I am English born and bred and moved to London about 18 months ago. I hate it. It’s noisy, dirty, expensive, uncaring and certainly not meritocratic.
What’s more, I hate every single one of my stupid countrymen who tries to convince me it’s the best place on earth. I don’t know where this myth comes from but they all think I’m dead lucky to be living here.
Every time I suggest the place could be better it’s like I’ve told them I’ve slept with their mother.
Can’t wait to get out. Trying to find a way to move to New York.
Ally
Lived in London my whole life and it is my goal in life to emigrate to Oz or the States, i simply cannot stand living in this smelly, crime ridden, overpopulated SHIT HOLE and on top of it all, it’s one of the most expensive cities on earth! The fucking cheek!!
Liam, London -
i thought it was just me. Live there for one year as an 18 year old at The London College of Fashion. Lived in New Cross and went to school in Hackney. I am from Ireland where everyone is warm and talkative and welcoming. In London, I plunged into depression. I hated every single second of that year.
lollylady -
London is an amazing city, unless you’re interested in the evolution of humanity! I can’t stand this place. I’m glad I’m not alone. I moved here 5 years ago (my father is English) and I feel like I’ve been swallowed up by an overcrowded, overpriced, overstressed, outdated, and uninspiring black hole!! I’ve lived in Washington DC, Toronto, Chicago, New York, Kyoto and Hiroshima and visited even more, but London is frankly the most disappointing place to live. I’ve stepped back in time. The streets are dirty, the culture is arrogant, tolerance is low, public transport is a NIGHTMARE, the politics are juvenile and highly aristocratic, basic services like phone/gas/tv/banks/post office are never straight forward to set up and will always leave you feeling victimized. The bar and club scene is sooo disappointing. Difficult to make friends unless you want to look/talk/act like everyone else. And very difficult to find places that don’t play top 40 music crap. I’m leaving to settle back in Toronto this year. I can’t wait! Thank you for letting me rant. Peace to all.
Benjamin
Like almost everyone says …i thought i was the only one that felt that way. I moved from NYC to London a year ago and I swear every time i get to JFK i wanna cry with joy and when i come in to Heathrow i spend a week getting over depression. The weather sucks ass i don’t think ur ever quite prepared for just how bad it is…why do i have to wear a coat in JUNE …..ahhhhh but its worth it because if it’s actually hot in june/july u have to contend with ac-less trains. WTF that should be a health violation!! 100 ppl in one train car 80+ degrees and no AC puh-lese. And the people are soo soo …words defy me…lets just say it’s not what i expected and i now deeply detest the “average” english accent and i swear if one more person tells me its to-MAH-to not to-MAY-to i’ll scream, i don’t say anything when u mispronounce “vitamins” and “Pantene”. Cant wait to get out of this grimy ass place….. ugggg and the shopping here uuuggghhh horrible..customer service WORSE!!!! i hate this place.
allie
I totally agree. London is a horrific place of epic proportions. The north of the UK is just so much better in callibre. Of course you’re going to get your crap places up there but NOTHING can be as bad as London. It is a fucking shithole. I do love my country, but London should be scrapped. It should be taken down and green fields allowed to grow. It is a wasteland that hasn’t been emptied for about 200 years.
puzzlehead
hank you THANK you! what an amazing blog.. cant agree with you anymore.
london is vile, clostrophobic.. no1 speaks a word of english…. they look at you in hotels/shops/ whatever like your scum of the earth… the streets are littered with tramps… and a tenner wont get you more than a bus/tube ride a newspaper and a packet of crisps!
its pathetic
screw london
eli
The pain of living in this country is destroying me mentally. It is so cathartic to read and relate to someone’s very accurate observations. London is SICK.
I have lived here all my life and I am trying to escape it as quickly as is possible because there is no life to live here. It’s not a city for ‘living in’, for obvious reasons. It’s a city to make money and then RUN AWAY FROM!!! The very vast majority of my friends have emigrated or have plans to emigrate.
I have a few aussie friends here who are making money and then plan to immediately return home. One friend actually spent a week crying when she was back in London from a visit home, sighting how unfriendly everyone is here.
We want to escape the dangerously high levels of pollution, the consistently horrendous weather, the despicable, angry, desperate people who habit the city who get become ferociously aggressive at rush hour, the filthy, ludicrously over-priced, filthy public transport services, the shocking lack of customer service, the overpriced everything, the small houses, small ‘super’markets, narrow roads, shit cars, population explosion, impossibly high levels of crime…. I could go on for days (literally) describing the crap this country offers.
THANK YOU for writing this. We all appreciate it greatly!
Lisa
(a) arsewipes that say they want to live in a shithole area (generally greater London) because it ‘has character’. Might be true, if by character you mean filthy bucket of crap with dodgy people milling about a closed decrepit tube station at all hours of the night.
(b) mold and mildew infested flats with paper thin walls as some arsehole of a landlord has split a small terrace house into 8 flats charging 200 quid per room per week, extra if you want a luxury like window blinds – at least you get a free soap opera when the Asian family upstairs decides to have their bi-weekly domestic dispute. Never watching Bend it like Beckham again.
(c) black, nasty things that you have to pick out of your nose every evening after coming home from work breathing in that disgusting foul odour than seems to emanate from random points throughout the street
(d) an almost endless supply of scammers and small time conmen – ever tried buying a car from a second hand dealer in London? Trust me – been there, done that, took about a year off my life when they sold me a car WITHOUT THE WHEELS fastened on!
(e) limescale – i can’t believe this shit exists in the water here
(f) the useless roads and non-existent parking – the A406 story brought a smile to my face. Even the poor SatNavs get totally confused and give up when faced with those stupid roadabouts or huge intersections with five or six exits….with the street name uselessly painted on the road about 10 feet before the turn off and the white paint almost invisible due to wear and tear.
(g) and finally, the just plain horribleness of nearly every street. The same endless rows of Victorian housing without any endearing feature between one and the other.
I could go on..and on…the list would never end.
Mike
I am a fat English knacker who cannot be trusted, a snake, a rat, a man who pretends to be something that he is not. I preach trust and honesty whilst practising treachery.
I love London
Neil Grigg
I think the vast swathe of people agree that London is a shite-hole of the highest order…the only people who contest this point are either:
a)rich
b) limited in experience
c)not of sound mind (i.e Mental!).
Sure, it’s nice to go there for a holiday, see all the famous sites, and maybe even extend your stay to a few months. But living there a whole year and 4 months(2007/8 as a Postgrad at UCL) – is a completely different kettle of fish.
Admittedly i lived in the shite hole they call Plaistow, but when I arrived in London from Melbourne Australia, I thought there must have been some mistake…surely this wasn’t the London I’ve seen on TV? Samuel Johnson’s London? The london of the Queensguards and Wimbledon Championship etc etc?
There were sinister characters prowling the streets. There were gunshots and police sirens at night. There were rats in the streets and “hoodies” on every corner. And the Tube always reminded me of the nightmarish visions evoked in “Jacobs Ladder” with the twisted angry faces of the hell-bound passengers.
Someone above claims that it’s worse living in Australia…get real!!!
It was the underlying sense of distrust and dis-ease that got to me the most. I got racially abused about 6 or 7 times (I’m white) whilst living in London. The place is horribly divided along class / race and religious lines – see for example the recent racist murder of an elderly Muslim gentleman. After 6 years in Melbourne, the degree of aggression, distrust and hostility in London just blew my mind. Sharing a flat with a Senegalese and a Pole…now that was interesting. The Senegalese was an angry man..here illegally and the Pole…he was off his rocker. I used to be a patriotic Englishman but i thank God/Allah/Buddha every day that I managed to get an Australian passport whilst I was there – it’s my ticket out of that cess pit they call London.
jonno
2012Olympics OlympicLondon, Armageddon, British Occupied Ireland, Galway Whooker, Ghengis Fokner II, London 2012, London Olympics, Nuked, Olympic, Olympic Games, Olympics, Olympics London
