Lazy hazy London

It's a hazy, lazy day in London. In "Merry-fucking-Poppins" London. Around 4pm the skies have already turned a light orangish hue - on a clear day this time of the year it would still be pretty bright. My friends and I were mourning the end days of summer just a few days ago, and today it is muggy and humid again, with smells of an oncoming shower.

Not all days in London are hazy or lazy. In fact, it's very rare for London to be just hazy and lazy. Very often it's grey, cloudy, and on the coldest days of the year, foggy. And the city is always busy, wild, and energetic; there is no single moment when the city is still, waiting for something to happen, or merely calm for the sake of being calm.

But London is not Hong Kong. Or New York. Putting aside the fact that Chinese cities are a whole ball game on its own, the comparison between London and either of those two cities reveals very little. Architecturally, London is host to gianormous skyscrapers only on the shores of Canary Wharf - and even there, I would argue that it is quite benign compared to global standards - and having been a victim of bombings during the world wars, the rest of the city is a colorful patchwork of colonial, classical, neo-classical, modernist, minimalist, the occasional brutalist, buildings. Given that London's urban design has been structured so that government-sponsored housing lie throughout the city rather than in one of its corners, walking through it is like walking through multiple boundaries of space and time, over and over again.

And the roads - in my opinion, it's an infrastructural nightmare. The city was never built to have a massive public transport system as it does today. Lacking any grid-like formation and widths and lane numbers varying constantly, it's astonishing that motor traffic exists here. Add to it the growing trend of bicycles and you have a circus, occasionally producing the tragic casualty or two in hidden corners, blind spots, and busy intersections. Drivers, however, seem to care even less - they zoom past you as if they were the only ones on the road.

I think it is precisely this impression of instantly changing atmospheres, mismatched building styles, uncontrolled velocity, and organised chaos, that gives one the sense that London is busy, wild, and energetic. And it is on days like these, when London is hazy and lazy, and people are slowly strolling along the River Thames dreading that today is probably the last day of summer, that one can stop and see that this city is barely just the busy, energetic self it portrays itself to be. There's a feeling of rebellion throughout: it is a cosmopolitan city in a conservative, still class-based society; it has rough edges, alternative scenes, and is petty crime-prone, but also strives to incorporate green space, use glass in the newest buildings, and highlight its most prominent monuments with fancy lighting and glamour. It is proper and rowdy, green and grey, evolving and devolving. It is, literally, Merry-fucking-Poppins London.