Last weekend I went to North London with my boy Silas, to help my daughter Eddie move back to South London.
And this was a Very Significant Thing. Not just because it involved a van and pizza, and a day with my guys, although all those things were perfectly lovely.
No. It was significant principally because in our family, the Londons exist in a very clear hierarchy.
At the bottom are North, East and West London, between which there is tragically little to choose.
And at the top is South London, which of all the Londons is objectively the best.
So, for Eddie to move back South is a big deal. She’s not just crossing a river. She’s coming home.
Now I know that there are good things to say about all the other Londons; I just can’t remember them. But I don’t reckon I’m alone in believing that my place is the best.
We love our towns, our cities, our villages, our countries. We are certain beyond debate that Bolton is better than Blackburn, Retford better than Worksop, Belchamp Walter better than Belchamp Otten.
And partisanship goes beyond place. Mine attaches me also to the family I love, the Museum where I work, the politics I espouse; to St Olave’s church where I worship, and to Dulwich Hamlet FC, where I go to experience hope, despair, joy, anguish; and that’s just in the first half.
The world is full of these arbitrary self-definitions.
Some of them are mercifully, hilariously meaningless; but some are of dangerous, even mortal significance, particularly when they set us against whoever it is that is not-us.
Christians believe, though, that Jesus’ unique capacity is to transform this separated, fragmented world of us and not-us. When God becomes a human person, love tears down even the most elemental borders.
Still, sometimes – on a Saturday afternoon for example – arbitrary separation on the basis of irrational devotion is exactly what we need.
So, tomorrow I’ll be at Champion Hill watching Dulwich Hamlet take on the mighty Taunton Town in a massive, late-season six-pointer and I’ll be singing, among other things, “Oh South London is wonderful…”
And so it is, especially now it has Eddie back in it.
But I must find it in my heart, somehow, to remember that Taunton is also perfectly nice.