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?

Sounds like a shit episode of Goodnight Sweetheart.

I think, given the trouble that has been happening around the country, just take it in the spirit it was meant.

I guess it depends on what the people who track “street crime” categorize theft of phones, pick pocket, mugging/theft from person or stabbing. If you think I’m going to report something from Met police, I’m not. The police in my area, have put up placards this year warning people about thieves, pick pockets. Placards on the street, by bus stops and outside tube station. A neighbor was mugged & phone stolen in 2023, I’ve seen guys on bikes/mopeds stealing phones from people’s hands. A guy searched by police with a like 15” knife in ruck sack. Also seen capture of designer-dressed glamorous woman with tote with maybe 25 phones she steals from people at street market while they are eating street food, looking at jewelry. Shoplifters an epidemic in supermarket - grab and run.

I’ve lived in same area for long time, seen all this in past 2 years.

So, if you have statistics showing a decrease in the above in London … maybe you can post it.

Lived in London my whole life, zone 2. Never given anyone safety tips- real Londoners wouldn’t even think to do that. Just say thanks 😂

I go regularly too. But if my friend wanted to give me some safety advice I would take it. Just reading this thread I've learnt some new techniques of pickpocketing to watch out for.

..well, now I need to know about the dangers of bats in London. WHAT ABOUT THE BATS?!? WHEN DO I GET MENACED BY THE BATS? 🦇 🦇

This is ridiculous Only on Mumsnet could safety in London be a subject of conversation.

I’m not reversing anything.
Pointing and laughing at someone is for “entitled” 12-yr-old middle school mean girls.
You shouldn’t encourage them. Unless you’re their mother.

I'd frequently be emailing/texting her with "Hope you're safe hun" "Hope all is well in the big city" and "The pigeon brought us news that.... " (insert news).

What were the tips?

If my 12 year old was giving me "safety advice" about London, I would tell her she's ridiculous.

I found the "friend" comment funny in a patronising way, so yes, I will mock her. It is funny.

Irritating OP for not responding to requests to say what the tips were & instead repeating how often you visit London!

I think it's sweet and caring. My grandad still tells me how to get to London and what to watch out for. Despite me working there for 10 years and him not going to London for at least 25 years !

Londoner here. I’ve given a couple of visitors warning about the amount of clipboard thefts as they’ve gone up exponentially recently. Didn’t realise I was being a patronising arse.

@mondaytosunday - I was also completely bamboozled by the reference to going south of the river! Makes no sense.

@breezeofqinter Your thread got my family chatting about this. I’ve lived in London for 30 years or so though grew up elsewhere. My DCs (now late teens) have grown up here. Both my parents were Londoners - they married very young and settled elsewhere once my dad graduated because he was offered a lecturing job in the polytechnic there.

So I think we’ve always seen it very much from the inside and it’s easy to forget, when you’re pottering around your local part of London, that it is a city full of tourists and visitors (the city I grew up in was perfectly pleasant but not a tourist destination) which means it has the same pickpocketing issues as other tourist destinations.

Also I think there are things we have adapted to when word has gone round locally about new forms of theft. For example, I’ve now worn a cross body bag for some years and that was in response to a rise in people on motorbikes and electric bikes snatching handbags - word went round the school WhatsApp groups re that. Phone snatching is definitely a thing - I know several London locals that’s happened to; one of my bosses had his snatched in the middle of a work call on his way into the office. We have a street WhatsApp group which shares intel. Very few of us park our bikes in front of our houses any more as they tend to get nicked no matter how well chained. So I think that’s more the spirit she meant it in - locals are sharing this information with each other, too. This stuff is no doubt happening in other parts of the UK, also, but the scale is probably higher in tourist centres just because of the richer pickings.

Btw: my family all love living in London and we take these things as part of living in a big city.

@DancingNotDrowning - what is this bat danger!? We live in London and need to watch out for it too 😀!

Mumsnet is full of posters who consider London the equivalent of downtown Beirut! Just smile and say thank you. It was kindly meant.

I agree, I think there are things that you do naturally if you live in London, like being careful with phone, having a zipped bag, that you might not do elsewhere?

I'm not sure as I've lived here all my life, but I probably do have a bit of a radar for likely tricky scenarios.

😆

I always check how ‘wrenchable’ the strap and hardware on a cross body bag is now and I’m usually not the only one. I can’t believe some of the very easily snatched totes and top handle bags we were all wandering around with in the early part of the century.

There is a difference between "Guys be careful, there have been a few phone snatching insidents around here lately" and "Make sure you dress modestly because the poor uncivilised London mob may want to rip your family hairloom off your neck, Lady Patricia". Depending which one you did...

Racist and inaccurate.

www.homelessnessimpact.org/news/ethnic-inequalities-and-homelessness

Im still waiting for @Allfur to explain why they found this an appropriate comment to make?