Things that suck about London: A List

No Cuban Sandwiches

Not enough hills

http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/wanker.jpg

More than a million Boris-voting morons live here.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41167000/jpg/_41167945_porter_bbc203.jpg

http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/700870.jpg

L TO THA O TO THA MOTHERLOVIN L

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/2704_bnp.shtml

http://www.bromley.gov.uk/publicresources/images/bannerspring.jpg

The weather.

Everything costs 3x more than it should.

(98% of the) pizza.

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200711/r200145_765759.jpg

http://www.royal-magazin.de/england/images/qmum/gb-queen-mum-greville-neck-.jpg

Bendy buses oh dear how terrible how will we all possibly get through our day?!

Clapham on a Friday or Saturday night.

Clapham on a Friday or Saturday night.

The lack of respect for the West.

http://www.dailywireless.org/images/up/cityoflondon.jpg

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42722000/jpg/_42722513_wembley_aerial_pa_416.jpg

you've got all our best tramps.

all too often unable to get on a bus after work because of the overcrowding / hellish commuting experience for so many people

cranes and unattended roadworks everywhere

general lack of integration between cultures beyond service

the amount of discarded rubbish on London transport

particularly

http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/std/siteimages/til-header/londonlite-logo.gif
http://img.metro.co.uk/i/mastHead/logo_285x70.gif
http://www.thelondonpaper.com/nav_test/img/logo.gif

That this is our only citywide newspaper:

http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/std/siteimages/eveningstandard/new-header.jpg

http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/std/siteimages/eveningstandard/election/london-assembly-map-results.jpg

The inability of londoners to ease themselves into a seat on public transport. PILEDRIVERRRRRRR.

most pubs still close at 11 every night

^^ Why you're no longer an empire, btw.

The parks are full of cute girls but how can one enjoy then when any one of them may not have voted or voted for boris.

Tube stops running at midnight. I've only spent a month in London, but that is by far my biggest complaint.

Not coastal

I love the unattended cranes and building sites!

Tube stops running at midnight. I've only spent a month in London, but that is by far my biggest complaint.

Apparently this is because they need to spend all night mending it, as the whole system is creaking to an alarming degree.

people from zone 7 living in zone 2

You with your chorleywood hatred.

fuck a rickmansworth

Apparently this is because they need to spend all night mending it, as the whole system is creaking to an alarming degree.

don't worry, boris ill sort that.

will

the bakerloo line

C'mon Londoners, you can do better than this! Are you gonna let those spoiled New Yorkers get away with thinking their city sucks more than yours? Who the hell do they think they are?

http://www.guilleminot.org/mytravels/pictureslondon/camden-town.jpg

... What is IT? yeegads

Upper Street. Estate agents, shit pub, estate agents, overpriced fake patisserie/coffee bar, estate agents, enormous barn-like pub with neon sign outside, estate agents, estate agents, characterless tapas bar with catering secretly from Brake Brothers, estate agents, stupid sculpture of an angel, estate agents...

... general sense of feeling far too pleased with itself, estate agents, estate agents...

That wasn't answering JW's question btw. Answer to JW's question = Camden High Street.

what is an "Estate agent" -- real estate?

yep

MDC on a roll now.

The fact that the Square Mile contains some of the greatest buildings in the whole of London and is populated almost exclusively with cockfarmers.

Our general sense of indignant superiority to the tourists whose constant wandering around in a state of bewilderment and suppressed disappointment is the thing that keeps this fucking city going.

I'd be confused too with your confusing public transit.

So confused I used confused 2x in one post

Our public transport is less confusing than yours. Its more that ours is a debilitating overpriced overcrowded grind.

The fact that all the best pubs seem constantly at risk of closing down or otherwise disappearing without a hint of warning.

The utterly baffling assumption that because you're at an indie or rock based venue you want your toilet experience to involve wading ankle deep through other people's piss to get to one cubicle with a broken seat and no lock.

The enormous cultural void that is the area immediately surrounding Victoria station.

Sandwich bars that charge you 20p for lettuce.

They've demolished the Kings Cross Goodsyard where all those awesome clubs were.

"travelcard zones"

Sandwich bars that charge you 20p for lettuce.

-- Matt DC, Saturday, May 3, 2008 2:14 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

jesus christ!

general inability this decade to throw up the kind of artists/bands i want

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelcard

OK, how is this less confusing than the Metrocard

Our ticketing system is probably more confusing. Our underground lines, and the fact that trains at least have the courtesy to stop at every station, and that the fucking map makes sense, are less confusing.

http://www.geocities.com/londonfootball/Images/Millwall/millwall1.jpg

NOTHING IN THE WHOLE OF LONDON SUCKS MORE THAN THIS.

not being able to get a direct bus from hackney to limehouse or from kings cross to shoreditch

214, blueski!

214 does not go to shoreditch - i want a bus that turns left at old st roundabout (none of them do, must be some kind of crazy 100 year old rule)

black teenage gang shootings goes without saying i guess

i want a bus that turns left at old st roundabout (none of them do, must be some kind of crazy 100 year old rule)

or right for that matter

http://girl-from-mars.me.uk/images/Shopping%20City%20(GFM).jpg

THIS FUCKING MONSTROSITY and the whole area around it. Wood Green is the worst place in London.

hate Elephant & Castle more

Wow I've never seen that. What does it say? Osteopath city?

E & C is pretty grim but hey it's all gonna be razed and developed into pedestrianised euro cafe culture (i ain't holding my breath)

At least they are knocking Elephant & Castle down! Wood Green Shopping City is whatever crack-addled town planner's idea of "urban regeneration".

E&C will be way gentrified in 10 years time, look how central it is!

fuck gentrification. such a weasel word.

no giant plasma screen at piccadilly circus showing live video game challenges

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1277/1264479643_426805ba50_b.jpg

No Cuban Sandwiches

-- Ed, Saturday, 3 May 2008 09:58 (9 hours ago) Link

this is an outrage

Tottenham High Road

In fact Tottenham in general

The number 29 bus

Wood Green seconded

"Table’s Cuban sandwich (£3.95) is winning fans across the South Bank. It comprises slices of pork shoulder marinated in a secret-recipe Cuban rub for 24 hours, slow-roasted for 14 hours and stuffed inside a grilled ciabatta roll with mortadella ham, pickles and red pepper aioli with basil.
Table, 83 Southwark St, SE1"

I daresay it's a bastardised abomination. Not that I would know.

The fact that you can't use Oyster on certain overground lines but can on others.

FACS? xp

http://roselli.org/tour/photos/Famous_London_sites/Covent_Garden_01.jpg

http://www.paulrussell.info/january06/january06fs/D8243fs.jpg

http://www.hanbag.net/USERIMAGES/clown.jpg

lobsters on the pier

After posting about the cuban sandwich I googled the beast and found the same as mr ledge did. So I trundled down their to find that the cuban sandwich is monday to thursday only. It is also in ciabatta which makes me suspicious. I ate a mediocre grilled chicken cesar salad and still I hunger for a cuban sandwich.

Insistence on looking like the 1950s, e.g. cabs that are made in 2006 and look/smell fifty years old

someone just won an election with that

8478587342652398476593827465837562894 highly-paid guardsfolk poncing around Buckingham Palace oblivious to the homeless people in Green Park

8478587342652398476593827465837562894 highly-paid guardsfolk tourists poncing around Buckingham Palace oblivious to the homeless people in Green Park

Ed, why not make your own Cuban sandwich?

8478587342652398476593827465837562894 highly-paid guardsfolk tourists poncing around Buckingham Palace oblivious to the homeless people in Green Park

I am seriously considering that, either that or having my girlfriend greet me at JFK with said item.

xpost

terminal 3 at heathrow

heathrow

The fact that you can't use Oyster on certain overground lines but can on others.

-- Matt #2, Saturday, 3 May 2008 19:14 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Or that they're valid on some lines up to a CERTAIN POINT beyond which they are not valid.

Hi Ed! how did Dr. Who end up, i missed it

he won in extra time.

heh

CCTV

the feeling that every square inch of london was mapped out and sold to someone long agao

90% of its bus drivers

creepy mobile CCTV

tube works on sundays

indeed, either running slow to keep to time or lurching and heavy braking.

xpost

no recycling pickup in large buildings in hackney

no beach

no bins

and the consequent rubbish everywhere

not true abt teh beaches

http://www.artofthestate.co.uk/photos/thames_beach.jpg

mmm

haha

i wonder if boris will carry through ken's actual beach idea, a la paris

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2872752.ece

all the pretty colours on the skyline

http://image.guim.co.uk/Guardian/arts/gallery/2007/jul/05/architecture.artnews/14-1892.jpg

i never really feel safe at night in london. im always fearful that some drunk aggro dudes are going to pop out of nowhere and start beating on me.

2 nights ago some guy at a shoreditch bar jabbed me in my side and told me he was going to stab me in my kidneys!! he was scary

Mohamed al Fayed and his looney monuments

xp did he do anything or just run off?

Westminster city council, the fun-hatingest council there is.

yeah what phil said - theft and just general aggression, though the latter much more outside of london

xp did he do anything or just run off?
well he thankfully didnt shank me in the kidney, but he said something about making sure i'm a marked man. im not really sure what made him so upset. i think i didn't move out of his way quickly enough.

just seems like drunk london dudes are always looking for a fight... ugh

also the food sucks.

and wtf how do asian restaurants there actually get away with charging $2 for a bowl of rice???

or charging £1.50 to turn fish & chips into a fish & chip butty

no old style FAPs anymore (for a few years now) kinda sucks

surprised a lot of you guys aren't at poptimism

surprised you care

never too late for mr butthurt

the new-this-month "decor" at poptimism: yes crappily drawn cartoons all over the walls of goth ultrabondage featuring naked girls being tortured and stabbed by red devils -- mmm-mmm sounds good you say? you would be wrong

i am struggling to think of anything -- i am such a ho for london... in a minute i will be up on the roof getting the washing in and looking at the night skyline which is actually awesome (from my roof)

sorry to be killjoy :(

ed, that cubana cafe on smith st that has the cuban you like also has a location in soho on thompson st. same menu. in case you need one while you are in that area.

FACS?

yeah man let's do it.

the bizarre lack of functioning ATMs anywhere but banks

The lack of even a decent supermarket in the majority of neighborhoods.

The price-gouging (over and above yr standard uk '08 inflationary prices) carried out by corner shops.

(True story: I once caught the woman who ran the shop by our old place going through a whole box of iced teas--the bottles had, as part of the manufacturer's label, a red circle that said 79p!. She was cutting the circle off each label with an exacto knife so they could then charge £1.79. This shop later asked me to sign a 'save our shops' petition.)

To be fair the price of things has gone crazy lately, very swiftly

that's why i started buying organic food 2 years ago - to soften the blow

I only ever buy manufacturer-priced tea bags and loo roll from small shops when I know they apply 'convenience' prices to everything else. BTW G00blar shop lady could've gotten in serious deep shit for the thing you caught her doing, Trading Standards Authority generally unhappy about fraud and OH JOY probably on their CCTV to boot.

Why would the lady have got in shit with trading standards, she is not obligated to sell anything at the price the manufacturer sets?

xpost Also to be fair: the new shop that just opened around the corner, run by a nice Turkish couple, could go in a thread called: "Things that are pretty good about London: A List." Fair prices, a surprisingly large selection of decent produce, and crazy curious turkish and polish imports.

Things that are pretty good about London: A List

the new-this-month "decor" at poptimism: yes crappily drawn cartoons all over the walls of goth ultrabondage featuring naked girls being tortured and stabbed by red devils -- mmm-mmm sounds good you say? you would be wrong

I didn't even notice this! Jaysus.

maniacs at the ticket barriers at liverpool street underground station, i hate you

i mean it's sunday! calm down!

Wood Green is the worst place in London.

No A/C on most of the public transport
Bus drivers leave the heating on in summer.

Cunts riding bikes on pavement

Insane fares on buses and tubes for tourists and anyone who forgot their Oyster that morning

Buses moving in first gear on clear roads on Bank Holidays because they've got to stick to their stupid schedule. I don't suppose Fuehrer Boris will be doing anything about that either.

People whining about the cash fares on the buses and tubes when there are a any number of ways of not paying them. (oyster, bus saver, bus pass, travelcard....)

Sven Svenson and his Swinging Backpackers attempting to walk twelve abreast on a three-feet-wide pavement.

People whining about the cash fares on the buses and tubes when there are a any number of ways of not paying them. (oyster, bus saver, bus pass, travelcard....)

but what if you are in a hurry to catch a bus, and nowhere near a top-up point? or you have forgotten your oyster card at home? it's just a way to scalp tourists and people who are in a rush.

If you are in a rush - auto top-up
If you are a tourist read the signs and leaftlets that are in every conceivable language at every point of entry into london and in every hotel lobby, or read a guidebook.

Herds of exchange students stopped on major thoroughfares.

why not just scrap cash fares altogether then xp

Also, don't forget your Oyster card. It's not Tractacus.

Sven Svenson and his Swinging Backpackers attempting to walk twelve abreast on a three-feet-wide pavement

Yes. And people who actually don't seem to understand that they're walking down a pavement in a city. they're not herding goats on a hillside somewhere.

They should, and ticket machines should vend oyster cards (they do in Singapore.)

In general, a lack of "urbanity". Too many non-city people who don't understand how to act in a city.

There ought to be a two part test like the driving test

In general, a lack of "urbanity". Too many non-city people who don't understand how to act in a city.

-- Tom D., Tuesday, May 6, 2008 12:02 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

& too many city people who don't realise the rest of the country/world exists

self-centred commuters all angrily trying to barge in front of one another at rush hour

Dimwits rushing to shoehorn themselves on to an already overstuffed bus when there's another bus with no-one on it 2 minutes behind it - esp. as there are now so many people on the 1st bus that it can only crawl along at 10mph and it has to stop at every single stop along the way to let various dimwits out: meanwhile the 2nd bus has overtaken it and is shooting off into the distance

ah yes but sometimes the second bus is already full because it was overtaken by the first bus at the previous stop. complex risk strategies come into play here.

And sometimes you stick your paw out for the other bus and the driver doesn't see you past the first bus or all the people milling, or does see you but isn't going to bother stopping for you when there's already a bus there, and you're not on a bus and the first bus pulls away.

Someone said it was not Coastal - actually, according to Neil Oliver on Coast, OH YES IT IS!!!

My current London hate - the way that they constantly seem to be digging up or reconstructing whichever bit of road or tube it is that I currently need to be travelling over. It took me TWO HOURS to get to De Beauvoir town the other night! Because Liverpool Street was closed, we had to go on an interminable tour of one-way streets of the East End.

And are they ever going to finish the Victoria Line? I mean, why on EARTH would anyone ever want to go anywhere at the weekends?

Yes, sometimes it seems like the whole place is basically one big building site

The evident satisfaction on the faces of bus drivers when passengers moan at them about the bus stopping or crawling and say WE PAY YOUR WAGES which gives the drivers the opportunity to grin back and reply NO YOU DON'T

(again I cannot envisage shareholder-worshipping Boris doing anything about this)

Oh no, now I've got U2 stuck in my head STILL BUILDING THEM BUUURRRRNING THEM DOWN!!!!

people from the suburbs (ie not really London) allowed to vote in an idiot as OUR mayor

Well, quite.

Bexley is NOT London!

And are they ever going to finish the Victoria Line? I mean, why on EARTH would anyone ever want to go anywhere at the weekends?

Things that suck about London: how much more the rest of the country sucks, but anyone who could do anything about it (plus everyone else who ever noticed, everyone aged 20-40, etc) lives in London, and doesn't need to remember that anywhere else exists

(Have I turned into Calum? Buses every two minutes, maybe even after 7pm - yes please!)

Cunty Boris-voting neighbours who wrinkle their nose up at me in undisguised contempt as I venture out of a morning.

Tom Conti, Molly Parkin...

...although that is not as bad as cunty Boris-voting bar customers in the beer garden braying all bloody weekend about "YAH WE WON" etc.

Will Cunty Boris turn Whitechapel into a whites-only area? ONLY TIME WILL TELL

The song "Warwick Avenue" by cunty Duffy.

West London
Southwest 'London'

DON'T FUCKING TRY IT

postcode snobbery

yah

Defend the Indefensible: Mitcham

He was better in "Cape Fear" than De Niro was in the remake

Defend the Indefensible: Mitcham

-- Ed, Tuesday, 6 May 2008 16:26 (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

1. Ian Catt's studio there.
2. Er... that's it.

Can't compare with Marvin Gaye's worldwide hit "Sexual Ealing" and his shelved follow-up "Randy Acton."

Young professionals moving to Lambeth for EDGY urban London life - classic or dud?

How absurdly territorial and competetive people get about the little areas they live in

^^^only experienced this from aspirational young urban etc etc not real londoners

^^^only experienced this from aspirational young urban etc etc not real londoners

OTM.

You're fucking kidding me, right?

no

Ever heard of postcode gangs?

Or are they not populated by "real" Londoners?

i think yr being deliberately disingenuous, poo

On ILX? As if that could happen.

W6 postcode gang member here, then.

* MEXICAN FOOD. Don't you DARE try to throw out Texas Embassy or Cafe Pacifico. The 6 months old Wahaca in Covent Garden is really awesome, but ALWAYS packed (and also not really all that Mexican - it's pretty fancy-pants fusion-y - but it is as close as London gets). I tried a place called "El Paso Cafe" somewhere in Putney one night and was told my options for sides for my enchiladas were not rice and beans, but garlic bread and hummous!!!

* New York is guilty of this too, sometimes (mostly due to tourists who gum up the works), but I have never seen anything like London commuters' pathological inability to stick to one side of the pavement/staircase/escalator/etc. when moving around the city. It's not that hard... everything moves so much more quickly and efficiently when people, say, stick to the right when walking somewhere! Or the left! Just PICK ONE FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!

* Customer Service: Another old-tyme-y stereotype along with "bad food," in all the travel guides, but heavens is this one ever true. I have stood in shops PLEADING with employees to take my money in exchange for goods or services and just been glared at. I've had simple trips to the grocery store turn into epic trials of the human spirit. I want to be sold to! Come hound me like gnats when I walk in the shop!

* Speaking of which, grocery stores! Buy more units of your products! Trip to Tesco yesterday - list: 2 green peppers, boneless chicken breasts, 6 pack of Coke Zero, skim milk, ground cinnamon. They had literally NONE of the items I needed. 1pm, Monday afternoon. What's going on?!?

* Rain. I almost don't want to mention it after we've now had 3 consecutive beautiful days (the nicest run in years), but... god almighty. It's oppressive sometimes.

All that said, everyone's been lovely, people are nice, it's a fun town!

Come to think of it, there's nothing that intrinsically sucks about London. I guess there would be things that would suck in general and about my life, but they aren't place dependent. It's a town, it'll fade away in time.

> 1pm, Monday afternoon. What's going on?!?

a bank holiday

it didn't rain more than 6 times the six months I lived in London

you want oppressive rain come live in Glasgow

- ppl who are palpably rich
- aus/sth african cabal in wimbledon
- wtf with all the chains, london?
- cinema us v.v. expensive
- taxis are excruciatingly expensive

Tube stops running at midnight. I've only spent a month in London, but that is by far my biggest complaint.

This was pretty much the only thing that really sucked in two weeks I spent there last year. Exacerbated by all-week repairs on the Victoria Line and staying in Brixton.

Everything was maaaaaad expensive but you kinda expect that and hey, I was in holiday mode.

Pub food was really, really incredibly shit though my sample size was not really conclusive.

Cockney accent = horrible... thankfully you hardly ever hear it. Unfortunately you do hear the New London Accent a lot and that's possibly even worse than Cockney.

SS, have you tried Mestizo on the Hampstead Road?

Gun battles on the King's Road.

New York is guilty of this too, sometimes (mostly due to tourists who gum up the works), but I have never seen anything like London commuters' pathological inability to stick to one side of the pavement/staircase/escalator/etc. when moving around the city. It's not that hard... everything moves so much more quickly and efficiently when people, say, stick to the right when walking somewhere! Or the left! Just PICK ONE FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!

In my experience the escalator rule is very clearly walk on the left, stand on the right, and this is only occasionally broken by a handful of hapless tourists who are immediately shot in the temple by ruthless dead-eyed commuters

also people often say night buses are hell, but I find them to be an efficient, relaxing way to get home while monged at 4am, and all the crazies I have ever encountered on them have been riotously entertaining, even when threatening to kill me

the amount of discarded rubbish on London transport

particularly

http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/std/siteimages/til-header/londonlite-logo.gif
http://img.metro.co.uk/i/mastHead/logo_285x70.gif
http://www.thelondonpaper.com/nav_test/img/logo.gif

-- Ed, Saturday, 3 May 2008 11:45 (4 days ago) Bookmark Link

This is in no way london-specific, Ed! Discarded free shitty newspapers all over public transport up here too, probably everywhere where they give away the "metro".

Night buses are perhaps too relaxing for me as I have a tendency to fall asleep on them and end up in Cricklewood Bus Garage.

Can anyone confirm that there actually exists a place called Fulwell, since 90% of night buses from Hammersmith seem to go there?

SS, have you tried Mestizo on the Hampstead Road?

No, but just made plans for dinner! Looks like a bit of a hike from my Westworld, but I'll make it... Thanks for the tip...

Can anyone confirm that there actually exists a place called Fulwell, since 90% of night buses from Hammersmith seem to go there?

That reminds me of my theory that Faifley is almost entirely populated by people from Paisley who, while pished, got on the wrong night bus in George Square, ended up in Faifley, stayed there, mated with locals etc

"Here, mate, ish thish bush gon tae Paishley?"
"Faifley? Aye, hop oan"

OLD LADY - "lucky heather sir?"
ME - "erm no thanks"
OLD LADY - "oh you look like a nice person, go on, it's for the children"
ME - "*sigh*, go on then"

...gives me 'lucky heather', i give her 1 pound...

OLD LADY - "most people are giving ten pounds sir"
ME - "bye then"

My stock response to all "most people"-type remarks:

"I'm not 'most people.' I'm me."

That always teaches them not to try it.

Chuggers

Cue SwapShop gags &c.

Cheggers Can't Be Boozers etc

i like orfent-ick Cockney accents

Shock horror, King's Road gunman turns out to be solicitor and ex-squaddie.

Boris to convene special committee to examine degree of threat to the public posed by "one of us" who has "gorn off the rails."

In New Totalitarian London you can't have a beer on your way home anymore :(

Revenge suggestion: have Boris pulled off his bike and breathalysed on way home from beer/table football.

Defend the Indefensible: Mitcham

-- Ed,

Puffball mushrooms grow wild on the common.

Revenge suggestion: have Boris pulled off his bike and breathalysed on way home from beer/table football. set on fire.

Fixed.

Puffball mushrooms grow wild on the common.

-- Anna, Wednesday, 7 May 2008 23:35 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

password

Haha.

wow, i think i might be matt dc.

not being able to get a direct bus from hackney to limehouse

277??

Inside 72 shut down :(