I was on the tube this morning, on the Piccadilly Line, when a very grumpy middle-aged woman pushed her way through all the passengers. The train wasn't overcrowded and there was plenty of space in middle. As she moved down the carriage towards me, she pushed right past me, standing on my toes with her horrible brown-buckled librarian shoes. When I say that she 'pushed past me' I mean that she tried to burrow directly through the centre of my body.

"Ow! You're being very rude you know and you're standing on my feet!" I exclaimed, as she tried to physically lever me out the way.

"I have to be rude to struggle past all you tall bastard men!" she replied.

"Well, You're a very rude old lady," I said, at which point everyone on the train started laughing.

Learn some fucking manners, you old witch!

Cranius wrote:horrible brown-buckled librarian shoes.

This is rude, Cranius.

Love,

a librarian
with nice shoes

Manner are all good. The oil that society runs on. If everyone was like brown shoe lady or the average Daily Mail reader we'd be like Saudi Arabia or the traffic in Rome at rush hour.

I used to go out with a lass from Devon. The first time I went to visit her family there, it was bizarre, a real culture shock. We got on a bus. A bunch of schoolkids sat in the long seats directly behind the driver. They were being kids, laughing and being a bit loud etc. A few stops down the road, some old folks got on. The driver stuck his head out of the booth and asked the kids to move up the bus. They all did. That, to me, was amazing; I felt like I’d stepped into the world my parents used to talk about when they go ‘eeh, it’s not like the old days…’ If you asked kids in Middlesbrough to move up the bus, you’re risking torture for the rest of your journey. If you ask in London, you’re risking a shooting.

But in Middlesbrough, people queue for the bus. Boarding a bus in London always seems like a fight, you have to be able to use your elbows.

Good manners are free, as they say, and not crap, as I say.

Are they anything other than treating each other with a little respect, kindness and decency? As I've got older I've become grateful for my slightly old-fashioned rural upbringing and having good manners impressed upon me from an early age. They work wonders too - saying hello to the checkout girl, greeting my local newsagent with a booming, stentorian good morning, holding doors open or helping someone cross the road. They cost nothing as my Granddad always said and the world is a much nicer place for them.

A really lovely quirk I discovered when I moved to Birmingham is the ubiquitous habit of saying thank you to the bus driver ('thanks bab/droiver'!) as you get off.

My favourite queuing system is in Cuba. When I was there I noticed what looked like a chaotic crowd of people waiting for a bus. When it turned up the people waiting and got on one-by-one, no fuss, no pushing, it was amazing to watch.

I asked my Cuban friend what the hell was going on. He told me that in Cuba when you show up at a queue you call out "who's last?", someone shouts back "me", and you just watch that person and get on after them. Plus they use their car horn "politely", when pulling out, turning or if they see someone about to cross at the street corner they let out a little "honk" just to say, "excuse me" with their car.

Those yeller belly commie bastards just haven't got a clue, have they?

If you live in a large, faceless and deindividualised city you learn to live with (and indeed expect) a lack of civility. I've come to understand that on public transport in London you should never expect people to reciprocate any displays of courtesy or good will.

Personally, what pisses me off more than anything is bar protocol. I will look at who's at the bar when I get there and if I'm approached before them I say that I'm not next and gesture over to who is (if it's possible to tell). You could probably count the amount of times I've been thanked for this using your bollocks (once). And you rarely find people prepared to do the same thing for others either.

Yes, I am better than all of you.

Rimbaud III wrote:

Yes, I am better than all of you.

I sir, also share you desire for a more polite society in our fair city.

The worst case I've seen on the tube was when this young Muslim guy and his wife/sister/girlfriend got on a tube in rush-hour at London Bridge. He started pushing all of the men back from near the woman and then started lecturing us on how perverted we were, needless to say some greezer towards the back yelled out, "fook off to Iran then." The person I felt sorry for was the girl, she didn't look up once and just appeared to be really embarassed.

Not crap.

Having just finished working in Asda over xmas, I came to appreciate well mannered customers and also utterly loathe ones who weren't.

So the next time you buy something from a shop, say thanks to the person on the till. You can make a difference.