As Christmas messages go it's a depressing one, but the more I watch people in action the more I think the shouty and the flashy are elbowing aside the polite and the considered.
No surprises that being pushy sometimes gets people places, but it's the lack of awareness about the displaced that's bothering me. Me, me, me, selfie.
In the last few days I've been shoulder-charged by some uncouth youth who couldn't wait to get to the bar, joined a growing queue in a cafe while some food bore endlessly interrogated the counter staff, and seen a local lad nearly miss his bus when a speeding driver sailed past the stop.
What these three incidents had in common was a total absence of any remorse from the offenders. No wonder, when the standard craven public apology now begins: "I apologise if I have offended anyone ..."
The social situations I witnessed were saved by how they were handled by those around them. Passengers asked the driver to stop, which he reluctantly did, allowing a sprinting passenger to make the last bus. The harried cafe worker very discreetly rolled her eyes and told her patient customers she was sorry to have kept them waiting. We smiled in sympathy, but not half as much as I grinned upon walking past Ms Pure Eater to hear her husband say, "Why didn't you get me a pie?"
