London Journal

Technically I ought call this leaving London Journal, as I’m on a train to Nottingham for two days to see a friend. Nevertheless, I’ve just spent three days in London, so it’s on my mind…. I didn’t feel particularly strongly about the city — it seems like a place where several million people live to go to the pub in the evening. It’s a very pleasant city: good parks and transporting, bourgeoning restaurant culture, nightlife, etc…. but deeply unmagical, stolid. Football, pubs, lots of hipster coffees and thriftshops — a slightly friendlier Williamsburg, writ large. So much of urban Millennial culture is a projection of what seemed cool in 2004 in our parents’ basements; we’ve built, are building, a teenage culture for adults. 30 and 40 somethings go to loud, bad concerts by washed up indie bands for the same reasons our parents shill out big buckets for even more washed up classic rock acts: because there’s no paradigm for adulthood in Pax Americana culture that doesn’t include teenage nostalgia. London seems to me the ultimate instantiation of this fact: a laddish playground for laddish adults. In Williamsburg or Shoreditch, growing up just means adding a kid to your backpack as you cycle to the pub: you wear your responsibilities lightly, bury your adult anxieties in a state of permanent play. When I went to see a classical piano recital near Greenwich yesterday, the room was filled entirely with elderly people; I take it as a very bad…