LONDON AND OTHER CITIES OF BRITAIN

London (the largest city in western Europe) dominates Britain. It is home to the headquarters of all government departments, the country’s parliament, its major legal institutions, and the monarch. It is the country’s business and banking centre and the centre of its transport network. It contains the headquarters of the national television networks and all the national newspapers. It is about seven times larger than any other city in the country. About a fifth of the total population of the UK lives in the wider London area.

The original walled city of London was quite small. (It is known colloquially today as ‘the square mile’.) It did not contain Parliament or the royal court, since this would have interfered with the autonomy of the merchants and traders who lived and worked there. It was in Westminster, another ‘city’ outside London’s wall, where these national institutions met. Today, both ‘cities’ are just two areas of central London. The square mile (also know simply as ‘the City’) is home to the country’s main financial organizations. During the daytime, more than a quarter of a million people work there, but fewer than 10,000 people actually live there.

The other well-known areas of London are the West End and the East End. The former is known for its many theatres, cinemas and expensive shops. The latter is known as the poorer residential area of central London. It is the traditional home of the Cockney and for centuries it has been home to successive waves of immigrant groups.

· Traditionally, a true Cockney is anybody born within the sound of Bow bells of the Church of St. Mary-le-Bow in the city of London). In fact, the term is commonly used to denote people who come from a wider area of the innermost eastern suburbs of London and also as adjoining are south of the Thames. ‘Cockney’ is also used to describe a strong London accent and, like any such local accent, is associated with working-class origins. Some rhyming slang has passed into general informal British usage: for example, ‘use your loaf’ meaning ‘think’ (from ‘loaf of bread’ meaning ‘head’).

The majority of ‘Londoners’ live in its suburbs, millions of them travelling into the centre each day to work. Because of its sprawling suburbs of small houses with gardens, Greater London stretches for 25 miles (40 km) from one side to the other. It is a thriving cultural capital not only because it is home to some of the most exciting music, theatre and art in Europe, but also because of the enriching contribution of its many ethnic minority communities which form a crucial part of London’s hybrid vibrancy. Furthermore, London has all the architectural splendour of a once imperial capital. And it is rich, with the Economy the size of Saudi Arabia. The City, London’s finance centre, employs over 8000,000 people, more than the population of Frankfurt. Yet 7 out its 32 boroughs are among the poorest 10 boroughs in the whole of Britain. London is in some ways untypical of the rest of the country in that it is so cosmopolitan. Although all of Britain’s cities have some degree of cultural and racial variety, the variety is by far the greatest in London. More than 300 languages are spoken there, nearly a third of the people in London were born outside Britain.

Date: 2015-01-12; view: 1690