Six times London was awesome in 2015: From streets pathed in Rainbows to the Garden Bridge and floating houses on the Thames
1. Financial centre of the world
London was the financial centre of the world in 2015. We would say that, naturally, but researchers made it official, as London knocked New York of the top spot.
2. Most powerful city in the world
It's not just finance where the capital trumped the rest of the world. Of course, the economy helped, but London ranked top as the most powerful city in the world thanks also to things like its culture, livability and environment.
3. London remembered
Londoners stood in solidarity with those in Paris and remembered the victims of terror attacks in January and in November.
4. London was fun
Start of the #Summer Vacation Scheme @FieldfisherGrad with a very colorful #LondonBridge near our office! pic.twitter.com/Kny9mX72mI
— Fieldfisher Careers (@Fieldfisherjobs) June 22, 2015
The streets were pathed with Rainbows, you could go and work in a treehouse office, there were mass pillow fights, you could play Snake in real life on the streets of the capital. No body does it better.
5. There were crazy ideas
Where to start…. there were suggestions for floating houses and 10 other plans to solve the problem of property. There were plans to put an ice rink on the Thames.
Architects suggested turning the Circle Line into a giant travelator, while Transport for London actually changed the entire etiquette of escalators by experimenting with standing on the left and right at Holborn.
More realistically, a new futurstic bridge design was chosen to connect north and south, and the Garden Bridge, though controversial, got the go ahead. An elevated park in Peckham came a step closer, as did a new Tunnel under the river in Silvertown and Crossrail 2.
Some of our ideas aren't so crazy after all. And never say the Thames isn't the heart of the capital.
6. BoJo told Trump where to go
Outgoing Mayor of London Boris Johnson has done a few things this year, some of them awesome, some of them not, several quite amusing. Knocking a schoolkid to the ground? Check. Admitted exactly where he stands on Hoverboards? Check. And pro-tech, FYI. Discovering Crossrail 2 would go under his own home only through an automated letter sent to himself? Check.
But there was one thing that all Londoners could get behind Boris on, regardless of political affiliations. When Presidential hopeful Donald Trump said he wouldn't visit London because of the terror risks, Johnson retorted he wouldn't want to go to New York because of the risks of running into Trump.