December 16, 2024, 6:44 am | Read time: 10 minutes
London is a tourist magnet and the number one city break destination in Europe. Every year, millions look forward to taking a ride in the iconic black cab through Pall Mall, looking out over the city from the London Eye, and ordering a delicious five o’clock tea. But what do you do if you want to experience London like a local rather than a tourist? Our author, who has been a regular visitor to London for many years, thinks there are a few things you should not do.
I have to admit quite clearly: London is my favorite city. Mainly, of course, because my best friend lives in the English metropolis and so every visit there is a celebration. But also because typical perceptions of London life are often very different from what it actually is. If you really want to immerse yourself in London, there are a few things you should keep your hands off – simply because no Londoner would ever do that.
What Londoners Would Never Do: An Overview
1. Getting into a Rickshaw
Tourists may love the bright pedicabs with the colorful plush seats, but Londoners despise them. Mainly because they are terribly loud: ABBA or Bollywood hits blast out of their loudspeakers, and, at night, the drunken passengers sing along even louder. If you want to understand how annoying the rickshaws are, you should go to the Cambridge Theatre in the West End at around 10 p.m.: There, the drivers wait until the theater guests come out of the building. As soon as the first people step out onto the street, all the rickshaws switch on their loudspeakers at the same time. “Dancing Queen”, “We will rock you”, and “Kabhi Kabhie” — everything is blaring and booming. A noise level like at a heavy metal concert!
What’s more, the drivers are notorious for mercilessly ripping off their customers. There are reports of up to 1,300 British pounds (the equivalent of 1,560 euros) for 500 meters of driving! Therefore, rickshaws are not for Londoners, who prefer to walk or use the bus and subway. For them, rickshaws are simply a nuisance!
2. Take a Cab
Yes, the famous “black cabs” are an integral part of the English capital’s cityscape, but Londoners only get in them in an emergency. On the one hand, because they have already experienced the often quite inconsiderate behavior of the “cabbies” as pedestrians or cyclists, and on the other, because cabs are expensive. And why take an expensive cab when the local public transport system is so good that you can easily get from A to B around the clock? Even the nicest cab drivers can rarely convince Londoners, as the Tube (the name of the subway in London) or the bus are clearly the better choice for them: The Tube runs late into the night and buses often operate 24 hours a day, so you not only save money, but also avoid the hassle of traffic jams in the city center.
3. Tipping in a Pub
Unlike in restaurants, you don’t tip at the bar in a pub. This may be polite in other countries, but not in London. On the contrary, a Londoner orders his pint at the bar, pays, says thank you, takes the beer, and leaves. If you tip, the bartenders tend to give you a somewhat irritated look. It’s simply part of the culture: you don’t tip for bar service in the pub. Sometimes there is a “tip box” on the bar, then you can put something in there for the whole pub team, but this is the exception and by no means obligatory.
4. Barbecues in the Park
Whether it’s the Flaucher in Munich or Mauerpark in Berlin, barbecues are an integral part of summer in Germany! In London, on the other hand, the smell of smoke and sausages in the park is a rarity. The parks are often too small, or barbecuing is simply prohibited. Residents value peace and quiet and cleanliness, so barbecuing in green spaces is frowned upon. If you are a true Londoner, you respect this and tend to use the parks for a relaxed picnic. Picnics are the much more popular option, and Londoners often come with blankets, sandwiches, and a thermos of tea to enjoy the day with friends.
5. Bragging
My house, my car, my job! In London: better not. Because showing off is an absolute taboo here. Regardless of whether you have had a spectacular career or own a fortune, if you brag about it, you may get a tight-lipped “interesting”. However, this does not mean that the boast was actually “interesting”. “Interesting” means something like “Please stop!”. Boasting is embarrassing in London. Understatement is the order of the day here. You might hear phrases like “I dabble a bit in music” from someone who may have actually filled the Royal Albert Hall. Londoners prefer to keep their successes to themselves and let their actions speak for themselves rather than talk about them.
6. Book a Dinner Cruise
A fine dinner on a boat, swinging up and down the Thames? Perhaps an experience for tourists, but not for Londoners. The food on party boats is usually disappointing and the atmosphere sterile. And at prices that could make even the most composed Londoners’ hearts skip a beat. Instead, Londoners prefer to pack their own picnic and hop on a regular Transport for London ferry to Greenwich. With your own champagne and a sandwich, you have the same view, only much cheaper and more comfortable. The ferries offer seats with folding tables where you can spread out what you’ve brought with you. This makes the trip on the Thames an authentic experience, without the touristy and overpriced frills.
7. Use a Red Telephone Box
For many tourists, the red telephone boxes are quintessential London. In some places, tourists queue up to take a photo of a phone booth with a London landmark in the background (such as on the banks of the Thames with the London Eye or at Westminster with Big Ben). Londoners, on the other hand, don’t like phone booths at all. The reason for this is simple: the phone booths are usually totally filthy, plastered with intrusive sex number stickers, and are often used as public toilets by drunken night owls. The fact that the phones in the booths often no longer work anyway is usually irrelevant. Unfortunately, most red telephone boxes are so unkempt and unappetizing that Londoners give them a wide berth.
8. Shopping in Candy or Souvenir Stores
At the beginning of 2020, American candy stores began to flood central London. When the coronavirus pandemic wiped out many traditional retail outlets, candy stores took their place. In Oxford Street alone, there were sometimes 30 of these sweet stores! Disco music blared out of the brightly lit stores, and inside you could find cheap cell phone accessories, tacky souvenirs, and third-rate Harry Potter junk alongside the sweet stuff. However, according to a report in the “Irish Times“, Londoners fought back against the cheap sugar invasion. Many of the stores were selling fake products, sweets that had long since expired, or were used for tax evasion.
The city council took action, resulting in the closure of a third of these stores by November 2022. By March 2023, the police had confiscated £1 million worth of goods from the stores. However, the success was not particularly sustainable: in the meantime, new “souvenir stores” have often moved into the stores of the former “candy stores”, but they look just as shabby and the product range differs little from their predecessors. While tourists are sometimes still captivated by the flashy temptations, Londoners find these stores absolutely dreadful. They see them as detrimental to the authentic cityscape and would never set foot in these stores.
9. Jumping the Queue
“An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms a neat queue of one person.” So wrote the Hungarian journalist George Mikes, who worked as a correspondent in London in the 1930s. But he was also able to recognize why queuing is so important to the British. “A person in a queue is a fair person,” he interpreted the reason for this habit: those who queue show that they are respectful of others.
And that’s exactly how Londoners see it. Queuing is, so to speak, proof that you are a civilized person. And so it is a matter of course for all Londoners to queue when there is a queue, whether in a museum, bank, or supermarket. Those who jump the queue are punished with disapproving looks or sometimes told in a louder voice where the end of the queue is. However, habits are changing here too. For example, it used to be normal to form a queue at the bus stop, now it is more common to politely arrange the order of boarding.
10. Drinking Afternoon Tea
Where the tradition of afternoon tea comes from is not entirely certain. An English duchess, Anna Maria Russell (1783-1857), claimed to have invented afternoon tea: People get together in the afternoon for a chat with tea, sandwiches, and cake. In fact, the tea tradition is probably much older. For Londoners, however, there is usually no such thing as “tea time”, because “tea time” is always. Whether at the breakfast table, in the office, or on the train from a thermos flask. If there is time, it can be a fine Lapsang Souchong (Sherlock Holmes’ favorite tea), but Builder’s Tea, a simple black tea bag in hot water, is also always welcome.
However, the real Londoner also likes a coffee to go, because despite all the clichés, coffee is also an integral part of everyday life in London. Many cafés now offer monthly coffee subscriptions: You pay a monthly amount and can then drink as much coffee as you want.
11. Eating Fish’n’Chips
Fish’n’chips are undoubtedly an English original. A tender piece of plaice or hake in crispy breadcrumbs, served with hand-cut chips with ketchup, remoulade, and the obligatory splash of vinegar. Londoners also like fish’n’chips, but they like curry even better. The first time a curry dish appeared on a London menu was in 1733 at the Norris Street Coffee House on London’s Haymarket. By 1784, curry and rice had become popular specialties in a number of popular restaurants in the Piccadilly Circus area. Today, multicultural neighborhoods, such as Brick Lane, are known for their curry houses. But everyone who lives in London has a personal curry favorite in their neighborhood where they regularly get their “comfort curry”.
12. Running to the Bus/Train
“We’re gentlemen, we walk, we never run” was sung by Sting in his song “Englishman in New York” in 1987, and it still seems to be true today. It’s a rare sight to see people running in London. Especially not to the bus or train. “Never run for public transport” is an unwritten law in London. The reason for this is the sensational public transport network in London: most buses and subway trains run every two minutes. Running is unnecessary, as the next bus or train is just around the corner. If you run for the bus or rush down the escalators to the tube through the crowded city center of London, you only risk a painful collision with others and end up even more stressed than before. Therefore, walking briskly is allowed, running is not.