British Weather Is Apparently Now A Tourist Attraction, According To CNN
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat contribute reporting from somewhere within the M25.
King Charles made a surprise front-row appearance at London Fashion Week earlier this month, an event that CNN reported with the slightly stunned tone international news outlets reserve for moments when the British monarchy does anything that does not involve a horse. The King’s appearance was brief, dignified, and, I gather, ended with a quiet exit before anyone could ask him about the Sussexes.
The Cultural Question
London Fashion Week is, by some distance, the most-photographed event in the British calendar where almost no one outside fashion can name a single designer. The BAFTAs, by comparison, produce coverage anyone can engage with. Glastonbury, even more so. Fashion Week, however, exists in a particular cultural register where the people inside the tent care enormously about who is wearing the deconstructed Juliet sleeve, and the people outside the tent want to know mostly whether they should expect to see deconstructed Juliet sleeves on the high street by autumn.
This is fine. There is no rule that says all cultural events must be universally legible.
The Royal Bit
The Royal Family’s relationship with British soft power has, since 2022, been doing something I find genuinely interesting. The institution has, by sheer accumulated longevity, become one of Britain’s most reliable export-grade attractions. The Coronation drew global audiences. The annual Trooping the Colour does the same. King Charles’s appearance at Fashion Week did, on a smaller scale, the same kind of work.
I am not, for the record, a monarchist. I am not really anything, on this question, beyond an observer of what makes London a place that people visit. The Royal Family is, in this functional sense, an unusually durable piece of British infrastructure, like the Underground but with better hats.
The Tourist Argument
CNN ran a piece this month, with what I can only describe as journalistic affection, headlined Why Britain’s miserable weather is one of its greatest tourist attractions. The argument, in summary, was that Americans come to London partly because they like the rain. They like that it is overcast and slightly cold. They like Sherlock Holmes. They want to walk down a foggy street in a coat. The British weather, in this analysis, is doing significant economic work.
I have lived in London long enough to find the rain mildly oppressive. I am, however, prepared to revise my view if it brings in tourist receipts. We are, at minimum, more interesting than Singapore.
What I Tell Visitors
What I tell visitors, when they ask me what to do in London with three days, is to walk. Take buses, not cabs. Drink in pubs, not bars. Go to one museum and one market. The Royal Family will be in the background somewhere. The fashion will be on the high street. The weather will, at some point, prove the CNN piece correct.
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