GAYEST AND CHEAPEST

Taranaki Daily News, 14 April 1932, Page 15

GAYEST AND CHEAPEST

CHARACTERISTICS OF LONDON.

A GERMAN’S OPINION. “London, the Cheapest City in Europe.” Under this headline Herr Rom Landau, one of Germany’s most noted journalists, published in the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag, an article proving to his astonished German readers that London, far from being Europe’s dearest capital, has overnight become the cheapest and, incidentally, the gayest. Herr Landau described how, alfhor ;h the £ has fallen, prices have b> .■ lowered and the British public P g largely. In the eyes of a stra , -according to Herr Landau, London makes the impression of a splendidly prosperous city. The foreigners, says Herr Landau, are discovering London. “The little season,” he says, “is for the first time no longer the season of the London citizen, but has become the carnival of amusement for foreigners. Frenchmen, Germans, Poles, Balkanese, and Italians are now enjoying the privilege of playing the millionaire in LondoV which was formerly beyond their reach. In the Piccadilly shops English is slowly but surely becoming a foreign tongue. The gentleman from the French provinces can now afford the luxury of a first-class English wardrobe. With such prices foreigners gladly shut an eye to the fact that hotel prices have not fallen and that the smaller hotel is still unheated and equipped with depressing restaurants.” . Herr Landau does not criticise the first-class hotels, which, of course, are unsurpassed. He found, however, othei blemishes on London’s newly found escutcheon as Europe's playground, “In the evening,” he says, “apart from theatres and cinemas, there is still nothin<r to do. Public houses close at 10.30, motor omnibuses and undergrounds go to bed before one. On Saturday afternoons everything is closed and.the best that offers is one of the many football matches. On Sunday there are still no theatres or variety shows to see. London at present,” Herr Landau continues, “is the only great city in the world in which the world depression is never heard, where people behave as though nothing were happening in West or East, where society and its activities now, as ever, play a great role; where, in short, it is impossible to observe the depressing reality of world events. And that to most people must appear a better nerve tonic than the bluest sky, or the most golden beaches, or the cosiest glow of the glaciers.”