In Islington, "half the people are very rich and the other half are on benefits, and there's no one in between", says our neighbour, a senior executive at the borough council. He exaggerates, but not by much.

Islington goes under the microscope in Australia's The Age. It's the story of that auction of promises to benefit the school, where one parent paid £5,000 for a private performance by Chris Martin, another (Boris Johnson MP apparently) paid £5,000 for tea at the House of Lords and the honour of blowing a wedge on an elaborate joke, and yet (apparently) some parents couldn't afford the £10 entry fee. The piece (written by a parent at the school) goes on to question the conventional wisdom of diversity and the integrated neighbourhood. "Does mixing do anyone any good?" it asks. The answer isn't clear. Except that the real social divide - according to this parent - isn't racial or religious... it's to do with wealth. And there doesn't appear to be much mixing across the divide. Read it here.