Hello, welcome to London!

I’m going through one of those periods where I’m just feeling exhausted by the constant people, noise, traffic and go go go of London.

I’ve had a very busy period in work lately and been really stressed as a result so I know that is the main driver but right now I feel like the combination of work and the pace of London is beating me up a little lol. As much as it’s an amazing place, there is a constant level of stimulation in London that can take its toll. I know others go through the same thing and personally this happens to me every once in a while where I just feel worn out by London.

So I’m wondering if there’s anything others do to cope during these periods and ride it out? My main antidote is exercise/gym during the week and getting into the countryside on the weekend for long walks but I’m wondering is there anything on the day to day, even mental tricks to rise above it all and power on 😅

To be clear, I love London was born and raised here and it’s where I want to be long term as paradoxically I love the energy, buzz and everything that the city is. Just looking for tips on how to deal with these periods when it all feels a bit overwhelming!

Can anybody tell me what this light is? I would think it's greenwhich but this is taken from highbury fields facing south west.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/oct/15/london-architecture-estates-saved-from-demolition-social-housing

Personally I think this will backfire badly on the Greens. I used to live very nearby - the estate was poorly constructed (60s) and riddled with leaks etc. Plus a number of the flats have been empty for years at this point. I think the cost to make the homes liveable and the ongoing maintenance costs will have them reviewing this decision within a decade.

There's a few of these running around canary wharf. They seem to stop at crossings and have sone way of changing the lights it seems.

It's obviously highly geofenced in the area.

Does anyone know any cute third spaces that are nice and quiet where I can go and read a book with a coffee/drink/snacks/toilet facilities for half a day on a weekend? Places like Waterstones cafe etc are cute but still loud. Any recommendations?
I would usually go to a park in summer but with the weather changing it'll be nice to find somewhere indoors.

Thank you!!! 😊

I was on a very quiet 73 the other day and we stopped at a stop to let some more passengers on. Last in the queue were two young kids - probably brother and sister, I'm going to say 12 and 10 maybe? They were smartly dressed like they were on the way home from school. The driver made a 'no you can't get on' sort of 'go away' gesture with his hand and closed the door. The boy was shouting they had Oyster cards. A woman on the bus started shouting at the driver asking why he wouldn't let them on. The driver ignored everybody and just drove off. I felt bad for those kids and was angry with the driver (though the rest of the journey was pretty funny as the shouting woman did not stop for about 10 minutes - she went way over the top and cursed the driver telling him she hoped his children AND grandchildren were never allowed on any bus).

Anyway, what possible reason could the driver have had for not letting the kids on? The only thing I could think of was maybe something to do with not letting school kids use regular buses? (Though that makes no sense as there are school kids on buses all the time). Were the kids too young to be on the bus unaccompanied?

Any ideas?

The sound isn't original, talkies came a year later.

How do you know a Tory is lying? They're speaking.

Here's a short list of things to do this weekend In North London. 

Frieze London & Frieze Masters | 📍Regent’s Park, NW1 | 14 - 18 October | (£)

The world’s biggest art fair, in a tent in Regent’s Park. Almost 300 galleries from 48 countries, contemporary work alongside Old Masters. If you follow art, this is the week everything happens in London. And if tickets aren’t for you, Frieze Sculpture is free in the English Gardens until 1 November, eleven large-scale works by international artists scattered through the park.

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North London Curated Pop-Up Market | 📍St Mary’s, Upper Street, N1 | 17 October | Free

North London Curated was started by two traders who were fed up with badly run markets, so they built the kind they’d actually want to sell at. Emma Harrison and Anna of Dirty Bertie Vintage still trade at every event themselves, alongside the 24 independent sellers they’ve brought together here. Vintage fashion, homeware, art, jewellery and kidswear in the grounds of St Mary’s Church on Upper Street, with a DJ on the decks all day

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Surinderella | 📍Artsdepot, N12 | 17 - 18 October | (£)

Rifco Theatre’s Bollywood-inspired retelling of Cinderella, full of big laughs, romance and larger-than-life entertainment for the whole family. Think classic pantomime energy with a dazzling South Asian twist. At Artsdepot in North Finchley, from £15, ages 3 and up. 2.30pm.

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Lee Valley Comic Con | 📍Lee Valley Athletics Centre, N9 | 18 October | (£)

Comic con at Lee Valley with 170-plus tables of toys, Pokemon, Funko figures and comics, a cosplay competition, gaming area, artist alley and a charity auction. Special guest this year is Colin Baker, the sixth Doctor Who. Under 12s free, free parking. £15 early bird from 9am, £10 general from 10am, £5 after 2pm.

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Shōtengai Market | 📍Lower Stable Street, N1C | 15 - 18 October | Free

Japanese-style street market back on Lower Stable Street in King’s Cross with pan-Asian homeware, fashion and food. Vendors rotate each month so there’s always something new, but expect the likes of Japanese homewares, Tokyo bikes, okonomiyaki pancakes and takoyaki. Food stalls Thursday to Sunday, craft and homeware Friday to Sunday.

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Fermentation Celebration | 📍OmVed Gardens, N6 | 17 October | (£)

Fourth annual fermentation festival in OmVed’s hillside gardens in Highgate, this year focused on the four Ks: kefir, kimchi, kombucha and kraut. Morning talks with experts on each, then hands-on sessions in the afternoon where you make your own and take home starters to keep going at home. Artisans’ market of small-batch ferments, a fermenters’ swap and seasonal vegetarian lunch from the OmVed kitchen. Bring your own jars. 10am to 4pm.

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Ghost Portrait Painting | 📍Blighty Café, N4 | 18 October | (£)

Spend a Sunday afternoon painting a ghost portrait in a little frame to take home, at Blighty in Finsbury Park. All paints and materials provided, step-by-step guidance, a drink included, and absolutely no artistic ability required. The important question: cute ghost or creepy ghost? 2pm to 4pm.

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Enfield Black Literature Festival | 📍Dugdale Arts Centre, EN2 | 18 October | (£)

Enfield's Caribbean Association has gathered thirteen published Black authors for a full day celebrating Black heritage, culture and storytelling. Panels on identity, wellbeing and favourite reads, three writing workshops, bookstalls, a blind book swap and a Windrush exhibition. £5 for workshops, £10 for everything. 1pm to 7pm.

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Go Ape Sundown Adventures | 📍Alexandra Palace, N22 | Weekends from 16 October | (£)

Go Ape at Ally Pally does this once a year: high ropes through the trees as the sun goes down over London, the course lit up with glowing lights as it gets dark. Back for autumn, with adults-only sessions for the first time. £32, ages 6 and over, from 6pm. Sessions are limited so book ahead.

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London Craft Chocolate Fair | 📍Fidelio Café, EC1R | 17 - 18 October | (£)

Taste your way through some of the world’s best bean-to-bar chocolate at Fidelio Café in Clerkenwell, at the start of Chocolate Week. Makers from across the UK and beyond including Pump Street, Chocolarder and Friis Holm, plus talks and tastings with experts including James Hoffmann. Come curious, leave converted. £5 entry, tastings from £25. Saturday 10am to 6pm, Sunday 10am to 5pm.

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Larger Than Life: Wallace & Gromit at Lightroom | 📍Lightroom, N1C | From 14 October | (£)

Walk into a room and find Wallace, Gromit, Shaun the Sheep and Morph on every wall and the floor, 50 minutes of Aardman projected all around you. From 14 October at Lightroom in King's Cross.

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North London Record Fair | 📍The Elmhurst, N17 | 18 October | Free

Dig through records at The Elmhurst in Tottenham, pound bins to high-end rarities across all genres, with DJs playing through the day. Have a dig then stay for a Sunday roast. Family and dog friendly. Free, 10am to 4pm.

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Make & Mend Festival | 📍Hornsey Town Hall, Crouch End, N8 | 17 October | Free entry

Muswell Hill Creatives is taking over Hornsey Town Hall for a whole day of making things, learning old and new skills and meeting some of the people who make locally. You can sit down and have a go at Japanese Sashiko embroidery, linocut printing, modern calligraphy or making a paper lampshade, then wander through a market of ceramics, jewellery, textiles and other work made by local artists and makers. Stroud Green WI will be bringing the homemade cakes and savouries, Sean’s Shack is doing the drinks and sandwiches, and there’s a tombola raising money for Wave Hub. It’s the eighth Make & Mend Festival, but the first one inside Hornsey Town Hall. 11am to 5pm. Entry is free, with workshops booked separately and individually priced.

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High School Musical | 📍Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre, HA9 | Until 3 January | (£)

Twenty years since the film, High School Musical is on stage at Wembley Park with Harry Judd from McFly as Coach Bolton and original cast member KayCee Stroh as Ms Darbus. The staging puts some of the audience on stage, so you’re inside East High rather than watching from a distance. Breaking Free, Get’cha Head in the Game, We’re All in This Together. Ages 6 and over, until 3 January.

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Fink’s Autumn Market | 📍Clissold House, N16 | 17 October | Free

’Tis the season for leaves falling, pumpkins being harvested and apples being bobbed, so Fink’s is throwing a market in the rose garden at Clissold House. Seasonal food, hot drinks, cocktails, maker stalls and games. Free, 2pm to 6pm.

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Add any I've missed below, this list is always better with local knowledge 👇

Mad how much money is in AI slop and half useful generative apps, none of which are intelligent no matter how much the ceos will gaslight you to think otherwise.

Had no idea this was happening.

this morning over a hundred people waiting at clapham junction platform 1 for a train they didnt tell us would be delayed til after the train was meant to depart. when it eventually came in they decided it would fast track straight to wilsden junction. only a handful of people got on and everyone else wanted to go to imperial wharf west brom or shepherds bush - theres no other way to get to these stations apart from the overground in as quick a time. then they said the next train would go from platform 17 so everyone walked over - and when we got there they said oh changed our mind it will go from platform 1 again. by then even more people had arrived on the platform and when we got there the next mildmay was also fast tracking to wilsden junction. hundreds of people were left on the platform. then they said the next train would go from platform 17 again and at that point, i decided to go to wilsden junction and get the bus because at least it would be faster than spending another 45 mins on the platform.

fucking hate the mildmay line. my friends take the windrush line and never have issues with it. in my opinion mildmay is too long. they should have a train that goes from clapham to willsden and back, and then trains from willsden to stratford, and keep them separate.

(I'm never really sure whether I'm allowed to post my own reporting in here so I'm just going to post the whole text and hope that's OK with mods because I think r/London users will be interested and this was buried in a long newsletter today.)

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Angel tube station in Islington could be forced to close for an extended period of time due to its rapidly disintegrating escalators. That’s according to documents seen by London Centric which are a typical sign of the lack of investment in London’s transport network — and the increasingly large repair bills required to put it right.

The station has the longest escalators on the London Underground network, with three parallel structures carrying 11.7m passengers a year to and from Upper Street. 

One of these 200ft escalators failed in April this year and Transport for London is now privately warning that a second could fail imminently. The third is only considered to have, at best, two years of life remaining.

In a bid to buy some time and reduce wear and tear on the remaining structures, TfL is considering turning Angel into an exit-only tube station during off-peak periods from next month, meaning it would not be possible to hop on the tube from there in the evenings and at weekends.

In the best-case scenario, design work on replacing them will start this autumn and take around a year, with a complete replacement of all the equipment then necessitating either a total shutdown of the station for a further 12 months or a longer partial closure to replace each escalator one-by-one.

The documents suggest years of underinvestment in maintenance across TfL’s network is coming home to roost, with consultants and politicians predicting a steady decline in reliability. At the same time, TfL’s income from fares is also being battered by reduced demand caused by heatwaves, the growth of alternative methods of transport such as cycling and London’s population decline amid recent curbs on immigration.

Escalator and lift failures are among the most visible parts of TfL’s vast £6.5bn maintenance backlog, with a quarter of tube escalators now beyond their expected shelf life.

As a sign of the seriousness of the situation at Angel, TfL commissioner Andy Lord personally briefed local politicians on the potential solutions. TfL believes passengers cannot be allowed to walk up and down the static escalators because their exceptional length creates a safety risk. Their size also makes it difficult to order and afford bespoke parts.

Una O’Halloran, the Labour leader of Islington Council, has privately written to Lord to say TfL must have known about the need for maintenance and appears to have waited until it became a crisis before acting. According to a copy of the letter, seen by London Centric, she wrote: “To approach us at this late stage, with no suitable plan or seeming forethought about a replacement programme until the issue has been forced by failure, is not acceptable.”

She said a total closure would be “devastating” for local businesses: “The handling of this matter has materially damaged our trust and confidence in TfL as a partner.”

TfL deny they put off informing the council. Richard Jones, director of asset performance delivery for London Underground, said it is a “challenging, expensive project” and TfL is trying to find ways to extend the working life of the escalators that have been in place for 35 years.

He said: “Many years of constrained government funding for essential asset renewals has meant that we have not been able to invest in new escalators at the station. Making the station exit-only during specific periods will allow us to extend the working life of the escalators and give us more time to plan our next steps, with design work on replacing the escalators to begin this autumn. I understand that any disruption to the station will have an impact on customers, businesses and the local community and we will do all we can to work closely with local stakeholders to ensure that we mitigate the disruption as much as possible.”

Of course, there is one easy solution that hasn’t been considered. Almost two decades ago, a Norwegian man skied down one of the escalators in a matter of seconds. 

The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC) is proposing to cut down seven mature ginkgo trees on Oakwood Court because of issues with their fruit. The consultation closes tomorrow, so there’s still a little time to save these trees from felling. You can respond to the consultation opposing the felling here.

Ginkgos are an extraordinary, ancient species — often described as living fossils — and can live for centuries. They turn a beautiful golden yellow in autumn (see photo). Mature trees provide shade, character, biodiversity and a sense of place that simply cannot be replaced overnight by planting new saplings.

The Council’s notice says the reason is the issues caused by the fruit of the female Ginkgo trees, which produce an unpleasant smell. Whilst I understand that this can be frustrating for local residents, these are mature trees that have taken decades to grow. The female trees only produce this fruit once a year, for two months. These trees have been part of the local landscape for years, and it would be such a shame to lose them when there are better ways to manage the problem.

With London summers getting hotter each year, mature trees are more important than ever for providing shade and helping cool our streets. Once these trees are gone, we can't replace their canopy overnight.

The public consultation is still open until tomorrow, 16 October 2026, so there is one day left to respond. You can respond to the consultation here. There’s a character limit (500 characters) on consultation responses, but even a short message encouraging the Council to reconsider the felling would be appreciated.

It would be a shame to lose these trees without properly considering other options. If you care about London's green spaces, please have your say — and please share with anyone who might be interested!

Thank you for taking the time to read, it is genuinely appreciated.

I was in Russel Square this afternoon, when this young lad (who couldn't have been older than like 11) came up to me and my friends and starts this speech about how he's running 10 miles to raise awareness about bullying, and it was a whole sob story, and asked us if we'd like to donate.

I didn't see any parent nearby, though there was another kid who was going around asking the same question. I tell the lad that I don't have any cash, and he tells us about the currency exchange down the road which immediately raised red flags. I asked if he had a gofundme link or something but he didn't so I awkwardly told him sorry, but good luck for your run.

Like the whole thing is very suspicious, but I find it so hard to believe that little kid is already going around with a scamming empire. Does anyone know anything about this? Has anyone else also experienced something similar?