I’ve been up in Northumberland, where there is a realm of space and not a lot of people to fill it, and then for a brief trip to Stockholm. There are quite a lot of people there – most of them elegantly sitting in the cafe of a design store, sipping a latte whilst glancing at their MacBook Air – but there is never any sense of a crowd. And then I went yesterday to Oxford Circus.

Everyone was trampling each other in a fury, perhaps because they had just spotted that the Christmas lights are advertising Marmite.

No wonder all us Londoners are as mad as rats in a maze. We haven’t got room to respire, let alone roam.

Still. Wouldn’t change a thing.

In Northumberland

Midday, central Stockholm