# London, England
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [March 14, 2012, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710 "2012-03-14T01:13:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@GeddyClaypoolBurton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GeddyClaypoolBurton)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/1 "2012-03-14T01:13:19Z")
What are some of the first things that pop into your mind when you think about the jolly old capital of the United Kingdom? :dubious:
---
### Author:  [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/2 "2012-03-14T01:17:28Z")
I lived there from 1953 - 1986, so:
- red buses
- black taxis
- the Tube
- street newspaper sellers (“Evening Stand…ard!”
---
### Author:  [@Semjaazah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Semjaazah)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/3 "2012-03-14T01:19:21Z")
Silly accents (though I’m certain they’d find my accent ridiculous as well).
---
### Author:  [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/4 "2012-03-14T01:28:57Z")
Tourists.
Expensive.
Plenty to do.
Tourists.
Brusque.
Tourists.
Mainly dirty.
Except for the bits with tourists.
Waterloo is one ugly ass train station.
Cool evocative place names.
Did I mention tourists?
---
### Author:  [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/5 "2012-03-14T01:29:59Z")
> [@Semjaazah](#):
>
> Silly accents
There are a lot of American accents, there, yeah.🙂
---
### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/6 "2012-03-14T01:35:14Z")
> [@glee](#):
>
> - street newspaper sellers (“Evening Stand…ard!”
[Morny Stannit](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0JK1aAnlhE).
I was born there but have never lived there for more than a month, though I did work in Victoria for a while and commute.
For me, the lights of the West End on a rainy Autumn night. Hamley’s toy shop when I was a kid (going there was an annual treat though I never actually got bought a toy from there). The Victorian tiled interiors of the Tube stations. Topless women in the parks on sunny days.
Feeling that Londoners are somehow different from us countryfolk. Their environment is so complex and rich compared to where I grew up.
The sheer size of the place - and how depressing the inner suburban wastelands are.
---
### Author:  [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Regallag_The_Axe)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/7 "2012-03-14T01:41:16Z")
The _very first_ thing that pops into my head is a line from Snatch: “Yes, London. You know: fish, chips, cup 'o tea, bad food, worse weather, Mary fucking Poppins… LONDON.”
---
### Author:  [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/8 "2012-03-14T01:53:15Z")
Museums, museums and more museums…_swoons_…one day!
---
### Author:  [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/9 "2012-03-14T02:13:35Z")
It’s unneccessary to say London _England_. Let the younger Londons specify where _they_ are.
---
### Author:  [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/10 "2012-03-14T03:09:06Z")
XTC playing “Towers of London” whilst passing under Tower Bridge.
Driving on the Westway.
Visiting the Tate Gallery as a middle school kid, pining for my crush Cristi to sit next to me on the bus. (She did, for a little while!)
---
### Author:  [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/11 "2012-03-14T03:12:56Z")
Mind the gap!
---
### Author:  [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/12 "2012-03-14T03:23:54Z")
Curry shops
Pubs
Fish & Chips
BOFH
---
### Author:  [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/13 "2012-03-14T03:24:38Z")
Lots of traffic. Roundabouts. Harrod’s. Foggy nights, dark and narrow alleyways, shiny wet cobblestones. Cameras everywhere. Street urchins. Umbrellas. Mods (and not the jackbooted kind like we have here). Bombed-out buildings. Chimney pots and garrets.
I am obviously temporally challenged.
---
### Author:  [@wheresmymind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wheresmymind)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/14 "2012-03-14T03:29:57Z")
Little England from Arrested Development
---
### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/15 "2012-03-14T03:30:28Z")
> [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](#):
>
> It’s unneccessary to say London _England_. Let the younger Londons specify where _they_ are.
Yes, this is a bete noir of mine too. Like all major world cities, all you needed to say is the name, singular. You only need to specify the locale if it’s the exception: London is just London. Paris is just Paris. London, Ontario and Paris, Texas are the outliers.
Plus of course few Brits would use the ‘England’ designation anyway. UK these days, if at all.
---
### Author:  [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/16 "2012-03-14T04:39:18Z")
Nostalgia. I lived in Chalk Farm for a few months a zillion years ago.
The train brake smell in the Tube
Crazy Camden Market
Walks through Regent’s Park and the London Zoo
Way too much time eating lard-fried chips and drinking cider and lager at Pembroke Castle
Late night studying and trips to the kebab joint
Lots of tea
A glimpse of Princess Diana in a limousine outside Harrod’s
I seriously considered moving there for a while. I guess I’m more attached to family than I thought, and couldn’t really bear to make a semi-permanent to maybe permanent move there. Still wonder about it sometimes.
---
### Author:  [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/17 "2012-03-14T04:49:30Z")
Those huge white stones the buildings are made of. Black cabs, parks and railings. Get on board, get on board, get on board it’s the double decker! Foxes slinking through the wet midnight streets.
---
### Author:  [@JessMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JessMagic)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/18 "2012-03-14T04:52:05Z")
> [@jjimm](#):
>
> [Morny Stannit](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0JK1aAnlhE).
Brilliant sketch - haven’t seen it in ages!
I lived there for a year:
Trendily dressed Hoxton/Shoreditch types
Football at Putney
Drinking Pimms on a sunny day by the Thames at Richmond
A brief fling with a beautiful Nigerian girl
24 hour alcohol sales (dangerous for a Scotsman)
Oyster card (gotta be auto top-up!)
Sleazy strip clubs
British Military Fitness at Victoria Park
Good times…
---
### Author:  [@Jennyrosity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennyrosity)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/19 "2012-03-14T07:04:36Z")
> [@SeaDragonTattoo](#):
>
> Nostalgia. I lived in Chalk Farm for a few months a zillion years ago.
>
> The train brake smell in the Tube
> Crazy Camden Market
> Walks through Regent’s Park and the London Zoo
> Way too much time eating lard-fried chips and drinking cider and lager at Pembroke Castle
> Late night studying and trips to the kebab joint
> Lots of tea
> A glimpse of Princess Diana in a limousine outside Harrod’s
>
> I seriously considered moving there for a while. I guess I’m more attached to family than I thought, and couldn’t really bear to make a semi-permanent to maybe permanent move there. Still wonder about it sometimes.
That’s my manor - the Pembroke is my local 🙂
---
### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710/20 "2012-03-14T07:31:29Z")
Oxford Street.
There’s a lot of other stuff I identify with London too, but I either identify it with other big cities (subways, buses), or with the UK in general (being able to tell someone is a foreigner because they look the wrong way when crossing the street). But Oxford Street and its surroundings (theaters, the British Museum)… if I ever get lost in London, look for me there.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-england/615710.md?page=2)