London likes to play.
On a the small scale, every Thursday people mark an early end to the work week at a bar or pub near their offices, to enjoy a drink with their co-workers. Why Thursday? Because on Fridays they're rushing off to the weekends' activities, either at home or abroad.
This celebration of the week's end shows just how social Londoners are. They like one another, even seeking one another's company outside the workplace. It's refreshing, really, after work in the US, where often I barefly knew my co-workers, beyond when they arrived and left the office. Here in London, you get the sense that people genuinely care about and for one another, which is why you'll hear "Sorry!" so often, as people jostle their way through the Tube stations and up and down escalators and stairways.
There is an inate politeness in the English that appears to be inbred.
This statement was challenged this weekend by the Notting Hill Carnival attendees. The two-day celebration of Caribbean culture was filled with an altogether different group of people, very unlike those we see in very business-like Canary Wharf: they were brazen, loud, openly pushing boundaries against public drinking, drug use and littering. You could see signs that they were not trusted: some storefronts were boarded up against broken windows, while the police were in evidence everywhere we looked.
On a the small scale, every Thursday people mark an early end to the work week at a bar or pub near their offices, to enjoy a drink with their co-workers. Why Thursday? Because on Fridays they're rushing off to the weekends' activities, either at home or abroad.
This celebration of the week's end shows just how social Londoners are. They like one another, even seeking one another's company outside the workplace. It's refreshing, really, after work in the US, where often I barefly knew my co-workers, beyond when they arrived and left the office. Here in London, you get the sense that people genuinely care about and for one another, which is why you'll hear "Sorry!" so often, as people jostle their way through the Tube stations and up and down escalators and stairways.
There is an inate politeness in the English that appears to be inbred.
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| A drummer at Notting Hill Carnival |
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| The autumn sun |
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| The crowd |
This statement was challenged this weekend by the Notting Hill Carnival attendees. The two-day celebration of Caribbean culture was filled with an altogether different group of people, very unlike those we see in very business-like Canary Wharf: they were brazen, loud, openly pushing boundaries against public drinking, drug use and littering. You could see signs that they were not trusted: some storefronts were boarded up against broken windows, while the police were in evidence everywhere we looked.
The Tuesday papers announced that this distrust is well-founded: there were several reports of injury and a man stabbed late at night and in hospital.
This celebration is not for the faint of heart or the fool-hardy, but enjoy a bit of daytime revelry in the visual, rythmic and musical manifestations of culture and you won't be disappointed.
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