I'm a classy Londoner, innit?

There's been an email joke flying around for years that goes something like this...

You Know You're From London When:
- You have never been to The Tower or Madame Tussauds but love Brighton.
- You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Shepherd's Bush to Elephant & Castle at 3:30 on the Friday before a long weekend, but can't find Dorset on a map.
- You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual.
- You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression.
- You're paying £1,200 a month for a studio the size of a walk-in wardrobe and you think it's a "bargain."
- You pay £3 without blinking for a beer that cost the bar 28p.
- The UK west of Heathrow is still theoretical to you.
- Your idea of personal space is no one actually standing on your toes.
- £50 worth of groceries fit in one paper bag.
- You have a minimum of five "worst cab ride ever" stories.
- You don't hear sirens anymore.

The last portion of it is:

- Your cleaner is Russian, your grocer is Korean, your deli man is Israeli, your landlord is Italian, your laundry guy is Chinese, your favourite bartender is Irish, your favourite diner owner is Greek, the watch-seller on your corner is Senegalese, your last cabbie was Pakistani, your newsagent is Indian and your favourite falafel guy is Egyptian.

Now, I can't vouch for the grocer, the deli man, the landlord, in fact for any of them past the cleaner, who is an amazing Bulgarian lady who has been looking after me, my flat and my plants for the past 4 years. But as all good things must come to an end, so Dari has found a new job and given me back my keys.

Some may say I'm lazy for even having a cleaner when the flat is the size of a postage stamp, but if you live with other people, then it's the quickest solution to any arguments about whose turn it is to clean the bathroom, and when you work all day and often spend your evenings out with clients, then on a precious night off the last thing you want to do is come home to pull hair out of the plughole and mop the floors.

Gay Best Friend and I have been having an ongoing argument about cleaners, as his husband has just employed one for them. GBF is worried that this makes him middle class, when he's spent 35 years toiling under the illusion that he's working class. I say to him, it's not the cleaner that makes you middle class, it's the rich husband, the posh apartment and the fat dog that does it! I've never been able to claim to be working class: I may have spent my teenage years working as a fruit picker but I've also got an A-Level in Latin. So I have no shame in admitting to people (even my mother) that someone comes to clean my home, I'm just fed up that I've got to find a new one. Goodbye Dari, and thanks for everything.