1) Invite your American tourist to London on a wet windy day in May, trying in vain to convince them that the weather's not always this bad and that they only narrowly missed a forty-day drought.
2) Visit St Paul's Cathedral, having explained how stunning the ceiling is, only to discover that the entire central part of the building inside is encased in scaffolding for long-term renovation work.
3) Visit the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral, having explained how many famous people are buried there, only to discover that none of them are actually famous to an American.
4) Visit the Whispering Gallery 259 steps up inside St Paul's Cathedral, having explained how a whisper on one side of the gallery can be heard 100 feet away on the other side, only to discover that the excessive scaffolding means this phenomenon doesn't work at the moment.
5) Visit the Golden Gallery 530 steps up outside St Paul's Cathedral, having explained how fantastic the view will be from above the dome, only to discover that its pissing down with rain outside and that most of the view is obscured by thick grey rainclouds.
6) Descend down numerous staircases behind snail-paced tourists back to the floor of St Paul's Cathedral, only to discover that the sun has now come out and the view from up top would have been tons better fifteen minutes later.
7) Go for an open-topped sightseeing bus tour of London, sitting in rain-splattered seats, listening to a limp commentary that merely repeats all the historical facts you could have told them anyway, gently developing hypothermia in the drizzly breeze.
8) Go for a boat trip down the Thames from the Tower to Westminster, trying to explain that half of the commentary is an example of something called the 'British sense of humour' and therefore isn't actually true.
9) Go for tea at the top of the Tate Modern, where the chips are bloody good but then they really ought to be for £2.75, with a perfect view across the river of happy tourists out round the Golden Gallery of St Paul's Cathedral enjoying the bright sunshine you missed earlier on.
10) Walk across the Millennium Bridge in driving rain, explaining that this bridge was originally closed for being too wobbly whereas now it merely feels as if it should be closed for being too damp and windswept.
