But the Trafalgar Square policemen are in body armour and submachine guns, not Dixon of Dock Green helmets and cheery demeanour. The old double decker buses are gone. Don’t smoke. If a city chap walks across Waterloo Bridge in a bowler hat he’ll be mobbed by grateful camera-toting Japanese tourists.

Is London now further away from its image than any other city in the world? 

You can check it out at the Tate Modern ‘s GLOBAL CITIES exhibit (till August 27 www.tate.org.uk) It tackles the toughest urban problems of our age and locates questions within the context of London - which is the father of the other nine cities on show, the first obese industrial metropolis, as things turn out, and one requiring a lifetime on public transport to wade from one end to another, the city developing a gristly fault line between the wealthy and the poor. 

You can also find out by coming with photographer Alejandro Escamilla and me on a tour of London. We’re going  via the Big Bus Company’s open top double decker  and we’re going to hop on and off as we pass the sights and sounds that make up London past and present. (www.bigbustours.com).

We start at Marble Arch, Park Lane.  negotiate the bus/river cruise ticket from £22 to £17 per person . (ISA 2) Off we go through Mayfair, passing the US Embassy, now reviled because its heavy fortifications ruin Grosvenor Square. We pass Conduit Street fashion houses, take a right into Regent Street and land right into a huge traffic jam.

In this sprawling city of 49 communities, and 46 languages, where inhabitants wear burkhas and turbans, hoodies and double-vented suits, don’t be surprised to get into a traffic jam. In fact, don’t get surprised by many things. What about a tattooed man with a snake wrapped round him meandering down the Mall toward Buckingham Palace?

That freaked me out, and we ran to pick up the boat at Westminster Pier. Cruising the Thames is a good way to rubberneck England’s past because everything was built along its banks. First up: the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, heavy Pugin unmistakeably English buildings.

Past the London Eye, on the south side of the Thames, and there’s a good view of Southbank, the artistic hub that includes the National Theatre, the Hayward Gallery, The Royal Festival Hall, the British Film Industry Museum, the Poetry Library.  It is a breathtaking curve of buildings and artistic promises, especially now that the fabulous and long awaited  £111m reopening of the Royal Festival Hall has taken place, bringing a brand-new sound system, stage layout and new furnishings.

There’s a great walk you can do along the river here, past the National Theatre, (ISA 6) where adventuresome new productions and younger directors are joining the ranks, past restaurants, pubs, the Oxo Tower and its restaurant and bar, under bridges, past Tate Modern, the huge and popular contemporary arts museum made from the former Bankside power station, and into Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

From the riverboat, though, the great thing is to glide past the old buildings of St Paul’s Cathedral, and the Monument, peek at the latest new city skyline rising behind these sites that join with the glorious “Gherkin” Norman Foster’s streamlined skyscraper which launched a new generation of ambitious towers.

And then you get to the Tower of London that reeks of things that have happened. there. Past Tower Bridge and onward toward Greenwich, past waterfront pubs like the Doggetts, the Founders Arms, the Anchor at Bankside, the Prospect of Whitby, from 1520. You see the old decaying wharfs – Pickfords, Winchester and Sir Francis Drake’s from whence he sailed across Atlantic. You see vestiges of Britain’s Industrial past. There’s the quiet grassy square where actor Sir Ian McKellan lives, more wharves, more pubs.

Then a large weird glass structure designed by Norman Foster.on the left – the Mayor of London’s new City Hall.  And around a bend, suddenly - Canary Wharf, the heart of British financial acumen, rising to challenge the New York skyline.

But where is the thrill? What about the so-called wonderful apartments with riverside views? What about all the new ways of living along the riverbank that have been mooted? All the apartment buildings we pass look like reject Legoland creations.   The cacophony of styles like a punk band gone mad. There’re no visible shopping centres, high streets, corner cafes.  It looks like Germany, or a forlorn Massachusetts river town.

Where is London’s style?   There’s no glam, no cultural invite.  There’s only a segregation of money and culture down here. After the Tower of London, things fall apart. Does London not care about its mojo? New York does.  Berlin too. In London, it’s as if the money moved East fast, and the architecture couldn’t keep up. 

THE CRITICAL LIST

THEATRE & OPERA

July

The Hothouse: by Harold Pinter.  Written in 1958 before the Caretaker, director Ian Rickson (from 11 July, National Theatre).

Carmen Jones Celebrating reopening of the Festival Hall, Jude Kelly directs with choreography by Rafael Bonachela artist in residence, known for his collaborations with Rambert Dance Company. Set in contemporary Latin America. (July 25 – Sept 2).

Proms (Albert Hall) ( July 13 – Sept 8).

Carling Festival (July 24 – 25).

August

Edinburgh Festival .  Jonathan Mill’s first year as director shows a change of emphasis. Feasts of medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music, plus all manner of comedy, skits, dance, opera (Aug 10 – Sept 2).

All About my Mother (Pedro Almodovar), with Diana Rigg at the Old Vic.

The Emperor Jones (O’Neill’s powerful play about South American ex convict conniving his way into an uncompromising dictatorship over a remote island in West Indies.) Directed by upcoming Thea Sharrock, at the National.

Awake and Sing by Clifford Odets, with Stockart Channing. (Almeida) director Michael Attenborough August 31 - Oct 20.

The Flowering Tree (John Adams ex Nixon of China composer) Inspired by The Magic Flute, the new opera is based on a story from South India. Told by international cast of singers and master Javanese dancers. August 10 – 12, Barbican Hall.

September

New company launches at Haymarket Theatre Royal

Member of the Wedding (Carson McCullers), directed by Matthew Dunster at the Young Vic, Sept 7 – Oct 20.

Fragments by Samuel Beckett, in English (director Peter Brook, from Paris Bouffes du Nord, with Kathryn Hunter, Marcello Magni).

An Evening for Jack Kerouac in the Conference Centre, British Library, Monday 17 Sept 6.30 – 21.00. Readings, music, film and conversation. Contributions from Carolyn Cassady, wife of his long time associate Neal Cassady and other speakers including John Ventimiglia from the Sopranos, British Library.

October

Dance Umbrella

Manchester launches its big festival

The Wagner Ring comes to Covent Garden

Carlos Acosta with Guest Artists from Ballet National De Cuba. One of ballet’s superstars, very athletic and technically virtuous, and combining with Cuban feel at Sadlers Wells (Oct 23 – 28)

Michael Clark Stravinsky Project. This is the final part of Clark’s 3-year collaboration with the Barbican to produce a trilogy of works to seminal dance scores by Stravinsky.  Clark is one of the UK’s most significant dancers and choreographers in the last 25 years. Barbican. (Oct 31 – Nov 10)

Oct 19 Philip Glass and Patti Smith

Oct 20 Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen

November:

Verdi’s Aidi, with costumes by fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, at the English National Opera.

January 2008

Speed the Plow (Mamet) at the Old Vic, with Kevin Spacey

May/June / Old Vic under spacey trying to do something new with Hamlet and Tempest, starring Stephen Dillane and directed by Sam Mendes, incoproduction with Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Piccolo Teatro di Milano.

Art

Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Hals” ranging from intimate works to large scale group paintings at the National Gallery to Sept 16]

Temptation in Eden: Lucas Cranach’s Adam and Eve Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery to the 23^rd

Impressionists by the Sea Royal Academy to Sept 30

Zaha Hadid, First US retrospective of this seminal Iraqi architect. Design Museum, to November 25

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