The 10 signs that I've become a Londoner (the joie de vivre version)

1. I still admire the city I live in, how handsome and charming it is. It never ceases to amaze me: just turn around the familiar corner for some quirky discovery, be it a pretty Victorian mansion, ethnic restaurant, or a view of the City's skyscrapers from a most unexpected place.
   
2. I still feel overwhelmed with how much goes on daily in this city: exhibitions, premières, musicals, openings, concerts, demonstrations, seminars, public lectures. Sometimes, I just have to stop reading mail-lists with yet more new announcements: I just don't enough hours a day to visit all that takes my fancy!
   
3. I avoid the Tube except for emergencies and "long-haul" travel. Buses are the most civilised means of commuting: you get a seat, a nice view and another free city tour. Most places in Central London are easier to walk to anyway, especially when you are versed in the quintessentially British idiosyncratic shortcuts through buildings, back lanes and car parks.
   
4. I take it for granted that no street is straight here (save for Oxford Street and Edgware Road) and getting from point A to point B can take any amount of turns and changes of direction. That has helped me reconcile mentally and emotionally with the irrationality of existence.
   
5. I have finally discovered where to go shopping for affordable stylish clothes. I can't buy garb on the Stateside any more, in London it would look like peasant's pajamas.
   
6. I spell the British way by default now. My Microsfot Word yet needs to learn that too.
   
7. I got used to the "hard-core, fuzzy-edges" English attitude to appointment-keeping, project management and weekend-planning. I allow a bit of leeway for everything and that, in fact, makes my life much easier and enjoyable.
   
8. The sight of the Shard lit up at night excites me no end. I think the Gherkin is iconic. The Royal Festival Hall is still an abominable monstrosity on the outside but I love hangung out inside.
   
9. The East End accent does not baffle me any more. Now I find some North American accents completely incomprehensible.
   
10. The sight of London from the airplane's window makes my heart melt. It's good to get back home!

alexander mcqueen suicide bipolar

What I find most shocking Alexander McQueen's suicide one month ago is that out of all the people who flocked around him and claimed to be his friends, no one bothered to be around him when his mother had died. His diagnose as bipolar was even in his Wikipedia article, yet it occurted to none of his alleged friends to be next to him to help him tide over the rough patch. All it would have taken was just a phone call or a visit by someone who was actually concerned with Alexander's well-being.

By some strange twist of fate, his muse and fairy godmother Isabella Blow, who also killed herself a few years earlier, was also bipolar. They were supposed to be bosom friends

Confucius, he say about Britain

The other day I was reading Vanessa Hansen's beautifully lucid monograph on Chinese history and stumbled upon a very profound quote.

"Lead them by political maneuvers, restrain them with punishments: the people will become cunning and shameless. Lead them by virtue, restrain them with ritual: they will develop a sense of shame and a sense of participation."

Although the latter statement does not touch on the horrors and vices of Victorian Britain, it does succinctly describe the better sides of its spirit. On the other hand, Blair's Broken Britain, enveloped in the tight blanket of industrially produced PR lies and world's most numerous CCTV cameras, uncannily fits the former description.

Amazing, innit: something said in the 7th century BC still holds true.

Digital cloud plan for city skies

"Digital cloud plan for city skies" read a heading in my BBC Live News Update. Wow, my heart started beating faster, finally London gets an overall free WiFi coverage, the so-called "Cloud". That would be so cool, in the country where broadband cable is still a luxury and download speeds are usually limited by the capacity of Victorian copper wires.

Alas, the article turned out to be about building "120m-tall mesh towers and a series of interconnected plastic bubbles that can be used to display images and data" Doh. Like the utterly useless "white elephant" of Millenium Dome was not enough. Perhaps this will be the last belch of the lame-duck Labour Government, still delirious after the boom years of the financial bubble. And who will be stuck with the bill? The taxpayer.

Ban bicycles in London! (Skyride 2009)

After 6 years in Amsterdam, I am positively convinced that bicycles are the superior commuter means of transportation but, let's face it, London is simply not made for bikes. Here they are a serious hazard for unsuspecting pedestrians and a major deterrent for city buses. Mountain bike yobs whizzing down crowded sidewalks or a single leisurely cyclist in the bus lane keeping down a string of full buses -- those are familiar daily sights for every Londoner.

The recent London Skyride - on top of creating a horrid traffic snarl-up in Central London - cost the taxpayer 62 pounds a biker! These days that money can fly you to Spain and back.

The Anglo-Saxon fear of central planning has left London with a random sprinkling of cycle lanes and hardly any bicycle racks. With the worst air quality in Western Europe this city is dangerous for cycling commuters just as well. I really feel sorry for those foreign tourists who get duped into hiring a bike for a pleasure ride in London. Watching them trying to navigate through the relentlessly heavy traffic squeezed into a medieval labyrinth of Victorians streets, theirs must be a nightmarish experience.

You won't find me concurring with the Daily Mail columnists very often, but this time I have to take their side: ban bicycles in London!

The secret of the British stiff upper lip

Now I know the secret of the proverbial British stiff upper lip! Nothing to do with strong will, tenacity or aristocratic composure. It's thanks to awful British dentists!

The other day I saw an ad in a glossy magazine advertising luxury shoe shops to wealthy tourists. The slogan went: "The British have awful teeth, that's why they need beautiful shoes!" What a horrible distinction!

Phantom roadworks on UK highways

So it is not just me who sees sections, patches or whole lanes of roads closed ostensibly for works with nothing being done there. According to a Highways Agency's survey, 55% UK motorists have the same experience.

The National Audit Office says that due to a "lack of management information" accurate figures for the cost of road resurfacing and such could not be gathered. In layman's terms it means that no one knows what exactly is done during roadworks and how much it costs. Although Highways Agency is a public office, road improvement contracts are awarded to private companies. Any comment would be superfluous.

US and UK: credit crunch bailout cost

In her time, Margaret Thatcher reformed the UK economy along the US lines: denationalising, cutting social spending and, most importantly, making the financial sector the most important source of revenue.

The special relationship mentality has finally backfired. The perceived commonality with the Trans-Atlantic Big Brother made Britain forget that it is not in the big boys league any more. Apart from the very obvious difference in economy scale, the US has a vast production base, which, sadly, on its own soil the UK has chosen to let die.

As a result, America has been able to absorb the credit crunch shock with a bailout that amounted to a hefty quarter of its GDP. For the UK, however the price was close to its whole annual GDP.

British Victorian administrative bureaucracy model

I have never seen a more chaotic, overblown and utterly clueless bureaucracy as here in the UK and I have lived in Russia and Thailand. Trying to get anything done each time reminds me of a trip through Alice's Wonderland where I get to meet most grotesque creatures who tell me most senseless things and never fail to send me the wrong direction.

I really wonder how it all has come to this as in Victorian times a few thousands of British bureaucrats were running a global empire efficiently and with a sumptuous profit. In the India Office, a handful of public officers were managing a giant, overwhelmingly diverse state 10 times as big as Britain itself and without the help of any fancy office equipment.

I reckon that the downfall of the British administrative tradition happened during WWII when wartime ministries and state control were blown out of any proportion under the premises of "war needs". That monstrous labyrinthine system still lives on in the form of the British welfare state together with its legacy of a direly faulty management model.

I was surprised to find out that there has been no research of how the British Empire was run in its heyday. That alone would have provided an invaluable lesson to this glorious nation that is suffocating under the burden of its ineffectual government.

Britain and socialism: marriage doomed for disaster

Why socialism is failing in Great Britain?

Socialism is all about regulations. The nation's mentality should be naturally inclined towards bureaucratic excellence. National attitude and ways of organising things will manifest itself multiplied manifold in how the administrative system is put together.

Socialism can succeed only ion countries with the natural knack for planning, mostly Northern Europe and France. In the USSR socialism has grown into an oppressive dictatorship as the country had always been such.

The British with their Anglo-Saxon love of liberty and individual freedom , shun central authority. They were the first nation to curb monarch's rights with the Magna Carta. Good socialism requires a good central planning authority and that would go against the grain in Britain. That is why the welfare state in this country is in such a horrendous shambles.

Circle of chaos: M25 is Britain's most-closed highway

The M25, London's Ring Road is the country's most closed highway. In the first eight moths of 2009 it was closed more than 1700 times amounting to about 5000 hours. Wouldn't it be easier just to shut it altogether and build something more viable next to it?

Archbishop of Canterbury slams hedge fund controls

Last month, in a bid to protect London's miserably failed financial industry, Boris Johnson flew to Brussels to stop the EU from introducing new hedge funds regulations. Hiscauuse has just found itself strong supporters: the Church of England's commissioners who include the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. That comes as little surprise as the "'divine institution"has 4.4 billion pounds invested in hedge funds. Any comment would be superfluous.

Run, Tracey, Run!

Tracey Emin, the artist that shot prominence after her drunk appearance on Channel 4 in 1997, said she would quit the UK for France because of the proposed tax hike on high earners.

Emin is behind such profoundly meaningful and innovative pieces as My Bed (an unmade bed decorated with body secretions, used condoms and dirty underwear) and Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 (a tent appliquéd with the names of all people the artist has been in bed with).

Emin hopes that French government will be more of receptive of her creative talents and we hope they will teach her to make her bed in France.

The Ugly Grimaces of the Latter-day Politics

Politicians are by far best entertainers. They are also most sinister ones.

Gordon Brown, the man who last 12 years spared no time fucking up British economy till it collapsed beyond repair is dashing around saving world's economy. Now what the fuck does he have to tell the world that he should be telling his own country?

It is hard to say whether this beats Tony Blair being a special peace envoy to the Middle East though. I reckon the level of brazen-faced spit-in-the-face kick-in-the crotch gall is about the same in both cases.

Jade Goody's Legacy

Now the extreme poor taste media saga of Jade Goody's televised battle with cancer is over. She is dead, and like The Chaser sings: "Even an asshole turns into a good bloke after death." Her only legacy will be our knowledge that one can make a career based solely on a shameless display of ignorance, bad temper and racism on reality TV. Anyway, rest in peace, Jade!

BBC and Newspeak

In the foreword to his 1984 Orwell wrote that this was not a criticism of socialism but a warning for British society. A brilliant example of latter-day Newspeak I found on the BBC website:

Taxpayer 'set to control Lloyds'. Then the articles go on how old boys at Lloyds' Banking, a private company, gambled and screwed it up huge time and their Whitehall cronies bailed them out to the tune of 260 billion pounds. Which exactly the opposite if the title, typical Newspeak.

The article goes on. According to BBC political correspondent Carole Walker , many people in Westminster think that "it would be simpler and easier for the government to nationalise the banks, and that in the long-term it would save the taxpayer a lot of money..." Now how on earth is that going to save the taxpayer any money at all?

Goodwin pension scandal

I do not get what this Goodwin pension scandal is about. The dude has fucked it up to the tune of 2.4 billion pounds just this year and you want his 16 million back? How will that help now?

Caste in Britain: Shops, Parks and Classes

Britain has a special relationship with the USA. But it has an even more special relationship with India, a love-hate relationship of mutual fascination and irritation. Those two are like two sisters who can't seem to live with each other but equally can't without.

One of the major factors in this bond must be the caste/class system. Despite the claim to the contrary it is alive and well in both countries. In Britain class mentality permeates the very grain of society and manifests itself in a multitude of things, events and phenomena.

I love parks. They are the closest approximation to nature an urbanite can find without driving too far. I love to sit on a bench and gather my thoughts together while watching the sun going down or ducks swimming in the pond. When I moved to London from Amsterdam, I right away went to look for such a place of peace and contemplation.

We all know - first-hand or from books - about London's magnificent parks: Kensington and Kew, Regent and Greenwich. But they all are situated in so called posh areas. My first encounter with a working class park left me bewildered. Straight from Amsterdam, where green spaces are meticulously planned an maintained no matter what neighbourhood they are in, I could not believe Wyck Gardens is actually a park. A rundown area with a football gate half-blocked by a graffiti-plastered concrete wall. Random, I thought. Next park I explored in the neighbourhood, Brockwell Park was just a notch better: a rather large green hill with randomly planted trees and a football gate. It looked unloved and desolate.It seemed the only purpose of its layout was to make sure that there is nowhere to lurk around unnoticed.

I tried to maxmise my chances. I googled for success. My search came up with Ruskin Park: "a large and popular Edwardian park full of heritage features". When arrived I found a huge lawn with two perfectly straight strings of trees (8 in each). So much for vegetation. The heritage features turned out a paddling pool and a gazebo. Yes, and a football gate. I guess like a hotel needs a swimming pool and a beauty parlour to qualify for extra stars, a park in Britain is only park when there is a football gate in it. The only Edwardian feature was the row houses that surrounded the park on all sides making it look like a condominium's patio.

And then it dawned on me. Parks in England are also subject to the class system. I live in Brixton, an ethnic working class neighbourhood. Even Tesco here is so depressing that I refuse to go there. Parks here are made according to the idea that working masses deserve their squalor. Anaemic unhealthy edibles in the poor people's supermarkets are what their customers deserve. The gap between more and less affluent areas in one of world's richest cities can be shocking. Some parts look straight out of documentaries about Third World misery. Council housing has despair and destitution built in from the planning stage.

When you are poor in the UK, you are constantly reminded of your ungainly status. Just like workhouses in Victorian times were made to "scare people out of poverty", proletarian areas in London are designed to look and feel horrible. Poor people are supposed to live in rabbit holes, eat junk, have bad teeth and smell funny, well, because they are poor and deserve it.

Britain escaped Enlightenment-inspired revolutions. It emerged into capitalism and further into post-modern society with the feudal mentality intact. Derelict institutions and antiquated customs are being proudly giving lease of life because the mentality that created them is alive and well.

UK ID card proof of address

I knew that Britain cherishes its traditions but I never knew just how it clings to all things whimsical and dusty. Only on observing it first-hand I come to realise how the exactingly logical and systematic French approach must be alien and even repulsive to British heart.

Anglo-Saxon idea of freedom is often used against proposal to introduce some kind of personal ID system. It is true because Anglo-Saxon rules and laws only designate the limits beyond which you are not supposed to go. On the Continent, the rules are guidlines that you are supposed to follow.

However, in modern state with it culture of fear and increasing control over more and more aspects of private lifes and actions, there is no way to do without some form of personal identification. While most Continental countries started using ID cards, the English just can't stop seeing it beneath their dignity. Instead, just not to forfeit their liberty and not to go the dreaded Continental way you need to bring your electricity or gas bill a a prove of domicile! And that is just for abiout anything for signing up at a GP's office to opening a bank account. Need to see a doctor? Where is your gas bill? Logical? Hardly, but at least we keep our freedom.

Victoria & Albert Museum - the giant cupboard of the British Empire

Victoria & Albert Museum - this is where the revolution in industrial design started. Artefacts and materials from all over the world were gathered here so that young Englishmen (and later English women) could see and learn world's best in shape, colour and composition.

But for me the V&A is more like the giant cupboard of the British Empire. Extremely ornate on the outside and inside it so overabundant, it tires me out quickly.