h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"People from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential. They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves."
-Ken Livingstone, 7/7/2005

Ken's speech really struck a chord with me, really made me remember why I wanted to escape the Middle England that I grew up in and move to London in the first place. I've lived in this dirty old city for seven years now, and I love it to bits. I've always known the little reasons why, but Ken somehow managed to sum up the ideology that underpins it all.

Surely at a time like this, when someone or something you love is in peril, your first urge is to defend it - but you also think about or remember exactly why you love it. These are some of the things I love about London:
I love being able to escape the standardised shops of the cloned British High Street - and buy more or less anything, at any time of day or night
I love walking by the River Thames
I love the perspective I get from being a white middle-class Englishman in my bit of London - because I'm an ethnic minority and have to think differently
I love the view from the top of Primrose Hill
I love being able to do what the hell I want, as long as I'm not hurting or offending anyone else, with no questions asked
I love swimming in the open air at the Oasis pool on Holborn, Parliament Hill Lido, or Park Road in Hornsey

That's just a few. But I'd be really interested to hear what everyone else that lives there or has lived there or even has just visited loves about London. Let's focus on the positives, eh?

London Eye, Covent Garden, Regents and Hyde Park, Buck House, London Zoo.

oh and Tower Bridge and Tower of London, Ravens.

I love the shopping, I love the tour busses, I love that you can wear anything in London and get ignored and that it doesn't matter who you are, to veryone else, you're just another face in the crowd and nobody cares. I find that empowering.

I'd just remembered that too Because it's so huge, no-one's London is the same as anyone else's - you make your own city and then you live in it. Everyone has their own places that they go, pubs and bars they drink in, shops they shop in - but sometimes we meet up on the common ground.

It's the antithesis of being stuck living somewhere small and provincial, when you only ever see (as they say in Venice) the same four cats.

I like to go for a day but longer it does your head in.

I've never spent more than 4 days there, but I always have to be dragged of home to t'north. Given a choice between London, or Sheep, Horses etc, give me tubes and pollution every time.

What an excellent idea for a thread! I live in Peckham and absolutely love it's multiculturalsim. There's something really special happenning where I live. There's the wonderful cultural stuff, I'm not just talking about Tate Britain - although that's fantastic. I mean simple things like a writing workshop I attend at present with such a brilliant mixture of people. Yeah London is wonderful. But for me it's the people.

And I love Ken.....

I am a bit of a country boy (although Odo regards me as townie). But I do love London. I'm not sure why; I think it encapsulates all sorts of Britishness. I like the bridges over the Thames; don't know why. I genuinely like paying £1.00 for a can of Coke on Oxford Street; don't know why. I like it the first time I put my card through the Underground ticket machines and *whip* it out of the other side, playing 'commuter'; again, I don't really know why. I've probably only been to London a dozen times, but yet it still feels like home from home.

Birmingham, much though I'm attached to the place, never does the same. I don't get a buzz from eating a balti or striding down the Chamberlain steps.

B

I lived in London many years ago(30 years) and I was only a young scallywag from up north,couldn't get work so went to the bright lights.
Got a job within two days,and was working for Trust House Forte,as it was then (long Lane,just off Borough High street)
The place was a Depot that supplied all the hotels with everything they requred.
Well a finer bunch of workmates you could never meet,friendly,warm hearted and generous.
It was a sad day when I finally returned to my hometown,but I will always have fond memories of a wonderful City.

PS, had some great nights out in Elephant And Castle, does anyone know if Chaplins bar is still going?

Tate Britain, Tate Modern, The National Gallery, The Wallace Collection. The Astoria, Brixton Academy, The Electric Ballroom, the funny little club on Coldharbour Lane that I end up in when it all goes pear-shaped (The 606, 303 or 101 club - not sure which.)

Being able to do things 24 hours a day.

Having my preconceptions and prejudices challenged.

The mind-numbing variety of food.

The way that on Thursday morning we shrugged our shoulders and got on with it.

I love this place (though I still get homesick when I visit my old friends in Margate!).

Well, I'm not a huge fan of London until I get there, and then Wham! it just hits me what a great place it is

-I love the fact that you can just turn a corner and there is something you only ever see on postcards, in films or on the TV.
-I really like travelling by tube - it's scary sometimes but I love it
-You can get everything there
-Watching the people. There are some great outfits to see, and weird and wonderful people just walking around
-Main line stations. Just being at Kings Cross or Padington reminds me of when I was a kid and all big adventures (holidays) started at one of those places
-the parks. Gosh, they are fantastic
-fifty million different languages - you can hear them all all the time
-the museums - especially the Science Museum. I could live in that place

One thing I miss is the Biba shop. But now I'm showing my age so I'll push off!

- running down the street at the side of Marylebone station and pretending to the The Beatles in A Hard Day's Night!

I love the way London is made up of hundreds of little towns and villages, each with their own special flavour and atmosphere.

I grew up in Italy, and I just can't get over the immense quantity and quality of green space in London, all the parks and public gardens and trees and all the houses that have a little front garden, all the terraces and window-boxes blooming 100 feet above the ground, all the wildlife (except the foxes during mating season - the NOISE! At 3 am!)

I love the fact I can quickly walk to any of five different libraries and take books out from all of them.

As well as all the huge and fantastic 'main' museums and galleries, we have all these odd little museums and galleries dotted about all over the place.

The food. There's a Tibetan restaurant near me. How cool is that?

London generally freaks me out, it's too big and no matter how often I visit I never seem to be able to get my bearings. However since I love living in Edinburgh, and am not likely to move there.. I shall enjoy these little quaintities. Things I do like about London are...

... watching people on the tube trying to avoid looking at any one else.
... saying thank you to bar and waiting staff then watching them recoil in horror as if I've just mortally insulted them.
... all the different accents you hear when you're just sat quietly with yr pint.
... the absolute and undeniable right people assume they have to express themselves anyway they please and the indignation they suffer when you fail to be impressed.

I love China Town, walking across London Bridge... I love looking at tube maps. I love the fact that class and trash sit cheek by jowel. I love the Guild hall, the grisley history of the city, the millions of pubs, Angel Islington tube station, the crass beautiful colourful insidiously alluring vulgarity of Soho, quiet tranquility of regents park, tea in Chelsea, window shopping on bond street. There's loads I love about London. But still prefer Edinburgh
Cynobityax

Jumping on a bus at random to see where you end up!

I like most of London to be honest. I like the fact that whatever you plan for a day out you always see something totally unexpected. My mum always said to me 'If you wear something as ridiculous as possible in London there will always be someone wearing something more ridiculous'.

All the main galleries are free, as are lots of the little ones (I know we pay for them through taxes but I don't begrudge a penny).

Taking any bus over the river (especially South to North) is wonderful.

"The food. There's a Tibetan restaurant near me. How cool is that?"

Not very cool. There's one 100yds down the road from my house. In Herefordshire.

B

LOL I have a Napalese restaurant down the road from me. Pretty funky, s'called " The Ghurka Brigade" Were Ghurkas Nepalese?

Cynx