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?

I'm probably being a complete idiot but is clipboard an autocorrect (presumably for mobile phones?) or are people actually going around stealing the 85p plastic boards with a bulldog clip I used to do my geography worksheet on in year 5?

tbf the phone snatching is perhaps one of those things that is more specific to London so possibly worth warning about - I live in a fairly big city and while there's the normal theft to be aware of I've never seen/heard about phones being snatched e.g. by people on scooters etc in the way it happens in London.

Annoying OP still hasn't come back and said what the tips actually were.
Hope she hasn't had her phone nicked....

What on earth are you going on about? Toilets all bombed? Even back in the height of the IRA bombings, they tended to go for bigger targets than the loos.

I lived in London for years. I have worked in London all of my life apart from two years when I was abroad. In terms of muggings, my friends have been mugged on the Southbank, Green Lanes, on a train coming into Waterloo, in Shoreditch (phone snatching) and I had my purse nicked out of my bag on Portobello Road which I'm not surprised about as it was one with a single popper to close it and nice robber-friendly gaping sides. The worst I have ever had was when I was followed from Waterloo to London Bridge by a sleazy guy who assaulted me and tried to push me into a dark vestibule. I had my phone in my hand with 999 ready and the second he came close I was connected and he then ran off.

Actually, when I think of it, there have been way more sexual incidences - touching, flashing, grabbing etc and tbh that has always been my main concern over being mugged, in AND out of London. That and having a bag that zips up securely. I wear nice jewellery and a nice watch all the time.

I do find you get a kind of second sense for dodgy fuckers and I know my kids - who grew up in a nice market town with little crime - are not streetwise at all. I admit I remind them of basic safety stuff and self preservation when they're out. One is at Uni in a northern city and was far too chilled about my regular demands that he didn't walk through his nearby park at night... until a guy got stabbed there, I sent him the local crime stats and he saw my point.

🤣🤣🤣

No, it’s not an autocorrect but I don’t dare explain in case I’m thought patronising.

Honestly that's just so funny! It's hardly Kabul, as for telling someone 'gently' urgh that would wind me up no end. If I were your cousin I'd turn up in all the bling, phone in my back pocket and sporting a massive open handbag just to wind you up 😆

Still waiting to find out about the risk of bats

i was born in london never hear about bats before

had my purse stolen one about 30 years ago policce couldnt gaive a toss even bak then

I think that clipboard thefts may be when people carry clipboards in a bid to deceive people into believing that they are calling on official business.

The people with the clipboards knock at doors and say something along the lines of, say, the council needing all kitchens to be inspected. Sadly, if they find someone who believes them and lets them in, one looks at things randomly in the kitchen and asks questions, while the other slips round the door of the living room to dip into a handbag.

I think that this is what it may be. It's people seeing someone sounding official and carrying a clipboard who is not what they seem.

why on earth would you be thought patronising?

If it's as per TheSquareMiles helpful explanation it's not patronising at all to explain something someone has genuinely asked. At the very most I'd say the phrase was slightly misleading, as usually a phrase with the suffix - thefts would be interpreted as the object that is being stolen - e.g. phone theft, money theft, wallet theft. Whereas what you're (if that was what was meant) describing is a methodology of theft, e.g. shoplifting vs fraud versus snatching etc.

I also wouldn't personally consider that sort of thing as particularly niche to London, compared to phone snatching, but that's by the by. If it's focussed more around door to door calling rather than stopping people on the street it's also not going to be very likely to be relevant to people visiting London, who are going to be going home at the end of the day/staying in hotels or with friends rather than answering doors in residential areas.

A plastic Londoner 😂
What the hell are you on about?

It's what they (we?) in N London used to call the new arrivals who acted like that. People who were so excited to be in London they couldn't stop going in about it.

It might be a very local term or a 90s term. But it was a thing. OFC London churn is greater than ever now so maybe there are fewer native Londoners to be sardonic.

I think ‘fair enough.’ She’s only trying to help. My daughter has lived I London for 16 years and she’s given me useful advice to protect myself.

Tips and bats - we need to know 🧐

Omg people are SO touchy sometimes!! If someone is visiting me I’d give them the best directions / where to park etc. Surely EVERYONE wants to make a visit from a friend the nicest, easiest, safest it can be?!! I’m guessing you already knew all the hints ( watch your phone/ keep your bag zipped etc) but in an uncertain world, friends attempting to protect each other should surely never be cause for offense?! I’d suggest it was just your friend showing she cares - not trying to imply you were some sort of bumbling country bumpkin !! It’s along the lines of friends going on hols and checking everyone had their passports ( multiple times !!) - not because they think the others have been er travelled or are particularly careless, but just as a general way of saying “ we watch out for each other “

I’ve lived in central London for 20 years and I can honestly say I have never felt as unsafe as I do currently (for my belongings rather than myself and my kids). Perhaps the area I live but phone snatchers are now just part and parcel of every day life. They don’t care and you can spot them if you remain vigilant. I give all my visitors the warning of not taking their phone out on the street, regardless of whether they’ve never been to London or previously lived here. London isn’t okay at the moment I am sad to say. Also just to reassure anyone who finds such advice patronising, all my local WhatsApp groups constantly remind fellow central London dwellers of their safety and holding on to their things. It’s not patronising it’s just good current advice.

What I find puzzling is that the country is obviously divided in 2 parts:
London: DANGER
Not-London: safe heaven with no risk of violence, thief, pickpockets - we're still working on the bat situation

There might be more cases in London, but there's about 9 million people in here! Put that in proportion with a little town of 20 thousand people.

Are people that naive they believe it's risk free outside of "London" and no risk of phone/ bag theft?

Crime has increased in London in the last few years, so it’s not surprising that some people who live there think it’s less safe than it was. But London still has less crime than the national average and isn’t somewhere that people need general crime warnings about.

One of my favourite things about London is the fact that people often don't dress understated. Anything goes. Wear what you want. The more outrageous dressing the better imho.

Just look concerned and tell her you are concerned for her as she seems so very anxious
Reassure her that in your 20 years of travelling to and working in London you have never felt unsafe and that she will learn in time how to navigate the city 😂

You don’t mention what she said, but wouldn’t be annoyed about this.

If you know it all already, so what - but working in the office a few days or visiting is not the same as living in a place and it might also be particularly relevant to the part of the city she lives.

You should be thankful for her advice, London is not the place it was a couple of years ago. I wouldn’t go there now. No doubt people will slam me for saying this.

Why ever not??

I've lived and worked in London for many years - I had my phone stolen out of my jacket pocket last year and also stolen off my desk at work (building potentially open to anyone but I was in the room at the time - long story).
Now there's an outside card pass reader on my work building door and when out I always have my phone zipped into one of those Uniqlo bags and am extremely careful if I need to look at it when I'm walking . As a pp said I moved right next to a building and face away from the street.

Now I'll be thinking about not sitting in the last tube seat by the door though!!

if you don't come here, how would you even know how it is these days?

I lived in South London and now live in North and will be moving back South. Can’t say I have noticed any massive difference.