Times may be tough, it's still a bit nippy and spring seems a long way off, the economy's shot to pieces and the next series of Mad Men has been snaffled by Sky (another reason to loathe Murdoch) but, blimey, does it really mean we have to all go around like utter mannerless miseries?
Twice in the last few days I've been snarled at by two separate women drivers because they had to wait, oh all of a few seconds, while I reversed into a parking space. Then I held a shop door open for a guy and he walked straight through, completely ignoring me. No chance of a thank you, obviously.
I'm sick of hearing people moaning. We Brits have long been obsessed by the weather and boy, didn't everyone bang on about the recent snow? Well what do you expect in winter? I was inwardly sniggering when the whingers went on and on about how treacherous their journey was, how their lives were turned upside down by a mere couple of centimetres of the white stuff. I'm remembering Bill Bryson's great comment that real snow is when you can't find your car until spring.
I was recounting all this to a friend and she told me that she'd been at Bath railway station and a bloke had spat not just once but twice on the platform in front of her. Honestly, what is going on, is Britain becoming the land not just of the negative but of the pig ignorant?
I'm just back from New York and a few weeks ago I was in Paris, two cities with long standing reputations for rudeness. It's been almost obligatory to be ignored by waiters in Paris where they evidently work to the premis that the customer is always wrong and you'd never dare order soup there, just in case..... Then there's New York, the city that never sleeps, and where being rude is steeped into the psyche.
Well.....no actually. Three days in Paris and a week in New York and my only encounter with brusqueness in either city was an extremely verbose cab driver in Manhattan who moaned about anything and everything the entire trip. The irony was he couldn't have been more chatty with me, it just happened that he was slagging off everything about the city, but he was the exception.
From hotel staff to shop assistants, waiters, cabbies (bar one), tour guides, even a couple who sat alongside us in a coffee shop in Times Square and heard our accents, everyone was not only pleasant but friendly. Even the immigration officer at JFK who not only smiled but joked with us! That's how much things have changed.
It was actually a bit unnerving and I kept waiting for someone to slam a door in my face, ignore me, short change me, mug me, try and run me over as I crossed the street so I could sigh and say 'yep, that's more like it, that's rude old New York', but it never happened.
So come on Britain, we used to be known for our manners, our quirky sense of humour, our stoicism, our ability to look on the bright side. Can we stop all the moaning and bad manners now please?
I've had enough of all the negativity so I'm operating my own one-woman charm offensive. I go round smiling at everyone, I'm making eye contact, holding doors open and letting cars into traffic. Ok, I'm in danger of being considered a raving nutter but so what?
Isn't it more pleasant to smile rather than snarl? And do you know what? Nine times out of ten, if you smile at someone and acknowledge them, they smile back. It's definitely better than moaning.
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