Chop off the old block

I love the drug of television, which is slightly less awful than the drug of social media because the conversation is one way, and so I have been rewatching Whitechapel. It’s a drama series about murder, and possibly the supernatural, set in Whitechapel, and it is slightly rude to its residents because it posits the idea that Whitechapel is the gateway to hell. It is mostly set in the coalition years, but it has an ancient aesthetic. People in hipster suits are butchered horribly; the east London churches of Nicholas Hawksmoor lurk wonderfully; murders take place in courts and alleys which I am certain have been glassed over in life, and sold on. Is anywhere in east London remote enough for murder now? As you can see, there is nothing I cannot, and will not, link to the housing crisis.

It also makes me think of the Quality Chop House in Farringdon, another haunted, macabre and therefore newly lovable part of London, poised between Dr Johnson’s house and Pentonville, although I do not think the owners will thank me for saying it.