London is a very accepting place.
We should be proud of the fact that we live in a city where you can walk around dressed as a clown or a skeleton or a monkey and no one really cares.
But despite this relative indifference to things like seeing someone wandering up the Kingsland Road wearing a cape and carrying a boombox, or getting on the tube dressed as a panda, even London has its limits of what is acceptable and what isn’t.
And friends, there are some things you should never do when walking around London.
Ever.
And thus I introduce to you number one on this list:
Watching a TV programme on your iPad while walking along Fleet Street in rush hour.
As spotted by me from the top deck of the bus yesterday.
By doing this, not only do you attract the attention of pickpockets – who don’t so much have to pick your pockets as pluck your most prized belongings from your outstretched hands – but you are also likely to get in the way of people who are walking very, very quickly because this is London, it’s 9am, and they are probably late.
That’s right. You, trying to navigate rush hour while watching last night’s Made in Chelsea with your earphones in and your eyes focused on a screen, are an obstacle.
There’s only one thing worse than being an obstacle by blocking the pavement with your lack of awareness and portable telly, and that’s being someone who uses their iPad to take a photos of things in general day-to-day life.
And trust me, no one wants to be that person.
All of these things: http://thelondonscrapbook.com/2012/11/16/the-etiquette-of-commuting/
(I’m more trying to share commuter rage than plug my blog, promise!)
I love how you seem to get a lot of blog ideas while on a bus :-p
Nice post, very true… and yep, the bus is where I seem to spend most of my time at the moment. Sigh.
Great post (silly lady!) though I fear I may be guilty of paying more attention to my iBoyfriend than other commuters too! One of my top commuter irritations that irks me almost every day is when people crowd at the entrance to the tube platform and don’t make any room for others to get past them – there’s a whole tube train of platform to take up, why not move further down!?
Ah, we’re all guilty of it I think – even though I berate people in my head for nearly knocking into me while texting etc. Not the using an iPad as camera thing though. Never that.
Hello She
Yep totally agree. These people are missing the point of it all. The other day, I was walking over one of the bridges (either Vaux or Lambeth) and I overtook another chap who was facing off with his ipad, reading an article on the daily mail website, about immigration (obviously).
It got my goat to be honest.
I couldn’t help but think – so here you are in London, either by luck of birthplace, or effort of migration. Either way, all is good. Great even. But rather than enjoy the simplest of pleasures offered by this great place – the simple traversing of one of her mighty bridges, observing the tide, the shoreline, the multitude of buildings we have all no doubt missed etc
But no,
This person would rather choose to indulge the hate filled rhetoric that says people who weren’t born here shouldn’t be here, thus missing the point twice in one hit, ignorance squared, or to the power 2
To that person – Put the ipad away, look around, realise how lucky you are. You’ve won the lottery of life! (if you discard domestic cats, who got all the numbers) Actually there in lies a good comparison for it.
Anyway, meow for now
To the website admin. if you made this website secure, not that you need to. it would suit both genders https://heloveslondon.com 🙂
It’s beyond me why anyone would want to start their day off by reading the Daily Mail, let alone doing so while trying to negotiate the London pavements in rush hour.
As for HeLovesLondon – I think you have spotted a definite opportunity there. Either that, or I could wait for a dashing young man to snap it up and marry him. His and hers blogs.
Sorry if this is a re submission, but if you like this there is the orig
http://www.lookforlonger.com/2012/
they are both wicked. quite thoughtful I think
Oh yes, dig through the archives and you’ll find the clues and answers to that badboy… people tend to use this blog as a guessing ground (see below)…