How to tell you are in Coventry

Londoners walk up and down escalators, regardless of whether they are working or not.  They're still stairs.  In Coventry, the escalators generally work, but when people get on them, they just stand there and wait to be conveyed up or down.


Londoners pile onto buses in this order: 1 - people who think it is their very own personal bus, 2 - people who think they may as well push in as everyone else is, 3 - people who are fully aware there will be another, less crowded bus along in a few minutes.  In Coventry, people form a neat line in order of their arrival at the bus stop, and enter the bus in the same order.


In London I had my hair cut in a nice 1920s-style bob, same length all the way around, shaved up to the bottom of the bob at the back to neaten and define the style.  In Coventry, it is compulsory to have the same haircut as everyone else, varying only in length.  When I first moved here, a town centre hairdresser layered it up the back for reasons I don't understand, leaving pointless wispy bits growing out in random directions over the back of my neck.  Four months later, having recovered from this somewhat, I made an attempt at a different hairdresser to have my style restored.  "I don't do shaving" she said.  This calls into question my entire understanding of the term hairdresser.  I left with the same unwanted style I went in with, but now with slightly tidier layers.  Apparently Coventry doesn't do horizontal lines in hair.  Must be some sort of council legislation.