The Bright Lights Fade

[poliphilo]

My mother's carer is back from a weekend in London. She was telling us the prices. £88 for a ticket to The Lion King.  £95 to buy snacks and diet cokes for five people in Covent Garden. I haven't been to London for years now. Less and less am I tempted. I think agoraphobia comes into it too. Mild agoraphobia. All those people, all that traffic.

When my sister was 4 she "composed" a song (different lyrics at every rendition- different tune too) which began "Too old to go To London".

That's me now- too old to go to London. Also too poor

Comments

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

In a way, i prefer quiet backwaters rather than busy cities these days. When i was younger it was the other way arouns.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Me too.

We went through Lewes the other day and decided it was too crowded.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

It's the usual story of any capital city though- go where the tourists go and you'll get ripped off- go where the locals go and you won't.

Lunch and a drink in town? Under a fiver where I tend to go.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

True.

No way I'd choose to eat in Covent Garden.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

You can see The Lion King for a fiver if you stand up. (I've done this twice. Bit of a fan.)

I suppose I'm lucky, living in London, in that everywhere else seems lovely and cheap by comparison!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Standing up all the way through a show? Not an option for me anymore :(

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

There's a rail to lean on :) But I agree it's far from an ideal option. I've done the standing up thing at the Proms and that got a bit much very quickly!

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's a matter of what you're used to. I'm always outraged that most classical concerts (in Reading or Oxford) easily cost £20-£30, because I can go to the Proms for a fiver. (I believe there's a similar price for groundlings at the Globe).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Proms and The Globe- two great cultural institutions.

[butterscotch711.livejournal.com]

Sydney is currently facing this problem - it prides itself on being a centre of cultural innovation and alternatives and youth, but it is becoming too expensive a place for it to have any of those things.

I think in the 21st century cultural innovation is much more distributed and doesn't need to be linked to the centre of big cities.

But then, I've lived in Seoul and I love living in huge cities. I just want them to also be affordable and have quiet leafy living areas too.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I fall in and out of love with London. Right now I'm out.