Apparently Britain, as a nation, is getting ruder. So says the general public, anyway. We are allegedly far less mannerly than we were ten years ago, with swearing, spitting and personal stereos on public transport apparently the worst offenders. Is it really all that bad? Have we turned into a land of hoodies who don’t know how to mind our Ps and Qs?
In some ways, I’d say yes. Excuse me while I age myself about 50 years here, but I swear that kids these days are getting worse and worse. My absolute pet hate is those stupid little trainers with wheels in the heels – or ‘heelies’ as I believe they are commonly known. Whenever I see a child zooming around a shopping centre on them, I have to control my Tourettes-like twitching as I resist the urge to give them a damn good shove.
Yes, they’re a toy and toys are fun, but whatever happened to the old adage of “there’s a time and a place for everything”? I blame the parents – if I’d demanded to wear my roller skates into town as a child, my mum would have told me not to be so daft, and rightly so. Any more of that nonsense and I’d not be allowed to play on them when I got home.
Old people are just as bad, especially on buses. It’s their free bus passes; they now think they own the entire bus. Dare to sit next to them (because there’s nowhere else to sit!) and they tut, glare and refuse to move up an inch, leaving you to cling on for dear life when turning any treacherous corner that happens to come up. If you’ve got an iPod on? Even worse. Okay, maybe they don’t want to hear my choice of music. Then again, maybe I don’t particularly feel like listening to their shouted conversations with Doris; if I should switch it off, so should they.
Despite all this ranting, I don’t believe it’s anywhere near as bad as The Daily Mail would have you think. For every screeched chav obscenity on a street corner, there’s two “nice to meet you”s when making a new acquaintance. For every brattish child, there’s an “excuse me” from a stranger to restore your faith in humanity. If we all mind our manners and watch our dirty mouths, maybe there is hope after all.
