Some People

If there is an etiquette about who should be allowed in First Class and who should remain in Standard then the woman and her kids currently residing somewhere further down my carriage have clearly breached it.

I have been prompted to write this little rant by the fact that one of the kids has not just been running up and down the aisle a couple of times - which would have been annoying in itself - but her preferred method of propulsion is a kind of leapfrog, using the arms of the chairs either side to swing herself forwards. To be fair the kids have otherwise been quiet, but their mother did annoy me twice earlier. Firstly there was her need to blaspheme loudly when the train veered round a bend as she was coming back in to the carriage. And secondly there was the melodramatic "Oh my. Just a few days ago I was on the motorway and an accident had occurred just yards in fron of me.........." when the train manager was talking about "an incident" on the line earlier on.

Oh dear me. See what sitting on a train for nearly six hours has reduced me to talking about.

PS - in case you were wondering, yes the woman in question did have an American accent.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I was seriously doubting your sanity as to be annoyed by such petty things till I read she had an American accent...
Mon Mar 20, 01:28:00 AM GMT
Anonymous said…
I quite agree with you there, when one has forked out for a first class ticket, one expects first class treatment. Personally I beleive that only those over the age of 18 should be allowed to reside in the first class compmartments of trains, particularly as most of the people in first class will be professional people, probably trying to work or otherwise unwind after a hard day's work.
Mon Mar 20, 12:43:00 PM GMT
Anonymous said…
i would say that anyone who can afford to be in first class should be free to choose to do so.
Wed Mar 22, 01:48:00 PM GMT
JP... said…
"I was seriously doubting your sanity as to be annoyed by such petty things..."

You may be right, Dave, but as I said in the post I had at that point been on the same train for six hours.

When it comes to who should be allowed in First Class I do think that - as with anything - there should be some basic etiquette when it comes to considering others. Read my later post about the muppet with the loud MP3 player. If you are going to use a public service it is imperative that you respect other users.
Thu Mar 23, 12:27:00 PM GMT
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

the purpose of religion

One of the things which featured in the recent debate on this post is the idea that “religion should be about improving oneself”. This has got me thinking; ‘religion’ of course takes many forms, but in the vast majority of cases I disagree with this. To paraphrase MarkC, religion is certainly something which as a by-product might help with “improving oneself”, but however you measure self-improvement it is not the sole point, certainly not in the Judeo-Christian case. In fact, if your sole aim is to “improve yourself”, why waste your time playing around with the trappings of religion? Most religions are based around the idea of faith in God, and that, surely, is the point. Considering Christianity specifically, Jesus said “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself ” and so ‘religion’ should not be in danger of becoming all about wo
Read more

atheism is a matter of faith, not science: the debate continues

Following the letters page in last Wednesday's Metro and the follow-up comment on this post I’m pleased to see that the beginnings of a debate are brewing, and I intend to use this post to pick up the baton again. Unsurprisingly, I’m going to start by responding to the aforementioned comment. I apologise if my tone was deemed to be a bit sharp, but I have no hesitation in defending the point I was trying to make. According to dictionary.com , faith can be defined as “belief that is not based on proof.” As there is no proof that God does not exist, belief that God does not exist (i.e. atheism) must be faith. Now, I take your point that “as human beings we are always revising and fine tuning what we hold to be true based on the evidence to hand, what we discover and our ability to determine what is probable or improbable.” To digress slightly, that is why switching on the Large Hadron Collider is going to be something of a milestone, as it could either serve to prove a theory or
Read more

Ignorance Is Bliss?

Today I want to share my thoughts about something I've been reflecting on for a while. If you invited me to a party, or a concert, you would probably think it very rude of me if I simply ignored the invitation. So why does it seem acceptable for people to ignore invitations to events which have a Christian theme? I am a practising Christian and believe that the Christian message is of great importance; it's something everyone should consider. I find it infuriating when some people ignore invitiations to church or to events which might give them a better understanding of what Christianity is about. If people don't want to come I just wish that they'd say so. Personally I've been thinking about why some people like to simply ignore us as Christians and I think that there are several reasons. For some people I'm guessing we're just an irritant which might go away if ignored. For others we're probably seen as a waste of time and space. And I'm sure that
Read more