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.

It's not that hard Bogey. Assuming you have eyes...

Blame that wanker Andy with his dinosaur adventures. DS has been begging to go to the museum for months.

And for the divvies at South Ken...

CSI London Tube Stations

LOL this has actually made me laugh out loud.
My first post was tongue in cheek you nutters. Unless (tic) means something else.

LIKE im going to take a 2 nearly 3 year old with a buggy into London during half term. I dont have to go during hald term do i! Hes not at school! LIKE im going to hit someone with a buggy! Of course im not, calm the fuck down people. Someone actually thought Id do that? Really?

Be tolerent of others, what happened to that!! I am not up myself either. Im a normal person going about my normal business, im not out there hating because the kids are off school. In my area it actually eases the traffic, you win some you lose some. Jesus, some uptight people on this one.

Ive travelled ONCE to london with a buggy, a small buggy, people werre helpful and polite and i minded my own business and they minded theres, i didnt get in peoples way either. I dont walk like a slug on gravel.

Evans, you're not wrong; I'd forgotten the 'commuter' demographic. But I'd add them to my list of annoying people in London rather than substitute them.

Bogey, my blood pressure is a doctor's dream or so my GP tells me. And when I go on holiday to major cities I largely manage, through the astounding power of common sense and observation, to NOT stand at the tops of escalators or stand/walk on the wrong side, swing round on narrow, crowded train platforms while wearing a backpack, creep along pavements at a snail's pace etc.

A lot of people just seem to leave any common sense and awareness at home.

I'm stuck in the Royal Brompton with DS1 all half term week, I think id rather be battling the crowds in South Ken tbh. they have the radiators on all day and night and I'm melting

Well I do know what you mean. I worked in an office off Oxford Street for around 10 years (in pre parent years) and would avoid walking down Oxford street to get lunch as it would sometimes take longer than my half hour lunch break to walk a couple of hundred yards to the nearest (affordable) sandwich shop and back. It was always the tourists wandering around really slowly that made me inpatient. That was every day though as Oxford Street is a tourist trap all year round. At least you only have to put up with it during the school breaks.

It is a bit unreasonable to suggest that everyone can visit the museum outside of school holidays. For people who live a long way away it is more than a day trip and taking two days out of school to visit a museum is a great idea but see what the HT says if you suggest it at most schools nowadays.

Anyway as I said my "sensible-parent-self" says YABU but my "younger-working-in -Central-London-days-self" says YANBU. Make of that what you will

Yabu
Its stressful when its crowded.
But you have no more right to be there than anyone else.

wow OP you really are rude!

I've worked all over London from Baker Street (just down the road from Madame Tussauds though they did have coaches too!) and it's a fact of life, yes you do have to either make more time to get to work, find another route or just be patient with the tourists. I often got the bus part way or walk.

Kids go on scooters all the time, you just have to dodge them. And isn't it better they're actually learning rather than doing nothing at home?

I also have first hand knowledge of Bath (SIL's parents live just outside there so we visit a lot). However we're helped as PIL have a Blue Badge which makes life more bearable when parking if we go into Bath with them.

It is hell on earth there too (crowds both walking and parking) but you just deal with it.... and relax....

Well Mrs South Ken I'm sure people who live in Suffolk, Norfolk and the Cotwolds etc absolutely relish spring and summer when we Londonders decend!

Yes a glut of tourists is annoying esp when you're in a rush but as a 'born and bred Londoner' who lives centrally I can vouch for embracing it and chilling the fuck out!

Yes, use a different underground railway station. When I went to visit the poppies (not half term, thank God!), I chose to get off at Aldgate - rather than Tower Hill -and walk.

As you know that these crowds will be there inhibiting your journey, could you not leave work earlier or later to avoid them or at least have a semblance of the usual travel time?

I was doing a bit of Singer Sargenting yesterday in the NPG - had to tip-toe through the half-term winkies like crossing a sort of toddler minefield.

They were doing pencil drawings of the portraits. They were all rather lovely and very worthy but I was terrified that I might boot one in the head or crush their fingers. No scooters though. That would have been quiet beyond the pale in the Tudors and Stuarts area, although I've heard it is quite acceptable to roller-skate down the Statesmen's Gallery.

I see we have gone on to talk about "rude" Londoners. I was born and brought up in Islington and lived and worked in London until 6 years ago.
Generally I thought people there were quite polite and tolerant on the whole.

However I have suffered quite aggressive abuse twice when on the tube. Both times were when I was going down stairs in a crowded station "too slowly" because I was carrying ds down in a buggy. The vitriol shouted at me because I dared to slow down a "busy commuter" on their oh so important journey was incredible. Luckily that sort of behaviour doesn't upset me, and on one of the occasions a couple of other commuters actually intervened to tell the person complaining that they were being a "prat " in a polite Londoner way of course.

I have been the "slightly inwardly irritated" but outwardly polite and helpful commuter who is in a hurry so know it can be annoying if someone is being a bit slow or clueless when you are in a hurry or but that is absolutely no excuse for rudeness.

You can only scooter in the middle ages section of the V&A Talc.

As you know that these crowds will be there inhibiting your journey, could you not leave work earlier or later to avoid them or at least have a semblance of the usual travel time? Erm, surely a better idea would be for the non-commuters NOT to travel in rush hour? Most of the museums don't even open until 10am. There is NO REASON to be getting in at 8.30am unless you hate yourself and everyone around you.

Thank you MovingOnUp - that sort of insider knowledge is worth its weight in antique silver.

go to fucking Gloucester Road then and stop moaning

There is NO REASON to be getting in at 8.30am unless you hate yourself and everyone around you.

Some people take their children to childcare/schools near their work. Hence they commute with them. I know at leasts two people who lived in London and did this when their children were young. They too had actually "have somewhere to fucking be" Just because they had a child with them does not mean they don't have anywhere to be. As far as I am aware there is no law against children on public transport travel during rush hour in London,

"A tourist is surely allowed to be 'clueless'"

I think there is a difference between not expecting a tourist to know all the sneaky tricks that us Londoners know, and expecting a tourist to have some COMMON SENSE.

1. If everyone is standing on the right hand side of the escalator and walking up on the left, it is COMMON SENSE that you should follow what everyone else is doing

2. Likewise, it is COMMON SENSE that stopping right at the top of the escalator will prevent other people getting off and mean they will bang straight into you - so move a couple of metres away to wait for your friends

3. It is COMMON SENSE that if you are a large group, standing 5 abreast on a busy street is going to stop people walking past and annoy people

4. It is COMMON SENSE that if you've got a massive backpack on in a crowded tube, if you turn round without realising you are twice the depth you usually are, you will likely hit someone with it, it will hurt them and they will get annoyed.

None of these things are London specific. They are common sense specific. I'm not a New Yorker, but when I go to New York, I don't stand around getting in everyone's way whilst I look at my map. I step to the side of the street, or indeed walk down into a quieter side street, to make sure I'm not in everyones way. If I'm in the countryside and everyone is queuing to walk a certain way up a hill I'm not going to push everyone out of the way and do what I want. It's common sense.

PS My biggest bugbear is people on the travelator between the Jubilee and Northern lines at Waterloo - people who just stand on it, 3 abreast, blocking it up for everyone else. If you can't / don't want to walk, then at least stand in a line so everyone else can get past you!

As you know that these crowds will be there inhibiting your journey, could you not leave work earlier or later to avoid them or at least have a semblance of the usual travel time?

Oh, good idea; I don't know about anyone else but I can totally afford the time to skip out of work early and my boss wouldn't mind at all.

It's not that hard Bogey. Assuming you have eyes...

And speak English......

The worst tourists are the tourists that are in love. They're so in love with each other, they're so in love with their city break, they need to stop point coo and kiss every five minutes.

People need to stop falling in love, it's disruptive.

That's a good idea, Moving. Perhaps there should be a new stone plaque erected at regular intervals throughout London (it could take off in other large cities too)

Take Heed Visitors:
Do not take to the streets before 09:45am or after 17:15pm (you may be allowed out after 19:00, depending upon where you are)
If you are a visitor and staying in a paid establishment, please STAY IN YOUR ROOM outside of hours specified above
If you break this rule, you will annoy all workers and commuters
BE WARNED - you are not allowed on the streets outside of the hours specified
PS - try to avoid lunchtime mingling as well, as someone will be sure to hate and moan at you