However, as the son of refugees and as someone for whom English is a second language, I’m grateful to the English who welcomed us so generously and gave me a fantastic vocabulary to play with. Seventies London was a great place to grow up. So I say to the English: so long, and thanks for the language.

Indisputably, what is happening in London is a world phenomenon. All the big cities are turning into global cauldrons. Everyone is every­where. Every big city has the flavour of the global goulash.

As a writer, what interests me most is how culture will be affected. As a writer, it disheartens me that half the population of London don’t know what a sentence is, couldn’t write a decent one (in English or any other language) and have little interest in reading one. Maybe what is happening is simply a shift, that the global goulash will produce a new supra-national culture and literature. Maybe it’s simply the termination of national, individual cultures and the birth of a single, telluric culture. Or is it that the mix of airport departure lounge and trading floor that is London is inimical to creation?

The other culture-killer is cost. In the 70s, London was affordable, or at least survivable, if you were starting out. There were squats. (Anyone seen a squat in London lately?) Budding writers and musicians found hovels in Earls Court and Islington. When Salman Rushdie won the Booker in 1982, you could buy, outright, a good two-bedroom flat with the prize money. It’s now been upped to £50,000 which is barely a decent deposit.