According to an recent interview in the Standard, it wasn't the choice of restaurants, the tree lined avenues or even his fellow celebs that enticed Al Murray to move from Fulham to Chiswick. It was the fact that he saw a house he could afford! Though that was six years ago.

Murray goes on to say that he loves the feeling of self-containment that Chiswick provides and that he and his family rarely need to leave the local area for anything.

Of his Chiswick home he says that unlike Fulham where they only knew their next door neighbours, they are on "more than speaking terms" with everybody in their street "It's all very cosy."

Fortunately for his friendly neighbours he didn't sell to the satirical journalist Toby Young. Young, who once claimed that he was "consumed with envy and self-loathing about the fact that I can't afford to live in Notting Hill Gate. However, I've always been able to congratulate myself that at least I don't live in Chiswick", made an offer for the Murray's £1.25m family home earlier this year only to pull out because he allegedly couldn’t find enough money.

"It's like that famous black-and-white sketch about the difference between the upper classes, the middle classes and the working classes: Notting Hillbillies may look down on us and we may look up to them, but at least we aren't at the bottom of this tripartite hierarchy. That position is occupied by the wretched suburbanites who live in Chiswick.” said Young who recently moved from Shepherd's Bush to Acton.

November 24, 2007