Things I Hate About London

It's full of tourists. I know this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but fuck me if this place weren't full of so many clueless, annoying, loud tourists. Even the most hideously touristed parts of Paris weren't as teeming with bigmouthed, spacially unaware American dipshits as just about every part of London I've walked through today.

Pubs close at 11:00. That should be an "enough said," but I'm sure some would point out that there are plenty of bars open later. But still, not being able to get a beer at one that actually looks quiet and quaint because they're traditional, well... some traditions suck.

You can no longer smoke in bars. This is, in theory, a very good thing. In practice, it's horrendous, and I'd rather come out of a bar smelling like a well-worn ashtray than put up with the bullshit Londoners now have to deal with. Now that you can't smoke in restaurants (yay!) or pubs (umm...) everyone goes outside to do it. Good, right? The problem is, I literally mean everyone. So you have pubs with more than their usual capacity trying to get beers, because there are just as many people outside of the establishment puffing away. This blocks the sidewalk. It spills out over the sidewalks and blocks traffic, even on busy streets. And it makes the once enjoyable task of pubcrawling more like the salmon's upstream swim.

Oh well. At least I get to come home to this...