Partly inspired by Dean’s badger thread and partly by Dan’s travel stories I was thinking that I really don’t know that much about what it would be like to live in different parts of the UK. I’ve probably been to Paris more times than Manchester, only been to Edinburgh twice and have never been to Northern Ireland. What’s it like in those places?
I’ve lived in London now for 25 years and really can’t ever see me moving out but I'd be intrigued to know what it's like in other parts of the UK. I'm guessing you've all been in London at some time but for those of you who have never lived here below is a very rough guide to what it’s like to be a pinhead in the capital
1) You NEVER get to go around to your fellow pinhead houses for a quick game session. Fancy popping over to dodgy Dr Dan’s to play his MB? He’s only 15 miles away. Right that’s a short 2 hour drive each way. I’ve only ever made it there once. Whenever I sell games to out of towners they inform me that their sat nav tells them that they can get from the bottom of the M1 to my house in 30 mins. When they eventually turn up it looks like they’ve been wondering in the wilderness for 40 days and nights. It will have taken them less time to get from Yorkshire down to the M25 than it did to navigate the Old Kent Road on a Friday night.
2) Martin HATES delivering to here. Can’t think why. I view it as an exciting contest much like the Krypton Factor. He has to successfully avoid the congestion charge zone, find his way around the one way system, squeeze through the road barriers (OT: note the electric charge points that are everywhere around here) before using his God like skills of Tetris to get machines through the doorway of hell (2mm clearance on the sides of the backbox, stupid small step down, set on an angle and a wall to the left). Before getting to carry it over the kitchen floor. It used to be worse as the door had to come off its hinges and the machines lifted up and over the worktop. I can’t imagine how much easier it must be in a non terrace house. This is also after he’s somehow found somewhere to park.
3) Strange things happen a couple of roads away from you. We’re no longer worried about stabbings on the buses. It’s moved to a different level
4) There are green bits in London. You just need to improvise a bit. Nothing says a wholesome upbringing like taking the kids to the local graveyard in order to see trees.
Other views can be pretty good though. You can see the Shard, London Eye and the Houses of Parliament in the distance from my son’s room (very crap night photo below) whereas my daughter gets to look over Canary Wharf.
5) Retro play equipment from the early 70s can still be discovered in some of the local estates. (I actually got very excited when I saw these as it brought back lots of childhood memories. Sadly I couldn’t wedge my bit fat **** into the planet roundabout thing)
6) Never underestimate how expensive it is just to live day to day here. I get a London weighting for my job (which I appreciate). However, it works out at around £20 a week which goes virtually no where. We had friends from Somerset here just before Christmas who couldn’t believe we had to pay £80 for a tree if I wanted to source one locally as they picked up a bigger tree for £25. I thought it was a bargain compared to the other ones in the local area
Beer. The £5 pint is pretty common now. I don’t even flinch when I see it. My closest pub to work (in Mile End) is now £5.80. Almost everyone pays by card if you get a round in. The student pub near us not only takes contactless payment (which seems very dangerous) but you can order online and they bring the drinks over to the table.
You have to be careful who you let stay over. It kicks off with a casual reference about how expensive London hotels are and how your friends really appreciate it that they can stay with you and before you know it you’re running an unpaid B&B for 50 weekends of the year.
7) All those pretentious food places you hear about are actually real. The cereal café in Shoreditch is always busy.
Pop up restaurants are everywhere (which is a good thing). Rhubarb on a pizza is still very very wrong in my mind. (although apparently I’m meant to be a philistine about this).
Our local multi-story car park is now promoted as a cool open air bar with a panoramic view. (It still looks suspiciously like a crap scout fete to me but at least the car park now smells slightly less of urine than before, possible because no one can afford the £6 beer prices)
We’ve got an organic Hungarian restaurant at the bottom of the road, presumably a normal Hungarian restaurant isn’t specialised enough. Another thing about London is that increasingly a lot of the restaurants don’t have signs in English which adds to the mystery factor.
8) Schools are sandwiched in. Forget those ideas of large playing fields. The one I teach at is luckily enough to have a 5 a side football pitch. It’s on the roof.
It’s also overlooked by a range of towerblocks. We have fixed windows that can’t open and a passive aircon system that doesn’t actually work. In the summer it really is like being in a sauna. In September we had a small fire in the canteen and it took weeks for the smell of smoke to leave the classrooms upstairs as there was no way to circulate the air around.
As well as firedrills London schools now have to regularly practice evacuations in preparation for terrorist attacks. My son’s school had the idea of getting all the students to assemble in the enclosed tennis courts which didn’t seem like the best idea to me…..
Diversity in schools might not be quite as diverse as the name suggest. Depending on where you are in London the intake is widely different. Having two white British parents puts my kids in a very small minority in their schools. Different boroughs though can have a totally different make up of kids.
I get invited to a LOT of Asian weddings as a result of my job. Things I’ve learnt. i) Never turn up on time. A 18:00 start means the bride might arrive by 21:00 if you are lucky. ii) It will be dry. I know it shouldn’t have come as a surprise but for some reason it did the first time I went. iii) They will be segregated. As the only people I know at them are all female (ex students) it means I’m going to be stuck in a room with strange men I’ve never met and I’ll be the only one without a beard and with long hair. Conversation doesn’t tend to flow naturally in this situation
9) Those plans to convert the kids bedrooms into games rooms is NEVER going to happen. They are NEVER EVER going to be able to leave home. I live in a cheap part of the capital but still there is absolutely no chance that they will be able to buy anything around here. Don’t forget even if they can afford the mortgage payments they would need £50k+ for a deposit and £20k+ for stamp duty. Where the hell is that going to come from? OK, I’m guessing there’s going to be a big cull of games here when the time comes in order to help pay for some of it. It’s either that or both of them and their partners are going to end up living here with us.
Maybe renting is the answer…… or maybe not. This flat was described as being ideal for Students. Assuming students have 10 grand a year to spend on a room in a shared house after their 9k+ tuition fees.
Nursery fees. Dear God please don’t let them make me a granddad too soon. £1600 a month – gulp. There’s also normally a £2 a min late fee per child. When my kids were young I got stuck on the tube once and arrived 20 mins late, so £80 went. If there are two grandkids in the future then I’d be better off giving up work and babysitting all day
Tourists. OMG. You can spot someone who has never been to London before a mile off. Why would you try to talk to someone on the tube? Random conversations about the weather etc. Sorry no time for that crap. I’ve lived in this house for 15 years and only know the name of one of my immediate neighbours. I’ve never been into any of the flats either side of me.
Yes we have moving pavements at Waterloo. No you do still need to walk when you are on them you lazy bastards. Don’t look surprised at the tube barriers and then start digging around for your oyster card, how did that comes as a surprise to you??? (I’ve always assumed these are the same people who queue in supermarkets and don’t get their cards out until the very last moment)
So what’s it like living in the rest of the UK? What’s good. What’s bad? How on earth do you cope without a decent pubic transport system? I didn’t even own a car until I was 33 and still barely use it.
I’ve lived in London now for 25 years and really can’t ever see me moving out but I'd be intrigued to know what it's like in other parts of the UK. I'm guessing you've all been in London at some time but for those of you who have never lived here below is a very rough guide to what it’s like to be a pinhead in the capital
1) You NEVER get to go around to your fellow pinhead houses for a quick game session. Fancy popping over to dodgy Dr Dan’s to play his MB? He’s only 15 miles away. Right that’s a short 2 hour drive each way. I’ve only ever made it there once. Whenever I sell games to out of towners they inform me that their sat nav tells them that they can get from the bottom of the M1 to my house in 30 mins. When they eventually turn up it looks like they’ve been wondering in the wilderness for 40 days and nights. It will have taken them less time to get from Yorkshire down to the M25 than it did to navigate the Old Kent Road on a Friday night.
2) Martin HATES delivering to here. Can’t think why. I view it as an exciting contest much like the Krypton Factor. He has to successfully avoid the congestion charge zone, find his way around the one way system, squeeze through the road barriers (OT: note the electric charge points that are everywhere around here) before using his God like skills of Tetris to get machines through the doorway of hell (2mm clearance on the sides of the backbox, stupid small step down, set on an angle and a wall to the left). Before getting to carry it over the kitchen floor. It used to be worse as the door had to come off its hinges and the machines lifted up and over the worktop. I can’t imagine how much easier it must be in a non terrace house. This is also after he’s somehow found somewhere to park.
3) Strange things happen a couple of roads away from you. We’re no longer worried about stabbings on the buses. It’s moved to a different level
4) There are green bits in London. You just need to improvise a bit. Nothing says a wholesome upbringing like taking the kids to the local graveyard in order to see trees.
Other views can be pretty good though. You can see the Shard, London Eye and the Houses of Parliament in the distance from my son’s room (very crap night photo below) whereas my daughter gets to look over Canary Wharf.
5) Retro play equipment from the early 70s can still be discovered in some of the local estates. (I actually got very excited when I saw these as it brought back lots of childhood memories. Sadly I couldn’t wedge my bit fat **** into the planet roundabout thing)
6) Never underestimate how expensive it is just to live day to day here. I get a London weighting for my job (which I appreciate). However, it works out at around £20 a week which goes virtually no where. We had friends from Somerset here just before Christmas who couldn’t believe we had to pay £80 for a tree if I wanted to source one locally as they picked up a bigger tree for £25. I thought it was a bargain compared to the other ones in the local area
Beer. The £5 pint is pretty common now. I don’t even flinch when I see it. My closest pub to work (in Mile End) is now £5.80. Almost everyone pays by card if you get a round in. The student pub near us not only takes contactless payment (which seems very dangerous) but you can order online and they bring the drinks over to the table.
You have to be careful who you let stay over. It kicks off with a casual reference about how expensive London hotels are and how your friends really appreciate it that they can stay with you and before you know it you’re running an unpaid B&B for 50 weekends of the year.
7) All those pretentious food places you hear about are actually real. The cereal café in Shoreditch is always busy.
Pop up restaurants are everywhere (which is a good thing). Rhubarb on a pizza is still very very wrong in my mind. (although apparently I’m meant to be a philistine about this).
Our local multi-story car park is now promoted as a cool open air bar with a panoramic view. (It still looks suspiciously like a crap scout fete to me but at least the car park now smells slightly less of urine than before, possible because no one can afford the £6 beer prices)
We’ve got an organic Hungarian restaurant at the bottom of the road, presumably a normal Hungarian restaurant isn’t specialised enough. Another thing about London is that increasingly a lot of the restaurants don’t have signs in English which adds to the mystery factor.
8) Schools are sandwiched in. Forget those ideas of large playing fields. The one I teach at is luckily enough to have a 5 a side football pitch. It’s on the roof.
It’s also overlooked by a range of towerblocks. We have fixed windows that can’t open and a passive aircon system that doesn’t actually work. In the summer it really is like being in a sauna. In September we had a small fire in the canteen and it took weeks for the smell of smoke to leave the classrooms upstairs as there was no way to circulate the air around.
As well as firedrills London schools now have to regularly practice evacuations in preparation for terrorist attacks. My son’s school had the idea of getting all the students to assemble in the enclosed tennis courts which didn’t seem like the best idea to me…..
Diversity in schools might not be quite as diverse as the name suggest. Depending on where you are in London the intake is widely different. Having two white British parents puts my kids in a very small minority in their schools. Different boroughs though can have a totally different make up of kids.
I get invited to a LOT of Asian weddings as a result of my job. Things I’ve learnt. i) Never turn up on time. A 18:00 start means the bride might arrive by 21:00 if you are lucky. ii) It will be dry. I know it shouldn’t have come as a surprise but for some reason it did the first time I went. iii) They will be segregated. As the only people I know at them are all female (ex students) it means I’m going to be stuck in a room with strange men I’ve never met and I’ll be the only one without a beard and with long hair. Conversation doesn’t tend to flow naturally in this situation
9) Those plans to convert the kids bedrooms into games rooms is NEVER going to happen. They are NEVER EVER going to be able to leave home. I live in a cheap part of the capital but still there is absolutely no chance that they will be able to buy anything around here. Don’t forget even if they can afford the mortgage payments they would need £50k+ for a deposit and £20k+ for stamp duty. Where the hell is that going to come from? OK, I’m guessing there’s going to be a big cull of games here when the time comes in order to help pay for some of it. It’s either that or both of them and their partners are going to end up living here with us.
Maybe renting is the answer…… or maybe not. This flat was described as being ideal for Students. Assuming students have 10 grand a year to spend on a room in a shared house after their 9k+ tuition fees.
Nursery fees. Dear God please don’t let them make me a granddad too soon. £1600 a month – gulp. There’s also normally a £2 a min late fee per child. When my kids were young I got stuck on the tube once and arrived 20 mins late, so £80 went. If there are two grandkids in the future then I’d be better off giving up work and babysitting all day
Tourists. OMG. You can spot someone who has never been to London before a mile off. Why would you try to talk to someone on the tube? Random conversations about the weather etc. Sorry no time for that crap. I’ve lived in this house for 15 years and only know the name of one of my immediate neighbours. I’ve never been into any of the flats either side of me.
Yes we have moving pavements at Waterloo. No you do still need to walk when you are on them you lazy bastards. Don’t look surprised at the tube barriers and then start digging around for your oyster card, how did that comes as a surprise to you??? (I’ve always assumed these are the same people who queue in supermarkets and don’t get their cards out until the very last moment)
So what’s it like living in the rest of the UK? What’s good. What’s bad? How on earth do you cope without a decent pubic transport system? I didn’t even own a car until I was 33 and still barely use it.
)
). The area is very quiet, especially as the road we live on is a dead end so don't get any traffic apart from people living or visiting there. There is a council estate fairly close by but it's never been a problem. Local boozer however is utter b0llocks though, never bother going. Theres a great butchers and a chippy though that does the best onion rings on earth 
