I am adjusting to

my new life as

a couch surfer

 

David Torrance

I
I'm now into my sixth week as a Londoner, and it's proving an interesting experience. In some ways, I don't feel I've ever been away: I lived and worked here from 2005-07 and have been a regular visitor ever since, so it's been easy to slip back into old habits, revisit old haunts and revive long-forgotten memories of the most convenient exit to use at Waterloo station.
     It's fashionable to complain about the city's transport system, but I remain amazed it works so well. It's come in handy for the past few weeks as I've been couch surfing, or rather taking advantage of various indulgent friends' spare rooms and sofa beds. As a result, I've spent a week opposite the Globe Theatre by the Thames, six days in leafy, suburban Greenwich, a week in my old stomping ground of Kennington, and two weeks' cat-sitting for two different friends in Battersea.
     Clapham Junction station – one of the busiest in Europe – has therefore been my closest transport hub for almost two weeks. A few months ago there was rioting there, and the evidence of that can still be seen on some shop fronts near the station. Last week the London School of Economics published a report, 'Reading the Riots', based on interviews with dozens of those who took part. 85% said policing was a significant factor in what happened.
     The riots were, as Alex Salmond reminded us at the time, 'English' rather than 'British', a geographical distinction the BBC were quick to take on board. So what of my dual identity, Scottish and British (or perhaps British and Scottish)? I think, having been back in the (UK) capital for six weeks, it's a bit subtler than that. The Scottish comedian Rhona Cameron put it well in a Scotsman interview a few years ago. What she liked best, she admitted, was 'being a Scot…in London'.
 
II
Charles Kennedy used to say he possessed a triple identity, Scottish, British and European, but the last of that trio, particularly over the last week, is now in flux. To be frank, my own Euro scepticism has been on the increase over the past decade so I had no real problem with the prime minister's action at last week's historic summit. For predominantly europhile Liberal Democrats, however, it's an article of faith.
     Perhaps as a result, Lord Ashdown argued on Sunday that Mr Cameron had strengthened 'the hand of Mr Salmond to create an argument for Scotland to leave Britain' and become a separate member state. I don't buy that, and said as much in Monday's Scotsman, which led to short gig on that morning's 'Call Kaye' programme on BBC Radio Scotland. There, I reiterated the point that the SNP had concentrated its fire on the PM's weakness (he hadn't consulted the devolved administrations prior to the summit) without addressing the wider point: what would they have done differently?
     On a bit of a roll, I buttonholed an SNP MP at an event on Tuesday and asked precisely what it was his party liked about the European Union: it certainly didn't seem to include the Common Fisheries Policy, the euro or the future direction of fiscal policy. If the SNP, and indeed most Scots, thought differently then I could go along with Ashdown's analysis, but at the moment I remain unconvinced.            

III
Another feature of London life – or specifically Westminster life – is the seemingly endless round of receptions, events, lectures and, to be blunt, piss-ups, that dominate the social calendar, not least at this time of year. On Tuesday, my (naturally excellent) publisher Biteback held a Christmas drinks reception at their offices near parliament, and from that I moved more or less seamlessly to a Scotch Whisky Association reception at Dover House, and then onto the parliamentary press gallery's annual pub quiz (although not being a member of the lobby, I felt like an interloper).
     Otherwise, when asked what I'm 'doing' for Christmas my usual bah-humbug response is that I'll be doing my best to ignore it. To me Christmas (and, indeed, New Year) is a prolonged period of inconvenience: things being shut, often for no convincing reason other than it being 'this time of year', and endless 'Christmas television', which is usually even worse than non-Christmas television. I have a small family whom I see regularly, so 'this time of year' represents no novelty in that respect either. My sole concession to 'this time of year' is watching the 'Doctor Who' special on Christmas Day. I'm not even sure why – it's always profoundly disappointing.
     I had considered going abroad this year, or perhaps remaining in London, but in the end I succumbed and booked a train north on Christmas Eve. I will be fleeing, however, as soon as possible on Boxing Day, to fly south and then on to Kuala Lumpur. On Hogmanay I'll be in Rangoon, Burma, where New Year isn't celebrated until mid-April. Thank heaven for small mercies.

David Torrance is a writer, broadcaster and political historian. He is the author of biographies of George Younger and Alex Salmond