Once upon a time there was a Queen...

Once upon a time there was a Queen, she had huge palaces and lot of jewellery. Unfortunately all of it was owned by the subjects she ruled. Her palaces were tourist attractions and her guards were loyal to the prime minister. She lived in stately palaces secured by police and could rarely move around due to ill health. She was the great queen and luxury cruise yatches were named after her.

Same old London, same old gray skies and snapshot clicking tourists. Several years ago (OK.. I exaggerate, it was merely couple of years ago; Wishful thinking...) when I last visited London I made a vow of never coming back. But here I am. The situation could not be more pathetic, I am in London for 4 days and I miss the Sun already. I hate this city, those bally tourists, dingy apartments, crowded trains, dodgy bars, all of it (during lunch an American gentleman wanted to about the lamb and I told him it was bit 'dodgy'. He could not understand it. It took me long time to explain him what 'dodgy' meant.)

London always appears as an old prostitute, overused and cynical. It has the relics of empire and signs of civilization and over the period is loosing its identity. There are more McDees than Burger Kings, deparmental stores sell more American brands, HMV or Virgin stock more American comedy DVDs than British (Homer Simpson beats Tony Blair head-on in popularity), hotel menu has Balti, Tikka and Jalfraizee, the shop assistant on Oxford street has distinct (and familiar) breath of 'Pan Parag'. The bloody city is becoming a hybrid of Mumbai and New York. There are way too many distinct ethnic people in this city. But instead of giving the city a colourful hue like New York, London looks like badly created collage. Patches of ethnicities stuck at random. In the tube, two burkha clad women are distinctly recognizable. The young man with deleberate middle eastern dress appears to create an identity for himself. It is just a place of confused identities.

The food is equally bad. Lamb was of course 'dodgy'. beef was worse, but desserts were good. Southbank was very crowded with millions of tourists and queues that started from hotel lasted till public toilets. I tried to hide in the office and hotel for most of the time (familiar places, even the crapy Holiday Inn was better than being on Victoria). It took lot of courage to go to Oxoford street again and a strong pursuation by friends. Same old shops with nothing new to offer. I wondered aloud why would anybody come here and buy t-shirts with broad logos like, 'My Husband went to London and all I got was this lousy t-shirt'. There was one about bad girls going to London (apparently good one's go to heaven !), I looked for them. I did end up buying some touristy stuff, always helps...

Once upon a time London was financial center for the world. When my brother visited London it was a family achievement. The London t-shirts increased your rank in college circles. Having London address was a thing of pride. No more. Like the old Queen, London is aging. There are no new skyscrapers, no new industries, unemployment is up and prime minister is loosing the rating. In nutshell, London is loosing the glory (even the 'we are londoners' logos do not rhyme well.. not sure if Britain as whole is loosing its famous sense of humour). But then what do you expect in a country where Harry Potter is national hero and a fictional writer makes more money than the Queen?