HOUNSLOW IS AN EASTERN CITY

Arrive at Heathrow airport, in the London Borough of Hillingdon, follow the exit signs, then the signs for the Underground, trains, taxis and buses, until you emerge into the diesel-tinged air, where the red buses – 111, 120, 190 – huff, turn, park, load and pull off. You are on the eastern frontier.

A large hoarding shows a Beefeater, Crawford Butler, who welcomes you to London. But Crawford and the London of Beefeaters, towers, bridges, museums and sights are miles to the east. Ironically, you are in West London, set to enter Hounslow, an Eastern city.

Visually it is the women’s dress that tells. There are many forms of elegant head coverings and costumes over shop uniforms, café scrubs, airline uniforms and formal wear, all of which include the ubiquitous round-the-neck plastic identity photo id tag. Skin colour is another tell. Wonderful shades of light cream melt to latte then chocolate and on to ebony colouring the human palette in the bus queues. Rough stubbled pink-fleshed men, just off night shifts as handlers, cleaners, movers and lifters stare bleary-eyed at timetables on bus-stops, in the global pursuit of the next bus home.

Amidst the ferment are people pulling suitcases and carrying bags, including young couples lugging rucksacks stamped with flags and regional badges. A tidy troupe of Japanese tourists assembles behind a leader, seeking assurance that they have indeed landed in London, one of the western world's urban marvels and not in the travel hub of a way-station on the ancient Silk Road, somewhere east and south of Dushanbe.

Aurally the languages are a further tell. The rolling way English weaves among them creates a motif rather than a lead melody. The harmony and chorus are Hindi, Urdu, Russian, Bengali, Latvian, Polish, Dari and others, occasionally sparked with Anglo soundbites such as 'the next one five minutes now' and 'over here, this stop' and 'not see you tomorrow. I'm on a late”.

On board bus 111, the driver and the voice-over announcer are native English speakers. Both are welcoming, informative and professional. The driver helps a couple, seventy year olds dressed in dapper Mod-Oldie clothes, negotiate the complex bus network that will connect them with a second bus to take them home. He then swings the bus into the hair-raising pell-mell of the local road system, exiting the airport complex, past a model aeroplane sponsored by Emirates. Planes descend to the right. Cars, lorries, vans, trucks and more buses career past, on the other carriageway of the Great West Road, the A4, as it leaves the metropolis. Ours is a great east route.

Passengers board and alight and the sense of being in an eastern city is confirmed by the dress, skin colour, languages and demeanours of the people. Two old men with snow white beards, wearing pristine gowns, get on, nod together, murmuring quietly in Pashto and get off one stop along. A west African woman pulls a wheeled shopping trolley, clothed in a tartan that seems muted in comparison to her own flowing robes, and finds a seat. A young Afghan man in a white gown pulls another trolley, this time topped with a plastic bag badged Iceland, yet we are far from the north. We push further into the east. He leans against a pole, holding on.

The bus passes a small parade of shops, where one is signed Grocery and Wine. Graffiti wipes out the word wine. A young woman, an elegantly simple, black gown covering her, apart from an angelic face, gets on with a toddler at heel and a buggy bearing an infant in front. The bus is now somewhere between Addis Ababa and Khartoum, perhaps in the city of Keren or even across the gulf in Sana'a. The woman smiles, while declining the offer of a seat. She gestures and speaks gently to the toddler who has dashed to the rear. She plays her long, immaculate fingers along the chubby cheeks of the boy in the buggy, who smiles his best new teeth. The rest are coming.

In a hotel lobby an Indian cricket team, a tumble of athletic men strewn across sofas and kit-bags, wait for their bus to the airport. A carnival troupe, freshly painted and costumed, all set for Notting Hill, load two vans, laughing and joshing, sociable and chipper as dolphins. The reception staff are courteous, welcoming, professional and eastern – Asian and European.

On the strip of shops opposite the hotel, there is a Chinese restaurant, a halal butcher, an off-licence featuring a special offer on Zywiec beer, a grocers and an undertaker. A family group - women in saris, men in slacks and good shirts - come out and make for the cars parked kerbside. One young woman says to another.

“He looks like he should sit up and give off to us.”

Next morning, Chinese tourists have fun with room numbers, calling translations to one another in their group, then calling them to the maitre d', who records them in the breakfast register. Two oh nine. One six four. Eight two four.

Hounslow is global. Hounslow is an eastern city.

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