Snap a Londoner* - disgruntled

Snap a Londoner*

A game for all the tourists to play
The aim of this game is to get as many shots of Londoners inadvertently crossing into your photographs as you can in an hour.
You will need:
a camera (preferably digital) and an accomplice.
How to play:
First choose your location - near a tube station at rush hour is good. Some players do well on London's bridges. Place your accomplice in front of a picturesque location. Stand well back. Well, well back. You're aiming at blocking the entire pavement. Use your zoom if you have to - whatever it takes to avoid stepping forward and leaving an escape route for the Londoners to get past behind you. If it's a wide pavement, use your backpack to block off any gaps, or the rest of your tour party. Now wait, fiddling with buttons until a pedestrian can't stand it any longer and gets between you and your accomplice. Take the photo.
Scoring:
One point for every Londoner you capture. They have to be genuine natives - you will identify them by the scowl. Anyone smiling, gurning at the camera or doing rabbit-ears behind your accomplice's head is a fellow tourist and you lose points for each one.
For a fun variation, especially if you're jetlagged, try early mornings when the joggers and cyclists are about - parks are a good location for this, or the South Bank. Londoners caught moving at speed count double.
The winner is the person with the most points, or the one who first gets their camera smashed or thrown into the Thames, although the latter is difficult to verify.
Advanced players can move on to the bonus solo round. Stand yourself in front of a picturesque location and make eye contact with a Londoner (this in itself is not for the faint hearted). Using unneccessarily elaborate mime, indicate you want them to take your photograph (top tip - don't choose the ones in the hooded tops. It's well known that these Londoners are so starved of love and understanding that they will take off with your camera in a desperate bid for attention). Stand well back, motioning them further back too. Indicate you're not yet ready for as long as you can until a pedestrian can't stand it and starts to cross the line of the photo. Then smile and try and get the Londoner to take the photo with another Londoner in it. A royal flush (Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square) wins the game
The prize:
Send in your photographs along with name, home address, telephone number and where your kids go to school. We'll be around to discuss your winnings later...
*And yes, I know I've blogged about this before, but strangely they keep on doing it and so I keep getting annoyed about it and will have to keep blogging about it until they stop. You have been warned.

15.7.06 11:39

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To date 12 Comment(s) TrackBack-URL

IanB / Website (16.7.06 09:22)
I have a version of this game that Londeners can play: find a tourist in the above-described waiting-to-take-a-picture stance. Stand as close as possible to said tourist, look intently over the tourist's shoulder to an imaginary accomplice and then, in your best estuary mockney, Bob Hoskins voice shout "Derek, do you want anuva camerah or what?" pause, as if looking for a thumbs up from Derek and then look straight into the tourist's bambi-mummy's-not-coming-home eyes. 10 extra points if you actually hear a squeeky little fart of fear escape from the tourist.

disgruntled / Website (16.7.06 10:54)
Ian - that is evil. I like it... do you also take their cameras when they want their pictures taken and look as though you're about to make off with them?

IanB / Website (16.7.06 11:10)
I like to mutter the word "sucker" as they hand it to me - *just* loud enough that they can hear it.

disgruntled / Website (16.7.06 11:15)
It always amuses me - you know they've got their valuables in the safe at the hotel, their money in a money belt, they keep their bags close to their bodies at all times ... and they hand their camera over to the nearest passing stranger ...

huttonian / Website (16.7.06 17:39)
Advanced version involves a video camera. Dress up as an urban rabbit and invite a Londoner to film you hinting that you are something to do with Trigger Happy TV (or some other art show of that ilk) 10 points if he/she does. 20 points if her/she speaks,30 points if he/she puills out a knife due to be surrendered at the next Police Station, and kills you.

disgruntled / Website (16.7.06 18:04)
urban rabbit?

Oink / Website (16.7.06 20:34)
Urban rabbit, you know - a little bit wahh a little bit waaay and with a look in his/her eye that says 'come close and you'll feel my pointy elbows'. They tend to have slightly scruffier fur what with all the rushing about they do.

disgruntled / Website (16.7.06 21:37)
riiight ... urban rabbit... *edges away from both Huttonian and Oink*

Oink / Website (16.7.06 23:11)
So do you think a true Londoner actually does try to wait for photos to be taken or do you think they've given up on that a long time ago? I have hardly any patience at all - the most I wait is a second or two of hesitation. Am I less London than you or ...? What I mean to say is, will I, a relatively new arrival perhaps, mellow with time or get even worse?

disgruntled / Website (17.7.06 08:45)
I don't know - I've got less patient with the advent of digital cameras - you reckon they can just delete the duff ones. And the problem of blocking an entire pavement seems to have got worse recently. But even so I do make an effort to be a little patient, if I can. Maybe I'm an old softie? Or have spent too long married to a photographer?

huttonian / Website (17.7.06 19:52)
Let me add in my middle youth I used to be a Londoner from time to time. Working in Whitehall I was always being photographed by especially Japanese tourists. This was usually a lead in to a request to photograph them with their SLR, cutting edge, rocket science, dernier cru Gizomatic 234FX. By the time I had worked out the technology most of them were on their way back to Heathrow which is why I have a drawer full of SLR, cutting edge etcs. With the point and shoot digitals life is easier and there are very few Japanese or any other kind of tourists this bank of the Tweed. Which goes to show, doesn't it?

disgruntled / Website (17.7.06 21:40)
I always get the slightly paranoid feeling with the digitals that they're going to have a look at the photo, realise it's not very good, and ask you to have another go (come to think of it, that would be a fun game too)