100 Things I Love About London

The Willesden Herald dished out their "Golden Willie" Blog awards recently and put me onto two cracker blogs:

1. Diamond Geezer, a local London blog.
2. The Eejit, a photo blog.

Diamond Geezer had a cool post "100 things I love about London" which got me thinking, in no time whatsoever I've come up with my own version, from an Antipodean perspective...

I moved to London six months and three weeks ago today, here's (approximately) 100 things I love about London:

Summer festivals, We are Londoners (We are Londoners) Posters, drunken tube rides,Drinking the tap water, Xfm, multiculturalism, Regent’s Canal, the 11.30 last tube rush, buying singles on 7” vinyl, four airports to choose from, English, number of Musicals on at any time, the village atmosphere in my suburb, earning pounds, Brixton, GMT, the walk from Piccadilly Circus to Leicester Square, bunch of teams in the Premiership, Etiquette lining up for banks, buses etc, Clubland, adverts on the Tube, shopping on Oxford Street on a Saturday, Brick Lane, Music you never hear anywhere else, Summer, Camden Town, Cheap beers from the off-license, Knowing there are cool suburbs out there I’ll never even hear about, The River Thames, Big Ben & Westminster Cathedral, London Walks, 2000+ years of history, views from the front of a double decker bus, Fast broadband, Sunday papers, record shops, central heating, pubs with loads of atmosphere, living near Abbey Road, something to see around every corner, Chips with gravy, English accents, Oyster cards, the number of people always out & about, the parks, snakebites, cheap chain bars, Victoria Station, the London Eye, trips to the countryside, the attitude when it comes to what to wear, supermarkets like Sainsbury’s down the road, friendly bus drivers, the binge hour before the pubs shut, Ibiza parties live on Radio One, St Paul’s, Virgin and HMV megastores, Buckingham Palace, Black cabs (and when money’s a bit tight, cheap minicabs), house parties, songs about London, old buildings in town, the wit, stuff all flying time to the rest of Europe, Jamie Oliver, chip & pin, Knowing you’ll never see all (or even half) of it, Aussie shops, the number of beers on offer at the average pub, the number of languages you hear walking down the street, museums and galleries, and museums and galleries with free admission, having a local, leavy green streets in Summer, tolerance for other cultures, the quality of dj’s on offer at Turnmill’s any given Friday, walking anywhere & everywhere, Temple Walkabout, the maze of streets around Bank, knowing we’re living in the coolest city on Earth, Americans that come over and can’t afford anything, the attitude after the tube bombings, Marble Arch, celebrity gossip, beer gardens, Short skirts in Summmer, meeting other Aussies who got up to see the World, the Tube map, the Docklands regeneration, having the whole crew from Sydney here as well, midweek football, share houses, roast dinners, Little Britain, the prospect of a White Christmas, friendly kebab shop owners, family run shops on the high street, Churches and Cathedrals everywhere, people in their 20s & 30s everywhere you look, just being here.

Comments

[mini cabs]

that's awesome , i have tasted fried chicken once with friends at the shop . . like to go again

[Saltwater]

I wasn't here so can't speak of what happened first hand, but its not hard to notice the resilience of people here even now. I read an email shortly after it happened saying that London's been through wars many times over that a couple of people with a bomb in their bag isn't going to change how people behave in any way.

My friends that were here at the time did what they could that day and went to the pub. There was way they could get home anyway.

[alex]

I'm curious to know what the attitude has been like after the bombings...

[Saltwater]

Forgot the second hand shops!