London is HORRIBLE

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:...The mass migration means it's really no longer a British city it was 30 years ago. The demographic changes are staggering...just not British any more.

But the museums are still excellent, if a bit woke these days....

Come on, say what you really mean. You know you want to say it. It's only 14 words.

BREXIT did not help change anything about rapid mass immigration for better or worse?

[Anonymous]

OP - if you are still reading, there is an American YouTuber who lives in London now and I’ve started watching, and she’s showing everyone so many cool places, great food, great rooftop gardens, great pubs… - London has changed so much and I personally cannot wait to see it again!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never want to hear people say how great London is or London is better than dc.

1. Housing is atrocious. We are living in a roughly 2 million pound flat in Mayfair and the plumbing is awful, the insulation/windows are awful and we are always cold (and we are used to Montana cold but homes in London are cold whereas in the us homes stay warm). Our colleagues here have homes anywhere between 500k to 6 million pounds here in various neighborhoods and they are all dumpy

2. The parks are overrated

3. People are mean

4. The tube and trains are mindblowingly expensive

5. Service is poor

6. British “professionals” have horrible work ethic without the “la dolce vita” attitude of Italians/southern euros. It’s the worst of both worlds - uptight, high expectations yet also poor work ethic/quality.

7. Food is awful

8. Social life is way too alcohol centric

There is literally nothing redeeming about this place. I’d rather live in Dallas and I think the south is 🤮 !

dc is 100x better than London

I've been to London for a couple days on a work trip and am far from a London expert (although I worked for a UK company and know Brits suck), but even I know Mayfair is centrally located in one of the world's most expensive cities. Might want to try another neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Hi OP. I’m so happy to see you’ve received a lot of really positive comments both from Americans and Brits about enjoying your time in London. It restores my faith in humanly a bit. Moving abroad is not easy. Sometimes you just need to vent. Seems to largely be the point of an anonymous message board like this. A lot of the people who are negative towards you are probably acting on either jealously or lack of understanding. Most people haven’t lived abroad for any length of time.

I live in Europe and love to drive (via the tunnel, of course) to the UK to explore the countryside. I take one of these roadtrips once to twice a year. I love Cornwall, Devon and Dorset in the southwest, Hampshire and Wiltshire are also really nice, but my very favorite region is Yorkshire. I’m a huge Brontë fan and will never get over the moors. In my opinion England is at its best in the country.

You also have easy access to France, Belgium and the Netherlands being just a bit further for easy roadtrips. Plus you can fly pretty much anywhere from London so that is another major plus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Statistically, I won’t need a hip replacement. That’s American pastime. You don’t like stairs or walking and there we have it.

Anyway, what are you arguing about?

London is amazing.

Statistically, it’s the stairs and walking (and even more actual athletic endeavors) that leads you to have a hip replacement. And old age. If you live to a certain age and were even just a little bit active you’ll need to get joints replaced to maintain that level of activity.

The UK definitely gets in the way. I’d hate to rely on the NHS for anything other than emergency care.

You really are a hateful middle aged bat aren’t you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Statistically, I won’t need a hip replacement. That’s American pastime. You don’t like stairs or walking and there we have it.

Anyway, what are you arguing about?

London is amazing.

Statistically, it’s the stairs and walking (and even more actual athletic endeavors) that leads you to have a hip replacement. And old age. If you live to a certain age and were even just a little bit active you’ll need to get joints replaced to maintain that level of activity.

The UK definitely gets in the way. I’d hate to rely on the NHS for anything other than emergency care.

luckily you dont have to. the wonder of it is that the NHS is there so no one has to die or suffer because they can't afford healthcare, the mark of a civilized society, but you can also have private insurance.

This is a liberal American’s fantasy. The NHS sucks if you’re used to BCBS PPO or equivalent, or Medicare. It’s more along the lines of Medicaid with forced provider participation.

also i lived in london for 30 years so it's not a liberal americans fantasy.

Nope- we have a family member who married a UK citizen and they moved there. New spouse got cancer a few years later and had excellent care there, especially and including the end of life palliative care, which included things like delivering a hospital bed to their home and other medical equipment so the spouse could continue living at home. That's the benefit of a fully integrated system- it's of course much much cheaper to have a person stay at home and not use hospital services, but doing things like getting an insurance company in the US to cover a hospital bed would make you pull your hair out and probably take months to get approved. And then of course after the spouse died they have a service to come and pick up the bed and equipment- because they have a fully integrated system that does this sort of thing all the time. This is all within the last 10 years BTW, so pretty recent, not some fantasy of how things used to be.

Also read Rob Delaney's memoir about his son's cancer and the amazing care he got through NHS. Of course it's not perfect but I am willing to bet you just haven't had anything complex you have had to deal with an insurance company on before. Once you go through that once or twice you realize how ridiculous our system is. There's a reason every other industrialized country has a national health care system, and they spend on average half of what we do on health care (as percent of GDP) and have longer average lifetimes, to boot. The only people for whom the US system works better is mostly healthy rich people.

I'm glad your family member had a good experience with cancer care in the UK, but their statistics for meeting treatment deadlines are terrible and their survival rates are lower than the US.

If you add up the timeline below, the *targets* are diagnosis within 28 days of an urgent referral, 62 days for referral to treatment, and 31 days for a treatment plan. And they aren't meeting those targets. That doesn't even address getting the actual treatment, which, according to the comments in the article below is a major problem. People waiting 6 months or more for treatment after they have a treatment plan.

Further, the life expectancy statistics include factors like auto accidents, so it can't all be attributed to health care.

https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2024/02/08/cancer-waiting-times-latest-updates-and-analysis/

The Faster Diagnosis Standard: Target Missed

74.2% of people were diagnosed, or had cancer ruled out, within 28 days of an urgent referral in December 2023. The target is 75% and has never been met since its introduction in October 2021.

The 62-day referral to treatment standard: Target Missed

Only 65.9% of people in England received their diagnosis and started their first treatment within 2 months (or 62 days) of an urgent referral* in December 2023. The target is 85%.

The 31-day decision to treat standard: Target Missed

91.1% of people started treatment** within 31 days of doctors deciding a treatment plan in December 2023. The target is 96%.

I hear New Delhi and Karachi have amazing food and healthcare. Ditto Dallas

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I LOVE London. Chic, great shopping, great fun vibe. People are mean as sh*t in a very polite way. It's actually kind of weird. British food is disgusting, but there are so many other options! Love the place. Would move in a minute.

This is such a stupid take. Everywhere we ate in London last year was great. Even the crappy places you stop into in a touristy area that would be horrible here, had good food there. It's like saying "american food is disgusting" because you don't like hotdogs. But truly, the food scene in London is fantastic and far better and more affordable than DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never want to hear people say how great London is or London is better than dc.

1. Housing is atrocious. We are living in a roughly 2 million pound flat in Mayfair and the plumbing is awful, the insulation/windows are awful and we are always cold (and we are used to Montana cold but homes in London are cold whereas in the us homes stay warm). Our colleagues here have homes anywhere between 500k to 6 million pounds here in various neighborhoods and they are all dumpy

2. The parks are overrated

3. People are mean

4. The tube and trains are mindblowingly expensive

5. Service is poor

6. British “professionals” have horrible work ethic without the “la dolce vita” attitude of Italians/southern euros. It’s the worst of both worlds - uptight, high expectations yet also poor work ethic/quality.

7. Food is awful

8. Social life is way too alcohol centric

There is literally nothing redeeming about this place. I’d rather live in Dallas and I think the south is 🤮 !


dc is 100x better than London

If I hated it as much as you do I would figure out a way to move. Life is too short.

And London would be better for it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Statistically, I won’t need a hip replacement. That’s American pastime. You don’t like stairs or walking and there we have it.

Anyway, what are you arguing about?

London is amazing.

Statistically, it’s the stairs and walking (and even more actual athletic endeavors) that leads you to have a hip replacement. And old age. If you live to a certain age and were even just a little bit active you’ll need to get joints replaced to maintain that level of activity.

The UK definitely gets in the way. I’d hate to rely on the NHS for anything other than emergency care.

Ok, avoid stairs and keep eating curry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not being able to find good food in London is a special talent in itself, but bonus comedy points for thinking food scene is better in DC/ DMV.

NP. But this is possibly the dumbest post in this thread. And there are several elite contenders.

Yeah yeah, everyone knows the South Asian and other immigrant food in London is good. (Sort of. People oversell this all the time, but fine.)

So what? Pretty much any large city on earth has good options if you want authentic, cheap, ethnic food and go to the right neighborhoods to find it.

Beyond that, the London food scene is absolute trash. Utterly mid Dishoom gets talked about like it’s some world class destination. It’s McDonalds. The turbot from Brat? Meh. There isn’t a single decent steak in the entire city.

I could go on but won’t.

I’ve never been to Dishoom or Brat.

London restaurants are top in the world and it’s not that hard to find good ones. Good Food Guide and Michelin have loads of them listed. If you have a modicum of ability to research you can’t go wrong. If you just stumble in from Leicester Square to the closest kebab shop you may be disappointed.

I really can’t believe how many troglodyte provincial simpletons are trashing London.

+1

It’s frightening to get a look inside these minds. I didn’t know these people existed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I LOVE London. Chic, great shopping, great fun vibe. People are mean as sh*t in a very polite way. It's actually kind of weird. British food is disgusting, but there are so many other options! Love the place. Would move in a minute.

Eat Indian subcontinent food there. That is the only decent and affordable food there.

BTW - England became a developed nation because of how they looted 45 trillion dollars worth of materials from India during their colonial rule.

Without India to loot, they have become a shithole country. A small country of shopkeepers. And the poverty there is another level now. Unwashed brits with yellow teeth, unwashed clothes and dirty fingernails, unable to afford air-conditioning and eating baked beans from a can.

Oh that’s what this is — white people bashing, got it. Now it makes sense. As you were

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I LOVE London. Chic, great shopping, great fun vibe. People are mean as sh*t in a very polite way. It's actually kind of weird. British food is disgusting, but there are so many other options! Love the place. Would move in a minute.

Eat Indian subcontinent food there. That is the only decent and affordable food there.

BTW - England became a developed nation because of how they looted 45 trillion dollars worth of materials from India during their colonial rule.

Without India to loot, they have become a shithole country. A small country of shopkeepers. And the poverty there is another level now. Unwashed brits with yellow teeth, unwashed clothes and dirty fingernails, unable to afford air-conditioning and eating baked beans from a can.

You do realise the US became a developed country by similarly looting the land and resources of the Americas and exploiting slaves?

Yeah but we got air conditioning and solid dentistry out of it so there

Where, in Delhi? Good for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never want to hear people say how great London is or London is better than dc.

1. Housing is atrocious. We are living in a roughly 2 million pound flat in Mayfair and the plumbing is awful, the insulation/windows are awful and we are always cold (and we are used to Montana cold but homes in London are cold whereas in the us homes stay warm). Our colleagues here have homes anywhere between 500k to 6 million pounds here in various neighborhoods and they are all dumpy

2. The parks are overrated

3. People are mean

4. The tube and trains are mindblowingly expensive

5. Service is poor

6. British “professionals” have horrible work ethic without the “la dolce vita” attitude of Italians/southern euros. It’s the worst of both worlds - uptight, high expectations yet also poor work ethic/quality.

7. Food is awful

8. Social life is way too alcohol centric

There is literally nothing redeeming about this place. I’d rather live in Dallas and I think the south is 🤮 !

dc is 100x better than London

Extensive experience with what you describe, and couldn’t agree more! US is far superior.

[Anonymous]

I’ll be honest, I’m sort of enjoying the dopes who are so insecure they’ve been mesmerized by London and assume it’s intrinsically superior. The accents!!

Probably the only time you ever left the US.

The food is objectively trash. Yes, there are a handful of good restaurants; no sh&t, it’s a global financial center with 10 million people. But many, many “nice” restaurants serve bland, boiled produce. Beans (plain) are a breakfast staple. The leading condiment by a good margin is mayonnaise. Get the hell out of here with London being a food Mecca.

NHS is trash. Granted I’m rich, but US health care and even godawful US medical insurance are models of innovation and efficiency by comparison.

Immigration has gotten to a level that is gross and dangerous. (We’re catching up on this one, admittedly.)

The tube is OK as far as public transportation goes—it’s insanely crowded and hot as hell, but you can get anywhere. But here’s the rub: I don’t want to take public transportation. And driving (or being driven) is an absolute nightmare.

Buildings and hotel rooms and offices and restrooms have all manner of outdated (but affixed!) gadgetry, plugs that don’t work, visible piping, doors and lifts and carpets that haven’t been replaced in decades, the paint on buildings is cracked, garden walls and sidewalks in varying stages of disrepair. You’ll just be walking down the street and here’s a defunct valve sticking out of the wall with signage from pre-WW2. Ho-hum.

Guess that’s “chic”?

[Anonymous]

OMG lady give it up already. London doesn’t love you either.