Foreigners - CD/SD

I don't think it's too much to ask to require people to speak the local language before, say, getting a job at a call centre. Especially if your electricity has been cut off, or something. Otherwise, no complaints really. Except for tourists, who should all be made to dig their own mass grave before being dispatched by firing squads made up of commuters and people who actually have to live and work here.

First tourists against the wall can be the ones who seemed to think that the police closed off Oxford Street just as I was leaving work in order to sodding well entertain them and decided to stand around watching instead of getting out of my way. I wish the suspect vehicle had blown up on them.

I don't like tourists at all. In NYC, they just walk and take pictures, stopping in the middle of the street, mindless of who is around them, whether or not they are in the way, etc etc. And they don't even take pictures of actual things, like the Empire State Building or something, they take pictures of fucking Food Emporium and Conway! DON'T YOU HAVE STORES IN EUROPE? I also don't understand the fact that the only time I ever see Japanese tourists is in Time Square - if you are touristing in another country, why would you want to go to the one part of the city that actually resembles your major city, with its ridiculous neon lights and bizarre conglomeration of buildings? DON'T YOU HAVE NEON IN JAPAN? I KNOW YOU DO!

Oh, the whole thing boils me. Otherwise I have no problem with foreigners. The guy who sells me my cigarettes is foreign, and he is nice and always remembers my brand. One of my good friends whose birthday is this weekend is from Israel, that's foreign. My Italian side of the family are foreigners. It's really tourists I hate, not foreigners, tourists can also be from the Midwest or the West or the South (Southern ones are particularly awful). Foreigners are classic, but tourists are the spawn of all evil.

Actually, I just realized I hate commuters too. I'm paying Zone 1 rent, so stay in fucking Surrey for your Friday piss-ups.

When I was struggling along Shaftesbury Av the other evening it struck me: tourist only walking lanes! Barriered off. So they can meander along going "oooh! Les Mis!" and the locals can get on with earning a living.

DON'T YOU HAVE STORES IN EUROPE?

The thing is that Americans in Europe do this exact same thing. Except usually with things like lamp posts. AND SO WOULD YOU ALLY as would I if I came to New York. It's some kind of depressurisation of the brain cause by air travel.

The Americans have given the world many great things, but the exposed kneecap is not one of their better ones. Short pants on over-50s = DUD

i hate foreigners, but i hatre locals just as much, so I'm not really prejudiced.

The thing is that Americans in Europe do this exact same thing. Except usually with things like lamp posts. AND SO WOULD YOU ALLY

Um, no, I wouldn't, as I didn't in Brixton. I only take pictures of lamp posts if a friend has a leg wrapped around it and is hanging off, stripper style. I don't believe in taking tourist pictures, I refuse to do it (my roll of pics from Washington DC and Boston both prove this), I only take stupid pictures of my friends, and not even all my friends, but rather the same 4 or 5 people, over and over. I mean, I have like 800,000 pictures of Stephanie, Ramon and Adi, and I've only known Adi for like three weeks for fuck's sake. But NO pictures of cities I've been to. If you didn't know better, you'd think I never left the city.

I just don't like doing tourist things. I only like to drink and dance and be loud. These are not things that are conducive to going to, say, the catacombs and taking photographs.

Since I've never behaved touristy, I believe I have a right to smash on tourists, as I KNOW it can be done, to behave in a normal fashion on holiday or in a new city.

I've not taken a photo since I was 14. I do not like photographs. I quite like being in other peoples (though paradoxically they don't like me in them). But I do not really get the urge to do touristy things in other cities, much like I do not do touristy things in tourist heaven - London.

Ally, very interesting piece in this weeks Time Out saying that tourists never go to Brixton. So you are vindicated.

I think living in a very touristy area jades you to doing touristy things. I mean, I am a native New Yorker and have never:

1. Gone to the Statue of Liberty

2. Gone to the Empire State Building

3. Gone to similar things

I have gone to the World Trade Center, meaning the top (just going isn't really touristy, all the Path and subway trains go through there and there is a mall at the bottom of it, plus office buildings), because my now-roommate really wanted to do something touristy when she came to visit me last year. So we did that. And as revenge I forced her to walk back from Battery Park to my house on 66th St. Which is basically just over HALF of Manhattan.

I would take a picture of you, Pete. I love taking pictures.

Whilst we're on the subject of foreigners taking photos: Ned, what's happening with the Triggerfest photos?

Trust me, it would be a waste of a photo. And it usually comes back from the developers with one of those photo smugged / red eye / this photo was just plain unpleasant don't do it again notices on it.

"And as revenge I forced her to walk back from Battery Park to my house on 66th St. Which is basically just over HALF of Manhattan."

Pure EVIL. ;]

Tourists are one thing I don't miss about living in NYC. Actually, there are many things I don't miss about living in NYC. One of which is the uncomfortable level of xenophobia living in Queens calls up in you when you just want a quart of milk and the person ahead of you is arguing with the cashier in TWO DIFFERENT LANGUAGES (neither of which was English so I was completely lost, but that's really neither here no there.) I'm firmly convinced that's its impossible to live in New York without becoming so hardened of heart that you need a little girl from Kansas to find yer oil can. We don't really get too many tourists in Philadelphia, except from Amurrica the beautiful herself, looking to see where Ben Franklin picked up ladies of the evening.

Heh heh heh. Thank you for reminding me, Richard -- I hope to have them up tomorrow. Suffice to say that nobody will be at all surprised regarding Pete's various expressions.

The foreign tourists who come to Chicago are usually pretty wonderful and curious. They tend to be educated people interested in the architecture and history of the place. The ones I can't stand are these corn-fed families from Iowa or some place, who stand four abreast and block the sidewalk. And yes, they wear those awful shorts with socks and sandals and beer guts. They only come here to do stupid things like shop at Niketown. The businesses that cater to them make the city ugly. But without the tourist and convention industry, we'd probably be as bad off as Detroit or something, so I'm a hypocrite for complaining.

There are no tourists where I live. Nothing to attract them. Lots of Indians (from India!), Russians, and Chinese people moving in for jobs, though.

I hate all races.

"Come here boy, and I'll tell you how to get out of jury duty. The trick is to say that you're prejudiced against all races."

Or wear a see thru t-shirt with no bra whilst not washing your hair that day. That worked for me.

Thanks for following up, jess... I was just content paraphrasing...