Matt Heath: Whingeing mates blind to how great London is

There's a smugness in some of our attitudes towards the wonderful capital of the United Kingdom. Photo / iStock

I love New Zealand. We are so lucky to live in a beautiful, clean and free Pacific paradise. We're friendly people, reasonably good looking, mostly hygienic and generally play great rugby. We have much of which we can be proud.

However, we can be a bit weird. I've been hosted in London by the good people at All Blacks Tours for the past few weeks and I've noticed a strange thing. We Kiwis spend a lot of time bagging England and the English. We whinge more about the Poms than the Poms whinge about life. There's a smugness in some of our attitudes towards the great city of London.

Which is weird, because no matter how cool we think our country is, city vs city London kicks our arse. I am not talking quality of life, beaches or pollution. I am talking the actual stones, history, culture and workings of the city.

I'm here with a good mate from Rangiora. We wandered down Oxford St yesterday. A road originally built by the Romans. It enjoys the highest volume of pedestrian traffic in the world. It was bombed flat in the war, but still features stunning architecture in every direction. An amazing array of shops bring in over 1 billion ( $2.27 billion) a year. The Beatles recorded their first ever recordings on this street.

This is how my friend from Rangiora summed it up: "London is all a bit grey." Don't get me wrong, buddy, Rangiora Town Hall is a lovely building. The recent renovations look great. But it isn't Oxford Circus. We Kiwis should give credit where credit is due. London is a mind-blowingly cool place. Don't judge it on a few cloudy days.

In London, you can jump down a hole, slip on to a train and pop up wherever in the city you need to be. In Auckland, there is one transport hole down the bottom of town and it takes you pretty much nowhere you need to be.

London's big, red, double-decker buses are futuristic yet classic and so iconic they define the city. Same with their cabs. Back home buses are just buses and are taxis just taxis.

Despite all this, a buddy I am with from Levin isn't sold: "It's too stuffy on the Tube."

The Natural History Museum is just one of three world-best museums on Exhibition Rd. You could spend a week in there. It's a marvel of science, architecture and forward thinking. Our showcase museum, Te Papa, looks like a cheaply knocked together '90s shopping mall. But there was "too much walking" involved for my buddy from Hamilton.

Eden Park is a badly designed, soulless concrete no-hoper packed with security punishers who'll throw you out for waving a flag. Food and drink are massively limited and violently overpriced. You're lucky if they don't shut the bar down during the game.

Twickenham is a wonderland. Smiling staff wander around selling beers out of chilly-bin backpacks. The bars stay open hours after the game is finished. Every seat has a great view and the only complaint you'll hear about Kiwi behaviour is that we are too quiet at the games. My friend from Drury was less than impressed, summing the place up as "miles from town".

Obviously there is a bad side to London. I was dining al fresco in Hackney with my sister this week. It was lovely, the sun was shining, the food was great. Hundreds of lively, happy people enjoying lunch and one murdered guy on the road. A dead body lay under at police tent 20m away from my fish of the day. Victim of a casual morning stabbing. Bit grim, but luckily no one seemed to notice.

More people means more murders and violence. Still, crime in London is the lowest it has been in 40 years and personally, I haven't been stabbed once on this trip.

The point is this: You look like a bit of a dick flying all the way from Wellington just to scoff at the clouds over the Palace of Westminster. Especially when the Beehive isn't that great and neither is our capital's weather.

New Zealand is a fantastic place to live. We have so much to offer. We're world-beaters in so many ways. However, we were just birds, insects and a bat when the Romans named this place.

London was a city more than a thousand years before anyone even turned up back home. So let's just accept that England kicks our butt in some key areas, and be happy for it.