to hate every single parent and child crowding up South Kensington during half term?!

[misspantomime]

I work in the area and every single evening during every single school holiday it takes me 30 minutes more to get home because a) I cannot walk down the streets as they are too crowded and (b) I cannot get into South Ken station due to crowding and also due to parents letting their kids walk down the road either on scooters or at 0.00000000005 MPH and also not knowing how to use the ticket barriers properly.

I am a Londoner and we are notoriously intolerant of people who can't use the underground properly but even so I never truly knew rage until I started working round here. There are queues all the way down the road. For the fricking science museum.

Lol, OP YANBU. I wish there was a magic button to make crowds dissapear. I live in a touristy place and they actually don't bother me because I know my way around and don't tend to get caught out in traffic. However, I hate goung on trips to see attractions if they are heaving with people. I'd much rather go somewhere less popular and less busy. Eg Pitt Rivers Museum in oxford is far more enjoyable than the National History museum as you are not overwhelmed by masses of queues.

YABU and YANBU. YANBU because I'm in that area sometimes too and it is maddening.

But YABU because it's not just people with kids. Clueless tourists come in all demographics.

I happen to live in a very popular seaside town, which happens to get very busy at certain times of the year. The seafront Is full of Londoners (you can spot a male Londoner by their shoes), it gets very packed. I choose to avoid the seafront on bank holidays but I don't hate the tourists because they don't know their way around and stand in the middle of the pavement. I don't deride their choice of bank holiday activity. That's because I'm a nice person and not a pretentious dickhead.

OnlyLovers You're right of course, clueless tourists do come in all demographics.

You wouldn't last 5 minutes Cubtrouble. After 2 seconds at the barriers men in wax jackets will simply trample you and being London the rest of us will pretend not to notice. That's assuming you get as far as the barriers. I once tried to take a buggy through the post match crowds on a weekend - it was like facing down an army.

Probably best you stay at home. Commuters-vile is not for everyone :)

Perhaps we should all just agree to disagree on this one. Currently every single person in my office is complaining about the same thing. We are an office of 250 people + (and by the way not suited booted city types), so I guess we are all just horrible, pretentious people!!!!

My workplace just moved to Trafalgar Square.

It's OK at the moment, just the odd small clutch of slightly miserable-looking Chinese tourists, but I'm dreading the summer (why must they cluster at the top of the escalator to consult their maps???).

I used to live and work in London, Central and West, worked right next to St Pauls but it didn't make me a people hating misery guts. I was nice to people and even gave out directions.....it can be done.

I now live in Commuterville, with a child, I am surprised by the people that choose to take their little ones on a packed train rather than wait it to avoid the rush but if they pay for the privilage then they are every bit as entitled to travel on the train. I have often given up my seat for a parent, have swapped seats so a family can sit together, I have helped a pram/buggy user get on/off a train.

How about showing some solidarity to your fellow woman/mothers? When I was heavily pregnant it was always always a man that got me a seat, helped me, never a commuter woman.

glint Please elaborate on how you can tell a male Londoner by his shoes...

But the Natural History Museum is surely an excellent place to visit during half term? Some schools in the country are too far away for a regular school trip, so some families choose to stay in large cities (like London) for a half-term break. And of course, they are allowed to, because it is a public space, and they are public buildings, open to all.

If this was such a problem to very important workers, then surely the streets and public-access buildings would be closed to other, tax-paying members of the public and their families. But they're not.

I think the over-inflated opinionated people on here are those who think that because they work in such-and-such a place or 'need to be somewhere more urgently than someone else' are the self-important ones. Their day is far more important than anyone else, so everyone else can just F-off

an office of 250 people +

That's a lot of people. I hope you don't all arrive at the same time

I also hate parents and children on the 7.45am commuter train. They take up too much room, their children are too loud and they don't understand basic rules of commuting. Just fucking wait an hour until people who actually have somewhere to fucking be have gotten where they need to go. Bastards.

Even worse when they bring eleventy billion gigantic suitcases with them too

Oooh, Cubtrouble, I've only just read your post but you do sound a bit up yourself.

I think the OP is being a little bit tongue in cheek and doesn't loathe these parents and kids all that much really. Over-exaggerating for humour and effect, you see? Not necessarily pretentious and heel/suit-wearing (I fail to see how clothes are relevant, BTW).

And there should definitely be a London Proficiency Test.

tell you what makes me fume a bit

people who use the museums as a free indoor playground and don't put a quid or so in the box afterwards

not people who can't afford it OF COURSE; I mean those who can

come on mingy fuckers, stump up

I live on the South Coast. Traffic is a nightmare in the holidays. I feel sorry for anyone on public transport who can't cut through the back roads.

I just don't get why you'd make your life more difficult by travelling at peak time when you don't have to?

I also don't get why when you are travelling you don't follow the (clearly set out for all to see) rules that make things more pleasant for everyone?

The last thing I would choose to do is take my children into London in rush hour because it is horrible.

So it's really nothing to do with being an anti-social so-and-so, or intolerant or arrogant or anything like that. It is the opposite. It's about seeing and appreciating that it's horrendous and wondering why anyone would willingly put themselves through it and if they did why they would then choose not to follow the rules that make it slightly more bearable for everyone.

'I'm going to take my toddler for the next week to london to hawk him up and down. He can walk slowly next to me holding my hand while i try to ram as many high heel suit wearing intolerent types as possible with my enourmous buggy.'

Pleasant.

OtheHuge Exactly, as someone up thread said, what the fuck do these parents and children have in their huge backpacks and/or suitcases?!

Poor trampled toddler squoosh :(

London is such a great city. It's just a shame it's filled with Londoners.....

pleasedontflameme Probably large quantities of extremely smelly food, and spare batteries (but no headphones) for tablets, DVD players and other in-train entertainment devices

Whenever I've visited London everyone has been incredibly polite. I don't get all the "Londoners are rude" nonsense.

Londoner shoe spotting is an art. It's difficult to describe but it's something about the style and the shineyness if it's leather and the cleanliness if it's a trainer. It comes from 20years living growing up in North London coupled with 20years observing on the South Coast. Sounds like total bollocks but promise it's true. Doesn't work with women only blokes.

I grew up in Chelsea, we used to park on exhibition road and walk through the two museums. Those were the days. It's a city, it's like that. Relax.

Adults are just as bad; had to climb over 2 STANDING ON THE LEFT with enormous suitcases on the tube escalator yesterday. Weren't the signs big enough or the fact that 99% were standing on the right enough of a hint? Or the queue behind you? Aaaghh. Think I will stick to the bus in future...