London
categories: Transport | Hotels | Tourism
London offers a huge variety of cuisine as a result of its ethnically diverse population. Gastronomic centres include the Bangladeshi restaurants of Brick Lane and the Chinese food of Chinatown. Soho offers a variety of restaurants, whilst more upmarket restaurants are scattered around central London, with concentrations in Mayfair. Across the city, areas home to particular ethnic groups are often recognisable by restaurants, food shops and market stalls offering their local fare, and even the large supermarkets stock such items in areas with sizeable ethnic groups.
The Caribbean-descended community in Notting Hill in West London organises the colourful Notting Hill Carnival, Europe's biggest street carnival, every summer. The beginning of the year is celebrated with the relatively new New Year's Day Parade, whilst traditional parades include November's Lord Mayor's Show, a centuries-old event celebrating the annual appointment of a new Lord Mayor of the City of London with a procession along the streets of the City, and June's Trooping the Colour, a very formal military pageant to celebrate the Queen's Official Birthday.
Sport
London has hosted the Summer Olympics twice, in 1908 and 1948. In July 2005 London was chosen to host the Games in 2012, which will make it the first city in the world to host the Summer Olympics three times. London was also the host of the British Empire Games in 1934.
London's most popular sport (for both participants and spectators) is football. London has 12 League football clubs, including six in the Premiership (Arsenal, Charlton Athletic, Fulham, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and current champions Chelsea), plus a further six in the remaining three divisions (Barnet, Brentford, Crystal Palace, Leyton Orient, Millwall and Queens Park Rangers), plus countless non-league and amateur football teams.
London has a unique place in the history of football. In the sixteenth century the headmaster of St Paul's School Richard Mulcaster is credited with taking mob football and transforming it into organised and refereed team football. London was home to Ebenezer Cobb Morley who was a founding member of the Football Association; he wrote to Bell's Life newspaper proposing a governing body for football. This led to the first meeting at the Freemason's Tavern in central London that created the FA, the English governing body of football and the first of its kind in the world. He wrote the first set of rules of true modern football at his house in Barnes. These were adopted by the FA and spread world-wide.
London also has four rugby union teams in the Guinness Premiership (London Irish, Saracens, Wasps and NEC Harlequins), although only the Harlequins play in London (all the other three now play outside Greater London), as well as a rugby league Super League club in Harlequins RL. London also has many famous other rugby union clubs in lower leagues, including Richmond F.C., Blackheath R.C., Rosslyn Park F.C. and Barnes R.F.C.
Wembley Stadium (which is being rebuilt and is expected to have a capacity of 90,000) has been the home of the English national football team, and serves as the venue for the FA Cup final as well as rugby league's Challenge Cup final. Twickenham Stadium in west London is the national rugby union stadium, and has a capacity of 82,000 now that the new south stand has been completed.
Cricket in London centres on its two Test cricket grounds at Lord's (home of Middlesex CC) in St John's Wood, and The Oval (home of Surrey CC) in Kennington.
One of London's best-known annual sports competitions is the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, held at the All England Club in the south-western suburb of Wimbledon. Other key events are the annual mass-participation London Marathon which sees some 35,000 runners attempt a 42 km course around the city, and the Oxford vs. Cambridge Boat Race on the River Thames between Putney and Mortlake.
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