She Loves London

Category: Everything Else

  • Nothing Compares to London (except maybe a nice beach)

    As much as we all love this city, I don’t know one Londoner who doesn’t also love leaving it.

    Temporarily, of course.

    No one’s saying you’ve got to pack your bags and actually go and live in Singapore or Switzerland or Boston or whatever (don’t be mental), but because living in London is like being in a bubble – a really expensive bubble where no one can afford houses and cocktails are £8.50 – every so often it pays to get out of the city and see what the rest of the world has to say about life.

    And usually, it’s “£8.50? Sod that”.

    suitcase tube

    While some people might choose to escape London for the English countryside – Epping Forest or Kew Gardens or something –  I decided that a week in the French Alps, followed by ten days on a beautiful island in the Philippines would be a much better idea.

    And you know what? It took upwards of 20 hours by plane, perilous road and boat to get there, but in the grand scheme of good ideas, this was probably the best one I’ve had in ages.

    beach

    During this time of relaxation, reflection and slathering on Factor 30, I had plenty of time to ponder all the ridiculous reasons we have for living in a drizzly, expensive city like London when there’s a viable sunny alternative a mere 20 hours across the world – see above – where cocktails are 60p and the sea water makes London Fields Lido look like a muddy puddle.

    I did also consider the practicalities of changing my blog URL and title to “She Loves London But If She Could Swap It For This Beach Then She Probably Would” dot com, but concluded, over a mango Mojito and a plate of fresh tuna, that it just didn’t have the same ring to it.

    And so reluctantly, after ten days in paradise, I came back.

    flying into heathrow

    The niggling question of “why do I live here? Why do I write this blog about loving London when I could be writing one about how much I love a beach? WHY? WHY?” followed me all the way to Heathrow, through the pit of despair that is baggage reclaim, and lasted right up until I walked into arrivals and threw my suitcase into the capable arms of Mohammed.

    And trust me, if there’s one person you want to see after a 13 hour flight, it’s Mohammed.

    Without him, I’d still be in Heathrow, hammering on the doors of a grounded Singapore Air A380 wailing “take me back, please, I’ll do anything, just take me back”.

    For Mohammed was a chauffeur, and chauffeurs hold signs with your name on and make everything better.

    They also help you remember why you live in London and write about it, because when you do, you get limousine companies like Blacklane asking if you’d like a free ride sometime and kids, in my moment of need, that time was now and that chauffeur was Mohammed.

    And he had water bottles in the armrest and everything.

    limo from airportWe drove through London at 7am, zooming through Hyde Park, Kensington and Knightsbridge, past Kings Cross and over to Dalston, and in between putting the world to rights I wondered how many blog posts I’d have to write, or which member of Made in Chelsea I’d have to kiss, in order to get driven everywhere, forever more.

    Then I was home, and Mohammed was gone, and the post holiday despair returned.

    But it didn’t last long.

    Because there are many lovely beaches in the world, but where can you walk down a busy street and see a man casually walking his ferret along the pavement on your lunchbreak?

    ferret on strand

    London, that’s where.

    So with all that beaching and holidaying out of my system, normal London service will now resume.

    The blog is also now on Instagram, where you can see ferrets, dogs, disappearing buildings and dubious tinned meat from Dalston’s Turkish shops on a daily basis. Follow: @SheLovesLondonBlog

    Instagram



  • The Problem With the Whole “No Cash Fares on Buses” Thing

    From this summer, you won’t be able to pay cash fares on buses any more.

    The reasoning behind this can basically be summarised as:

    “well chaps, we’ve held a consultation and two-thirds of 37,000 survey respondents have said they still want cash fares on buses, but we’re going to ignore those people and scrap them anyway because when you think about it – oh, you know what, it’s late and I can’t remember my point. Jagerbomb?”

    Now, I am one of those 37,000 people who said “actually, I rather would like the choice to pay cash”, which means TFL is ignoring me, and that makes me a little bit annoyed.

    This is why.

    Number one: no Londoner with a brain willingly pays cash over Oyster. We know it’s more expensive, therefore 1% of people are using cash out of necessity.

    Number two: sure – they’re introducing a “one more journey” feature, which means you can get the bus even when you don’t have enough money on your Oyster card.

    But what if you don’t have an Oyster card, and there isn’t anywhere open selling them?

    Oyster card and holder

    Let’s imagine an entirely hypothetical situation.

    Say there’s this one girl – let’s call her Jo for arguments sake – and she lost her Oyster card 8 times in one year, and now once again she finds herself at 2am on Waterloo Bridge, scrabbling around in her bag, patting her pockets and realising oh, bugger, it’s gone again.

    Then the bus comes and instead of just being able to pay her way home in cash, she’s a bit stuck because that’s not an option.

    (I know, who loses their Oyster card that many times? That would never happen. What an idiot.)

    on the bus

    TFL think they’ve solved this by training drivers to be more lenient towards “vunerable” passengers at night.

    By “vunerable”, I am asumming they mean “pissed, Oyster-less females”, but even so, this doesn’t really fill me with confidence.

    Because as anyone who has taken the bus regularly in London will tell you (and I’m not sure whether TFL’s policy makers are included in this, I’m guessing not) – bus drivers are humans.

    Humans tend to get a bit cynical and ratty at the best of times, let alone when its 2am and they’re trying to transport 200 drunk people from Waterloo to Dalston while they’re all singing a rude version of “Kumbaya”. 

    I mean blummin’ hell, I got an earful from a driver for wanting to get off at the front of the bus once because it was too packed to get through to the back doors. Know what I mean?

    So basically, I’m not convinced that training will prevent the bus driver from not feeling all that charitable towards the girl who has “lost” her Oyster card, if he’s just had an earful at the stop before.

    Simply put: how will they be able to tell the bluffers from the genuine idiots who lost their Oysters and just want to get home?

    Londoners, it looks like we’re going to have to work on our “vunerable” looks. Either that, or just stop losing our Oyster cards. What do you reckon?

  • On the Morning After Nelson Mandela’s Death, the Tube Driver Announced Charing Cross Slightly Differently

    On the Morning After Nelson Mandela’s Death, the Tube Driver Announced Charing Cross Slightly Differently

    Usually when you pull into Charing Cross station on the tube, the driver tells you to alight here for British Rail services, Trafalgar Square and various tourist hot spots. 

    They rarely mention that you might like to alight there for South Africa House, but today – the morning after Nelson Mandela’s death – our announcement was a little bit different.

    Nelson Mandela on Metro front page

    “Alight here for the Northern line, and British Rail. Alight here for Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and South Africa House, if you’re wanting to pay your respects to a hero of democracy and statesmanship.”