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Bad manners and other lapses
It was not until we went to get on the bus the other afternoon that we actually comprehended how much things have changed in England. In a country whose people have previously been characterised and often mercilessly mocked for their penchant to form and wait endlessly in queues, we have noticed on this visit that barging has become more the order of the day. It may be the result of opening borders to people of nationalities more used to a survival of a fittest-type approach, but it is not a positive change. Even when armed to the gunnels with luggage when trying to get onto a tube or bus there is no courtesy or concession shown, other passengers rudely shove past or barely budge as we and others struggle with suitcases in congested aisles. It is very un-British and we do not like it one bit.
Similarly, on footpaths, groups as many as three or four people abreast maintain their trajectory, oblivious to oncomers, as though other pedestrians are completely invisible, meaning that they and other law abiding old age pensioners are forced to take evasive action. It seems that we spend half the day walking in single file, swerving to avoid people or walking on the edge of the roads narrowly dodging collisions between our heads and the wing mirrors on buses.
We have also observed other changes in behaviour on the tube, London’s leading conveyor of commuters. Once, it would have been considered rude to make eye contact with another passenger and unpardonable to try and engage in conversation. People boarded and sat down with eyes transfixed on a single spot, or they read novels and dozed off, but not anymore. Books have given way to London’s three giveaway newspaper and by mid-afternoon the tubes are awash in newsprint. People will read the ones thrust upon them outside stations and, once read, discard them. Other passengers discreetly pick up any they haven’t read themselves until they’ve consumed all three versions of the same giveaway news. Once finished the papers are dumped on the floor or behind seats, entire forests-worth each day.
One of the most interesting changes from an anthropological perspective would be that of new technology. Young people lost in a world of their own with white I-Pod buds growing from their ears jump aboard the tubes, oblivious to anything but themselves and their music. Of course none of the other passengers can hear the actual I-pod music, so they are involuntarily subjected to audible grunting accompanied by out-of-context hip swinging and foot-tapping. Self-awareness is evidently not a strong suit of the I-Pod people.
The other technology worth mentioning is that of the mobile phone. It is extraordinary the number of long, loud, meaningless conversations that occur on public transport, ones where other passengers are subjected to unrelenting banalities of extraordinary magnitude. In his book, Notes from a Small Island, author Bill Bryson, fictionalises such a conversation. “Hello, Clive here, I’m on the 10.07 and should be at HQ by 1300 hours as expected. I’m going to need a rush debrief on the Portland Square scenario. Listen, can you think of why anyone would employ a complete anus like me? What’s that? Because I’m the sort of person who’s as happy as a pig in shit just because he’s got a mobile phone?" Then a few minutes of silence and: “Clive here, I’m still on the 10.07 but we had a points failure at Grantham so I’m looking at an ETA of 13.02 rather than the forecast 1300 hours. If Phil calls, will you tell him I’m still a complete f….wit. Brill.” And so on.
Then there are those who have phones with the almost unnoticeable dangling microphones or voice pickups which allow their users to have loud hands-free conversations as if with themselves. This is quite unnerving; several times we’ve witnessed people screaming abuse at what appears to be other passengers or innocent shoppers only to realize that the person is actually hurling their abuse into one of these dangling microphones. Usually these calls end abruptly with the participant then continuing the tirade, leaving bystanders in no doubt of exactly what they think of the other party to the exchange. The weird thing is that people act as if this is somehow normal, showing just what a funny old world it is in which we now live.