h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There's a woman on the bus I get home most evenings with a hands-free. She's the biggest numpty in the world. Why?

1) She's constantly talking on her hands-free phone in the tone of someone who pretends they're alone because the focused on their career when in reality their job is all they have because even the cats they keep buying would rather hurl themselves under buses than spend time in their company.

2) She always sits in the priority seat and never moves. I've seen pregnant women, blind guys, a woman with a crutch in one hand and a kid in the other and a variety of doddering old dears have to stand up so anvil-face can keep her bony backside on that chair.

Hasn't anyone asked her to move?
I'm not sure that I'd have the nerve to ask someone to move so that someone else can sit down, but if I were close enough I'd certianly get up & offer my seat - possibly with some loud apology for the priority seat being occupied...

To be honest, after about 10 seconds of the people looking bewildered as she shrieks down her headset, people further back start to offer seats.

Oooh rudeness on the bus! Worst I ever had personal experience of was when I was coming home from town one day 8 months or so pregnant with a friend and her toddler. We just managed to grab the last 2 seats at the back of the bus with the toddler on L's lap. A girl got on with a young baby in her arms. After a couple of minutes when it was clear that no one was going to get up for her, I got up despite being told off muchly by L. The girl very gratefully took the seat , but what got me was that the rest of the journey home I stood there getting the filthiest looks from the people who couldve got up for her but hadn't bothered, and one 40ish year old woman even made a point of elbowing me hard in the bump as she passed to get off

I'd have smacked her upside the face for that to be honest. That's just being complete scum.

Oh it was very tempting

There was a definite how dare I show them all up vibe on that bus!

While there is scope for questioning the reasons behind the dictum "women and children first" or the whole, hold a door for a lady thing. I think something has been lost that isnt exactly related to modern manners or ettiquette as such but has more to do with modern living and politics.

"There is not such thing as society"

No matter how much people complained about taxes in the past people in Britain at least as far as I could tell did not think too much about who was benefitting from the taxes they paid, they assumed we all were to some degree. Whether this is true or not now or ever was true, certainly the perception for a lot of people now is that its other people who are getting ahead at their expense.

We also live in a world of the meal for one. Where single people will live alone in a three bedroomed house because they feel they need that level of independence and freedom. I know of several parents who have purchased multiple TVs and computers and then gone on to buy laptops because their little darlings or they themselves cant even bare to be in the same room as other people because their "personal space" is being invaded.

I used to take pride in the way that city folk just got on with bumping into each other without too much fuss because it suggested an unspoken acceptance that it was probably just an accident due to lack of space. Now I see people being belligerent about their demands for quite or right of way when other people are just going about their business.

Ive got no time for complaints about MP3s on buses. You're on a big diesel engined bus in the middle of a city. Even if the Vicky Pollards of this world all suffered simultaneouos battery failure you wouldnt be enjoying an experience reminiscent of a floatation tank.

However without some engineeered situations that give people a regular experince sharing time, resources and space with each other, in the face of options virtual solitude offered by new technology and the wealth that allows multiple car households and such like society wiil become populated by more and more people who are like cross hermits being forced to deal with other people.

one love

Years ago I read an interesting study in the newspapers that has always stuck in my mind. It said that if you asked someone to give you their seat on the bus or the tube, they generally gave it to you. And that's without stating why. Just asking for it was enough for most people to get up.

I always bore that in mind when I was pregnant - that if I ever felt I really needed a seat and no-one offered, I would just ask someone. I think particularly with pregnant women, people are often embarrassed to offer their seat, in case they're wrong!