Whatever happened to the war on bad manners? Lost after the first skirmish? Oh! We get it. Like everything else it was just another campaign which has lost its verve. Meanwhile, loutish behaviour, which was waiting just behind the curtains, has taken centre stage again.
If ever there was a need for a revival of anything it’s for the good manners campaign, but this time it will need stronger enforcement. The evidence of the need for it is everywhere.
If your foot is not on the accelerator pedal the second before the traffic lights’ green arrows appear, there’s an ill-mannered yob in the vehicle behind you tooting (especially if it’s a minibus). He cares not that if you had moved you would most certainly have crashed into his brother speeding through the red lights at the intersection. And though you must crawl along with one foot on the brake while on a minibus route because one or more of them is sure to suddenly dash out in front of you or stop to pick up a passenger, the ones behind you will toot or give you dirty looks and even dirtier words. And that’s not even half of the uncouthness on the roads.
At the National Cultural Centre recently on at least two occasions we observed that the management had opted not to play the “manners maketh man” jingle. In addition, the dry announcement that droned on about the theatre’s dress code and what was allowed and what wasn’t, was also absent. Perhaps the tape recordings have been damaged. Or perhaps the campaign really has ended. It would be a pity because as annoying as they were, we believed those helped.
Here’s what we noticed in the absence of those public service messages: as the intermission ended and patrons wended their way back to their seats, an usher had to stop a group of young women from entering the theatre with soft drinks. We can’t believe that there are still people who do not know that food and drink are not allowed beyond the foyer. So we have to surmise that they assumed, because they were not told otherwise, that the standard had dropped and they could take their refreshments in.
Then there were the cameras, moving and still. Patrons were videoing the performances and taking pictures! And even though at one point the host specifically asked those doing so to desist, no one listened. She threatened that the ushers would ask the aspiring paparazzi to leave the theatre, but they either knew that was an empty threat (it never materialized) or were as fearless as their counterparts in Hollywood.
Then there were the phones. We recognize the necessity of having cellular phones, having been in tight spots on a few occasions. But we firmly believe that their rightful use is for emergencies. We might be alone in that belief as we saw many, too many, cell phones being flaunted like fashion accessories.
Throughout the shows cell phones rang, buzzed and lit up. Through it all people texted and talked – and some of it was the most mundane chatter we have ever heard!
To our complete annoyance, at one performance a young man sat right next to us with his phone constantly and irritatingly lighting up in the dark theatre during the performance as he sent and received text messages. Not only was it a distraction, but we’re sure the sharp glare from the phone was what gave us the headache we went home with that night. It was either that or the fact that we were forced to repress our urge to, in an ill-mannered way, strangle him. (thescene@stabroeknews.com)
