Any London UK DU'ers here today?

[edbermac]

I have some relatives over there on a tour and have been reading some stories on the net that the air quality hasn't been too good of late in London.

[tjwmason]

1. I do find it's not that good

but as I live in the coutryside that's what I'm comparing it with. I don't think it's particularly worse than any major city - certainly we don't get anything like the (in)famous smog of places like Los Angeles.

[FunkyLeprechaun]

2. Not close to London (3 hrs in fact), from another part of UK

All I can say it's cold and wet. A little bit cloudier than usual but nothing amiss. I'll have to go to London sometime to see for myself.

[Darth_Kitten]

3. Air quality was just fine last September.

when I was there. :)

[Boudica the Lyoness]

4. We used to call London 'The Smoke"

I grew up 50 miles north and back in the 60's we called London 'the smoke'. After a day of shopping there your hair, clothes and nose would be full of black dirt. I've noticed it's cleaner now. I love London, but in small doses.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. That could be a reference to this - it was blamed on the continent

What's that smell? A whiff of Europe

· Aroma that hit the south blamed on weather
· Met Office warns odour may linger for days

* The Guardian,
* Saturday April 19 2008

The Met Office described it as an "atmospheric aroma". But those who caught a whiff of the foul smell hanging around southern England yesterday used rather less dainty language.

Within hours of the smell first hitting Britain's nostrils, people in London, Kent, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, East Anglia and Devon were grumbling about the stink, and the big pong had become a national talking point, with websites espousing increasingly anti-European theories.

Conservative communities complained about a political stench emanating from the European commission; the Daily Mail complained of "Le Stink" (which later became Der Stink, when blame was shifted from France to Germany); and others named "garlic-eating surrender monkeys". But the Met Office stepped in to rule that it was basic pollution - the "odour of ordinary everyday life in northern Europe". Belgian chocolate factories, Dutch pig farms, German diesel engines and 1,000 other smells had become trapped under a motionless cloud hanging over continental farms and factories for several days.

"On Thursday night the wind picked up and it blew over to us. It's hard to say exactly what it is because we don't know. The air hadn't moved much so it's picked up all kinds of things. All we can do is wait for it to blow away. The intensity is likely to decrease but we don't expect a change in the air flow for a couple of days," said a Met Office spokeswoman.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/19/weather

[DS1]

6. wow, "pong", I'd forgotten about that word