It will take some time to re-adjust to life in London. To an extent, London is a good place for a returning exiled Englishman. I have just been to the Polish Delicatessen here in Harrow and Wealdstone. Bought the Bigos and Filety sledziowe w sosie musztardowym.
London provides a kind of half way house between "abroad" and "home". It seems to a Global City State only marginally related to the fact it now just happens to located on English territory. So here I am reading two books I think will give an insight into what has been happening.
The first in Larry Elliot's and Dan Atkinson's Fantasy Island and their later work in the wake of the predicted and easily foreseeable Financial Crash and subsequent Economic slump affecting Britain, even now in 2010, entitled The God's That Failed.
London is at the heart of arguments over global politics and always has as one of the oldest democracies and an ailing one.
There is a lot to catch up on. I have no idea what the new Conservative and Liberal Coalition stands for in specific policy terms though it looks like a continuation of neoliberal political economy.
There are a number of issues to look at: "multiculturalism", The Nature of Islamism, Radical London, The Rise of Gated Communities, Public Transportation, The Mayor of London Boris Johnson, The Dominance of the City, as well as embarking on urban drifts across London.
So I'll have to bring down from Birmingham all those books such as Ackroyd's London: The Biography. Is London the Eternal City which will continue to enjoy prosperity and ethnic harmony ? Or is some dangerous potential economic and political collapse in the offing.
I've got with me also a copy of Roy Porter's London: A Social History and Clive Bloom's Violent London: 2000 Years of Riots, Rebels and Revolts. Whatever one's opinion of London, it remains a centre of global importance and an eye on the way the "world process" is heading.
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