London is HORRIBLE

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lived there 2007-2013 and can confirm OP’s post. We lived in Holland Park in a “fancy” flat and one day the flat above us had flooding which poured down into our foyer straight through the light fixture.

London is fun to visit but DC is so much better in terms of living standards.

And that’s saying nothing of the glorious climate we have in DC!

LOL -you clearly have no idea how construction works. A flood from another flat is a danger whenever you live below someone. Water looks for a path to escape, and light fixtures are exactly that. It’s a bit uninformed to think of this as a London phenomenon. Suggest you experience a bit more of life. You sound sheltered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:25 pages and no one has quoted Samuel Johnson.

He who is tired of London is tired of life.

Thank you for this - it’s what I wanted to say

Come on over to Ealing OP
I’ve lived here 7 years and I Love it
My list of stuff I want to do in London just keeps getting longer -

[Anonymous]

Relevant.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/01/what-have-fourteen-years-of-conservative-rule-done-to-britain

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try being a Jew there. It’s your experience plus hate.

Give actual examples. Have the 6yos been stabbed to death? Have the college students been shot with one being paralyzed? Did they get stalked and harassed while working a Kosher cart by a former state dept official who gleefully says that more Jewish kids should've been killed?

Try being Palestinian. PERIOD.

Aggressive anti-semitism is really becoming a growing problem in London. The British papers report on it. Maybe if Hamas hadn't gone on a genocide blitz last October and spent the billions and billions building tunnels devoted to terrorism instead of helping their own people or using Palestinians as human shields, Gaza wouldn't be in this mess today, eh? I'll never forget how the first mass protests started even before the dust had settled on October 7. Which tells you everything you need to know.

Blah blah blah human shields blah blah. Everyone is clued into the hasbara playbook now and most of us are bored with your gaslighting. Hamas wasn’t even created until the 80’s and the genocide of Palestinians has been happening since 1948 but nice try.

Maybe the Palestinians should have quit while they were ahead. They were the ones who kept attacking Israel and losing more territory each time... and the saga continues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted earlier about having lived in both London and DC. You can't really meaningfully compare your experience vacationing in a place with living there. If you haven't had to work in a place, pay taxes there, hire a plumber, or try to find a decent school for your kid, you dont really know it.

Most Americans would be horrified at the condition of rental apartments in the UK (run-down, no clothes dryers, no garbage disposals), much in the same way that Londoners would be horrified to discover the number of important US cities that are wholly inaccessible by public transit.

Most Americans would also be frustrated by the need to be on hold for 40 minutes starting at 8 am to get one of the NHS appointment slots available that day at your local surgery, with its 10000 person patient docket. They would also be shocked to hear the NHS mammogram lady say, "See you in 4 years." On the flip side, Americans would also be pleasantly surprised when their NHS mammogram, scheduled for 10:30, actually takes place at 10:30, something that you could be sure wouldnt happen in the US.

All European cities have small apartments with few amenities - it comes with being old and crowded... why pick on London?

Munich, Zurich, Frankfurt, Vienna, Hamburg, Lyon, Amsterdam, Madrid for example have much better building construction, insulation, and plumbing in their homes

American homes are cheap but insulated well and have good plumbing for the most part

Swiss, German, Austrian and northern Italian homes are built out of good materials, insulated, good plumbing but cost to salary ratio is high

uk is unique in being expensive vs incomes with uniquely poor conditions

https://news.sky.com/story/amp/english-homes-more-expensive-and-in-worse-condition-than-most-developed-nations-report-12976858

https://www.pbctoday.co.uk/news/planning-construction-news/english-housing-is-worst-in-europe-report-finds/133243/

Sure. I’d happily live in London again but having just finished expensive repairs on my Victorian terrace house, I totally agree the housing is often of a poor standard. I don’t think anyone disputes that, do they? As pointed out in the report, most of the housing is much older than what you find in other European cities. This is to be expected as London’s wealth and growth meant it developed into a large metropolis much earlier than many other places. The curse of developing earlier is what might have been cutting edge infrastructure or construction at the time can be quite difficult to adapt many years later. Hence, the sewage system is now sub par, tunnels in the tube are too narrow to fit air conditioning onto train carriages, etc. Materials and building standards have changed a lot since the late 1800s when many of these places were built.

The most obvious solution is to knock it all down and build new modern efficient housing (if anyone had the money). Of course the irony is the old style of architecture is what lends London and many British towns and villages much of their charm. It’s all a trade off.

The lack of knowledge is astounding. What makes you believe that London developed earlier than other major continental cities? This is patently false. Prague is an example of that. Vienna would be an example of that too had they not modernized their housing stock in the mid 1800s to allow for taller ceilings, more daylight, broader streets and other comforts (as did Paris). London just didn’t think it was a priority. I love London but Prague has older and better quality housing stock.

Industrialization did happen first in Britain...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try being a Jew there. It’s your experience plus hate.

Give actual examples. Have the 6yos been stabbed to death? Have the college students been shot with one being paralyzed? Did they get stalked and harassed while working a Kosher cart by a former state dept official who gleefully says that more Jewish kids should've been killed?

Try being Palestinian. PERIOD.

Aggressive anti-semitism is really becoming a growing problem in London. The British papers report on it. Maybe if Hamas hadn't gone on a genocide blitz last October and spent the billions and billions building tunnels devoted to terrorism instead of helping their own people or using Palestinians as human shields, Gaza wouldn't be in this mess today, eh? I'll never forget how the first mass protests started even before the dust had settled on October 7. Which tells you everything you need to know.

Blah blah blah human shields blah blah. Everyone is clued into the hasbara playbook now and most of us are bored with your gaslighting. Hamas wasn’t even created until the 80’s and the genocide of Palestinians has been happening since 1948 but nice try.

Maybe the Palestinians should have quit while they were ahead. They were the ones who kept attacking Israel and losing more territory each time... and the saga continues.

You are drunk as a skunk on the Israeli kool-aid my friend.

[Anonymous]

London is probably my top vacation spot. Love it there!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Relevant.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/01/what-have-fourteen-years-of-conservative-rule-done-to-britain

Must read for all posters in this thread

[Anonymous]

Op here:

Things London excels in - the bars are better than anything in the us IMO — but this goes back to my op - drinking is the only form of real socialization here.

- museums/galleries are great

- tailoring is excellent

- looking forward to Wimbledon and queens 🎾 in the spring

- if you have kids that want to play soccer or race cars, uk is better than the 🇺🇸

- live theatre is excellent

[Anonymous]

OP, I understand. We never moved there but my husband worked for a British company and we considered moving there. He was there all the time and we and our kids spent a month there.

Agree that drinking is too much a part of their lives; also cigars. There was also a huge emphasis on going out to elaborate dinners, drinking a lot and expensng it. They really loved that. They often were in other countries for work, including the U.S., including Las Vegas. The British guys were crazy for it, staying out all night, etc. These were all married guts with kids.

The sexism of their workplace was like Mad Men. I was shocked by this.

I hated driving around, the roundabouts. Lots of two-lane roads that would take forever to get anywhere.

I remember at that time the most popular TV show on Friday night was about gardening. They love gardening. It didn't strike me as charming but as boring.

We went to the house of one of his colleagues in the country. They didn't own it because a lord or earl or someone owned it along with all the land in the town. They would have liked to buy it but couldn't. They were sanguine about it. We drove by this one endless fence around an estate. It went for miles. There is social mobility there but still an out of sight class.

The house we stayed in had a lot of functional and design problems that you wouldn't find in the U.S. Everything seemed delicate and like it could break easily.

It seemed old-fashioned in the worst ways possible.

The one good thing was that my husband made good friends with the guys he worked with. They were smart and loved to talk, as he did. But I did not want to live there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I understand. We never moved there but my husband worked for a British company and we considered moving there. He was there all the time and we and our kids spent a month there.

Agree that drinking is too much a part of their lives; also cigars. There was also a huge emphasis on going out to elaborate dinners, drinking a lot and expensng it. They really loved that. They often were in other countries for work, including the U.S., including Las Vegas. The British guys were crazy for it, staying out all night, etc. These were all married guts with kids.

The sexism of their workplace was like Mad Men. I was shocked by this.

I hated driving around, the roundabouts. Lots of two-lane roads that would take forever to get anywhere.

I remember at that time the most popular TV show on Friday night was about gardening. They love gardening. It didn't strike me as charming but as boring.

We went to the house of one of his colleagues in the country. They didn't own it because a lord or earl or someone owned it along with all the land in the town. They would have liked to buy it but couldn't. They were sanguine about it. We drove by this one endless fence around an estate. It went for miles. There is social mobility there but still an out of sight class.

The house we stayed in had a lot of functional and design problems that you wouldn't find in the U.S. Everything seemed delicate and like it could break easily.

It seemed old-fashioned in the worst ways possible.

The one good thing was that my husband made good friends with the guys he worked with. They were smart and loved to talk, as he did. But I did not want to live there.

Now the most popular show on Friday nights is Gogglebox - watching people watch the TV shows of the past week. Honestly it's an addictive show! Hard to access over here but we can do it on YouTube sometimes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I understand. We never moved there but my husband worked for a British company and we considered moving there. He was there all the time and we and our kids spent a month there.

Agree that drinking is too much a part of their lives; also cigars. There was also a huge emphasis on going out to elaborate dinners, drinking a lot and expensng it. They really loved that. They often were in other countries for work, including the U.S., including Las Vegas. The British guys were crazy for it, staying out all night, etc. These were all married guts with kids.

The sexism of their workplace was like Mad Men. I was shocked by this.

I hated driving around, the roundabouts. Lots of two-lane roads that would take forever to get anywhere.

I remember at that time the most popular TV show on Friday night was about gardening. They love gardening. It didn't strike me as charming but as boring.

We went to the house of one of his colleagues in the country. They didn't own it because a lord or earl or someone owned it along with all the land in the town. They would have liked to buy it but couldn't. They were sanguine about it. We drove by this one endless fence around an estate. It went for miles. There is social mobility there but still an out of sight class.

The house we stayed in had a lot of functional and design problems that you wouldn't find in the U.S. Everything seemed delicate and like it could break easily.

It seemed old-fashioned in the worst ways possible.

The one good thing was that my husband made good friends with the guys he worked with. They were smart and loved to talk, as he did. But I did not want to live there.

Cigars were a big part of their lives? Which decade was this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here:

Things London excels in - the bars are better than anything in the us IMO — but this goes back to my op - drinking is the only form of real socialization here.

- museums/galleries are great

- tailoring is excellent

- looking forward to Wimbledon and queens 🎾 in the spring

- if you have kids that want to play soccer or race cars, uk is better than the 🇺🇸

- live theatre is excellent

OP, I wish you could find other ways to socialise. They exist. Drinking really isn’t the only form of socialisation.

These are things my friends do: two play in bands, a few do ParkRun on Saturdays, one does ceroc dancing, one does ‘mature’ ballet classes, two volunteer at the Hackney City Farm, some play social soccer, one has a knitting group, a bunch meet up for book club, some do cold water swimming, and some go rambling on weekends.

If you are meeting people who only want to drink then you are meeting the wrong people. It definitely is true though that people often meet at pubs but part of that is practical. When you meet up with people who live in all parts of London, you need to find somewhere to meet up centrally. When I pass through London, I often meet up with friends at a pub but nobody had more than one drink or maybe even just a coffee. It’s about getting together.

[Anonymous]

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/london-rent-crisis-liverpool-manchester-property-b2517049.html

Written 6 days ago in a major British newspaper

“ London is overpriced, flat and boring: so what is it for?”