As much as you’d like to hear a Craig Armstrong soundtrack playing in your ears whenever you get on the tube, with the tell-tale crescendos building as your ‘one true bearded love’ boards the carriage and you meet in an awkward-but-cute romance scene, it’s (probably) not going to happen. Have Hollywood producers ever been on the Northern Line? Silly question.
1. The streets just don’t work like that.
Who’s to blame: Sherlock Holmes
We’re talking the Robert Dawney Jr and Jude Law version, not Cumberbatch and Freeman. In one scene of the 2009 Sherlock Holmes, Robert D. Jr. runs from the sewers underneath the Houses of Parliament and ends up on Tower Bridge. Effectively flying through a two and a half mile jog in 2 and a half minutes. That sure beats the average Joe’s 7-minute mile… Something doesn’t quite add up, Mr Holmes.
2. The Underground is not a place for romance
Who’s to blame: About Time
That heart-warming time-lapse scene that takes place on the Underground as the live band covers Elton John’s ‘How Long Will I Love You and the two main characters fall more and more in love… sound familiar? Of course it doesn’t. On the tube, even if you are with a lover/partner, you’re probably standing (cramped) along the aisle, holding onto the sweaty railings and avoiding eye contact – even with each other – because it’s been a long day at work and you smell a bit. The tube is not the place for romance. Even if you’re passing the wonderful violinist who’s often at Euston station.
3. The cost of…everything.
Who’s to blame: Bridget Jones
Before Bridg had her baby and became a kickass TV producer, she was a publisher’s PA. Now, fairplay, she got that great promotion and she’s probably taking home a nice paycheck at the end of each month now. But before all of that – how on earth did she afford a one-bedroom flat a stone’s throw away from Borough Market? And before all you smarties start going off about inflation, even back in Bridget’s prime, Zone 1 was a property hotspot. It just gives us all a false sense of hope, especially from all the way out here in Epping.
4. Everyone in London is white and middle class.
Who’s To Blame: Everything ever made by Richard Curtis.
5. No one talks like that
Who’s to blame: Mary Poppins
Sorry Dick Van Dyke, but this is a no brainer. Kick your knees up, step in time…
6. And no uses the word ‘bugger’. Or knows what it means.
Main culprit: Hugh Grant in Notting Hill
Don’t get me wrong – here in London, we don’t mind a bit of a swear, but who else swears in Hugh Grant’s frolicsome, carefree and unbothered way, utterly reducing the importance of what he’s swearing about in the first place? If you are going to swear, use it effectively, not if you’re attempting to woo over the heart of a puppy. No one said ‘oh well whoopsadaisy, bugger me!’ when the tubes go on strike… Did Hugh Grant even know what bugger means? Google it. It might change a few things…