Myths about London persist in China and other countries. As Mrs. Thatcher told everyone during her visit to Beijing, London isn’t foggy. The fog disappeared fifty years ago when homes, factories and railway engines stopped burning coal. Despite their traditional uniforms, police officers will laugh if you call them “bobbies”. We call them “the Bill” or “the Plod” and they have two-way radios, travel by car and maybe armed with guns. They are still polite to tourists and will give directions if you really are lost. If they ever existed, the warm-hearted Cockneys in the movies also went away at about the same time as the fogs. Slum houses were pulled down and their inhabitants moved to council flats (rented apartments provided by the local government) or the suburbs. Nowadays the people who live in downtown London are as varied as those of New York and Paris. We have the largest, most colourful street carnival outside South America, but also gangsters, drug abuse and racial hatred. More and more pubs (friendly neighbourhood bars that serve alcohol) are being converted into fast-food restaurants, shops and offices.
关于伦敦的传说在中国和其他国家长盛不衰。正如撒切尔夫人访问北京时所告诉大家的，伦敦不再有雾了。早在50年前，当住宅、工厂和火车停止烧煤之后，雾就消失了。警察们尽管还穿着传统的制服，但如果你用早年的称呼“bobbies”和他们打招呼，他们会笑你，因为我们现在称警察为“the Bill”或是“the Plod”。警察配备了对讲机，乘坐汽车巡逻，也可能带着枪。他们对旅游者依然彬彬有礼。假如你真的迷了路，他们会给你指路。电影里那些热心肠的“伦敦佬”倘若确实存在过的话，也在浓雾消失的同一年代不见了。贫民窟已被拆除，原来的居民搬进了政府公寓（由当地政府出资兴建并出租的公寓）或是迁到了郊区。如今，居住在伦敦城里的人也像纽约人和巴黎人那样非常混杂。那里有仅次于南美洲的最大最亮丽的街道狂欢节庆祝活动，但也有歹徒、吸毒和种族歧视现象。越累越多的酒吧（礼貌待客的邻里酒馆）正在消失，原来的铺面被被改成了快餐店、商店或办事处。
