The Accidental Stepford

Stepford - n. a married person who submits to their partner's will and is preoccupied by domestic concerns.

In defence of pushy London behaviour

On the train home from Birmingham the other day, I overheard a man complaining about home people on the tube in London push and shove. I had to restrain myself from turning around and telling him that I preferred aggressive behaviour to the dawdling and down right stupidity that goes on in the streets and public transport in Birmingham.

In a hurry? Need to run down an escalator or flight of steps to make your train home? Rarely possible at Birmingham New Street Station. People there are content to stand side by side on escalators and not allow anyone passed. A woman recently decided not to take the lift down to the platform, but to try to wheel her pram down the steps - there was no child in it, just her mountain of stuff. There is a ramp that leads up into the Pallasades shopping centre (through which I get to New Street Station) and there are signs on it saying ‘Keep Left’, and there is a big yellow line down the middle of the ramp. Very few people follow this advice. Meandering in large, slow moving groups is way more fun.

This kind of behaviour would not fly in London. People who don’t stand on the right of escalators are shouted at, shoved out of the way and generally made to feel like the morons they are. A group of people with large cases once decided that right at the bottom of an escalator was the perfect place to stop. During the morning rush hour. They were soon made to see the errors of their way. Plus, they were a health hazard as they were preventing people getting off of the escalator.

So I would happily take the hostile London attitude over the lazy Birmingham one because at least it means I would get where I was going in a timely manner… or that I could at least glare at the person who prevented me from doing so.