UAE Blacklists Arab Hotspots In London

The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued it’s own take on a tourist map of London highlighting specific areas that are to be avoided in the English capital. Strangely, the list includes the world famous Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Soho, and strangest of all, Edgware Road. Why is this strange, we hear  you say? All of these places are considered Arab hotspots in London. You can’t walk down Edgware Road without bumping into a Hassan or an Ahmed. During Eid, it looks more like El Haram than a street in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Anyone who has ventured down the the bustling street we at CairoScene affectionately call Little Arabia will have strong memories of the shawerma shops, the exclamations of "Habibi!", and that enormous green shisha bar, so we can’t help but be a little bit confused at the road being blacklisted.

We at CairoScene would like to make a couple of our own suggestions on more realistic areas not to visit. For example, avoid Brick Lane unless you want to be surrounded by14-year old hipsters with Hitler-youth haircuts, Shoreditch is a no go unless you to be tutted at by Central Saint Martins art student sipping free range coffee out of a hemp-based paper cup, and stay out of Lewisham. Not because it’s full of hipsters or art students, it’s just a bit of a shithole...