Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

to complain about Londoners?

235 replies

NearlyMrsCustardsHardHat · 14/04/2012 00:45

I have just gone from brixton to Liverpool street in tears and with a very heavy limp. I am in agony right now and not one person has stopped to ask if im ok.

Considering the time (midnight) if you saw a woman limping through the tube network in tears would you stop her and ask if she's ok? Or aibu to think someone might have helped me?

disclaimer: i met people at both ends of the journey so am home fine just pissed off at how people will just walk past someone in such obvious difficulty. Aibu to be disgusted by it?

OP posts:
FrankWippery · 14/04/2012 01:03

I hope that you're on the mend sharpish though and I'm sorry you had a shitty journey.

Original poster
NearlyMrsCustardsHardHat · 14/04/2012 01:05

Waffle or perhaps at that time of night people are tired and or pissed and just want to get home. I know i just want my bed!!! So can be partially forgiven and my judgmental (racist according to worra) bit can have some venom removed.

OP posts:
FizzyLaces · 14/04/2012 01:07

Interesting that the Londoners would have helped. Perhaps all the nice, helpful Londoners just stayed in tonight and London is usually populated by friendly, helpful, kind people after all this is so not my experience.

Duckypoohs · 14/04/2012 01:07

I think you might be a little unreasonable, I'm a northerner down south and have been helped plenty on the tube, obviously not during rush hour and you always get twatty commuters who think they have a god given right to board first because they know exactly where the tube stops Hmm or just because.

I don't know why you were limping but what did you expect? What could a member of the public have done? given you a piggy back? If you are not fit to travel on public transport and you knew in advance you should have gotten a taxi. You just cannot rely on altruism, it's nice if it happens, but you have to be realistic.

TheNightIsDarkAndFullOfTerrors · 14/04/2012 01:08

Worra I do not hang around the city forcing help on random drunken women who do not ask for it, I was merely pointing out that I will assist people when I am able.

Why you qualified you own interpretation of my post with a bold weird I do not know.

Confused

Londoners Grin

WorraLiberty · 14/04/2012 01:08

Prejudiced! And no I don't think it's particularly forgiveable to hold that sort of hatred towards a whole city of people due to one train journey.

I do hope you're ok though

Night x

Noqontrol · 14/04/2012 01:09

YABU. No london is not full of cunts. But I'm glad you're ok now.

marriedinwhite · 14/04/2012 01:09

I'm sorry you are in pain. Brixton to Liverpool Street is a dodgy journey and I wouldn't have been near that route at midnight. I'm not that surprised you weren't helped not because Londoners are C's but because there are so many C's in London who would have tried it on, got someone talking and had an accomplice in wait to grab the good samaritan's bag. TBF I would have kept an eye on you to suss it out first and had there been a guard about would have asked them to look out for you.

If you were in that much pain, couldn't you have jumped in a cab?

Hope you are feeling more comfy soon.

Original poster
NearlyMrsCustardsHardHat · 14/04/2012 01:11

Fair comment ducky. Sadly im a stubborn fucker and thought i could manage. I was wrong. I will remember this for next time and get a cab.

I will freely admit i can be a twat at times but still.

Wish this codeine would kick in! :o

OP posts:
RubyFakeNails · 14/04/2012 01:11

YABU

Its odd on one hand mn is full of complaints about the patriarchal society and how sexism is rife yet people post about a a lone woman or vulnerable woman and a big scary man

Lots of people limp, lots of people are in all sorts of physical suffering, this is a very common sight in London. There is a man who sits at oxford circus station begging, he looks to have suffered extremely bad burns over his entire body. Nobody apart form the odd tourist bats an eyelid.

Yes its not nice you were crying, I have spoken to people crying around town but considering the time as you asked us to, I know especially on a friday its people either going out or coming home, most have been drinking. Its quite busy around this time in London on routes I imagine you would have taken. Be realistic.

No you may not have a needle hanging from your arm but you do get all sorts of nuts on the tube, pissing, shouting, I've watched a woman crack eggs over her face, most Londoners are immune to this.

Worra's right you couldn't say this about other regions without uproar.

Don't call us all cunts when your going on like one yourself.

FrankWippery · 14/04/2012 01:13

Fizzy - you'd be surprised, there are lots of us who are nice! Equally, there are cunts on most corners, but I think I could apply that sentence to pretty much every town and city in the UK...

Ducky is spot on - rush hour brings out the very worst in anyone, Londoner or not IME. However, travelling around here on bus, tube and train with my children, I have never had a problem with people not offering to help, give up seats for us or, once, help me carry a double buggy and get my (then) 3 pre school children up the stairs at Covent Garden when the sodding lifts were out. And if you've ever walked up the stairs at Covert Garden tube you would know what a bloody mission that was - all 400 odd of the fucking steps Grin

TheNightIsDarkAndFullOfTerrors · 14/04/2012 01:14

I am going to adopt the delicate term, "C's", now, although I am fairly sure that the apostrophe is erroneous.

I don't care. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner.

Valpollicella · 14/04/2012 01:15

Yabu for saying Lo.doners are cunts.

Yes thete are a lot of blinketed people. Hell even more so at this time of night but pleasr dont lump us all into this stereotype of unfeeling commuting autobots. its not the normvafai have seen/been part of

Check out the tfl page about kindness\random acts of kindness on the tube. Literally hundreds of examples of how London isnt full of cunts.

Hope your meds kick in and your pain is soryed soon as well btw

MissFaversham · 14/04/2012 01:16

Blimey OP, I'm very sorry for what happened to you. I'm a Londoner and would like to think I'm not a cunt, I have one, which is very useful but I'm not one. Big cities tend to bring lots of unsavory behaviour due to amount of people blah blah.

Valpollicella · 14/04/2012 01:16

Dear god...excuse the typos

Original poster
NearlyMrsCustardsHardHat · 14/04/2012 01:16

Ruby. I would like to state here and now i don't subscribe to that feminist nonsense. I freely admit to being a feak and weeble woman and make no bones about it.

Clearly im not cut out for London!

I think i may attempt sleep and come back to this tomorrow.

OP posts:
FrankWippery · 14/04/2012 01:18

On the sauce Val Wink

what's worrying is I read it perfectly

TheNightIsDarkAndFullOfTerrors · 14/04/2012 01:18

Ruby are you seriously saying that I should not be sexist and should approach a big ranting scary man who is drunk rather than a vulnerable woman?

I have done this and have the broken bones and scars as a result.

Sexism is one thing but practical risk assessment is another!

Valpollicella · 14/04/2012 01:19

Those 400 steps feel like 4000 towatds the end dont they Frank

Aribura · 14/04/2012 01:20

I took a foreign friend to London worried that the people would be dicks as they have a reputation for.

They were the loveliest, warmest people we met round the UK and even made an effort to say some words in his native language.

Valpollicella · 14/04/2012 01:21

{Well yes some sauce but on phone dans glasses isnt helping Grin }

TheNightIsDarkAndFullOfTerrors · 14/04/2012 01:23

Sorry, approach a man who is bigger and stronger than I am AS WELL AS wanting to help a woman who is drunk and alone. Not rather than.

I must be a misandrist or summat but in my experience, drunken men try to rape or hurt you. Women don't.

Mrsjay · 14/04/2012 01:25

i have a permanent limp and a funny walk nobody asks if i am ok anywhere , im glad you are home safe but unless somebody collapses in a heap most people wont ask imo

MrsTerryPratchett · 14/04/2012 01:26

I am a Londoner (moved away now) and will say two things... If I was going from Brixton on the tube at that time of night, I would be head down, don't make eye contact, keys between the fingers, not helping a limping, possibly drunk/drugged person. Secondly, I have found that in a lot of the rest of the world people pride themselves on being nice and approachable and sweet but when push comes to shove, not so much.

In London I have met people who have helped me in extremis. For example I was given a lift home by tube workers who saw me upset that I had missed the last tube home. They took me from Central London all the way to Croydon. I have never been more grateful. I was poor and young and couldn't have afforded a cab or a hotel and would have been completely fucked without them. I was really worried that they were after something but they told me they were a gay couple and had a copy of the Pink Paper in the car which reassured me.

RubyFakeNails · 14/04/2012 01:26

I am fresh from reading the feminism boards so that may have skewed my judgey pants which are hoiked quite high today anyway.

My point is don't approach anyone ranting, approach those who are vulnerable. I guess I sort of felt it was being inferred a woman crying is a terrible thing when it should be anyone crying.

It was actually the lone woman thing that did annoy me because, the majority of people travel on the tube alone and about 50% are women it just seemed the most ridiculous and pathetic irrelevant comment. The fact the OP is female should be of no issue.

Also like to add to the other comments that if you travel the tube regularly you'll see lots of acts of kindness. We are not cunts Grin