London

[User452734838]

I was in London earlier this week and it was manic. Everyone rushing around, tubes packed, people rushing down escalators when the tubes are 2 mins apart. Road noise, Sirens everywhere, People getting trains home at 7.30pm to commute an hour, people stood up on this train. As someone who only visits now and again on business it left me shattered and I was only there a day!

Is this just something you get used to in London? Is late working the norm? Travelling for what seems like hours either way to do a job?

It did feel alive though! Is this part of the attraction or is it a case of being born there and knowing nothing else?

I was glad to get back up North where the pace of life is so much less frenetic. We do have to put up with the awful weather though! It was definitely warmer in London 😂

I lived there for 8 years and loved it. Specifically, thx feeling that you're in the centre of things. The arts, theatre, restaurants, architecture, gigs, shops, business, it's all happening. I'd really struggle in the countryside, I'd feel so under stimulated.

It's not all wonderful obviously. The Piccadilly line chock full of tourists in the summer was a particular lowlight. But I miss it dreadfully.

I miss London. Grew up there and then moved the wilderness otherwise known as Suffolk. Have moved on since but I would still move back to London in a heartbeat, if I could afford to.

I grew up not far from London and sent many a weekend there. Now, besides flying into Heathrow, I haven’t been to London proper since 1993, but I still stand on the right hand side of all escalators here in the US. I’ve even admonished my husband for standing on the left. “You’ll get run over standing there” I say, even though we’re all alone on an escalator in Sears.

I love London

but Melody the finance sector is definitely moving - and ultra-low corporate tax is going to sink the NHS and state education in this country

and Brexit may well kill the creative industry.

I'm furious about what Brexit might do to London - which is a city I regard as a beautiful human achievement.

The EU isn’t “being mean” Melody nor is it punishing us nor any of the twaddle you’ve read in the Brexit propaganda rags.

If you leave the club you don’t get to use the facilities. If you think no special deal for special snowflakes at the “centre of the world” is “mean” more fool you.

The price of the low tax, low regulation model is low social protection - ie the end of public services, the welfare state and the NHS as we know it.

Live in zone 2 and work in zone 1. The commute is mind numbing but gives me the excuse to read a book.

You only notice people are in a mad rush when you aren’t in one. It’s just not a place to be leisurely. When DH and I go away for the weekend I genuinely struggle with how slowly things move elsewhere.

Born and bred Londoner and all my family are here so won’t be going anywhere any time soon.

Although, I’m looking at working in Essex after working out that I’ve been commuting for nearly 20 years since I started commuting on tubes when I started secondary school.

But, even though we are 20 minutes on the tube from zone 1, we have a country park behind our house, a large garden and live on a lovely leafy road. It doesn’t all have to be hustle and bustle.

After a while, police helicopters just become your lullaby

Snap catfromjapan

Chaz - Yes, London is random - and that is so great. What a brilliant word; it completely nails it.

Today some of the green parakeets that hang around in South London parks rocked up in our garden and hung out with the squirrels and scant, London foxes.

Tatiana
The EU27 have a €120 Billion trade surplus with the UK.
We spend €120 Billion MORE each year buying their stuff than they do buying our stuff.

Most of this is with Germany. But we can easily start buying Jaguars and Land Rovers (protecting jobs in Coventry that fund the NHS) instead of Mercs and BMWs (and creating jobs in Munich - that contribute didly to the NHS).

The point is we can easily take that €120B more we spend on their stuff and either spend it on own stuff or on stuff from outside the EU if we have to.

It’s nonsense that you can’t see the stars. DH is an enthusiastic Astro photographer and takes amazing pictures of the moon and the night sky from our garden in Zone 2.
I do think it’s different if you live here rather than visiting. We live very normal, peaceful lives like anyone else in their home town. And we are not ALL from somewhere else but it’s true that people from anywhere can become Londoners

Yes you can see the stars!

I've heard about these parakeets. Don't they go north of the river?

Today 23:34 Davros

It’s nonsense that you can’t see the stars

So true. I saw Johnny Ball (Think of a Number!!) in a pub in St. James's just a few weeks ago. He is Zoe Ball's dad!! Got selfie with him too. What a total gent!

London is 47% green, look at the campaign to make it the first National Park city:
http://www.nationalparkcity.london

and Brexit may well kill the creative industry.

London was pretty creative long before we joined the EU. No reason why this should suddenly change.

I'm furious about what Brexit might do to London - which is a city I regard as a beautiful human achievement.

I think it'll become even more Global... attracting the best people from all over the world. It's just that they (along with people from Europe) will just have to get work permit. No different to the way things were before 1997.

Melody the reason we spend so much buying their stuff is because we don’t make or produce our own stuff. Buying stuff from outside the EU will be more expensive due to increased transport costs and in the short term, prior to trade deals, God knows what tariffs and NTBs. What trade we lose with the EU cannot be recreated with the rest of the world, it’s not even in the balance. If we lost 5% of our trade with the EU we’d need to increase our trade with BRICS countries by 25% just to break even, for example.

It was total chaos 8 years ago.

I can't imagine it nowadays.

I went to the city today (live abroad) and it seemed busy there, it's only 3 million people!

There is nothing we buy from the EU that other countries wouldn't be happy to sell us.

My point about creating jobs in the UK (which do fund the NHS) rather than jobs in Germany (which don't) absolutely still stands.

Education is the largest employer in Coventry, Melody . Not cars. And education is a sector under threat because of Brexit.

I don't think Coventry is going to replace the finance and services sector any time fast.

We lived in London in our twenties and moved up north 30 years ago. We go up for a visit once a weekend or so. Of course it is amazing; the kids love it and I expect some of them will do their London years too. I don't think it's a place to raise a family though.

Where we live DS(11) can cycle to school and play out making dens in the woods. His high school is excellent, he will go to one of the best sixth forms in the country. His older siblings are at uni and work 30 minutes train ride away in our nearest big city. Tonight they are out together for dinner and a gig. Tomorrow DH can go out and run straight from our door, pretty much off road, for a couple of hours. He's not at work because living where we do means we can afford to retire early.

Ive moved to London having grown up in the Midlands and lived/worked in Southampton and Portsmouth. Other cities don’t compare, London is truly incredible. The culture, the opportunities, the transport, the fact everything is so close and accessible!

I don’t work mad hours (I’ve only ever stayed past 7 once or twice, 90% of the time I’m out the door by half 5), my commute is half an hour door to door assuming I time the trains right.

Downsides include:
The pollution (I commute by overground and try to avoid the tube for this reason - it’s when you blow your nose after travelling on the tube and it’s black I shudder to think what it’s doing to our lungs! This is not a problem on the overground)
The tourists
The noise (it’s not too bad where I am at night, and you get used to it pretty quickly).

I avoid Oxford St / the NHM / other tourist hotspots as frankly it’s hard to walk anywhere; they all seem to take delight in congregating in large family groups which take up the whole pavement and which move at approximately half a mile an hour. It’s a shame because things like the NHM are wonderful, just overcrowded.

I also still don’t understand the rushing for the tube. I come from a place where there was one bus an hour, if the driver could be arsed. That you run for. Not the tube where there’s another one in literally 2 mins. It’s the 15.26 to Stratford, not the last chopper out of Saigon.

Are you really a Londoner, Melody ? Because you must have noticed the change in the creative industry in the last 20 years. It's boomed on an unprecedented scale. Part of that is down to free movement within the EU, part of that is down to the money made as a spin-off from the Finance and Service sector allowing investment, and part of it has been the intangible element of the London 'vibe': tolerant, welcoming, a global world city, socially liberal.

Brexit has been extremely bad for the 'London' brand - that 'vibe'. People are leaving. You're a Londoner - you must know people who are leaving.

Our universities always attracted more global students than anywhere else. No reason for this to change.

Manufacturing jobs in Coventry and all over the UK will be a good thing - it is private sector jobs that allow us to have a decent welfare state and NHS. AND hopefully this begin to make some small inroads to rebalancing our economy (°from the over reliance on financial services). Btw, the correction to the value of the £ has given a huge boost to our exports.

As I said earlier - a correction to rents and house prices in London might be a good thing. They are ridiculous at the moment.

Happy to sell us with increased transport costs, lower standards in US’s case, increased immigration access in India and Aus’s case and anyway insufficient volume to replace lost EU trade. Chlorine chicken anyone?

Your point about Coventry doesn’t ‘stand’ any more than anything else you’ve said, but your grasp of economics is so poor as to not be worth bothering arguing with.

You don’t think a better way to remedy the over-reliance on financial sector would be to build up replacement industries before pulling the rug...?