Night Waves - London

In a year when all eyes are on London, Matthew Sweet explores London's place as a world city, and asks if London really is the centre of arts and culture it claims to be. At the top of Tower Bridge he looks down on the city with Neil O'Brien of the think tank Policy Exchange and Aditya Chakrabortty of the Guardian and asks why they believe London is now so different from the rest of the UK that it has effectively become another country - and what they think should be done about it.

At the Southbank Centre Matthew meets with its artistic director Jude Kelly, the novelist Lesley Lokko and the culture editor of Monocle Robert Bound to debate London's claim to be the world's greatest city of culture. Strolling through the streets of the capital, Radio 3 New Generation Thinker Nandini Das reflects on the long history of immigration to London and argues that newcomers have profoundly affected the English imagination.

And Matthew Sweet joins the 'Gentle Author' of the Spitalfields Life blog on a tour of the East End of London to meet a new immigrant artist as well as some characters who have been part of life on Brick Lane since they were born.