Opinion tolerance of difference london v athlone

LONDON. Now, there’s a brilliant place. Where anything goes, it seems, and where nobody influences you like you influence yourself.
It’s not the most perfect place on earth and has its problems, including welfare dependency, poor urban environments, and an education system that lags behind many others.
But on a recent trip there, London caught my eye in a way many other cities have not managed.
It was hard not to notice, I thought, the disparity between its inhabitants and the Irish, particularly in the way we treat other people.
As despite Ireland’s standing as one of the world’s most welcoming and friendly places, I am beginning to think there’s something rather mythical about this status.
For me, and many people will disagree, Ireland is not very welcoming. And I would say the majority of Irish people, and men, in particular, struggle, in a very illiberal way, to embrace anyone that reaches above the parapet to show, for example, a unique sense of appearance.
The Irish, as much as any other race, can be intolerant of those that are unlike them, and this rather parochial attitude became really clear during my recent sojourn in London.
Can I support my point?
Well, for example, I was sitting outside a restaurant, just off Piccadilly Circus, with a bit of time to kill. Watching people, I suppose. It’s more interesting than looking at my shoes.
Something 'unusual’ caught my eye. And I say 'unusual’ with tongue firmly ensconced in cheek.
It was a simple thing. As a large number of pedestrians breezed by, more often in a hurry to get where they were going, one man, probably in his late twenties, read a book while walking the street.
Imagine doing that?
For it’s my opinion, that if a person, let’s say, did this in any midland town in Ireland, they would be on the end of some very strange looks. Maybe even a few barbed comments. Sure, that’s freakish behaviour, isn’t it?
If you produce a book on a bus here, half the passengers look at you as if you pulled a pig’s head out your bag.
Then there’s London’s famous Underground system, the Tube, where people hare from place to place, in jig-time, and usually in a great big hurry.
In Ireland, I imagine, this sort of situation would lead to mass panic. To bumping, falling and probably fighting.
In London, there is a system that allows the hurrying masses to be separated from those with nowhere to go. Those like me, in London for a break, and with nowhere in particular to be.
So, in the Tube, I stand on the right side on the escalator. The panicked, the ones getting to work on time, or rushing to collect kids from school, operate at a more frantic pace, to the left. It’s hardly rocket-science or revolutionary, but it works.
On a night out, in preparation for a concert in the impressive Hammersmith Apollo arena, I took in two drinks at a nearby hostelry, the William Morris, on King Street.
I went to the bathroom - and I only include this because it’s impossible to tell the story otherwise - and low and behold, there was a guy, totally oblivious to his surroundings and those around, having a shave. Again, you have to wonder what the reaction would be if someone attempted same in a local pub? They would be ridiculed something shocking on their exit from the bathroom, that’s for sure, and probably not live it down for a long time.
These are only little tit-bits, tiny observations, from my brief stay in London, but they most definitely reinforced my feeling that Irish people, generally, are reluctant to accept anything other than the so-called norm.
That’s a real pity, because we should embrace different cultures, different dress, different opinions and ideas. In some ways, the upcoming Marriage Referendum, to be held on May 22, will be a further and more significant examination of the Irish people and their openness to all.
On a slightly different note - but not completely disassociated - I would admit to being one of the most clumsy people you can meet.
Now, we have all experienced the run-of-the-mill game of cat and mouse on the footpath with strangers. The ones where you both go the same way, sometimes more than once, and end up making awkward bodily contact of some sort. For some strange reason, we then giggle together, and sometimes throw our eyes to the sky, as if to say 'Sure, I’m a big eejit’.
But is there any excuse for just standing in front of people in shops and in the street?
Some people, it seems, have simply no sense of self-awareness, or about whether they might be, or could potentially, if they don’t move out of the way, be in someone’s path.
Recently, I was in an Athlone shopping centre and in the space of 20 minutes, I counted (I know, I am extremely sad) five people who either stood in my way, or nonchalantly sauntered into my immediate path, as if I didn’t exist.
I don’t expect people to notice me. In fact, I would rather they didn’t. But what is wrong with people that they cannot portray basic courtesy when in public?
What is wrong with people? Or wait, maybe getting bothered by such things, which seem to be accepted by most, raises the real point, which is 'what is wrong with me’?