I have a something of a love-hate relationship with Clapham. There are some parts where you can't move for expensive highlights and dribbling babies, but take a couple of steps to either side and you're surrounded by loud, beer-drinking Antipodeans.

To further confuse me, three very different new venues have just arrived.

In the middle of St. John"s Road a pink apparition has appeared in the form of Recipease, the first branch of Jamie Oliver's new venture of DIY cookshops. But it's all a bit creepy Jamie World, with piles of his books everywhere and videos of his chirpy mug winking down at you from the walls, and is packed with Northcote foodies frowning intently over halloumi kebabs.

A couple of bus stops along towards Battersea Bridge, meanwhile, and there's The Peacock, where you can have a honey espresso in the morning, play Scrabble in the afternoon and be burlesqued to the hilt until 2.30am of a weekend.

And then there's the very glossy Aquum over on Clapham High Street. Sounding like the name of an aftershave a footballer would wear (indeed Ashley Cole was expected the night we dropped by), it aims to bring West End glamour to SW4 and does a nice line in cocktails created by molecular mixologist Sam Ward.

They do say that variety is the spice of life, so I guess I better learn to embrace it. Or just move to that bothy in the Highlands I've been dreaming about.