There's a lot of miserable London stories around today: stuff like the Circle Line being voted the worst tube line, or the Met not meeting their repsonse time targets, or parts of Hyde Park closing due to an assault. So we thought we'd bring you some genuinely uplifting news. The kind of thing that will send you off into the weekend with a spring in your step and a smile on your face.
Are you ready?
Graham Norton doesn't really dislike Croydon that much.
Now, isn't that just the most heartwarming thing you've ever heard?
According to the Croydon Guardian "the international chat show host" and "award-winning celebrity" was at WH Smiths in the Whitgift Centre yesterday to sign copies of his autobiography, So Me.
But Norton was "unsure what kind of reception he would receive after making Croydon the butt of many of his jokes on his chat show."
Ahh yes,the infamous 'Graham Norton Hates Croydon' debacle. In fact if you ask most people around the world what's the first thing they think of when you mention Norton's name, nearly 99% will say "his absolute hatred of Croydon".
Apparently Norton's loathing of Croydon began in the early 1990s when he was involved in an Edinburgh Festival preview show at Croydon's Warehouse Theatre. The Guardian reports him as saying: "I just remember being here once and I asked someone 'Croydon must have been very badly bombed in the war'. He surprisingly said, 'No, it wasn't'".
Hilarious.
But yesterday Norton made it up to the people of Croydon by comparing them favourably to the people of Watford: "The people in Croydon were a lot nicer than those in Watford, a lot more normal!". He then went on to flatter them further by complimenting their car parks.
"The car park in the Whitgift Centre car park did seem to be very full and didn't smell in any way which is a good thing.".
High praise indeed there from the presenter of BBC's forthcoming Graham Norton's Strictly Dance Fever.
