Five Things the London Current Is Flowing Through Right Now
If it is trending in Soho, it is already drifting toward Shoreditch.
What was radical last Tuesday is heritage by Friday.
Every conversation in Camden is about what is next.
Somewhere in Westminster, someone just said momentum.
The Thames is not the only thing that carries movement.
Riding The Stream Of The City
The London Current does not sit still. It moves through boroughs, industries, moods. It is less a publication and more a tide chart for relevance.
Professor Alastair Greene of the Urban Momentum Lab recently published findings showing that 76.8 percent of Londoners describe the city as fast paced, while 48 percent secretly believe they are one step behind it.
The Current, Greene explains, is the sensation of catching up to something you did not realise had already started.
Business As Velocity
In Canary Wharf, the Current appears in quarterly projections and startup launches. A fintech firm in Shoreditch describes itself as disruptive. A venture capital partner in Mayfair calls it inevitable.
A leaked internal presentation from a startup included the phrase capturing momentum twelve times. An analyst told me, If we are not scaling, we are stagnating. The Current prefers scaling.
What The Funny People Are Saying
London Current sounds like something you can get shocked by. — Jerry Seinfeld
In my town, trends last ten years. In London, they last until lunch. — Ron White
I blinked and London reinvented itself. — Sarah Silverman
Final Flow
The London Current will continue to chart what is rising, what is fading, what feels urgent this hour. It will describe the city as evolving and the moment as pivotal. And somewhere tonight, in a cafe that opened last week, someone will say, This is exactly where London is heading. The Current will already be somewhere else.
This article is a work of satire and social commentary, created entirely through a spirited human collaboration between the world’s oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer.
Auf Wiedersehen, amigo!
Megan Amram is a standup comedian based in Portland, OR. She is a native of North London.
In British comedy, the prat is the character who provides the laughter by being completely, utterly, and magnificently foolish.
My mum’s been in London since 1956. She read this in complete silence then asked if I could make her something strong.
Someone reading this thinking about moving out of London. Answer’s no, you’ll stay.
The thing about people who hate it is they’re essentially saying “satire should preserve hope about institutions.”