I was born and bred in London, lived there for close on 40 years and miss it very much (or at least how it was thirty years ago)
When Londoners lived there it was a great place to live and work, well it was where I lived in East London.
That was until all the outsiders moved in, especially bad were the yuppie types who just had to be near the city and pushed the price of houses well above what the local people could afford
All the caffs became coffee and croissant gaffs and the traditional pubs either closed or became wine bar type places.
Then came all the poor scrounging foreigners especially Africans, totally different to the earlier West Indians and Ugandan asians who wanted to work and became part of the community.
All you hear is how cosmopolitan it is now and such a mix of peoples, apart from Londoners because most left so they could still buy a house and bring their kids up where English wasn't a second language.
Probably why they reckon the cockney accent will be gone in the next thirty years
So yes London is still a great city to visit as a tourist, but not for living anymore and my daughter has had a far better state schooling in Cambridgeshire than she would have got where I lived before
Only go back now to watch the Orient or for a work meeting every now and then, wish it could have been different though.
No experience of Boris i'm glad to say, but remember Ken from when he originally became GLC leader and introduced the Fares Fair policy. First proper attempt at getting people to use public transport at a sensible price
His cosying up to the IRA when they were actively bombing London was very hard to swallow. Strangely enough he was the first of many to do that and although they slated him at the time, soon became the in thing to do.
