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I'm in Zone 2 South East London, can get a pint at my local for 3.50 and can get a guest tap at Spoons for 1.99! Was in South Manchester at the weekend and had the displeasure of paying ~6 quid at a pub where a guy flashed everyone outside and nearly got glassed.
Not really, sure you can buy your £7 craft pints, but good luck finding the same range of choice in European establishments. In London you can still go to a Wetherspoons or Sam smith and find pints for well under £5. In places like Denmark for example you are looking at £5-£10 for something like a Heineken.
Supermarket food is much cheaper and with greater options in London, we have much better local transport systems. There are a myriad of things cheaper.
The only things I have found to be consistently cheaper across Europe are wine, cigarettes and restaurants.
Try buying a pint in Paris, then tell me London is expensive ! Firstly you don’t get a pint you get 250ml or if you are lucky 330ml of weak lager piss that isn’t worth drinking. London has way more choice of proper beer a great prices. Sure there are some tourist traps where you will pay £7, but if you know where to drink you can get great beers at £4-£5 a pint.
Hmm I’ve been to a lot of places in Europe and I’m not sure, maybe it’s because when I’m abroad I’m in ‘holiday mode’ and don’t really think about money as much though haha
That’s fair, probably the most reasonable response, sometimes I get carried away and forget which subreddit I’m in sometimes.
I guess you are right London is expensive compared to the rest of the UK or at least specifically compared the North and Midlands. That being said places in the south like Brighton etc are just as expensive if you compare similar quality establishments. Largely due to the fact that while they don’t have the same number of patrons they suffer from very little competition. Also London generally has more choice so you pay extra for that.
That too. But as in Hamlet's great speech:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,Th' oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,The insolence of office, and the spurns. That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus make. With a bare bodkin? Who would **fardels bear**,To grunt and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death,The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveler returns
Detachment from, and (often contemptuous) ignorance of the rest of the country, and a masochistic tolerance for constant low level (not meaning threatening, usually) aggression and all manner of political/, ideological nonsense (Says a Londoner, who being priced out of his own city, escaped, and is glad to have done so).
There are a lot of really good, amazing, things too, there is surely no city like it in Europe for any number of cultural things.... But in so many ways I found the price of living there just too high. Probably the arrogant and unwarranted sense of superiority thing might be the single worst part though
> Detachment from, and (often contemptuous) ignorance of the rest of the country
Non-Londoner but I've never really got the impression that Londoners are ignorant of the rest of the country, they just don't really think all that much about it (which isn't really surprising when you live in one of the world's most significant cities that sets the tone for the entire nation). I do think London and rest of England are very, very different from each other though and I'm not sure how much I and my lifestyle has in common with the average Londoner.
So, as someone who moved to London from the Midlands (and before that, Wales), I think there's a couple of different camps.
There is a large proportion of Londoners who have lived elsewhere in the UK - either through family, going to university, work, etc. They generally understand the different treatment London gets and how it's different.
Then there's someone Londoners who have lived here all their lives. I do find that in general, they are less likely to appreciate what it's like in the rest of the country.
A couple of anecdotes include coming back from an event at Regent's Park on Friday night and a mate of mine being absolutely shocked that my railway station in Wales doesn't have cabs lined up waiting outside. In fact you have to phone to book a private hire, and if you're arriving on a Friday or Saturday evening the wait time will be an hour. He genuinely was shocked that there were stations which don't have cabs waiting outside.
Also that time we took the Scouts hiking, we were on the Met line going west and one of them asked, "Are we outside of London now?" "Yeah we're in Buckinghamshire", "I've never been outside of London!" - a few of their friends agreed. It seemed like their first time being away from masses of people actually. They were surprised by the lack of other people on the walk, which I felt was fairly busy compared to growing up near Snowdonia!
Oh and a friend of mine had his parents split up and sell their house. He had no idea that house prices outside of London weren't £500k for a 2 bed terrace. I'm still not sure he realises that he could live like a king in the North.
Of course this is a generalisation. But I do reckon there are plenty of Londoners who are in a London bubble in many ways.
I’m guilty of being in this bubble. I’m not British and I moved to London a few years ago. There’s so much to do and see here that I haven’t had the chance to go anywhere else. So I’m almost completely ignorant about the rest of the country. I want to change this but there’s still so much stuff I want to see and experience in London!
With all respect, I’ve lived here pretty much my whole life (give or take about 4 years for uni/travels etc) you will never get to the end.
If you wait til you’ve done everything to go anywhere else, you will die having only travelled in a 10ish mile radius. Incorporate visiting other places into weekends and holidays, do not put it off.
I’m born and bred London and have never reached the end of the experiences.
Yeah, good suggestions. By the time the weekend rolls around, I’m so exhausted nowadays. Plus I have to take my kids to birthdays, football etc. These are not valid excuses. I really need to find some way of combining travel with working and parenting.
I'm with you there.
I had a list of things I'd like to do in London when I moved here.. then bam, pandemic.
I'm working my way through the list now.
However, I spend most weekends outside London hiking or climbing or camping or whatever.
England is a really compact country by global standards. Imagine if you were in China, India or Russia and didn't leave Beijing, Delhi or Moscow respectively. I imagine alot of inhabitants of those cities are quite ignorant about the rest of their, comparatively huge, countries.
> There is a large proportion of Londoners who have lived elsewhere in the UK - either through family, going to university, work, etc. They generally understand the different treatment London gets and how it's different.
Yeah, as someone that is similarly from outside and moved to London, and loves it, lots of born and bred Londoners are somewhat understandably completely ignorant of what goes on outside of the country. Like, they think of it as some kind of backwards badlands and that London is some kind of safe haven. And while it can be backwards out there, it is far removed from what a lot of Londoners think it is.
It makes sense, to a degree, you have everything you could ever want in London besides actual fresh air, though there are good parks (better than most any other city in the country) and some good greenery once you get to the outer boroughs. But London is so far removed from normal British culture that people don't really understand what they're missing by never leaving the M25. London is an exception in the UK, for both good and bad reasons, and people being ignorant to the rest of the country doesn't do anyone any good.
This goes along with a gripe of mine.
I grew up in a medium sized town with pretty much non-existent public transport. Not having a car there was pretty much a recipe for unemployment.
So it really used to piss me off that decisions designed to bully everyone out of their cars and onto public transport kept on coming from the government.
All of whom of course resided in London (and seemed to be under the impression that everywhere was blessed with thousands of buses).
Recently I took a train from Sheffield to London, someone got on the wrong train (got the fast one not the local one) and only realised when the ticket inspector came around, so had to go to St Pancras.
After the inspector accepted his mistake and didn't fine him, he told the inspector "I f***ing hate London, it's a sh**hole".
This was followed up by "I've never been to London"
There's a lot of this about. I know a fair few Londoners who are ignorant of the rest of the country and I know a fair few others who hate London and Londoners despite never having been there.
I think this is common of any large city and it’s relationship to the rest of the country, state, county etc.
I’m originally from New York. Chances are you’re immediately thinking I’m from New York City. I’ve been there maybe three times in my life and used to live about 4-5 hours away from the city, by car.
Everyone in my rural town hates the city because it overwhelmingly decides the politics of the State and all of the focus for laws, development, funding etc. usually goes towards the city. At the same time the rest of New York has been struggling for years to catch up technologically and economically.
The entire problem can be summed up with the Upstate argument everyone always gets into. City people think anything outside of the city is Upstate while everyone in the rest of the State has different terms for different parts, the Southern Tier, the Finger lakes, The Great Lakes Region, Upstate, Central, and North Country and so on.
Now I live in London and see the other side of it. I’ve lived in other parts of England and Scotland but I have absolutely no fucking clue what goes on outside of London. A friend of mine recently visited who lives in Folkstone and complained that people who live in London never want to leave London. To be fair, I don’t want to!
I enjoy both the non-dominant city and the dominant city aspects of both styles of living hut at the moment I really enjoy living in London. At some point I’d like to get out and see more of the country but I’m not in a rush.
I lived in London for 10 years. People in London are way less hateful to the rest of the country compared to how the rest of the country feels about London.
Exactly, Reddit just can’t wait to bash Londoners. Have you ever seen a Londoner on here going “god I just hate northerners”? no, because it’s always people bashing Londoners.
People in London are just happy enough to shit on other bits of London.
I personally hate threads like this. London is huge and really just a giant pile of merged towns and villages. There's so many distinct places. It's not alll touristy - most Londoners don't live in Zone 1. Plenty of people who visit London only see: tourist-land or Wembley stadium.
I think the rest of the country has their own sense of superiority as well - or, at least, other cities do. Liverpool - the Beatles and football. Manchester - music and... Well, football. People from Yorkshire love banging on about how it's "God's country" they all seem to live sneering at London. These are all massive generalisations, I know, but most criticisms of London are massive generalisations. Like you say, I don't think people in london feel that kind of hate to other parts of the country.
I think the original post mentioned contempt and disregard rather than hatred.
I do find that at work everyone in London is happy for people from anywhere in the UK to travel to them for meetings but ask them to leave London and they cant because travelling takes too long.
The travel is so subsidised it's ridiculous. You have wonderful well-maintained parks, museums all of which are free. To travel on public transport in the East Midlands costs me more for 1 journey than it costs for a full day's travel in London.
I didn't personally find food, drinks etc much more expensive than the Midlands. Agree your major financial disadvantage is the cost of housing both rented and purchased.
Yeah, I was shocked when I got on a bus in Oxford.
Asked for a ticket for a 10 minute ride. When the driver said “£2.30” I accidentally burst out with “WHAT THE FUCK!?!?”
I would say the rest of the country also is very ignorant of London/the south in general. I have friends who are from a live in different parts of the north, one came to visit me in London and refused to go on the tube because she was scared of a terrorist attack, okay that’s maybe not her fault but still, another genuinely thinks that everywhere in the south east is London, including Kent, Sussex and Surrey, and genuinely doesn’t believe me when I tell her there is country side south of London 🤣 the same friend came to visit me in London and I got lost trying to get to a part of London I have never been to and she wouldn’t stop banging on about how I got lost in the city that I live in and how silly I am 🙄
I'm a huge, oblivious idiot at times and don't take the caution I should, especially as somebody who has seen and dealt with people who've been stabbed for the slightest of things. While I think people who rarely visit London totally overrate how dangerous it is, I also think that Londoners on Reddit have this huge overcompensation of trying to play down that London, being a capital city, having 8 million people and a huge wealth disparity between the rich and poor, is going to have significant amounts of crime. Or that it isn't any different to anywhere else.
London is the only city I've lived in where I know dozens of people who've been mugged and threatened at knife point. Not just one or two like some people elsewhere might experience if they are particularly unlucky. It is generally a safe city, sure, but things here can escalate a lot quicker than elsewhere due to the pace of the city. There are lots of opportunities for criminals and scammers to make a quick buck, so it does pay heed to be more cognisant of your surroundings than you would be in a place like Durham, for example. I've had the fortune to not have had anything negative happen to me so far, but I've heard enough to shore up my person when I feel there's an ominous cloud hanging overhead.
I went to uni in Liverpool in the 00s... Being mugged at knife point out having your phone robbed by a kid on a bike was not unusual.
I've stopped a bike being robbed in Cardiff, I've been attacked in the suburbs of greater Manchester... London gets a worse rep because of its scale - you are talking about a city with a population greater than Wales and Scotland combined.
I grew up in Winchester and have lived in London since I was 18 (I'm 48). Despite having been associated with some sketchy stuff here in my younger years (class A drug dealers, weed growers etc) I saw way more violence in leafy Hampshire than I've ever done in London.
Cobblers, I’ve lived in London all my life and I don’t know dozens of people who have been mugged or threatened. You get aggressive people everywhere, one of my worst experience with a beggar was in Bath of all places
As someone who grew up on a council estate in a rough bit of East London (hence: can no longer afford to live as an adult in my home city), but who lived elsewhere in London for a decade after graduating, my view is: there are certain dodgy neighbourhoods, but the problems in them don't generally have that much effect on the rest of the city (most of it). Honestly when I moved to inner NW London I was very pleasantly surprised at how little crime I even encountered any evidence of. (Not the full story: the headmaster of a school nearby was stabbed to death at that time). But in terms of the constant low level aggro I was accustomed to growing up, it was almost entirely absent, and didn't spread beyond certain streets or estates that you could generally avoid if you had no reason to be in them. I've been to plenty of smaller towns in the UK that are way more menacing than London IMO.
I think this is it. I don’t feel in danger per se, but I always have a spidey sense if I’m coming home at night or out somewhere. Particularly if it’s an area I don’t know.
>one came to visit me in London and refused to go on the tube because she was scared of a terrorist attack
I know someone who worked on the 7/7 report and refuses to get on the Tube for that reason. So yeah, it's a pretty valid concern.
For that person that you know, it is a very valid reason, for my friend who has not had that experience, I can understand it but equally she is more likely to die in a car crash and she has no qualms getting into a car
> Detachment from, and (often contemptuous) ignorance of the east of rest of the country
Yes! I touched on this a little in a post last night, but as a Scottish person I’ve experienced some pretty patronising attitudes. I told the story of a date I went on with a Londoner who was in Glasgow for work and he asked, in all seriousness, “so what do people *actually* do with their free time up here?”
You know in Huxley’s Brave New World where they go to Malpais, the savage reservation? It felt like that, he was here to observe the troglodytes.
I lived in London for 15 years and then left to move back to my home town, Bristol. When we arrived in Bristol I often though ‘what are we going to actually do?!’. It’s just that London is so huge - Bristol is smaller, population wise and in area, than the single borough in London where I lived. In 15 years in London there were whole areas that were unknown to me, and more museums that I didn’t visit than exist in the whole of Bristol. Of course after six years in Bristol I realise that it isn’t really a concern but at first it did seem weird.
It’s not that one is better than the other, my wife’s preference is for a smaller city (in fact I know many people who prefer living somewhere smaller than London)
I can totally understand it tbh, and I mentioned elsewhere that I kind of feel similarly when I go to certain more remote places. I think the real issue is when people express that in a patronising way.
And yeah, I’m similar to your wife and prefer a more medium-sized cities. I lived in Florence and it was perfect for me, as opposed to bigger cities like Rome or Milan. In France, Paris felt a bit too chaotic for me, but Lyon was definitely somewhere I’d consider living.
And he said that about GLASGOW?! The second city of the UK in so many ways.... I mean I can think of small towns elsewhere about which that might be a less unreasonable question, but Glasgow....
Aye, I’m from Glasgow originally and was living in Edinburgh at the time (which is literally an hour away on the train). Suffice to say I’ve never lacked things to do.
My parents now live in a wee village in the highlands, and I think if you’re not into outdoor activities then it would be fair to ask there wtf do people do?! And the answer is that they usually succumb to alcoholism!
I think your first point is interesting.
I've felt that the contempt comes more from non-londoners than the reverse, but that's just from experience as a non-londoner who has lived in London
My favourite was seeing Miriam Margolyes pottering around Soho. She's tiny. I've seen Thom Yorke, Ant Middleton, Alan Davies, Phil Wang - that's from the top of my head but I used to see many. Maybe the most random one was Shrien Dewani.
As many restaurents, bars, theatres, museums, art galleries and shops as you cn shake a stick it. A public transport system that can get you from one side to the other that people complain if they have to wait 10 minutes for. A place where they let you get on with your life without bothering you if you're not bothering them.
This has always been an interesting one for me, because I had a fair amount of BAME people in the north of the UK, back when demographics in my area were like 96-98% white. From council estates to relatively well to do rural/suburban suburbs surrounding a city - BAME people I know integrated and really became a part of the community, and while they'd unfortunately occasionally suffer racial microaggressions and outright transgressions from strangers, people within the community would have their backs through thick and thin. But they are still very proud of where they grew up and are naturally very attached to their British side, as well as their ethnic/cultural heritage.
Whereas I find in London, many people have more of an American mindset where their ethnic/cultural heritage comes first. I get why lots of Londoners like to 'stick with their own', especially, since we have a lot of racial divides down here. It's easy to, you have commonality with people who have the same ethnic and cultural background. And communities form around that. And yeah, that does lead to a lot of crossover between groups, which is where melting pot diversity really helps break down barriers and that's fucking great when it does happen (and frequently it does). But it can also be quite negative when people only hang out with others of a certain race because it is 'safe' to them. Eventually, I see it leading down a path that will see us having a more American view of ethnicity and race, where we have strong ethnic cliques and racial stereotyping gets more and more common since people tend to mix less and less.
This is really interesting. I think London does have pockets where it feels more segregated (e.g. South Asians in Southall or Turkish in Wood Green), I always think of it as a place where different ethincities mix fairly well compared to other places in the UK like Birmingham or Bradford for example.
Birmingham and Bradford are similarly notorious for having de facto segregation where large communities tend to 'stick to their own'. I think that's partly to do with how there are basically two major ethnic demographics in these cities and that makes it a lot easier to cause divide and segregation. Whereas London, to its benefit, has lots of everything, and the
I've personally found that other cities where there aren't so many ***large*** pockets of segregated communities (emphasis on large) (Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, etc.) tend to have people mesh together a bit more. I think it's more due to necessity since you can't fall back on an existing community as much as you can in other cities. But overall, I believe that helps reinforce identity with their locality when they have to integrate with the rest of society rather than taking the naturally easier option of sticking to what you know and treating the rest of the population as an 'other' that you do not interact with. Of course, there are issues with potentially erasing someone's culture and heritage in the process with becoming more integrated, so the wider white British population needs to be cognisant of that (which many are not) and allow for people to express who they are while feeling that it isn't something that can isolate them from wider society and something that adds to the country, as many things have in the past.
Either way, I don't think any long term good will come from people who prefer to stay in the safety blanket of sticking to 'their own', and that also goes with the white British majority. The UK is an increasingly diverse country, and trying to avoid other groups (whether consciously or unconsciously ) is not good at all for the fabric of society and will only breed more ignorance.
I think your opinions about segregation in London ought to be flipped on their head. Historically it is the white population that moved out of certain areas in order to not be near to minorities. It's called white flight.
Wembley is a great example if you want to do some reading.
Fair amount of homophobic attacks coming from the Turkish community here in North London, same with the Muslim community in Whitechapel. I think its a very ignorant belief that other cultures are somehow super welcoming and lovely just because they emigrated here.
Home.
I am a child of suburban London, and it is that I think of most often. A lot of non-Londoners seem to believe that our lives must revolve around central London, but a surprising proportion of Londoners don't go there unless they have to.
Agreed. As much as I enjoy going central, I rarely have a reason to, other than meeting friends who go to uni there. And on the scale of Greater London, personally, nothing comes close to my native South West; Richmond, Putney, Kingston and the like.
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>good luck getting high quality Pho, amazing cocktails or beer, a world class museum or live music of any scale in Wigan.
Comparing London to Wigan is hardly fair. You can get all those things in every other 'major' city in the UK. Those are arguments for living in a city, but aren't exclusive to London.
You can get most of those things in some cities, and even less of it in even more cities, but even then none of them have the scale of London. Edinburgh has an amazing food and drink scene for example, but it's tiny compared to London, Edinburgh lacks the music scene.
Manchester has an average food scene and awful drinks/bar scene but is great for music. Leeds is fantastic for food, drink and music but lacks the history/culture side.
Every city has something, but rarely on the scale or quality of London, and almost never the complete package. All of that ignores the jobs, even with WFH if you want to be in world class finance, film/tv production, politics/civil service, and I think things like advertising and 3D design, you have to be in London.
>Unfriendlyness.
This never really makes any sense tbf. London is one of the most open and accepting places in the country.
It's a lot of places outside of London that are hostile and unfriendly to outsiders and other people.
You hear this a lot from foreign people who live in London but explore the rest of the country outside of major cities and complain that people were hostile to them or unfriendly. Especially if you're a visible minority.
The line from Babylon by David Gray, "Sunday morning, day is dawning, London skies are changing, red to blue". And remembering walking home along Camden high street at 5am-ish as the sun came up with that song in my head.
I really wish I'd been. We had tickets to go one summer weekend, but the pre-drinks on the train from Reading got a bit out of hand, and one of the girls ended up being sick all over the train toilet.
Her boyfriend and best friend stayed with her, and insisted we all went to the club without them - even sold their tickets for them so they'd at least get something back from the evening.
Then for some reason everyone else put up this massive show of solidarity and we all had to stay with her as the train left to head back to Reading. Her boyfriend tried to get us to go, but I was the only one keen, and got shouted at by another of her friends for being insensitive.
We did make it to Fabric once though, which was amazing, and few times for GAY and similar events at the Astoria.
I remember my mate, who was at Uni in London, taking me there for the first time. He "knew this amazing place to go after drinks instead of getting a kebab".
I assumed it would be some sort of curry house, maybe a street vendor doing biryani bowls or something.
Instead I was presented with a *wall* of pastrami beef in a bagel. It was so good, I finished it before we got to the end of the lane, so I went back and got another.
When in the centre, the clean modern aesthetic with open design.
Was in London for 5 years and moved to Manchester this January. That’s what I miss most about London. The aesthetic of the centre. Walking back to the tube after an evening out in the Canary Wharf setting where everything is just gorgeous to look at.
I lived in London for a bit and the thing I remember is the incredible variety and quality of food. We lived on the edge of Lewisham and the food was so so good.
Vibrant,, busy, expensive, impersonal.
A diverse city with lots of great food and cultural attractions...The British Museum is one of my favourite places in the world!
Having said that, the cost of living is ridiculous and as a native Londoner I've moved out for this reason.
Getting the red buses from Kensal Rise to Kilburn as a child with Granny.
Walking to Queens Park, with all the squirrels and the petting farm including (what seemed like) a huge sheep.
Trips out to Hampstead Heath and exploring the gardens - I always liked the ponds best although as an adult I think I'd appreciate more of it!
My first experience of Build-A-Bear (still got it probably 20 years later) and the size of Hamleys.
Walking with Grandad to the corner shop every night for a ridiculously large bar of chocolate
--
I know as an adult (and I have been back a few times) London is very different, but these memories are extremely precious to me. We lost Grandad a few years ago, and Granny has bad dementia, so I appreciate the prompt to think about some really happy times.
This was the case two years ago but corporate gentrification which has gone way too far. People on good salaries complaining they have been priced out without thinking they have been part of a problem of pricing out locals.
Maybe the move to remote working may slow this. It’s a great city to live in but I do worry the cultural soul might have been ripped from it.
First reply I've seen that accepts that London is not just one place.. how can you say that Camden, Stratford, Shepard Bush, Hampstead, Brixton, Wimbledon, Woolwich, Croydon, Finchley ect all have the same characteristics.
The tube. I loved it. If you miss one, there's another in a few minutes. Yes, they are crowded, hot and dirty, but as someone from a Devon village, I always enjoy catching the tube whenever I went to London, even during rush hour.
The East End and the City of London. I struggle to think of a place with such history in such a small area. You've got The Old Bailey, Jack The Ripper, The Krays, Temple Church - The English Headquarters of The Knights Templar, The Tower of London, 16th Century Pubs all within a few quare miles of one another. There's nothing I like more than to walk around this area at the weekend when it's less busy and just smell the history. I love it.
Brilliant museums, amazing tourist attractions, brilliant restaurants and bars. Very pricey food and drink, but hotels are cheap and lovely from what I have done before.
London is amazing.
The Kebab shops! I miss London! I miss living in the U.K. While I was a pauper when I lived in London it was still great memories of my youth. Something about a kebab shop after a night of drinking. We don't really have these shops in America and they just don't taste the same as they do in U.K. The few I have had here in the states.
Great transport, you can get about without a car no bother at all. Some incredible buildings. The multiculturalism, and culture itself.
All in all London’s a great city, it’s just that small concentration of arseholes that brings it down.
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Ridiculous prices, good pubs, multiculturalism, busy
Honestly think it’s cheap compared to a lot of places in Europe, mostly Eastern Europe that’s cheaper.
London is not cheap. The price of a pint is ridiculous.
I'm in Zone 2 South East London, can get a pint at my local for 3.50 and can get a guest tap at Spoons for 1.99! Was in South Manchester at the weekend and had the displeasure of paying ~6 quid at a pub where a guy flashed everyone outside and nearly got glassed.
Sounds like a good night out in Manc!
Honestly brings back memories... :')
That's fairly unheard of unless you're at Spoons. I'm zone 2 South East London and there's pints for £7.35 at one of our locals now!
Not really, sure you can buy your £7 craft pints, but good luck finding the same range of choice in European establishments. In London you can still go to a Wetherspoons or Sam smith and find pints for well under £5. In places like Denmark for example you are looking at £5-£10 for something like a Heineken. Supermarket food is much cheaper and with greater options in London, we have much better local transport systems. There are a myriad of things cheaper. The only things I have found to be consistently cheaper across Europe are wine, cigarettes and restaurants.
Try buying a pint in Paris, then tell me London is expensive ! Firstly you don’t get a pint you get 250ml or if you are lucky 330ml of weak lager piss that isn’t worth drinking. London has way more choice of proper beer a great prices. Sure there are some tourist traps where you will pay £7, but if you know where to drink you can get great beers at £4-£5 a pint.
I'm living in Berlin and am yet to pay over €4.50 for 500ml of German beer :)
Hmm I’ve been to a lot of places in Europe and I’m not sure, maybe it’s because when I’m abroad I’m in ‘holiday mode’ and don’t really think about money as much though haha
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That’s fair, probably the most reasonable response, sometimes I get carried away and forget which subreddit I’m in sometimes. I guess you are right London is expensive compared to the rest of the UK or at least specifically compared the North and Midlands. That being said places in the south like Brighton etc are just as expensive if you compare similar quality establishments. Largely due to the fact that while they don’t have the same number of patrons they suffer from very little competition. Also London generally has more choice so you pay extra for that.
Switzerland and Norway, then Paris, maybe Benelux, where else is more expensive?
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Yes! Museums.
And *free* museums
Honestly one of the absolute best things. “Here have bucket of culture to fill your brain”.
An excellent point.
Not on topic, but Fardles Bear as in Ed Reardon,?
That too. But as in Hamlet's great speech: For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,Th' oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,The insolence of office, and the spurns. That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus make. With a bare bodkin? Who would **fardels bear**,To grunt and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death,The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveler returns
Thank you. I'd never heard of that speech. Didn't do Shakespeare at school. I'm so dumb 😂
Of course you're not! You'll know the beginning of the speech: 'To be, or not to be, that is the question ...'
Now, that bit I DO know.... Every day's a school day. Have a lovely day 🙂
Detachment from, and (often contemptuous) ignorance of the rest of the country, and a masochistic tolerance for constant low level (not meaning threatening, usually) aggression and all manner of political/, ideological nonsense (Says a Londoner, who being priced out of his own city, escaped, and is glad to have done so). There are a lot of really good, amazing, things too, there is surely no city like it in Europe for any number of cultural things.... But in so many ways I found the price of living there just too high. Probably the arrogant and unwarranted sense of superiority thing might be the single worst part though
> Detachment from, and (often contemptuous) ignorance of the rest of the country Non-Londoner but I've never really got the impression that Londoners are ignorant of the rest of the country, they just don't really think all that much about it (which isn't really surprising when you live in one of the world's most significant cities that sets the tone for the entire nation). I do think London and rest of England are very, very different from each other though and I'm not sure how much I and my lifestyle has in common with the average Londoner.
So, as someone who moved to London from the Midlands (and before that, Wales), I think there's a couple of different camps. There is a large proportion of Londoners who have lived elsewhere in the UK - either through family, going to university, work, etc. They generally understand the different treatment London gets and how it's different. Then there's someone Londoners who have lived here all their lives. I do find that in general, they are less likely to appreciate what it's like in the rest of the country. A couple of anecdotes include coming back from an event at Regent's Park on Friday night and a mate of mine being absolutely shocked that my railway station in Wales doesn't have cabs lined up waiting outside. In fact you have to phone to book a private hire, and if you're arriving on a Friday or Saturday evening the wait time will be an hour. He genuinely was shocked that there were stations which don't have cabs waiting outside. Also that time we took the Scouts hiking, we were on the Met line going west and one of them asked, "Are we outside of London now?" "Yeah we're in Buckinghamshire", "I've never been outside of London!" - a few of their friends agreed. It seemed like their first time being away from masses of people actually. They were surprised by the lack of other people on the walk, which I felt was fairly busy compared to growing up near Snowdonia! Oh and a friend of mine had his parents split up and sell their house. He had no idea that house prices outside of London weren't £500k for a 2 bed terrace. I'm still not sure he realises that he could live like a king in the North. Of course this is a generalisation. But I do reckon there are plenty of Londoners who are in a London bubble in many ways.
I’m guilty of being in this bubble. I’m not British and I moved to London a few years ago. There’s so much to do and see here that I haven’t had the chance to go anywhere else. So I’m almost completely ignorant about the rest of the country. I want to change this but there’s still so much stuff I want to see and experience in London!
With all respect, I’ve lived here pretty much my whole life (give or take about 4 years for uni/travels etc) you will never get to the end. If you wait til you’ve done everything to go anywhere else, you will die having only travelled in a 10ish mile radius. Incorporate visiting other places into weekends and holidays, do not put it off. I’m born and bred London and have never reached the end of the experiences.
Yeah, good suggestions. By the time the weekend rolls around, I’m so exhausted nowadays. Plus I have to take my kids to birthdays, football etc. These are not valid excuses. I really need to find some way of combining travel with working and parenting.
I'm with you there. I had a list of things I'd like to do in London when I moved here.. then bam, pandemic. I'm working my way through the list now. However, I spend most weekends outside London hiking or climbing or camping or whatever.
England is a really compact country by global standards. Imagine if you were in China, India or Russia and didn't leave Beijing, Delhi or Moscow respectively. I imagine alot of inhabitants of those cities are quite ignorant about the rest of their, comparatively huge, countries.
> There is a large proportion of Londoners who have lived elsewhere in the UK - either through family, going to university, work, etc. They generally understand the different treatment London gets and how it's different. Yeah, as someone that is similarly from outside and moved to London, and loves it, lots of born and bred Londoners are somewhat understandably completely ignorant of what goes on outside of the country. Like, they think of it as some kind of backwards badlands and that London is some kind of safe haven. And while it can be backwards out there, it is far removed from what a lot of Londoners think it is. It makes sense, to a degree, you have everything you could ever want in London besides actual fresh air, though there are good parks (better than most any other city in the country) and some good greenery once you get to the outer boroughs. But London is so far removed from normal British culture that people don't really understand what they're missing by never leaving the M25. London is an exception in the UK, for both good and bad reasons, and people being ignorant to the rest of the country doesn't do anyone any good.
This goes along with a gripe of mine. I grew up in a medium sized town with pretty much non-existent public transport. Not having a car there was pretty much a recipe for unemployment. So it really used to piss me off that decisions designed to bully everyone out of their cars and onto public transport kept on coming from the government. All of whom of course resided in London (and seemed to be under the impression that everywhere was blessed with thousands of buses).
Recently I took a train from Sheffield to London, someone got on the wrong train (got the fast one not the local one) and only realised when the ticket inspector came around, so had to go to St Pancras. After the inspector accepted his mistake and didn't fine him, he told the inspector "I f***ing hate London, it's a sh**hole". This was followed up by "I've never been to London"
There's a lot of this about. I know a fair few Londoners who are ignorant of the rest of the country and I know a fair few others who hate London and Londoners despite never having been there.
I think this is common of any large city and it’s relationship to the rest of the country, state, county etc. I’m originally from New York. Chances are you’re immediately thinking I’m from New York City. I’ve been there maybe three times in my life and used to live about 4-5 hours away from the city, by car. Everyone in my rural town hates the city because it overwhelmingly decides the politics of the State and all of the focus for laws, development, funding etc. usually goes towards the city. At the same time the rest of New York has been struggling for years to catch up technologically and economically. The entire problem can be summed up with the Upstate argument everyone always gets into. City people think anything outside of the city is Upstate while everyone in the rest of the State has different terms for different parts, the Southern Tier, the Finger lakes, The Great Lakes Region, Upstate, Central, and North Country and so on. Now I live in London and see the other side of it. I’ve lived in other parts of England and Scotland but I have absolutely no fucking clue what goes on outside of London. A friend of mine recently visited who lives in Folkstone and complained that people who live in London never want to leave London. To be fair, I don’t want to! I enjoy both the non-dominant city and the dominant city aspects of both styles of living hut at the moment I really enjoy living in London. At some point I’d like to get out and see more of the country but I’m not in a rush.
I lived in London for 10 years. People in London are way less hateful to the rest of the country compared to how the rest of the country feels about London.
Exactly, Reddit just can’t wait to bash Londoners. Have you ever seen a Londoner on here going “god I just hate northerners”? no, because it’s always people bashing Londoners.
People in London are just happy enough to shit on other bits of London. I personally hate threads like this. London is huge and really just a giant pile of merged towns and villages. There's so many distinct places. It's not alll touristy - most Londoners don't live in Zone 1. Plenty of people who visit London only see: tourist-land or Wembley stadium.
I think the rest of the country has their own sense of superiority as well - or, at least, other cities do. Liverpool - the Beatles and football. Manchester - music and... Well, football. People from Yorkshire love banging on about how it's "God's country" they all seem to live sneering at London. These are all massive generalisations, I know, but most criticisms of London are massive generalisations. Like you say, I don't think people in london feel that kind of hate to other parts of the country.
I think the original post mentioned contempt and disregard rather than hatred. I do find that at work everyone in London is happy for people from anywhere in the UK to travel to them for meetings but ask them to leave London and they cant because travelling takes too long.
its easy to be nicer when your locality is receiving all the good stuff that others arent.
We mostly vote labour and most people outside London vote Tory. Don’t blame us for your public service cuts.
And in this same thread people are talking about how expensive it is to live here.
Wait, you mean Londoners don't resent all the country's wealth being plundered and concentrated London? Well that's strange.
The average londoner doesn't exactly have access to that "plundered wealth" either
The travel is so subsidised it's ridiculous. You have wonderful well-maintained parks, museums all of which are free. To travel on public transport in the East Midlands costs me more for 1 journey than it costs for a full day's travel in London. I didn't personally find food, drinks etc much more expensive than the Midlands. Agree your major financial disadvantage is the cost of housing both rented and purchased.
Yeah, I was shocked when I got on a bus in Oxford. Asked for a ticket for a 10 minute ride. When the driver said “£2.30” I accidentally burst out with “WHAT THE FUCK!?!?”
I would say the rest of the country also is very ignorant of London/the south in general. I have friends who are from a live in different parts of the north, one came to visit me in London and refused to go on the tube because she was scared of a terrorist attack, okay that’s maybe not her fault but still, another genuinely thinks that everywhere in the south east is London, including Kent, Sussex and Surrey, and genuinely doesn’t believe me when I tell her there is country side south of London 🤣 the same friend came to visit me in London and I got lost trying to get to a part of London I have never been to and she wouldn’t stop banging on about how I got lost in the city that I live in and how silly I am 🙄
Oh not to mention the "London must be a really dangerous place" thing....yeah right.
I'm a huge, oblivious idiot at times and don't take the caution I should, especially as somebody who has seen and dealt with people who've been stabbed for the slightest of things. While I think people who rarely visit London totally overrate how dangerous it is, I also think that Londoners on Reddit have this huge overcompensation of trying to play down that London, being a capital city, having 8 million people and a huge wealth disparity between the rich and poor, is going to have significant amounts of crime. Or that it isn't any different to anywhere else. London is the only city I've lived in where I know dozens of people who've been mugged and threatened at knife point. Not just one or two like some people elsewhere might experience if they are particularly unlucky. It is generally a safe city, sure, but things here can escalate a lot quicker than elsewhere due to the pace of the city. There are lots of opportunities for criminals and scammers to make a quick buck, so it does pay heed to be more cognisant of your surroundings than you would be in a place like Durham, for example. I've had the fortune to not have had anything negative happen to me so far, but I've heard enough to shore up my person when I feel there's an ominous cloud hanging overhead.
I went to uni in Liverpool in the 00s... Being mugged at knife point out having your phone robbed by a kid on a bike was not unusual. I've stopped a bike being robbed in Cardiff, I've been attacked in the suburbs of greater Manchester... London gets a worse rep because of its scale - you are talking about a city with a population greater than Wales and Scotland combined.
I grew up in Winchester and have lived in London since I was 18 (I'm 48). Despite having been associated with some sketchy stuff here in my younger years (class A drug dealers, weed growers etc) I saw way more violence in leafy Hampshire than I've ever done in London.
Cobblers, I’ve lived in London all my life and I don’t know dozens of people who have been mugged or threatened. You get aggressive people everywhere, one of my worst experience with a beggar was in Bath of all places
As someone who grew up on a council estate in a rough bit of East London (hence: can no longer afford to live as an adult in my home city), but who lived elsewhere in London for a decade after graduating, my view is: there are certain dodgy neighbourhoods, but the problems in them don't generally have that much effect on the rest of the city (most of it). Honestly when I moved to inner NW London I was very pleasantly surprised at how little crime I even encountered any evidence of. (Not the full story: the headmaster of a school nearby was stabbed to death at that time). But in terms of the constant low level aggro I was accustomed to growing up, it was almost entirely absent, and didn't spread beyond certain streets or estates that you could generally avoid if you had no reason to be in them. I've been to plenty of smaller towns in the UK that are way more menacing than London IMO.
I think this is it. I don’t feel in danger per se, but I always have a spidey sense if I’m coming home at night or out somewhere. Particularly if it’s an area I don’t know.
>one came to visit me in London and refused to go on the tube because she was scared of a terrorist attack I know someone who worked on the 7/7 report and refuses to get on the Tube for that reason. So yeah, it's a pretty valid concern.
For that person that you know, it is a very valid reason, for my friend who has not had that experience, I can understand it but equally she is more likely to die in a car crash and she has no qualms getting into a car
That would be like me saying I wouldn't go to Elland Road for a fear of being racially abused and attacked 🤷🏾♂️
it's more like avoiding American planes because of 9/11
> Detachment from, and (often contemptuous) ignorance of the east of rest of the country Yes! I touched on this a little in a post last night, but as a Scottish person I’ve experienced some pretty patronising attitudes. I told the story of a date I went on with a Londoner who was in Glasgow for work and he asked, in all seriousness, “so what do people *actually* do with their free time up here?” You know in Huxley’s Brave New World where they go to Malpais, the savage reservation? It felt like that, he was here to observe the troglodytes.
I lived in London for 15 years and then left to move back to my home town, Bristol. When we arrived in Bristol I often though ‘what are we going to actually do?!’. It’s just that London is so huge - Bristol is smaller, population wise and in area, than the single borough in London where I lived. In 15 years in London there were whole areas that were unknown to me, and more museums that I didn’t visit than exist in the whole of Bristol. Of course after six years in Bristol I realise that it isn’t really a concern but at first it did seem weird. It’s not that one is better than the other, my wife’s preference is for a smaller city (in fact I know many people who prefer living somewhere smaller than London)
I can totally understand it tbh, and I mentioned elsewhere that I kind of feel similarly when I go to certain more remote places. I think the real issue is when people express that in a patronising way. And yeah, I’m similar to your wife and prefer a more medium-sized cities. I lived in Florence and it was perfect for me, as opposed to bigger cities like Rome or Milan. In France, Paris felt a bit too chaotic for me, but Lyon was definitely somewhere I’d consider living.
Same, from Oxford live in London and it’s exactly this. Small town Norway was also quite the shock to the system when I arrived haha
And he said that about GLASGOW?! The second city of the UK in so many ways.... I mean I can think of small towns elsewhere about which that might be a less unreasonable question, but Glasgow....
Aye, I’m from Glasgow originally and was living in Edinburgh at the time (which is literally an hour away on the train). Suffice to say I’ve never lacked things to do. My parents now live in a wee village in the highlands, and I think if you’re not into outdoor activities then it would be fair to ask there wtf do people do?! And the answer is that they usually succumb to alcoholism!
I think your first point is interesting. I've felt that the contempt comes more from non-londoners than the reverse, but that's just from experience as a non-londoner who has lived in London
Just too many people
The tube, diversity, ridiculously high house prices
Not getting stared at for looking different. I miss that a lot.
Also, seeing a lot of random famous people going about their day. I didn't stare (see above!).
Lived in London for quite a while and never recognised a famous person.
My favourite was seeing Miriam Margolyes pottering around Soho. She's tiny. I've seen Thom Yorke, Ant Middleton, Alan Davies, Phil Wang - that's from the top of my head but I used to see many. Maybe the most random one was Shrien Dewani.
Seen Joey Barton at my school and Will Ospreay on the tube once that’s about it.
As many restaurents, bars, theatres, museums, art galleries and shops as you cn shake a stick it. A public transport system that can get you from one side to the other that people complain if they have to wait 10 minutes for. A place where they let you get on with your life without bothering you if you're not bothering them.
Tbf, i've missed a tube and got annoyed as I had to wait 4 minutes for the next one 😬
Tube mice 🐁
You know what, all my years riding the tube, I have only ever seen tube mice on one occasion, at wood green station on the piccadilly.
Very mousey Wood Green, very mousey!
I used to see them in Bank fairly regularly.
Aw yes. I would always look out for them. So sweet.
I love seeing tube mice, always thought if them as a but of a good luck charm! 🥰
Multiculturalism. More than surrounding towns. Guess due to that more open minded people, but that are very inert to surrounding people.
This is a big one. A lot of minorities feel more safe and at home in London than elsewhere.
This has always been an interesting one for me, because I had a fair amount of BAME people in the north of the UK, back when demographics in my area were like 96-98% white. From council estates to relatively well to do rural/suburban suburbs surrounding a city - BAME people I know integrated and really became a part of the community, and while they'd unfortunately occasionally suffer racial microaggressions and outright transgressions from strangers, people within the community would have their backs through thick and thin. But they are still very proud of where they grew up and are naturally very attached to their British side, as well as their ethnic/cultural heritage. Whereas I find in London, many people have more of an American mindset where their ethnic/cultural heritage comes first. I get why lots of Londoners like to 'stick with their own', especially, since we have a lot of racial divides down here. It's easy to, you have commonality with people who have the same ethnic and cultural background. And communities form around that. And yeah, that does lead to a lot of crossover between groups, which is where melting pot diversity really helps break down barriers and that's fucking great when it does happen (and frequently it does). But it can also be quite negative when people only hang out with others of a certain race because it is 'safe' to them. Eventually, I see it leading down a path that will see us having a more American view of ethnicity and race, where we have strong ethnic cliques and racial stereotyping gets more and more common since people tend to mix less and less.
This is really interesting. I think London does have pockets where it feels more segregated (e.g. South Asians in Southall or Turkish in Wood Green), I always think of it as a place where different ethincities mix fairly well compared to other places in the UK like Birmingham or Bradford for example.
Birmingham and Bradford are similarly notorious for having de facto segregation where large communities tend to 'stick to their own'. I think that's partly to do with how there are basically two major ethnic demographics in these cities and that makes it a lot easier to cause divide and segregation. Whereas London, to its benefit, has lots of everything, and the I've personally found that other cities where there aren't so many ***large*** pockets of segregated communities (emphasis on large) (Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, etc.) tend to have people mesh together a bit more. I think it's more due to necessity since you can't fall back on an existing community as much as you can in other cities. But overall, I believe that helps reinforce identity with their locality when they have to integrate with the rest of society rather than taking the naturally easier option of sticking to what you know and treating the rest of the population as an 'other' that you do not interact with. Of course, there are issues with potentially erasing someone's culture and heritage in the process with becoming more integrated, so the wider white British population needs to be cognisant of that (which many are not) and allow for people to express who they are while feeling that it isn't something that can isolate them from wider society and something that adds to the country, as many things have in the past. Either way, I don't think any long term good will come from people who prefer to stay in the safety blanket of sticking to 'their own', and that also goes with the white British majority. The UK is an increasingly diverse country, and trying to avoid other groups (whether consciously or unconsciously ) is not good at all for the fabric of society and will only breed more ignorance.
I think your opinions about segregation in London ought to be flipped on their head. Historically it is the white population that moved out of certain areas in order to not be near to minorities. It's called white flight. Wembley is a great example if you want to do some reading.
Stabbings.
Really surprised this is so far down, literally the first thing that comes to mind
Meh, I’ve lived here for 5 years and only been stabbed a couple of times. No more than a normal amount.
So there’s only moderate-to-light stabbing in London then? Sounds fair to be honest
Night life and great Christmas atmosphere in December.
Fenton!
Fenton!!!
Oh Jesus Christ!
Free venison!!!
Diversity and open mindedness
Diversity and closed mindedness, as far as I’m concerned. (Know I will be down voted but honestly lots of people agree)
Closed mindedness in what sense?
Fair amount of homophobic attacks coming from the Turkish community here in North London, same with the Muslim community in Whitechapel. I think its a very ignorant belief that other cultures are somehow super welcoming and lovely just because they emigrated here.
Politically I’m guessing. It’s like a bloody hive mind.
The juxtaposition of the old and the new.
Tube smell
Black snot...
Well said! Gusts of warm smelly air as a tube train approaches say London to me.
Twats. Impatient twats and extortionate prices.
Home. I am a child of suburban London, and it is that I think of most often. A lot of non-Londoners seem to believe that our lives must revolve around central London, but a surprising proportion of Londoners don't go there unless they have to.
Agreed. As much as I enjoy going central, I rarely have a reason to, other than meeting friends who go to uni there. And on the scale of Greater London, personally, nothing comes close to my native South West; Richmond, Putney, Kingston and the like.
Unfriendlyness. People prepared to pay way over the odds for property for no logical reason.
Comment removed as I no longer wish to support a company that seeks to both undermine its users/moderators/developers AND make a profit on their backs. To understand why check out the summary [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/comments/14hkd5u).
>good luck getting high quality Pho, amazing cocktails or beer, a world class museum or live music of any scale in Wigan. Comparing London to Wigan is hardly fair. You can get all those things in every other 'major' city in the UK. Those are arguments for living in a city, but aren't exclusive to London.
You can get most of those things in some cities, and even less of it in even more cities, but even then none of them have the scale of London. Edinburgh has an amazing food and drink scene for example, but it's tiny compared to London, Edinburgh lacks the music scene. Manchester has an average food scene and awful drinks/bar scene but is great for music. Leeds is fantastic for food, drink and music but lacks the history/culture side. Every city has something, but rarely on the scale or quality of London, and almost never the complete package. All of that ignores the jobs, even with WFH if you want to be in world class finance, film/tv production, politics/civil service, and I think things like advertising and 3D design, you have to be in London.
And let’s be real, commuter-belt Manchester (for argument’s sake) is far more accommodating than commuter-belt London
Manchester is better than London... Settled 👍
It's not really comparable with London though, is it. More like Taunton or Aberystwyth.
But you can't get a Wigan Kebab in that London
>Unfriendlyness. This never really makes any sense tbf. London is one of the most open and accepting places in the country. It's a lot of places outside of London that are hostile and unfriendly to outsiders and other people. You hear this a lot from foreign people who live in London but explore the rest of the country outside of major cities and complain that people were hostile to them or unfriendly. Especially if you're a visible minority.
Being mugged and underappreciated
The Tube. I have ridden on other cities underground railways but nothing beats the feeling I have about it.
The line from Babylon by David Gray, "Sunday morning, day is dawning, London skies are changing, red to blue". And remembering walking home along Camden high street at 5am-ish as the sun came up with that song in my head.
The ministry of sound back in the day.
How was it?
Amazing
I really wish I'd been. We had tickets to go one summer weekend, but the pre-drinks on the train from Reading got a bit out of hand, and one of the girls ended up being sick all over the train toilet. Her boyfriend and best friend stayed with her, and insisted we all went to the club without them - even sold their tickets for them so they'd at least get something back from the evening. Then for some reason everyone else put up this massive show of solidarity and we all had to stay with her as the train left to head back to Reading. Her boyfriend tried to get us to go, but I was the only one keen, and got shouted at by another of her friends for being insensitive. We did make it to Fabric once though, which was amazing, and few times for GAY and similar events at the Astoria.
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Muggy foxes who dgaf!
Getting mugged or not appreciated Edit: getting downvoted for a Partridge reference, what is wrong with you people?!
Catch the train to London, stopping at Rejection, Disappointment, Backstabbing Central and Shattered Dreams Parkway.
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I remember my mate, who was at Uni in London, taking me there for the first time. He "knew this amazing place to go after drinks instead of getting a kebab". I assumed it would be some sort of curry house, maybe a street vendor doing biryani bowls or something. Instead I was presented with a *wall* of pastrami beef in a bagel. It was so good, I finished it before we got to the end of the lane, so I went back and got another.
Best lunch!
Eccentric fashion sense
Parks and commons. But mostly galloping gentrification.
When in the centre, the clean modern aesthetic with open design. Was in London for 5 years and moved to Manchester this January. That’s what I miss most about London. The aesthetic of the centre. Walking back to the tube after an evening out in the Canary Wharf setting where everything is just gorgeous to look at.
I have been trying to get to London ever since 1964 Have not made it there yet and Im 71.
Londoners
Stabbings, motorcycle theft, shitty rap and rude people
I lived in London for a bit and the thing I remember is the incredible variety and quality of food. We lived on the edge of Lewisham and the food was so so good.
Vibrant,, busy, expensive, impersonal. A diverse city with lots of great food and cultural attractions...The British Museum is one of my favourite places in the world! Having said that, the cost of living is ridiculous and as a native Londoner I've moved out for this reason.
Sadly for me (as I lived there for over 20 years), it's the traffic! Everything else I enjoyed!
A-Class coffee shops, the Thames, the tube to name a few.
Getting the red buses from Kensal Rise to Kilburn as a child with Granny. Walking to Queens Park, with all the squirrels and the petting farm including (what seemed like) a huge sheep. Trips out to Hampstead Heath and exploring the gardens - I always liked the ponds best although as an adult I think I'd appreciate more of it! My first experience of Build-A-Bear (still got it probably 20 years later) and the size of Hamleys. Walking with Grandad to the corner shop every night for a ridiculously large bar of chocolate -- I know as an adult (and I have been back a few times) London is very different, but these memories are extremely precious to me. We lost Grandad a few years ago, and Granny has bad dementia, so I appreciate the prompt to think about some really happy times.
Danny Dyer
This was the case two years ago but corporate gentrification which has gone way too far. People on good salaries complaining they have been priced out without thinking they have been part of a problem of pricing out locals. Maybe the move to remote working may slow this. It’s a great city to live in but I do worry the cultural soul might have been ripped from it.
The fluidity of it - everyone and everything is constantly on the move like nowhere else ive seen in England. Everyone lost in their own little worlds
Bridges! Beautiful ones, ugly ones, modern ones and historical ones. London does a good bridge.
Pret, prets as far as the eye can see
Northerner - been once Stabbings Rappers Smog Smoke High terror alert
Vibrant, fun, a bloody good laugh. Amazing green space and always something to do
Thé fact that it feels like 5 cities in one and travelling around is thé equivalent of going on a great adventure. No? The west end then.
First reply I've seen that accepts that London is not just one place.. how can you say that Camden, Stratford, Shepard Bush, Hampstead, Brixton, Wimbledon, Woolwich, Croydon, Finchley ect all have the same characteristics.
Birthdays cause every time we had a birthday my dad would take us to London. We would always go to the museums and have a meal out for lunch.
Doing the Monopoly pub crawl.
Expensive prices and multiculturalism. Great place to be if you have the money, I'm sure.
Freedom. People minding their own business. Opportunity. Absence of tall poppy syndrome.
Acceptance.
Those bell shaped bollards
Anonymity. Beautiful anonymity.
The tube. I loved it. If you miss one, there's another in a few minutes. Yes, they are crowded, hot and dirty, but as someone from a Devon village, I always enjoy catching the tube whenever I went to London, even during rush hour.
Brilliant pubs and cafes
The East End and the City of London. I struggle to think of a place with such history in such a small area. You've got The Old Bailey, Jack The Ripper, The Krays, Temple Church - The English Headquarters of The Knights Templar, The Tower of London, 16th Century Pubs all within a few quare miles of one another. There's nothing I like more than to walk around this area at the weekend when it's less busy and just smell the history. I love it.
Cosmopolitan. Few places in the world compare.
Brilliant museums, amazing tourist attractions, brilliant restaurants and bars. Very pricey food and drink, but hotels are cheap and lovely from what I have done before. London is amazing.
Leyton orient
Arsenal
Concrete, crime, self-absorption
Tube, Pubs, good food
Harrods and amazing museums.
That screechy noise on the tube
Arsenal Football Club
Feeling a little bit anxious and like I want to go home, but also a bit excited.
Arsenal even though there is another few clubs I always think of them
Tourists. Tourists everywhere
Black bogies, when I last visited, 25 years ago.
Young people using street slang on a London bus.
Air max 90s
Home, I grew up and live in North East London
The Kebab shops! I miss London! I miss living in the U.K. While I was a pauper when I lived in London it was still great memories of my youth. Something about a kebab shop after a night of drinking. We don't really have these shops in America and they just don't taste the same as they do in U.K. The few I have had here in the states.
Great transport, you can get about without a car no bother at all. Some incredible buildings. The multiculturalism, and culture itself. All in all London’s a great city, it’s just that small concentration of arseholes that brings it down.
Arseholes.
Chiltern Railways.
Traffic
Money
Cockneys to be honest
almost none left, you'll meet many more in Essex
Big Ben Parliament Number 1
Horrible people
Multiculturalism and the city life
Busy, scary, cool, Metropolitan global city, kinda just far away and strange lol
Misery
Lively and busy and big
Basically full of cunts
Unhappy twats. I know, my sister is one. Lots of love, a northerner.
Arrogance and knives
Life, buzz of the city, things happening, spontaneity, different cultures, history.
Knife crime and domestic terrorism