I ’m going to preface this with an admission that I’ve never actually lived in Clapham. By the time I’d migrated to London from the north, it was already considered a cultural wasteland. I vividly remember a friend telling me that only very beige people (accountants, management consultants, University of Exeter alumni) lived there and that “everyone in Clapham sings the national anthem when the rugby comes on in the pub.” That was 2009 — and it hasn’t got any better.
As the area has entered the later stages of gentrification, what little vibe it once had has been wholly sanitised. It now exists in a land beyond parody — where the inhabitants tacitly accept that Clapham is absurd, lean into in fact. Bill’s is a bona fide weekend hotspot and the gilet-clad individuals who go to Infernos no longer do so ironically (as they might have done when I was a twentysomething). Am I being a snob? Yes. Am I wrong? No.
