My samurai master is leaving for a while and this makes me feel a little bit sad. I am going to miss him a lot and, guess what, I am not going to be the only one. The master has changed a lot since he met his other half. He is so changed that even West wouldn't be able to recognise him. Well, fair enough. I guess this picture is not going to be effective with him any more. Therefore I will be tempted to speak about London and how it is amazingly reacting to what happened. I mean: you know I always thought London was made by the foreigners, by people who were not born here. I still think so. Nonetheless, there is still something that, as an adopted Londoner (ok, as a non English Londoner), I had to learn: the great understatement. Never complain, never explain.. that sort of thing. The more reactive people are people like me, like her, like the Samurai, like Gka, like Rosemary and all the others. It is not that we are really scared at all, but surely tenser, surely more careful, more conscious, more aware. Ok, we were all kind of expecting this. I met this woman from Spain today, someone that I knew indirectly throgh my work. She was here covering a story about London and she told me: "people here were wondering about 'when', not about 'if'..." and it's obvious. But you should live here to have a better understanding.
"Siamo tutti londinesi" said the posters in Rome. I saw this on the news. But I don't think so. "Londinese" is who has been living this for a while, who has been soffering and enjoying the ups and the downs, the good and the band side of London and nonetheless is still here, doing something, doing what is needed to be done. It's not a class or something, it is maybe a state of mind, a way to approach life. The president of Tanzania, 3 days ago, reminded us: "If you are tired of London, you are tired of life". It is kind of true somehow. If you are a londoner, deep inside, you will never be bored of this. Wherever you'll go and live, you'll still miss it.
