I went to a Christmas party in Balham tonight. It's quite a while since I have been to the place that was my home for so many years and the journey there seemed both familiar and alien. It's so long that I even forgot the best tube route to take -Central line to Oxford Circus, Victoria line to Stockwell cross the platform to the Northern line - I went to Tottenham Court Road and changed on to the Northern line there! What a slightly inefficient chump. How could I have forgotten.
Once in Balham everything seemed different.
The Opera singing tramp was not stationed at his usual place and my heart sank as I realised that in all likelihood this meant that the booze and the cold had got to him and he was probably no longer with us. If I was an optomistic person I might conclude that he had woken up one morning, thought "What am I doing with my life?", given up the booze, and managed to find a job and someone to love. But then again I am not sure such a thought would demonstrate optomism, so much as a blatant disregard for the realities of life. I felt sad that he was gone, but he also represented a time when Balham was a different place. There were many other changes that showed that have happened only in the last six months that made me see this was a different town to the one I had moved into in the mid 90s. I mean, I had sensed the changes even when I had been here - the new shops, the different class of people trudging home after work - it was one of the reasons I was happy to move to somewhere scuzzy like Shepherd's Bush where gentrification is some years down the line. Though there is an M&S Foodhall on the green now. But it's in the petrol station which takes some of the curse out of it.
The real killer today though was that there is now a Pizza Express in Balham. A Pizza Express! I ask you. I mean I love Pizza Express.
I love pizza, as this tale clearly demonstrates and Pizza Express is my best pizza of all. But the existence of a Pizza Express in an area says something about it and the people who live there. I never thought there's be a Pizza Express in Balham. I thought it would be a luxurious delight that the denizens of Balham would have to travel to if they wished to experience its quite good pizzas. But now here it was, right opposite Sainsbury's. Balham, my old friend, you have changed. And not in a way that makes me like you more. It makes me like you less. With you convenient amenities. That isn't what Balham is about. Worst of all, my old flat would have been worth loads more if I'd waited to sell it til now! There is a Pizza Express quite near to it.
Things change and we have to accept that. But we don't have to like it.
