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. |
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 - |
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. |
Industrialization did happen first in Britain... |
You are drunk as a skunk on the Israeli kool-aid my friend. |
London is probably my top vacation spot. Love it there! |
Must read for all posters in this thread |
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 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. |
Cigars were a big part of their lives? Which decade was this? |
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. |
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?” |