The stuff of dreams

Ned sings the praises of the Paris Olympics road-race course

Of all the neighbouring European capitals, London and Paris have been linked more closely by history, geography and association than any others. Rivals and allies at various points in their past, they share a mutual respect and disdain which is in itself a distillation of the fractious nature of Anglo-French relations.

Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities begins with a horse and carriage trying to exit London towards Dover via the mud and gloom of Shooter's Hill. It's a remarkably bleak characterisation of a city which, by comparison with its French neighbour, has always been workmanlike rather than ethereal. While Paris may be the self-proclaimed City of Light, London is the City of Life, lived in by people who know how to muck in elbows-deep in the stuff of the world. In London, we don't dedicate Parisian levels of attention to artistic representations of the world, we live in it instead.