It Wasn't Like This In Cricklewood

Former Punch editor and Cricklewood chronicler Alan Coren writes alliteratively about the changes in his neighbourhood of London's Primrose Hill:

"...it had grown accustomed to preening itself for being an idyllic literary backwater where the blissful riparian peace was disturbed only by the plangent ping from a platen as Alan Bennett or Michael Frayn or Claire Tomalin or Martin Amis or Beryl Bainbridge or A. N. Wilson or Simon Jenkins reached the end of yet another immemorial line. The community even tolerated the odd arriviste wag, on the pitiably optimistic ground that he might one day come to his senses and try his hand at a novel.

"What, however, took us all horribly by surprise, a short while back, was the sudden headlong anabasis from West London of film folk: not only actors and directors and producers gobbling up big houses, but, gobbling up titchy flats, best boys and gaffers and grips. Primrose was the new Notting. Bang went the hood..."