Over at Comment Central, Daniel Finkelstein is asking folks what impolite behaviour really gets under their skin in an attempt to draw up a definitive list. He starts us off with David Aaronvitch’s ten suggestions in The Times this morning and adds in a few of his own: people who bellow on their mobiles, make speeches when called on to ask a question, put you on email lists without asking and joke about other people’s weight.
I’ll definitely second Daniel on the motion of people who fail to obey the chair’s injunction to ask a question–not speechify–at meetings and add in my current bug bears: people who try and get into a Tube carriage while others are still trying to leave and London cab drivers who ask you where you are going before picking you up.
I must confess, though, that I am in breach of one, or maybe that should be at least one, of Aaronvitch’s commandments: I regularly leave my paper behind on the Tube. My justification for this is that it is not really littering as someone else might want to read it after I’m done; it is a kind of elementary recycling.
So, what gets on your nerves? Let us know in the comments and email commentcentral@thetimes.co.uk with your gripes.
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