Do lizards smile?

I went to London on a couple of occasions before emigrating to the United States, not because I felt a duty or need to visit the capital before leaving the country, but because it was necessary to do so as part of the emigration process to move, being where both the physician and embassy are located. I found London as a city to be a foul and repulsive place, the streets were certainly not paved with gold, but they did have plenty of brass sitting on dirty old hats which lined the thoroughfares, cardboard mountains piled just out of sight and out of view of the camera frames, and graffiti seemingly done by the dyslexic and artistically challenged victims of the English schooling system.

I found myself waiting around central London for a few hours for my allotted appointment so I wandered the bustling streets around the immediate area which was located in Marylebone, the home of Conan Doyle's great detective Sherlock Holmes. I found myself wondering about what he would make of these modern bovinous people in the area as they pranced the streets, like horses at a dressage contest, along with their surplus of Selfridge's bags. Despite wearing ensembles that very well nearly amount to a year's salary for the common man, not a single smile could be observed upon any of their faces the entire day I were there, which led me to believe that not only can money not buy you happiness but actually seemingly leads to its destruction, and perhaps if a ridiculous price were put on a smile and placed on sale at Selfridge's the people there would be more likely tempted to wear one.

The only smiles I saw the entire time I was in London were on the faces of those to which I was paying good money, but even these smiles were painted onto their faces out of a requirement of work, the person knew their smile was made of plastic and so too did I, which made the encounters with them alienating, to say the least. No, the only genuine smiles I saw during my time in London were worn on the faces of my friend and I, which marked us as outsiders immediately upon entering anywhere we went. One of the places we went into whilst waiting for my appointment was a nearby coffee house.

My friend ordered first and elegantly listed off what he desired, when he had finished I took the simple road and asked them to make that times two, my friend and I jested amongst ourselves, laughing and smiling, whilst the poor girl behind the counter, obviously uncomfortable with being confronted with our alien presence, tried her damnedest to keep wearing her plastic smile for us at least until the transaction was complete, and upon payment the pleasantries ceased. We were ushered aside to wait for our drinks and the smile dropped momentarily from her face, like cream seeping from a once nice-looking cake left out in the heat, before she reapplied it ready for the next customer in line.

Immediately upon sitting down in the coffee house, I came to realise that my friend and I had marked ourselves out even more so from the rest of the people there simply by drinking coffee. Everyone else within the establishment was drinking some form of health smoothie or freshly pressed juice whilst hurriedly tapping away on laptops or tablets, or talking on their phones in that matter-of-fact manner that one only uses when dealing in business or with someone to which you hold in contempt.

One couple, in the golden years of their lives, sat on the table beside us and try as I might not to overhear the conversations of others my ears compelled me just briefly enough for me to hear the elderly woman say "Well get it a collar and lead, you can get bearded dragons leads and take them on walks you know?", Immediately I became lost within my mind, drifting in a sea of my imagination; are bearded dragons the new in pet amongst the elite of London? Will Elton John write a bearded dragon piano ballad? What would that sound like? Who is the person on the other end of that phone call? The woman's child? Her friend? I know age is just a number but something amused me greatly over the idea of a seventy-year-old socialite with a bearded dragon on a lead, and who buys a bearded dragon and takes it for walks in central London anyway? Is this completely normal here?

In honesty, I don't think another cold-blooded reptile walking upon the streets of London would be noticed amongst all of the others.

There is an anthem played out every day within the centre of London, like an orchestra of auditory offences, blasted out by angry vehicle drivers as they sound their horns in fits of rage as traffic clogs up the heart of London like a blocked artery. Much like the common seagull, one driver airs their voice and suddenly out of nowhere dozens more join in the song, the driver bemoans the car in front by sounding his horn, who in turn then airs their annoyance with the car in front of them who then goes on to sound theirs to the car in front of them and so on.

A Lamborghini Aventador can reach two hundred and eighteen miles per hour and will cost you a mere two hundred and seventy thousand pounds, but unless it can teleport you from A to B, you're still fifty-eighth in a queue of traffic behind several Kia's and half a dozen buses reaching a top speed of ten miles per hour as electric scooters pass you by being ridden by smug-faced hipsters drinking cold brew coffee, before finally you're overtaken by a seventy-year-old socialite with two new knees and a tethered bearded dragon, leaving you in a fit of seething rage. better sound your horn to show you're annoyed...

I love living in a multicultural society, truly one of the greatest boons to England as a country is its place on the world stage attracts swathes of beautiful and talented human beings to its shores. That said, during my time in London it came to my attention that the rarest of all creatures in central London was sadly the Cockney, I came across only one during my visits and although he was an exquisite specimen of a Cockney indeed, it did make me somewhat sad to see that at least in central London, the rarest of people are the ones that have always been there, perhaps even rarer than bearded dragons now.

As I said above, I love our multicultural society but London may have taken it somewhat too far when I've seen the fifteenth Lebanese restaurant, the fifth sushi bar and absolutely zero Greggs bakeries. The entire shopping area seemed to encompass and represent every single nation other than England which is odd when you consider its proximity to Buckingham Palace. I don't mean anything nationalist about this, it is just strange for a capital city. Visit Edinburgh and you will be treated to sights, smells, and sounds celebrating the Scottish; the sound of bagpipes, men dressed in traditional kilts, shops selling tartan and fudge, smells of haggis and hog roasts, all of which encircle the beautiful Edinburgh castle.

Yet in London, there is nothing to denote one is actually in the centre of London except for the exorbitant price tags attached to everything in sight. Amongst all the designer clothing stores, boutiques, and all the bistros, restaurants and coffee houses, sat a single oddity which stood out to me. In between a designer store and a boutique, across from a wine workshop and coffee house sat a shop unlike all of the others; a small shop that just sold brooms. This dumbfounded me for a few reasons; how was this broom shop staying afloat in such a high-tax area surrounded by designer shops? Exactly how special must these brooms be to make sales to the elite? Does a broom even fit in the boot of a Lamborghini Aventador? Who is buying enough brooms to keep this store running? These questions polluted my mind for a good few hours, mostly because surely if a broom shop can make enough money to stay open in such a high-brow area of London then a damned Greggs bakery would manage to.

Needless to say I found being in central London to be confusing at best and extremely annoying at worst, it is too busy, too loud, and too obnoxious, and the people are the classiest set of classless people I've ever laid eyes upon. I left London with a genuine sadness for all those who have to live and work there, they spend their lives in a sort of chaotic snow globe where everything is moving around them, yet they're stuck in one place, trapped by the bubble of capitalism and seemingly living off of Lebanese food and sushi. I do find myself wondering one thing though, can one get a snow globe with a Lamborghini Aventador being driven by a bearded dragon, and can it smile?