Actually Scary Things to do in London this Halloween

Actually Scary Things to do in London this Halloween

17 October, 2011
by: TomArmstrong

WARNING: Not for the faint-hearted...

We've all seen the horror tours of London, where a group of 30 follow some old eccentric around Whitechapel while he tells you about how he just missed out the Crystal Maze job. So for something a little scarier this Halloween, Spoonfed have compiled a list of actually terrifying things to do in London which will leave even the most fearless of urban warriors wetting their pants.

Snorkel in the Thames
Just as David Beckham made the broken metatarsal his own, David Walliams recently claimed 'Thames Belly' as the new celebrity ailment. Of course, a dickie tummy isn't the only thing to stop you enjoying yourself in a face full of raw sewage, don't forget the gangs of swans who'll attack you at intermittent points like the hillbillies in Deliverance. They can break your arm, you know.

Drink in a dodgy pub
Find the dodgiest pub in a 'used-to-be-rough-but-now-quite-trendy' part of town (we'll give you a clue, it's the one that doesn't have an artisan fair on a Sunday or a poster for an electro-arabic fusion death metal band in the window), stroll up to the bar and, with all the nonchalance of a French duke, order an organic fair-trade moccacino 'to go, yeah?'. We would suggest a few pubs for you to try this in but we're worried the landlords will find us and send the heavies round for wasting their time.

Ride a Boris bike through Old Street roundabout
What's the best way to manoeuvre your way around an aggressive, anarchic motoring free-for-all? Probably by monster truck. Definitely not in a blind panic on little more than an exercise bike, wobbling like a toddler as it pulls you in like a spider down the plughole. This isn't the bohemian image of an urban ride around East London you'd imagined – things just got real.

Try to eat in a Mayfair restaurant without a reservation
Remember the icy cold glare your parents would give you after you'd been caught with your hands in the biscuit tin? That combination of shame and fear that'd burn a ball of flaming guilt in the pit of your stomach? Well you just try getting a table in one of London's swanky eateries without having booked one 15 years before you were born - it makes the biscuit saga look like child's play. There was in fact a rumour circulating that patrons without a reservation at Claridge's would be turned to stone on the spot by the maître 'd, which Gordon Ramsey would then use to decorate his hallway.

Fall asleep on the nightbus
When it's good the nightbus can be like an after-hours club on wheels, where friends are made and kebabs are eaten - the grown-up version of 'Playbus'. But as we all know, it's rarely like that. It usually resembles a London bus tour for the socially dangerous and criminally insane – even The Warriors would rather walk. We were going to list 'fall asleep in the lions enclosure at London Zoo', but we decided this was probably more dangerous.

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