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Capital punishment / The perils of London: a beginner’s guide

29 0
23.03.2026

Angus Colwell has narrated this article for you to listen to.

An interesting new perspective on London is doing the rounds. Our capital city is being advertised as a paradise. London, it seems, is suddenly a place where every building is a Wren, where every sunset is a Turner, where every neighbourhood is Notting Hill. The sentiment has even got a name – ‘Londonmaxxing’. It’s been invented by tech accounts on X who got excited by the long queues at AI events run by Vercel earlier this month. There has also been speculation that a disgruntled-with-Trump Anthropic could move to London.

As much as I love London, like any true sceptical Londoner, I suspect bollocks. Look at the map by our resident artist J.G. Fox. Anyone considering the move should in fact be sniffer dog-aware of a multiplicity of perils. Those of us living here will already be familiar with them, but they might startle a novice.

In Camden market, you can hardly move for 15-year-olds scoring their first bag of weed

In Camden market, you can hardly move for 15-year-olds scoring their first bag of weed

Let’s start in King’s Cross, where the tech bros would likely be working.........

© The Spectator