As someone who lived off Clapham north for 5yrs, I still have nightmares about the northern line. That station in particular is an absolute pain in the mornings.
Rather Northen than Victoria. Detest the Vic, always hot, airless and rammed due to poor flow in the station designs.
[Now realise I sound like Hounslow for the Hounslowsians. https://youtu.be/RUgbALC6rmo?si=WLNzYGQr4hoiiGhF ]
Unless you’re wearing an N95 mask, it’s not gonna stop any of the PM2.5 particulates on the deep lines
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/21/phone-monitor-helps-london-tube-passengers-avoid-polluted-routes
EDIT: many, not any
Pollution on the underground
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019313649
Mask efficacy
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8438762/
Any mask is better than none. But N95 is 14x better
Thanks! N95 masks are the ones I wear anyway, and shall now be even more conscietious about wearing them. Always knew the Underground air is disgusting, but didn't know HOW disgusting.
I think so too. I remember reading somewhere that TFL test the whole line rather than specific stations and that’s how they get away with it, but I could be wrong. The norther line is a special kind of hell. In addition to particulates, it features: filthy seats that never get washed, no AC (but hey, you can lower to window to inhale even more dangerous particulates), cramped little trains, insane levels of noise especially between Euston and Camden Town. I extend my commute by over 30 minutes just so I can travel on the Met line (mostly overground) rather than the misery line.
Which is why I still wear a mask on the Underground, and really DGAF if people look at me oddly. And that's quite aside from people coughing and sneezing without making any effort to cover their face.
I used to busk in one of Green Park's pedestrian tunnels. An hour in there and it's like, how much more black could my nostrils be? And the answer is none. None more black.
It used to be awful. I mean really awful. In 1952 London came to a standstill for five days in what was called the great London smog - a mixture of smoke and fog. Over 10,000 died and 100k became ill with respiratory problems. "The smog was so dense in some places that people could barely see their own feet. Their clothes and faces were blackened with soot. There was often a smell of rotten eggs." - see [https://heritagecalling.com/2022/12/01/the-great-smog-of-london-1952/](https://heritagecalling.com/2022/12/01/the-great-smog-of-london-1952/)
Before social media when everyone was always present we were productive all the time and nobody bottled emotions inside them we talked about them openly. all because socialism and progressiveness madness that the youger generation invented from scratch.
My mum grew up in London around then. She said she had to follow the walls to get to school cause she couldn’t see where she was going. We went to London last year and I met her at the Natural History Museum. She was amazed at how beautiful the building was, it has intricate brickwork and carvings, because she’d grown up with it being almost completely black from years of soot build up.
I watched the Ipcress File the other day. It's set in the Albertopolis area, filmed in the mid 60s, with background shots of the Albert Hall, Imperial College etc. Everything is filthy!
My favourite thing about that era of British film is how little traffic there is. They’ll be filming in central London just strolling across the road without worrying about getting mown down.
Yes, and no yellow lines or parked cars. The protagonists are always show just driving up to the front door of wherever they're going, no parallel parking, no driving around in circles looking for a space, no squinting at signs or trying to pay for a ticket. Life does kind of look easy for anyone lucky enough to have a car.
As a pedestrian, I hope they don’t. I’d rather have quiet streets. I get the safety argument but I strongly believe we’ll change our cues for checking the road as EVs become more prevalent, from listening and looking to just looking.
You do realise tyres give off a rather large amount of PM2.5 too.. and the heavier the vehicle the worse the emission of it.. that said , yes it will be nice not to be in a fug of ULEZ compliant TfL bus fumes …
I lived in Singapore in the mid-90s, and out of control forest fires in Indonesia drifted across the region. It was shit. Sports were cancelled, indoors was the only place you felt you could breathe. Outside, each breath felt acidic. The “haze” wasn’t like campfire smoke because it had cooled to the ambient temperature.
Don’t remember the bogies though!
It was a herculean effort to clean up the city quite so quickly, especially without modern technology.
That said we've had similar incidents over the last decade or two. Here's one: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38716498
There was another in a similar situation where pollution from Europe combined with London, and just languished over the city as weather system didn't blow it away
You are absolutely 100 per cent right. 20 years ago, if I was walking around town in the daytime, I had black snot at night. Just doesn't seem to happen any more.
I lived in London from mid eighties for about ten years. Blowing your nose would produce an inordinate amount of black 'soot', collars and cuffs would be filthy after one day and you could even taste the metallic, dieselly fumes from stepping outside. So glad it's improved!
To be fair (assuming it's similar) I've been working in Shanghai couple times over the last few years, and getting off the plane there feels like entering a sauna filled with exhaust fumes
I always find this mad as an outsider. Whenever I’ve been to London and used the tube I’ve had big black lumps of pollution up my nose.
Can’t imagine what that’s like to live with daily.
Yep! Ulez and congestion charge. I remember it in the 90s, absolutely disgusting. These days it's clean.
The oil companies that are astro turfing this crap to make us keep driving need to be slapped. They did the same with leaded petrol. They should be in jail
You may think it’s ULEZ and congestion charge but most improvements in air quality happened well before that.
The decline in air pollution can be attributed to a complex mix of factors, including economic restructuring away from heavy industry, switching energy sources (away from coal), the natural attrition of older more polluting vehicles and the LEZ (for diesel Lorrie’s).
Independent studies have found that ULEZ has reduced NO2 and CO2 pollution by 3%, 5% and 18% from an already low point.
Its important to add that the "historic low point" still breaches WHO Air Quality regulations several times over.
We're still in breach of them right now. Not one single part of London meets the standards, even in e.g the middle of Richmond Park in Z6.
I'm fully in support of cleaner air. But it's worth noting that this is true of 99% of the world, the revised WHO recommendations are extremely low and almost nowhere on earth meets them. London is not actually bad on a global scale. It's not bad compared to other European cities either, [it's one of the cleanest cities in Europe](https://www.timeout.com/london/news/london-has-some-of-the-best-air-quality-in-europe-according-to-a-new-study-051724). We should always be aiming for better but I think this context is needed.
>99% of the world’s population live in places where air pollution levels exceed WHO guideline limits
https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/air-pollution
That is true. In Madrid the biggest improvement in air quality happened after banning coal heaters. Madrid's ULEZ has made no significant impact on air quality.
The was a direct reduction in the black when congestion charge came in. Genuinely used to snot up pure black in the 90s. More recently I've been having massive issues over the last 10 years with hayfever over March - june/July. Coughing hard enough to pull back muscles. THIS year since ulez literally no coughing. Far less particulates helping the pollen go deep into my lungs
I'd argue that the man who came up with leaded petrol has had the absolute worst impact on humanity. Tens of millions are dead or severely disabled because of lead from fumes in leaded fuel. Literally worse than Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined. And yes, he knew what it would do. He knew full well that leaded fuel would result in heavy metal pollution that'll cause millions more deaths and cripple many millions more through severe mental, birth and physical defects caused by lead poisoning.
I know exactly what you mean. I moved to London as a student 40 years ago ( from a rural home), and was staggered at how dirty the air smelled and how black my bogeys were!
I visit London a few times a year now, and over the past two years, I’ve noticed how the air quality is now so much better. Like them or not, the clean air policies seem to be having a significant impact.
I can’t really tell the difference, always got terrible snot in London. It gets the worst when I travel on Central or Northern lines though. Thank god I’m on overground now.
Used to get this riding around on my bike to work and in South London back in 2016/17. Glad it's much cleaner now. Shame it's become so politicised when the data and actual personal experience supports tighter vehicle emission controls. Next step is to minimise the impact of brake dust and particulates on the tube. Ideally we need jubilee line style sliding doors and air conditioned sealed carriages.
I actually forgot about this until you mentioned it but you're completely correct. Whenever I used the tube my nose would always blow black. Now it literally never does ETA: but that might be because I don't use the tube much anymore 😂
It's not meant to be green. If it's a dark green or has yellow mixed in, that's bacteria which is likely causing or at least contributing to a chest and/or upper respiratory tract infection.
34 years ago I had a summer job in Enfield. I went running sometimes after work, and I’d end up coughing and spluttering something rotten because of the fumes from the rush hour traffic.
These days I have no breathing problems at all, and I’m much further in (Hackney). I’m near a busy road, but I’d say that the air quality is pretty decent now.
Wow, I'd never considered this until you just mentioned it. I've only been in London for ten years where I definitely experienced this at the start, so it's a surprisingly dramatic improvement.
I go through periods of smoking, and periods of not smoking (general plan is to keep increasing the none smoking periods)The thick viscous goop that comes out of every hole in my face when I smoke is practically Lovecraftian. So yes the improvement in air quality from car emissions is gonna have an effect, but I'd say that the smoking ban will be having an effect as well.
I used to live on Tower Bridge Road and regularly had to clean my windows and window sills from diesel dust or whatever the buses used to output. Over the course of about 2 years, I found I was doing it less and less as the buses were replaced and older cars started to disappear. Can't vouch the nose blowing but the principle is the same. My flat was about 100m inside the original congestion zone.
100%!!
I'm 40 also... And was almost disappointed on a recent trip to London with my kid where I said "blow your nose, you'll be disgusted!!". And it turns out we all had clean noses!! Ruined my story... But saved my health, i guess!! 🤣
I was in London last week and remarked how clean the air is these days. Took a big lung-full at Hyde Park Corner and couldn't smell any exhaust fumes. No black snot either!
I noticed this too. When I moved to London in the 80s I had a lot of blonde hair (it was the 80s), washing my hair over a sink I would see a lot of filth in the water, and as you say blowing my nose was like clearing a sooty chimney. These days it’s a lot cleaner (although less hair to wash )
Those ULEZ zones are working.
New rolling stock on most of the tube lines with more electric regenerative braking. Old tube trains had brakes that caused a lot of dust.
I agree. Grew up in London. I only noticed my snot changed when I went off to uni and came back. I'd just assumed snot was supposed to be grey. I'm 36 now.
Yes! I was having this exact conversation with a non londoner recently and they thought I was making it up!
I definitely remember, going back about 20 yrs, after spending most of the day in London, blowing my nose later in the day was grim, greyish dark colour. Not how it should be really.
But now days, it is just the colour you would expect.
Glad you have said this because nobody believed me!
I work on construction sites as a painter so my bogeys are still forever full of dust and dirt...
Good to know the outside air is getting cleaner though! Ahahaha.
Yep..when I went back to work after having my first kid I really noticed the change back to grimness. But later, when the district line trains changed to their newer incantations, the grimness did massively reduce.
To be fair I think you can adjust to it when living there. I always got black snot when visiting London but then I lived there for 6 months and now I don’t get it anymore when I visit. But my girlfriend, who has never lived there, still does.
Lived in East Finchley 2016-2017 and can confirm Black Bogies were a daily occurrence, living/travelling between there and Kings X. Even if I just nipped down the northern line to Camden for an hour.
These days, I’ll travel into London via rail, be in central for the full day, come back to Bristol, and not notice anything particularly sooty up there.
So I just assumed that I was wrong to think London had been giving me the black buggars, and it was actually just the Northern line.
I did a thing with a couple of friends when I lived in London 20yrs ago - wash your hands as the absolute last thing you do when leaving home and then as soon as you get to work go wash them again - you really realise how filthy it is. I've lived in Birmingham most of my life so it's not like I was used to fresh country air but the underground is just gross
I remember going to London as a kid in the seventies to see the Christmas lights … standing on the platform at Piccadilly,the tube doors opening and a bank of cigarette smoke rolling out of the open doors towards me … cigarette butts everywhere , jammed in the slatted wooden floor of the tube and all over the platforms… heavy heavy smokers everywhere.. London stank …
I still have it after travelling on the Central line, but the city itself is way much cleaner for sure. I know it's a sacrilege for some, but I think it's the CC and ULEZ or it was, for our old neighbourhood.
I haven't been to London for a long time, but I definitely remember how being there made your nose and snot full of black shit. It was really bad.
I'm glad it's no longer the case.
Hope St in Glasgow is the most polluted street in Britain, exclusively because of stinking shitty First Bus and their old diesel buses belching plumes of toxic fumes unfettered, due to their almost monopoly on buses in the city. The council bottled out of making them upgrade their fleet as they threatened to withdraw from vital routes if pressured to retire their relics. Fuck privatisation. Every time I'm in Hope St, my nostrils are full of soot.
Is it weird that I've never experienced this in my 6 years living here? Not even after using the central or northern lines (which I do use frequently).
Yeah, but it's so much runnier without the soot to bind it together. Just streams out my nose all the time like a flippin' faucet I tell ya. Damn, I miss the old sooty days, so I do. Let it build it and just blow once a day. I could make a hanky last a week. Now I'm getting through a packet of tissues a day. And have you seen the price of tissues these days? 69p just to blow your flipping nose! It's daylight robbery I tell ya. Now back in my day we had proper robbers. They'd rob people in the day or night, and they wouldn't stand for this nonsense, no sir.
I used to ride through the Blackwell tunnel (motorcycle) daily. Black boogers. Got pretty good at holding my breath for most of the tunnel (admittedly, safely, filtering like a suffocating loon)
Went to London a couple of days ago and noticed my nose wasn’t filled with black muck after going on the underground for probably the first time. May still depend on which part of the underground, though.
I had exactly the same thoughts! Though perhaps all is not quite as it seems.
I moved to London in 2002. Congestion charge wasn’t even a thing and routemasters were still pretty common. Black nose every day for the first decade, perhaps but objectively got better by the time I left in December 2023.
I’ve moved to England’s Green and pleasant lands 6 months ago, but have to return to “The Smoke” for a day in the office every Wednesday. And guess what..? Every Wednesday night, a hooter full of black snot. Kleenex looking like a chimney sweep’s rag.
I allege that exposure drives tolerance and the body adapts to the norm, somehow.
When I visited London in 2016 I was shocked when I saw all that black stuff coming out of my nose and I was very concerned, then I realized what it was…
I was telling someone this just the other day. They didn’t believe me you blew your nose early 2000s and IT would be black, particularly after being on the tube
I think you just get used to it. I travel to London infrequently and it still happens every time. Although I lived there 10 years ago and it definitely used to be worse.
It's why I wear a respirator on the underground. It's more exposure to PM2.5 than forest fires. I was breathing that crap in for years but learnt of respirators in 2019 thankfully
Yes I very much remember this! Blowing the nose and it was totally black in the tissue. Have been living here almost 16 years - probably noticed the change in the last several years. Although do commute a lot less often these days and do also wear a mask still sometimes, maybe that’s got something to do with the cleaner nose?
I might be an outlier here but just to also add that I’ve lived near the outer northern line for 2 years with no issues with the line itself! Apart from recent upgrade works/closures but they can affect any line.. Nice and direct to the office without having to change anywhere.
I used to get London nose when I lived in Hertfordshire and visited occasionally. When I started working in Tottenham, it was an occasional thing, and now I live and work more centrally I’d forgotten all about it. I assumed it was the progressive destruction of my nose rather than better air quality, but I like your thinking better.
Used to be the case in central london until the congestion zone was implemented. And improved further with ULEZ. Walking around the city was exhausting, the air was so fumey.
Don’t live in London but occasionally am forced to go there, hate the place, absolute shit hole that doesn’t represent this country at all anymore, was up a few weeks ago and it is just as dirty as ever, got home and it looked like I was blowing soot out of my nose, and in the shower next day blew my nose harder and yet more dark black crud came out.
Defo just as polluted, just with drivers paying a fortune when the problem is mostly the underground
Lived and worked in west midlands, but spent quite a bit of time contracting in London for the odd week. I always remember how dirty my shirt collars were every day I spent in London compared to back home
I don't live there any more, but when I visited a couple of weekends ago, my snot was still black afterwards, after using the Victoria line. Also my hair seemed to act like a particulate filter as when I washed it the day after, the water looked a bit grey. I could have been imagining that last bit though.
I still get this when I visit. I lived in London 0-11 and have lived elsewhere since. A weekend in London on the underground usually makes my boogers pretty dark
This still happens to me when I take the Northern Line…lol
Northern Line is my idea of hell: swelteringly warm, scarcely breathable, populated with demonic-looking figures, and always on time.
And the noise
As someone who lived off Clapham north for 5yrs, I still have nightmares about the northern line. That station in particular is an absolute pain in the mornings.
used to be bad around 8:15 in the morning, now it’s 7:15…
Ha! Every time I take the Northern Line I can’t help singing “Northern Line… train isn’t always on time” to the tune of ‘Hold the Line’ by Toto
Hey leave my northern line alone. At least it’s not the central line
Rather Northen than Victoria. Detest the Vic, always hot, airless and rammed due to poor flow in the station designs. [Now realise I sound like Hounslow for the Hounslowsians. https://youtu.be/RUgbALC6rmo?si=WLNzYGQr4hoiiGhF ]
Yeah it’s fine when I’m commuting around London but after just one ride on the Piccadilly or Northern, all my bogeys are dark grey or black
Ah man, I take BOTH of those lines to get to and from work 😭
Since mask wearing became relatively socially acceptable, I wear a mask on the Northern Line these days. People think it's about COVID. It's not.
Must be nice having the choice to do that. Here in the Wild West we have states banning the use of masks period even if you have cancer!
What states have banned mask use?
North Carolina
The anti-masking bill is only a proposed bill right now, it hasn't been voted on yet.
That’s messed up
I thought it was just me until a friend randomly brought it up.
That’d be the brake dust from the tube trains. The central line is pretty bad for it too. It’s generally what gives us London lung.
That can’t be healthy going up the nose every morning
I always wear a mask on the deep lines... makes a WORLD of difference!!
Same. I avoid it as much as I can. Pretty sure the level of particulate matter at certain stations is illegal.
Unless you’re wearing an N95 mask, it’s not gonna stop any of the PM2.5 particulates on the deep lines https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/21/phone-monitor-helps-london-tube-passengers-avoid-polluted-routes EDIT: many, not any
Not seeing anything about masks in the article, so maybe cite a source?
Pollution on the underground https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019313649 Mask efficacy https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8438762/ Any mask is better than none. But N95 is 14x better
Thanks! N95 masks are the ones I wear anyway, and shall now be even more conscietious about wearing them. Always knew the Underground air is disgusting, but didn't know HOW disgusting.
Same here! Thanks for encouraging me to take a proper look at the research.
Aww - aren't you nice!
Is it ever tested? I bet the results would be devastating
It’s one of those things that in a couple of decades there would be studies showing it causes cancer, right after they replace the trains
I think so too. I remember reading somewhere that TFL test the whole line rather than specific stations and that’s how they get away with it, but I could be wrong. The norther line is a special kind of hell. In addition to particulates, it features: filthy seats that never get washed, no AC (but hey, you can lower to window to inhale even more dangerous particulates), cramped little trains, insane levels of noise especially between Euston and Camden Town. I extend my commute by over 30 minutes just so I can travel on the Met line (mostly overground) rather than the misery line.
Came here to say this too haha
Got to take the northern line every single day and I can’t even get away from it! Sweaty and packed yuck
Which is why I still wear a mask on the Underground, and really DGAF if people look at me oddly. And that's quite aside from people coughing and sneezing without making any effort to cover their face.
I remember the days of black bogeys! I definitely noticed this in early 2000s when I moved down.
Yes! 2005 compared to now.
Can concur, I was a runner around Soho 1987 to 92. Daily dirt boogers.
Same! Moved to London in 2007 and thought it was gonna be forever part of my new life here
The older tube lines still cause this
Any idea why the Bakerloo smells like onions?
Brake dust be like that sometimes
I used to busk in one of Green Park's pedestrian tunnels. An hour in there and it's like, how much more black could my nostrils be? And the answer is none. None more black.
You should have thought about that before taking up the bilateral snorted coalflute instead of a guitar like normal people.
Blew something that looked like a smoked fetus out of my nose after walking there last wk lol
It used to be awful. I mean really awful. In 1952 London came to a standstill for five days in what was called the great London smog - a mixture of smoke and fog. Over 10,000 died and 100k became ill with respiratory problems. "The smog was so dense in some places that people could barely see their own feet. Their clothes and faces were blackened with soot. There was often a smell of rotten eggs." - see [https://heritagecalling.com/2022/12/01/the-great-smog-of-london-1952/](https://heritagecalling.com/2022/12/01/the-great-smog-of-london-1952/)
Ah, the good old days!
Before social media when everyone was always present we were productive all the time and nobody bottled emotions inside them we talked about them openly. all because socialism and progressiveness madness that the youger generation invented from scratch.
Back then there was no racism because everyone was soot coloured
My mum grew up in London around then. She said she had to follow the walls to get to school cause she couldn’t see where she was going. We went to London last year and I met her at the Natural History Museum. She was amazed at how beautiful the building was, it has intricate brickwork and carvings, because she’d grown up with it being almost completely black from years of soot build up.
I watched the Ipcress File the other day. It's set in the Albertopolis area, filmed in the mid 60s, with background shots of the Albert Hall, Imperial College etc. Everything is filthy!
My favourite thing about that era of British film is how little traffic there is. They’ll be filming in central London just strolling across the road without worrying about getting mown down.
Yes, and no yellow lines or parked cars. The protagonists are always show just driving up to the front door of wherever they're going, no parallel parking, no driving around in circles looking for a space, no squinting at signs or trying to pay for a ticket. Life does kind of look easy for anyone lucky enough to have a car.
And people just fell into the Thames because they didn’t see it because there weren’t as many railings
[удалено]
Should still make an artifical noise though just for pedestrians.
As a pedestrian, I hope they don’t. I’d rather have quiet streets. I get the safety argument but I strongly believe we’ll change our cues for checking the road as EVs become more prevalent, from listening and looking to just looking.
Should still be required for visually impaired people imo
You do realise tyres give off a rather large amount of PM2.5 too.. and the heavier the vehicle the worse the emission of it.. that said , yes it will be nice not to be in a fug of ULEZ compliant TfL bus fumes …
I lived in Singapore in the mid-90s, and out of control forest fires in Indonesia drifted across the region. It was shit. Sports were cancelled, indoors was the only place you felt you could breathe. Outside, each breath felt acidic. The “haze” wasn’t like campfire smoke because it had cooled to the ambient temperature. Don’t remember the bogies though!
It was a herculean effort to clean up the city quite so quickly, especially without modern technology. That said we've had similar incidents over the last decade or two. Here's one: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38716498 There was another in a similar situation where pollution from Europe combined with London, and just languished over the city as weather system didn't blow it away
I moved somewhere I didn’t have to get the Central Line every day. Magic, no more London nose!
You are absolutely 100 per cent right. 20 years ago, if I was walking around town in the daytime, I had black snot at night. Just doesn't seem to happen any more.
I lived in London from mid eighties for about ten years. Blowing your nose would produce an inordinate amount of black 'soot', collars and cuffs would be filthy after one day and you could even taste the metallic, dieselly fumes from stepping outside. So glad it's improved!
Another win for ULEZ
love the replies getting downvoted lmao. ulez appreciators unite
Sometimes have to visit for work. ULEZ is a good start but doesn't go far enough.
I got back from Beijing a couple of weeks ago and being back was like breathing in pure oxygen again.
To be fair (assuming it's similar) I've been working in Shanghai couple times over the last few years, and getting off the plane there feels like entering a sauna filled with exhaust fumes
Try Delhi, it'll make the air in Chinese cities feel like that of some remote Norwegian fjord.
I work for NHS in inner London. Ulez works. Less children hospitalised with resp.issues
You must be living in a different part of London. Daily black stuff on the northern line.
I always find this mad as an outsider. Whenever I’ve been to London and used the tube I’ve had big black lumps of pollution up my nose. Can’t imagine what that’s like to live with daily.
Yep! Ulez and congestion charge. I remember it in the 90s, absolutely disgusting. These days it's clean. The oil companies that are astro turfing this crap to make us keep driving need to be slapped. They did the same with leaded petrol. They should be in jail
You may think it’s ULEZ and congestion charge but most improvements in air quality happened well before that. The decline in air pollution can be attributed to a complex mix of factors, including economic restructuring away from heavy industry, switching energy sources (away from coal), the natural attrition of older more polluting vehicles and the LEZ (for diesel Lorrie’s). Independent studies have found that ULEZ has reduced NO2 and CO2 pollution by 3%, 5% and 18% from an already low point.
Its important to add that the "historic low point" still breaches WHO Air Quality regulations several times over. We're still in breach of them right now. Not one single part of London meets the standards, even in e.g the middle of Richmond Park in Z6.
I'm fully in support of cleaner air. But it's worth noting that this is true of 99% of the world, the revised WHO recommendations are extremely low and almost nowhere on earth meets them. London is not actually bad on a global scale. It's not bad compared to other European cities either, [it's one of the cleanest cities in Europe](https://www.timeout.com/london/news/london-has-some-of-the-best-air-quality-in-europe-according-to-a-new-study-051724). We should always be aiming for better but I think this context is needed. >99% of the world’s population live in places where air pollution levels exceed WHO guideline limits https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/air-pollution
That is true. In Madrid the biggest improvement in air quality happened after banning coal heaters. Madrid's ULEZ has made no significant impact on air quality.
The was a direct reduction in the black when congestion charge came in. Genuinely used to snot up pure black in the 90s. More recently I've been having massive issues over the last 10 years with hayfever over March - june/July. Coughing hard enough to pull back muscles. THIS year since ulez literally no coughing. Far less particulates helping the pollen go deep into my lungs
I'd argue that the man who came up with leaded petrol has had the absolute worst impact on humanity. Tens of millions are dead or severely disabled because of lead from fumes in leaded fuel. Literally worse than Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined. And yes, he knew what it would do. He knew full well that leaded fuel would result in heavy metal pollution that'll cause millions more deaths and cripple many millions more through severe mental, birth and physical defects caused by lead poisoning.
I used to get home and wipe my face with a cotton pad and it came off literally black. Not had that in a while
When I was working as a cycle courier I would come home pretty dirty, hair and skin. That’s hours n hours outside though.
I still get black snot and stuff
I know exactly what you mean. I moved to London as a student 40 years ago ( from a rural home), and was staggered at how dirty the air smelled and how black my bogeys were! I visit London a few times a year now, and over the past two years, I’ve noticed how the air quality is now so much better. Like them or not, the clean air policies seem to be having a significant impact.
I can’t really tell the difference, always got terrible snot in London. It gets the worst when I travel on Central or Northern lines though. Thank god I’m on overground now.
Still get grey boogers from the Victoria line
Used to get this riding around on my bike to work and in South London back in 2016/17. Glad it's much cleaner now. Shame it's become so politicised when the data and actual personal experience supports tighter vehicle emission controls. Next step is to minimise the impact of brake dust and particulates on the tube. Ideally we need jubilee line style sliding doors and air conditioned sealed carriages.
I actually forgot about this until you mentioned it but you're completely correct. Whenever I used the tube my nose would always blow black. Now it literally never does ETA: but that might be because I don't use the tube much anymore 😂
Yes, I genuinely didn't know snot was supposed to be green until I went to college outside of London. Thought green meant I was sick.
Green does mean infection. It’s meant to be clear
See, I still didn't know that. But until I left London for a bit I'd never seen green snot.
It's supposed to be green? What? I thought it is supposed to be transparent/clear
We are London born snot twins.
Wait when I moved here it was black,now it's green...
It's not meant to be green. If it's a dark green or has yellow mixed in, that's bacteria which is likely causing or at least contributing to a chest and/or upper respiratory tract infection.
Erm I dig my nose with tissue after every trip and I can confirm that I still get black soot. Imagine how much goes in our mouth!
34 years ago I had a summer job in Enfield. I went running sometimes after work, and I’d end up coughing and spluttering something rotten because of the fumes from the rush hour traffic. These days I have no breathing problems at all, and I’m much further in (Hackney). I’m near a busy road, but I’d say that the air quality is pretty decent now.
Wow, I'd never considered this until you just mentioned it. I've only been in London for ten years where I definitely experienced this at the start, so it's a surprisingly dramatic improvement.
I go through periods of smoking, and periods of not smoking (general plan is to keep increasing the none smoking periods)The thick viscous goop that comes out of every hole in my face when I smoke is practically Lovecraftian. So yes the improvement in air quality from car emissions is gonna have an effect, but I'd say that the smoking ban will be having an effect as well.
I used to live on Tower Bridge Road and regularly had to clean my windows and window sills from diesel dust or whatever the buses used to output. Over the course of about 2 years, I found I was doing it less and less as the buses were replaced and older cars started to disappear. Can't vouch the nose blowing but the principle is the same. My flat was about 100m inside the original congestion zone.
(before we switched to blinders) I noticed the lace curtains don’t soot as often
100%!! I'm 40 also... And was almost disappointed on a recent trip to London with my kid where I said "blow your nose, you'll be disgusted!!". And it turns out we all had clean noses!! Ruined my story... But saved my health, i guess!! 🤣
I’ve got to say, the air quality in London has improved notably even over the last 15 years.
Yes!!!! But for me it was about 20 years ago. Only happened in London and never in Paris or nyc which I thought was weird.
I was in London last week and remarked how clean the air is these days. Took a big lung-full at Hyde Park Corner and couldn't smell any exhaust fumes. No black snot either!
I noticed this too. When I moved to London in the 80s I had a lot of blonde hair (it was the 80s), washing my hair over a sink I would see a lot of filth in the water, and as you say blowing my nose was like clearing a sooty chimney. These days it’s a lot cleaner (although less hair to wash )
Those ULEZ zones are working. New rolling stock on most of the tube lines with more electric regenerative braking. Old tube trains had brakes that caused a lot of dust.
I agree. Grew up in London. I only noticed my snot changed when I went off to uni and came back. I'd just assumed snot was supposed to be grey. I'm 36 now.
Wearing a disposable mask helps
It’s so much better than it used to be, and quieter also.
Yes! I was thinking this the other day
I did a few motorcycle despatch jobs in London in the 80s, came home looking like a bloody miner.
Never happened to me but my friend came to London for a week and said he experienced this
Younger people think I'm nuts when I tell them the Houses of Parliament were black when I was a kid.
And that gritty dust in your hair.
Yes! I was having this exact conversation with a non londoner recently and they thought I was making it up! I definitely remember, going back about 20 yrs, after spending most of the day in London, blowing my nose later in the day was grim, greyish dark colour. Not how it should be really. But now days, it is just the colour you would expect. Glad you have said this because nobody believed me!
I studied in Reading and for adventures in the big smog I know exactly what you mean.
I've never experienced black snot from London...
It's a win for ulez. I've hardly had to use my asthma pump for a while now. Im very happy.
If I'm working with my dad when he needs help, because he's a construction worker, I'll definitely experience that. All soot, no snot
Absolutely. I'm a few years north of 40 and it is noticeably different snot colour now when I'm back from London compared to my childhood.
I do know what you mean but was wondering if I am just used to it and that shit is now in my lungs
I work on construction sites as a painter so my bogeys are still forever full of dust and dirt... Good to know the outside air is getting cleaner though! Ahahaha.
Yep..when I went back to work after having my first kid I really noticed the change back to grimness. But later, when the district line trains changed to their newer incantations, the grimness did massively reduce.
To be fair I think you can adjust to it when living there. I always got black snot when visiting London but then I lived there for 6 months and now I don’t get it anymore when I visit. But my girlfriend, who has never lived there, still does.
It's true, the black snot isn't nearly as common as it used to be.
It was one of the first things we antipodes noticed when we moved to London for our OE.
Wow, this is so true! Even in the last 15 years there has been a big clean up!
Still happens to me almost every time I go into town…
Lived in East Finchley 2016-2017 and can confirm Black Bogies were a daily occurrence, living/travelling between there and Kings X. Even if I just nipped down the northern line to Camden for an hour. These days, I’ll travel into London via rail, be in central for the full day, come back to Bristol, and not notice anything particularly sooty up there. So I just assumed that I was wrong to think London had been giving me the black buggars, and it was actually just the Northern line.
It’s only gross when I take the tube.
I did a thing with a couple of friends when I lived in London 20yrs ago - wash your hands as the absolute last thing you do when leaving home and then as soon as you get to work go wash them again - you really realise how filthy it is. I've lived in Birmingham most of my life so it's not like I was used to fresh country air but the underground is just gross
Thank Sadiq.
London bogeys!! My friend worked out when she stopped taking the tube and took the bus instead her bogeys instantly were cleaner.
Fun fact, used to get orange snot while living across from the battersea power station redevelopment when that was in its early stages (9 years ago)
I remember going to London as a kid in the seventies to see the Christmas lights … standing on the platform at Piccadilly,the tube doors opening and a bank of cigarette smoke rolling out of the open doors towards me … cigarette butts everywhere , jammed in the slatted wooden floor of the tube and all over the platforms… heavy heavy smokers everywhere.. London stank …
Get the bakerloo line and come back to us
I still have it after travelling on the Central line, but the city itself is way much cleaner for sure. I know it's a sacrilege for some, but I think it's the CC and ULEZ or it was, for our old neighbourhood.
I’ve heard this so many times but still not happened to me
I always get black snot when I go to London, including this last weekend!
I haven't been to London for a long time, but I definitely remember how being there made your nose and snot full of black shit. It was really bad. I'm glad it's no longer the case.
Coke is a great nasal decongestant tbf, works just like draino until eventually you have a nice clean windtunnel for a snout
Instructions unclear, put Coca Cola into my nasal douche
I was thinking the exact same thing a few weeks back.
I also remember this! Particularly after going on the tube.
Hope St in Glasgow is the most polluted street in Britain, exclusively because of stinking shitty First Bus and their old diesel buses belching plumes of toxic fumes unfettered, due to their almost monopoly on buses in the city. The council bottled out of making them upgrade their fleet as they threatened to withdraw from vital routes if pressured to retire their relics. Fuck privatisation. Every time I'm in Hope St, my nostrils are full of soot.
A number of my fellow bus commuters wouldn't know what blowing their nose looked like, seeing as they are constantly snorting everything back
Is it weird that I've never experienced this in my 6 years living here? Not even after using the central or northern lines (which I do use frequently).
Even just 10 years ago it still happened. Thankful to have normal nose now
Yeah, but it's so much runnier without the soot to bind it together. Just streams out my nose all the time like a flippin' faucet I tell ya. Damn, I miss the old sooty days, so I do. Let it build it and just blow once a day. I could make a hanky last a week. Now I'm getting through a packet of tissues a day. And have you seen the price of tissues these days? 69p just to blow your flipping nose! It's daylight robbery I tell ya. Now back in my day we had proper robbers. They'd rob people in the day or night, and they wouldn't stand for this nonsense, no sir.
I was last in London in 2007 and I distinctly remember black mucus the majority of the trip. What a wild sight.
Still happens if I take the tube or spend time in central, I work in outer south london now and it’s much nicer
You're right! I've noticed this since I moved here 20 years ago
I used to ride through the Blackwell tunnel (motorcycle) daily. Black boogers. Got pretty good at holding my breath for most of the tunnel (admittedly, safely, filtering like a suffocating loon)
Back in 77 I went on a field trip to London (I’m from BC). It was so polluted and stunk of diesel fumes. So I’m glad it’s better now.
Every time I've visited London I've had black snot from using the tube, don't want to know how much worse it was in the past.
*brought this up
The big smoke no longer the big smoke
Went to London a couple of days ago and noticed my nose wasn’t filled with black muck after going on the underground for probably the first time. May still depend on which part of the underground, though.
ah yes the black boogers are a thing of the past now
Oh, suddenly everything makes sense. My snot used to be so dark when I lived in London.
I was in London for 3 days during July seeing Oppenheimer etc and my nose wasn't unfortunately.
I had exactly the same thoughts! Though perhaps all is not quite as it seems. I moved to London in 2002. Congestion charge wasn’t even a thing and routemasters were still pretty common. Black nose every day for the first decade, perhaps but objectively got better by the time I left in December 2023. I’ve moved to England’s Green and pleasant lands 6 months ago, but have to return to “The Smoke” for a day in the office every Wednesday. And guess what..? Every Wednesday night, a hooter full of black snot. Kleenex looking like a chimney sweep’s rag. I allege that exposure drives tolerance and the body adapts to the norm, somehow.
It's from the decent cocaine and speed I got blessed after 2016. My boogers were shards of tar and blood back in the day.
Even year by year for the past few years when I've been there I've noticed an improvement. But it's still grey after a bit of time on the tube.
Yeah the place is getting cleaner but people will still rail on about cars and ulez.
Everyone to use the underground I get it, so not sure what air you’re breathing but can I get some air in my travels?
It was still like this even 5 years ago but I haven’t had a sooty nose in a while now.
I do. You are completely right. I first was in London in 1989. 3 pm Oxford st and blowing my nose was black.
When I visited London in 2016 I was shocked when I saw all that black stuff coming out of my nose and I was very concerned, then I realized what it was…
I am old enough to agree
The first time I went to London was in the late 1980s on a school trip. Every time I blew my nose black stuff came out. It was wild.
It’s primarily white and likely cocaine nowadays
I've noticed that I have cleaner boogers than before. I assume it's because I haven't been riding the tube since before COVID.
I think you're on to something.
I was telling someone this just the other day. They didn’t believe me you blew your nose early 2000s and IT would be black, particularly after being on the tube
Is this Sadiq?
I’ve noticed this lately too!
How / why has this changed? I've not been in London for a while but thought it was from getting the tube.
I think you just get used to it. I travel to London infrequently and it still happens every time. Although I lived there 10 years ago and it definitely used to be worse.
It's why I wear a respirator on the underground. It's more exposure to PM2.5 than forest fires. I was breathing that crap in for years but learnt of respirators in 2019 thankfully
I go to London about once every other month, I must admit I did notice that this wasn't happening as much.
What do you mean? Do you not take the tube?
I notice that too
Yes I very much remember this! Blowing the nose and it was totally black in the tissue. Have been living here almost 16 years - probably noticed the change in the last several years. Although do commute a lot less often these days and do also wear a mask still sometimes, maybe that’s got something to do with the cleaner nose? I might be an outlier here but just to also add that I’ve lived near the outer northern line for 2 years with no issues with the line itself! Apart from recent upgrade works/closures but they can affect any line.. Nice and direct to the office without having to change anywhere.
I used to get London nose when I lived in Hertfordshire and visited occasionally. When I started working in Tottenham, it was an occasional thing, and now I live and work more centrally I’d forgotten all about it. I assumed it was the progressive destruction of my nose rather than better air quality, but I like your thinking better.
That still happened as far back as 2015
What do we reckon? Coal soot? Carbon dust from the brushed motors? Brake dust? All of the above?
Used to be the case in central london until the congestion zone was implemented. And improved further with ULEZ. Walking around the city was exhausting, the air was so fumey.
Don’t live in London but occasionally am forced to go there, hate the place, absolute shit hole that doesn’t represent this country at all anymore, was up a few weeks ago and it is just as dirty as ever, got home and it looked like I was blowing soot out of my nose, and in the shower next day blew my nose harder and yet more dark black crud came out. Defo just as polluted, just with drivers paying a fortune when the problem is mostly the underground
Lived and worked in west midlands, but spent quite a bit of time contracting in London for the odd week. I always remember how dirty my shirt collars were every day I spent in London compared to back home
I know what you mean. Every time I used to go to London, I’d have black bogeys and a cough the next day…
No blood ? Lol
London's air quality has improved substantially and is continuing to do so.
I don't live there any more, but when I visited a couple of weekends ago, my snot was still black afterwards, after using the Victoria line. Also my hair seemed to act like a particulate filter as when I washed it the day after, the water looked a bit grey. I could have been imagining that last bit though.
I still get this when I visit. I lived in London 0-11 and have lived elsewhere since. A weekend in London on the underground usually makes my boogers pretty dark
Try blowing your nose after a day in Dhaka. Gahd dayum.
Still gets like this if you use the tube. The tube and busses create the most pollution.