Being a Londoner I tend to avoid the tourist hot spots where visitors congregate. Mostly because I’m usually in a hurry to get somewhere else (the true sign of a Londoner) but also because whatever has caught the tourist eye is probably something I’ve seen a million times before. Then again I love bringing friends to the city for the first time and that’s when I slow down and hang with the backpackers and help people study maps in the rain. Seeing London through a tourist’s eyes reminds you just what an incredible city this is that we live in and why so many people spend so much money to get here.

But it’s not a cheap city.

So it sticks in the graw that the new owners of Covent Garden Market may want to get rid of buskers and street performers:

“This place will suffer as a result because a lot of people come to see the shows. It’s one of the biggest attractions in London. Where else can you go to see this if you haven’t got a lot of money?”

Rumour has it that the new owners would rather see yet another profit making homogeneous series of shops rather than the unique and vibrant part of London that it now is.

How amazingly short sighted.

Photo credit: untitled by oandu. (CC license)