London!

[bigbadwolf]

Cogent article on what makes London such a vibrant and fantastic place.

http://quarterly.demos.co.uk/article/issue-4/london-all-that-glisters/

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Cogent article on what makes London such a vibrant and fantastic place.

http://quarterly.demos.co.uk/article/issue-4/london-all-that-glisters/

Content aside, there are too many commas.

// Oh brave new world?

 

[Ken Abbott]

Content aside, there are too many commas.

// Oh brave new world?

That has such people in't!

 

[bigbadwolf]

That has such people in't!

In Shakespeare's time, place like Stepney and Bethnal were hamlets outside London. At around the same time, or maybe a century later, Hackney was a fashionable suburb for the landed set. Even by the late 19th century places like Shepherd's Bush and Notting Hill were sparsely populated suburbs.

 

[Yike Lu]

And Eastcheap was... cheap.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

That has such people in't!

Yep


Incidentally I'm going to London tomorrow. Today I heard the sad new that my favourite real Pakistani restaurant dating from 1969 in Brick Lane/Spitafields closed down last year. It was called Sweet and Spicey in Brick Lane. Maybe London is just too expensive these days.

Another East End institution bites the dust! It's a real shame.

 

[mhy]

I was in London for about two months a few years back and really enjoyed it. Would live there if I had the chance, though not sure if permanently.

Of course, it helped that my company was paying for a luxury apartment literally across the street from St. Paul's Cathedral I don't even know how much that would cost if I had to pay for it myself. 4000 pounds = 6000 USD a month?

 

[Barny]

More than that. I'd guess at least £6k for a luxury apartment in that location. Given that bad quality, small, and exortionate housing even in bad areas is one of the main reasons for disliking living in London, I would say that your company shelling out a small fortune for you to live somewhere quality in a decent location did indeed help.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."
— Samuel Johnson


Boswell and Johnson were discussing whether or not Boswell's affection for London would wear thin should he choose to live there, as opposed to the zest he felt on his occasional visits. (Boswell lived in Scotland, and visited only periodically. Some people are surprised to learn that Boswell and Johnson were far from inseparable over the last twenty years of Johnson's life, the period Boswell knew him.)
This discussion happened on September 20, 1777, and Johnson, someone who hated to spend time alone, was always going out and enjoying what London had to offer.

 

[bigbadwolf]

Boswell and Johnson were discussing whether or not Boswell's affection for London would wear thin should he choose to live there, as opposed to the zest he felt on his occasional visits. (Boswell lived in Scotland, and visited only periodically. Some people are surprised to learn that Boswell and Johnson were far from inseparable over the last twenty years of Johnson's life, the period Boswell knew him.) This discussion happened on September 20, 1777, and Johnson, someone who hated to spend time alone, was always going out and enjoying what London had to offer.

Not the same London. This was a time when even Kensington was not part of London, and there used to be highwaymen between Knightsbridge and Kensington. And the city was English in a way that it has long ceased to be.