33 Things That Are Literal Hell That Only Londoners Will Understand
Anyone who was raised (or who has lived) in London knows it to be an incredible place.
It’s cosmopolitan, multicultural and ethnically diverse. For many reasons, it’s an amazing city to live in; it's home to some of the world’s most beautiful architecture, landscaped parks, buzzing restaurants and a rich history.
But sharing a small space with fellow Londoners isn’t always easy, and sharing a packed tube carriage with fellow commuters never is. There are times when you just want to scream because the London you’re in is just miserable.
Now, I have been known to exaggerate. (I haven't ACTUALLY died 11 times today.)
But when your headache’s become a migraine, when your anger has become full-blown rage and when you get stabbed by yet another bloody umbrella, you can officially say it: This is hell.
I just KNOW every Londoner can relate to the below: all the things you know to be utterly hellish and horrendous in the generally wonderful City of London.
1. Any journey that begins or ends at Heathrow Airport: the largest, most complex and least functional airport to exist.
2. The most expensive train in the world: the Heathrow Express.
3. Oxford Street at Christmas, when you think the lights will be pretty, but you stop thinking that when you realize that a.) nothing will compare to the year when the lights were "Beauty and The Beast" themed, and b.) if one more person steps on your heels, you will have to kill him.
4. “Please Mind The Gap.” Please, please someone shoot this woman.
5. Any time you have to cross the river. Who even lives in South London, and could that person be less selfish?
6. Tube strikes. Oh, another one? Yep. And again? Yep. And now we have to look solemn whenever we hear Bob Crow's name.
7. Adverts precisely every nine seconds on the "X Factor."
8. People. Walking. Slowly.
9. Queuing at Starbucks and wondering for the millionth time why Pret doesn't just do iced coffee already.
10. Watching a STUPID tourist feed a STUPID pigeon. Like the city isn't infested enough.
11. Always being behind your American friends on TV programmes.
12. Not being able to get a reservation at Chiltern Firehouse for four months.
13. People standing on the left side of the escalator. This is not rocket science and you learn, in primary school, to stand on the right. Only, ever, the right.
14. ATMs never having £10 notes. Why is this? Is this just me or a general shortage of this particular note in circulation?
15. Tourists pronouncing Leicester Square “Lie-cester.”
16. Also, tourists mispronouncing Marylebone.
17. Tourists taking photos at the Beatles zebra crossing at Abbey Road.
18. Actually, all f*cking tourists.
19. Watching the taximeter jump extortionate amounts in three seconds.
20. Congestion charge now being £11.50. Is BoJo kidding?
21. Obviously, the weather, but worse…
22. Non-Londoners bitching about the sh*tty London weather.
23. Lack of late-night food delivery places. Any people who have ever lived in New York mourn for the time when they could get Chinese at 4 am.
24. Swiping your Oyster card and being told to “seek assistance.” And finding no one from whom to seek said assistance from.
25. Barbecuing in the pouring rain. So, most barbecues, really.
26. A two-hour queue at Burger and Lobster. At 6 pm. On a Tuesday.
27. The city, literally, losing the ability to function whenever it snows the teeniest bit.
28. The M1 on a Friday afternoon.
29. The M25, always.
30. Rail replacement buses.
31. Having the same clothes as everyone else because you all only shop at Topshop.
32. Not being able to find your car for hours at Westfield. Every time.
33. St Johns Wood tube station on a Lords cricket match day, when you realize there are more old men with straw hats in the world than you ever thought possible.
