There are about a third of a million French living in London who bring back stories of the British capital's booming restaurant scene and culinary diversity - Indian food in particular - that much of France lacks.

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Other users say a search for London directed them to London, Ontario, in Canada, instead of the British capital.

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Success often means wringing as much as possible from inadequate capital assets: the British public sector, argues Tony Travers of the London School of Economics, is typically trying to deliver continental European levels of service with American levels of tax.

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The opening ceremony for the London Games is later this month on July 27, the British capital the first city to host the Summer Olympics three times.

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And British prime minister Gordon Brown, for example, has declared he intends to make London the Islamic finance capital of the world.

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He also had a deft appreciation of the mischievous power of gesture politics, sending "humanitarian aid" in the form of discounted fuel to one of the most deprived areas of New York's Bronx in 2005, and signing a gas deal with London in 2007 that funded cut-price bus fares for a quarter of a million of the British capital's poorest residents.

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