Islington, synonymous with focaccia socialism: a smug, self-referring, low-cal, Beveridge-light sort of place. Neither white nor blue collar, more pastel-linen collarless. State primary but public secondary; national health on principle, but private for teeth, wrinkles, moles and hair; Tube in the day, taxi at night; high and low culture; box sets on Sundays, bankers’ boxes at the opera on Mondays.

Islington was the Vatican of new Labour: Mendelstam caught between Foot’s Hampstead and Keynes’s Bloomsbury: an exclusive, inclusive round-table Camelot on the way from New York to New Jerusalem, so effortlessly mockable. The custodian of Pentonville, a prison whose old boys sound like a guest list for an Oxfordshire summer festival: Taki, David Irving, Hugh Cornwell, Pete Doherty and Boy George. Oh, where would political columnists be on a dreary Friday without Islington to kick around?

I dread to imagine what he'd write about Croydon.

AA Gill is routinely genius. anybody read the books? After this sample I'm tempted to splurge.

AA Gill is a considerable arsehole who should contract a awful illness as quickly as possible.

Modern-day Islington summed up perfectly, if a tad on the supercilious side of things but then what besides would you think from a sunday times article?

It's humorous for the reason that growing up in Hackney there was a time whilst Islington was the real tough part of town, and Hackney by contrast was still a bit of a backwater. Then in came the yuppies as well as the New Labour contingent, Islington went up in the world then Hackney plummeted to the depths. So I envisage Islington as the sort of older, been-there-done-that baby boomer edition of Hackney. It grew up then got rich, doesn't care about being cool any longer just wishes to retire in the comfort of its acquired sky high land price and take the tube by day, taxi by night. Nothing explicitly wrong with that really, we all grow old and who wouldn't want to get loaded either.

Just the writer of the item ought to acknowledge that in the broader plan of things it's still no Knightsbridge or Chelsea by a long shot. It's not all dandelions with roses there is still real hardship in Islington with a bulky populace of council tenants many of which families survive on the poverty line. Not to mention its troubles with crime that decline to go away. Islington a nice-looking face that hides an tense mind in my opinion.