‘Why I prefer Bristol to London’

I went to London at the weekend. The Big Potato itself. City of several bridges. Birthplace of Noel Edmonds and Sophie Ellis-Bextor (Save some celebrities for the rest of us, London.) I’ve lived in the south of England for most of my life but I’ve only been to the capital a handful of times. This is partly because a childhood spent playing Monopoly has caused me to forever associate the city with huge financial losses and multiple choking hazards (not a million miles from the truth), but mostly I just can’t stand how rude everyone is. I pride myself on being a polite person and I don’t want London to change that. It doesn’t take long for the LDN’s impatience to rub off on you (no time for vowels here). When I went there last year it affected me long after I returned to Bristol, culminating in a nasty incident where I tried to overtake someone on the escalator in Primark. No pair of jeans is worth that.

I think the attitude of Londoners gets to me because Bristol is so unshakably polite. Last week I approached the checkout in Lidl at the same time as another customer and we began with the customary “After you”, “No, after you.” This got us nowhere so we ramped the politeness up a notch and decided to base the decision on the number of items we each had. In the end we resorted to emptying out our baskets and counting the contents while the cashier looked on in dismay. I had fewer items but some of them (ok, most of them) were loose pastries which take longer to put through than barcoded items. Just as it looked like we might not find a fair way to pay for our food before starvation set in, another cashier came to the rescue and opened up a second till. I imagine a big part of their job is breaking politeness deadlocks. They probably have a special code for it on the PA.

I can’t imagine this happening in London, and not just because I can’t afford the pastries there. I arrived at Paddington Station during the Friday rush hour and felt like I’d entered a warzone. I fought my way to the tube and joined what I assumed was the queue to get on. As it turned out the unwritten rules of queuing didn’t apply. (Someone should really write them down properly. I’m sure the staff at Lidl would be grateful). As the train pulled up, people shoved and elbowed their way to the front, not bothering to wait for the passengers on board to get off. It was brutal. A couple were separated and a man looked on helplessly as the doors closed and his girlfriend was whisked away to lands unknown. (Or to Baker Street anyway.) Sadly he didn’t run alongside the train waving a handkerchief and shouting “Wait for me, my darling.” We live in such unromantic times.

I finally wedged myself onto the train and tried to anchor my body against one of the poles in the middle of the carriage. I brushed the arm of a smartly dressed commuter as I did so and he glared at me as if I hadn’t just brushed his arm, but had sawn it off at the elbow and put it on Ebay. He made it very clear that this was his pole and I was trespassing. I sheepishly moved my arm elsewhere. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’d just watched his entire family being whisked away on a different train and this pole was the only companionship he had left. He could draw a face on it like Tom Hanks in Castaway.

Rudeness aside, I had a brilliant time in London. I saw some old friends and had a wonderful burrito. It’s a great place to visit as long as you have an escape plan. I got back to Bristol late on Sunday night, exhausted and happy to be home. On the bus back to Easton we rounded a sharp corner and a pram, complete with baby, came loose and rolled across the aisle, crashing into an elderly man’s legs and then continuing its perilous journey down the bus. The man sprang into action, grabbing both pram and baby before any harm could come to them. The baby’s mother thanked him for his heroism. “That’s ok”, he replied, before adding “Have you got a spare cigarette?”

The whole incident felt uniquely Bristolian. I’m sure that, had there been two prams, each baby would have insisted that the other one rolled away first. The contrast between the two cities couldn’t have been clearer. On London’s public transport you can make a sworn enemy simply by leaning on the wrong pole. In Bristol we’ll save your baby and then trade it back to you for a cigarette. I’m never leaving.

Photo: Shutterstock

Read more: A very Bristolian emergency