Now I don't want to sound like Ray Davies having a stroke during an acoustic version of 'Waterloo Sunset on 'Later with Jools Holland, live from the Countdown Rest Home for the Long Dead', but I watched John Betjeman's excellent 'Metroland' last night which was, as we all know, a rather nostalgic trip down the Metropolitan Line following the original 'Metroland' guide from Baker Street and into the suburbs right up to Amersham.

Anyway, the sepia quality of the film, the language, the facades of the houses and the brief history lesson got me feeling a bit 'soppy' for outer London and the sleepy suburbs and it got me thinking - are the sbburbs where you go when you get tired of City living and want a 'quiet life' - but with the 'thrill' of your old self just a few stops away, or are the suburbs 'deathly' (as Orwell put it) - the place where dull nosey people live and who have never really lived anywhere vibrant or dirty and that its not really the romantic 'getaway' or sleepy home of the commuter - is the City somehow 'cool' and the suburbs 'dull'?

This isn't meant to sound Londoncentric as this can refer to Bristol, Liverpool or Tobermory, the latter at a push, obv.