There is much debate about whether all this isn’t just traditional British behaviour and nothing to make a fuss about. Traditional or not, it isn’t very nice. In its present form, drunkenness seems to be no respecter of class. Matt complains that his train home to Peterborough is frequently stopped for drunks to be expelled: ‘You see some City type in a suit out of his mind on the platform.’ Aggression and violence also are new features. The pre-war days of Bertie Wooster and Gussie Finknottle getting rather squiffy and stealing policemen’s helmets have gone for good. Even Zoe, many of whose friends are up for the Friday-night blow-out, has noticed it. ‘Last New Year’s Eve I had to walk home most of the way to Balham from the West End. The only people I saw were blind drunk. Every single one of them was either weeping hysterically, shouting really aggressively at the bouncers outside a pub or club, or they were couples having horrible rows.’
Or the severely inebriated person ends up alone – like Euan Blair, lying abandoned by his mates in the gutter. But encountering the Prime Minister across the table in the police station later is not usually part of the experience.
For the sake of others, don’t get blind drunk.
Mobile phones in public places
Mrs Gibbs, travelling on a train (first class at a knock-down pensioner rate), complained of a young man ‘bellowing into a phone for nearly an hour, trying to book a hotel room in Finland’.
On buses, on trains, in shops, everywhere, mobile phones are a nuisance, aren’t they? It isn’t just the ring tones – why are all of them silly? – it’s the sword clash of different conversations conducted at full volume: while one person is blaring away about last night’s sex, another is having a huge set-to with their insurance company about a minor car accident, and a third is nit-picking their way through the discounts on offer from Thomas Cook – ‘If we go out on the third and return on the fourteenth…but how about going out on the fifth and coming back on the twelfth?’ etc. The solution is easy – so why has no one thought of it?
YOU DON’T NEED TO SHOUT. When phones were first invented people thought they had to shout into them, since the people they were talking to were far away. But, after almost 130 years, we ought to know better.
As for nightmare ring tones, whatever happened to ‘vibrating alert’? No phone needs to ring in a public place. So why do they? It’s this frenzied anxiety, again, isn’t it? My wife might be calling to announce that she’s planning a quiche for supper or it might be one of the children demanding to know why there are no more Skittles. IT CAN WAIT.
It really is impolite to be on the phone while paying for things in shops. Calm down. One thing at a time. Make your call quietly in a corner, then pay. Don’t be in such a hurry. If the phone rings while you are paying, ignore it. You are dealing with the person on the till. That comes first.
Witnesses to the above should apologise loudly to the shop worker on the rude person’s behalf.
Mobile mobile phone users (as it were) are always in the way. Walking along the pavement, getting off a train and so on, they don’t know where they are or what they’re doing. These people should be tucked away behind pillars, seated in designated seating areas; they should be OUT OF THE WAY. Why aren’t they?
Chance encounters
An innocent walk down the street can turn into a nightmare when somebody you’re sure you’ve never seen before claims to know you. This happens frequently to Matt. At one time he was frightened to go out of his office at lunch-time. Or you might vaguely recognise the person trying to speak to you, but that’s about it.
If you have no recollection whatsoever of the person, you’re going to have to grin and bear it. All being well, the stranger before you will have given you a handle, however fragile – the names of your mutual acquaintances, perhaps – to cling on to.
Don’t say, ‘I’m afraid I can’t remember your name.’ People don’t like being forgotten. It is a kindness to conceal your ignorance – even where it is obvious, with nothing being said, that the other person knows that you haven’t the first idea who they are. As Quentin Crisp put it, ‘Most people would rather be treated courteously than be told the truth.’
If you are the forgotten one, don’t say, ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ because however you say it it will sound like a criticism.
Being embarrassed about being embarrassed is imprisoning. Liberate yourself with low expectations. Reconcile yourself to awkwardness from the start to the finish of these chance encounters.
There ought to be some ungainly banter. ‘Hi, how are you?’ isn’t enough. Revel in the ghastliness. Expect nothing more than clichés and discomfort. Alternatives might well be condemned as ‘slick’ and ‘artificial’, anyway. Don’t forget that there’s always the chance of something better…romance, perhaps.
It is perfectly all right for one of you to take the initiative in saying goodbye, but a tendency is creeping in for this to be done in a practised and ‘professional’ manner – more a matter of tone than what is said. It is best if you can remain as bumbling and ill at ease as possible. Ideally, there should be several attempts to part, with conversation spluttering to life again in between.
Neighbours
Have the soap operas, particularly the one of this section’s name, put people off being neighbourly? If you start speaking to the neighbours you will certainly end up sleeping with most of them and marrying quite a few. Rumours about your sexuality will start flying around and you’ll have to do some more sleeping around to prove the contrary. Roughly every four years you will be the victim of a con man. In the years when you are not a victim of a con man one of the following will be bound to happen: you will be wrongly accused of either murder or major fraud, never both; your house will burn down; you will trip over a paving stone and successfully sue the council; you will disappear overseas, never to be heard of again.
It’s neighbourly where Matt lives, in a nice new-build in Peterborough. At Christmas time, they’re in and out of each other’s houses, having drinks; the mothers share the school run and there’s a summer party. But elsewhere it’s a different story. ‘Some years ago, I was struggling to get a bag of manure in and a neighbour rushed out of his house to help me,’ says Mrs Gibbs, who lives in one of a row of Victorian cottages in Winchester. ‘But whenever I’ve seen that man subsequently – not a flicker. I seem to have become invisible.’
People are peculiar. There have been other cases of neighbours steadfastly refusing to pop next door for a cup of tea or even a meal, possibly because their own house is a tip and they dread having to ask back. In other cases, hospitality is accepted but never returned. Some people avoid their neighbours on principle, dreading being stuck with them if they so much as exchange a word.
Zoe’s street in Balham is not very neighbourly but this may be to do with her habit of putting the rubbish out on the wrong day. There’s also the matter of her noisy parties…
‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’ – neighbourliness is more than good manners, it is a virtue, a mark of goodness.
It doesn’t matter if your neighbours are dull or even a nuisance – they are your neighbours. You have something in common.
Don’t shun your neighbours out of mean-spiritedness – jealousy over their decor, dread of having to ask back, fear of being lumbered.