London could be one of the most miserable, selfish cities I have ever had the misfortune of experiencing. Before you judge this harsh criticism, let me explain.
I have lived in various cities including Aberdeen, Glasgow and Seoul in addition to visiting many places including Sydney, New York and Barcelona. Not one of these cities comes close to having a population that is so rife with dour faced bastards with no manners.
It seems that once people move to this city they lose the words please, thank you and excuse me from their vocabulary. I understand that many of the people who live in London are not in fact from London so it must be something about the city that transforms people into hostile mutants.
The prime example of this is the London Underground. At rush our people push, shove and curse out fellow passengers as they rush to get to and from work. I could understand if it was only in the morning when people are trying to get to work and may be running late but it even happens at night where people should be relieved because their working day is over. Clearly not.
No one stands up to let the elderly or pregnant sit down. No one helps people who are clearly struggling with their bags up staircases that must have been designed as some kind of practical joke.
At this point I must mention: The Mayor of London must despise disabled people because I have yet to see an elevator in an underground station and at least one station on my daily journey will have an escalator that is out of service. If you are disabled and you live in London, you might as well give up hope of ever going anywhere. If you are relying on public transport, your crippled arse is not going anywhere. Fact.
This brings me to the point of my little rant. The other week I was on my way to work in Kensal Green. In order to reach my destination I must get the black line down to Elephant and Castle then transfer onto the brown line for the rest of my journey.
As the train pulled into Elephant and Castle, I looked around and observed the carriage was mostly empty. It was before eight in the morning after all and most people don’t make the dash to work for another five to ten minutes.
The train slowed to a halt and I rose from my seat with a couple of other commuters. We stood at the door, waiting to get off while trying to force our eyelids open. On the opposite side of the doors, there were about five people standing at the door waiting to get on.
Manners, social etiquette and downright common sense would have you believe that it is easier to let the passengers on the train disembark before trying to get on but this is something completely lost on people living in London. Everyone becomes so obsessed with getting to their destination that all other thoughts, however logical, seem to evaporate in the warm, musky air of the underground tunnels.
The warning beeps, the doors open and I find that I am standing face to face with a young woman in her mid twenties who cannot be taller than 5ft 6”. Now, I am about 5ft 11” so I am looking down at this borderline midget who is standing in my path and thinking, “Surely she is going to move and let me past.”
I step off the train onto the platform and the other passengers get off and walk past. The commuters waiting on the platform then walk past me as there is a sizable gap in to my right.
The whole time, this fucking moron just stands there and stares up at me as if to say, “Are you going to move or what?”
What this nameless young woman didn’t realise is that I have a tendency to antagonise people and I don’t believe in walking away from confrontations when the other person is clearly in the wrong. Most people will refer to this as “being an arsehole.” I know that most of my friends certainly do when mentioning my ability to wind up whoever I please. Once I have decided you have fucked up, you better believe I am going to make you suffer.
We must have only been standing there for a matter of seconds but it felt like much longer. As the train warning beep signalled, the woman’s eyes darted back and forth between me and the doorway. She could easily just step to the side and walk past me but for some reason she was just unwilling to compromise, as this would prove that she was in the wrong.
The doors closed and the train began to pull away. She looked at me with an expression of pure hatred and this tickled me. Whenever anyone is being aggressive of malicious for reasons beyond my understanding, I cannot help but find it amusing. So I responded to her facial “fuck you” with the most embellished smug bastard grin that I could muster and began to walk towards the exit.
As I made my way along the platform, I heard the woman call after me in her thick cockney accent, “You baldy bastard.”
I turned around, smiled again, and responded, “I may be a baldy bastard, but you just missed your train.”
An important lesson can be learned here. Good manners and social etiquette will make for a much more pleasant existence. Otherwise, you might just run into a dick like me one day and I will not let you away with it.
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