Yes, it’s coming up to the great invasion now. Londoners are bracing themselves for the Tourists. We had the Royal Wedding rush, but now June is coming and so is the world.

I generally avoid the centre of town over the next months (I stay out on the leafier fringes). But a very good place to take the pulse of tourism is in our London street markets. Camden in the north and Portobello in the west have now gradually been reduced to a very long shuffle that takes hours to complete. It looks like a scene out of that penguin documentary film – but without the cute voiceover. Great for the stallholders, mind, but not so much fun for the visitors. And to add to that disappointment is the now almost generic nature of much of the goods for sale.

They’re not very London. In fact they seem to be mainly Chinese and Indian in manufacture. Seems weird to me. You fly in from Spain and go home with a Japanese rubber watch, some Indian scarves, some Chinese jewellery and when people ask where you’ve been, you say London! That said, we do have some great young fashion designers in many of the markets, like Spitalfields in the east, who do sell extraordinarily brilliant and authentic London designs. So it’s not all bad.

I particularly like the visitors who buy those tall Union Jack hats with bells on. Come to London, city of great fashion and style. What do you choose – a felt hat that makes you look like a twat! Classic. I think they just get confused by all the choice. But at least they can lose their money gradually in the markets. The attractions are now charging crazy prices. The London Eye, Madame Tussaud’s, The Tower of London, London Zoo. They’re all close to £20 entry. Last time I was at the zoo, I took a monkey and a meerkat home. Well, I wanted my money’s worth.

Frankly, I’m amazed the tourists still come. London is now one of the most expensive cities to visit. And our beloved Mayor is now pointing out that the tourists are all using his Boris bikes. Hardly surprising, they’re all strapped for cash. An oyster card would probably finish them off financially. They’d probably root in the bins except the locals have probably got there first.

And if tourists aren’t baffled and broke enough, it’s charity running/walking/crawling season here in London with a vengeance. You can’t go near a park or open space without finding scores of grinning sweaty folk dressed as nuns or in pink, blue or green, covered in balloons and sprinting at you waving plastic buckets. It’s all very laudable but annoying. I give to charity in my own way. But it’s like a load of highwaymen without any style have been let loose. Every underground station now seems to have a bucket waver in residence and my local high street has posted at least three a day along its length.

It’s like some surreal computer game. You devise strategies. Maximum points. Cross over. Lift your paper and become invisible. Glare wildly. Mutter ‘no thanks’. Get someone in front of you to block them from seeing you. Pretend to answer your phone. Avoid eye contact. Look at the floor. I’m exhausted after a day out!

I’m all for charity, but not when it walks up to you and demands money with cheery menaces. I’d like a central fund I could pay a tenner into once a month. Then all the charities have to fight it out with pillows in a giant mud-filled arena which you have to pay to go into to watch. Brilliant eh? Money and entertainment. Maybe it’ll catch on.

But London is getting crowded with visitors and the tubes are getting to be even more of a nightmare. I love the recent saga of breakdowns and then the accompanying explanations. A bolt fell off and jammed a door open. Signals wouldn’t talk to each other. My favourite: an animal of some kind loose in a tunnel. An animal? What? Bigfoot?

However, I witnessed a pure London moment last week. I was at Finchley Road waiting for a Jubilee line train. On the platform behind him I heard a Metropolitan line train approach. The station announcement proudly said: “Ladies and Gentlemen. The train now arriving on platform three is one of the brand new Metropolitan line trains now in service.” So I turned around and a new shiny and gleaming train pulled in. It was really brand new. Bright paint job. Clear glass in its windows. Modern. Inviting. It looked very nice. Inside there was about 50 happy people, all looking very pleased to be on such a nice shiny and clean train for a change. Some of them stood up to get off.

Meanwhile, people on the platform all looked pretty pleased to see such a nice-looking carriage. You could see it was pretty cool. At last. New trains. Comfortable, wide, air conditioned, a pleasure to travel in. But the doors wouldn’t actually open. So it sat there while various TFL folk appeared and poked it for a bit and then it pulled out. Bizarre. Hapless travellers inside banging on the windows and shouting rude words. Resigned travellers on the platform letting their shoulders drop. It had been a cruel trick. The next train arrived. Old, crammed, dirty but with working doors! Reality restored. When I later got out at Bond Street I asked a TFL bloke about it and he said: “Yeah, the doors are so new they’re sticky and they don’t really open. Give it a year or two and they’ll be fine.” Priceless.

So there you have it. We’re being crowded out with tourists. Prices for attractions are at mortgage levels. The tube doors don’t open. And the streets are full of charity muggers. But do we care? No. It’s a London thing.