These 5 Things Are Annoying Us In London Right Now

Will Noble
By Will Noble Last edited 78 months ago

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These 5 Things Are Annoying Us In London Right Now

London, we love you but from time to time you don't half get up our nose. Here's what's bugging us right now.

1. Places not in London using 'London' in their name

Lies, all lies

"London Southend is the best airport in the capital, according to a surprising new study" ran an Evening Standard article in August.

It certainly is surprising. Not so much the fact that Southend has a good track record for check-in, bag drop, airport security, baggage reclaim and food outlets. But that Southend is "in the capital"... because it absolutely isn't.

Southend is not the only culprit here — we're looking at you, London Luton Airport.

The sad irony is that many places that ARE in London — take Romford — have trouble accepting this.

Can everyone please just slot into their allotted pigeon hole, thanks.

2. The Trivago Woman

We've travelled out to the far reaches of the tram network... The Trivago Woman is there. On a secluded woodland walk in deepest Richmond, who should we clock, staring deadly through the branches at us? It Is She. Honest to god, The Trivago Woman is an all-seeing normcore psycho-stalker. And The Blue-Bloused One will never go to Amsterdam or Dubai or any other destination she's typing in. The unpalatable truth is that her passport has been confiscated by the authorities. She will haunt London until she has spooked every man jack of us to Kent.

3. Various unicorn shit

Proof: this is a photo of an actual unicorn - not a ruddy rainbow in sight. We rest our case, m'lud

Unicorn toast, unicorn ice cream, unicorn freakshakes... to be fair we've probably covered at least one of those on Londonist, and if London is going through a whole 'unicorn food' phase right now, that's its own business. Our beef with the whole 'unicorn' thing, is that they invariably involve all the colours of the rainbow. Sorry, but when we were growing up, unicorns were definitely white. Are white mythical beasts just not interesting enough now? Was the unicorn brand revamped by Wayne Hemingway when we turned away for two seconds? #makeunicornswhiteagain.

4. Virtual reality slides

When The Shard launched its virtual reality slide, we were impressed. It was a thrifty, practical answer to the Orbit's actual slide — smart thinking. Then Topshop installed a VR slide and we wondered what kind of a monster had been created. We now fear the day when London's playground start getting virtual slides — the real things razed to the ground. Won't anyone think of the children?

5. Not being able to open windows

The Overground: bad window game

London is perpetually stuffy these days. So is it too much to ask to be able to crack a window on public transport? If you're on the Overground, or various other trains, the answer is yes. Instead we're doomed to freeze our nips off from the air con — or otherwise burn our nips off from the ineptitude of the air con. People who design transport — please let us use nature's air conditioning... even if it is peppered with pollutants and often smells like death.

What's getting your goat/unicorn right now? Tell us in the comments and we might use it the next article.

*We know they retro-fitted windows, but we swear they missed some

Last Updated 05 September 2017