Easter Week End

The glamour pusses shortly before dinner. Cake from Sonnet. Easter week end is a Big Deal in the UK - coenciding with school half-term break - and London feels mostly empty. Were it like this always. No traffic. Less noise. Museums crowded, as they should be. Easy to make a restaurant reservation .. Sure, if these things held true then London would be .. Zurich, or some other boring place. The Hague maybe. London vibes because people here walk with a purpose - they have somewhere to be and in a hurry to get there. Like New York or Hong Kong and decidedly not the case in many European capitals - in fact, Barcelona and Lisbon feel just the opposite. Mixed into the rush are >200 languages, representing God knows how many ethnic cultures, religions, countries, lineages, histories and what evers. The UK perhaps the most generous of European nations welcoming foreigners and the displaced - sometimes to our detriment as four known African leaders residing here accused of genocide yet allowed yet not deported because our Foreign Services believe their human rights in peril. WTF? This the odd, horrific, exception of course but the message out - UK=safe haven and mostly I am ok with it. The immigrants come for work - the Southeast an unsurpassed work-engine - and the generous social services including health care and education. Some ethnics have integrated into Western society better than others - Indians, and in particular the bad-ass Seiks, are well known for their shop-keeping, community-building and dependable presence. The Pakistanis are viewed with disdain ("dirty paki" something I hear from a taxi-driver or on the street) and now seen as a threat thanks to the 7-7 al Queda suicide bombings in Central London. Africans too have their profile, as do we Americans who took a nose dive thanks to Bush. It is a glorisous place indeed.