You know you're from London when...

[baratron]

Silly me, I followed the link to this memeish thing, and found it stopped at the borders of the US. Oh darn. I'll just have to write my own.

You know you're from London when...

• You were born somewhere else.
  
• You attach different meanings to "the town" and "the City".
  
• You have never been to the Tower of London or Buckingham Palace.
  
• If a tourist asks you for directions to "Oxford" or "Leicester", you point them in the direction of a mainline railway station and a 2 hour train journey.
  
• The Tube makes sense.
  
• You get annoyed with people who don't know how to use Tube barriers.
  
• Every person over 12 has a mobile phone. Some have two.
  
• You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual.
  
• You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression.
  
• You're suspicious of anyone under the age of 60 who tries to start a conversation with you on public transport. Hell, you're even suspicious of the little old ladies who do it.
  
• You're over 25, and have never learned to drive.
  
• You have a secret fetish for the Tube Map, and insist on calling it "The Diagram".
  
• You've considered stabbing someone just for being American.
  
• If you own a car, you spend more each month to park it than most people spend on rent.
  
• Petrol costs £1 per litre.
  
• You go outside the M25 twice a year, and are twitchy for the entire trip.
  
• You call an 8' x 10' plot of patchy grass a garden.
  
• You think the Diana Memorial Fountain is the most ridiculous waste of money ever.
  
• You're paying £1,000 a month for a studio flat and think it's a fantastic deal.
  
• In fact, one week's rent on a tiny flat would get you a month of a whole house oop North. But why would anyone want to live there?
  
• You haven't seen more than twelve stars in the night sky since you went away to camp as a kid.
  
• You go to dinner at 9 and head out to the clubs when most people are going to bed.
  
• You have urinated on the street at 11.30pm.
  
• You haven't heard the sound of true absolute silence since the 80s.
  
• You pay £3 for a beer without blinking.
  
• You have 27 different menus next to your telephone and all of the numbers on your speed-dial - but only 2 of them deliver.
  
• You worship at the altar of Ikea.
  
• You have a near-perfect knowledge of the A-Z, but would need 5 minutes to find any other major conurbation on a map.
  
• You lie about where you live to make it sound "better". (Clapham? No, Battersea actually. Battersea? No, it's South Chelsea...)
  
• You stand up in the cinema and shout at films with appallingly incorrect London geography.
  
• Your idea of personal space is no one actually standing on your toes.
  
• You get a seat on the train? Luxury.
  
• You know how to fold your favourite newspaper up so that you can read it on the Tube or bus without hitting other passengers.
  
• People who stand on the left piss you off.
  
• You are horrified by the thought of litter bins in stations.
  
• You cringe if you hear Leicester Square pronounced as "Lye-cester".
  
• You're not in the least bit interested in going to Trafalgar Square on New Year's Eve.
  
• You couldn't imagine ever living anywhere else.

I'm sure there are others... feel free to add more in comments. Also, some of those are a bit obscure, so if you are Northern or otherwise foreign, feel free to ask ;)

Comments

[geminigirl]

The rule here is stand right, walk left too...and it drives me batty when people don't follow the rule.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Out of date - all takeaways deliver! Possibly only 2 without an extra charge...

I believe most people want litter bins back everywhere, on the grounds that not having them isn't much of deterrent to hiding bombs elsewhere - like in piles of litter. Maybe it's just me.

Guilty of many of the others, including sending tourists to Oxford (not on purpose!)

[hiddenpaw.livejournal.com]

This said I have met a tourist who wanted to go to Oxford Circus and Cambridge Circus because they wanted to see the Great British Universitys.

I was waiting for her to ask me why Universitys have circuses.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I've had tourists stand in front of Kings College Chapel in Cambridge and ask where the cathedral is. I did send one rude lot to Ely...

[mjl]

Any I can think of are pretty much covered by something already there... I can relate to at least half of those. I'm not sure thinking the Diana Fountain is a waste of money is specific to any particular group of people though...

While I'm commenting, I was looking at IMDB the other day and I see that Richard is up there now. Practically a celebrity... :)

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

The following also apply to Toronto (and thus are *probably* generalizable to any big city) :

• You were born somewhere else.
• Every person over 12 has a mobile phone. Some have two.
• You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual.
• You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression.
• You're suspicious of anyone under the age of 60 who tries to start a conversation with you on public transport. Hell, you're even suspicious of the little old ladies who do it.
• You're over 25, and have never learned to drive.
• You've considered stabbing someone just for being American. (Probably more true here than there, actually.)
• You call an 8' x 10' plot of patchy grass a garden. (Actually, most people here don't even have that. The majority of people I know live in condos with no personal green space at all.)
• You're paying £1,000 a month for a studio flat and think it's a fantastic deal.
• In fact, one week's rent on a tiny flat would get you a month of a whole house oop North. But why would anyone want to live there?
• You haven't seen more than twelve stars in the night sky since you went away to camp as a kid.
• You go to dinner at 9 and head out to the clubs when most people are going to bed.
• You haven't heard the sound of true absolute silence since the 80s.
• You worship at the altar of Ikea.
• You get a seat on the train? Luxury.
• You know how to fold your favourite newspaper up so that you can read it on the Tube or bus without hitting other passengers.
• People who stand on the left piss you off.
• You're not in the least bit interested in going to Trafalgar Square (Nathan Philips Square) on New Year's Eve.
• You couldn't imagine ever living anywhere else.

[a-musing-amazon.livejournal.com]

"The following also apply to Toronto (and thus are *probably* generalizable to any big city) :
...
You've considered stabbing someone just for being American. (Probably more true here than there, actually.)
..."

any big city outside the USA that is : in the USA you'll not consider stabbing a fellow American you'll pull out a gun and actually shoot them :(.

[meeping.livejournal.com]

You hug routemaster omnibi in museums.
In your street there is a pizza express and a starbucks, and in the neighbouring street, and the neighbouring street...
You have never spoken to your next door neighbour.
You have absorbed so much pollution you could probably survive chemical or biological warfare.

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

wow there is even a discussion board to discuss Richard, lets go grab it

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

me confused by some of the refwrences
but then again I'm from oop north (oxford)