Londoners have a convention of standing on the left, or walking on the right when using escalators.
Whilst using an escalator you may find that you need to change sides, either to rest your aching feet or sprint to the finish. When you do this, you should immediately cross over to the other side without looking behind you, making other people dive out the way.
These days, every modern mobile phone has music playing capabilities. There is no better way to appreciate music than through a tiny mobile phone speaker. You will find that you can improve your phone’s bass reproduction by turning up the volume as much as possible.
Most people on public transport are music lovers and will therefore be delighted to participate in your public music sharing. For this reason, it is certainly unnecessary to invest in a pair of decent headphones.
When fortunate enough to bag a seat on a train or bus, you should pretend to be asleep or so utterly engrossed in your book/newspaper that you fail to notice the standing elderly people and heavily pregnant women.
If you do notice, you should not make eye contact under any circumstances. If you don’t make eye contact they won’t know that you’ve noticed them, thus excusing you from needing to feel guilty.
Eventually, some other kind-hearted soul might give up their seat. If this happens, you may feel suitably smug that you have kept your seat and no longer need to feel guilty.
When it (inevitably) begins to rain in the city, you obviously need to protect your expensive suit from becoming a little bit damp.
To accomplish this, you should choose the largest, bulkiest golfing umbrella you can possibly find – preferably large enough for four people. At the slightest hint of rain, you should pull out said umbrella and hide underneath it, where you cannot see the people around you.
This kind of umbrella is especially useful on crowded high streets, where the people around you are unable to dodge your pointy plastic shelter of pain.
The text message/email you are reading/composing is so absolutely, life depending, vitally important that you must continue to do-so whilst walking down the street.
You can normally do this by using the ‘walking at the speed of a stoned slug’ technique; where you meander down the street, totally oblivious to the tutting, frustrated commuters unable to overtake you on the busy pavement.
You can also optionally stop at random moments when your multitasking abilities run out, causing a minor pavement pile-up behind you.
(Thanks to cosmic_fish for the tip!)
When you spot an empty seat on a train, in order to rightfully claim it you must move as close to the arriving train doors as possible. You must judge the exact momentum of the train to stand in exactly the right place as it stops.
When the doors open you should immediately and confidently stride towards the seat. When seats are at stake, you are exempt from letting people off the train first.
If anyone else reaches the seat first, you must glare at the person in a mixture of despair and annoyance. Try to hide the psychopathic voice in your head saying ‘That seat was mine. MINE I TELL YOU. You will die in a horrific accident involving a lorry and a rusty fork.’
It is clearly totally unexpected that a train will begin to move once the doors have closed. For this reason, there is no reason to hold on to anything.
Instead, you should perform one of two acrobatic routines when the train starts to move:
1) The ‘off-balance tap dancing shuffle’ along the train gangway.
Or
2) The ‘nearly lost my balance but managed to grab a support bar whilst punching the person next to me in the face’ manoeuvre.
You should aim to kick or tread on at least one person’s foot along the way.
When somebody holds a door open, you should pass through quickly and deftly without holding the door open for the person behind. You should do this with an air of nonchalance.
The person behind you should not expect to get an easy pre-opened door just because the person in front held it open just for you.
When the door closing alarm sounds, if not yet on the train, you should immediately accelerate and attempt to jump through the closing doors. Approximately 50% of the time, you will make it through the doors and stand looking appropriately smug inside the train.
The other 50% of the time, the doors will close too quickly and clamp around your head/arm/leg/bag. When this occurs, you should attempt to free the trapped head/arm/leg/bag. Other passengers may come to your assistance and attempt to pull apart the doors.
Inevitably, none of the attempts to free your head/arm/leg/bag will be successful and the driver will begrudgingly have to re-open the doors.
At this point, when the door closing alarm sounds again, somebody else will repeat the above.
When arriving at the ticket barriers in a station, you should approach the front of the queue, then stop to search for your ticket/oyster card in your stupidly large bag or deep pockets.
You should do this regardless of how much time you spent motionless on the train or going up and down escalators.
It is also quite normal to scrunch up the ticket in said bag/pocket so even when it is found, it will be rejected by the machine.
(Thanks to Wendy for the tip)