It's official if you are young, free and single, Edgware is the hardest place in London to get a date.

Undeterred, TOM SPENDER and SOPHIE KUMMER tried their luck

Tube users know it as the end of the line and so do the capital's lonely hearts.

According to a recent British Gas survey, Edgware is the area of London with fewest young single people and the place where you are statistically least likely to meet your match.

If the average area in Britain has 100 single young inhabitants, Edgware has a pitiful 64. And those at the extremity of the Northern Line's other prong can stop laughing now Barnet has London's second worst score of 73.

Staff at the Times pride themselves on their sexual charisma and so set out on Friday to prove the statisticians wrong and meet a mate.

First stop the Railway on Station Road. Most of the customers are between 18 and 34. It's quiet, but it's early days yet. Two men in suits lick their chops at the arrival of four attractive Eastern European women, all Slovakian au-pairs, who take a seat by the window.

"We go out in Edgware but we never meet anyone we like," said Maria Kocikova, 22. "We would like to speak to English boys but they are rude to us one called my friend fat. It was because we are foreign."

Two of the girls have boyfriends they met in London a Jamaican carpenter encountered in a Finchley garden and a Yugoslavian from Golders Green.

One of them, a frankly stunning blonde, Jana Pacakova, 24, is single and used to be a model, but your reporter has only had one drink and isn't ready to play for such high stakes.

And where to if not that legendary singleton hangout the supermarket, venue of flushed first conversations at the fish counter.

Sainsbury's in Edgware is deserted on a Friday night. So far the survey seems to be right there's not much going on.

Mason's, on Burnt Oak Broadway, boasts a licence to 1am.

On the way, a man and a woman are fighting on a street corner, hardly a good omen, but inside there is a cheery atmosphere, and even better: people.

Andrew Moss, 28, hails from the bright lights of Clapham Common but works at Choice Hotels Europe in Premier House, Station Road. He is single and is out with three of his colleagues.

"The chances of meeting people are slim, to say the least. You'd have to be Croatian to really find someone. For a good night out we'd go to central London."

Joanne Brake, 23, of West Harrow, is also single. She told our reporter Sophie: "I go out with lovely people who know how to have a good time. So although the pub is cheesy, I love it. PS My friend Andy really fancies you," she confides.

Quickly making her escape, Sophie makes a touching discovery of family unity Colin Marshall, 29, of Wenlock Road, is taking his nephew Darren out on the pull.

"There's a lot of beautiful women here, including you, but there should be more. It's good there are a lot of different people to talk to," he said.

Darren said: "My uncle takes me out with him. I think it's easy to go out here and pick up girls. I have a good time."

Inspiring words and it's time for me to put them to the test. Opportunity knocks as the DJ does a birthday shout to Abigail, who is 20, bellowing: "I would play Like a Virgin but it's obviously not appropriate..."

So it's your birthday, right? Yes.

Great, would you like a birthday drink? No.

She's clearly one for Darren.

Meanwhile, propping up the bar is a couple who found love in Edgware: 33-year-old single mother Fiona Brayley, of Silk Street, and her Albanian boyfriend, a car valet.

"We met in the Prince of Wales on Burnt Oak Broadway through a mutual friend. Edgware is a good place for young people. There are lots of pubs and because it's a rich area there are lots of Czech and Slovakian au-pairs," she said, gesturing around her.

She is absolutely right. A British Gas spokeswoman confirms that their survey is based on public records as well as research undertaken by Experion, an information company, and does not take into account subtle variables such as au-pairs.

All of which means, despite the statistics, that the local male population has never had it so good. And, sipping beer and chatting to Mariana, a brunette 25-year-old chemical engineer working as an au-pair to learn English, neither have I.

July 17, 2002 15:30