Why being nice….isn’t nice.

Regardless of the childhood crap that I’ve waxed lyrically about on this blog many times, one overriding belief in the UK and England especially, is that we should all be “nice” and that being “nice” will result in everybody else being “nice” in return. If they are not “nice” in response to us being “nice”…well then obviously we weren’t “nice ENOUGH” to them.

I don’t mean a Dalai Llama, Louise L Hay, Gandhi-esque type of “nice” where spirituality and genuine concern for our fellow men moves us to be thoroughly wonderful people. I’m talking about that twatty “nice-ness” that results in nothing getting achieved, the bad guys usually winning and pride getting stamped all over.

We are the only country in the world that has a completely unarmed police force. Even New Zealand cops, who don’t carry a pistol on their hip, have access to a firearm in the car. Here in the UK, in order to be “nice” and not offend the public we have “nice” coppers who only carry pepper spray and a baton (and are told in training to feel guilty about thinking about using them). In the first episode of that God-awful shit Twilight, Bella is given a big, fuck-off tin of pepper spray by her sheriff dad after being set upon by a gang of drunk yobs (yes the same ones Edward got out of his “nice” sensible car and GLARED at). A 17 year old girl gets this in the USA whereas in the UK it’s classed as a firearm and can only be issued to authorised persons.

You see in the UK we are so “nice” that our cops have to feel guilty about using force. Our criminals are also “nicer” than the nasty ones you get in other countries. Our cops aren’t armed because they don’t need to be. Our “nice” criminals won’t really hurt a policeman/ woman unless they are one of the rare “nasty” ones that occasionally shoot and chuck grenades at unarmed cops or blast them in the face when they’re parked up having lunch (single crewed and “nicely” unarmed).

Similarly if someone breaks into your house in the middle of the night and tries to burgle you, you are required to be “nice” when kicking fuck out of them. Despite the Coalition Government’s recent attempts to reassure people that they won’t get prosecuted for using lethal force on trespassers in situations such as midnight burglary...you still have to be as “nice” as you can when bludgeoning someone in a panic because you caught them in your 4 year old daughter’s bedroom at 1am holding a crowbar. Going mental and stabbing the burglar 47 times will result in you facing a manslaughter charge, because let’s face it…that wasn’t very “nice.”

One piece of amateur footage that always makes me wince is the Machete Hulk video taken in London about 18 months ago. A huge, towering monstrosity of a man, clearly off his meds and lacking an IQ in double figures, is going at cops with a machete. He’s not pissing about, is clearly intent on harming someone and only their strategic bravery and a lot of luck stopped this from being a very messy and potentially fatal incident. Not having guns or access to one, they used pepper spray (bloke couldn’t feel it) and baton strikes (had no effect). They eventually used wheelie bins and tactical withdrawals until back up arrived and the sheer weight of numbers overwhelmed the guy. It was all dealt with very “nicely” and without loss of life. A friend of mine who’s a Sheriff’s deputy in Texas said “I’d have shot him after the second warning to drop the blade was ignored.”

I couldn’t help thinking how this wasn’t very “nice.”

I grew up being told that “niceness” was the way forward in this world. While that works on people who have a basic core of ethics or morality it won’t work on the stupid, the badly educated, the very angry or bullies.

My mother once told me when I was about 11 that if a “grown up” pushed in the queue I shouldn’t shout “you fucking rude twat!” but instead say as sarcastically as possible “oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you were in such a hurry!”

This was apparently the Atomic bomb of “nice” retribution. End result = they still got served before me and probably had no memory of what I’d said from about a minute after I’d said it.

When being bullied at school, pupils were told (at least in the 70s and 80s) to be “nice” about the whole thing and tell a teacher. Anyone caught fighting would be sternly told “two wrongs don’t make a right” by lazy, insipid teachers who should have been set on fire. It didn’t matter who’d started it, if you stopped being “nice” and lashed out, then you would be righteously (yet still “nicely”) punished.

Some time ago there was an incident in a cinema where a bunch of chavs were kicking up a din during a screening of Harry Potter. A woman with her children asked them to be quiet. After the film they followed her to TGI Friday’s and threw bleach over her head. While she was “nice” they were nothing but cunts. Bloke that threw the bleach was arrested, but didn’t get a custodial sentence.

The reason we have SO much trouble with travellers in the UK is the enforced tolerance and “niceness” we have been obliged to adopt. A recent documentary show “999 What’s Your Emergency” had a bunch of travellers set fire to a big pile of wood on some grassland in the middle of a housing estate. When the fire brigade turned up, the nominated leader of the clan made it quite clear that violence would result if they tried to put it out as it was for a wake for his dead mother and it was “part of our culture.” Fact they clearly didn’t give a fuck about the people scared at the sight of the fire was not on their radar. While the Watch Commander spoke to the old boy, two of his biggest sons stood well within personal space glaring at him. The WC eventually snapped “right, you two back off right now and stop trying to intimidate me!” The old boy feigned ignorance and said irritably “there’s no need to be so aggressive they’re not trying to intimidate you!”…even though the two rancid cunts quite blatantly were doing exactly that.

The Watch Commander didn’t have the resources to put the fire out so called the police. They sent one officer (a 5 feet 3 inch female with an arse like a pear) who the travellers simply laughed at, so they had to default to “nice” and allow it to simply burn out. At this point the old boy was putting his arm around the Watch Commander and calling him “mate” as the bullying, disrespectful twat had got what he wanted.

The police and fire brigade had to be “nice” even if no one else was. In this case “nice” was the only option as “not nice” wouldn’t have worked.

For those working in social care or the local Jobcentre Plus, it’s much the same. The “security” guards on the doors and floors of the local dole office aren’t actually “security guard”. Oh good heavens no! They are in fact Customer Service Assistants and are specifically told not to use any physical force unless it’s in self defence. So if a Jeremy Kyle fan is kicking off and throwing windmill punches due to his “wages” being late, they have to be “nice” and try to “verbally persuade” the little bastard to leave. If he won’t then they call the police. A year ago a guy belted and kicked one of the Jobcentre advisors, who then pushed him way. A week later some cunt in an office nowhere near the Jobcentre said that they couldn’t ban the little bastard as, in their opinion, the advisor hadn’t been very “nice” when he’d pushed him away and was to blame.

A recent sickening case in social care had a group of teenagers taken to a park for the day by the staff running their sheltered housing. While there, two of them caught a load of ducklings and pulled their heads off one at a time. When a member of staff described them as animals his supervisor berated him for his terminology and told him not to be so “judgmental.” You see, while decapitating defenceless birds isn’t “nice” it’s also not “nice” to call someone names for doing it.

I have now begun working on the principle of “I’ll be nice as long as you are.” This is very simple and works like this:

I’m “nice”. If you’re “nice” then I stay “nice.” If you act like a cunt I stop being “nice.”

I’ll leave you with this example from a recent visit to Warwick Castle.

(I approach the ticket office and a young woman smiles at me from behind the glass).

Me: “Hi there, just wondering why the prices have shot up so much recently. It’s quite a lot now.”

Cashier: (smiling) “Yes we changed owners, it’s not Madame Tussauds any more.”

Me: “Ah right, ok do you have a list of prices.”

(She starts to tell me about the different tickets but I can’t hear her because at the next window is a middle aged guy and his wife. Both look respectably dressed and totally un-chavvy BUT the bloke is yelling at his cashier, drowning out my conversation).

Bloke: “I bought this last week from someone in Birmingham in a sweater like you’re wearing. Doesn’t bode well for Warwick Castle does it?!!”

His Cashier: “As I’ve told you before sir, this is my own personal jumper and not a uniform!”

Me: “Excuse me mate!”

Bloke (head twitches but he ignores me): “HARDLY GOOD FOR WARWICK CASTLE IS IT?!! WASTE OF MY BLOODY TIME!”

Me: “Excuse me mate!”

Bloke: “What?!!”

Me: “Could you speak a little more quietly please? I can’t hear what she’s saying. I’m not being rude or anything.”

Bloke’s Wife (smirking): “Yes you are actually. This is a private conversation!”

Me: “No it’s not because we can all hear you. Like I said I can’t hear what she’s saying.” (I hold my hand up, palms out, in a conciliatory gesture). “Let’s all talk a little more quietly yeah?”

(I continue talking to the cashier. A couple of minutes later the bloke walks away, leans over as he passes me and snaps “FUCK OFF!”) then walks on.

Me: “You fuck off!”

(Bloke stops and stares at me, well out of fist range with his wife behind him).

Me: “You really are an ignorant prick!!!”

Bloke’s Wife (in a false giggle): “Actually you’re the one who’s an ignorant prick!”

(Bloke stares at me and his body language is all macho bravado and sneering).

Me: “Come on then, you fat little bastard!”

(Bloke and his wife turn and walk away).

Me: “YOU COUPLE OF FUCKING TWATS!!!”

(I turn back to the cashier)

Me: “Apart from that last bit, was I even remotely rude to that cunt?”

Cashier (laughing): “No, not at all”.

(Other cashier comes round and stand behind the woman. He nods at me and smiles).

Other Cashier: “Thanks for that mate. Could have done with you about 5 minutes ago when he was effing and blinding at me. Called Security but I think they got lost.”

Me: “Why didn’t you just ignore him or tell him where to go?!!”

Other Cashier (sighing): “Not allowed to I’m afraid. Have to be “nice” to customers, no matter what they say to us.”

  

I'll leave the last word to Blondie with their song "Good Boys" (who apparently "never win." Who'da thought it?!!)