Ways to blend in as a Londoner

When you first move to London, some of you might take to it like water off a duck’s back, others of you may feel that you stick out like a sore thumb.
We’ve created a list of ways to blend in as Londoner, so you don’t feel out of your depth. Many of them are related to the public transport system and some should be taken as being tongue in cheek, but we’ll let you try and work out which are which!

• Don’t wander around obviously clutching your A-Z. If you need to carry it, then try and be discreet about it. Or if you have an I-phone, you could just use that instead to get about!
• Try and hide the fact that your snot is currently black and sooty – we promise it’ll go away.
• Get an Oyster card – real Londoners don’t buy paper tickets, they’re more expensive.
• Never stand still on the left side of an escalator – always move to the right. In fact, most Londoners are often in a rush, so feel free to charge up and down the left side of the escalator.
• Always avoid eye contact with strangers and don’t even think about exchanging niceties – we don’t do that in London or else people might mistake us for psychopaths.
• Walk quickly everywhere and try and look like you’re extremely angry at all times.
• In a supermarket, use the self-service checkout – remember that you’re in a hurry and don’t have time for queues.
• Don’t scream in alarm at the tiny amount of change you’ll get when you hand over a fiver for a pint of beer
• Stop carrying cash altogether and rely on using cards everywhere
• Scream like billio if you see a mouse in your house, but don’t bat an eyelid if you see 10 of them whilst you’re waiting for a tube
• Roll your eyes and be completely devoid of sympathy if someone commits suicide by jumping on the tube tracks and ruins your journey across town
• Start sniggering (and/or exercise an eye roll) if your train is delayed or cancelled due to leaves on the line or the wrong type of snow
• Always carry Nurofen, Berocca tablets, eyedrops and chewing gum with you on Friday mornings to help you deal with a crazy Thursday night out.
• Learn the names and respective colours of the tube lines. Nothing will make you stand out more than if you say you’re taking the yellow line to work. IT’S CALLED THE CIRCLE LINE!
• Don’t bother going out in Central London unless it’s for work drinks. Instead find the best pub in your new area and claim it as your local.
• Start acting like the rest of the UK doesn’t exist

PS We didn’t mean the last one – we’re not originally from London either!!!

You Know You’re a Londoner When…..

• You say “the city” and expect people to know which one you mean.
• You have never been to The Tower or on the London Eye, but you love Brighton.
• You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Paddington to Elephant & Castle, but you can’t find Yorkshire on a map.
• Prostitutes and the homeless are invisible
• You use the correct name of the tube lines, rather than call them colours.
• Your door has more than two locks.
• The most frequently used part of your car is the horn.
• You consider eye contact an act of blatant aggression.
• You call an 6′ x 11′ plot of patchy grass a lawn and complain about having to mow it.
• You consider Kent the “countryside”
• You think Regent’s Park is “nature”.
• You’re paying £1,000 a month for a studio the size of a walk-in cupboard and you think it’s a ” bargain.”
• Shopping in suburban supermarkets and shopping centres gives you an attack of agoraphobia.
• You pay more each month to park your car than most people in England pay in rent.
• You haven’t seen more than twelve stars in the night sky since you arrived.
• You pay £4 without blinking for a beer that cost the bar 28p.
• You scoff at people who live in Transport Zone 4, even though you were raised in a farm town with a population of 77.
• You actually take fashion seriously.
• Being alone makes you nervous.
• You have 18 takeaway menus next to your telephone.
• The UK west of Heathrow airport is still theoretical to you.
• You’re wary of strangers who are actually nice to you.
• You haven’t cooked a meal since helping mum last Christmas with the turkey.
• You take a taxi to get to your health club to exercise.
• You don’t understand what people outside of London do for work.
• Someone jumping underneath a tube isn’t sad or horrifying, it’s dreadfully inconsiderate.
• Your idea of personal space is no one actually standing on you.
• £50 worth of groceries fit in one carrier bag.
• You have a minimum of ten “worst cab ride ever” stories.
• You don’t hear sirens anymore.
• You’ve mentally blocked out all thoughts of the city’s air quality and what it’s doing to your lungs.
Going to church on Sunday means getting wasted with a bunch of Aussies in Clapham.
• You live in a building with a larger population than most market towns.
• You’re starting to wonder where the Sinners Winners guy went.
• Your cleaner is Korean, your grocer is Russian, your deli man is Polish, your landlord is Israeli, your laundry guy is Italian, your favourite bartender is Greek, your favouriterestaurant owner is Irish, the watchseller on your corner is Slovenian, your last cabbie was Indian, your newsagent is Pakistani and your favourite falafel guy is Moroccan.
• You wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, until you get married.