As I remember London

When I moved to the UK at the tail end of the last millennium, I wasn’t in a good place. I was hired by a US company to work in their German office, and they sent me over to the US to work on their product. I lived in a hotel for a few months, coming home to an empty, cleaned room every day. It was very “Lost in Translation”. The German part of the company went bankrupt during this trip, so I was asked to move to the UK to stay with them. Anglophile as I was, I took this opportunity and had a few trips in between the US and the UK to find a place to live.

My partner of five years also said they’d love to make that move with me and start a new chapter. That didn’t work out – I was dumped in a call on a pay phone in a hotel in San Francisco, went out and got really drunk. When the US stint ended, I went to London, checked into my new flat and waited for my stuff from Germany to arrive.

And then I plunged into London. I went clubbing a lot. I spent the day in the office and went to the pub with my colleagues in the evening. I enjoyed and fell in love with the place. I met people from all over the world, I dated people of many races and backgrounds. I had food I never had, I heard music and saw bands I’ve never heard of or even knew existed. I’ve been to Notting Hill Carnival, immersing myself in this wonderful, wild and colourful scene.

London opened my mind, it made me find the great in lots of cultures and seeing them bringing that to the UK lifestyle was at times a hilarious clash, but wonderful to witness. Very early on I realised one thing: being British is not the same as being a pasty white uptight person, Brits come in all shades and sizes. The most British person I know with a clipped accent, fierce devotion to the Royals and a fetish for a good cuppa is a gay friend who is dark Indian.

Working in Soho I got to know a lot of LGBTQ folk and a few of my colleagues came out or even changed gender during the time I worked there. And they got support from everyone, it wasn’t a problem or a scary thing. London was inviting, colourful, open and amazing. That’s the London I miss.

It’s a big city. In my 16 years tenure I had one laptop, a mobile and a bike stolen. I got into some fights and had three attempted muggings. All by white young dudes, by the way. I lived next to a huge mosque and the area two streets down was hard-core Jewish. My butcher was Algerian and when I ordered in French-ish, I got better prices. It worked.

Then UKIP came around and told people that everything is terrible and its all the forrins’ fault. And disappointed and disgruntled people believed that nonsense. I left the country after Brexit and moved to Berlin, which is great but does feel like a Tesco value version of the London I encountered.

So if people claim that they remember a safer, cleaner and racially homogenous London they either never lived there, or didn’t immerse themselves in it. Or completely talk out of their arse following an utterly different agenda, one that I find despicable, regressive and governed by fear and hate and not inclusion and inspiration.