Welcome to the Campaign for Civil Obedience

Join in
Email Simon and tell him your dilemmas.

Visit Simon's Blog

Simon Fanshawe can be contacted at

manners@thedonething.info

 

---

FORMAL OCCASIONS

You'll find several weddings and a few funerals in this chapter. While these pages will tell you how to turn down a proposal from a Ukranian or how the Aztecs bury their dead, much more importantly they'll calm your wedding nerves by showing you that there are only two things that really matter about weddings. The rest is just a matter of choice. And when it comes to funerals, it offers a clear practical way through the emotional turmoil of death and bereavement. Funny stories on the way of course.

PUBLIC SPACES

We hate cities. No we don't, we love them. We love them , hate them. We love their energy, their speed, their freedom. But we hate the consequences. This chapter explains just why people's manners are so bad in cites - and always have been. Plus clear instructions on how to stop the smokers, curb the arrogant drivers and throw annoying mobiles out of train windows. Chewing gum, ATMs and - did I mention them already? - mobiles.

TABLE MANNERS

When kids are tiny and they try to consume baked beans in that old tested two year old way of banging them through the top of the head we think it is cute. When they're five we tell them off because it's messy If they still are doing when they're 17 we call in the social services. Table manners are how children learn to be grown-ups.

We eat together not for the food but for the company. But the absurd rules that the etiquette police have invented just don't by and large help us in the great convivial exercise of eating with people round our table. Rather they turn what should be the most companionable and relaxed experience into a snobbery assault course that only the hardest crack class commandos can complete. So you can calm down. Eating together is about getting on with each other. I know it sounds a bit simple, but it is true. This chapter is about the beauty of convivial company, not which way to pass the port.

CONVERSATION

We tease friend mercilessly in Britain. However we are very wary of strangers. We love wit, we banter endlessly. What are the principles though of how we talk to each other? How do we argue without falling out? Do we have any idea how to apologise in Britain? We are much better at avoiding conflict than dealing with it.

This chapter has three kinds of arguments, how to start conversations, how to end them, chat rooms, sneezing and even some advice on when not to bloody swear.

WORK

Most people at work are trying hard to be nice to each other. Except when they're bloated with ambition, frantically trying to survive in the competitive environment, or just plain manipulative. From a jolly bullshit generator to a rage against WHAT the book calls chum-anagement, when your boss wants to be your friend, this chapter is a plea for honesty from bosses.

RELATIONSHIPS

In love there are rules. But you'll find only three here in this book. Don't ever hurt them physically or emotionally. Always be faithful to them. And never leave the loo seat up. Because when you're in love or you've fallen out of love or they have, you're so potty, so mad, so deranged, so completely out of control there really is very little chance of you sticking to them.

Nevertheless there are some rules for dating, loving and leaving just in case you have a sane moment when you think you might follow them.

Here's three to be getting on with:

Never dump anyone by text
Men and women are equally capable of asking each other out on a date
Don't kiss like a sink plunger