Take an extendable umbrella out and extend the shaft but dont open it. Now hold it above your head. Any Londoner near you will become involuntarily annoyed because that is the universal sign for theres a tour group and its going to be in your way for the next ten minutes. Every time a Londoner sees a tour group they cant help but get irritated, because somehow they are always going to be going the same way that you are, but just much, much more slowly. At least this tends to make tour groups easy to spot. If you go down Oxford Street, the tourists tend to be in much smaller groups but still do things like walking five people across and stopping suddenly for no reason, when all you want to do is somehow get around them as theyre walking at about half your normal walking speed. People youre just looking in a Gap window do they seriously not have a Gap where youre from?! At least a Londoner could understand if they were distracted by Selfridges or something, but when they do it at a Starbucks you just want to kill them all.
14. Burger Wars
London is currently the scene of the biggest war going as far as burgers are concerned. With a variety of street food places trading in random spots across the capital, along with decent burger joints opening their doors and American importations coming, in there is simply no end of choice. The daddy of the London burger scene is MEATliquor a poorly lit restaurant with terrible service, sticky tables and queues around the block every evening. There are numerous imitators and every Londoner has a different opinion on who does the best burger, be it Patty & Bun, Mother Flipper, Shake Shack or one of the other fifty odd restaurants vying for the title. Its almost like trying to find the best margherita pizza in Napoli or a decent sandwich in New York ask five people and youll get five different responses.
13. Were Not All Cockneys
Have you ever had that situation when upon meeting someone for the first time, they suddenly start doing a cockney accent along with a terrible attempt at rhyming slang? Well for non-Londoners, if you do that then theres a really good chance that youll get a look that is accusing you of being completely nuts. Anyone who isnt a cockney probably only knows about three pieces of rhyming slang and their sole experiences of meeting cockneys are when they travel over to deepest East London to one of the many markets. Naturally with the incursions of hipsters, true cockney areas are very much on the decline but if you can find a non-chain pie and mash shop which serves proper liquor and even eels then you know youre in an authentic cockney area.
