Oh, yikes, fixed-blades and things as long as shortish machetes? OK, yeah, people don't usually carry those here. Folding pocket knives in the 3"-6" range are common, but not fixed or very-long blades.
Yeah, anything larger than a pocketknife is explicitly illegal to carry in the UK, plus a whole bunch of random moral panic stuff like nunchucks. What the verse means is people carrying knives with intent; that you're entering a subculture where people might stab you in a drunken argument that turns into a fight.
(Used to be Glasgow, these days it's London, always young men in "gang" contexts)
This means the original "tape a knife to the dashcam" gag would be illegal. For car self-defence purposes you're better off with a tyre iron, "breaker bar", socket extender or something else that's a plausible car tool that you just happen to grab.
> What the verse means is people carrying knives with intent; that you're entering a subculture where people might stab you in a drunken argument that turns into a fight.
Right, yeah, I got the intent, it just comes off real goofy in a place where sometimes you see people open-carrying guns, and a hell of a lot more are concealed-carrying, and I was certainly imagining long-side-of-normal folding pocket knives, not something closer to combat knives.
