confirmed un-phlegmatic

There are days when this city is positively unlikeable, like today. These sort of days make me long for home and ask myself what is wrong with people? Or is there something wrong with me, you know, hormonal imbalances and the rest of it? I think it's both.

1. Bus drivers

I think I should dedicate a single entry to talking about bus stuff, seeing how often I take the bus nowadays and how confident I am that the randomness of events encountered on these bright red things will never cease to schock me.

BUT, today I had the horrid experience AGAIN of having the bus driver stop and refuse to drive the bus because of passengers. UGH. As far as I could make out:
someone was drinking alcohol aboard, refused to get off when asked to, started shouting at driver, driver says no get off, lady passenger no. 2 says he's stopped drinking just drive, driver refuses, passenger no.2 turns out to be not such a lady, and starts hurling the F and other words liberally at driver, who decides to voice his frustration over the PA system, "ladies and gentlemen now there are not one but two passengers on this bus arguing with me and I cannot drive till the station captain arrives""This bus will not move and I can and shall call the police".

I could not believe my ears!

Let me say first, this has happened before! And the last time it did, the stubborn driver, as a matter of principle, turned off the lights and shut the doors, and the busload of innocent bystanders to a ridiculous situation had to demand to be let out of the bus to catch another. The police actually DID arrive to talk to the offending passenger who, as a matter of principle, would not get off the bus to buy a ticket because he deemed his oyster card valid when it was not.

Both incidents happened at rush-hour, and what I do not understand is why both times, neither party felt the tiniest bit ashamed at having caused such inconvenience to all the other people squashed in that bus with all their stubborn shouting.

Thoroughly sickened by the whole thing, I could not possibly have waited for the bus and watch the police arrive and all the rest of the pointless commotion, and so decided walk the rest of the three or four bus stops home in the cold with my bags of groceries feeling quite miserable.

2. Bad customer service

It wouldn't have been as annoying if not for the fact that I had been snubbed earlier in the afternoon by the most unpleasant woman at hsbc. Entirely unhelpful, totally disinterested, downright rude, zero professionalism, shockingly slovenly...I could go on! It can't be that she had a bad day or something either because she's been consistently unpleasant each time I've been to the bank this year, and hey isn't it her JOB to be nice? Plus, not as if I wasn't more pleasant than I needed to be!

But I shall stop ranting because of the very friendly, efficient, willing-to-help lady at the russell square branch shujun accompanied me to after the horrid first woman. I feel like writing in to commend her simply because I'd rather commend than complain, and because I don't know the name of the unpleasant woman and have no wish to risk further irritation just to find out her name.

Anyway, I now agree wholeheartedly with my flatmate on how bad customer service (yes with the agents, with the phone companies etcetc) acts like a negative multiplier on the horrid feeling of being in a foreign city.

Ok, I know I still like this city and there're still a million and one reasons why.. it just doesn't feel much like "lovely" now. Walking along both crowded streets and deserted ones, it struck me that it doesn't feel much like christmas either.