Simon silverdollarcircle
Well-known member
Recently I've been feeling cut adrift, alienated from the city I live in (London) and more widely the UK.
I think the reasons for this are pretty standard. When I first moved here 20 odd years ago London felt a like a place designed around my interests. Lots of record shops, small clubs, pirate radio, dive pubs, second hand bookshops etc.
Now yoga, gyms, health food predominate. London no longer really cares about what I am interested in. It has moved on.
One way to look at this is obviously gentrification. But I think it's a bit different to that. Buying second hand krautrock records and going to Plastic People are just as much the activities of a comfortably off leisure class as is yoga and artisan coffee.
It's more that what I like, and what my friends like, no longer really has any sway. In high school terms, the jocks have won. The weird kids, the nerds and the geeks and the stoners once ran things but we don't anymore.
In a way this is all just middle class whining. And irrelevant compared to the real struggles of people getting priced out of boroughs etc.
But still, this feeling that once one was part of some kind of zeitgeist and now no longer is, it's a difficult adjustment.
So, interested in your thoughts. Do you feel cut adrift? Have the jocks won? Why and how?
I think the reasons for this are pretty standard. When I first moved here 20 odd years ago London felt a like a place designed around my interests. Lots of record shops, small clubs, pirate radio, dive pubs, second hand bookshops etc.
Now yoga, gyms, health food predominate. London no longer really cares about what I am interested in. It has moved on.
One way to look at this is obviously gentrification. But I think it's a bit different to that. Buying second hand krautrock records and going to Plastic People are just as much the activities of a comfortably off leisure class as is yoga and artisan coffee.
It's more that what I like, and what my friends like, no longer really has any sway. In high school terms, the jocks have won. The weird kids, the nerds and the geeks and the stoners once ran things but we don't anymore.
In a way this is all just middle class whining. And irrelevant compared to the real struggles of people getting priced out of boroughs etc.
But still, this feeling that once one was part of some kind of zeitgeist and now no longer is, it's a difficult adjustment.
So, interested in your thoughts. Do you feel cut adrift? Have the jocks won? Why and how?