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.

Speaking as the person who actually took a child to the NHM yesterday, YABVVU, however speaking as a person who works in central London, just of Leicester square, YANBU. I thnk this is the same for most people, everybody hates a tourist, as the song goes, but very few of us at some time haven't been a tourist.

And what's in the rucksacks? In my case a packed lunch for two plus drinks, DDs tablet, my wallet and phone, and inside the museum our coats because with the approximately twenty trillion other people in there it's hotter than hell.

Feeling a bit sad now, as have been really excited about our trip to London later this week, which will almost certainly involve S Kensington tube station before 10am(and a commuter train from where we are staying on the outskirts before 9), because otherwise we will have wasted half the day before even getting in the queue for the museums! I know it's going to be busy, but dd has never been to London before and school hols are only chance to do it. I hadn't before considered how much londoners might resent us being there though! We will of course try and be considerate, but not having been to London for years and first time with oyster cards or child I may occasionally have to pause to look where we are going or what to do, or to help a 5 yo with something.... I feel so much more welcome for knowing other people will be hating us for it, so thanks

Oh, with you on the scooter issue though -will be busy glaring at those people with you!

Hmm, not really what I was saying Evans. But you carry on

Thanks to those of you that have acknowledged us Londoners' general helpfulness. It makes a change on these threads from the general piling in about how rude and unpleasant we are.
I see someone has already got in with the usual 'I can't imagine anywhere worse to live'.
Has anyone mentioned black bogies yet? Or said 'If you don't like it, move?'

Oh, should have added to the bottom of my plaque:

"Welcome to London"

When we go to the museums we go in the afternoon. It's much nicer because it's less busy and the queues are so much shorter. In fact I've never had to queue for the Science Museum.

In the morning I'd take the dc to Kensington Gardens - there's a great playground and it's much quieter because everyone's queuing at the museums or standing at the top of the escalators on the tube

Ach, OP, you should try working near the Houses of Parliament and trying to walk past there pretty much any time - though summer is the worst. Hordes and hordes who don't just move slowly, they stop to get the perfect picture of that clock. It is slow and irritating.

But d'you know what? 10 years on getting to have this as my commute is still pretty magic. So I only glare sternly at the people who actually abuse me for getting in their photo. So I try to rise above.

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.

It was this ^ Moving - no reason to travel during rush hour or be around at 8:30am. Or did I misunderstand you?

Bit off-putting for visitors, don't you think? Anyone can travel or inhabit streets at any time they choose, unless we are now living in a fascist country. Nope, last time I checked, we still aren't.

I personally would not choose to travel at such an early hour if not necessary, but there is nothing officially (yet) to stop me or anyone else from doing so, if we should so choose.

Hate is a strong word OP! But in some ways I am with the posters above re common sense. When people come up from the tube and stop dead in the middle of the exit to "get their bearings" it is really annoying and potentially dangerous causing a pedestrian pile up behind. And how about the groups of students/tourists who walk four abreast down the pavements on Piccadilly (near my office!) and also, stop dead and block the entire pavement. Grrrr!

Fucking parents taking their kids to museums, being all educational and all that shit. :( as a mobile office worker, I love half term - roads are quiet!

This thread has been very amusing and helped me pass the time while DS has been snoozing.
I lived and worked in London for seven years firstly living in zone 2 and working just off Oxford Street and then moving out to Richmond and can readily agree that the OP is NBU.

Oxford street especially around Christmas time was hell, with often both Oxford Circus and Bond Street tubes being closed due to over crowding at rush hour and then pavements being packed solid with tourists and shoppers as well as commuters.

I found working near Bank to be so much quieter and I had a much happier commute to and from work mainly because there were a lot less tourists!!

I now am one of these tourists technically as I no longer live in London but we always try very hard to stick to the rules and work out the best tube routes before hand. We recently went and I carried my toddler in a sling when on the tube so he wouldn't be slow moving or get trampled and we travelled outside of rush hour. We went to see the poppies and got off at Bank and then walked down - it's only a 10/15min walk.

Yeah, still not seeing where I advocate for a law to stop people?

That post, in context, was a response to the suggestion that commuters should go earlier or later to avoid the crowds of tourists who come just for half term. My point is that it would be a more sensible idea for those who do not need to be there at that time is to... not be there at that time. Also (which I didn't add but is implied) it is impossible to know when the tourists will be coming since they do get the early trains even though the attractions do not open until later. This is quite purposefully done on the part of attractions to avoid the bottle necks that happen when we all try to travel at the same time.

The museums don't open until 10am so there really is no need to be arriving at 8.30am.

"Bit off-putting for visitors"? I bloody hope so!

Oh and I agree with moving about Kensington gardens and then the museums in the afternoon.

I just meant there are loads of other places that are lovely to visit with children and it's a shame all the focus is on one small area.
^ this is a myth - many many many attractions are busy at half term. The focus in not on South Ken.

Just plot a different route down a side street, rather than down the main roads. There will be very few parents/tourists there. It's not hard - stop frothing, untwist your knickers and remember the main reason London works is because of tolerance!!

I used to work in Soho - so I do know the nightmare of going about your day with tourists everywhere.

JassyRadlett I wonder how many times we've walked past each other at Westminster? Head down, trying to get through the tourists... I worked there for six years, been in W Kensington for the past 18 months but going back to a job in Westminster very soon. Although the tourists can be a bit trying I miss Parliament Square and being near the river... I bloody love working in Wesminster.

The District Line has been a fucking nightmare even busier than usual for the past two days and on the whole I empathise with misspantomime

anyone can travel on London's PUBLIC TRANSPORT anytime they bloody well want to! Commuters down't own the tube.

I can't imagine why anybody would choose to travel at peak time if they didn't have to. It's usually much more expensive for a start. A train ticket from my home to London during peak travelling time costs 5 x the cost of going off peak.

I doubt anybody likes crowds, whether it's your home town, your a tourist or a commuter. Unfortunately, whether you are on road, rail, at the airport or even just a pedestrian - busy times are busy times and we need to be tolerant of each other where possible.

Andy, yes, there's been an 'if you don't like it, move' and a 'Move to Leeds'.

I don't think I said you were advocating a law Moving. You implied that tourists should not arrive in London before 10:00am (or thereabouts) in your view, because they don't need to be there.
No need, of course, but they can if they want. Perhaps they might like a pleasant sit-down breakfast before their museum visit. Make a nice day of it. And of course, they are quite entitled to do so.
The streets of London do not belong solely to the Office Commuters.

Not a need, but a desire, a wish, a right. Which is permitted - still.

People who power walk have dangerous elbows Derek

I think a treaty is being passed shortly handing over ownership of London public transport to The Commuters.

There'll be a ceremony and everything.

People who stop at the bottom of tube escalators give me the rage. What are they thinking? Do they expect the people behind them to vanish in a puff of smoke rather than need to, you know, get off the fucking escalator too?

And strollers. If you a group of tourists that like to go at a pace that would make a lame tortoise think you were a bit slow, then don't spread out all the way across the pavement. They should have actually done this, and not just in Oxford St.

Peter Ackroyd's book about London mentions a, I think, French visitor several hundred years ago remarking on how Londoners walked really fast and aggressively, so it's obviously nothing new .

But YABU to claim you work for a university that's been based in London for hundreds of years because none of them have.

I said I couldn't understand why anyone would choose to travel in rush hour and I pointed out the museums don't open until 10am so no need to arrive at 8.30am.

I stand by that, it is not a particularly radical opinion to think most people would choose to actively avoid rush hour because it's unpleasant? I would and do!