LONDON IS MURDER
I left London at the turn of the century, after twenty five years of a life lived within sniffing distance of the Thames, so my current view of the UK capital is necessarily (and agreeably) distant. Like thousands of other ageing malcontents, I could not dream of living there now. Yesterday an old friend and colleague confessed in conversation that she had refused an attractive job offer involving a 3-days-a-week commute to London, not least because of the ongoing terrorist threat.
Fear of terrorism, however, plays no part in my personal distaste for the city that swallowed so much of my life. I am no stranger to urban terror. My own arrival in London in 1977 was followed immediately by years of violent terrorist atrocities ( although these two facts are entirely coincidental, I should add, for all my fans at MI6 ). Bombs were blowing right left and centre, twice within a hundred yards or so of my presence, which is pretty creepy when you're just a spiky-haired punk with no greater ambition than to hang out in the West End. I was, like many young Londoners, philosophical about the dangerous fanatics lurking in and around Westminster. Having grown up in Glasgow, I was well-schooled in the religious / territorial conflicts which the IRA were now exporting to the mainland. Bombs exploded, streets were taped off, you got on with your business, the authorities scraped up the mess and London life began again. All part of life in a great global city, Khan the Man would say, thirty-odd years later. But in the 1970's, our tolerance was rooted in the belief that the terrorism would be stopped. We were not shrugging and saying "Oh well that's life!" We scowled and muttered, "Go get the bastards..." The (often overlooked) truth - that the IRA were eventually thwarted by negotiation rather than defiance - is neither here nor there. The bombing stopped, as we had expected.
London was still my home, and I loved it, then. But my home - my city, as I felt it was - absolutely did not resonate with the savage, daily cruelties which have arrived to infest the capital city in the last ten years. The streets of the 70's did not swarm with knife-wielding psychos. Ninja-clad moped mugger-maniacs did not exist. Murder was not commonplace.
Cut to the present day, and the ghastly truth of modern London fills the front pages with an awful, dread regularity.
But the regime of Khan allows for no scrutiny of cause and effect. In February of 2018, as the Big Smoke finally overtook New York City for most murders per capita, the Mayor of London's Muslims - and all the other poor sods too - was loudly campaigning to save urban wildlife (of the lower animal orders, we assume), and declaring that Donald Trump should not be allowed to set foot on his (Khan's) gilded pavements. Then he jetted off to the US to raise his international back-sratching profile, no doubt in preparation for a future career in the Global Islamic Peace Federation or somesuch. If not PM of the UK.
It is instructive - not racist, elitist or in any way offensive - to point out that of the dozen February murder victims listed above, eleven had the following names : Kwebana, Nkenda, Kabala, Chibani, Blackman, Mohamed, Oshibanjo, Boci, Hassan, Ozcan and Khan. All stabbed, shot, or beaten to death. All tragic victims, I may suggest, of a cynical program of enforced "cultural diversity" which resembles nothing so much as a grotesque social-engineering experiment which should never have escaped from the drawing board. But London welcomes - nay, demands an unceasing supply of all the world's people, Khan tells us, come one, come all, in the Holy name of DIE -VERSE-CITEEE! (Unless you are a Canadian conservative journalist, or an Austrian free speech advocate, or Donald Trump...etc...).
So no, I won't be visiting London anytime soon. I still recall, a touch sadly, that on the summer's day in '77 when I arrived, I beheld Trafalgar Square and gawped, like a child, at the gigantic lions and the towering height of Nelson's column. A mere three days ago, the Mighty Khan unveiled a new artwork (see below) which stands now on a plinth beneath Nelson's one watchful eye. It is composed of empty fruit cans from Iraq.
All things considered, that seems quite appropriate. Nowadays, I mean.
Fear of terrorism, however, plays no part in my personal distaste for the city that swallowed so much of my life. I am no stranger to urban terror. My own arrival in London in 1977 was followed immediately by years of violent terrorist atrocities ( although these two facts are entirely coincidental, I should add, for all my fans at MI6 ). Bombs were blowing right left and centre, twice within a hundred yards or so of my presence, which is pretty creepy when you're just a spiky-haired punk with no greater ambition than to hang out in the West End. I was, like many young Londoners, philosophical about the dangerous fanatics lurking in and around Westminster. Having grown up in Glasgow, I was well-schooled in the religious / territorial conflicts which the IRA were now exporting to the mainland. Bombs exploded, streets were taped off, you got on with your business, the authorities scraped up the mess and London life began again. All part of life in a great global city, Khan the Man would say, thirty-odd years later. But in the 1970's, our tolerance was rooted in the belief that the terrorism would be stopped. We were not shrugging and saying "Oh well that's life!" We scowled and muttered, "Go get the bastards..." The (often overlooked) truth - that the IRA were eventually thwarted by negotiation rather than defiance - is neither here nor there. The bombing stopped, as we had expected.
London was still my home, and I loved it, then. But my home - my city, as I felt it was - absolutely did not resonate with the savage, daily cruelties which have arrived to infest the capital city in the last ten years. The streets of the 70's did not swarm with knife-wielding psychos. Ninja-clad moped mugger-maniacs did not exist. Murder was not commonplace.
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| LONDON IS MURDER - FEBRUARY'S VICTIMS |
But the regime of Khan allows for no scrutiny of cause and effect. In February of 2018, as the Big Smoke finally overtook New York City for most murders per capita, the Mayor of London's Muslims - and all the other poor sods too - was loudly campaigning to save urban wildlife (of the lower animal orders, we assume), and declaring that Donald Trump should not be allowed to set foot on his (Khan's) gilded pavements. Then he jetted off to the US to raise his international back-sratching profile, no doubt in preparation for a future career in the Global Islamic Peace Federation or somesuch. If not PM of the UK.
It is instructive - not racist, elitist or in any way offensive - to point out that of the dozen February murder victims listed above, eleven had the following names : Kwebana, Nkenda, Kabala, Chibani, Blackman, Mohamed, Oshibanjo, Boci, Hassan, Ozcan and Khan. All stabbed, shot, or beaten to death. All tragic victims, I may suggest, of a cynical program of enforced "cultural diversity" which resembles nothing so much as a grotesque social-engineering experiment which should never have escaped from the drawing board. But London welcomes - nay, demands an unceasing supply of all the world's people, Khan tells us, come one, come all, in the Holy name of DIE -VERSE-CITEEE! (Unless you are a Canadian conservative journalist, or an Austrian free speech advocate, or Donald Trump...etc...).
So no, I won't be visiting London anytime soon. I still recall, a touch sadly, that on the summer's day in '77 when I arrived, I beheld Trafalgar Square and gawped, like a child, at the gigantic lions and the towering height of Nelson's column. A mere three days ago, the Mighty Khan unveiled a new artwork (see below) which stands now on a plinth beneath Nelson's one watchful eye. It is composed of empty fruit cans from Iraq.
All things considered, that seems quite appropriate. Nowadays, I mean.
When I was young places like Trafalgar Square almost seemed a sacred part of British culture. I remember when I first saw Nelson's Column - I felt proud. I was quite shocked to see the photo of the new addition to the square - yes shocked and certainly not proud of how the city is just laying back - legs open, saying "take me".
ReplyDeleteChristina.