What about London?

Oscar Wilde was famously quoted as saying, " if a man tires of London, he tires of life". I spent a day in London yesterday to catch up with my childhood friends Juju and. Lu Ming. Getting to London was easy and arriving at Kings Cross station was a nicer experience than before as the station has been modernised and platforms, travel information easily accessible and rail staff n bright new uniforms. Central London was congested with tourists and as it was the school holidays there were even lots of children and young people about, many being entertained by street artistes pretending to be statues. I walked into a Lloyds TSB branch in Covent Garden and spoke to a bored customer service officer who told me that more and more people are now moving into the west end to live in order to cut costs. The Seven dials area which includes, Covent garden and Soho have always been residential areas and here there are a multitude of shops, bars, cinemas, theatres etc - every amenity to meet any need. London has always attracted people and if you like city dwelling and living in a built up urban area with every amenity at hand, then working and living in a vibrant quarter of a pumping city like London is the place to be. I was fascinated by the people on the street as I sat and observed them from Jubilee Market and surrounds, there were young executive types walking with mobile phones deep in conversation with their mobiles jammed against their ears, students using the free wi-Fi in Starbucks and Cafe Nero, market traders plying their wares and bright young sales assistants in posh up market stores like Orla Kiely and Gudrun Sjorden strutting their stuff. Then it was happy hour and all the streets were packed with people leaving work for a drink or a quick meal, pre-theatre goers and those who were wending their way home waiting at bus queues and crowded tube trains. What an amazing place London is and even more what about it when the Olympics 2012 comes to town in July? Will it be able to cope with the onslaught on its already challenged transport system, congested roads and pavements? Not to mention increase in volume of people using its toilets ( there were only two cubicles in the one female public loo in Covent Garden) and what about the rubbish generated by all these people. These are only some of the few observations I made on my day trip to London. I have to admit that I was thoroughly enthralled by London for those few hours I was there. It has so much to offer and it is feast for all kinds of tastes and needs - pastry lovers, gourmands, retail therapy, drink, music, arts; anything and everything but is it? London epitomises our fast moving, instant gratification materialistic society that we all love and resent at the same time but we find difficult to reject because that is what we have become as citizens of a capitalist western world where we need to feel connected and involved as a group or as individuals in order to know that we belong.