I’ve been madly busy the las few weeks, and while I’m percolating some posts about community and socialness and the like, I’m taking the time while Sunday dinner is cooking (mmm, roast lamb, and it smells FANTASTIC) to scribble a note on a current obsession of mine.
I don’t want to whinge, here, but in recent months I’ve noticed a growing number of people doing things that I had not realised were social norms, but apparently are completely fine, not only because the behaviour goes unchallenged, but because the perpetrations increase in frequency and obviousness as the days slide by. Worse still, people aren’t just doing such things, but doing them as if they are completely normal and reasonable and fine.
For that, if nothing else, they deserve to be singled out, brought to task and possibly bound with gaffer tape and forced to watch every episode of Ronnie Corbett’s Sorry! until they actually are.
With that in mind, I present my Ten Commandments of Modern Social Decency. (Clearly, not all of these things are equal in their seriousness and social impact, but dammit, it’s my blog and I’ll whine if I want to.)
- Thou Shalt Not Talk in The Cinema
So you go to the movies with your girl/boy/friend and you get settled into your seat in the dark and then the film begins and you somehow reason that despite there being several hundred others in the room with you, all of whom have paid something in the region of £10 (plus concessions) for the privilege of enjoying the cinematic experience, this would be an ideal time to demonstrate that you are able to read and have powers of observation reminiscent of a toddler. “Oooh! It’s starting!” “England, 1750!” “It’s him, that bloke, from, y’know…” “I like his hair like that” “No! Don’t go that way! He’s going to regret that…” “Five hours later, it says” “Oh look, it’s her again” This is not your living room, and unless you actually are the director of this particular epic, I don’t want to hear your commentary. Also, and while I would think this doesn’t need pointing out, but since you’re a bit special, it obviously does, this isn’t a pantomime. The people on that big screeny thing can’t hear you and no-one else wants to. So Shut. Your. Twatting. Gob. - Thou Shalt Always Swipe Thine Oyster Card
While I appreciate that not everyone in this marvellous city is as law-abiding as the majority, I’m always struck by how many people saunter/shove through the ticket barriers at Hammersmith station - or even vault over them - because the laws about paying for travel obviously don’t apply to them. Despite the fact that everyone else is doing so. I think the thing that bugs me about this is not that I’m paying while someone else goes free, but the sort of god-given-right strut which they adopt as they do it. This also applies to clearly mid-twenties men who waltz onto the bus without paying and then, when challenged by the driver, profess to be under sixteen. Yeah, right. - Honour Thy Fellow Citizens (Or At Least, Thou Shalt Not Be A Prick To Strangers)
Like, when someone asks you for directions, telling them to fuck off. Or loudly passing comment about someone’s dress-sense/hair/age/etc. When did it become even slightly acceptable to be rude to or about complete strangers in public? One of the only things which keeps society functioning is a modicum of politeness and sense of socially-acceptable behaviour, and when that goes - when it’s OK to punch a pensioner because he’s slow to move out of the way when you’re trying to get off the tram - we’re clearly doomed. - Thou Shalt Signal Thy Intentions To Manoeuvre
Look, it’s only a small thing, but here it is: I’m not psychic, and just because you know where you’re going, doesn’t mean anyone else does. And while I realise that that extra muscular twitch it would take to flip the signal arm to let other road and pavement users know your intention is such a bore and would distract you from your coffee/phone conversation/cigarette/music/daydreaming, but you know, it’s actually really quite helpful to the rest of us. Also, as a side observation, it comes as precisely no surprise whatsoever to realise that the majority of people guilty of this are those driving 4×4s. I know, I know - SUV driver in “drives like an inconsiderate moron” shocker. But why is that the case? They obviously seem to be of the opinion that the bigger the car, the less need to actually need to drive in any reasonable fashion. They’re always the first to cut you up, never let you merge, constantly stop on yellow grids and on those big painted bits on the road at junctions saying “KEEP CLEAR”, drive with their brights on at night, and right up your arse so you can’t actually see anything and park like Pavarotti in the Economy Cabin on a charter flight.
- Thou Shalt Be Considerate To Other People Sharing Thy Space
This includes and applies to those who leave their trolley in the middle of the supermarket aisle so it blocks everyone else from passing, those who stop the moment they get to the top/bottom of the escalator to consult their watch or whatever, those who think that a really good place to stop and have a conversation with their friend would be the middle of the pavement and not, say, just over there towards the shop window, those who dawdle…. along…. the…. road…. totally…. engrossed…. in….their…. mobile….phones….. because….. they’re…… trying….. to…. text… and…. walk…… at…. the….same…. time…..and those who stand next to the bar all night and then get really arsey when you need to lean past them to, say, order, pay for and collect drinks. It’s a BAR, people. Don’t hog it. Likewise, these are all social spaces - try and remember that before you act in a completely selfish way. - Thou Shalt Not Befriend People Thou Knowest Not On Social Networking Sites
I’m not being a curmudgeon, here, I hope, and I mean this in the very nicest way, but if I don’t actually know you, then you’re not really allowed to get annoyed if I don’t connect with you on any one of dozens of social media sites. I mean, if we’ve met, or corresponded a few times, then that might be different, and if we have shared acquaintances, then maybe so, but if you are just some random person to me (just as I must be, to you), then no, you can’t be my friend, and no, you can’t have a shitfit about my reasonable declination when it inevitably arrives. Sorry. - Thou Shalt Switch Thy Cocking Phone Off During A Performance
This one speaks for itself, hopefully, though I was amazed in the movie the other night to see the person in front of me not just receiving a text half way through the film (actually, I heard this - we all did) but proceed to dig her phone out of her bag, read the text, show it to her friends and then reply to it. At length. And then receive another reply, and so on, and so forth. What is wrong with these people? - Thou Shalt Listen To Someone When They Are Talking To Thee
…and not make “mmm-hmm” noises while actually texting or BlackBerrying in front of them. You may as well read a book. Honestly - it’s very rude. Just stop it. You can do without for a couple of minutes.
Why can’t everyone just be nice?
You’ll notice that there are only eight commandments here - I’m curious to know what you’d add for the last two….
Um. 9. Thou shalt write another commandment.
10. Thou shalt not be an annoying commenter pointing out that there are only 8 commandments so far.
*cough* (Sorry!)
x
Grrr…I hoped I’d caught that before anyone noticed. Damn your eyes!
What, no Thou Shalt Not Play Your Tinny Hip Hop Rubbish On The Bus? I suppose it is just a specialisation of three/five/seven.
9 (or 11). Thou Shalt Not Listen To Music In Public Through The Built In Speaker on Thy Cocking Phone
I haven’t actually had this problem in London. Everyone seems well behaved there on the rare occasions I visit - and you have signs on the buses telling people not to do it. But everywhere else’s its widespread. Mainly “chavs” of course. I’m hoping to purchase some noise reduction headphones shortly to make train journeys that bit easier, though I have a feeling they will just remove the noise of the train rather than of the shitty music being distored through the shitty phone speakers. Nor will they do anything about the repetitive “This is the train for Surburbiton - calling at Clapham, Wimbledon, Wimbledon Cheaper, Wimbledon Hardly, Nearly-there Junction, Nearly-there Parkway, Missed It and Surbubiton” * announcements which, due apparently to H&S regulations, have to be broadcast at above average volume because everyone is trying to drown them out with the phone or their Ipods (and, weirdly, are also allegedly that loud to assist blind people, whose hearing we’re always led to believe is significantly better than average, and who I rarely see travel on a train - alone at least - due to all the chavs.)
* Copyright ‘The Cheese Shop’ - as heard on BBC7. Highly recommended, along with their sketches about Ch-Ch-Ch-ichester Radio and “Fella’s Hour” with Steve Davis (not the snooker player).
Thou shalt consider the fact other people don’t give a stuff about your problems, not really. And that the more you moan about them, the less i’m likely to care.
OK, crap commandment but you’ve covered all the good ones already…
How about
“Thou Shalt invest in decent headphones for thy MP3 player so thou dost not share thy horrendous taste in musick with thy fellow travellers”
or perhaps
“Picking thy nose ist a cryme. And thou shalt not eateth it. Full stop. No. Really. Thou shalt not pick thy nose. It’s just gross.”
Though shalt not use “Whatever” as a conversational blocking tool.
Many of these have a common theme of “Thou shalt not think rules are for other people”. A particularly craw-sticking example here.
Err… was trying to link to the tale of Dean Gaffney speeding at 93mph in a 50mph zone whilst on his phone and somehow STILL not being banned from driving. But the stupid link has stopped working…
Richard, you’re quite right. (and here’s another source for that Gaffney story)
On #4 - in my part of the world it’s BMW drivers in particular that seem incapable of using their signals. My fantasy is to pull up alongside one of them and be able to tell them “Um, excuse me, I don’t think your blinkers are working. When you went around that corner back there, they just weren’t lighting up at all. You should really take your car back to the dealer because it’d be a real shame to pay lots of money for a big, shiny car like that and not have all the bits work properly”.
9. Thou Shalt Not Use The Ongoing Threat Of Terrorist Activity - However Much You Might Consider This To Be A Government-Sponsored Control Mechanism - As An Excuse To Drop Litter In The Street
Yes, I know that most of the bins have been taken away. Put it in your pocket or handbag and throw it away at home. It’s very simple really. If you don’t like carrying rubbish around, don’t buy the thing in the first place.
10. Thou Shalt Stand Back To Let The Passengers Off First
You’d think this one would be self-explanatory, but apparently not. Allowing a full space to empty means that there is then plenty of empty space for you to fill. But it only works in that order.
Honestly, I’d just repeat commandment number 5 two more times…
Or, alternatively:
#9:Thou Shalt Not Stand at the Till in the Supermarket and Ask the Salesperson to Explain Every Charge on Your 100-Purchase Reciept.
#10: Thou Shalt Not Use Your Pram as a Battering Ram.
That shalt not use American spell-checkers which cannot spell “Manoeuvre”?
Yes, well, thanks for that. The problem with using an open source browser - Firefox checks in American.
Still, I could add “thou shalt further the spirit of the post by contributing, not finding fault”.
Please?
9. Thou shalt not have conversations, very loudly, in an open plan office.
(Unless the contain this immortal line heard right behind me last week - “Listen, you can’t go from crack on Monday to grass on Tuesday”. No, I have no idea what they were meaning when they said that.)
9. Thou shalt not use the world as thine own personal self gratification tool.
10. When 9 fails thou shalt not complain about it.
(Weak perhaps, but fits in with my source of most of today’s social degeneration)
9. Thou should turn off all bleeping and buzzing on one’s mobile, camera and any other electronic equipment other than the ringtone and the message alert. I do not need to be aware of EVERY KEY YOU PRESS…..gah!
Oh, I thought of another one:
That sign which says “Phones must be switched off” means YOU. It’s not put up for fun. It’s not an arbitrary rule which applies to some people but not others. It includes you, so no, you can’t make a call and yes, texting counts as using your phone and no, I don’t care how important you are or connected you need to feel.
Especially in hospitals.
Funny how gadgets that are designed to make our lives easier become the work of the devil in the hands of idiots, isn’t it?
For a while I’ve been thinking there should be some responsibility on the part of manufacturers here - eg does my phone really need to play the Nokia tune every time it starts up (unless it set to silence, which it usually is.) And why is the default for the keypad tones to be on? And why are phones supplied with such a wide range of ringtones? (All that happens is that people sit around, usually on my train, saying “Ooh, try that one”.)
Is anyone else extremely annoyed by the default SMS beep - the “beep beep [pause] beep beep” variety? What I hate about it is the pause in the middle. You hear two beeps, whereupon you immediately glance down at your own screen, or determine by where the noise has come from its not your device. But then you have that interminable period during which you know you’re going to have to hear two further, irritating beeps indicating a message you don’t care up, but quite possibly will be read out loud to you and the rest of the carriage anyway by the recipient or his or her ‘mate’ following by a short discussion on what the reply should be, before the whole process repeats itself.
Because of this I have set the SMS alert on my phone to a single beep. And I have always used the ‘desktop phone’ ringtone. But like I say, its almost always set to silence, and its rare for me to receive more than one phone call every month or two anyway.
But there’s a reason for that space, isn’t there? It’s morse code for M! M!
For “message”, I assume.
I would like to encourage the kind of people who send and receive multiple messages on a train, as you describe, to adopt the following message alert tone:
..-. ..- -.-. -.- .. -. –.
- — — .-..
.- .-.. . .-. -
Here’s another “rules are for other people” one: the chief constable responsible for road policy at the Association of Chief Police Officers has been caught - yes, you guessed it - breaking the speed limit. 90mph in a 60mph zone, according to the radio report that I head.
Oops. That I heard.
Duly chastised. Sorry.
How about one for the cyclists: “Thou shalt not park thine effing big bus / lorry / van in the cycle lane, even if thou dost switch on thy flashing lights”?
How about “Thou shalt be a considerate pedestrian (particularly at peak hour and in train stations”
Is there nothing worse than fellow pedestrians dawdling, suddenly stopping completelely, walking 4-abreast or sending text messages whilst walking and therefore veering all over the place?
Meg, the space is to differentiate between the different letters of the dit-dit-dit da-da dit-dit-dit tone.
And yes, it is morse for SMS - which is a brilliant idea in itself - and as shown on this rather wonderful diagram
As for commandments, I’d go for:
#9 Thou shalt open thine bloody eyes
#10 Thou shalt pay a-cocking-ttention.
I think I can complete the list:
9.You will not put your feet on the seats.
10. You will not make that astonished/outraged face when I politely suggest that your behaviour (any of 1-9 below)is antisocial and unacceptable.
All/most the things Meg has listed can sound soemwhat trivial, but they’re not, behaviour like this seriously degrades the quality of public life. And every time the “perps” do it without being challenged, it reinforces their (and others) impression that it is OK to do it.
If there are others around, and if the perps are not obviously drunk or thick as s*** lowlife, then be bold and challenge. I do, mostly.
Spell in the stocks?
You’re going light. I start at punishable by death and get more harsh from then on.
You’ve got my vote for queen though.
“Thou shalt not question Stephen Fry.”
(9) Not updating website more often. Tres rude.
C, I hope you’re attempting to be funny. I’ve been ill.
9. A clout around the back of the head seems to deter this sort of thing. Witnessed this just a few days ago.
10. Dunking the blackberry / pda into a bucket of water works for this one.