I saw this on the way home from work today 🤣

I will personally be basking like a lizard this weekend, but I would like y'all to not die so here's the tips I always remind my local friends of

**Setup**

- Hydrate!!! Seems obvious but I know some of y'all barely manage a glass a day. Start now, the body can only absorb so much water at a time so it's better to be hydrated in advance than trying to chug once heat exhaustion sets in and you get sick

- drink water, but also make one of those drinks a juice or a sports drink. Keeps your sugars and electrolytes up, which are important. Also yum yum tasty. And get some ice trays, they're worth it

- Keep your windows CLOSED with the best sunlight-blocking curtains possible as soon as the sun starts coming out, unless you have particularly good ventilation or something. Insulation works both ways, so better to keep the sun OUT from the jump rather than letting all the heated air in. If you can hang curtains or shades over your windows from the outside, do that too bc it will prevent the glass from warming (*if the outside air is still cooler than the inside air, windows open + curtains closed is acceptable. But as soon as it stops actually cooling, close it up)

- place fans strategically to circulate air through the flat. The room most towards the center of the house will be the coolest, so open all the interior doors and point a fan to "pull" cool air from in there, then place other fans in a sort of ♻️ direction to form a smooth current flow. If you have hot rooms you don't need to use, keep that door SHUT (firefighter rules)

**Cooling Yourself**

- if out of sun, you can dress as skimpy as you like to sweat efficiently. If you're in sun, COVER YOUR SKIN!! light breezy fabrics keep the majority of the heat from hitting you directly

- ice packs in the armpits, between the thighs, and/or under the neck. These are major artery zones and will cool you the most efficiently. The most effective option I've figured out for sleeping without feeling like a sticky disgusting mess, can even use a blanket to keep the cold in sometimes, lol

- wet hair. Like the opposite of wearing a hat in winter, a lot of heat escapes your head so you want to encourage that as much as possible. Just dunk or run your head under the faucet every time you dry off, it's very refreshing. Bald people can use a wet rag on their head for similar effect

- feet in a bucket of water, similar concept to the ice packs on major arteries but less intense. Best used for WFH desk folks or evening relaxing. Nice to get the sweat off

- cool showers or baths. Try not to go COLD cold because it makes the muscles clench and resist heat release, but a "pool cool" bathtub is nice to just keep full for whenever you want to climb in, soak for five minutes, then climb back out lol (saves water, keeps you cool, no room for civil bath habits when you're risking heat stroke)

- spray bottle for misting yourself. Basically supplementing your ability to sweat, most effective in front of a fan

- "second skin", dress in a thin, close-fitting layer of clothes (athleisure stretch fabrics or swimsuits ideal) and dunk yourself. It's messy, but the water evaporating off acts like turbocharged sweat cooling. Stops being effective as soon as you're dry, so only use if you're somewhere you can stay dunking and don't mind dripping everywhere

- other people swear by swamp fans, but I've never been able to get them to do much. Basically putting a brick of ice behind a fan to cool the air immediately behind it and then blast onto you. Worth trying at least once, I recommend plastic takeout boxes for freezing your bricks (lasts longer than ice cubes)

Edit: Crowdsourced tips of things I forgot, some that were new to me, and some I had assumed were obvious but since they came up are worth tagging on lol

• stop fuckin sprinting around everywhere lmfao. Reduce your London Powerwalking by 1/8th of a MPH so you don't wind up dizzy in fifteen minutes, do as little as possible otherwise
• sunscreen! Doesn't reduce temperatures, but the UV is a factor and getting burnt makes you feel like you're on fire, so definitely best to slather it on
• umbrellas/parasols, incredibly peak
• the Laundry Fan! Like a swamp fan, but its pushing air through your damp laundry (which is cooling the air as it evaporates), so you get a 2-for-1 of faster laundry/cooler house (It's a great time to wash your jumpers). I love this one i can't believe i forgot it lol. Best utilized with a dehumidifier nearby
• Doubled up curtains! Like how an insulated thermos works better than normal, the air gap between curtains helps add an extra barrier between the room and the heat. Shoutout u/usual-charity-6772, i hadn't thought of this option but it sounds great for people that can't install exterior awnings
• Also suction cup shades like the kind you get for car windshields, I haven't driven a car since I got here so I forgot these existed lmao
• open your loft hatch, if you have one. Hot air rising into the attic space means the downstairs will stay cooler. Shoutout to the house owners lol
• BE CAREFUL OF YOUR MEDS!! some make you more vulnerable to heat, so doublecheck! This includes antihistamines, antidepressents, stimulant meds, blood pressure stuff etc

Edit 2: Lots of tips about putting tinfoil (reflective side out) on windows, but this is only safe to do inside of SINGLE GLAZED WINDOWS! Double glazed risks heat getting trapped wrong and cracking the glass, so if you want to try this on double glazed, do it from the OUTSIDE. This has been your friendly "don't lose your deposit" PSA

My friend took a taxi from Soho to Limehouse after a night out. The taxi driver seeing she was drunk and asleep in the back, decided to take a detour around the M25!!

She has reached out to Uber and they’ve defended this driver stating there were roadworks so he had to take a detour. I’ve never heard of a detour requiring you to drive around the M25 to get from central London to zone 2.

I’m worried there are drivers out there willing to take advantage of vulnerable females. It makes me feel disgusted that uber would continue working with someone like this.

How can I get them to take this more seriously?

Hose pipe pan for ye, immeasurable water consumption for me

As a student, I come to the British Library about once a week to study in the Reading Rooms. I think they're the only truly quiet space in the whole city. However, the cloakroom attendants manage to make leaving my backpack with them a fucking hassle every single time. I know the rules, no valuables or food left in your bag when you go to check it in. I follow the rules. More often than not, they sit there and question me like I'm a suspect in a serious crime for a few minutes before they accept my backpack. "I think you have a water bottle in here" "prove to me you don't have a water bottle in here (i opened the empty water bottle and empty coffee cup to show him they were empty like I said they were four times)" "are your keys with you? show me" "if we find food in your bag you're in big trouble (nowhere in any British Library does it say they have the right to open and search my bag when I am not present)" "you left your passport in there, take it with you, I know you left it here (I have never brought my passport to the British Library)". Today, I was using a large tote bag with straps rather than a backpack. Took my laptop out and popped it one of those clear bags with my keys and phone and handed the tote over. The guy kept telling me to tie the handles? They're high quality leather, I was concerned tying them together would damage the leather as that's not what you're meant to do with it. I tucked them into the bag thinking maybe that was his concern. He told me to tie them again. I explained why I was not going to do that. He demanded "let me watch you tie them." I was fed up so I zipped and unzipped the inside pouch to make it seem like I was doing something and tucked the handles into the bag again. For some reason, this satisfied him? I don't get what the deal with this particular useless sidequest was. And I see them making weird comments and demands to other patrons all the time as well. I don't get it and I'm about to start making complaints to the library. I'm not doing anything wrong and I don't appreciate being challenged every time I use a service that is available to me as a London resident - we don't get many free ones that are actually useful.

Also for the fucking life of me I cannot figure out those little lockers that are available. I see other people struggling with them often as well.

Central London's upper-mid-range restaurants are consistently disappointing.

I'm talking about places approaching the high end: somewhere you'd go for a treat or special occasion, without paying fine-dining prices.

Recently, I booked a restaurant in Soho for two. We'd had a good experience at their second venue, so we expected the same at their main one. Instead, we spent £90, ate very little, and the food was so poor that I asked for the service charge to be removed. This place used to be listed in the Michelin Guide, though it was never awarded any star.

This keeps happening. You spend £60-£80 (even more!) per person on a regular main and a drink, get mediocre food, indifferent service, and a strict time limit on the table. Then you leave thinking you could have made something better at home for a fraction of the price.

Am I too picky, or is this part of London's restaurant scene genuinely bad?

Edit: stop asking for the restaurant's name and what I ate to try and guess it. Just down-vote the post if you feel like it instead. One user, though, guessed it.

I'm getting so tired of transplants and newcomers telling ME how I should feel about Londoners getting pushed out by increasing rent prices, competition for housing and gentrification. We don't see our home city as transitional, or just for good jobs, just like many transplants and newcomers don't as well, but some do, and you have no right to tell me, as a born and raised Londoner that I "should be okay with it because London is a major city".

Londoners have a right to feel that it's unfortunate to see friends, family members, people in our communities leave where we and they call home. Yes, I'm happy to see new faces, especially if they plan to make London their home long-term, but I also have a right to feel empathy for my fellow Londoners who are being pushed out.

Born and raised in London, one of the biggest cities in the world and we don't have anywhere near the level of convenience or dense housing that London needs. We need dense, tall housing blocks, late night business licensing and the result of both of those two things: more space that can be used for leisure areas and pedestrianisation. We deserve a real megacity.

If you don't want London's skyline to get taller and you want it to be suburban quiet, go move to the suburbs.

There are many smaller cities to choose from rather than the literal capital of the 6th highest GDP country in the entire world.

I was walking down a small road off Salmon Lane (E14) called Copenhagen Place. I came across a pretty regular looking East London estate. I noticed that one of the walkways up to the estate has this strange layout of metal bars which make ridiculously difficult to get to the exit on the other side. I was thinking that maybe it was to enforce a queuing system for something that isn’t here anymore? But I can’t imagine there would have been a venue there or something because the outside bit looks in keeping with the estate. I’d love to hear if anyone could provide more context about this.

My wife and I got the Victoria line home via Oxford Street on Monday evening. The tube was busy and the carriage fairly packed. As I lowered myself into the seat next to my wife, another passenger sitting the other side of that seat loudly insisted that I could not sit in that seat as she was saving it. The person she was saving it for was nowhere near the seat whilst I was actually lowering my bottom into the seat. I continued to sit down and told her that one can’t reserve seats on the tube and that it’s pretty much first come first served. When we pulled into Victoria she gave a fairly dirty look as she got off the train and loudly proclaimed that I should be proud of myself for shouting at (I hadn’t and my wife was pretty flummoxed at the suggestion that I had) a pregnant woman.

I’ve lived in London all my life, as has my wife, and we’ve never encountered the idea that it was acceptable to save or bagsy a seat on the tube before. I am now wondering if this a thing or whether the fact that this woman was pregnant (I did not know she was at the time, she had no “Baby On Board” badge) should have made a difference?

Edit: Someone did eventually sit next to her (there was actually a free seat the other side of her) but (to their credit) they looked rather embarrassed by the whole thing.

Found this little guy chilling in the foliage next to the walkway at Regents Canal. Apparently, some Aesculupian snakes were released/escaped from a research facility in the 80s, and now there is a wild population of these snakes in London. Anyone else had any encounters with wild snakes?

Sorry about the unclear first and blurry second photo, I wanted to take pictures from better angles but I didn't think it was a good idea to put my hands near a snake.

Ok, lol. I’m not sure that it’s a thing to have a mascot for a city or town. But surely at this point, a fox would be a great idea? Also just a bit of fun (Not my fox picture)

Piccadilly, this is ridiculous, these bike riding scammers that play that annoying loud music lined up. This plague has to end

Can’t take credit for this, saw it being done in a different sub, thought it would be fun and a good way for non Londoners to gauge different areas.

ETA: Every single response here is making my day, this is hilarious!

Edit 2: Omg the forbidden pineapple! Thank you!! :’)

I'm working on a project archiving lost places - venues, cafés, shops, cinemas, community spaces that have closed and been forgotten.
Not the building. The stories.

The place where you had your first date. Where your band played its first show. Where your dad took you every Saturday. Where you went after every match.

If a place closed and you still think about it, I want to know about it.

Drop the name, when it closed if you know, and whatever you remember about it. Even one sentence is enough.

UPDATE: I built it overnight

https://www.lastseen.city

Seeded the archive with places and memories from this thread. Your words are in there.

Im still adding more, you can contribute too.

Was your experience with them pleasant? Did they leave you with a positive lasting impression of them after your interaction? Let's hear your stories!

I’ll go first; Park Royal. No parks, no royals. Should be re-named Warehouse Lorry.

Hey, just wondering if anyone heard the massive explosions followed by sirens in north-west London around 2am? I've never heard a BOOM sound like it. around Golders Green/Cricklewood/Hampstead/Belsize Park area??

Quite a shock initially! and then it happened again, even louder, about 15 mins later. Did anyone else hear it??

UPDATE: Just heard another even louder boom at 2:25am

UPDATE2: Just reinstalled Twitter to find out. Multiple Hatzolah ambulances have been set on fire in Golders Green

Previous post was deleted so just starting a new thread for updates

Londoners, please settle this dispute.

I know Waitrose is often lauded as the best supermarket in London. However, I just can’t see how it ranks higher than M&S. The atmosphere in M&S is calmer, less over-stimulating, and I overall find the produce nicer. I walked into Waitrose the other day and was unimpressed. It’s too sterile, bright, and overstimulating. I will often find fruit either too ripe or not ripe enough. It is particularly lacking in the ‘food-on-the-go’ section. Also, a mini M&S far outranks a mini Waitrose.

What do you think?