In London carousel thousand tongues, a thousand races and English is no more
Dario Olivero, the Republic, 16/03/2011
Card of the book: Babylon London, Enrico Franceschini
""My newspaper is Pakistani, my dry cleaning is Persian, my family is Italian doctor, the dentist is Brazilian, the veterinarian is in Spanish, is Polish painter, the electrician Serbian, Indian grocery, the mechanism of ' car is Bulgarian, Latvian, the maid, the porter of South Africa, the valet of Lebanon, the guardian of my child's school is Israeli, the clerk of the bank of Bangladesh has always smiles at me, the bartender that makes me a cappuccino is Hungarian, My barber is a French made the hire of DVD is turkish, the computer engineer is Russian and my taxi driver is confident of Sri Lanka. I stop, but I could go on for a while: I live in London for over seven years and sometimes I wonder where are the British. 8 million people, 3 million foreigners, 130 000 Italians, 300 languages, 183 synagogues, 130 mosques, 13,000 restaurants, 6,000 pubs, 600 cinemas, 400 theaters, 300 nightclubs, casinos 150, 18 000 taxis, 275 metro stations, 649 bus lines, 8 stations, five airports, five football teams in the Premier League, all the religions of the earth, the queen, a number of principles, a lot of money ": a brilliant story and fun to learn everything else there is in the British capital, which the tourists never see, and understand how it is possible that a different humanity London living with 10 thousand foxes scattered throughout the city. 'and so on for pages and pages. It is the best introduction to London Babylon, book, travel guide, divertissement and act of love for the British capital by Enrico Franceschini that there is a correspondent of this newspaper.
The world city, unlike New York, does not ask those who choose to change, but agrees with the same calm people and customs of every race and color. The city where the language is growing every day new words and that is no longer English, but the language of the same jumble of accents, cadences, dialects and proverbs global Inglese not, please, But globish u'know. The city where you always know what to do but did not get enough.
The metropolis with skyscrapers, but especially with the low roofs. The city of excess, the great carnival and the confidentiality and composure. The city that after centuries of porridge and fish and chips and that it had an expression to say "bon appetit" and has become the world capital of cuisine, every kind of cuisine. London calling to the faraway towns, despite the Clash sang everything.