R is for... Rant

This time I've decided to write something. I just got so sick of all the rude people in London recently and wrote it down for some reason. Comments and criticisms welcome - it literally just poured out of my head onto paper. I'll back fill my other posts with photos, I promise.

Excuse me’s, Thank you’s. Mind your P’s and Q’s.

It seems a lot of people have forgotten the manners they were (I hope) undoubtedly brought up with. I’m seeing this more and more as a London ‘thing’ and to be quite frank, I’m sick of it. I hold doors open for people, to get... well, nothing. No acknowledgment, no thank you, not even eye contact and a smile of thanks. I keep saying to myself that I’m just going to let doors go, slam them in faces. Yet I never do, I just can’t bring myself to sink to the level of the masses and so I remain one of the few. The few with manners still. And they are very few and far between indeed. I came across a guy this morning who to all appearances seemed like your perfect candidate to be rude, but no. He actually looked me in the eye, smiled and said “Thank you” and held the door for the next person. I almost keeled over in shock!

A perfect example of a lack of manners happened to a heavily pregnant friend of mine on the tube recently. And when I say heavily pregnant, I mean 8 months gone and quite obviously pregnant, not one of those people who you’re not sure about because they may have just eaten a big meal or be carrying a few spare pounds. She got on the tube and not one person offered their seat to her, men and women all pretended to be fascinated by the floor, or their book or newspaper. Just couldn’t bring themselves to make eye contact and offer up their seat. Why? Where did the manners go to? And why am I still surprised and driven completely nuts by this?

I always say excuse me when trying to get past people who are in the way, I repeat myself several times with increasing volume and when people make no effort to move, usually when trying to fight my way off the tube, I just push through, practically shouting “Excuse me” as people tut and shake their heads. How many times can you repeat yourself before you miss your stop?

Yet a few months ago, a middle aged man, a woman perhaps in her 30s and myself were all arguing over a spare seat. Not arguing as to who got there first, but all offering it up to each other. I was getting off at the next stop, and so it turns out was the other lady, so in the end the man jumped in it and we all exchanged a few joking remarks and smiles. A very rare occurrence, but maybe I’m not alone in the battle against rudeness and ill manners. I hope not anyway.

And what about walking down the street? OK, I’m short, but not so short that people can’t see me. With my extremely blonde hair and tendency towards bright clothes, you’d be hard pushed to miss me. So why do people continually look directly at me, ‘see me’ yet still walk into me, barging into me, stepping on my feet, pushing me out the way. No “Excuse me please”, no nothing, just an elbow in the head, or body part in the shoulder.

I’ve found the same attitude when trying to get served at bars and pubs in London. I’ve often started, or tried to start a conversation with people while I’ve been waiting and found I’ve hit a wall. A wall of silence if you’re a “Londoner”, but others who are just visiting, or have just arrived are more surprised and willing to join in and have a chat while they’re also waiting. The further you go from London, the more pleasant and chatty people seem to become. Why is it that people in Manchester, or Portsmouth, or Glasgow or essentially anywhere but London, are more willing to strike up a conversation, even if it’s about the typical British subject of the weather? The social scene of pubs and clubs, gigs and bars, with its museums, exhibitions and attractions and parks etc is without doubt what makes London the bustling, attractive and exciting world city that it is. But what’s happened to make it conversely such an anti-social place?

I’ve come across elderly people who often moan about ‘the youth of today’ saying they have no manners and I agree with them to an extent, but I’d say the elderly are now just as bad. The bad behaviour is spreading it appears. The amount of times I’ve held a door for someone perhaps in their 70s, only to get, yet again, nothing. No thanks, simply an unadulterated display of ignorance. I usually respond with a sarcastic, “No, thank you, my pleasure” in a loud voice, perhaps with added glare if I’m feeling particularly fed up. It makes me feel better, however never usually raises a response that I’ve noted. So while I continue to wonder why people are forgetting their manners and becoming so wrapped up in their own little world, displaying extreme ignorance and rudeness, the question is whether or not it could it be starting at the top and filtering down through the ages?

This behaviour doesn’t seem to be reserved strictly for one sex or another, nor an age group or specific generation, it seems to be a universal disease. Disease, can I call it that? It’s not restricted to the pavements and pedestrians. It’s happening more and more on the roads too.

I was driving down my road today when I got home for work, just popping to my parents with a birthday present for my Mum. I was approaching a junction to turn right and an older man popped out of the junction, not even looking in my direction. When I say popped out, I mean erratically swung out into my side of the road, narrowly missing me. Who even knows where he was looking, but it certainly wasn’t at the road or surrounding traffic. I slammed my brakes on and he had the nerve to hurl abuse at me, when if there had been an accident, he would quite clearly have been in the wrong as he would have hit me, rather than the other way around.

I see it all the time on the motorway, people coming down the slip roads onto the motorway and other motorists refusing to let people out. Or sat in traffic with another road or lane filtering in, people just point blank refuse to let people out. I tend to always let at least one car out where possible, so if everyone did that, the traffic would move more smoothly and the jam ease much quicker. It’s another matter if they’re not indicating, how am I supposed to know they want to move out? But what happened to a bit of common courtesy?

You hear of people, the incidents I’ve been told of happened in the US, where they’ve started buying a drink for the person behind them in the coffee shop queue and the chain continues. A simple act of kindness, costs very little. In fact only the person starting the chain of kindness is likely to incur any additional cost as they’ll be buying two drinks. Never have I heard of this in London. And I wonder why this is so in such a lively and cosmopolitan city.

As I was once told, “Manners cost nothing” and it’s true, they cost nothing but a second of your time as you pass by, pass through, or pause. Perhaps we should all do well to remember that and the world may well improve just that tiny little bit. So go on, put a smile on someone’s face, start a chain of kindness and surprise someone in the queue by buying their coffee. Start a revolution, simply hold the door open for someone. Even if it does nothing but make you feel good about yourself, it’s a start. And you never know, it may just catch on!

Perseverance

These words were never yours to begin with.

The kindness you misunderstood as love

From someone who inched themselves from orbit –

Eased from embrace – should be the lesson here.

Here is the fable of unlearnt truths:

That shoe will not fit, not that kiss revive

Any of your passions; your heart stutters.

Service. Fault. Your only story is that.

That is why it shifts into an eclipse.

Still yourself in darkness, it is all yours,

String stars as an abacus of failure.

Bright points can belie their distance from you.

You have nothing in the way of magic.

That is why the rabbit hides in the hat.

Here is the astounded audience: you.

These words were never yours to begin with.