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#1 2014-04-07 10:28:22
- 4F Hepcat
- THE Cat
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Cool London Is Dead
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10744997/Cool-London-is-dead-and-the-rich-kids-are-to-blame.html
Fellow forum member, BellisVintage, joins in the comments section with this interesting position:
BellisVintage • 15 minutes ago
I agree with a lot of the author's thoughts except about Paris. He appears unaware of the major cultural differences between Europeans and Americans. In France to be showy with your money is, and always will be, distinctly uncool and puts you at risk of being called "bourgeoisie" - the ultimate put-down. It's just part of French culture and their socialist history. Even in Italy to be flashy is still today considered "inelegant". And London has been putting money before craft since the industrial revolution and before. Read William Morris, Ruskin et al.
So London never was cool from a European perspective - apart from a short period during the 60s when it "appeared" egalitarian. It's just much more exaggerated today in London as Americanisation has swamped UK culture - if one can call it that any more - in it's desperate desire for aspiration.
Ultimately it's France's disinterest in being competitive which makes them cool (something regularly derided by the UK). Chasing the dollar was never cool.
Vibe-Rations in Spectra-Sonic-Sound
#2 2014-04-07 10:33:48
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Re: Cool London Is Dead
I'd say Paris was never cool, but that's just me.
Hide thy infants, hide thy Lady, and hide thy husband, alas they art forcing sexual intercourse upon the entire populace. - Wm Shakespeare
#3 2014-04-07 10:48:30
- 4F Hepcat
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Re: Cool London Is Dead
Paris was certainly cool, with all the expatriate American writers and jazz musicians, shit, it was even cool from a jazz perspective during WWII. It has a nasty edge in the suburbs though.
Vibe-Rations in Spectra-Sonic-Sound
#4 2014-04-07 11:07:22
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Re: Cool London Is Dead
Yeah, I like some of those people, but not many. Hemingway was fun to watch what he would screw up next I imagine, and I do like Fitz, but Stein and Pound and all the rest of those douchebags do very little for me. I don't find Paris all that cool at any point really. It's all very vapid and and soulless. If you make a show out of being disinterested you are inherently interested.
London was very different. I can related to world domination a lot more that being a lazy sack of crap that smokes cigarettes and wears black and is perpetually sneering.
Do note though, I am going to Paris in two weeks, and plan on being fat and drunk the whole time (wine and cheese that is).
Hide thy infants, hide thy Lady, and hide thy husband, alas they art forcing sexual intercourse upon the entire populace. - Wm Shakespeare
#5 2014-04-07 11:10:52
- formby
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Re: Cool London Is Dead
"Dressing, like painting, should have a residual stability, plus punctuation and surprise." - Richard Merkin
Souvent me Souvient
#7 2014-04-07 11:24:40
- formby
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Re: Cool London Is Dead
"Dressing, like painting, should have a residual stability, plus punctuation and surprise." - Richard Merkin
Souvent me Souvient
#8 2014-04-07 11:43:11
- doghouse
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Re: Cool London Is Dead
I fully plan on enjoying Paris, will only be my second time through.
Hide thy infants, hide thy Lady, and hide thy husband, alas they art forcing sexual intercourse upon the entire populace. - Wm Shakespeare
#9 2014-04-07 11:50:58
- formby
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Re: Cool London Is Dead
"Dressing, like painting, should have a residual stability, plus punctuation and surprise." - Richard Merkin
Souvent me Souvient
#10 2014-04-07 11:56:11
- doghouse
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Re: Cool London Is Dead
I find nostalgia such a bore. And I'm a history buff.
Hide thy infants, hide thy Lady, and hide thy husband, alas they art forcing sexual intercourse upon the entire populace. - Wm Shakespeare
#11 2014-04-08 08:55:16
- NJS
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Re: Cool London Is Dead
I used to be a nut for nostalgia but am far less now. Now I am just a nut.
#12 2014-04-08 13:57:52
- Beestonplace
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Re: Cool London Is Dead
My "cool London" goes back to the early 90s when J Barclay had lots of navy blue Brookslands and TUrbo Rs. Actually every car on New Bond Street was a Turbo R or Continental R in navy blue and i liked it, and the sperm coloured "magnolia" leather piped navy blue.
Those years were the last "cool" years before the whole Techno/Grunge movement ruined everything. And then SUVs came. Etc.
I LOVE , this foum
#13 2014-04-09 18:56:01
- Chévere
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Re: Cool London Is Dead
I lived in France for a year and was often in Paris. Lived with a Frenchwoman for 3 years. The French are definitely NOT disinterested. They are inveterate status seekers, unabashedly snobbish about what they consider to be "it" for the time, and aghast at the fact that such brutes as the anglo saxons and their American bastard whelps have had the run of the world for so long.
They are forever in a pose of feigned indifference, miserable and grousing at whomever has it unjustifiably better than them. For all their disdain of "bling", the merest soupçon that you rank a nanometer above them in class renders them abject.
Having said that, I love going to France.
Cógelo suave, pero cógelo.
#14 2014-04-10 07:44:02
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Re: Cool London Is Dead
Brutes will always run the world.
Hide thy infants, hide thy Lady, and hide thy husband, alas they art forcing sexual intercourse upon the entire populace. - Wm Shakespeare