I’m off to London for a holiday tomorrow so there won’t be any posts for a week or more. I haven’t been home in two years so I’m excited to be going (not least because I get show my little girl the city her Daddy grew up in) but that’s mixed with the sad feeling I always get when I go back that it’s changed too much for me to really feel at home there anymore.

The other day I was talking with another London-born friend of mine who lives in New York and we both agreed we couldn’t live there now as the place we knew just doesn’t exist, not just because the clubs, pubs and cafes we knew are gone but now there’s a level of in-your-face vulgarity, rudeness and 24/7 consumerism I really didn’t think the English were capable of. Which is fair enough, London is a vibrant, modern city and is supposed to move forward, there are more great restaurants, more shops, more choice in all sorts of things (if you have the money) but I’d gladly lose a little of that in exchange for fewer surly teens jabbering loudly and moronically into their cellphones on the bus, fewer nasty drunks in the West End on a Saturday night, and fewer chain coffee shops (aren’t we supposed to drink tea?) Yes, I’ve turned into my Dad, he was born there too but left when he retired, couldn’t stand the traffic and the people anymore.

But it’s still the place I grew up in and lived for 30 years, my family are there along with a million great memories, they can’t take that away from me. No matter what I’ll always think this song is true.

Download: London’s Brilliant – Wendy James (mp3)
Buy: “Now Ain’t The Time For Your Tears” (album)