Alex in Croydon is 21-30 and is a Journalist.
After buying their first home together, Alex and his girlfriend Imogen finally did what they had always wanted to do; they bought a puppy together! Since then their relationship has changed forever as a new more mature family unit has been born.
Alex describes how his life has changed and what it is like moving from a responsibility free life in your early 20s to a more adult life and the birth of a family.
Film Maker: Reece Lipman
Questions & Answers
- What's your first memory of London? I grew up in the Midlands, but would regularly visit my aunt in Wimbledon. I think my first memory is probably the deer in Richmond Park.
- What do you miss when you're away from London? The food. I've constantly got Caribbean, Polish, Vietnamese restaurants at my disposal.
- What's your favourite neighbourhood? Entirely by the fortune of my first flat being in New Cross, I'm a South London boy through and through. Between Peckham and Greenwich lies everything a person could ever need.
- What's your favourite building? I'm a defender of the Shard, and I love walking around the sci-fi dystopia that is the Barbican, but really you can't deny the appeal of a proper old-school London boozer. Iconic, innit?
- What's your ideal day out in London? Parks. Picnic. Cheap cava. We'll be revisiting this in future answers, I suspect.
- What's your ideal night out in London? Be forced to leave park because it's gotten dark. Spill into pub. Nearly miss last tube home.
- What's your most hated building? Any tube station where I have spent too many rush hours. Or anywhere that isn't a pub, really.
- What's the best view in London? Find any park with a hill – Greenwich, Telegraph Hill, Streatham Common – and climb to the top at a time approaching sun set. For best results, combine with plastic glasses and a chilled bottle of something.
- What's your favourite open space? Greenwich Park.
- What's your favourite bar, pub or restaurant? Any where the average price of a pint is below £4.
- What's the most interesting shop? Big up to my boys at Orbital Comics, the West End's yellowest (and friendliest) comics shop.
- What's your favourite place to hang out? Er... Can I just say 'pub' at this point?
- What's been your most memorable night out in London? Last year, I started organising a competitive cross-London pub crawl, drawing in every Wetherspoons in the capital. It's called Spoonsathon and sometimes you end up in Gatwick airport desperately trying to get the furthest-away pub on the map and the most obscure gin on the menu.
- How would you like to spend your ideal day off in London? Pub
- Where would you take someone visiting from out of town? Pub
- What's the worst journey you've had to make in London? Balham station. Northern Line. Rush hour. Any given Wednesday.
- What's your personal London landmark? Pub
- Who's your favourite fictional Londoner? The Underground Santa. You know, the bearded man in the soot-black robes who brings presents to worn-down commuters in the coldest months of the year. At least, I think he's fictional. Just one of those Tube myths, right?
- What's your favourite London film, book or documentary? Something by Oscar Wilde, probably. 'The Portrait of Dorian Gray' for the sake of ease, but actually the bit in 'The Decay of Lying' (not a book, just an essay) where he talks about London fog. Or for something a bit more contemporary, comic series 'The Wicked + The Divine', which is at least partly set in Brockley.
- If you could travel to any time period in London, past or future, where would you go? As far forward as I could go while still being able to find a pint for under £4.
- For you, who is the ultimate Londoner? Lucky Spencer-Dale. That's why you did the film about him, right?