When a woman is tired of London
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‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life,’ said Samuel Johnson.
I am tired of London, but it is because I am tired of the political leaders who have ruined London.
I’ve popped in and out of London all my life and lived in it too. These days, I abide in the outskirts, somewhere as leafy as I can manage while regrettably still officially in a ‘zone’.
For some years now, I have been falling out of love with London. I used to tell anyone, especially Americans or the French, that it was the best city in the world. But pride comes before a fall. ‘Tired of London’ doesn’t do justice to the lump in my throat when I travel into town now.
Obviously, you have to be a certain age to remember when the BT Tower was the tallest building in London and, yes, I remember. Everything seemed bigger then, and not just because I was a child — the grand buildings were not yet dwarfed, they had space to be majestic. These days, skyscrapers extrude the once beautifully dignified skyline of the capital like dark teeth. The City of London, Canary Wharf and Vauxhall have fallen into the maws of beasts.