Pet peeve: forward facing seats on buses are made so that two people can share them. Well, they can if the first person to sit there will let someone else sit with them. But a lot of the time I see that someone will grab the aisle seat and make sure no one else can sit by the window. When the bus gets full, this becomes a pretty heavy aggravation.
I thought it might just be an American problem, but I've heard people say that riders on the Paris Metro can be even worse.
I thought it might just be an American problem, but I've heard people say that riders on the Paris Metro can be even worse.
2 comments:
I've noticed with some interest how people tend to arrange themselves on public transportation. If the bus is empty they will choose a favored seat anywhere. As more passengers get on only those already with someone else will find a seat to share - otherwise they space themselves out and if they're carrying a bag or parcel that will be placed next to them. Usually people won't sit next to strangers until there are few empty spaces and then there's a bit of subtle checking to make sure the prospective seatmate doesn't look threatening. Bags and parcels are then held on laps. Anyone absolutely ignoring someone who needs a seat when there is a space available next to them is so rude they might actually be looking for trouble - which is likely the reason they don't always get confronted about their behaviour.
I came across this very cool lecture about cunieform writing by Irving Finkel, a curator at the British Museum. Hopefully you'll enjoy it too and if you do there's another he made a few years ago about how he found 1800 year old instructions for building the ark.. and then arranged for it to be built.
Hope all is well.
If I'm carrying something on public transportation I'll do my best to carry it with me and still fit on one seat. The only exceptions are when I'm carrying a laundry bag, which actually is about the size of another person, or multiple grocery bags, but lately I haven't tended to have more than two with me. I'm sure in some spots there are people actively looking for trouble. Most of the time it strikes me more as thoughtlessness, or at least a very limited kind of thinking. And to be clear I'm not talking about handicapped or morbidly obese people.
Dr. Finkel is a magnificent public speaker, funny and engaging. I like his pointing out that the clay tablets will outlast all the paper they have in the library, everything written on computers, etc. And building the arc that's...wow. Cuneiform is fascinating because it is, as far as we can tell, the first successful attempt at a widely used written language. Where'd it come from? I have read elsewhere the theories about Mesopotamian characters being abstracted from seals of goods up for sale. Does tie in with other developments that happened around the same time.
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