23rd December: London

23 DECEMBER 2015
LONDON
Today, I am thankful for London, United Kingdom. Here are 10 things that you will never hear a Londoner say:
1. Hold on guys, I just need to nip into M&M’s World (Leicester Square).
2. You know what they should turn this into? Luxury flats.
3. Oooh, take a look at that beautiful pigeon.
4. Amazing – I genuinely thought that was a real statue!
5. I’m just off to the Harrods’s food court to do the weekly shop.
6. I’m going to go home after work so that I can have dinner before going to the pub.
7. I’m sober and I’m getting into a rickshaw.
8. Best to wait for the lights to change before we cross.
9. You’re quite right Mrs Cyclist that red light doesn’t apply to you, on you go. I wasn’t using that leg anyway.
10. It’s a free country and as far as I’m concerned, people can stand wherever they want to on escalators.*
Having lived here for probably far too long, one of the high-energy city’s unspoken charms is that quite literally, anything goes. Should you choose to, you could walk down a street stark naked and no-one would bat an eyelid. I do not feel that this genuine acceptance of differences and craziness applies to all the other cities around the world that I have visited. Plus, the famous London Underground system (Tube) with its brain-friendly colour-coded visual map and LED indicator boards is far easier to navigate than that of other international cities. For example, have you tried to work out where the train is going on NYC’s subway? Thank you, London.
*Source: Time Out.
Image: sanjuanparent.com