You can break a great many social codes in London and be forgiven as a visitor. Standing on the left of an Underground escalator is not one of them. The left is for walking; the right is for standing. Block the left and you will feel the collective, silent disapproval of a thousand commuters pressing into your back.
The British will not tell you that you are in the way. They will simply suffer, visibly, until you move.
It is of a piece with the city’s wider etiquette: queue without being told, apologise when someone else bumps into you, and let people off the train before you get on. None of it is written down, and all of it is enforced.
Learn the escalator rule and you pass, instantly, as someone who knows how the place works — which in London is its own quiet kind of welcome.
