Diegetics

A post on the importance of courtesy from a New Yorker - I'm impressed. Mark you, that is one place where public manners have improved. from a very low base. I remember asking a policeman for directions on a recent visit, and got a civil and helpful answer, a decade before it would have been "Buy a map, dad". Generally though, Americans are very polite, if in a rather folksy way.

yeah, manners are nice, but can be used to keep people at a distance - and icy politeness can be much more effective if you are angry than shouting at people. In those circumstances give me friendly tactless blunt any time.

Giving up seats on trains and buses used to be easy, one did it for "ladies". Now it's for old people and the infirm of either sex, and pregnant women, which is fine except that the older men are too proud to accept - and the women you thought were pregnant are often just obese, and thus offended by the gesture. Heigh ho.

For many years anyone trying to cross a street in Lisbon, at a pedestrian crossing, would be risking his/her life. In spite of the fact that pedestrians had a legal right of way on such crossings. Maybe because of that, and although 99% of drivers now stop for pedestrians on crossings, pedestrians usually gesture their thanks to stopping drivers. If this lasts a few more years I will have to believe that my fellow countrymen are unusually polite and aren't just grateful they get to the other side of the road still standing...

yes, the 80s rather than the 90s. You missed the psycho phase, Tinker, when it really was Gotham.

I am unfailingly polite until someone becomes rude . Then, it's a race to the bottom , and I'm carrying the anvil .