Girl about town

The old ditty got it wrong: it should have been ‘Maybe it’s because I’m not a Londoner that I love London so’. The capital’s biggest fans, I tend to find, are those who weren’t born there, and Emily Chappell is yet another example. Originally from Wales, she has written more than just an engaging account of her work as a London cycle courier: she has chronicled the way in which the capital provides a home for those who don’t fit in elsewhere. The job itself is a perfect fit for a restless soul: Chappell describes the

sweet spot where my body became so attuned to the bike and road that all resistance seemed to melt away … experiencing a strange sense of stillness, as though I had gone so far into motion that I had reached its centre.

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Ross Clark

Britain is living beyond its means

At Marble Arch, with cars on either side of her, she is ‘flowing along on the currents I knew of old, as contented as a sea otter’.