When ever I spend a day there and get home, I blow my nose and a load of black gunk comes out, which I find a bit disturbing.
So if you live there all the time, do you get used to it?, grow more nostril hairs to filter it, don't really get it if you stay in buildings or maybe something else?
This isn't meant to be a dig at the place, just genuinely curious.

i spend all my day in a nice air con lab but do have 1hrs commuting by bike

and im fine

its when i take the tube that i get the black oil

part of the reasopn i very rarely travel by tube!

It's a special fine dust that we Londoners have evolved to filter out, but which affects Outsiders who come here cluttering up the place.

The dust contains a special agent which works on the brain, making the 'victim' feel that they don't want to return to that 'dirty smelly place'. Sadly not as effective as would be ideal, as far too many of the feckers keep coming back… 😉

I usually get black snot when I've been using the Tube a lot or spendig a lot of time at ground level in the centre. The black from the Tube is brake dust and that at ground level from diesels – also out near Heathrow the black is from badly maintained jet engines on the way in with the added bonus of dumped jetfuel on final approach.

Apparently one average trip on the Central Line is 'equivalent' to smoking one cigarette. Not sure how it's measured though.

Imagine that, a free cigarette!

Ooh, if only you could tax it, eh? 😀

Speaking of urban grime…

I think it's about time for another pootle, don't youse??

Ah right, so basically you channel all the country bumpkins into using the polluted tubes and keep the fresh air for yourselves!

Yeah, we use them to filter out the pollution! We entice them here with promise of wondrous things, and we even charge them for it! It's brilliant! 😀

I feel such a fool for not realising this earlier 🙂

Was thinking Pootle just earlier today……
We could do a dirty air and pollution ride this time?

Hmm, stinky power stations and stuff?

How about; bit of the canal and that, then along the Greenway (Northern Outfall Sewer), past the Lympics, down to Beckton, past City Airport, across on the Woolwich ferry, back along to Greenwich, back into town? Something like that?

Or, a North London one; up to Finsberg, along the Parkway thingy, across Highgate, Hampstead Heath, down into Caymden, along the canal to Paddington, down through the Parks to Westminster/Waterloo?

any day after the 7th june – end of exams – is good for me, i missed the last one for study reasons too.

Yay! If we go up the Greenway we can go past the Mustard Gas factory, the Tar Distilling works, the Vitriol works and the Congreve Rocket factory. …and look at the new velodrome and the swimmin' pool.

I used to live on the fuylham palace road, apparrently jogging during rush hour was equivelent to smoking 20 fags, so I took up strolling with a marlboro light.

I was really affected by big smoke black snot as a youngster, but with time my nose has grown the necessary hairs to filter it out. That's why I enjoy an ambivalent relationship with the monsters.

same in any city i've lived in, it's grim. you wash your hair and the water's grey.. nose hair won't filter all pm10s though.

i used to work for a company who designed air quality monitoring devices and what i learned about traffic pollution there worried me, diesel soot is nasty stuff that all kinds of horrible particles stick to.

while i agree with the public smoking ban, tbh i do suspect that a lot of lung cancer and other breathing issues in non-smokers are caused by city traffic pollution, possibly a far greater percentage than is accepted. but it's politically easier to persecute smokers than car drivers… no-one really wants to accept / discuss the real risk to health from traffic pollution.

if the tube grime is brake dust that's worrying, isn't brake dust really carcenogenic too?

Have you noticed when you come back from a ride in the country and blow your nose that little bits of straw come out?

Karinofnine:
Have you noticed when you come back from a ride in the country and blow your nose that little bits of straw come out?

Apparently riding an hour in the countryside is the equivalent of a bowl of shredded wheat.

Eeeeuwww, gluten!

I used to notice that I got black snot when visiting london for a day too.
Now I live in central london and get the tube regularly, plus cycle 40 mins each way to work and I never get it at all.
Why is this? How is it possible?? I have always wanted to know the answer to this question…

We spent a year in Canary Wharf – by the river so no traffic nearby and on the 6th floor so well above any roads. Every two months the white framed windows were covered in a layer of black gunk and needed serious cleaning. A bit unsettling.

It's because all of you is now equally black and grimey, you just don't notice anymore.

<shudders at his experiences of the grimy orrible dirty noisy cramped miserable capital> Glad some people like living there!

yeah i don't get it at all, don't have grey water when i wash my hair either 😆

you must evolve to cope with it, a bit like being able to use the tube and navigate without stopping every 20m to look at a map.