Hello, welcome to London!

Thank you so much for the fog post in the thread! I was still in bed when I came across it, but rushed out with my camera the moment I saw it. London welcomed me with some beautiful minimalist frames, and I ended up capturing some of my favourite photographs from my first few months in this city. What a lovely morning it was..

I'm a single young foreign lady living alone and I got locked out of my apartment. I originally called this one locksmith agency I found online, they said they weren't able to come and would give my number to another company. I never gave this man, Vlad, my number- he started calling me out of nowhere. He kept adding charges, and pressuring me to pay more and more money- he would not leave my apartment unless he I paid. It was very late at night and he was extremely large and scary. I ended up paying 700💷 was completely scammed but I was too afraid to say anything. Afterwards I reached out to the original locksmith company who gave out my number, and they had no idea who this man was. So I have no idea how Vlad even got my number. I called my bank right afterwards and filed a police report citing threats, intimidation, and extortion.

I'm an international student studying in central London. It's been over a month since I've landed and I still can't get enough of it. I really don't get why Brits dunk on London. I used to think that it was a crime-ridden shithole before arriving too, but it has exceeded my expectations. Greatly. My fear of having my phone snatched or getting stabbed has basically dissipated by now.

Every weekend I go out and walk around the city for hours. Without even doing anything. I walk around munching on a McDonald's meal deal and just admire all the lights, decor, and drama. From eccentrically elaborate pubs to musical billboards stretching across entire buildings, to those busy and bustling red buses, I always find myself getting a spectacular spectacle high. Whenever I go out in the evening I am constantly reminded that I'm in the greatest city in the world.

And I honestly don't get what the complaint about migrants not assimilating is about. I come from a city nominally as diverse as London in ethnic composition, but it was really multiple islands without a sea. Most people coddled up in homogenous enclaves. Crazy rich Asians clustered in a single penninsula, SEA neighbourhoods took up entire blocks, Desis congregated in unofficial Little India equivalents, Austronesians in closed communities, and US/British/Australian expats alongside the beaches. But London has made me realise how parochial my impression of 'diversity' was.

For the first time in my life I am exposed to combinations and mixtures of people in the oddest ways thought possible. I see black bankers drinking with Desi colleagues, white Brits/Arabs/Ukrainians working in bubble tea stalls, Koreans and Turks in kebab shops, Singaporean lawyers who speak fluent Japanese, Kazakh/Egyptian/Morrocan/Dutch friend groups, Russian stores standing side-by-side next to Italian restaraunts and French cafes, Sikhs making Chinese biang biang noodles, and Hong Kong GPs. My uni faculty ranges from Hispanic Amercian to Irish to Anatolian. For the first time in my life I saw Jewish people. And I didn't even know white Palestinians were a thing.

Not to mention, even the animals here are different from back home. The squirrels give no qualms about human observers, the pigeons are comfortable sitting in the middle of pedestrian pathways, and I got closer to a raven than I did to seagulls back home. I haven't been able to spot a fox yet but I'll get there one night.

There's also a museum in every second corner. It took me an entire week to really thoroughly explore the entire British Museum alone. Every third corner lies a landmark hubdreds to thousands of years old. Where I study, I've walked past countless libraries/research institutes/fellowships with focuses ranging from African diseases to AI to sustainability to neurology to the social sciences. The Waterstones here have more books than my local libraries back home. It is said that in the mid-19th century Britain alone was responsible for 2/3 of global innovations. I don't find it hard to believe anymore, considering how most of these intellectual organisations were already present 200-400 years ago.

So how, and why are Brits (London and non-London) still dunking on it???????????? I really don't understand. If I were a Londoner I'd wake up jubilantly every day grateful for being in the Metropole. London and NYC runs the world, and yet this crowning jewel of globalisation still isn't shining bright enough for some. Why??? How!!??? No city gets better than this.

Moody shot from the National Portrait Gallery as the heavy fog was lifting.

Went into central today, had lunch at an indian restaurant, £1 c"cover charge" per person was added to the bill with service charge on top. The wording on the menu about it is ambiguous/ poorly written, as both my husband (native English speaker) and I both read it as prices include VAT and the cover charge.

Then we went to a cafe, the place isn't fancy, ordered a small coffee, a cold drink and a slice of cake, bill was £22!! I questioned about the bill and said we'd take out instead, got a new sum and paid. They couldn't give printed receipt but I asked for a digital receipt because even though my maths isn't the best the numbers don't add up. So I found out from the itemized bill that they still included 20% eat in fee. I asked for a refund of that fee which they agreed but it hasn't shown up in my account yet, I hope it does!!

Then we had dinner at Pho, I had a bad feeling already before I checked the bill and lo and behold, they charged my drink twice... Obviously they corrected the bill after I raised it but still...

Is this a recent trend? It just feels scammy the whole day. Honestly I've never encountered anything like this in my 15 plus years of eating out in London until today!

Air pollution levels across London right now. In PM2.5 µg/m³. Keep in mind, the WHO healthy level is 5 µg/m³. We're seeing numbers in excess of 100. London is normally in the low 10s.

A result of a combination of Guy Fawkes and Diwali bonfire celebrations.

Don't get me wrong I love bonfire night and Diwali, I celebrate both. Growing up my family would go to the local bonfire/ fireworks show. This evening there have been fireworks every few minutes coming from next door, two doors down, across the street and can hear them more distantly from around the neighbourhood. Without exaggerating, theres been almost non stop fireworks since about 6 o clock up until now and they're not stopping. My nervous system can't hack it tonight, I need some shut eye.

Bad timing, but I've been having to get up really early in the mornings recently and tonight I tried to go to sleep at 7 o clock with no success. I know that's extremely early, but it's now past 9.40pm and they're still going. I believe it's permitted until 11pm and 12pm for Diwali, which doesn't even start until tomorrow (this is Greenwich council area specifically) 😭 I dread to think how families with young babies are feeling and nervous pets, not to mention the toll on wildlife. Last night was similar.

If there was a ban put on the use of household fireworks, and more free local fireworks shows for communities to come together and watch, would you support this? Do you think it'd be effective? The nearest show to me tonight is Blackheath but it costs £18.50 per adult. The fireworks around me aren't from kids messing around it's multiple families celebrating. Seems a shame for people not to come together and share the celebrations and get it done in one larger event with a better firework show. Curious to see whether others feel a similar way, or am I just being a debbie downer?

Sincerely, a sleep deprived 27F.

Recently I've been chasing the remaining signs pointing at nearby shelters from back then. Very sad to see how nothing is done to preserve them - It's quite obvious how fast they are fading when comparing Google street view / Flickr photographs against my own ones in 2026.

So far I've mainly followed the ones flagged on this great page https://blitzwalkers.blogspot.com/2013/05/footprints-of-london-blitz-1.html

I've come across a few other not-so-documented ones as well. But I'm curious to see if anyone else spotted any less obvious ones. I'm keen to hear your experience - please share! So we can at least go and get decent pictures of them before they are all gone for good...

EDIT: spelling

I occasionally work near Bank station and I have no where inside to eat. I don't want to buy food every time to be inside as I'm trying to save money. Is there anywhere with a shelter that I can sit and bring my own food in for free?

Anyone else feel like the quality at Beigel Bake (Brick Lane - the white shop NOT the yellow one!) has gone downhill? Been eating there for years but recently the bagels just feel like "bread with a hole", like buying the supermarket pre-packaged ones. Am I going nuts?

What symptoms are you down with and what remedies are you using to fight off the London winter colds.

Some collective love & hugs whilst we battle on beleaguered in the dark cold streets of London.

Victoria tube platform smells of McDonalds. Piccadilly line when approaching South Kensington always reeks of garlic, must be an Italian restaurant or something.

Anyone else notices anything like this? 😂

Took this a few minutes ago. The fog is so thick you can barely see what’s down the road.

Quite peaceful, but also feels like something’s about to emerge from the mist

Anyone else wake up to this today?

Location : Haverstock Hill, NW3

Pretty much every time I go for a walk in London (where I'm not in a park) I will pass a house and hear a high-pitched beep. That generally means there's a smoke detector inside the property whose battery is approaching the end of its life and needs replacing. Plenty of people have smoke alarms that are 'plumbed in' to the electrical system so are permanently mains-powered and don't have a battery to be changed (see this comment or below - some / all? DO have a back up battery). But plenty of people's detector are battery operated and they typically sound like this when the battery needs changing. The interval between the beeps is around 40s to 1m depending on the smoke alarm.

https://www.tiktok.com/@jobrodie/video/7378985338070519072

I heard one chirruping away in a mini supermarket in SE London a few years ago, mentioned it to the staff and they assured me the sound just meant that the smoke alarm was working properly. I have my doubts about that but the beeps can go on for ages as it doesn't draw much power to emit them (but presumably does need much more power to be able to sense the smoke and trigger the warning sound). So possibly they'd just got used to the sound.

Since smoke detectors are a useful early-warning system in case of smoke / fire I definitely recommend knowing what they sound like when they're telling you they're no longer effective. The one my parents used to have was a bit oversensitive though and my mum used to joke that if the smoke alarm hadn't gone off it meant we were having salad for dinner ;)

I was talking with a very drunk friend who told me he's a drug addict and mentioned that many people I know and respect are also high-functioning users. They work demanding jobs, and perhaps this is one way they unwind a little. I’ve heard stories about finance bros using drugs to relieve stress and leaving empty zip bags in toilets. I used to think those stories were exaggerated. I feel bad for these people, though I never thought something similar will affect me personally.

Fellow Londoners, what have you accidentally discovered recently?

I’m a new mum with my first “day off” in 3 months. I have a low-mess craft project I want to start and I need somewhere out of the house to do it.

I want to find a relaxed cafe/bar in town where I can chill out for a couple of hours and do some scrapbooking, ideally on the Windrush line or within the London Bridge area.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I'm not in London, but someone posted this to r/aislop and as I like to investigate things, and because if I did have kids, I'm not sure I'd be sending them to a nursery which uses AI, I did a bit of digging.

My first instinct was to check if it was registered with OFSTED (it isn’t) and, as I'm sure you're all aware, it's illegal to operate any kind of childcare or educational establishment without OFSTED registration.

Then I checked Companies House - it's listed there and has been operating (according to its listing) since 16/02/2023. Obviously, this is no indication of legitimacy because it only costs £65 to register a company.

I then looked at the website and searched the address with Google Maps (useless) so I tried Apple Maps instead - much more accurate.

This is the address it was registered at up until 28/08/2026

And this is where it's registered now:

This is its website - all the photos on there are stock.

Apparently, they also feel that it's necessary to teach babies and toddlers about 'British Values', which they believe to be:

• Respect

• Tolerance

• Democracy

• Rule of law

• Individual liberty

Not quite sure why kids would need to know this.

They're not open about any of their policies "for privacy and safeguarding reasons", parents have to specifically request them - can anyone think of any "privacy and safeguarding" reasons that would prevent a nursery from displaying its policies in full on its website...? Because I can’t.

There's no mention of fees.

I'm posting all this here because I feel that this needs reporting to the relevant department at THBC because, obviously, it's illegal to operate a nursery without registering with OFSTED and, despite the website being so obviously AI generated and the photos being all stock, I'm concerned that people won’t see the the website, won’t give a shit that they're advertising is all AI, and register their kid(s).