20 March, 2008

Show some respect

As you may have noticed, several things annoy me. ;)
A persistant source of irritation is the behavior of Brits in public – as Jeremy Paxman has noted, there's an attitude that public spaces belong to no-one, so each individual can do whatever he or she wants without consideration of others.

I'm particularly aware of this abroad, where I've frequently felt ashamed to be associated with boorish Brits – I've preferred to speak (fragmentary) German to H. whilst in Prague or Madrid rather than reveal my nationality to locals. It was particularly bad in Prague, where the only raised voices, without exception, were English. In Paris this past weekend, we encountered a striking number of small children in public, but the only ones running around unchecked were shrieking in English.

And it's not only 18-25 stag/hen groups or irresponsible parents, either – the BBC reports that over-55s are becoming a problem, too.