Parks and Big Brother

One thing I will say about London, it has amazing parks. Not only are they well kept and widely used, but they are numerous. The picture below is from famous Hyde Park which is the largest but there are numerous other large parks like Regent Park, Green Park, St. James Park, etc. Not to mention the multitude of small parks or squares including 5 or 6 which are within a five minute walk from my flat. The second picture brings up a different issue in London.

The presence of government at times seems pervasive . Not only are there silly little signs like this (apparently water fights really are such an issue the Secretary of State is required to step in) but more ubiquitous are the thousands of closed circuit television cameras (CCTV). London, it is said, is the most watched city in the world because police are constantly scanning the cameras, on the look out for crime. On the one hand you feel like it's a bit intimidating and maybe even a Big-Brotherish invasion of privacy but on the other the crime rate here is significantly lower than back home (meaning Washington DC, not Boyds). Sure, there's a lot of crime that happens - you hear about random horror stories like a pregnant lady getting raped by home burglers - but that can be expected in any city this size and it really does feel safer walking the streets at night here. It might also have something to do with the fact that guns are illegal.