Why it's better living in London

Discussion in 'Western Europe' started by The Rhetoric of Life, Mar 26, 2021.

  1. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    London is in the UK, so for better or for worse, has socialised healthcare meaning, health care is paid for already at the point of access (for Brits and non Brits alike).
    Being in London, London is a part of the UK vaccination against Covid programme which has gone so well, the EU is thinking about holding supplies.

    London is where all your favourite UK music is recorded and released, and it's where to find high end items in abundance only found in a selection of cities around the world (Madrid, Hong Kong, New York City and Los Angeles are the others, along side London).

    London has 5 international airports and is more forward thinking and prosperous than the rest of Europe with out rights of minorities and financial hub.

    Businesses are open until much later than other places in England.

    Of course, life isn't perfect in London; we still have problems with the police and problems with gangs as the police seem to think they're above prosecution so a a rule of thumb should be challeneged if they step out of line lest London becomes a police state.

    London has history and culture, full of museums if you're in to that sort of thing.

    It was @Montegriffo who openly admitted living in Suffolk in the Mayor of London 2021 thread who said he didn't care about London, so rather than say how good it is to live in the United Kingdom, I'm focusing on the good stuff, which is found in London.
    Soho has featured in a lot of popular music it's almost impossible to escape it; even a band from Manchester (this English city up North) has London's Soho on their album cover.
    Liverpool band The Beatles recorded at Abbey Road in St. John's Wood and even used the street as an album cover.

    When Suffolk stops being all UKIP/BNP Skinhead inclined and opens up an international airport or becomes a destination rather than a stop, then I'd be up for listening @Montegriffo but right now, to someone from London, England looks slower, duller and the gene pool is something to be avoided lest your offspring suffer the consequences of inbreeding.

    But back to London, leading the country; TFL is our transportation network which includes a metro called The London Underground, a monorail called the DLR (Dockland Light Rail), and a bunch of busses that are red in London.
    Seeing a bus that was painted another colour in another town or city in England; is a reminder that London is where it's at; also, TFL uses an electronic payment system and is cashless; I took a bus in Sussex in 2018 for a month working down there; needed Cash and one trip cost £3.50; which is far more than in London.

    A few reasons why it's better to live in London than say, an English city, because London is a world city full of all the things you'd expect to find in one (like late night shopping a good place to get food at 5 am) or better than other European cities because of our rights and our freedoms and because of our vaccination roll out.
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2021
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  2. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    I grew up in a city where, Camden was the place to get rock fashion; Soho was the place to party or get a nice guitar, Brixton was a place to socialise and Croydon did its own Croydon thing which included fashion models;
    Knightbridge was a place to buy luxurious things and Kensington was a place to walk at night if you wanted to be surrounded by beauty.
    London has many terminal train stations and our bus station is next to London Victoria;

    Where I live has direct trains to London Victoria and London Bridge; the train to London Victoria stops at Clapham Junction (Europe's biggest train station) and I can change trains to London Waterloo there as well as to Vauxhaull.
    It's also how to get to Putney from here by train; change at Clapham Junction.

    London's talk radio LBC 'London's Biggest Conversation' went national the other year changing its name to 'Leading Britain's Conversation' but I grew up with parents who listened to it everyday back in the day (1990's, early 2000's) and Nick Ferrari's show was always what my parents listened to on LBC.
     
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  3. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    I have lived in London back in the 80s.
    I was only there for a couple of years.
    I found it unfriendly, people were very reluctant to talk to you. Far too crowded for my liking and everything costs more.
    I don't mind visiting it, there's lots too see but I wouldn't live there again.
     
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  4. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    Oh that's cool, where abouts in London?

    I was born in the 1980's and lived here my whole life; there was a time we'd see Concorde in the sky; Concorde was great; It'll fly you from Europe to NYC in 3 hours and overtake all the slower transatlantic flights over the Atlantic along the way;

    Concorde, would leave London when it's dark, and land in NYC in daylight; Other planes it's a 7 hour trip nowadays and it's too slow to lose or catch up with the sun so taking off in Europe in the daytime, you've got the sun with you all day; Concorde was supersonic and would depart later and still beat regular aeroplanes; and you'd catch up with the sun as it turned the corner of the Earth over the ocean.
     
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  5. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    Near Wormwood scrubs and then later moved out to Elstree. Used to bump into Dot Cotton in the corner shop.
    When I was there there was a mainland bombing campaign by the IRA. Every time you went on the tube you'd worry about getting blown up.
     
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  6. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What about the homelessness problem in the city, which is a relatively recent phenomena?

    These "gang" problems were virtually non-existent 25 years ago.

    Wow, London is becoming more and more like a big city in the United States.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2021
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  7. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That's a bit of a laugh.
    I'm not sure Americans would consider London to be the place of "rights and freedoms". London has a fewer rights and freedoms than other places in the UK.

    But I suppose it's all a little bit relative? There are places on the continent that border on being totalitarian.


    One example, I don't think you can even wear a hunting knife in your belt in London without being arrested.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2021
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  8. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Gang rape in London

    "Thousands of teenage girls in London are at risk of being raped, according to the woman in charge of an official inquiry looking at sexual exploitation by gangs across England."

    Gang who held machete to girl's throat and raped her face long jail term | Metro News
    Two men arrested after girl was ‘gang-raped in London park in broad daylight’ – The Sun
    Girls, 15, in gang rape horror | London Evening Standard | Evening Standard

    "Two 15-year-old girls were gang-raped by up to 10 youths in a horrific attack in London last night."

    Woman fought off five sex attackers in attempted rape in south London park, police reveal | Daily Mail Online


    Hmm, sounds like there's a pattern here...

    Again, I don't remember these type of news stories coming from London in the 1990s.
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2021
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  9. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    London is not on my list of places to go. But then neither is any other city anywhere. I spose for people who like living on top of eachother like rats, London is prolly pretty cool.
     
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  10. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    Of course you can't. There's no hunting in London.
     
  11. AlpinLuke

    AlpinLuke Well-Known Member

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    I've been in London, in a quite nice part, near to Regent's Park.
    It wasn't so great [I don't want to think to the not so rich parts of the city].
    Regent's Park aside, London is a kind of giant village [many slow buildings, totally different from NY] with a lot to do and many ways to enjoy your stay. Anyway I live in a little town surrounded by nature and probably this is why I tend to spend time in great cities only to have fun or for cultural reasons [this is why I have spent time in London, Paris and NY].
     
  12. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    There's this place on the other side of England called Whitby that I think has potential.

    To get there, there's a flight up there from the big airport in London (London Heathrow); and it's an hour away by taxi from its closest airport to Whitby, so it's a little bit hidden, but anyone flying into Heathrow Airport from (insert world city here) can land and make one of two daily flights to connect to that flight up to Whitby's closest airport; a domestic flight from London (LHR) to Teeside International (MME), takes 1 hr 15 minutes but YouTube has videos making good time on this flight making it around 45 minutes.
    I've never been but am thinking about going this year for my travels with the borders being closed to UK ppl maybe because of Covid in their countries, and that has got me looking at the logistics of getting to this village/small coastal town.

    It's basically Dracula's landing point from that story because the writer/Bram Stoker was inspired by the place when writing Dracula.
    [​IMG]
    and it's a real place in England.





    and Whitby has another town near it that's adorable and somewhere I'd check out from Whitby when/if I go.

    I believe it's 6 miles away and has a commuter bus from Whitby, or you could rent a car and drive it to this Robin Hood's Bay town from a hotel in Whitby for a day out from Whitby.
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2021
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  13. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That looks kinda cool, but this is what I would be interested in: Shhh... Secret Wild Camping Locations in the UK (coolcamping.com)
     
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  14. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    Plus there's knife crime and carrying one is a convictable offence...
     
  15. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    Yup, there's no good reason to carry a knife around London unless you're a chef.
     
  16. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    We're a built up area.
    Had London be in Germany, I wouldn't be able to mow my lawn on a Sunday because in Germany, the state knows best and you cannot mow your lawn in Germany in a built up area with a powered lawn mower on a Sunday; London's a built up area, but because London's not in Germany, I can mow when I want with what I want as it's better being in London than it is in Germany.
    The United States isn't in Western Europe, so Americans need to understand a bit of relativity with that word freedom, and be thankful you have yours because if it wasn't for mine we established in America, you'd be French France made their colonial claims France, so you'd be French in the EU maybe in a history without my freedoms to thank for.
    When Spain went Franco Fascist dictator and paved the way for Latin American Socialism, might have been that, instead of American with your Bill of Rights that's a mixture of native Sioux Nation treaty and Magna Carta from Surrey, England, my home homecounty of London, since London's kind of big, it's in like 4 or 6 counties, but I'm in Surrey and that's where my freedom was born to help make yours, that's also from Surrey, like Eric Clapton and Marshall Amplifiers and BBC's Top Gear Track/Office.
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2021
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  17. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    Even though my country is close to Norway across the North Sea, I had no idea they were so Soviet.

    It's not just Norway, but that region/Scandinavia, Soviets.
    HOWEVER... They're not Communist, they're Capitalist.

    UK is a mixed economy part Socialist part Capitalist/mixed economy.
    Norway (and other Scandinavian countries, not sure if all of them, but, the majority of them) are Soviet - But not Communist; in fact they're Capitalist, like me/The UK/London etc...
    mixed economy, like me.
    Only, where I'm from a part Socialist part Capitalist mixed economy, they're part of a part Soviet part Capitalist mixed economy.
    They're so close to my country geographically but I was an adult when I learned this, and I believe, the UK is a lot more loose and therefore free, than Scandinavia, or to that extent, any dry county or country the world over. @kazenatsu the next time you think UK isn't free.
    I'm not saying it's like Amsterdam here (I wish) but, we are pretty free and liberty isn't something Europe has lot of.

    The India variant is scaring us with Covid, so we're not so sure of how free we are these days.
    They're going to offer alternatives to the AstraZeneca vaccine because of ageing millennials going online and being reluctant because of blood clot fears linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine, to the under 40s when they're offered the jab, which is soon, then after that it will be the under 30s and their turn, I think.
     
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  18. DennisTate

    DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    One of the most gifted Christian writers that I know of
    when he was at a hotel in London had one of the most unusual
    visionary dreams that I ever read.........

    This is three hours long but well worth investing some time in because
    what he was shown fits with the scholarship of Orthodox Jewish historian and scholar Yair Davidiy who
    associates Britain and America with the descendants of the Patriarch Joseph.

    I've been reading material related to this since the 1970's and it is actually quite interesting and
    inspirational.

    https://vimeopro.com/vfndc/final-quest-the-call-the-harvest/video/414468745

    ★★★ THE TORCH AND THE SWORD ★★★ —BY RICK JOYNER & MORNINGSTAR PUBLICATIONS— {NARRATED}


    I could be wrong..... I often am.....
    but it is a fact of history that England became somewhat competitive with the
    Jewish people........
    but if England had more enthusiastically assisted the Jewish people to complete their mission for
    all the earth then I suspect that the fortunes of England over these past seventy or eighty years would have
    been vastly improved.



    Yair Davidiy:
    Is it possible that one of the major reasons why the last eighty years went so amazingly well for the United States perhaps be because they more enthusiastically assisted the Jewish people...... and did not envy them so much or try to compete with them?????

    It is a fact of history that my nation Canada was quite anti-Semitic and after the M. S. St. Louis was turned away from Miami it was also turned away from Halifax, Nova Scotia. The nine hundred and eight refugees on the M. S. St. Louis were finally accepted in England, France and Belgium....... but generally only those accepted into England freely escaped The Holocaust.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis

    Stephen Hawking Ph. D. through his ideas on The Anthropic Principle have set the stage for all of us to realize that our decisions........
    can affect the way that each future works out.


    https://near-death.com/future/

    The Future and the Near-Death Experience
    BY KEVIN WILLIAMSPOSTED ON SEPTEMBER 22, 2019
     
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  19. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    Though we have a history of letting in refugees fleeing persecution, there's still prejudiced in the UK.
    Jews in WWII who came and settled in the UK found the UK not as welcoming as you'd think; only when the horrors of the Holocaust came out and people were made aware, were the British more sympathetic to Jewish people; according to family members who were alive at the time who raised me told me.
    Which makes sense, as in the 1960's, there were infamous signs that said 'No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs' on rooms for rent here.
    [​IMG]
    This wasn't on a state level in the UK like Jim Crow laws that Alabama were the last to let go of, I think - this was private ownership in a racist society that just had the world show up at its doorstep; however, this lasted until 1968 and the Race Relations Act 1968, an act of parliament that allowed people to bring this discrimination to court.
    https://eachother.org.uk/racism-1960s-britain/

    Even today alas, with Brexit, no longer do refugees get houses, but are placed in dorms nowadays, very recently.


    So UK's reverted a bit, since Brexit.
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2021
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  20. The Scotsman

    The Scotsman Well-Known Member

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    ....oh dear....how dreadfully bothersome...
     
  21. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    They're not prisoners and this isn't France.

    Locals complain that they're A coming and B will be allowed out to the community; What I find bothersome is the that locals object even more to B/the last one/latter objection; probably wishing to keep people locked up and out of sight even though they're not prisoners, and are moaning that these people will be allowed out - that's what's bothersome to me, moaning because you can't treat someone like a prisoner while they're asylum claim is being processed.
     
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  22. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    UK's still coming out of lockdown, but the Indian variant of Covid is spreading around the UK; the same variant that's devastating India, and India thought they were out of it too!/thought they had beaten Covid; so relaxed things, had mass gatherings, now look at them - THE SAME VARIANT.

    Perhaps we're just a species doomed to the guillotine being so close to the finish line but messing it up with 1 variant Vs. our species need to get back to normal/make money!
     
    Last edited: May 18, 2021
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  23. The Scotsman

    The Scotsman Well-Known Member

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    I think the issue is that our system of vetting and administering asylum seekers and indeed the final decision process is flawed. Forgive me if I'm wrong but the procedure seems hamstrung by the inability to act against those that look to pit our legal system against those of genuine need versus those of dubious requirement. The UK is having difficulty deciding whose needs are best served; a Kantian view versus a Utilitarian view of best practise for the UK if you will. Do we pay these people to stay in France or in their own countries or third party states (as the EU pays Turkey) or do we just allow them free rein? Ultimately it seems to me that the UK has a difficulty, political unwillingness or structural inability to act in the best interests of the wider community for want of a vocal politically motivated minority using the asylum process as a tool for their own self interest and indeed financial gain at the expense of the tax payers.
     

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