Tourist Guide
The
Lonely Planet tourist guide claims London is a
city full of yobs, bigots, dirt, homeless people
and pigeons. On the Metropolitan Police, the
guide says they are "not always as
colour-blind as people would like to
believe". Some of London's most famous
landmarks receive less than glowing reviews with
Buckingham Palace described as "overpriced
and disappointing." The Trafalgar Square
pigeons are called "dirty, flying
rats," while visitors to Oxford Street have
to "run the gauntlet of permanent
'closing-down' sales."
The guide continues saying: "When a yob in a
car - radio on full blast, mobile glued to the
ear, indicator controls untouched - nearly runs
you over at a pedestrian crossing and you
protest, he dissolves into road rage as only
Londoners know how." Visitors to Britain can
expect high prices, sub-standard service and
rainy weather. And British hotels are in such a
state that guests soon realise "Fawlty
Towers was really a documentary," the book
says.
The Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace is
said to be barely worth the effort and Land's End
is dubbed a "Thatcherite monument to the
triumph of crass commerce and over culture".
Other areas like the Shambles in York, Matthew
Street in Liverpool and London's Oxford Street
are labelled too over-crowded for proper
sight-seeing. And last year's opening and
immediate closing of the swaying Millennium
Bridge over the Thames was said to be the
"cock-up of all cock-ups".
The guide describes Edinburgh as a beautiful and
lively city marred by "a thriving drug
scene, prostitution and a distressing Aids
problem". And although it concedes that
Blackpool is worth a look, the seaside town is
said to be "well past its use-by-date."
But restaurants across the country are said to be
unfriendly to children, food prices are said to
be too high and the quality of service too low.
The much loved British fry-up, which is popular
with tourists, is dubbed death on a plate in the
guide. "Tourists tend to enjoy the
traditional English breakfasts because they don't
eat such things often at home. If they did, they
would die." A trip to the pub is likely to
bring tourists into contact with
"foul-mouthed lager louts" indulging in
drunken brawls. And our public toilets are said
to be "pretty grim".
On the streets, litter is dropped at the rate of
around a ton a minute across the city. London has
been officially named as the second worst capital
city in Europe for air quality and street
cleanliness.
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