London yesterday - what a scruffy old dive!

[LLB]

How can you blame Simon 1&1/2, he hasn't even posted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just living there is enough

 

[Tynan]

One of the most favourite cities in the world and one of the biggest draw for tourists so yeah, dump

you seemed to have managed to visit all the shitty bits, bravo

nowhere shitty up north though, on no, no gangs and stabbibgs and drugs and scummers, on no

 

[yenrod]

Londons 50/50 with me.

Its been a while since there 2004.

London is good if your young, dont like the country and love clubbing it / shops.

Other than that, forget it !

BTW Tynan - if you could see what I have at my disposal re: ride areas/quality of life - you'd be here like a 'shot' in a dodgy area !

London really isn't worth it.

 

[Cathryn]

How do you mean 'restrictive' mr paul? (in a non-accusatory tone, i promise?) London is the one place I think IS defintiely not restrictive in the UK... anything's possible, anything goes...

 

[Maz]

ok ok, I take it back, sheesh ...but not the comment about the black snot.

 

[simon l& and a half]

parts of London are run down. East London has four of the poorest ten local government areas in England. There are whole swathes that are pretty much off limits to polite society - I took Mrs L to Dagenham once, and it took a while for me be forgiven.

Having said that most of London is pretty prosperous, if you measure these things by comparison to other parts of the country. I wouldn't call it tidy, though. The centre of Leeds is far, far tidier, and medium sized towns like Cambridge, Chichester or Perth are much more decorous than almost all of central London.

It depends what you want. I love it, and would only consider moving to a city of equal moment and speed. I couldn't imagine living in Birmingham, which is, by most measures, a very pleasant place. And for every Chichester there is a Chatham or a Cheltenham - utterly featureless and dull (with apologies to any Chatham residents here).

 

[LLB]

By restrictive I mean you can't get away from the place without travelling some distance if you live pretty centrally (like I did). I live 3 miles from a city centre now but can hop on my bike and be in the countryside in 15 minutes.

I live 1 mile from the town centre and can be in the fields in less than 10 minutes. I am a townie, but am fortunate to get the best of both worlds.

Simon - The reason why I grew up in Cheltenham and not London was because my father decided to accept a move from Whitehall to the town when they built GCHQ in 53. He said that London wasn't a very good place to bring up kids in, and I agree with him 100%. I have got a very good friend living in Edmonton who I stay with from time to time, and even though his road is considered to be a nice tree lined one, I'd never consider swapping with him for the whole frenetic pace and high density living which is London.

My sister also lived in Hackney & the Isle of Dogs when she was working in the city for about 10 years, but chose to move to St Albans to settle and start her family, and her husband who still works in the city would rather face a very long commute each day than bring up their kid in the shoot hole which London is. My other sister also lived in Chiswick for a few years, and they moved out to Kings Langley as they couldn't stand living there.

I like parts of London to visit (Camden Lock, Notting Hill), but as a visitor, and not as a resident.

You can keep it !

 

[simon l& and a half]

people move out of zones 1, 2 and 3 when they have children, and especially when the children are rising 11 year olds unless...

a) they can't afford to or
they can afford to send their kids to private school

which leads to a wild demographic inbalance with
- huge numbers of childless singletons and doubletons, many in multi-occupied houses
- very few old people
- not many children
- a high percentage of families on limited incomes or on benefits
- quite a few families with total incomes of £150k or more.

So - you have a booming entertainment and restaurant sector, huge uptake of culture, whilst a large sector of the population - and lots of those in East London - are not really participating in metropolitan life. But, then again, if you're on an average income, and you have two or three kids, you're probably looking to the 'burbs.

As for the bike hopping thing - I can truthfully say that I'm in green stuff in fifty minutes, but green stuff in the southeast of England isn't really countryside. More like the outer suburbs. Pretty, though.

 

[Cathryn]

By restrictive I mean you can't get away from the place without travelling some distance if you live pretty centrally (like I did). I live 3 miles from a city centre now but can hop on my bike and be in the countryside in 15 minutes.

Fair do's....having lived and cycled in London, I totally agree.

 

[Baggy]

Lived in London for over ten years, (after I moved from Leicester - a place I've never been back to and haven't really missed, sorry Maz!) did a lot of drinking, eating, dancing and socialising and enjoyed its museums, architecture and people. Also enjoyed walking, cycling and pottering about with friends. Every city has its crap parts.

I was lucky to live out in the SW so could be out into the Surrey lanes within 45 minutes. That said, I also enjoyed trundling through the traffic on my commute too.

If my life hadn't taken a different course I'd still be living there now, and I'm sure I'd still enjoy it - although there's a lot I don't miss (yes it can be dirty, and smelly, and dangerous) it still feels like home in a way that Devon doesn't.

A somewhat dated simile. Have you been to Harlem recently? It's proof that areas go through cycles. It's all part of the life history of great cities.

I stayed in Harlem in 2003, and it was an eye-opening and not entirely pleasant experience. The Bronx also freaked me out and I say that as a hardened city-dweller!

 

[Abitrary]

flew round to Angel Edmonton then crawled for 4 miles at less than walking pace past derelict houses all boarded up and overgrown with weeds.

What is happening to London? Nobody takes pride in the place, nobody cleans anything, three Londoners from whom we asked directions all started talking spontaneously about all the stabbings and gang warfare.

I'm from near Edmonton and any talk about stabbings is borne of pure nostalgia as the last craze I heard from there was setting people on fire.

 

[CopperBrompton]

Stayed in a hotel in Beckton [...] drove to Leytonstone [...] the North Circular [...] Angel Edmonton

Was this a deliberate tour of all the grottiest parts of London, or are you just phenomenally unlucky?

Ben

 

[zimzum42]

That section of the north circ is always a crawl, you need to know the rat runs to get round it!

(Another reason i always recommend novice cyclists don't take back roads, many of them are rat runs and you're very likely to get nailed)

 

[Fnaar]

parts of London are run down. East London has four of the poorest ten local government areas in England. There are whole swathes that are pretty much off limits to polite society

This is what peeps tend to forget about London... as a whole the south may be "richer" than the rest of the country, (as in businesses etc concentrated there) but this doesn't mean that everyone in the south eats caviar for breakfast and wipes their @rses with tenners.

 

[zimzum42]

but this doesn't mean that everyone in the south eats caviar for breakfast and wipes their @rses with tenners.

don't take the piss out of Simon's lifestyle!