Friend giving safety tips for London?

[breezeofqinter]

Maybe I sound horrible but me and a friend are visiting our mutual friend in London tomorrow, she’s lived there for maybe a year.

Shes just text us to give us safety tips. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been to London, I even work from the London office occasionally.

I know she means well but aibu to find it a bit patronising?

If I visited a city regularly I would find it patronising but generally harmless.

I would just send back a thumbs up emoji and leave it at that.

What’s a clipboard theft?

You sound miserable OP.

It depends what kind of safety tips. Can you give examples?

some parts are some aren’t. It’s a big place.

This

The comment about being thought patronising was a reference to all the criticism being levelled at the person offering advice in the OP’s scenario.

Clipboard thefts are when someone, often a child, will approach the potential victim sitting at a table in a cafe or bar and ask them to sign a spurious petition or make a donation to some cause (usually made up). It’s partly a distraction technique, partly to show where the victim’s purse or phone is for a later pickpocketing and in some cases the clipboard is out down on top of a phone or purse then both are lifted together and the thief walks off to a confederate who holds the stolen items.

It is rife, especially in summer when there is more alfresco dining and children are more available to help. Our poor waitress at lunch yesterday spent more time chasing off clipboard children asking for donations for their team’s new football strips than she did serving customers. The kids must have been no more than seven, if that. It was disgusting.

Thought @Peonies meant laugh at the advice, not the person, as many have said they're curious too on the advice.

I don't feel at all worried for my personal safety but I am super vigilant about my phone now in a way I wasn't a couple of years ago.

I haven't got a particularly expensive phone, but the thought that the hassle of losing it would entail is too much

Need context to comment. If she is saying ‘make sure you mind the gap’ on the tube then I would find that patronising but if she is making you aware of some local security threats and areas to avoid that previously would have been safe then I would take that as just a considerate friend and also would find it odd if she didn’t alert you to it.

Yeah so do you love

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13787281/Moment-brazen-phone-thief-distracts-diners-piece-paper-swipes-device.html

See, clipboard theft is real.