Like many Londoners I am very proud to call this city my home. However, like a huge number of 'Londoners' I was not actually born in London, I moved here in 1994 for college and never looked back. I was born in Cardiff, Wales so I am indeed British but what makes London so special is the fact a huge percentage of Londoners are not British by birth.
London is the gigantic melting pot of the world with residents from every corner of the globe. My office is a good example of this, there are just as many Italians and French as there are Brits, not to mention Spanish, Polish, Chinese, South Africans, Japanese, Indian and Germans. I sit across from a Frenchman and sit next to a lady from the Maldives. After work I might meet up with friends from Canada, Ireland, France or Turkey and when I get home chat to my neighbours from Russia or the Seychelles. So when a wooden sculpture displaying all the participating countries was erected in the shadow of The Houses Of Parliament, the seat of British power, I saw this as the true symbol of this city. It does not take a sporting event to bring the world to London, the world is already here, as it has been for many years.