“Screw London” thread

The other thread says “no whining” so here’s a thread for whining.

Is it just me, or the Olympics, or whatever else, or is London becoming increasingly uninhabitable? We’re supposed to be struck with awe because the “whole world” is coming down on London, but it’s “coming down” like a hundred-ton safe falling out of a 20th floor window, there to squash the city rather than enrich it. Those who run things do all this on the assumption that London “can take anything” – but it can’t take everything at once; it will sag like any other city.

Wouldn’t it have been good if we hadn’t got the Olympics, if we bravely failed again? I’m sure that’s what everyone expected, and thus the shock when we learned we actually had got them. Oh shit, went the thought, now our bluff has been called. And because 7/7 happened the next day, security suddenly became paramount. A system that has turned out to be both oppressive and incompetent; a system designed to exclude the city, rather than the whole city joining in. A mindset designed to slow the city’s crawl down to nothing.

Isn’t London oppressive these days? I’ve been here since 1985, and I’m not going to stick on the rose-tinteds and pretend it was all glory days back then, that buses in central London didn’t go slower than Victorian horse-drawn carriages, that London has never been overpriced, overcrowded or stressful. And I’m aware I’m talking as a married fortysomething as opposed to the “hot, single 20-somethings who…want everything now, super-size with an extra shot” (quote from a piece in this week’s Scout London free mag).

But I wonder how even your average 20-something Commonwealth backpacker could have anything approaching fun or happiness in London. Everything is expensive to a degree that wasn’t there 20 years ago, and before you even start that puts you off going anywhere or doing anything. Not least the headaches and stress caused by actually trying to get there. The Olympics haven’t even begun yet, and already the streets of central London are gridlocked; an ordinary bus journey takes half a day. It’s enough to put off anyone from going there, let alone enjoy the “cultural life” supposedly happening there.

Add to that the fact that rents are spiralling out of control, so ultimately the only people who will be able to afford to live in London at all will be celebrities, oil barons, oligarchs and City workers. And I think that’s the plan – it’s already been made clear by “our” Mayor that if you’re not a rich tourist who can afford to stay at the Savoy or the Ritz and walk around town, you should keep out of central London. I’m waiting for the customs barriers and gun towers. Ordinary Londoners aren’t wanted, except to come in and do “service jobs,” i.e. be servants. And then there is the rain, the unending, unrelenting, torrential rain like God pissing on the city, saying “It’s all your fault.” We are made to feel guilty for the weather.

Well, I’ve had enough of it. I don’t want “cool stuff.” I’m not fired up by whatever might or might not be happening in London this summer that I can’t get to or afford to get to anyway. I want the London that in the eighties made me want to come and live here; the London of record shops, bookshops, great art, music and theatre, and interesting people and places. The London where a book of ten tickets for the Everyman cinema cost less than a single ticket for the Everyman costs now. The London where, OK, money mattered but not the way it does now, i.e. if you don’t have the money, you don’t matter. The London where new restaurants were promising places to go to and eat, not rip-off joints for over-moneyed, over-entitled prats where you could make better chicken yourself at home, or walk up ten floors of a car park in Peckham to reach.

Yes, times change. But privilege and lack of empowerment don’t. What do they think they’re doing to this city? Tearing it up, tearing it down – OK, OK, fair enough, a lot of it had to go. No joy in ruins, no poetry in slums, if you’re the one who has to live in them. But what are they putting up in their place? Soulless concrete and plastic monstrosities with neither grace nor line. Suburban rail lines which go to no destination at all. They’re building a desert, and they call it “planning.”

And there is no getting around the fact that for those who don’t have high-flying jobs conning other people out of their money or can live off trust funds (hey, I’m not knocking the latter; if I could, I would! Save me a lot of bother!), London is a shit place to be; everything metaphorically fenced off so you turn in on yourself…and some riot, just to get their hands on more consumer goods rather than try to “change” anything.

I know I speak as someone who is recovering from a serious, near-fatal illness and who ideally needs to live a life free of pressure and stress of any kind – but I don’t feel London is the kind of place to do that, and I don’t know that I “love” London any more.

OK, that’s it, end of overlong rant. Feel free to moan, whinge etc. because really there's not enough of it.

The last thing left is "Free on-street parking of an evening", and they verry nearrrly got that stopped.

Ah, I like london a lot, but I wouldn't want to live there (I work there)

i don't even have a car!

pretty sure transport has improved quite a lot in london to be honest. the olympics would skew things but pretty sure i'm experiencing a lot less delays on the tube compare to when i first moved here

fuck the Olympics though

What was that thing of old Sammy Johnson about he who is tired of London is tired of life? Hey Sam, it's not the 18th century any more and I'm tired of life, deal with it. That is if you consider being in London in 2012 "life."

Oh, and according to last night's Standard the M4 from Heathrow won't be ready for the arrival of the Olympics people on Monday.

The tube is one thing, but it never used to be perpetually closed at weekends for endless "upgrading engineering work" or cost too much to bother with.

The underlying message is the same: kneel, peasant, and know your place.

M4 is reopened now fyi

It's the feed road out of Heathrow to the M4 they meant. Not the flyover which is crummmmbling.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/9396936/M4-finally-reopens-after-a-week-of-emergency-repairs.html

i find london pretty affordable tbh. when i go home to nz or visit friends in australia, thats when i freak out abt prices

It's like when they say "Rome/New York is very expensive" and you get there and the prices are pretty much what you are used to.

i don't think we should be on this thread

also was new restaurants in london in the 80s really promising places to go and eat?

(genuine question - i wasn't even in the UK then_)

yeah i apologise for fucking this thread up with some positivity

(and i'm interested in ken's q as well)

lol i new this thread wouldn't last long without quibbles

Thread rule = NO POSITIVITY ;-)

I think there was a far wider choice of restaurants available in the eighties. Don't ask me for examples 'cos it was a long time ago and most of them, if not all of them, are now shut or bought up by others. Actually things were pretty good on that score up until the mid-nineties and then it got dodgy with Pharmacy etc.

Pharmacy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacy_(restaurant)

was just going to say "nobody's banned positivity" but hey, xpost.

Unless it's posted on a jpg. (Not really)

Is pragmatisicm alright?

Sure, nothing against things pragmatic, but there is already a thread for London positivity (the "Screw the haters" one).

i'm only whining from now on though

hanger lane - bomb it

also, lack of decently kept bowling lanes with regular leagues - fuck that. (rowan's started a league but hardly pro)

The housing issue is changing everything. In previous years, when people had made a bit of money they'd escape to the outer suburbs or Essex out of choice. At the moment, it's the young / poor who are being pushed out. That's inevitably going to have an impact on the culture / feel of the city.

For the most part, if you can afford to well, it's pretty great. I'm not sure where the rest of us can really go, though. Quality of life is probably better in most parts of the country if you're on a medium income but the jobs are overwhelmingly centred here.

also laughable "street food" scene. street food is food that does not require planning a week in advance and then queuing 30 minutes for

also fuck off bars selling estrella damm as a premium lager.

(by which i mean lager that costs an extra premium on a fancy tap)

also london can fuck off for not having a taco bell

or 7-eleven

There used to be a Taco Bell in Leicester Square in the eighties but that's long gone.

and sod tourist trap restaurants that unsmilingly offer “pasta burritos” THERE’S NO SUCH THING

yes i remember seeing a picture of that in my research for one in 2004..

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pLg9VIDpuQk/ShGbBr7L_PI/AAAAAAAAAI4/bwtsNJee73M/s400/miar-taco-bell.jpg

and sod tourist trap restaurants that unsmilingly offer “pasta burritos” THERE’S NO SUCH THING

― Here he is with the classic "Poème Électronique." Good track (Marcello Carlin), Friday, 13 July 2012 11:24 (52 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha what the hell

holy shit @ london taco bell.

there was also a taco bell in earls court that i guess is long gone

there's one at lakeside atm, i might make a trip!

(actually that one has been there since 2010! zomg)

the burger king in that pic was number one place to buy dodgy drukqs in central london back in the day

apart from the old Wimpy's in Earl's Court...

late night snacks, though : WHY DO THOSE HOT DOG VANS BE SO SHITE

IT'S WORSE THAN MY GRAMMAR!

THEY'RE NOT EVEN VANS THEY'RE CARTS

the ones in Oxford High Street were way better.

I hate civic pride, get over it, it's some dump you happen to live in, big deal. I hated it in Glasgow too. And, you know, it's not like Britain's not tediously Londoncentric enough.

Was staring out of the window of the pub one lunchtime into the desolate yard behind, a small brick structure in the corner with a bright yellow WARNING: HAZCHEM sign on it. This chap came off the street, strolled over to to it, unlocked the door, and pulled out one of those hot nut carts.

there's hauntology for you.

I like Glasgow until I'm there for more than two days.

You should try Paisley... no don't bother

regularly see this volume in the glasgow charity shops:

http://ebid.s3.amazonaws.com/upload_big/5/4/7/1231697109-27052-0.jpg

I came out of Glasgow Airport once, looking for Glasgow. After walking for a few minutes I stumbled into some shops and realised I was in Paisley.

"Grrr why don't they call it Paisley Airport?" I grumbled and got a train back into town. The place itself didn't stay in my memory.

I might go to Lakeside, to examine a Taco Bell.

London does my girlfriend's head in, you have to plan everything, you can't just head into town and expect you'll see your friends (unless you're always heading to the same bit of town, which she acknowledges is Doing London Wrong).

Seems like that would be a problem in any town of > 30 people and a dog.

I dunno. I understand now why people in specific areas of London prefer to stay there rather than expend pointless energy going into town.

Seems like that would be a problem in any town of > 30 people and a dog.

Esp. if the town is designed for 10 people abnd really small dog

But that's enough about Bothwell.

you can't just head into town and expect you'll see your friends
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 13 July 2012 10:43 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that happens quite often actually..

but i guess i never expect to see anybody in particualr

I set 'em up, you knock 'em down (xxxp)

She's used to Brighton, I'm used to Dublin, they are both pretty wanderable.

You are a regular Marcus Brody though Ken, friends in every postcode.

Lovely, hilly Brighton; great in summer, pretty terrible in icy winter.

Mainly I despair about how difficult it is for the average unsupported creative person to get a foothold in London. When I moved here, a really nice room in a zone 2 shared flat/grungy small room in zone 1 was £50/week, people left uni with staggering amounts of debt eg. 3K and employers in otherwise booming industries didn't try to duck business costs by using fleets of interns at entry level. I feel stupidly grateful to be a protected tenant in central London.

Have people been watching The History of Our Streets?

I mark the start of restaurants as places to be seen as beginning in my beloved Clerkenwell, at Stephen Bull and St John, but I can say pretty definitively that unless you were after Indian or Italian, there wasn't exactly a mass of choices for diners c 20 years ago. The one time I went to Pharmacy it was a complete Cool Britannia cliché, right down to the presenter/footballer entourage getting wrecked at the top table.

Queuing for the 'latest' street food is such an annoying waste of time. Went to Whitecross Street last week for lunch and it was thronged with legends and bros at leisure. Leather Lane also has many footsoldiers of the black viscose trouser army seeking burritos, but it's less crowded.

Have people been watching The History of Our Streets?

It's been recommended to me but I'm really not that interested in London (shock, horros) tbh

I once went to Stephen Bull's Fulham Road restaurant (now Lucio) and the soup was great and the chicken the ropiest and crappiest chicken I've ever eaten. This was '95-6 and it's about the time the rot began to set in apropos restaurants as places to be "seen in" rather than places to eat and London as post-Britpop tourist trap.

Oh my god I heard those fucking Boris speeches on the overground today and things just went from eye-rolling to ulcer inducing.

What the what now? Are these the one that were being broadcast on tannoys at the Shard?

Surely there is no model of Boris that thinks actually hearing him speak from the throne is a good idea?

This was at Finchley Road Overground, with him doing some sort of peptalk.

The Olympics being over can't come soon enough.

He'll never have to hear them, due to riding around everywhere on his bike, Petronella.

As an outsider, I find London fantastic. Try living in a real backwater and see how bereft of joy you think London is after that.

I commute an 1.5 hrs to and from my current assignment of work. Could stay in a hotel but it is a fkn backwater so its a NO WAY JOSE from me as I'd rather do things in London in the evening.

Reasonable things on the film/music/picture watching front here - speak of someone with peculiar tastes tho'. Find at leats 2-3 of those a week, and that's taking the w/end out.

Transport-wise, buses are much better in terms of actually being on time from 10 years ago but its all so traffic-depedant - I find the tube pretty great (yes I know its awful for some), seen the DLR redevelopment, and the overground is awesome whenever I've been on it. But will the trains ever improve, and will partial closure at w/ends ever cease?

Terrible if you don't have any money, but that is true anywhere. You can feel more left out of things in London but its due to scale.

Because of the way banking has been kicked in the last few years it does lead one to believe its all made of paper. And even if that is all surface so that things ultimately don't change its a dangerous game...I can see things changing, for the better. Misplaced optimism, I'm sure.

otoh Birmingham and Glasgow have some lovely things to them - certainly moveable places.

new York's better tbh xpost

We could probably get a fully working modern underground in London. I mean, we'd have to close it for two to three years first, but man, it'd be amazing.

Birmingham? You must be joking. I found it one of the ugliest places I've ever been.

ok, I've never been beyond the city centre in Birmingham. Its ok really. Just trying to be positive about other cities.

The Underground is modern. It always needs maintenance and care, like everything.

i like glasgow a lot, for sure. b'ham was just generally v nasty in my view.

overall tho, you know, london is great, the discovery of new things never ends. if i moved elsewhere it would be new york or maybe berlin.

air conditioning would be nice, or double track..
xpost

I go down to London for a day every week or to sit in an office on Holborn and do exactly the same things I do from my desk at home in Hull for the rest of the week. It's the leather lane burritos than keep me sane on those days I think.

London's alright. Wouldn't want to raise kids there though. Not that we could afford it.

i've never worked out why people would bring children up in the countryside - there's nowhere for them to go, they'd just get into drugs.

What about nature? :-)

Yeah Leather Lane is awesome - miss Holborn.

Moved here for uni (so, 4 years ago). Never been so fed up with the place as I am at the moment. Being skint/working 55-0 hour weeks doesn't help i guess.

Though I was able to head up to the tate and see the fantastic Patrick Kieller exhibition, wander down past the Houses of Parliment, sprint through the National Gallery and get the bus back home again all for £2.70. So there are upsides too.

We were seriously considering moving to London when we came back from the US, p much because it's one of the only places my o/h can do his job but we really didn't want to live there and spend all our money on living somewhere half-decent and have no free time and get fed up with the public transport and overcrowding. Luckily we didn't have to but it might be in our future sometime.

The problem is if you live in any other decent-sized city all your friends bugger off to London anyway.

the best thing abt london is how huge and diffuse and clandestine the place can be

the olympics are especially hateful cuz of its insistence on announcing itself in every conceivable way like the roadlanes reserved for ioc pricks

as such it is symptomatic of the sort of postimperial bombast that demands london be a WORLD CLASS city, since in every other aspect the country must be second rate (not a bad thing imo)