London is a world of glamour, excitement, activity, amusement and all the attractions of worldly wit and casual relationships; but we also infer that it is a world of endlessly false appearances, a world in which manners substitute for morals, a world given over to cold deception, manipulation and exploitation.

Tony Tanner (1935-1998), Jane Austen

To the outsider, London is a sightseer’s theme park, a rich assembly of landmarks and historic buildings, where blue plaques chronicle the passing of time right back to the Middle Ages.

Anon, publicity material distributed to the audience in a preview screening, Dirty Pretty Things

Sir, London is a strange place, and you must look with a keen eye, and stay in it a great while, before you will be a master of half its expedients.

Randal, Squire Randal’s Excursion round London

For the bookish, London is a book. For criminals, a map of opportunities. For unpapered immigrants, it is a nest of skinned eyes; sanctioned gunmen ready to blow your head off as you run for a train. When the city of distorting mirrors revealed itself, through its districts and discriminations, I discovered more about London’s past as a reworking of my own submerged history.

Iain Sinclair (b.1943), London: A City of Disappearances

London is a world by itself. We daily discover in it more new countries, and surprising singularities, than in all the universe besides.

Thomas Brown (1663-1704), Amusements Serious and Comical, Calculated for the Meridian of Londont