I can’t get over London White.  It’s such a beautiful color, and is everywhere here in London:  lining window frames on stone buildings, coating interior walls, painted over elaborate moldings on hundred-year-old ceilings, stripped across black asphalt to tell you to ”Look Right –>” when crossing the street.  London White is a majestic white, that demonstrates its specialness, privilege and pride in a way so subtle and polite it could only be English.  In China, by contrast, pollution would turn the sides of any white building to a chalky grey by mid-afternoon.  London too was once as polluted, and not that long ago.  This London White tells that hopeful story too, of how much a place can change in just a few decades.  But not just by dreaming:  it’s a white that requires constant care, which here is done quietly.  Look closely, though, and you’ll see residents with a soapy sponge wiping down their window frames on a Saturday afternoon, or ”Wet Paint” signs taped to newly repainted white corner posts.  It’s a time consuming white, that requires patience that New Yorkers like me can’t be bothered to have;  we’d prefer indestructible, dirtiable, resilient black, thank you very much.  Since this white is so vulnerable, it’s a trusting color too.  It assumes the best in others:  that strangers won’t put their feet up on the white bench, or spill red wine on the white carpet.  For immigrants to the UK — who come in all colors — London White is useful:  a clean background upon which we can start painting the next chapter of our lives.