My London, and Welcome to It
我的伦敦啊，欢迎你来

IF you’ve saved this article for your long-planned trip to London, and you’re now reading it for the third time, circling Heathrow, well, I’m sorry. You’re probably still up there because the queue at passport control has become mutinous. They’re snaking out onto the runways — grim, silently furious visitors, unable to use their phones, forbidden from showing anything but abject acquiescence to the blunt instrument that is the immigration officer at the distant desk.

如果你保存了这篇文章，用作你期待已久的伦敦行，而你现在正在第三遍阅读这篇文章，并正在希斯罗机场兜圈子，那么我只好说声抱歉。这会儿你很可能还在机场，因为检查护照的队伍开始躁动不安。队伍已经蜿蜒到了跑道上——面色阴沉的访客们心里开始愤怒，他们无法使用手机，什么都不允许拿出来，只能默默遵守着冷冰冰的规定，不知何时才能排到遥远的移民官面前。

I always feel bad about the queues at Heathrow as I walk to the coming home rather than the going abroad line. And as you stand there, for hours, looking at the two groups — the indigenous and the visitors — you’ll notice something. It’s a good thing. A heartwarming, little consolation thing. They look exactly the same. There is no difference between you and us, not in color, ethnicity, dress or demeanor. Those who live in London and those who visit are exactly the same.

我始终对希斯罗机场的队伍有种很不舒服的感觉，尤其是当我排在“到达”队伍时，这种感觉比排在“出发”队伍时更加明显。当你在那儿站上几个小时，看着这两条队——本国人和访客——你就会有所发现。这是一件好事，是一件温暖又宽慰人心的事。他们看起来是完全一样的人。你们和我们没什么不同，无论是肤色、种族、衣着还是举止。那些住在伦敦的人和短期来访的人是完全一样的。

In half my lifetime this city has become a homogenous, integrated, international place of choice rather than birth. Not without grit and friction, but amazingly polyglot and variegated. I travel a lot, and this must be the most successful mongrel casserole anywhere.

就在我半辈子的光景里，这座城市变成了一个同质化的、综合性的国际大都市。它更像是一个供人选择的目的地，而非家乡。并非失去了棱角和特色，而是鱼目混杂、斑驳难辨。我去过很多地方，但伦敦是把大杂烩做到极致的成功典范。

Every national team that comes to compete will find a welcoming committee from their homes. London is the sixth largest French city in the world. The Wolseley, the cafe where I often eat, and where I wrote a book about breakfast, has 24 nationalities working in it, from every continent bar the Antarctic. They’re also all Londoners. And that’s a good thing. Although I understand that, as a visitor, it’s not necessarily what you want to come and see — this department store of imported humanity. You want stiff-lipped men in bowler hats and cheeky cockneys with their thumbs in their waistcoats and fish on their heads.

每一个来参赛的国家队都会找到一个来自本国的欢迎委员会。伦敦是全球第六大讲法语的城市。有一家我经常光顾的咖啡厅叫沃尔斯利(Wolseley)，在那里我写完了一本关于早餐的书。那里的员工来自除了南极洲之外六大洲的24个国家。但他们也都是伦敦人。这是一个很好的现象。虽然作为一个游客我能理解，你来这并不是想看这种多元化员工的百货商店，而是想看戴着圆顶高帽的嘴唇僵硬的男人、把大拇指伸进马甲兜里、头上顶着鱼的厚脸皮的伦敦佬。

I’m sorry, but they’re not here anymore. No city’s exported image lags so far behind its homegrown veracity than London’s, so let’s start with what you’re not going to find. We’re all out of cheeky cockneys, pearly kings and their queens, and costermongers. You’re not going to find ’60s psychedelia and the Beatles in Carnaby Street. There aren’t any punks under 50 on the King’s Road; there are no more tweedy, mustachioed, closeted gay writers in Bloomsbury, no Harry Potter at King’s Cross. There aren’t men in white tie, smoking cigars outside Pall Mall clubs and there isn’t any fog, but you can find Sherlock Holmes’s house on Baker Street.

我很遗憾，他们已经不在这里了。没有一个城市像伦敦这样，对外输出的形象如此滞后于它的本来面目。所以，我先说说那些你肯定找不到的东西吧。我们这没有厚脸皮的伦敦佬，没有珍珠王和珍珠王后，也没有沿街叫卖的小贩。在卡尔纳比街上你找不到20世纪60年代的迷幻剂和披头士；英皇大街上没有50岁以下的朋克；布鲁姆斯伯里没有穿着花哨、留着络腮胡、行踪诡秘的同性恋作家；国王十字车站也没有哈利·波特。没有打着白色领带、在蓓尔美尔街的俱乐部外抽雪茄的男人，也没有雾，但是你可以在贝克大街上找到夏洛克·福尔摩斯的住所。

A lot of London’s image never was. There never was a Dickensian London, or a Shakespearean London, or a swinging London. Literary London is best looked for in books, and in old bookshops like Sotheran’s on Sackville Street. One of the small joys that’s easy to miss in London is the blue plaques on buildings. These are put up to commemorate the famous on the houses they lived in. You won’t have heard of a lot of them, but some come as a surprise. There are quite a few Americans and some amusing neighbors. Jimi Hendrix lived next door to Handel, in space if not in time.

有很多“伦敦形象”是从未存在过的。从来没有“狄更斯式的伦敦”，没有“莎士比亚式的伦敦”，也没有“摇摆伦敦”(swinging London,20世纪60年代的英伦文化——译注）。“文学伦敦”(Literary Lodon)最容易从书中找到，在萨克维尔街(Sackville Street)上的一些旧书店就可以感受到，比如索德兰(Sotheran’s)书店。也有一些容易错过的小乐趣，建筑物上的蓝色徽章就是其一。这些徽章是为了纪念名人曾经住过的房子。很多名人也许你没听过，但有一些着实会让你惊喜。那里有不少美国人，还有一些有趣的邻里关系。吉米·亨德里克斯(Jimi Hendrix)就住在亨德尔(Handel)家隔壁，在不同的年代，二人在同一空间产生了交集。

London is a city of ghosts; you feel them here. Not just of people, but eras. The ghost of empire, or the blitz, the plague, the smoky ghost of the Great Fire that gave us Christopher Wren’s churches and ushered in the Georgian city. London can see the dead, and hugs them close. If New York is a wise guy, Paris a coquette, Rome a gigolo and Berlin a wicked uncle, then London is an old lady who mutters and has the second sight. She is slightly deaf, and doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

伦敦是一座幽灵之城。不仅仅是人类的幽灵，还包括时代的印记，这里有帝国、大轰炸、瘟疫（1665年的鼠疫——译注）的幽灵，大火灾（1666年发生——译注）烟雾重重的幽灵则给我们留下了克里斯托弗·雷恩（Christopher Wren）设计重建的教堂，并由此开辟了格鲁吉亚城。伦敦能看到死魂灵，并将他们紧紧拥住。如果把纽约比作自作聪明的人、巴黎比作卖弄风情的女子、罗马比作舞男、柏林比作邪恶的大叔，那么伦敦就是一个喃喃低语、神神叨叨的老妇人。她有点耳聋，受不了蠢货。

我们开始一致痛恨奥运会 

Trying to be a tourist at home is tricky. It’s a good discipline, and rather disappointing. I know as little as you do about being a visitor in this town where I have lived since I was a year old, having been born in Edinburgh. We all look at the crowds of tourists on the Mall and think: What is it you see? What do you get out of this? Like every Londoner I know, I’ve never seen the changing of the guard. It’s an inconvenient traffic snarl-up every weekday morning.

试图以游客的眼光看待家乡，有一种微妙的感觉。这是一次很好的训练，但也会令人失望。我出生在爱丁堡，从一岁起就住在伦敦。如果从游客的角度来看，我和你对这里的了解程度差不多。我们都会看着摩尔大街上拥挤的人群，这样想着：你们在看什么？你们能从中得到什么？和我认识的每一位伦敦人一样，我从来没看过卫兵交接仪式，在每一个工作日的早晨，这里都会挤得水泄不通，让人头痛极了。

With more guilt, I realize that London may be a great metropolis, but it’s not very nice to people. We’re not friendly. Not that we’re rude, like the Parisians with their theatrical and frankly risible haughtiness; nor do we have New Yorkers’ shouty impatience. Londoners are just permanently petulant, irritated. I think we wake up taking offense. All those English teacup manners, the exaggerated please and thank yous, are really the muzzle we put on our short tempers. There are, for instance, a dozen inflections of the word sorry. Only one of them means “I’m sorry.”

带着更多的负罪感，我意识到伦敦虽然是一个大都市，但它对人们并不和善。我们不太友好。并不是说我们粗鲁，像巴黎人那种夸张而直白的傲慢；我们也不像纽约人那样大吵大嚷的不耐烦。伦敦人只是永远带着暴躁和恼火。我觉得我们从一起床就自动进入攻击模式。所有那些英国式的茶杯礼仪，夸张的“请”和“谢谢”，只是给我们的急性子上一个“口套”罢了。比方说，在各种语调的“抱歉”中，只有一个是真的指“我很抱歉。”

So what you shouldn’t expect is to get on with the natives, or for them to take you to their bosoms, or to invite you to their homes, or to buy you a drink. They may, occasionally, if backed against a wall, be rudimentarily helpful, but mostly they’ll ignore you with the huffing sighs of people in a hurry. When you get lost, you’ll stay lost.

所以，不要期待能和本地人打成一片，不要指望他们和你推心置腹，也不要期待他们会邀请你去他们的家里，或者请你喝杯酒。如果实在躲不过，他们偶尔也会伸出援手，但大多数时候他们会忽略你，装作气喘吁吁忙忙碌碌的样子。当你找不着北的时候，你只有靠自己了。

We have, collectively, osmotically, decided that we hate the Olympics. It’s costing too much, it’s causing an enormous amount of trouble and inconvenience, it’s bound to put up prices, make it impossible to find a taxi, but most of all, one thing this city doesn’t need is more gawping, milling, incontinently happy tourists.

渐渐地，我们一致开始痛恨奥运。奥运付出的代价太大了，导致了无数的麻烦和不便。物价上涨、出租车难打，但是最重要的是，这座城市不需要更多到处瞧、到处跑、快活得逆天的游客了。

On the bus recently a middle-aged, middle-class, middleweight woman peered out of the window at the stalled traffic and furiously bellowed; “Oh my God, is there no end to these improvements?” It was the authentic voice of London, and I thought it could be the city’s motto, uttered at any point in its history, embroidered in gold braid on the uniforms of every petty official.

近来在一辆巴士上，一位中产阶级的、身材中等的中年妇女从窗户向外凝视着堵塞的车流，她怒吼道：“天哪，这些奥运改造工程什么时候是个头儿？”这是伦敦的心声，我觉得它可以成为这座城市的座右铭，适用于任何一段历史，并绣在每一个小军官制服的金边里。

I recently interviewed our mayor, Boris Johnson. He may be the ex-mayor by the time you land. We have an election coming up. We hate the imposition of that, as well, and all the possible improvements it might bring. I told him I was writing this piece, and asked what message he’d like to send, fraternally, to the people of America, should they be optimistic enough to visit. “Ah, ooh, well, this is very important,” he said with a faintly Churchillian inflection. (He was actually born in New York.) “Um, visitors should hire a bike and ride through the parks.” The vehicles are sometimes referred to as Boris bikes after him, and have been an unexpectedly wobbly and careening success — easy to get, easy to use and a really easy way to end up seeing how brilliant the National Health Service is.

我最近采访了我们的市长鲍里斯·约翰逊(Boris Johnson)。也许你来到这里的时候他已经是“前市长”了。我们很快就要进行选举了，我们同样讨厌这种强加于人的制度，以及所有可能由此带来的改造工程。我告诉他我正在写这个选题，并问他，如果让美国人乐于到访，有哪些信息是他希望以兄弟般的口吻向他们传达的。“嗯，哦，这点非常重要，”他以一种微弱的、丘吉尔式的语调说道：（其实他出生在纽约。）“嗯，游客可以租一辆自行车游览公园。”伦敦的交通工具有时是指　“鲍里斯自行车”（以他的名字命名的一项自行车计划），这项计划出人意料地在跌跌撞撞中获得了成功——租车方便，简单易用，并且能够真切感受到英国国民保健制度的优越性。

伦敦隐藏在众目睽睽之下的秘密

The parks, though, are wonderful, with a wildness that is artifice. Like the English, they appear casual, but involve a great deal of work. Go to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, where Peter Pan comes from. You should see his statue on the banks of the Serpentine. One of the most charming sculptures in any city, it was made by Sir George Frampton, paid for by J. M. Barrie and erected in secret overnight so that children out with their nannies would think it had arrived by magic.

伦敦的公园的确很棒，有很多人工雕琢的景观。就像英国人，虽然表面看起来很随意，但其实添加了大量的修饰。去海德公园和彼得·潘的故乡肯辛顿花园(Kensington Gardens)看看，你可以在九曲湖（Serpentine,也作“蛇形湖”）畔看到彼得·潘的雕像。这是最具魅力的城市雕像之一，由乔治·弗兰普顿爵士(Sir George Frampton)创作，J. M. 巴里(J. M. Barrie)资助，是趁着夜色悄悄矗立起来的，所以第二天被保姆带出门的孩子们还以为是魔法显灵了。

London is one of the finest cities for public statuary. The great and the eternally forgotten glare down at you from horses and morality. When you get to Trafalgar Square, as undoubtedly you will, you’ll look up at Nelson’s Column, where Adm. Horatio Nelson peers down the Mall, either into the bedroom windows of Buckingham Palace, or to review his fleet; there are small ships on top of all the lampposts.

伦敦是世界上最出色的公共雕塑城市之一。到处都是马和伟人向你投来伟大的其实已被历史遗忘的目光。当你去特拉法加广场(Trafalgar Square)时，毫无疑问你会仰望纳尔逊纪念碑(Nelson’s Column)，海军上将霍雷肖·纳尔逊(Adm. Horatio Nelson)从那里向下凝视，要么是望向白金汉宫(Buckingham Palace)的卧室窗户，要么是巡视他的舰队，那里每一根路灯柱顶上都铸有一艘小船。

You might also like to pay your respects to George Washington outside the nearby National Gallery to pay your penance to fine art. He was a gift from Virginia, and stands on imported American earth because he said that he’d never set foot in London again. And don’t miss Charles I on the west side of the square. This is the finest equestrian statue in the city. Just down the road in the Banqueting House, you can see where his head was cut off, and also the brilliant Rubens painting of the Apotheosis of James I.

你或许也想去附近的国家美术馆(National Gallery)外膜拜一下乔治·华盛顿(George Washington)，对高雅艺术支付你的忏悔。这尊雕像是弗吉尼亚州赠送的礼物，他就站在那块美国制造的“领土”上，因为他说过他再也不会踏足伦敦的土地。也不要错过广场西侧的查尔斯一世(Charles I)雕像。这是伦敦最精美的骑马雕像。沿路一直走到国宴厅(Banqueting House)，你可以看到当时他被斩首的地方，还有鲁本斯(Rubens)的绝世画作《尊奉詹姆斯一世》( Apotheosis of James I)。

The Thames is London’s great secret, hidden in full view. We do very little with it, or on it, except complain how difficult it is to get over and under. It is the reason London is here at all, but the people stand aloof because we have long memories and longer noses. The Thames was so disgustingly noxious and pestilent that Parliament would abandon the Palace of Westminster when the weather got too hot in the summer, because the smell became dangerous.

泰晤士河是伦敦最大的秘密，隐藏在众目睽睽之下。我们对此（或为之）几乎什么都没做，除了抱怨过河很难（无论是从河上还是河下）。整个伦敦都是依河而建，但人们总是敬而远之，因为我们有很强的记忆力和更敏锐的嗅觉。泰晤士河曾严重发臭并诱发传染病，以至于国会在盛夏时节要搬离威斯敏斯特宫，因为这气味开始变得危险。

London was the biggest city in the world, and the river was the biggest sewer on earth. The Victorians finally built an underground sewerage system that was so efficient we still use it. But they also made the Embankment, which lifts the city above the river. Getting access isn’t easy, but if you only do one thing while you’re here, you should take a boat from the center of town and go either downstream to the maritime museum at Greenwich or up toward Oxford and get off at Kew Gardens and Syon House.

伦敦曾是全世界最大的城市，而泰晤士河又曾是地球上最大的污水河。到维多利亚时代终于建造了一个高效的地下排水系统，我们沿用至今。但是当时也建造了河堤，把整个城市提升到了河流之上。亲近这条河并非易事，但是如果你在这里只做一件事，那么你应该从市中心搭船，要么去下游的格林威治的海事博物馆(maritime museum)，要么往上游的牛津方向走，在皇家植物园(Kew Gardens)和赛昂宫(Syon House)下船。

The river is the best way to see the city. London glides past you like human geology. It is not a particularly impressive city seen from above; not like Paris or New York, although you can go up to Primrose Hill and Hampstead Heath and look back, and it has a dreamy loveliness brought on by distance. And Wordsworth said that earth had nothing so fair to show as the view of the morning from Westminster Bridge. Two hundred years later he wouldn’t recognize it, but it’s still pretty impressive.

河流往往是观赏一座城市的最佳方式。伦敦就像人类地质学一般在你的两侧展开。伦敦不是一个适合从高处观全景的城市；不像巴黎或纽约那样，虽然你也可以爬到樱草花山(Primrose Hill)上或者去汉普特斯西斯公园(Hampstead Heath)回望，享受一步一风景带来的梦幻般的美妙。华兹华斯说过，地球上没有一处景色能够与威斯敏斯特大桥上的清晨美景相媲美。200年后的今天，风景已大不相同，但仍令人难以忘怀。
　
The great problem for visitors to London is size. This is a big place. It’s not a walkable city; there are great walks but you can’t stride from everywhere to anywhere. And it’s easy to lose any sense of where you are in relation to everything else. So it’s best to do what the natives do, and think of London as a loose federation of villages, states and principalities, and take them in one at a time. The oldest bits are in the east. The Tower of London and the Roman Wall mark the beginning of the city. To the east are the docks and the working classes, and what is now the trendiest and most youthful, fashionable bit of London. As the city grew rich, it grew west. Mayfair, Chelsea, Kensington, Notting Hill are mostly Victorian.

对于到访伦敦的游客来说，最大的问题就是面积。这是个很大的地方，步行不太方便。有很多步行道，但是如果从一个地方到另一个地方只靠走路是不行的，而且也很容易迷路。所以最好还是入乡随俗吧，把伦敦想成一个松散的国度，包括村庄、州，还有领地，一次只去一个地方。最古老的城区在东部。伦敦塔和罗马墙是这个城市的起源。往东走是码头和劳动阶级的聚居地，现在是伦敦最新潮、最年轻和时尚的地区。随着伦敦变得富裕，西部也发展起来了。梅费尔、切尔西、肯辛顿、诺丁山大都是在维多利亚时代兴起的。

You will do all the big-ticket tourist things. I doubt there’s anything I can say that will convince you that the best way to see Tower Bridge is on a postcard, and that the Tower of London is a big, dull box packed with Italian schoolchildren, or that Harrods is much the same. But while the living Londoners are to be avoided, the dead ones should be sought out. St. Paul’s Cathedral is London’s parish church, the single greatest building in Britain, designed by Christopher Wren. It’s light, civilized, rational and humane — everything Londoners aren’t. It has monuments to J. M. W. Turner, the Duke of Wellington and, of course, John Donne, who preached there. Behind the altar is a little memorial chapel and stained-glass window dedicated to America and the help it gave London and the nation in World War II.

我知道你肯定要当个被宰的游客。我不知道怎么才能说服你——观赏塔桥(Tower Bridge)的最佳方式是买张明信片。伦敦塔(Tower of London)是一个巨大又沉闷的盒子，里面都是意大利的小学生。其实哈罗兹百货公司(Harrods)也差不多。虽然最好避开伦敦人多的地方，但可以去凭吊一些已逝的人。圣保罗大教堂(St. Paul’s Cathedral )是伦敦的教区教堂，也是英国规模最大的教堂，由克里斯托弗·雷恩(Christopher Wren)设计。它简洁、文明、理性、仁慈——有着所有伦敦人不具备的品格。那里有J. M. W. 特纳(J. M. W. Turner)、威灵顿公爵(Duke of Wellington)以及约翰·多恩(John Donne)的纪念碑，约翰·多恩还曾在这里布道。在祭坛后面是一个小的纪念教堂和彩色玻璃窗，用于纪念美国在二战中为伦敦和英国所提供的援助。

Westminster Abbey is the great church of state. It has the Grave of the Unknown Warrior, the Coronation Chair, which is surprisingly Ikea and covered in graffiti from Westminster schoolboys, and there is Poets’ Corner, the marbled hall of fame of Britishness. Just down the street from St. Paul’s there is another Wren church, St. Bride’s, by tradition and practice the journalists’ church. Dryden and Pepys were parishioners. Above the font there is a little shelf, and on it the bust of a girl. She is Virginia Dare. Her parents were married here and then emigrated to the Roanoke Colony. On Aug. 18, 1587, Virginia arrived, the first child of English parents to be born in America. No one knows what happened to her, but this is an immensely touching little memorial in the Old World to the promise of the New. Not one Londoner in 1,000 knows who Virginia was, or that she’s there.

西敏寺(Westminster Abbey)是英国的一座大教堂（威斯敏斯特教堂）。那里有无名战士纪念碑(Grave of the Unknown Warrior)、爱德华一世加冕宝座，风格令人惊异得与宜家(Ikea)接近，上面还布满了威斯敏斯特小学生的涂鸦；还有诗人角(Poets’ Corner)——安葬着英国文豪们的大理石大厅。沿着圣保罗大教堂(St. Paul’s)往下走，会看到另一个雷恩设计的教堂——圣布里奇教堂(St. Bride’s)，从传统和实践上来说，它也被称为“记者教堂”。德莱顿(Dryden)和佩皮斯(Pepys)曾是教区居民。前面上方是一个小架子，放着一个女孩的半身像。她叫维吉尼亚·戴尔 (Virginia Dare)。她的父母在这里结婚，之后迁移到罗纳克岛殖民地。1587年8月18日，维吉尼亚出生了，她是第一个由英国父母在美国生下的孩子。没有人知道她遭遇了什么，但这个旧时代的感人的小雕像象征着对新时代的许诺。1000个伦敦人里，也不会有一个人知道维吉尼亚是谁，或者她的雕像就放在那儿。

There are thousands of these odd moments in London. You will discover your own, like the alley that has the original Embassy of Texas in it. It’s like opening the drawers in an old house, where so much was put away for safekeeping and then forgotten.

在伦敦有成千上万个这种格格不入的景观。你自己就能发现，比如那条座落着最初的德克萨斯大使馆的巷子。这就像是在一栋老房子里面，东西都被储存和保管好，之后就逐渐被淡忘，只有打开抽屉时又再浮现出来。

伦敦那邪恶的、沉闷的、残酷的“幽默感”

Of course, you should go to the pub. Like the bistros of Paris, the pubs of London are having a hard time of it. Their role as the working classes’ living room can no longer compete with cable TV and supermarket beer. But still there are plenty of beautiful and elegiac pubs, and you should come upon them serendipitously. But I might commend the Mayflower on the river in the East End. This is older than the ship that shares its name, which set off from here. And the Windsor Castle in Kensington is a pretty West London pub. If the weather is fine, it has a charming garden.

当然，你还应该感受一下酒吧。就像巴黎那些小酒馆一样，伦敦的酒吧也在艰难度日。酒吧作为劳动阶级的“起居室”，已经比不上坐在家里的起居室，在那里你还能看着有线电视，喝着超市的啤酒。但是伦敦仍然有一些漂亮并带有哀伤气息的酒吧，你应该尝试和它们邂逅。不过，我要推荐一下伦敦东区河边的“五月花”(Mayflower)酒吧，它比和它同名的“五月花号”船还要古老，那艘船就是从这里起航的。肯辛顿的温莎城堡(Windsor Castle)是伦敦西部的一个漂亮的酒吧。在天气好的时候，那里的花园非常迷人。

I suppose I ought to recommend places to eat, as London has such a Babel of palates and lexicon of digestions. It boasts the most diverse cuisines of any city. But given that you didn’t come all this way just to eat Chinese or Moroccan, you can also get good English. It will be meaty and Victorian, long on pork and the extremities of cows, pigs and offal. Three I recommend. Anchor & Hope near the Old Vic theater on the Cut, has great food in an energetically noisy pub. Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill off Piccadilly, and St. John, a restaurant that has become a point of pilgrimage for visiting chefs. And you really should eat Indian here. Curry is England’s favorite dinner, and our national dish.

我觉得我应该推荐一些餐厅，因为伦敦也是美食的集中地与餐饮大百科全书，自称拥有比任何一个城市更丰富的美食。但是既然你千里迢迢不仅仅是为了来吃中国菜或摩洛哥菜，你还可以尝到很棒的英国菜。英式菜肴以肉为主，兼具维多利亚风格，擅长烹调猪肉、牛腿肉、猪腿以及下水。我推荐三家餐厅：在老维克剧院(Old Vic theater)附近的Anchor & Hope，它在卡特街（The Cut），有很棒的食物和活力四射的酒吧；背对皮卡迪利大街(Piccadilly)的Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill；还有St. John，这家餐厅已经成为了厨师游客的朝圣地。你真应该尝试一下那里的印度菜。咖喱是英格兰人最喜欢的晚餐，也算是我们的“国菜”。

Plenty of people come to shop, but it’s expensive, and Bond Street and Sloane Street are pretty much what you’d find at home. It won’t have escaped your notice that the avaricious first world has become a branded and cloned airport lounge.

有很多人会去购物，但是东西都太贵了。邦德街(Bond Street)和斯隆街(Sloane Street)上的大部分东西在你的国家也能找到。你不难发现，贪婪的“第一世界”国家早已经变成了充斥各种品牌、与其他国家并无二致的机场休息室。

One thing that is singularly British, and specifically London, is men’s tailoring. This is where the suit was invented, and where it is still made better than anywhere. Savile Row is a very London experience, satisfyingly and shockingly costly, but also dangerously addictive. I’d recommend Brian Russell on Sackville Street, which is now run by Fadia Aoun, a rare female tailor.

不过有一样英国独有的特色，尤其是在伦敦，就是男装定制。这里可以制作西装，而且仍然比世界上任何一个地方做得都要好。来萨维尔街(Savile Row)逛上一圈，是非常典型的伦敦体验。令人满足又惊人地昂贵，但又具有危险的诱惑力。我推荐萨克维尔街的Brian Russell，这是一家很少见的由女裁缝经营的店，店主叫法迪亚·奥恩(Fadia Aoun)。

You need to see London at night, particularly the theaters. But not just the night life. London itself looks best in the dark. It’s a pretty safe city, and you can walk in most places after sunset. It has a sedate and ghostly beauty. In the crepuscular kindness, you can see not just how she is, but how she once was, the layers of lives that have been lived here. Somebody with nothing better to do worked out that for every one of us living today, there are 15 ghosts. In most places you don’t notice them, but in London you do. The dead and the fictional ghosts of Sherlock Holmes and Falstaff, Oliver Twist, Wendy and the Lost Boys, all the kindly, garrulous ghosts that accompany you in the night. The river runs like dark silk through the heart of the city, and the bridges dance with light. There are corners of silence in the revelry of the West End and Soho, and in the inky shadows foxes and owls patrol Hyde Park, which is still illuminated by gaslight.

你还要看看伦敦的夜景，尤其是剧院的夜景，而不仅仅是享受夜生活。伦敦的夜晚比白天更美。这是一座很安全的城市，在日落后，你可以步行到大部分的地方。这里有一种沉静的、鬼魅般的美丽。在柔和的微光下，你不仅能看清她当下的样貌，还有她的曾经——过往生活的每一个层面。一些人的存在意义，似乎是专为活在今天的我们做出一些事情。这里飘荡着至少15个幽灵。在大多数地方，你不会注意到他们，但是在伦敦，你会感受得到。比如夏洛克·福尔摩斯(Sherlock Holmes)和福斯塔夫(Falstaff，出自莎士比亚同名喜剧——译注)、奥利弗·特维斯特(Oliver Twist，出自《雾都孤儿》——译注)、温蒂和遗失的男孩们(Wendy and the Lost Boys，出自《彼得·潘与温蒂》)的虚构的灵魂——所有这些在夜晚陪伴你的，善意的、唠叨的幽灵。泰晤士河像一条深色的丝带，穿流过伦敦的中心地带，塔桥在灯光下起舞。狂欢的西区和苏豪区也有寂静的角落；夜色中，狐狸和猫头鹰借着煤气灯的微光，结伴在海德公园漫步。

Now the Olympics has come and dragged us all into the bright light, and a lot of attention is being given to London, and we’re not used to it. We’re not good at showing off. We’re not a good time to be had by all, we’re not an easy date. London isn’t a party animal by nature, it doesn’t join in or have a favorite karaoke song. It does, though, have a wicked, dry and often cruel sense of humor. It is clever, literate and dramatic. It is private and taciturn, a bit of a bore, and surprisingly sentimental. And it doesn’t make friends quickly, is awkward around visitors. We will be pleased when all the fuss and nosiness has gone away.

现在奥运会要到了，我们被拉到了强光之下，伦敦受到了太多关注，我们并不习惯这样。我们不擅长炫耀，我们也没有准备好接受所有人的目光，我们也不是个很容易搞定的约会对象。从本质上来说，伦敦不是一只“派对动物”，它不会主动加入派对，也没有拿手的卡拉OK曲。伦敦有的只是一种邪恶的、沉闷的，有时甚至是残酷的“幽默感”。它聪明，有深厚的文学和戏剧素养；它内向、沉默寡言，又出奇地多愁善感。它属于慢热型，在生人面前笨手笨脚。当所有的忙乱和纷扰离开之后，我们会很高兴。

So come, by all means, but don’t expect the kindness of strangers unless you decide to stay, in which case you’ll be very welcome indeed. There’s always room for one more on top, which is what they used to say on the buses when the buses had conductors, which they don’t anymore. And that’s another bloody improvement.

所以来吧，无论怎样，但是不要期待陌生人的仁慈。除非你决定留下来，在这种情况下我们都很欢迎你。当导游上了巴士，“车顶上有个多余的空位，”这是巴士上的伦敦人曾常说的一句话。不过他们现在不这么说了——这又是一例残忍的改造工程带来的结果。

来源：好英语网