LONDON

willhub

Putting London simply.... it's foreign, foreign as New York or Paris is foreign to the average Yorkshireman.

You get on the tube, full of these grumpy people, scared to stare anyone in the eye in case they may say something, scared to take the bicycle on the tube in case you get abused. Then you get off the tube, these huge streams of people, sort of like a high speed train passing through a station, if you try to walk through it, you'll get ploughed down, I suppose it's similar to the herds of people that walk around the big black box in Mecca (Not Mecca Bingo), you just have to stand there and wait until the herd of mammals we call "the commuter" has passed, then safely check every direction before making the crossing, there could be some lone "commuters" you see.

Must take notice of these "keep left & keep right" signs, if not, you'll get abused, I'm surprised there is no traffic lights implemented yet, this would make the large mammalian herds less of a problem.

Another thing, these buskers in the tube, how do they not die? They are in the depths of hell!

As for walking around London, its gridlock, you become part of the herds, it's not a nice experience, and it’s terrible, high risk of contracting something deadly such as the common cold which I fear is where I may have contracted my variation of the common cold from.


Another distressing thing I the “Eastenders person”, these are people that resemble people either in looks or personality from Eastenders, this is highly depressing, and makes me thing about Eastenders which puts London across as a depressing dull hole, so being around “Eastenders” people makes me feel depressed, the London accent, or whatever accent it is, is also depressing, maybe one day I’ll come to like it, I don’t mind irish accents anymore and Scottish accents I can tolerate now. I’ve also become used to the Eastern European accents whilst being in London, every Costa Coffee I go in, or Starbucks for that matter, or Tesco, is largely populated by them, I’ve not learnt any Polish yet though but bear with me I’ll get there.


In terms of the environment, I have noticed there is a larger frequency of exotic plants in London, such as palm trees, and also a lower frequency of hills (London is actually quite a lumpy city though I find, more so than Manchestoooor), this also adds to the feeling of foreign, London is not a city, it’s a different country.
Essentially, we are all boroughs of London in a country called Landan.


Now as for cycling, this is a cycling forum after all, I have to say, I’m finding it difficult, I go back up North on Tuesday, I’ve almost got rid of the deadly cold, so last night I went to Kings Cross in the hope I could book a bicycle reservation, as I need to get one ASAP for fear of being stranded or having to leave my beloved Planet Bianchi in London whilst I depart for Yorkshire Land.


On my way to kings cross it was rather scary at times, with the odd gang loitering about in places such as Shadwell, giving me the “evils”, and then the odd kamikaze taxi drivers and buses wanted to kill me, then the odd drivers forgetting these new inventions called “traffic lights”, I find myself at considerably higher risk of being killed, so from now on I am going to assume all drivers are turning left and right at the same time, and that Red means GO and green means STOP.
I’m also experiencing a new phenomenon known as Kamikaze pedestrians, walking almost on the cycle path which I encountered down CS3 on Cable Street, I also encounter pedestrians walking across without looking, nutters, there is no speed limit or speed cameras on “CS3” is there? I’m not talking about Adobe Photoshop CS3 too, I’m on CS6 now CS3 was years ago.


I like playing the odd game of “scalping” is it called? Overtaking others, then you get them hanging on the back, I found about a line of 6 “commuters” on bicycles, some of the bicycles consisted of red, orange, green or white deepish section wheels, some people even had deep section carbon TT wheels on fixies?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? What? Why? Waste of monies. I love just letting 100% power output for about 10 seconds out and flying passed them as if I’m a formula 1 car. It’s also nice to out accelerate drivers, and I find my life depends on it, as if I do not do this, they’ll set off, overtake me, turn left or slam on, then where will I be? 6ft under no doubt.

Now, I had a trip to Harrods, what a rip off, £200 per kg for some Australian meat, £3 for SIX BANANAS??????????????????? THREE WHOLE POUNDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then the bicycle section, it’s probably worse than Halfrauds, but I think the bicycle prices where around normal price, £500 for a crappy alloy frame, cheapo wheels and Sora groupset?

The escalators and the hallways reminded me of a computer game known as Bioshock, the only thing missing of course is the water. I felt incredibly out of place, we walked in via the front door, the security guard did not say anything, we were walking through all of these HANDBAGS WITH NO PRICES ON???????

I was with a person named Tom Jones (thought I’d mention that as he’s coincidently named the same as the welsh singer, and he is welsh also), who then proceeded to walk into the jewellery section, I felt VERY AWKWARD, surrounded by all of this jewellery that had prices beyond my wildest imagination. The woman by the door said hello to us, I said “hi, but it was aya in a Yorkshire accent” you know how it sounds right? She was probably things, “what is that tramp doing in here he obviously cannot afford anything in here”, true, I’d have to empty my bank account, go into my overdraft, take out another 10 student accounts (I can’t I’m no longer a student I’m in the scary big wide world now) and I’d still not be able to afford it.

Anyway yea to summarise that, London is a nice destination, I’d not want to live here, and it’s a massive faff cycling in London, I don’t feel motivated to cycle in London, it seems a chore to get anywhere, I might try to venture to Richmond Park (if I survive), but then I’ll feel under pressure to try and KOM thanks to STRAVA, I probably won’t get the KOM, I feel weak after the deadly cold virus. It also does not help I know no one, and London cycling clubs seem to make it hard to newcomers to ride with them, so I have no choice but to ride on my own.

spasypaddy

location: iran.

says it all really.

pangolin

Hahaha! Nice getting an outsiders perspective

Up for going for a ride if you fancy it, can shepherd you from the big smoke to Richmond Park one eve.

il_principe

willhub wrote:

It also does not help I know no one, and London cycling clubs seem to make it hard to newcomers to ride with them, so I have no choice but to ride on my own.

There's plenty of us on here who frequent RP. Sure some of us'd ride with you if you asked.

But yeah, London - awful at times, wonderful at others. I love it for its cosmopolitan nature, fantastic food and drink, and general convenience for everything. But these days that's about it. If I could find a job in Sussex I'd be out of here in a jiffy.

meanredspider

^^^^^^^^^^^^
Advert for Inverness

willhub

If anyone sees me around just say hi, I'm the only person in a Manchester Wheelers jersey, I'm not the most sociable on the road, I'm not keen on riding two abreast on busy roads but I'm more sociable when I get to the destination.

TheStone

You're doing it all wrong.
Get used to the cycling, it's great fun.

Don't use the tube (let alone take a bike on there!). No-one from London goes to Harrods! Don't go to Coffee shops, that's where all the weird people hang out.

Bike, work, boozer, home. Perfect.

dhope

Tourists, eh?
Riding in town is fine, just just have to get used to how busy it can be and to adapt accordingly.
Harrods. Whatever possessed you to go there. That really is only there for foreigners with too much money.

London cycling clubs make it hard to ride with them? I've only ridden with the Wheelers and the Paragons, and both times I just turned up on a Sunday, got a friendly hello and headed out with the intermediate group.

rubertoe

I have always lived in london -

I cant wait to get out somewhere rural.

arthur_scrimshaw

Wow that was quite a post.
Was it therapy of some sort?

SimonAH

I had to go to Ilford last week. Found a parking spot and walked around for a while trying to find the office I was visiting - I genuinely did not hear a work of English spoken on the street.

peat

rubertoe wrote:

I have always lived in london -

I cant wait to get out somewhere rural.

We don't want you, townie! :twisted:

EKE_38BPM

I was talking to my cousin who lives in a tiny village in Yorkshire (the bus comes on Tuesday morning, goes into York, and returns on Tuesday evening) and she is about to learn to drive. The idea of driving in London scares her witless.

Bumpkins, eh?

notsoblue

Its always quite amusing when someone comes to visit London and bases much of their opinion of the city on the rush hour tube experience!

Plenty of hidden gems and nice areas in London, you just need to have lived here a while to know where they are.

SimonAH

notsoblue wrote:

Its always quite amusing when someone comes to visit London and bases much of their opinion of the city on the rush hour tube experience!

Plenty of hidden gems and nice areas in London, you just need to have lived here a while to know where they are.

Too true.

I lived in London for many years - early childhood in Muswell Hill, University in South Kensington then flat in Fulham and then house off the Commercial Road. I was even a motorcycle dispatch rider for a while in the very early 90s.

Still blows my whiskers off when I dip back into the city though.

Headhuunter

Tourists always judge London by its busiest spots... They go to Picadilly Circus, Leicester Sq or Oxford St and assume that every street in London is heaving with people at all times. They use the tube at peak times across central London when it's often easier to walk and complain about the number of people etc. Friends and relatives of mine always ask me how I can possibly live in London as EVERYWHERE is ALWAYS busy and stressful... It's simply not the case. Once you get to know the city, the short cuts, the quieter spots, the parks etc, it's easy to live here.

It's like judging Tokyo and Japan by that famous crossroads at Shibuya. The British press and TV always shows the same shot of hundreds of people crossing the road at Shibuya whenever they mention Tokyo. Not denying that it's a busy city, certainly more urban and concrete than London but that crossroads at Shibuya is not typical!

jonny_trousers

I'm a northerner who lives in London (admittedly I've been in London for longer than I lived in the north now) and cannot imagine living anywhere else in this country.

Much of what you moan about is correct:

The Tube really is another hellish world. Avoid it like the plague! Ride your bike instead.
I've never got used to that shouty, moany, East Enders type of cockney either.
Harrods is an unfunny joke of a shop (but then doesn't everyone know that?).

Beyond that, it's the greatest city in the world with so much to offer. It's also great fun to cycle around once you know how to deal with it.

notsoblue

SimonAH wrote:

I had to go to Ilford last week. Found a parking spot and walked around for a while trying to find the office I was visiting - I genuinely did not hear a work of English spoken on the street.

I feel the same way whenever I visit friends in Neath.

notsoblue

Headhuunter wrote:

Tourists always judge London by its busiest spots... They go to Picadilly Circus, Leicester Sq or Oxford St and assume that every street in London is heaving with people at all times.

The funny thing about all that is that most people I know who live in London avoid all those places like the plague!

bails87

I only go to London occasionally and even I know to never get the tube through Oxford Circus if you can help it.

davmaggs

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

Wow that was quite a post.
Was it therapy of some sort?

From the timestamp I'd say it was "inspired" by the consumption of something or other.

I'd also add, that saying that London is busy/people don't talk/you should all stop and listen to me/the tube is busy is really old. Bumpkins have been moaning about it since the Romans built the place (tube is newer).

Headhuunter

notsoblue wrote:

Headhuunter wrote:

Tourists always judge London by its busiest spots... They go to Picadilly Circus, Leicester Sq or Oxford St and assume that every street in London is heaving with people at all times.

The funny thing about all that is that most people I know who live in London avoid all those places like the plague!

Exactly! My aunt was complaining about London a while back. She'd booked some kind of coach tour thing that whisked her round the usual tourist spots with theatre in the evening etc. She was complaining how busy it was and I told her that 90% of the people at the places she went to were tourists as Londoner very rarely go to Picadilly Circus etc... She wouldn't believe me, she insisted that Londoners all hang around the West End at the weekend etc... Thing is that London is basically a series of "villages" in 1 city, so people who live in Clapham commute to work in central London but stay in Clapham at the weekend or other areas nearby where their friends live. Central London tends to get left to the "Bridge and Tunnel Crowd" as they call them in NYC...

iPete

I always laugh at people who dismiss London and say they'd never want to work here when their only basis for judgment are a few trips to Convent Garden or Leicester square.

Ben6899

You visited the wrong places, Will, but you cannot be blamed for that.

peat

I have spent a fair bit of time in and around London as i have had a few (well, 2) girlfriends there and know full well that once you are away from the bright lights, each area is pretty much just like a small town of it's own, just slightly more transient.

The thing that stops me ever wanting to live/work there is that for a place regarded as 'convenient' to get around, it's a bloody faff to get out of. By car you sit stationary for mile after mile, by train you have to go through the busy parts of the tube and end up at your destination totally exhausted.

All it means is that i never bother inviting my 'London friends' to parties/celebrations anymore because they seem trapped within the M25's force-field. When i invited one to a birthday once, i got the reply "Oooh, have it London, it'll be much better!". For who???

/rant

BigLights

This amusingly highlights the differences in perspectives people have. I grew up in HK, Tokyo and NYC....to me living in London is a very pleasant laid back existence. I can live in the 'burbs with a garden, plenty of parks and lots of space (Wandsworth) and yet be in the City in 32 minutes on a bicycle.

I don't think I could really deal with not living in a major city. It's the diaspora that appeals.

Kieran_Burns

I went to London once.

I found a patch of grass and stared at it for while, crying to myself softly.

veronese68

I've lived on the outskitrs of London virtually all my life. I can understand Will's perspective up to a point. But as many of you have said Londoners don't do that stuff.
Regarding going to Richmond Park, pick your time. I think you started a thread elsewhere and others said the same thing. Although I live very close to it, I avoid it like the plague when it's going to be too busy.
Get yourself over the the Morpeth Arms at some point when other's are going. I'm sure you'll be made to feel welcome.

meanredspider

So I was in NYC weekend before last and, looking back at Manhatten from the Staten Island ferry, I was wondering what's the point of cities in the modern world. The USA, for instance, is huge. What makes everybody pile up in a few square miles of it? So it used to be that we needed to be together to work together but that's becoming less and less necessary. So are big cities (like high streets I was hearing today) doomed? Why will they exist?

peat

meanredspider wrote:

What makes everybody pile up in a few square miles of it? So it used to be that we needed to be together to work together but that's becoming less and less necessary. So are big cities (like high streets I was hearing today) doomed? Why will they exist?

I think they will. I think generally most people like other people.

i say i 'think'. I certainly can't empathise though.

meanredspider

Peat wrote:

I think they will. I think generally most people like other people.

i say i 'think'. I certainly can't empathise though.

Yeah but people in big cities don't talk to eachother. I know everybody in Inverness and they've all been round for tea