Mind the Tourist.

Before arriving in London, the delightful capital of my mother country by another mother, one believes one would have benefited from a spot of boot camp, perhaps a style similar to that administered to London's Metropolitan Icecream Police force, to prepare oneself for the discipline and endurance necessary to tackle the crap out of London in summer.

A key part of the lean machine that is London is the underground, or the Tube, as it is affectionately known by those who can find affection for such things as infrastructure. Found deep under the earth, the cheerfully bright red and blue primary colours throughout the city denoting a station crypt below belie its cruel nature.

The Tube can eat you alive if you are daft enough to approach it during peak hour.  I imagine one's initial experience of the peak hour tube monster is akin to some tourists first experience of Bondi Beach.

Despite all the warnings they go out swimming, get caught in the rip and before they know it they have ended up in a place they don't want to be, ie. Brixton. No-one wants that.

The Tube map is the only colourful object to view in London. Despite its glossy appearance and 'I've been vomited on by a unicorn' facade, a sighting of the familiar map across a tube station crowded with deatheaters is a godsend for the many lost tourists who have their happy thoughts sucked out on the Picadilly line.  Although the rainbow-inspired transport bible often creates more confusion than anything else.

During the peak hour brouhaha, you have a split second to choose a tube line and a direction of where you want to end up, because the locals take no prisoners.

For some unfathomable reason, at any time of the day, everyone is in a big bloody rush. Must get somewhere urgently for some unknown reason. And you get dragged into their crazy shit, into the rip of all these commuters, because they want to get home and watch Corrie (Coronation Street; they love it) or get into the queue for the Eye, for the privilege of looking at dirty, grimy London from a different angle.

Eastbound, westbound, red line, yellow line, blue line, black line with purple squiggles, exit here, exit there, stairs, lifts, escalators, more bloody stairs, people using the long white corridors to tune their guitars and voices. They may be on vacation, but tourists are in pain.

London visitors have some of the more pronounced 'tourist face' that I have seen. Much like zombie face, 'tourist face' is not terribly different to the undead. Nothings elicits tourist face quicker than walking around out-of-towner-infused London for a few long hours engaged in typical activities like walking for fucking miles, and such.

Wide eyes, droopy open mouth, feet a draggin', a soft moan can be heard when a staircase of two steps appears before them, avoids sitting on the Tube because it will make it that little bit harder to mind the gap at the end of their journey. All symptomatic of tourist face.

Next time you see a 'tourist face', give them some pennies in empathy of their cause, because nothing cheers up tourists more than fucking pennies, what with their brassiness and usefulness.