February 17, 2010
You know you've been in London too long...
"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."
— Samuel Johnson
Yeah, maybe, but I'm no intellectual and besides, there's also a whole wide world of opportunity out there. I just read the following on Taylor Whitmer's blog (I follow Taylor on Twitter - she recently moved away from London) and it struck a chord.
You know you've been in London too long when...
1. You don't even bother looking out of the window when you get up in the morning to check what the day is like. You know it is overcast.
2. You believe that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday are all good nights for drinking. Sunday day is also entirely reasonable.
3. You can't remember what 'customer service' means.
4. After a big night out you find yourself looking for a Curry house and not a 24 hour McDonalds.
5. You start to accept queuing as a way of life.
6. More than three hours sunlight on summer days seems excessive.
7. You always call soccer 'football' ... and you have a team... and it's not Manchester United.
8. You don't think twice about buying a packaged sandwich.
9. A sunny lunchtime means searching for a patch of grass and stripping off practically down to your underwear.
10. You expect men to actually cut, comb and style their hair (using hair products). And to wear decent clothes. Jeans and a t-shirt are no longer socially acceptable.
11. You think 40 quid for a haircut is quite reasonable.
12. You finish every sentence with "Cheers" or "In'it", and start every conversation with Hiya.
13. You only just realise you have lost your sunglasses - you left them in Greece 2 summers ago.
14. You start thinking English cuisine isn't all that bad after all, I mean, it's hard to beat a full English breakfast.
15. You are on to your 6th umbrella and your second overcoat.
16. You buy a disposable baby BBQ from Argos.
17. You realise your sunscreen is the stuff you originally brought from hom ewith you.
18. A day at the beach means wearing the warmest clothes you own while standing on golf ball-size pebbles and the thought of swimming doesn't even enter your head.
19. You actually say, "Sor'ed" or "it's all gone a bit pear shaped".
20. Wearing a suit in a pub is normal attire.
21. You have given up complaining about the Victorian-like banking services offered in the UK.
22. You have given up explaining why you are half an hour late to work as no-one notices or even cares. In fact - you may even join the one hour gossip session around the coffee machine before booting up your computer.
23. Coming to work with a hangover is entirely accepted and indeed expected at least once a week.
I'm not sure it's an original list and I think Mark Hix might have something to say about point 14, but I'm splitting hairs. As I said, on another grey morning, the list struck a chord...
