The Big Smoke

Jesus had an annoying habit. The bible is full of examples of how he artfully managed to revert the onus of a moral question squarely back onto the shoulders of the inquisitor.

‘Should I pay my taxes to Caesar Lord?’ ‘Probably, but not at the expense of God.’ ‘But…’ ‘Hush child – Eastenders is on,’ might as well have been the answer. A bearded archetype of modern politics.

I’m reminded of this because of a question I asked my friend recently, born out of a recent incident on the Tube. His answer was typically Christ-like: ‘You should offer your seat to whomever you see fit’.

Fine then: pregnant women, the elderly, the disabled and the infirmed are undoubtedly worthy of my seat. But, as I discovered last week, outside the parameters of this neat prairie of etiquette lies a quagmire.

Nabbing the last seat, I’d happily joined the smugly seated on the Central Line. Last to join us was a morbidly obese man clearly in some physical distress at having run for the train. United by a natural sense of concern – and that most biblical of imperatives, guilt – we, the seated, froze; eyeing the man, then each other.

Buy nobody offered. It seemed this miserable jury of commuters had decided this: the man’s physical state was his own doing. He'd strayed from the righteous path of exercise and healthy living and partied hard under the golden arches of Ronald McDonald. He’d had his cake – and probably yours too – and eaten it.

Us blithe gym members weren’t going to suffer as a result. We had a favourite smoothie bar, ate sub-acid fruits and knew the nutritional value of a Nicoise salad to the nearest decimal point.

Utterly selfish. But here’s what makes it worse: if it was a female, I wouldn’t dare offer. Imagine: ‘Hello lady, I can’t help but notice you’re fiercely rotund – have my seat’. It would be hugely embarrassing for both of us.

Manners here seem counter productive, they trump my humanistic urge to help out. I think London needs a convention for this.