The difficulty when frequenting public spaces is, well, the public.
A lot of strangers to London fret about the sheer numbers of people inhabiting the public transport system, but, to me, with a few exceptions, the morning rush hour is an almost perfect example of how rational people perceive that acting for the greater good of the greater community actually benefits themself - enlightened self-interest?
I have a theory that considerable proportions of the population live most of their lives in a hermetically sealed environment. They go everywhere by car, and much of their leisure time is spent at home or, rarely, in some sterile quasi-restaurant, where interaction with others is minimised. It seems that have little instinct or understanding for how to conduct themselves outside of the hermetic seal.
Last night, I encountered a family who were quite possibly the rudest, most ignorant, arrogant and solipsistic that I have ever encountered, except on package holidays. And they were sat directly in front of me in the Royal Albert Hall. Two couples - the older couple were the parents of the younger woman. Her husband was also there. Mum and Dad were seated long before me; daughter and son-in-law sat down a couple of minutes before the start.
Daughter arrived and exclaimed. It's harsh to judge people on their accent, but she spoke exactly like the ghastly P. with whom I used to work, and not dissimilar to the almost-as-ghastly L. with whom I worked elsewhere. Straight out of Essex - not that I'm anti-Essex, three of my best friends, polite, considerate and aware women, are all from Essex. Heck, I used to live in Essex.
Her initial comment amused me "I can't believe it's full. I can't believe there are people standing on the top level!". She had clearly never been before to the RAH. Which is fine, but, I wanted to say "See it, believe it..." That was just harmless, but it was kind of indicative of the rest of the evening.
The first piece was orchestral. So Father and son-in-law decided to talk. Uh-oh, I thought 'it's just a quiet piece, nothing's going on, we might as well chatter'. I won't describe in detail the extent to which they were talking. But in an Albert Hall filled just about to capacity (6,000; 7,000?) you thought they would have realised that there wasn't a lot of talking going on.
Let's just say that halfway through La virgen lava pañales, Father said loudly "It's in Spanish!" The fact that the singer was Spanish (well, Catalonian, actually) and that the programme printed the song title with a tilde might have been a clue, anyway.
We got to Silent Night, and the son made some loud noise along the lines of 'I know this song, I don't like it'. Then father repeated "It's in Spanish..." By the third verse he proudly proclaimed to everybody "It's in English" Duh!
Daughter was full of herself, spending most of the concert with her head on husband's shoulder. I don't think she was really paying attention, but her constant fidgeting was distracting me. Then she would kiss the husband and then look round to make sure that everybody had noticed. 'Everybody' was largely older couples, and women in their twos and threes of various ages. Behind me was a forty-ish couple with daughters of maybe 12 and 9.
Each choir piece was greeted at the end by son-in-law exclaiming "Beautiful, beautiful." Which was true, and would have been entirely inoffensive, except that he was an offensive man. Father-in-law decided to sing along to the overture from Die Fledermaus. Well, I say sing....And father and son-in-law both 'sang' along to White Christmas.
It was funny at the end/encores. Son-in-law decided to whistle - he explained loudly that he wanted the star to be greeted with applause when he returned for a bow (because, like, the rest of the 7,000 crowd were sitting on their hands...). Various audience members were calling for various songs. Obnoxious son-in-law repeated over-and-again "He'll sing Santa Maria. He'll definitely sing Santa Maria." Loudly, so that loads of people could hear him. I was trying to work out whether he wanted Santa Lucia or O sole mio!
After about the third encore, one member of the orchestra left. Son-in-law kept telling people it was nearly over because the 'man with the horn' had left. I did so want to tap him on the shoulder and say 'Tuba'.
Not one of these incidents in themselves was particularly obnoxious, but the behaviour of the father and the younger couple, throughout two-and-a-half hours was one of ongoing irritation and utter disregard for those sat in close proximity and casting them filthy looks. They behaved as if they were in their living room at home, when, clearly they weren't. (Bizarrely, Mother was ignored for the entirety).
You think, what would it take to make people like that understand that their actions impact on others, and to make them see that therefore they shouldn't behave in such a way? There is no direct benefit to them in controlling their poor behaviour and ill manners; they therefore would disregard all attempts to persuade them to self-discipline. Unfortunately, most of their grossness was in the second half; if they have behaved like that in the first, I would have demanded their removal, or my money back (this was, incidentally, the most expensive event ticket I have ever bought...!). They are probably the same people that park their car regardless of the fact that it will then cause two miles of bumper-to-bumper slow-moving gridlock - doesn't matter, doesn't affect them.
When I had a coughing fit the son-in-law turned round and shussed me. I would have been entirely outraged if it wasn't that the coughing fit was a direct result of suppressing a giggling fit at the start of White Christmas, IMO, one of the naffest and cheesiest, and irrelevant songs ever written. During my giggling fit I got the decided feeling that the star of the evening was looking daggers directly at me (probably not, of course, in an audience of 7000, but have you ever got that feeling?)
