Our capital city, it’s up there with the best in the world apparently. In fact sometimes it seems that people in London don’t even realise there’s anywhere outside of London!!!
I worked/lived there a couple of years ago for about 9 months and didn’t really get into it. But I think this was more because redundancy forced me there from a previous good job and a home living right next to the beach in Bournemouth, which meant I’d already made up my mind I didn’t want to be there.
I’m now working there again and about to move back, but this time I’m ok with it. As much as I don’t want to like the place, I can’t help but be impressed. Some of the architecture (both modern & old) is amazing and there are some truly odd sites to be seen, I love people watching on the tube, which itself is a mighty impressive transport system considering its age.
I wouldn’t want to be right in the middle of London constantly, but it’s an interesting place to pass in and out of on a regular basis.
The daughter lives there nine months of the year, so I’m getting to know it pretty well. If money was no object, I’d move there. Unfortunately, it’s out of the reach of most people these days, particularly if you don’t want to spend your whole life working for a piece of it.
I helped my son relocate to his new digs in East Dulwich a few weeks ago, and even just driving through the streets there seemed to be a buzz and vibrancy about the city.
I was bought up down the road from Dulwich in Herne Hill. Lived there until I was 10 and worked in London most of my life. I think Londoners dont really appreciate the place as they are there all the time. I much prefer the country and moved away when I could and commuted in. The place has an amazing history but I find it dirty, over crowded and over priced, much like any capital city I guess.
I divide my time between my home near the river in west London and north Yorkshire. The former is a flawed heaven; the latter a provincial hell. Precisely because I don’t live there 24/7 I appreciate London all the more, and I miss it in a way I’ll never miss Yorkshire.
The problem with the frothing, often quite spiteful and occasionally plainly racist critics of London, who seem to inhabit the below-stairs world underneath newspaper columns, is that the city is an endless series of binaries. The tube is the worst; it’s also wonderful. The streets are dirty; they’re also steeped in a living history; the property prices are ludicrous; the properties are also some of the loveliest around. The City is too dominant; the City’s colossal power has an awe-inspring physical presence. The culture is London-centric; the culture is fabulously rich. And so on.
If you pick one side of the coin you force on the blinkers in order to believe the other couldn’t possibly exist.
Lived in London for the vast majority of my life, and I bloody love it.
I’m aware I’ve been utterly spoiled, when I go to most other cities I can’t help but think, “Is this it?”.
I bore most people with it, but as has been said it’s a place steeped in history, culture on every corner and people from all over the world.
I struggle to see me living anywhere else, if I’m honest. This may lead to some interesting conversations in the not too distant future, as I’m fairly sure the gf has her heart set on a move back to Manchester/Yorkshire. I like both (lived in Leeds for 4 years and have family in Doncaster so spent a fair amount of time their as a kid), but really don’t know if I could live there. Would certainly be tricky at the moment, as my industry is pretty London based. I’m also not overly fond of having people want to kick my head in everytime I open my mouth.
I do still find the Northerners detest for anyone not from within a 10 mile radius of whichever City/Town you are in bizarre. This is particularly strong of us Londoners. I get they don’t like ‘London’ - i.e. Westminister/Maggie - but transferring that hatred to anyone born there is just odd. There’s a strange mentality up there. It was quite perplexing going to gigs in Leeds and hearing the crowd chant “Yorkshire, Yorkshire, Yorkshire” no matter where the band happen to be from.
