London: Turn your teapot lids* into proper cockneys
Pity the proper cockney, edged out of East London by hipsters with skinny trousers but wallets fat enough to pay ever-rising rents, their oranges and lemons (say the Bells of St Clements) replaced with artisanal cupcakes.
Now, would you Adam and Eve it, a sound survey has found the area in which the Bow Bells can be heard has shrivelled. True cockneys, they say, are born within earshot of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow Church, Cheapside. Today, thanks to noise pollution and buildings, it covers a tiny area devoid of maternity wards.
It's perhaps symbolic that salvation comes via a digital recording of the bells, available to mothers-to-be anywhere from the Times Atlas, which commissioned the research. Spotted dick on this kitchen sink, as they probably wouldn't say, to have a butchers: TimesAtlas.com
*That's "kids", rhyming-slang rookies
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