Driving in London is absolutely insane. I’ve only been here as a passenger but I truly admire people who manage to drive here every day without turning into complete neurotics. There’s no way I would be able to drive in these conditions.
London is the most high-energy city I’ve ever visited, and I’ve visited enough places for this statement to make sense. The degree of intellectual stimulation it offers is out of this world. (I couldn’t say the same for New York, Toronto, Madrid or Berlin, for instance. These are amazing cities that have an enormous lot to offer, but I don’t perceive them as an energy shot to the intellect. Their role is different.)
I believe the reason for the way the city stimulates the intellect is the speed and intensity in which the old, the new, the historic, the borrowed, the authentic, the colonial, the imperial, the postmodern, the medieval, etc assault one’s senses at every turn.
All of a sudden, I have discovered in myself an enormous curiosity towards new areas of interest, new hobbies, new research possibilities. It’s tiresome as hell but also very exciting.
I’m leaving London tomorrow, and it’s just as well, or my brain would explode.
Clarissa's Blog 
“Driving in London is absolutely insane. I’ve only been here as a passenger but I truly admire people who manage to drive here every day without turning into complete neurotics.”
I rode a bicycle from near Hampstead to Euston most days for several years – I got to kind of enjoy the adrenalin from dodging the buses and taxis and appreciated arriving at the university in one piece and with my brain fully awake!
“the speed and intensity in which the old, the new, the historic, the borrowed, the authentic, the colonial, the imperial, the postmodern, the medieval, etc assault one’s senses at every turn.”
Yes – this! There are lots of things that I appreciate about where I currently live in the US, but I will always miss the wonderfully varying nature of the Old Smoke.
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I never heard the expression “Old Smoke.” 🙂
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Fortunately it is not quite so smoggy there any more 🙂
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Thanks for your most observant Ode to London.
“…the speed and intensity in which the old, the new, the historic, the borrowed, the authentic, the colonial, the imperial, the postmodern, the medieval, etc assault one’s senses at every turn.”
I feel much the same, whenever I return (I was born there, but left soon afterwards for the home counties/colonies!) I returned when I was a student, but left again when buying a home became a priority. I still get a very similar feeling of overwhelmed delight at the sheer variety of the city.
I wouldn’t want to live in London now, I’m too much of an old fart to cope with the traffic – I still can drive there if I absolutely must, but never for preference – the public transport is far better in London than elsewhere in the UK. And it is still very polluted, but by invisible fumes from vehicles running on filthy diesel, not as before the 1960’s, when it was largely from coal fired everything – hence the name, “The Smoke” often illustrated by billowing fog in Sherlock Holmes movies!
Hope you have a good flight back to the US of A.
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Thank you, it’s actually been a pleasant flight that just ended. Now I have the connecting flight to St Louis. I will never whine about driving again after seeing the heroic London drivers.
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