BBC’s new comedy show The Mash Report ran a spoof news report – a man from the North is treated like a terrorist for greeting Londoners, eventually forced to issue an apology from outside a police station for his excessive cordiality.
What goes for London goes double for the Tube . Least in the streets, a garrulous A new YouGov poll has confirmed what any seasoned public transport passenger in the capital already knew. Some 55% prefer it when people do not talk to them with only 23% willing to start a chat (presumably unreconstructed emigres from Leeds, Newcastle and suchlike).
Women are less likely to want someone to strike up a conversation with them (20%) than men (26%), while passengers over 65 are more in favour of people talking to them on the Tube (26%) than any other age category.
And those moments on the Tube can crystallise other annoyances that draw inevitable parallels with an anti-social room-mate.
Top of the teeth-grinding list is people trying to enter a carriage without giving passengers the chance to get off first. More than 90% says this practice gets their goat.
Other complaints in the top 10 include playing music out loud without using headphones, being drunk and eating smelly food.