I found myself being driven through the streets of London at 5.00 am this morning. Pre-dawn London is magnificent. The city looks splendid: bright and sharp against a clear autumn night sky. And the lack of traffic means that the collection of medieval villages that now constitute this great international city fall into geographical context. Rather than sitting snarled in traffic losing sense of how London knits together, my taxi sped from Bermondsey to Southwark to Lambeth to Westminster to Knightsbridge to Kensington and beyond; the ancient place names – each resonant with London’s long and tangled history – that have now been absorbed into one vast urban metropolis.
My journey took me to BBC Television Centre in west London where I was wheeled out as the latest talking head analysing the impact of Hurricane Sandy as it battered the east coast of the United States. It actually feels a little uncomfortable sitting in the cosy studio of the BBC Today Programme talking about a human disaster unfolding thousands of miles away. How can you begin to articulate sensitively the key points about disaster management succinctly in just a few minutes when you are sandwiched tightly between job losses at a Swiss bank and management changes at Apple? [Read more…]