London...

[Darren B]

So me, Ben & Taylor (LFTL) regularly have arguments based around the UK's capital, London.

They both love London, whereas I despise it! My reasoning;

-It's filthy and recognised as the dirtiest Capital in Europe. Rightly So.
-White British are now the Minority in London. Now, I'm all for Diversity, it's what makes our country great. But for us to be a minority in our own capital is appalling.
- It's a rude city. Yes, I know most cities can claim this, but I've never come across anything as rude as I do in London.
- The Tube. Some may say that it's a quick and reliable means of getting around London. I say it's a VILE, packed, tin can full of pretentious, self righteous bell ends. If I can't travel there by car, it's not a place I'm interested in; and it's the tube that makes me feel that way.
- It's ridiculously over priced.
- It's full of tourists, I **** hate tourists.


So, what's the forums view on London? Do we love it? Hate it?

 

[valleyfair!]

I love London! Of all the places I've traveled, I've always seen London or Hong Kong as places I could live outside the US.

Yeah it's overpriced... but outside of Southeast Asia, it all seems to be that way these days.

The Tube isn't so bad either! Compared to our horrid public transportation in most of the US. I'm with you though, I would still take a car if the option presented itself.

 

[Edward M]

Though my stay was pretty short, I loved London and am wanting to go back soon. I just enjoyed the vibe of the city and found most people there were very friendly.

 

[Gavin]

White British are now the Minority in London.

That's absolute bollocks. 63% of people living in London were born in the UK. 49% are "white British". Why the white bit makes a difference is beyond me, but they're still, by far, the largest ethnic group.

I agree with you on pretty much everything else though. I like London to visit, but that's mainly to catch up with friends rather than the place itself. I couldn't see myself ever living there.

It's great for museums, art galleries and theatre.

By UK standards it's "rude", but it's nothing compared to a lot of other big cities. People are generally mindful of each other at least, even if they're not exactly what you'd call friendly.

The tube can f**k right off to be honest. Yes, it covers the whole city, which is great, but it's a horrible experience and is ludicrously overpriced. Other than coverage, it's the ultimate worst mass transit system on the planet. Arguably New York's subway is just as awful, but at least it's priced reasonably.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

I can only imagine that Darren hasn't visited Paris... As that certainly beats London in all the awful criteria listed above...

 

[Ben]

You're so ridiculously basic, I'm not getting in to this again, London is amazing.

If you're not interested in a city that has practically everything the problem is with you, not the city.

And agreed, Paris is **** ****, especially compared to London. I doubt he's been to any comparable cities actually, probably just Madrid? So basic.

 

[ThomVD]

I find both London and Paris overrated. Paris is pretty but has a crap atmosphere. London is nothing special and it never wowed me, but at least the atmosphere isn't as awful as Paris. After Brussels, they are both probably the worst capitals I've visited.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

I live far enough outside of London (travel zone 4) to not have to deal with most of it's crap, but close enough to easily visit central and enjoy all the good stuff.

I hate how busy London is - even where i live in Greater London. You can't go anywhere, any day of the week without it being crowded. You cannot go shopping on a weekend. This is probably an issue in every huge city though, but it's still a point worth making.

Public transport is great where I live - I don't have the tube, and people often criticise my area for that as if it's a bad thing. But I have 4 local (less than 15 min walk) train stations that go in 3 different directions. I can be at London Victoria in 18 mins from one of them, and London Bridge in 35 mins from another. I have the tramlink, connecting me to two of SE London's largest transport hubs - Croydon and Wimbledon and a bus route literally outside my house. My transport connections allow me to dodge central for the majority of my journeys.

Some of London is dirty, but I really don't think it's any dirtier than other big cities. I'm always shocked how you go anywhere slightly off the beaten path in American cities and paving is skewed, graffiti rife and stains so far up the wall they could only be horizontal vomit.

 

[Smithy]

London is brilliant and I'd love to live there one day.

Can understand some of Darren's complaints (apart from the utter bollocks about being a 'minority'), but none of them aren't complaints which you could have about other capitals.

As mentioned above, Paris is far worse on all those counts. It's far dirtier, the people are far ruder.

I dislike the tube at rush hour and I dislike the people who don't respect your personal space and gleefully dry hump you from station to station, but as a means to get around it's absolutely brilliant, and from a historical and technical point of view the sheer scale of it is mindboggling.

Also never really found it to be rude, in fact the complete opposite, everybody in the shops has this faux niceness bollocks I hate, just leave me to shop on my own thanks, but we've had people offer my nan a seat on a packed tube train, strangers start talking to us about football because I've had an Arsenal shirt on, yeah some places are packed full of rude tourists but that's to be expected and isn't a London specific problem.

Though I did change my mind completely about London the last time I was there as on that occaision I was driving and **** me it was a nightmare.

 

[JoshC.]

Even though I live under an hour from London by train (Waterloo station), I very rarely go. Mostly because I'm not a huge fan of how busy it is, and I do find that the people are a bit rude compared to other big cities I've been to in the UK.

But if you ignore those two things - which I guess you have to expect from a big city anyway - London is a nice place with a fair amount to do. Most of my experiences on the tube have been fine, prices are about what I personally expect for a major city (even if that is expensive), it's not that disgusting and is in general pretty alright.

Going to echo what other people have said as well and say how it is miles better than Paris as well. Paris is just eurgh.

 

[mouse]

I generally like London, its a well kept city with some really great areas such as covent garden and Piccadilly circus. Although I don't like the tube - way too crowded and everyone seems busy. The 'pace' of life seems much busier in London than, everyone always seems to be rushing and its hard to relax. Although to be fair I'm used to quiet and slow Devon life.
So yeah, I like London but I couldn't spend more than a week there due to the rushed atmosphere.

 

[caffeine_demon]

I like it to visit, and the tubes and buses make getting around easy (except rush hours, yuck)

If I was to work there again, I'd want to live within walking distance of my office, or maybe even in my office, as rush hour travel is disgusting (even worse than when I moved out about 7 years ago)

 

[peep]

I love London, will never grow tired of it. What's that famous quote, if you grow tired of London you grow tired of life (Samuel something??)

I'm one of those "busy, rude" peeps because I hate the way some people walk around, drives me insane and I like to get from A to B quickly and efficiently. Same with most cities though and all issues people have associated with London you could attach to the majority of cities around the World.

I've also never had an issue with Paris, always enjoyed my time roaming around. Yeah Gare du Nord area is a bit gross but what city doesn't have a bad area or two?

I think our transport network is also incredible.

Most of the time the people I have issues with in London are tourists, generally being silly about life and being in the way.

Sent from my C6903 using Tapatalk

 

[jayjay]

London's one of those places I've always wanted to live near but not inside (which is handy because that's pretty much exactly where I live). I couldn't deal with a constant busy atmosphere but I like the range of things and the liveliness of a lot of where I've been. I think most of the things I (and other people) dislike are just necessities of having 9 million people living in the same 20 mile radius that all want to be in similar places all at once (probably... only having really been to London and Paris in that sense). The 5 year old boy in me that loves trains hasn't died yet, so of course I'm a tube fan. But after all this, I still like to be able to find a quiet space near me.

 

[Hyde]

London was great when I visited. To tackle your points sequentially:

- Dirtiness: Didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, on par with other cities.
- Whites as minorities: Only the boroughs of Newham and Harrow have whites as a minority to Asians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demograph ... by_borough Compare that to Washington D.C., whose majority population is Black: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demograph ... omposition. Also why does this matter again?
- Rudeness: Nothing compared to NYC and Boston. Folks came across rather nicely.
- Mass Transit: Tube got me to where I needed to go in expedient fashion. Cost was marginal compared to other transits. A win in my books.
- Ridiculous Overpricedness: Rule number one of real estate? Location, location, location. Of course it's overpriced - you are in a major world city.
- Full of Tourists: Good luck getting on in any major world city if you want to avoid tourists.

 

[Mysterious Sue]

I love London.
It's been my workplace since 2007 and my home intermittently since that time (although not any more).

I love the buzz and and ability to just be able to go anywhere and do anything any time of day and night. You wanna watch an all night movie fest in a cinema with a bar? You wanna spend all day in a free museum staring at rocks? Or go out at 3am and get a pint of milk...or dinner...or go to a jazz bar...or get a bus to the other side of town...or see a gig...or just sit along the river with a thousand other people just like you, drinking in the lights and the atmosphere of millions of people all doing something!

Unlike most people who work in London, I don't get the tube very much. It's ok, if I want to go to South Ken say, or into the north, but I find it too hectic too deal with every day. But driving in London - now that is my home turf. I HATE driving anywhere else in the UK now because I just cannot cope with people's inefficieny and bad driving.

And that's what it is I think. Peep cracked it. Efficiency! I used to think it's rudeness, but it's not. During the day, everyone just has to be somewhere and everyone's in a constant state of 'being late'. Here's some examples:

1. If you drive in London, people use up every available bit of space and beep you within a millisecond if you don't pull away from the lights at once. But, people in London will give you space to pull out of a side road without thinking. They are polite, because they know that, if they let someone else out, then someone will do that for them in turn - because there's no space and everyone has to work together to just get by. You just sit there with an indicator on and guaranteed someone will be nice. Elsewhere in the UK, I can sit for hours waiting to get onto busy roads and no one will be so kind as in London. They think it's their right to just drive on by.

2. I was having a conversation recently with Jordan about people holding parking spaces outside their house with, typically, two paint tins and a lump of wood. As roads get very busy and it is hard to park, it can be very hard to ensure you have a space for deliveries/moving vans ect. It is an unwritten code that you help your neighbor and don't park in the paint can spot if you see it and he'll do the same for you. Where I live now in Kent, everyone thinks they own the bloody bit of road outside their house and no one else should ever be allowed to park in it on pain of death. I've had verbal abuse thrown at me for parking 'where I shouldn't have'. This has never happened to me in London because everyone is in the same boat.

3. Public transport during the day may be rude. No one looks at each other and everyone tries to pretend they don't exist. But if you want to get to know the real London, go on a night bus. The number of fun evenings I've spent joining in group singsongs with strangers, sharing chips, helping drunk people find the right way home, joining in the comradery of having the bus be full and pass you by, or when a group of people jumped in to defend a bus driver who was being verbally abused by some kids - those were amazing things to be a part of. I once learnt who my local doctor was on a night bus when someone stood up and told the whole bus what a great guy he was for looking after his local community! Londoners are amazing - you just need to meet it's locals when they have a night off!

But London isn't one place. It's a million villages all squished together with no planning. You never quite know where you are (usually you're in two places at once - when you start looking at it it's actually a lot less vast than it first appears. Am I in Bromley or Kent? Pimlico or Chelsea? Charing Cross or Embankment? There are bits of London I don't like though, mainly around Wembley and in the north, but I stay away from those. My family are from Bow originally (proper east end) and I love how up and coming that area is now around Mile End. But I equally love the buzz of the city, the cool kids in Hoxton and the grungy people in Camden, the diversity (and food) I can get in Tooting, my posh friends who lunch in Fulham and the green parkland to the west. There's something for everyone.

I guess the west is really where I feel most at home. I miss my old drive through Richmond park deer-spotting in the morning when I lived in Surbiton. And the only really complaint I have is that it's so bloody expensive out west

 

[Hixee]

I think London is a fantastic city... but I wouldn't want to live there. Certainly not long term.

I think it's lively, vibrant and exciting.

I also think it's expensive, loud and the tube is vile.

There are pros and cons to every city, and for me London has all the pros of somewhere I would want to visit, but few of the pros of somewhere I would want to live long term. I do think your points Darren are a little... I dunno... silly?

 

[Darren B]

For those who want to read the article about White British being the minority it's here

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... lough.html

Yep, it's a Telegraph article. And you all thought I'd been reading the Sun.

Also, Picking up on Smithy's point about driving in London. Yeah, the standard of driving is appalling, but at least I'm in the comfort of my own vehicle and I can switch off and pretend I'm in a better place, such as Jozef Fritzel's basement, Michael Barrymore's swimming pool or on a Vekoma Boomerang.

Let's face it, London needs another year like 1666. Hopefully this time around we won't **** it up when we rebuild it.

I love London, will never grow tired of it. What's that famous quote, if you grow tired of London you grow tired of life (Samuel something??)

Hmmmm, while Johnson was a clever guy, he spent his life afflicted with Tourette's Syndrome. Which means your man probably spent as much time spouting involuntary **** as he did snappy witticism.

 

[nealbie]

The 2011 census showed White British ethnicity to only get 44.9% of the population of London"

So 44.9% White British and 55.1% everything else it is. Oh no, the horror.

Let's break that down:-

2.2% of London is White Irish and 12.7% identified as "White Other", so already 59.8% of London self identifies as White.

The largest two alternative ethnicities were Black African (7%) and Indian (6.2%). And for those really interested the percentage identifying as Arab was a whopping 1.3%.

But I won't be unfair to Darren, he specifically said White British was a minority, so we have to split up the whites. Even so, the nearest challenger to White British (44.9%) is White Other (12.7%). So no need to panic Darren, the closest challenger to the "norm" in London is more Whites (not that it matters). You just have to be careful to not be misled by the fear mongering media my dear, don't be fooled into reading it how they want you to.



TLDR: London is fab.

 

[Ben]

Even if whites weren't the majority, I really don't understand why that matters?

We encouraged immigration when it suited us, so man up and embrace it.

I love living in a city with people from around the World, it's far more interesting than everyone being White British.

I agree 100% with the whole efficiency thing. If people are rude to you in London it's because you're being a mong. Probably standing on the left hand side of an escalator or something else unforgivable.

If the only really negative point that you have that holds any real weight is that the tube is busy and you can't drive, you might have to start thinking up new arguments bae. You get used to the Tube in about two trips and then couldn't live without it. Who wants to drive everywhere when the Tube means as many after work drinks as you want?

I'll just say Sue's post was 100% perfect.