i dont think american filmmakers realise how huge london is, because sure you have the london eye and houses of parliament but when you say ‘london has fallen’ what??? so the nandos in catford is in flames? the tesco in peckham has descended into chaos? wtf??
And even if Peckham Tesco goes down you’ve still got the Lewisham one open 24 hours, yeah you’re in trouble on a Sunday evening but even in a survival situation you can probably hold out till Monday because all the local takeaways would still deliver, no one can stop those guys and no one should try
yeah and making it a little serious for a second, the city has such a historical/cultural expectation of being (or at least appearing) resilient in response to destruction that these portrayals are not realistic at all.
If you talk to people who were in London on 7/7 I feel that they use very different language about their experience, vs. people who were in New York City for 9/11. The brush with destruction is not portrayed as a life-changing experience, if that makes sense. The expectation is that the city has to keep moving. That obnoxious “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster (now a meme) was actually designed and printed in readiness to be posted everywhere if London actually fell to Nazi occupation. the expectation was that “descent into chaos” would let everyone down.
Like, in the London Blitz people made “not giving a shit as the city is gutted around you” into an art form.
this lady would make a great reaction image for drinking truth tea in the wake of drama:
like look at these guys here
“oh ffs that was my BUS”
I mean this guy is just delivering the milk like
TREVOR I DON’T THINK YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE GONNA CARE IF YOU’RE A LITTLE LATE
or this extremely safe community policing
“remember girls you need TWO policemen to go past the unexploded bomb”
or this
“hey Bridezilla your window fell off”
“fuck off Helen this is my SPECIAL DAY”
or
“guys you’re supposed to be – guys pay attention”
or
“Hey what should we do we are literally being bombed right now”
“idk go hide in the tube??”
“but it’s the kids’ bedtime”
“yeah, but like… bombs”
“wait I’ve got a plan, we go to the tube and then…”
“ok so … so we’ve literally just tied the children to the train tracks”
“shh…. they’re sleeping…. they’re safe now”
Anyway it’s not like Londoners are super brave or anything, it’s just that on the one hand there might be giant alien sea dragon robot tsunamis smashing the recognizable landmarks, but on the other hand they gotta make rent
On the 28th of April, 2011, Ed Balls got a Twitter account. He decided (as most people under the spotlight do) to attempted to look up his own name. However, all he did was tweet “Ed Balls”. This, for some reason, got retweeted by THOUSANDS of people. On a global scale. And because he didn’t know you could delete a tweet it stayed. Every year since then,the 28th of April is Ed Balls day.
This is the infamous tweet
and here are some gems to celebrate that have followed the years, including last year where they framed the tweet and got him to sign it for charity
There are also LOADS MORE in this article from the Telegraph
This mysterious creature was filmed today by a passenger aboard a Emirates Air Line cable car. Thus far, nobody can figure out what it is – guesses range from submarines to an unidentified sea creature.
For many city-dwellers, pigeons have a reputation as
repugnant creatures — “rats with wings,” if you will — but in London, a
handful of them are doing their part to tackle the city’s air pollution
levels. Birds equipped with tiny pollution sensor backpacks and GPS devices took off on a three-day flight over the U.K. capital on Monday — and it couldn’t have come at a more critical time.
