I am leaving for Moscow tomorrow (today?).
There is a surfeit of excellent people in London, and I have met some of the very best during my time here, including the Russia analyst Alexander Mercouris, the psychometrist James Thompson (who recently moved to this website), the futurist Anders Sandberg, and a few others who would likely prefer to avoid the public spotlight.
That said, London is not the place I’d want to spend much more than two months in. The weather is too damp and cold, and there is a bit too much vibrant diversity. I prefer it the other way round.
Anyhow, here are some of my quick impressions:
(1) Boomtown – Buildings are going up over the place. There is an economic confidence that Brexit has left unperturbed. This is reflected in housing prices – even though there are now fewer oil-fueled Arab and Russian oligarchs to buoy them up, the modest one bedroom apartment near London Bridge that I stayed at costs around $700,000. This confidence appears to be reflected in the demographics – many young families around.
(2) Vibrant Diversity – Fewer than half of Londoners are British Whites. And it shows, especially when you travel outside the city center. I encountered less than half a dozen women in niqabs during my American decade.
In London, you see that many practically whenever you walk out the door.
(3) British Food is Underrated – Although it doesn’t exactly enjoy the best reputation, it isn’t half as bad as it said to be. I enjoyed fish and chips a lot more than when I last had it back in the Triassic. I can see why The Golden Chippy – its signature fare showcased above – deserves its TripAdvisor ranking as the best London restaurant.
I also finally got the chance to try real Scotch eggs at the Borough Market. Though immeasurably better than the supermarket version, I am not a huge fan of them. Although it was once my favorite dessert, I was left underwhelmed by Black Forest gateau, though that’s probably more a function of my tastes having shifted away from cream and sugar and towards spice and vinegar in general.
(4) British Indian Food – Speaking of spice, the best Indian restaurant I tried out was Simply Indian – it is cheap, the lamb biriyani there is very good and can be made excruciatingly spicy, and you can either bring your own booze or order their masala chai. I only got the chance to visit it once, with my new friend AZ, but I will be certain to pay it another visit next time I go.
Roti Chai and Dishoom were both pretty good. I especially liked the atmosphere of the Dishoom, with its open kitchens and India-themed book collections in the dining area (see above). I also liked the Thali vegetable curry sold by Gujarati Rasoi at Borough Market. Despite coming with a recommendation from a friend, not to mention its venerable age, The India Club near Temple was a huge disappointment: Overpriced, uninspired fare, and the waiter actually presses you for a tip (this is of course a no-no in the UK).
Any other recommendations for good Indian places in London?
(5) The English Pub – My favorites were the oldest pub in London, The Mayflower (Pan Fried Seabass) and the historic Eagle and Child in Oxford (esp. the Scotch Venison and Malbec Wine Pie), where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis used to meet at the end of work.
(6) Warm Beer – Yes it’s a thing and I’m not a fan. Though that might just be my American philistinism.
(7) British Barbarism – I was once again reminded of the British habit of leashing their toddlers like dogs. Seriously, what is up with that?
Never saw it in Russia. Never saw it in the US. Never saw it anywhere in Europe. Just Britain.
(8) Bureacracy – [Warning: n=1 sample]. It does work efficiently, with the very marked exception of the NHS.
That said, paper remains much more prevalent than in California.
The Russian Consulate was a disappointment – suffice to say that sovok habits die hard. That said, another acquaintance has had good experiences with them.
(9) Technology – At first, I was impressed – this was my first encounter with contactless cards. They work throughout the whole city, including the entirety of the transport system, and as a result London is fast becoming one of the world’s first “cashless societies.”
But there are things which are more banal but of far greater relevance to everyday comforts: Namely, Internet and cell phone services.
And in this respect, London considerably underperforms the Bay Area (which hardly has anything to write home about either).
Internet speeds are mediocre, though still better value for money than Concast. Upload speeds however are atrocious. Forget about cloud storage in any substantial capacity unless you are willing to shell out big on a plan. It is inexplicable that in this day and age the Underground still doesn’t have WiFi.
In regards to cell phone data plans, I have found EE to be both unreliable and actually inoperable in some parts of what is after all one of the world’s great metropolises. In contrast, Cricket Wireless gave me good service even in many rural parts of California.
(10) Tourism – Though this was by no means my first time in London, it was by far my longest stay, so I took the opportunity to put lots of ticks on the tourist checklist.
The British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Saint Paul’s Cathedral, The Tower of London, etc, etc.
I drank a cup of coffee where Litvinenko was supposedly poisoned.
I also hung around for a few seconds at Station 9¾, King’s Cross where all the middle-aged Harry Potter fans with receding hairlines gather.
(11) Degenerate Art – The Tate Gallery was… well, the viewing platform at the top of the Switch House has an awesome view, if looking at sodomized anthropic-like objects created by a crazed kreakl isn’t your cup of tea.
Additionally, its completely free, surprisingly uncrowded, and has a cafe.
Well, okay, I enjoyed some of the things at the Tate. The room with the dog people. The photomontages of John Heartfield. And the couple of paintings by Salvador Dali.
(12) Portsmouth – I was especially impressed by HMS Warrior. It was the definition of a transitional ship – midway between sail and steam; between wood and metal; between cutlasses and Enfield rifles; between cannonballs and shells. But this same ambition created quite a few problems and it didn’t stay commissioned very long by naval standards. I suspect this is the fate that awaits the Zumwalt class.
It was also very eye-opening to learn about British submarine traditions (pictured above is me on the HMS Alliance).
(13) Oxford – This trip was especially pleasant thanks to my longtime friend AS, who not only offered me a personal tour of the city, but engaged me with some very thought-provoking discussions about Spanish culture (his specialization) and the Alt Right (his sympathies).
The Ashmolean was one of the very first museums in the world, and its original exhibition is still preserved “as was.” Not surprisingly, about a third of it was devoted to the Americas, which reflects the popular interests of the time.
Although the big object in its collection is the Alfred Jewel, my attention was primarily drawn to two other historical aspects:
(a) Not only could you buy Chinese ceramics in the 18th century, but you could even send a design to China to get them to make you a set of plates and cups, and have it delivered back to you. Not as quick and most certainly not as cheap, but some version of Ali Baba has been around for a surprisingly long time!
(b) European silverware was remarkably advanced by the 17th century, and you can see progress decade by decade, and even attempt national comparisons. For instance, Russian production in the 1680s was only as good as Germany in the 1650s.
(14) Futurism – This is better left for another post, but in short, if Bay Area futurism is about psychedelics and the Singularity, London futurism is more about the next iPhone model.
I am of course horribly exaggerating, but I don’t think its an illegimate comparison.
Oxford of course hosts The Future of Humanity Institute, best known as home to Nick Bostrom, but it seems to be only very tangentially involved with the wider community. This might be legitimate in most academic spheres, but perhaps not so much in one that is of such potentially great import to the entirety of humanity, and which suffers from a certain tinge of charlatanism.
Nonetheless, I was happy to go to a talk with Anders Sandberg on the ethics of human life extension, organized by the just-created Oxford Longevity Society, and to join him for a group dinner afterwards.
The talk itself was as good as the questions from the audience were depressing.
(15) SJWism – My aforementioned friend AS complained repeatedly about the importation of American SJW culture to the UK. Arguably, SJWism has festooned to greater proportions in Blighty than in the Trumpenreich itself.
You could definitely see many signs of it in Oxford: LGBT flags strewn about in the graduate common rooms, feminist slogans prominently glued onto MacBooks (kek) at the library, multiple instances of “I ♥ feminism” graffiti scrawled on the historic walls of Oxford.
There is plenty of this in London as well. Animal rights activists chalk “Stop Eating Animals You Psychopaths” a couple of blocks from Downing Street. The LSE common room where I celebrated Trump’s win with my friend AZ – we were the only Trump supporters there out of 30-40 people – saw students “literally shaking” as the results came in, so I can personally confirm that this is not just a meme. And above is a poster from some group that blames Uber for apparent record numbers of rapes and sexual assaults.
Meanwhile, on a Stratford street a couple of miles away, bearded men animatedly call on Londoners to convert to Islam.
I love fish and chips, but I have to go a few days before eating them again. Something about the grease they use to fry it in or something. If I try to eat it 2 meals or 2 days in a row, I feel like throwing up.
Full English breakfasts are good too.
London just has a surfeit of people, period. Two hours was more than enough for me.
Elsewhere in England, the most surprising thing was lots of signs warning against the criminal plague of “fly tipping”, which turns out to be nothing at all like cow tipping only with flies instead of cows.
Roti Chai is decent for lunch, Dishoom is OK but pretty overpriced for what it offers. £3.50 for a roti is obscene.
Other options for higher end food are Gymkhana in Mayfair and Trishna in Marylebone. If you can stand the diversity, Tayyabs and Lahore Kebab House in Whitechapel offer good food and generous portions for a third of the price of the above.
London’s newer architecture could be more ambitious, Rotterdam does far better on that score.
It’s not that common to see niqabis in central London unless you go to Edgware Road or see the wives of rich Arabs on shopping trips in Belgravia. To hit peak niqabi you have to go to the upper reaches of Zone 2 and Zone 3 (Tooting etc.), Zone 1 and most of Zone 2 are pretty gentrified. Pubs on Friday evenings here are crammed full of white Brits and Europeans.
Because of the boom in house prices, more and more white Londoners have moved to places which were beyond the pale such as Brixton, Walthamstow, Acton and Leytonstone.
If you not been then Tate Britain, the Maritime Museum and Royal Naval College at Greenwich, the viewing deck from the Shard and the Wallace Collecton are all worth seeing.
I don’t think SJWism is that prevalent here, there has been little to no noise over transgender rights and the local chapter of Black Lives Matter has done nothing apart from one protest at an airport. America seems to have a much larger proportion of silly, subsidised academics who want to destroy society to work out whatever grievances they have.
What we do have is a business establishment that believes they have a sacrosanct right to unlimited, cheap imported labour from now to Judgement Day.
As someone who’s lived in London for a decade, I find it pretty irritating when people say things like “In London, you see that many [niqabs] practically whenever you walk out the door.” I understand you’re exaggerating to make a point, as I’m sure it’s true you are much more likely to see women in niqabs in London than in other western cities – and I personally fucking hate the things.
However lets be realistic, there’s really only two areas where you’re likely to see it. One is around the edgeware road, and these ones are wealthy gulf arabs who have their own little ‘summer colony’ there. The other is around whitechapel (and possibly further east, where I haven’t spent much time), where a small proportion of the Bengalis who live there have gone Islamo-crazy and niqabed up.
I heard the Imperial War Museum is very interesting. Also why “British Whites?” Just British is sufficient.
Also why “British Whites?” Just British is sufficient.
Are we working on the hard questions these days?
There seems to me to be a dissonance between a real estate and economic boom and a niqab and third-world population boom.
The Welsh are included if you just say “British.”
Still does not change the fact that London is now majority non white, which is more than enough to never want to go there.
Dishoom is Parsi food, so it’s a blend of Persian and Indian, it’s not really mainstream. Parsis are an ethnic group some HBDers sometimes romanticise about too.
I went to Dishoom, had to queue for way too long, and thought the food was average. I was disappointed because it’s said to be the best and trendiest Indian food in London.
Imo the best Indian/Pakistani food in London is Khan’s in Westbourne Grove/Bayswater.
It is important. There’s much power in manipulating language, in this instance the goal is to remake Britain into America. “White” should be meaningless there, like it always has been.
remake Britain into America.
You write this like it is undeniably a bad thing.
We do have a 1st amendment.
It would have been a contender 15 years ago, now you are better off going to Burger King.
True, but if it becomes like America, then the British people become part of one category in a multi-racial society.
Well, they should have thought of that before doing the empire thing.
Warm Beer – Yes it’s a thing and I’m not a fan. Though that might just be my American philistinism.
It’s supposed to be room temperature, not warm. Cask ale does however require some tender love and care, something which is often absent from London’s increasingly temporary and foreign bar staff. Neighbourhood pubs with locals – if you can find them in London – are better for traditional ale.
Technology – At first, I was impressed – this was my first encounter with contactless cards. They work throughout the whole city, including the entirety of the transport system, and as a result London is fast becoming one of the world’s first “cashless societies.”
This can be a problem though. They’ve had automated checkouts at places like Marks & Spencer for many years yet still almost every visit involves some delay due to machine malfunction or a person in front not knowing what to do. On one occasion (not at M&S) I had to pay for a 99p item with a credit card. Efficiency has not improved with technology from what I’ve seen.
(15) SJWism – My aforementioned friend AS complained repeatedly about the importation of American SJW culture to the UK. Arguably, SJWism has festooned to greater proportions in Blighty than in the Trumpenreich itself.
For some reason Brits tend to only import all of the bad things America has to offer. This is especially the case with urban liberals, yet they are the same people who tend to sneer at America.
I enjoyed fish and chips
I had fish and chips twice. The first time made and served by Greeks, the second time by Italians. That’s London.
Majority non-white or majority non-English (white)?
You generally do not see English people on the street unless it is a special occasion. Mostly they commute to work and back again very discreetly.
[which suffers from a certain tinge of charlatanism]
I see you have already adopted English understatement, AK.
Ah, enough about Londonistan. How is Moscva?
Moskvabad?
Why are you saying things that you know (assuming you’ve actually been to London) are patently false? Yes there has been massive ethnic change over the last few decades such that the white British are now a minority, no one on this website is unaware of or unconcerned with this fact. But why say things that are so ridiculous (speaking as a white english 10 year london resident who is SHOCK frequently on the streets with other white english people)
No. British includes, for example, East African Asians and those early Hong Kong Chinese who arrived on British passports. Most Afro-Caribbeans claim Black British, although they were Commonwealth to make some space between themselves and the Nigerians. British is Civic Nationalism. English is ethnic nationalism.
Majority foreign born. Many are white, if it matters. 300,000 French for example. A big chunk of the 2 million Poles in the UK. There are places where the language is Russian thanks to Baltic Russian emigration. The biggest group is still English and there are about 1 m Welsh in the whole South East. More than the Irish.
British doesn’t have to be civic nationalism, it should refer to the peoples of the British Isles: English, Welsh, Irish, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyer%27s_remorse
Peace.
Moskvabadistan?
Hey Marcus,
If some get their way – Scottish and English will have a far more significance than ‘White’:
http://www.theweek.co.uk/scottish-independence/55716/scottish-independence-sturgeon-lays-out-brexit-options
Peace.
Nice to see picture of Greenwich Observatory grounds, and a hint of straddling hemispheres both physical and mental.
SNP is staunchly left wing and civic “nationalist,” but it would be interesting to see how they’d change the lexicon, “Anglo-Welsh-Northern Irish?”
The banking mafia have ruled Britain since their successful coup in the 1980s and have worked on creating their ideal environment ever since.
The banking mafia’s ideal environment is one where 1) the masses are 85 IQ slave-cattle on payday loans and 2) the banking mafia are above the law.
Hence both
1) the ethnic cleansing of the native population through mass immigration
and
2) London becoming the money-laundering capital of the world.
The building boom is a side effect of the money laundering.
The banking mafia rule Britain since their successful coup in the 1980s and have worked on creating their ideal environment ever since.
The banking mafia’s ideal environment is one where 1) the masses are 85 IQ slave-cattle on payday loans and 2) the banking mafia are above the law.
Hence both
1) the ethnic cleansing of the native population through mass immigration
and
2) London becoming the money-laundering capital of the world.
The building boom is a side effect of the money laundering – billionaire crooks from around the world use commercial property in London to launder money.
Feel like a pretty fair precis. I agree my impression there’s not a lot of enthusiasm about future technology as an ideology, outside a very consumer commercial lens of marketing, advertising and lifestyle.
(3) British is not world beating but decent food if you cook it right. Bad cooking where people don’t pay attention to dry meat, poor mouthfeel, limp vegetables, etc. has been more of a problem with British food than bad ideas.
(4) I do think there’s a lot of SJWism about. Though in both America and Britain, there isn’t a lot of it outside of student-y areas.
It does have a different flavour than the American to me. British culture is generally less earnest than American, more skeptical of revolutionary movements, has a more satirical and less idealistic attitude to student politics (and politics in general – I can’t imagine a British “West Wing”), and also has a historically stronger Labour Leftist movement (Labour Party, unions), with historically less vigorous Liberal Leftist and ethnic minority political movements (Liberal Democrats). It’s less cool to look overly earnest and idealistic and to be a true believer in student politics.
On the other hand, British people are maybe more pretentious and image and class conscious than Americans, so maybe more fearful of being labeled as a regressive / backward type. Compared to the US I think virtue and class signaling is a bigger deal here vs true believers, which is why British commentators like Delingpole seem to talk about it a lot more.
Still, for London, British vs American culture differences maybe aren’t that relevant in differences in SJWism, because in London relatively few among the young are actually very culturally British, and lots probably are more connected to American than British culture.
Imperial War Musuem is very disappointing, took my cousin’s child there in the summer. Went to the Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow last week, much better. Typical lazy Russians turfed us out when it was supposed to be open for fifteen minutes more.
London really depends on where you go, way too many Arabs summering here now though. Food here is the best in the world though, sign of ignorance not to know this.
London is booming and prosperous because it has been able to attract talented and intelligent people from all around the world and subsequently take back the majority of their wages in rent. There’s plenty of socialisation opportunities, entertainment, hipster coffee and world food available, which seem to anesnatise them to the full extent to which there being screwed.
Without inherited or windfall wealth it’s now uninhabitable unless you’re seriously, exceptionally lucky and talented. It does make a bit of a mockery of the IQ=>success narrative when you see a family home turned Kommunalka, where 4-5 postdocs, corporates and techies pay 60% of their (well above average) salaries to a retired taxist to sit on his ass in Essex. Liberals constantly bang on about how it’s the most “progressive” part of the UK. Provincial England can be as grim as provincial Russia or the US though.
On the subject of SJWism, I guess you’re to young to remember or arrived too late to experience the loony left; very big in London and big-city local government. They were very prevent in the Thatcher era but had a haitus when new-labour/Blair came along and a lot of their leaders became neoliberals and took senior government jobs. They were extremely similar to the SJWs of today.
https://youtu.be/COt65HZCJaA
Only 800,000 from Poland, not two million
Plenty of people dispute the ‘only’ part of your statement.
FWIW, I’ve seen some white people on the Old Brompton Road in South Kensington. They had a haunted, hurried look about them. Saw a couple in Chelsea too, so you’re right: it can still happen.
One of your devices may need calibrating; though, far be it from me to specify which one 😉
Good South Indian food at this (relatively) cheap and unlicensed place (get your drink at the shop next door) just behind Euston station. Been around for forty-odd years now.
http://www.diwanabph.com/
Don’t know what Ben Roham’s on about though. You can see niqabs all over the place – North London for example, though they are way outnumbered by headscarves. I admit not many in Hampstead or Wimbledon.
Lots of good South Indian food in the extreme North and West.
There’s quite a few Niqabs in Whitechapel; not good as Bengalis don’t normally even wear headscarves back home, so it’s an entirey homegrown phenomena that brought this about. Probably a few in Newham. In North (inner) London, the (mostly Alevi) Turkish women are more likely to wear lower-back tattoos than niqabs, by contrast, their Hassidic Jewish neighbours are ultra conservative. Quite an amusing inversion of the normal state of things.
As far as “diversity” is concerned, the only type that’s noticeable and abundant in London, but nonexistent in the regions, is the East coast trustafarian yank.
According to Wikipedia, the number of
immigrants in the UK by country/continent
of origin breaks down as follows (only for Asia
and Africa)
India 780,000
Pakistan 540,000
Bangladesh 230,000
Africa 1,200,000
How do the Brits feel about immigrants
from Asia and Africa? I hear that they
almost prefer them to those from the EU
because the presence of the immigrants from
their former colonies is the visible proof that
Britain once had an empire and was a great power.
Plus it gives them a chance to earn brownie points
by displaying noblesse oblige toward their former
subjects, i.e., it’s virtue signaling plain and simple.
Conversely, the Brits cannot pat themselves on the
back for being welcoming toward fellow whites.
Am I being too cynical? I’d like Britons to respond
…for G2k
B.S. – Try Finsbury Park… Tower Hamlets…Green Lanes….Any tube train or overground line Neasden … Dollis Hill…
they’re everywhere
Anon 2 – spot on