If you live in the UK’s capital, you could be forgiven for forgetting which country you’re living in. obviously, London is one of the greatest cities, if not the greatest cities, the world has to offer. It’s up there with New York and Paris in vying for the world’s most interesting yet beautiful cities – with others following close behind like Berlin, Amsterdam, Tokyo and a few others.
But if you’re taking in the capital of Britain anywhere reasonably central and you close your eyes – you could be anywhere in the world. Of course, the same goes for the other major international cities but this seems even more pronounced in London. You can hear more or less every language the world has to offer – with an ever-increasing number of American accents it seems. There’s also a creeping American culture in London – which is no bad thing, on the wholeby no means a bad thing, despite themy use of the word “creeping”! This means more fast food chains (popular with all other tourists) and a greater emphasis on polite service etc. In fact, it means a whole load of other stuff as well but interestingly, it still doesn’t mean sport despite efforts to promote US sports in the UK.
Of the three big US sports (basketball, American football and baseball) it’s perhaps football that has made the biggest inroads. American football now has quite a following in the UK amongst people from many countries – not least due to the fact that you can legally gamble
If you live in the UK’s capital, you could be forgiven for forgetting which country you’re living in. obviously, London is one of the greatest cities, if not the greatest cities, the world has to offer. It’s up there with New York and Paris in vying for the world’s most interesting yet beautiful cities – with others following close behind like Berlin, Amsterdam, Tokyo and a few others.
But if you’re taking in the capital of Britain anywhere reasonably central and you close your eyes – you could be anywhere in the world. Of course, the same goes for the other major international cities but this seems even more pronounced in London. You can hear more or less every language the world has to offer – with an ever-increasing number of American accents it seems. There’s also a creeping American culture in London – which is by no means a bad thing, despite the use of the word “creeping”! This means more fast food chains (popular with all other tourists) and a greater emphasis on polite service etc. In fact, it means a whole load of other stuff as well but interestingly, it still doesn’t mean sport despite efforts to promote US sports in the UK.
Of the three big US sports (basketball, American football and baseball) it’s perhaps football that has made the biggest inroads. American football now has quite a following in the UK amongst people from many countries – not least due to the fact that you can legally gamble on American Football here. But it’s still relatively small outside the capital.
American tourists (as opposed to those who live and work here) seem to travel in organised groups to a greater extent than tourists from other countries. And when a US national who lives in London visits other towns and cities besides London (or perhaps Edinburgh) they can feel like some kind of alien!
There’s also broader increasing evidence that the capital is beginning to split away economically from the rest of the UK, which helps pull in even more US culture via the finance industry.
The extent of the impact that this split will have though, is difficult to predict. Let’s just hope we don’t see too much Anglo-American homogenisation of London, though, as it’s the differences in cities that keep them most interesting.
