{"id":2588,"date":"2017-12-04T21:07:45","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T21:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/?p=2588"},"modified":"2017-12-04T21:15:38","modified_gmt":"2017-12-04T21:15:38","slug":"i-was-almost-david-beckhams-neighbour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/2017\/12\/04\/i-was-almost-david-beckhams-neighbour\/","title":{"rendered":"I was almost David Beckham\u2019s neighbour"},"content":{"rendered":"

And 11 other times London made me go WTF<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Housing agents work fast in London. 48 hours after I landed, I found myself in a Foxton\u2019s Mini cruising up Holland Park with a bottle of sparkling water in hand, because that’s how Foxton’s rolls.<\/p>\n

\u201cSee that SUV? It looks like Mr Beckham is home.\u201d said Ben the housing agent. \u201cAnd the place we\u2019re going to see is right on the next street.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly, the offer I put down for that sweet little studio was quickly thrown out, along with all hope of brunching\/BFF-ing with the Beckhams. But if there\u2019s one thing London has a knack for, it\u2019s an extraordinary ability to be, well, extraordinary. Here are eleven other times it\u2019s made me go WTF in just my first three weeks here.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Black cab drivers <\/strong>
    \nWhen I first got here, I took a black cab into the city and the driver used all manner of back roads to get around rush hour traffic without once looking at Google Maps. Contrast that to my clueless Uber driver a couple of weeks later and it\u2019s easy to see why people fork out more for The Knowledge<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. WTB (What\u2019s That Building) syndrome<\/strong>
    \nMany. Pretty. Buildings. And so much history. I\u2019m still getting over the fact that the St Mary\u2019s campus is where Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin.<\/li>\n
  3. Queen\u2019s first London gig<\/a> was at Imperial College<\/strong>
    \nSpeaking of distinguished alumni, two members of Queen (Brian May and Roger Taylor) graduated from Imperial and their very first London gig was at the ICL Union Hall. Strangely though, the statue of Freddie Mercury is in Switzerland.<\/li>\n
  4. Concerts are held in actual palaces. <\/strong>And those palaces pick up charming names like Ally Pally.<\/li>\n
  5. Horses are an incredibly common sight on London streets.<\/strong> They also leave an incredible pong and often have police riding on them. Approach with caution. You have been warned.<\/li>\n
  6. Mews aren\u2019t the sounds that kittens make<\/strong>. They\u2019re what the rest of us call back alleys and they were also apparently stables (horses again!) in another life.<\/li>\n
  7. The best Chinese roast duck I\u2019ve ever had is in London<\/strong>, in a restaurant called Gold Mine on Bayswater. Even the vaunted restaurants in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia don\u2019t hold a candle.<\/li>\n
  8. It\u2019s amazing how green it is for a city so grey.<\/strong> The sun rarely shows its face but somehow, almost half of London is covered in greenery and flowering plants. What sorcery is this?<\/li>\n
  9. It\u2019s amazing how grey it is for a city so green.<\/strong> Air pollution is much worse here than back in Singapore. What\u2019s really scary is that you barely notice it, insidious as it is.<\/li>\n
  10. Cockfosters is an actual Tube station<\/strong>. I\u2019m the only one who laughs when it\u2019s announced.<\/li>\n
  11. I can vote here.<\/strong> Citizens of the Commonwealth resident in the UK can cast their votes in British elections and, apparently, controversial referendums too. Come on Theresa, I\u2019m waiting.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Ten more months here in London. What will this city throw at me next?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    And 11 other times London made me go WTF Housing agents work fast in London. 48 hours after I landed, I found myself in a Foxton\u2019s Mini cruising up Holland Park with a bottle of sparkling water in hand, because that’s how Foxton’s rolls. \u201cSee that SUV? It looks like Mr Beckham is home.\u201d said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1161,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2588"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2592,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2588\/revisions\/2592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}