Lived in London too long?

You’ve lived in London too long when …

• ​You say “The City” and expect everyone to know which one.
• You have never been to The Tower or Madame Tussauds, but love Brighton.
• You say “The Tower” and expect everyone to know which one.

• You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Shepherds Bush to a pub in Elephant & Castle at 15:30 on Friday, but can’t find Dorset on a map.
• Prostitutes and homeless people are invisible.
• You step over people who collapse on the tube.
• You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual.
• You’ve considered stabbing someone.
• Your door has more than three locks.
• You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression.
• You call an 8×10 plot of patchy grass a garden.
• You know where Karl Marx is buried.
• You consider Essex the countryside.
• You’re paying £1,200 a month for a flat the size of a walk-in wardrobe and you think it’s a bargain.
• You pay more each month to park your car than most people in the UK pay in rent.
• You haven’t seen more than twelve stars in the night sky since you went camping as a kid.
• You own hiking boots and a 4WD vehicle, neither of which have ever touched dirt.
• You buy ar 15 accessories for your next hiking trip.
• You pay £3 without blinking for a beer that cost the bar 28p.
• You have 27 different take-out menus next to your telephone.
• The UK west of Heathrow is still theoretical to you.
• You’re suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you.
• You haven’t cooked a meal since helping Mum last Christmas with the turkey.
• Your idea of personal space is no one actually standing on your toes.
• £50 worth of groceries fits in one paper bag.
• You have a minimum of five worst-cab-ride-ever stories.
• You don’t hear sirens anymore.
• You’ve mentally blocked out all thoughts of the city’s air quality and what it’s doing to your lungs.
• Your house cleaner is Russian, your grocer is Korean, your deli man is Israeli, your landlord is Italian, your favourite bartender is Irish, your favourite diner is Greek, the watch-seller on your corner is Senegalese and your favourite falafel guy is Egyptian.
• You wouldn’t want to live anywhere else until you get married.

If you’re an American guy and you’ve lived in London for a while, you know it’s too long when …

• You don’t even bother looking out of the window when you get up in the morning to check what the day is like. You know it is overcast.

• Wearing a suit in a pub is relatively normal attire.

• You can’t remember what ‘customer service’ means.

• After a big night out you find yourself looking for a Curry house, and not a 24 hour McDonalds.

• You start to accept queuing as a way of life.

• More than three hours sunlight on summer days seems excessive.

• You always call soccer ‘football’ … and you have a team…and it’s not Manchester United.

• You don’t think twice about buying a packaged sandwich.

• A sunny lunchtime means searching for a patch of grass and stripping off practically down to your underwear.

• You accept (albeit reluctantly) that men who cut, comb and style their hair using hair products are not necessarily gay.

• You think 20 quid for a haircut is quite reasonable.

• You finish every sentence with ‘Cheers’ and/or ‘Yeah?’.

• You only just realise you have lost your sunglasses – you left them in Greece 2 summers ago.

• You start thinking English cuisine isn’t all that bad after all, I mean, it’s hard to beat a full English breakfast.

• You are on to your 6th umbrella and your second overcoat.

• You buy a disposable baby BBQ from Argos.

• You realise your sunscreen is the stuff you originally brought from home with you.

• A day at the beach means wearing the warmest clothes you own while standing on golf ball-size pebbles and the thought of swimming doesn’t even enter your head.

• You actually say, “Sor’ed”, “It’s all gone a bit pear shaped” or “A’right?”.

• You believe that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday are all good nights for drinking. Sunday day is also entirely reasonable.

• You have given up explaining why you are half an hour late to work as no-one notices or cares.

• Coming to work with a hangover is entirely accepted and indeed expected at least once a week.

• You think twice about giving up your seat on the tube to a pregnant woman or elderly person.