You know you're from London when...
- You were born somewhere else.
- You attach different meanings to "the town" and "the City".
- You have never been to the Tower of London or Buckingham Palace.
- If a tourist asks you for directions to "Oxford" or "Leicester", you point them in the direction of a mainline railway station and a 2 hour train journey.
- The Tube makes sense.
- You get annoyed with people who don't know how to use Tube barriers.
- Every person over 12 has a mobile phone. Some have two.
- You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual.
- You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression.
- You're suspicious of anyone under the age of 60 who tries to start a conversation with you on public transport. Hell, you're even suspicious of the little old ladies who do it.
- You're over 25, and have never learned to drive.
- You have a secret fetish for the Tube Map, and insist on calling it "The Diagram".
- You've considered stabbing someone just for being American.
- If you own a car, you spend more each month to park it than most people spend on rent.
- Petrol costs £1 per litre.
- You go outside the M25 twice a year, and are twitchy for the entire trip.
- You call an 8' x 10' plot of patchy grass a garden.
- You think the Diana Memorial Fountain is the most ridiculous waste of money ever.
- You're paying £1,000 a month for a studio flat and think it's a fantastic deal.
- In fact, one week's rent on a tiny flat would get you a month of a whole house oop North. But why would anyone want to live there?
- You haven't seen more than twelve stars in the night sky since you went away to camp as a kid.
- You go to dinner at 9 and head out to the clubs when most people are going to bed.
- You have urinated on the street at 11.30pm.
- You haven't heard the sound of true absolute silence since the 80s.
- You pay £3 for a beer without blinking.
- You have 27 different menus next to your telephone and all of the numbers on your speed-dial - but only 2 of them deliver.
- You worship at the altar of Ikea.
- You have a near-perfect knowledge of the A-Z, but would need 5 minutes to find any other major conurbation on a map.
- You lie about where you live to make it sound "better". (Clapham? No, Battersea actually. Battersea? No, it's South Chelsea...)
- You stand up in the cinema and shout at films with appallingly incorrect London geography.
- Your idea of personal space is no one actually standing on your toes.
- You get a seat on the train? Luxury.
- You know how to fold your favourite newspaper up so that you can read it on the Tube or bus without hitting other passengers.
- People who stand on the left piss you off.
- You are horrified by the thought of litter bins in stations.
- You cringe if you hear Leicester Square pronounced as "Lye-cester".
- You're not in the least bit interested in going to Trafalgar Square on New Year's Eve.
- You couldn't imagine ever living anywhere else.
I'm sure there are others... feel free to add more in comments. Also, some of those are a bit obscure, so if you are Northern or otherwise foreign, feel free to ask ;)
