Attitudes to the monarchy have shifted in the 70 years since the last coronation. Deference has diminished; most people have become simply apathetic, but others oppose the institution of the monarchy more actively.

The pressure group Republic has been campaigning for the abolition of the monarchy since the early 1980s, and took the coronation as an opportunity to get their message across. They stood on the procession route and walked with the crowds, holding placards reading “Not My King” and “Citizen Not Subject”. (To Republic, a “subject” is someone under the dominion and authority of a monarch; a “citizen” has rights and representation.)

The police response was typically heavy-handed; 52 protesters were arrested and placards reading “Not My King” were seized.

Others took the opportunity to dress up, whether in period costume or just draped in Union Jacks.

The processional route filled up quickly, and by 9am crowds were being directed to Hyde Park, where big screens had been set up to watch the coronation ceremony.

Any crowd this big is an opportunity to sell, and the coronation was no exception. The route from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park was lined with people selling Union Jack flags, ponchos, paper crowns, and souvenir programmes.

Gentrification stops for no one, though. What did for it was the Olympics: the games pumped in billions of pounds worth of funding to regenerate the area, and the Wick – just twenty metres or so of canal away from the Olympic Park – was never going to survive unscathed.

And so, for now at least, it’s a strange mix of luxury flats, dilapidated artists’ studios, plant hire firms, warehouses, graffiti-covered walls, hipster pubs and Michelin-starred restaurants.

One of the most famous symbols of Hackney Wick is the former Lord Napier pub, which closed in 1995. It became a canvas for local graffiti artists to protest the gentrification of the Wick; much of its graffiti dates to one marathon 48-hour painting session led by artist Aida Wilde in 2016.

The Wick has been home to artists for years, but since the Olympic games there has been an emergence of more corporate-sponsored creativity.

The Wick is still dominated by more organic graffiti, though.

It’s known as the Riverside Stand, and was long the target of redevelopment aimed at increasing the ground’s capacity. In 2019 the old stand was demolished and a new one built in its place, offering shiny new corporate hospitality spaces and an extra 3,900 seats for fans.

The new Riverside Stand was completed in time for the 2022–23 season, which saw Fulham return to the Premier League.

London is home to a fairly sizeable Moroccan population, with its traditional heartland being in Golborne Road. But, as the final African team, final Arab team, final Muslim team, and greatest underdog team left in the competition they’ve attracted a broad base of non-Moroccan support too.

On 10 December 2022, Morocco beat Portugal 1-0 to reach the semi finals of the competition. Fans celebrated after the game in Trafalgar Square.

It was housed in a purpose-built series of buildings at 150 London Wall in the City, built as part of the Barbican Estate. This sprawling modernist estate was representative of the way the City wanted to rebuild itself, still recovering from World War II and still clearing the rubble-strewn bomb-sites that pockmarked the city.

After nearly 48 years, the current site is about to close, in preparation for the museum’s move to its new home in Smithfield Market.

The street that the museum is on, Roman Wall, didn’t get its name by chance. Portions of the original Roman city walls survive within the grounds of the museum, and can be seen from within it.

Within the museum, one of the most enduring and popular attractions is the “Victorian Walk”; a Victorian street complete with a pub you can sit in and shops that feel almost real.

After nearly 50 years, the museum will move from its current site to a new one on the site of Smithfield Market. The London Wall site will admit its last visitors on 3 December 2022.

Its importance as a destination for livestock meant that it was the start of the Great North Road, for centuries the main route between London to Edinburgh. All mileages on the road started from Smithfield.

By the 19th century, the market had become chaotic and overcrowded. Over 200,000 cows and over a million sheep were driven through the City of London’s narrow lanes towards the market, and the open air conditions were cruel and unsanitary. In 1866 work began on a grand indoor market hall; its designer was to be Sir Horace Jones, who had also designed the beautiful Billingsgate and Leadenhall markets in London. This hall still forms the core of the current market buildings.

The halls were extended several times: first with the Poultry Market in 1876, then the Fish Market and the Red House in 1899. The Red House was a pioneering cold store, and was in use until the 1970s.

Covering such a large space in such a central location, the market has always caught the eye of greedy property developers. There were plans in the early 2000s to demolish the site and convert it into an office block, but a campaign by English Heritage and Save Britain’s Heritage managed to save the buildings.

But still, the site’s time as a market is limited. It’s the current plan of the City of London Corporation to move the market, along with Billingsgate Fish Market, to a purpose-built site in Dagenham by 2027. The new site is huge, with excellent road links, but something will inevitably be lost as Smithfield goes quiet for the first time in a thousand years.

Her murder at the hands of police prompted international protests, with women across Iran removing their hijabs in protest, often to the visible anger of clerics and conservatives. There have been frequent protests in London, sometimes outside the Iranian embassy and sometimes in other central London locations. The months of protests have been the largest Iran has seen since 2009, and have resulted in crackdowns within Iran.

When her death was announced, the UK entered an immediate state of mourning, both official and unofficial. Crowds flocked to Buckingham Palace, perhaps to await further announcements or perhaps just to be among other people at a time of uncertainty. The atmosphere was palpably of history taking place, but also of confusion – an expectation that something should happen, but without a clear understanding of what.

In the week after her death, floral tributes to the Queen were so numerous that a special area of Green Park had to be laid out to store them. The volume of tributes reached its height on 19 September, the day of the Queen’s funeral.

While it was eerily quiet, it didn’t have the feel of an apocalypse; partly because it was unseasonably sunny, and partly because there was a handful of other people around, all of whom had presumably had the same idea as me. Still, it was a once-in-a-lifetime – hopefully only once, anyway – chance to see usually crowded areas devoid of people.

In summer 2021, things began to feel a little more normal. More and more venues had reopened, at least with outdoor seating, and councils had found solutions to venues without outdoor space – often creating, in the process, more liveable city spaces.