This site will be dedicated to reflection on the condition of London and the UK encompassing, as much as is possible, the role of London as Global City that supposedly belongs to the World no less than it does to England, Great Britain or the United Kingdom.In many ways, London is a law unto itself but after 11 years or continental self-exile, returning to live in the "World's Capital" will be a culture shock after having lived mostly in places such as Bratislava and Krakow.
What will follow will be a lively and broader discussion of global power politics and finance as befits this ex-Centre of Empire that continues to exist as a huge Megalopolis in a truncated and, in future, possibly smaller nation state should the United Kingdom disintegrate.
But London is a City State now rather like Hong Kong. It seems to have outgrown it's moorings in the United Kingdom and that could portend towards resentment and danger from those native Britons who feel crowded out of the capital of their own nation.
Considerations of British politics, language and literature will follow, as well as a passion for what has come to be known as 'psychogeography' and observations on the special "psychic atmospheres" of certain zones in London.
The camera will be out taking photos of the city on long urban drifts, along the Canals, Hackney, the East End, and squalid areas like the forlorn and desolate area around Centrepoint at the end of Oxford Street.
As well as darker meditations on city pathologies and crime, traffic chaos, and looming threat of Islamist terror attacks, neo-Fascism and the drift towards a more deracinated and insecure capital city beneath the mindless upbeat boosterism of "Cool Britannia".
Karl Naylor, Bronowice, Krakow 28 June 2010
'Welcome back' Karl. There is indeed a lot to talk about on British domestic issues.
ReplyDeleteLondon of course is completely different from Britain and many of us 'provincials' would wish a Berlin wall built around the M25. Ok, I exxagurate, but the London centricity is rahter annoying.