HIDDY

I'd avoid the Oxford Street shops on the run up to Xmas.....those women shoppers are a violent bunch.

GaryZ

ajax you're a real gentleman, thanks for correcting the record. I refrained from commenting, not wanting to take this thread off topic. Reality is, London and for the most part, the EU, doesn't experience the gun-related violence we have in the States and quite honestly, I often prefer my time in the UK and at our second home in Italy to over life here.

...especially when HIDDY comes along and adds a to balance out the situation!

Jenbel

There is a serious point to his joke - Oxford Street is pretty bad for pickpockets, watch your purse (in the British sense)/wallet at all times!

trueblu

Yes, the OP has nothing to worry about, and yes, London (despite the OP's link) is far far safer than almost all major urban areas in the US. However, I don't think these protests are entirely a saturday jolly. Having been inadvertently caught up in one or two when I used to live in London some years ago, they can be pretty frightening. But yes, it is usually (relatively) easy to get out of the way in ample time. Americans have for more than a generation not experienced this sort of civil protest so might be rather taken aback despite lack of real danger.

tb

B747-437B

If it makes you feel better, I have a family member who is thinking of rebooking his BOS-LHR-BOM transit at Heathrow next week "just in case" the riots spread to Heathrow and shut down operations, resulting in him being stranded there for days on end.

Granted, he had this happen to him in transit at Heathrow this April when the volcanos hit, but still a bit of paranoia IMHO.

Silver Fox

A bit? Good grief, a slight over-reaction imho.

ajax

A bit? With all due respect, your family member is bloomin' bonkers.

ajax

My pleasure.

Europe (including the UK) doesn't tend to experience as much gun-related violence as the US, but there is definitely a level of violence of a different kind, despite what anyone would have you believe. Stabbings are more common here (although quite infrequent on the whole) and there tends to be more civil disobedience here as well (IMHO not an entirely bad thing). Sometimes this spills over into mob violence (which IME is much rarer in the US) but rarely. Also when this does happen in the US (LA riots post-Rodney King, for instance), it tends to be localised in bad neighbourhoods whereas in the UK it tends to be more centralised (e.g., Oxford Street, Whitehall, etc.), hence your question is entirely valid.

David-A

Indeed. ^

[One wonders if they should get out of bed.]

B747-437B

Well, if he'd said "what if a volcano erupted and shut down all of European airspace while in transit, causing me to be stuck in London for a week" back in April, I'd have told him he was bloomin' bonkers - but he'd have had the last laugh!

MissJ

Agreed with the safety in London. I was there on the day the protests got ugly over at Millbank and I never would have known anything was going on without seeing it on TV. London is huge. If there is a protest you want to avoid, just go somewhere else. I'd still feel safer walking near a London protest than walking around downtown Atlanta on any given night.

ajax

Good point - but that doesn't make him any less bonkers.

PhlyingRPh

I'm going home in a couple of days and I am not worried one bit about this minor act of mischief by students who are protesting something of national and indeed global importance.

I will say that while many people here consider London to be safer than most American cities, but IMO, the risk of being mugged (largely handbag, wallet and cellphone snatching), being stabbed, or getting into a fist fight with a group of yobo's far exceeds what one might expect in the US. IMO, London on a Friday evening has always been much more violent than any American city, and I have the slash marks to prove it.

Zamoyska

I run around London day & night without a care in the world. Never been mugged, don't know anyone who's been stabbed, rarely see any fist fights & I don't frequent places where there's "yobo's". In fact, the other week while I was in LA I witnessed more fights outside clubs at 2AM than I've seen in London over the past 10 years.

As for London being much more violent on a Friday evening than any American city ... I didn't realize Obama had introduced a 'No gun Friday' law.

stut

FYI, more demonstrations planned for this afternoon (at Scotland Yard) and evening (at Westminster). Police have been instructed to be 'more robust'.

As before, no particular cause for concern, but those of you planning on travelling around the Victoria/Westminster area may have some disruption.