London Bookshops (Redux)

The original post mentioning the Highbury incident is this one. However it wasn't the only odd incident I've had in London. You always get the sense that you are watched by those who would rather not be seen.

I'm sure this will be controversial to some, but I have never felt endangered in New York City, but I have often felt that London is dangerous. I think London is so much older that it can't help but be dangerous. It is a Great Old One among cities.

I know people from the tiny city-state of Singapore who are flabbergasted to find out that London, with its 1577 square kilometres of area, dwarfs the 707 square kilometres of the city-state by a factor of 2:1. Singaporeans think that London is 'just a city', not realising that the mega-cities of the world are huger in population than many nations. They also have far longer histories; Roman London was founded in AD 43, Singapore in AD 1819. Some will tell you that Singapore was actually founded far earlier, as the town of Temasek, in AD 1299. Well, by that token, London as a town must have existed from pre-Roman times, perhaps as far back as 1000 BC.

It is with that sense of history that one trawls through London bookshops, catching glimpses of the orthography (and steganography) of the ancients: Aleister Crowley rubbing fingers with Dylan Thomas, Lord Byron with Lord Tennyson... the list goes on. Just carefully lifting the covers of the old leather-bound enchiridia and other tomes is enough to reveal the layers of the hidden past which modern London just barely forms a surface film upon.

Singapore hasn't got that. New York is getting there; in some ways, it has already entered that era. Paris is probably a good candidate too. Beijing is an odd place. A lot more of the past has been destroyed there, and a selective sample retained.