Back home in my office (read my bed).
Here’s some quick impressions I had of the UK and London:
London is very tourist friendly. The people are open and helpful and want to have a good trip. Very accommodating of clueless newbs on the Underground and map looking etc.
London is extremely walkable. Everything is close.
Walking around the UK, I got the sense of where the US will be in a 100 years. Rich, modern, but slightly irrelevant and basking in days gone by. Our grandchildren will be living in China’s world.
Thoughtful design and environmentalism is embraced. They are way ahead of the game in terms of reducing their carbon footprint. Down to a little device you put you hotel room key in to keep the lights on, key taken out, lights go off.
The conservatives are nice people. We were hosted by the Spectator Magazine for a small dinner party that was discussing new media issues. Everyone was thoughtful, smart, and open. It was delightful. Literally one of my favorite nights of conversation.
So many men wear suits. It was fun being an odd duck in my thongs and shorts.
I learned that Dick van Dyck’s performance in Mary Poppins is deeply offensive to Brits.
The Tower of London is very proud of it’s torture and beheadings. It was like having Gitmo become an amusement park.
No one says Pip-Pip.
7 Comments
May 24, 2008 at 10:15 pm
I’m sure someone there says Pip-Pip.
May 25, 2008 at 7:15 am
London is great. Cost of living is really high, but there’s a lot to mitigate that, unlike over here.
I just saw your tweet that you’re coming to Ypsilanti today? What brings you to MI (I work in Ann Arbor)
May 25, 2008 at 6:01 pm
The satirical view of America seen in Grand Theft Auto 3 and 4 “Liberty City” ( New York ) is their revenge for Dick Van Dyke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockstar_Leeds
June 5, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Cool, I’d love to go some day.
July 24, 2008 at 6:56 am
Loving this post!
And it is true what you say about London….impressed with ur lil analyze :p
November 20, 2008 at 3:19 am
Look dude, I am a londoner, born and bred. I don’t know where the f**k you went, but I suspect that you didn’t see what Londoners see.
London is very tourist friendly. I’m used to them, they’re like a form of gawping furniture. Sometimes they have map issues, which one can help them with. I avoid ‘em by walking the back streets, which they find confusing.
Yes yes, no cars required. Legs bus tube. There is nowhere to park the things either.
No no, I’ve been to China, you have no idea dude, america doesn’t run the world, and nor can china. They can hardly run China, let alone the f**ng planet. It’s a mess dude, really. Their megacities are just ghetto disasters waiting to happen. No no, the US is not a superpower. Sure, the US in the 20th has been at an advantage: Europe blew itself up twice, china and russia turned themselves into prisons for 50 years. That’s how come the US has done so remarkably well. Superpower thinking is not intelligent. The UK behaved horribly in the 18th and 19th centuries. And that was actually private corporations building the empire, the Government took them over when they were declared unfair monopolies. The population here put pressure on the government, and we had it fixed.
Hanging with the conservatives? What were you thinking?! No wonder you saw so many suits. Dude, nobody in their right mind wears a suit here. You didn’t feel the need to check out anything… cool here. I mean, we kinda have got the best music scene here in the whole world. We also rule at design and the visual arts. You went to the Tower of London instead? Are you mad?
November 20, 2008 at 3:38 am
Oh yeah, and London is made up from all the nationalities of the world. We have everybody here. Cosmopolitan.
That’s different to tourists though, people are people, they’re doing things. Tourists are gawping furniture and will do no good at all.