London is no longer an English city

[Leafyhouse]

Said by John Cleese (he of Monty Python fame), recently. Link to story is here:

www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-48451384

What do other people think? I do see London's diversity as being its great strength, but maybe it's just because I live in the London bubble - and maybe the view from the rest of the country is utter horror that the capital seems to be becoming increasingly disconnected from the country. Both economically and culturally. Hence the Brexit vote - Remain in a sea of Leave.

What's the view from others?

"asian run shops, which still sell souvenirs, but play asian music and stink "

More evidence for the claim that Brexiters are definitely not at all racist.

Which bit id Leicester Square were you in? Not the All Bar one or Wetherspoons, do you object to the McDonalds? Or MnM world?

Trash

Oh and yes, vile racist, and as usual inaccurate bollocks.

I’d like to think UAreMyMummy in no way represents England, but sadly that may not be true.

I would like to think that too Tatiana.

What a load of rubbish! Just been in Soho and we had a conversation about how little it had changed including some of the 60s style restaurants you don’t find anywhere else anymore, Italian and French but not thsih

The dog pushed post!

But French and Italian restaurants only known in Soho...

As to gift shops, I don’t know who owns the but I guess they share the same problem that Mandarin Oriental and every other hospitality /tourist company has, no English person applies for a job, let alone ........

Oh FFS.What a load of rubbish. Leicester Square has ‘Asian’ shop keepers?
No doubt British in fact.

And (hold the edge of your seats) China town just behind it has ‘Asian’ staff in its restaurants. Jeez who'd have thought it. No doubt they are in fact British too for several generations. The area still has many second, third generation families of French,Italian, Indian, Chinese descent. Some of whom not only work there but have lived there all their lives too. They are the West end. There are Londoners. They are British .They are Soho.

Leicester Square has evolved over the years - in my opinion it’s become less classy and more touristy.But all areas of big cities evolve.

Take Soho just behind Leicester Square- change and evolution has been the pattern of the area.

I know more about there (and there’s a good Evening Standard article about it.)

1800’s -Soho was a cheap poor district. Small Georgian and Victorian streets, relatively small higgledy piggledy shops and houses evolved with little planning or uniformity. No big department stores or big shopfronts like Oxford street. It started with small businesses, yes often by people from France and Italy. These people founded the area two hundred years ago.

[ Note this was before the EU so you can’t blame the EU for that.]

Examples: The Algerian Coffee Stores and Maison Bertaux, both started in the 1800s

1900s. After the war, the area perhaps got more arty, bohemian and ...sleazy. Brothels plus arty film creative types. Jazz -The Groucho, Coach and horses etc. Many Italian and French descent shops too eg Lina Stores, opened by a Genoese woman during the Second World War.Bar Italia café set up by an Italian in 1949. These families live there - not visiting for the first time in several years from zone 3.

1950s There were plans to demolish Soho that never happened.. ...

1970s The (straight) sex shop culture took hold. Paul Raymond etc

1980s when I knew it- it was still (relatively) cheap little restaurants with pine tables in Greek Street and Frith street. Mildred’s veggie restaurant was there.
I never went but Andrew Edmunds restaurant in Lexington Street started in 1986.

1980s- 2010 Definitely more gay scene- going there with my bgf I was often the only woman in sight.

Now- Expensive new flats are making Soho even less fringe and bohemian.

There are seven hotels plus offices trying to move in.

Examples - The beautiful building on Beak Street (by a follower of Rennie Mackintosh) demolished to make way for new offices.Large restaurants and designer stores want Soho now.

Places evolve. London evolves. It is an English but very wonderfully international world city. It has been since before the Flemings came in the 1200s, bringing new industries and crafts.We are all Londoners. It’s constantly changing.Always has - always will.

Leicester Square is full of asian run shops, which still sell souvenirs, but play asian music and stink of incense. Piccadilly Circus is no better

Thinking about it, isn’t this an example of hyperbole / fake news? What is in Leicester Square these days? Hotels, cinemas, restaurants, the Society of London theatre half price tickets booth (which is an incredible asset used by both tourists and Londoners), and various ticket agencies pretending to be the ticket booth Though I walk through almost daily I don’t remember any gift shops though having been in London over forty years I long ago learnt to screen out the tourist tat that has always been there. So a look on google street view and I realised there is one gift shop. Given rents are high I suppose it makes sense that this would not be a SME. In fact Crest Of London run shops in the 5 other tourist areas of London and have a website , crestoflondon.co.uk/stores/whitehall/?s=1d890q5b95tta0tq8csrrqq157 , a corporate identity and all the other trappings of a retail business - they just happen to sell very British things. It’s main directors are John and Caroline Stacpoole who are both British and as he is 86 I am guessing he has been in the business a long time. I am fairly sure he didn’t decide to set up a tacky tourist shop out of the blue to change Leicester Square for the worse in recent years. In fact as tacky tourist shops go it looks almost as if they have been quite tasteful in meeting the needs of the tourist market, indeed have corporate clients like American Airlines to whom they supply merchandise, yes this is a thoroughly British business that exports overseas. They also are working with the London cabbie’s children’s charities.

I don’t doubt they struggle to find the white English people Mummy wants to serve in their shops, all branches of the retail (unless it is fashion and beauty 🤔) and tourist industry struggle with that, Mandarin Oriental and other high end hotels have been vocal about the problems they face post Brexit because English people do not apply for the jobs they advertise (in spite of various schemes to encourage and train young British people in the hospitality industry (they tend to go abroad to work) but equally I am somewhat 🤔 that they would sanction the burning of incense, what with the requirements of corporate insurers. Perhaps stay in zone 3 if you are not able to zone out the tourist shops there as part of a thriving industry.......

Oh and another thing you will find in Leicester Square at Christmas is a rather jolly Christmas Market. However I suggest Mummy never goes there between 3am and 6 am because she will find a lot of drunks spilling out of the nightclubs, the girls in towering heels, all English and a peculiar shade of orange.......

Actually thinking about it, I have been vaguely aware that the tourist shops were becoming more corporate. Chinatown too has evolved from family restaurants to bigger chains who have several sites, and have changed the offerings in each according to the evolving tastes of their markets. As Lonely says places evolve....

Leicester Square has a few high end Middle Eastern restaurants, a Turkish cafe / dessert place where Haagen Daaz used it to be. That’s pretty much the only change. The clubs are still there. Chinatown and Soho is pretty much still there. The ‘Asian run’ souvenir shops have always been run by Asians; they just might not have hired a brown shopkeeper / manager before as these tend to be local roles filled by students, and there were fewer visibly foreign students in the 70s and 80s.

UAreMyMummy, shame on you and your reprehensible views.