknamed “God’s waiting room” doesn’t sound all that great to me —although I live in a place a close relative once referred to as “south London’s arsehole”, so who am I to judge?
And to be fair to Bexhill-on-Sea (the so-nicknamed antechamber-of-death in question), I’m the one swimming against the tide. Specifically: away from the seaside.
Yes, apparently thirty-somethings are leaving London in droves to live on the coast. Bexhill-on-Sea, formerly a magnet for the very geriatric, the average asking price has risen by 13 per cent; other hotspots include Eastbourne and Hastings.
I get it, obviously. While one day the pandemic will end and the city will sing again, it will be expensive forever. For the price of a 0.5-bed with a kitchen-slash-toilet in Zone 48, you can get a Selling Sunset-superpad in Hastings, complete with topiary garden and subterranean recording studio, I assume.
And yes, London landlords are succubi; sitting on a delayed Northern line feels like a slow-mo death of the soul; and yesterday I passed a crow picking over the carcass of a bloodied rat. (Although have you ever seen the seagulls dive bomb a Brighton toddler’s chip butty? Hitchcock couldn’t have done better).
And yet you’ll prise London out of my cold, dead hands. I spend all my money living here, and I can’t think of a better thing to do with it. After a brief trip away, I feel enormously relieved when the train pulls back into town and I can climb back onto a festering 148 bus (sea air, who?).
Many will disagree, to which I say, more London for me — and at least you won’t have to squish into my kitchen-slash-toilet. Plus, even you leavers must grant me the one downside involved in moving to the seaside — namely, that you will become A Massive Cliché.
You will definitely talk about how cheap it is — which isn’t the sort of thing lifelong residents actually like to hear all that much — and you will rhapsodise to friends about the “local art scene”, much as I do about the Tate (I see you: I haven’t been since 2018).
You will get really into taking a “chilly dip” at 7am — guys, we get it: you have a dryrobe — and obviously, you will also acquire a whippet, or some other etiolated and trendy dog, and then share the “journey” of potty-training him on Instagram.
Worse yet, in search of a “side hustle” (shudder) to fill your copious time, you’ll probably do something like open a natural wine bar. Last time I was in Cornwall, and gravitated to a natural wine bar — yeah, yeah, I’m no better than you — I learned it was owned by a couple who had, until recently, lived about a mile away from me in south London.
Above all, though — the cliché to end all clichés — you will spend so much time talking about how much better your new town is than London, that honestly, it starts to come across as a little…defensive. Unlike me, obviously. I’m not defensive at all.
Zendaya’s a Londoner! Or at least she’s about to be
Speaking of reasons to stay in the capital: Zendaya’s a Londoner! Or at least she’s about to be. The 25-year old actor is reported to be moving into a six-bed in “leafy” Richmond with her boyfriend, Spider-Man’s Tom Holland. I imagine it doesn’t have a kitchen-slash-toilet.
Surely there is no greater seal approval for the city than the arrival of a Gen Z hyper-icon (saving, perhaps, from the time it turned out Rihanna had been living in St John’s Wood for months and no one knew until they spotted a Sainsbury’s bag in the background of one of her Instagram stories and put two and two together). Seaside émigrés: are you reconsidering now?
Anyway, Zendaya and Tom will have the keys to the city, and presumably throw bashes with the Euphoria and Spider-Man gangs (imagine that crossover film). If she needs anyone to show her around, please consider my application. I’m free! Welcome to town — you’re going to love it.
