Or: How I didn’t learn to stop worrying and love the CPZ

If, reading this, you suddenly come across a nmcgyhru47rthgfjdkss;s;’ or a nmdgft eu3946759[]\’/.,mkj, then you’ll know that either Milan or Liverpool scored in the Champion’s League Final, either Gattuso bit the spaghetti legs of Peter Crouch or Gerrard chomped on a bit of Kaka. The deadline has loomed too quickly and there’s a nice morejois holiday-a-coming so this might get a little rushed. Somethings have to get concertinered if they’re all gonna get done. Forgive me if the quality dips a little.

Round where I live, Norf Lunnun, but a little west of the refinement of Highgate, we’re just getting ready for the next encroachment of the Bushy Bunny and the Beady Bird. The newest tax on those of us who persist in polluting the city with our motors. Another administrative demarcation designed to limit our freedom of movement, or in this case, staying put. The money grabbing scheme that is the CPZ. BUT… I am standing with open arms, welcoming in the line painters. I applaud the swarming wardens with their digital cameras and computer tickets. I wake early in the hope of spotting a long abandoned motor swinging from the arm of a Car Jacker, I mean Tow truck. Me, I got my permit weeks ago! For too long my neighbourhood has been a dumping ground for stolen cars, the car park of those outta towners who park for free whilst living in rural bliss! Trying to have it both ways huh? Well now you’ll haveta buy and eat yer cake in Willesden, buddy! For more nights than I care to remember I’ve hadta park 3 streets away and haul my sorry arse home after a late night shindig, through rain and wind and the giggles of late night lotharios peeking from illicit bedroom windows before fumbling with cold keys in an ill lit threshold. For saving me from this late night irritation, and the early morning moan of a parking ticket given on the second of the time limit, I am grateful to the Squirrel and the Buzzard. Huh, did I say that? Well, to a degree…

            I am aware that all this is just another manifestation of the further encroachment of the Morejoisie (this glorious new noun, given to us by Mr T Lott) of which I was born a member and, despite my misgivings and other sympathies, am so destined to remain. All of us middle-classy arsey white folk, having filled the Islingtons, Camdens and Ladbroke Groves with like-looking folk and priced ourselves outta home and neighbours, are pouring into new boroughs in the hope of turning our gilt into solid gold, our mid terraced boxes into lures for the next generation of new money and eyeing up the local Church Schools. But what of the new neighbours and their many, many trucks, scratched cars and overlittered front gardens? What do they reckon to the invading hordes of posh birds, jaded menfolk and squawking bairns?

Well, I haveta say that they’ve been enormously welcoming and friendly so far. Despite the fact that this whole CPZ affair has curtailed their haphazard parking instincts, brought unneeded increase in the cost of their households Nvhgszdfg h3rt8y927qtfhw. Xabi Alonso just missed! Phew. And very likely lined the coffers of their retirements. Whenever I get the pangs of guilt over the transformation of the neighbourhood jcwvntvyw344ycghdj PEEEEEEEEERRRRRRLLLLOOOOO!!! Lucky buggers, wicked deflection! Yeah! Anyway, as In was saying, whenever I get the pangs, I remember the wise words of a mate of mine of Carrib extraction, “I wouldn’t worry mate, they look at what they bought the houses for and what they’re getting today, check the exchange rate and say a little prayer of thanks!” But still, methinks that for a brief moment there, before all the other folk like me swarmed in, their was a glorious moment of harmonious multiculturalism in action, a little rainbow coalition in my own backyard. Now it’s all becoming a little   magnolia. A little more Merc and Lexus, less dented Beemer and ancient ‘yota. And I miss the colour.

I haveta admit I dropped this particular ball and watched the other ‘til the bitter end. Bitter, I hear you ask? Didn’t the nero-rossi win? Well, yeah, but they forgot to play football, and there’s nothing worse than yer mates winning big with graceless luck, no skill and then bragging about it. Liverpool’s were the only players who tried to win it (Except Inzhaghi of course).  Also, the age those ‘ragazzi’ are they REALLY shoulda known better! I hope that tomorrow, as I peruse the swarm of Meter Men, the swing of the removed Motor and the spread of the unallowing double yellow, I will spare a thought, and show a little sympathy, for the previously grinning Lothario, the holiday maker returning from Gatwick, the Express and the Tube, beladen with souvenirs and plagued with screaming kids way early in the morn, to find his car G O N gone and then the Man who just plum forgot to get up when the alarm went, as I have so often done before but will no longer have to worry about. I hope so.

Thing is, standing on the very brink of this seismic suburban shift, it’s a heavy price to pay for a secure parking spot. The slide of a community from challenging and enriching, all open doors and neighbours out front picking through their own litter, to the safe and yet unknown, all tugged crimson curtains and winking alarm boxes. Mebbe it’s time to move again, find a new borough that is steeped in the old ways? Time is growing round my gut and choking my ankles, the fleetness of foot and keenness of eye are betrayed by a certain immobility but more dangerously an increasing weight of baggage! Sometimes the cares and opinions of others have greater force. Certainly greater volume! And so it is with football, although one’s abiding passions never sway (God forbid!), in a game of neutrals, one’s objectivity rules subjectivity and you find your mind being changed mid way, you give thanks that you’re not down the boozer with a bunch o’ gits who’d spot your switch and you cling to the wise words of WB Yeats, “Civilisation is an exercise in self restraint”. So no more wkjbafvbpapna from me!