Londonistan

There are fears in some quarters that London, England, the whole western world is being overrun (or about to be overrun) by hoards of foreigners, forever changing the culture of openness and tolerance. Coupled with these dark thoughts is-at least among the more conservative critics-the bleak understanding that the demise of Christianity is both inevitable and irreversible (unless one counts the evangelicals who are nearly as bad as the Muslims..especially since a significant number of them are black).

Of course, what no-one will say is that London is a beast with its own mind, its own internal history, a history around which the wider history of England revolves. In terms of influence-language, culture, attitudes, commerce-it is the dynamics of London's history that impinges on England's rather than the other way around. That is partly because of the decline of manufacturing and the north, the near disappearance of a rural way of life, globalisation and the rise of finance and services from the eighties onward. It also has a lot to do, you suspect, with changes in the female labour force and, more generally changing attitudes to women. 

Of course, no-one wants to talk about the structural changes in capitalism and how they have an impact on landscapes (internal and external). By internal you mean the changing timbre of that web of feelings, values and styles of thought that we might for convenience sake call a way of life. No, let's stick to immigrants.

{Designs from 1928, 1878 and 1946. You can probably match the dates to the pictures yourself}.

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What caught your eye this week was a statement by Ben Carson, supposedly a brilliant neurosurgeon (yes, a man without a brain can operate on people in this day and age!). He said "It doesn't require an alien being when God is with you".

Classic.

Then this from today's Guardian:

'Male guards in military prisons are not allowed to touch female prisoners, observe them naked or be alone with them'.

How reassuring!

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Looking again at the first two designs-which never saw fruition, obviously, you are struck by the fact that though these were grandiose schemes they have, in their own oblique way, been realized in a different shape and form. For what you see in those two designs is the tremendous power of the state and finance. And that is the story, in a nutshell, of post-war Britain. 

England is gone, and has been long gone. A staggering old man who barely keeps his mind. There will be no descent into chaos, but just the slow decline into senility and triviality. For all that, you'd chance that it will still be a good furlong ahead of Europe which increasingly appears to be a sad little joke. Yes, yes, all that culture and supposed sophistication. But tell me something, do you still want to talk about civilisation after colonialism, the trenches, the gulags..after soap was made out of people?