The Business Exchange Swindon & Wiltshire Edition 44: Aug/Sept 2019 | Page 37
IS IT ME?
IS IT ME?
John Davies is a senior corporate partner at leading commercial law
firm Thrings. In each edition of TBE John addresses a topical news or
business-related issue. This time he’s discussing minding your Ps and Qs.
Thrings
@ThringsLaw
www.thrings.com
Perhaps I’m just out of step with certain
things. You tell me.
I recently returned from a city break
to Amsterdam with my wife and children
(highly recommended, by the way - great
for families). We had a fantastic couple of
days, enjoying everything the city had to offer.
However, there was an incident on our way
back which left a slightly sour taste.
We were in the bag drop queue, one of
those long snaking lines with people either
side of you. At certain points, as we shuffled
along slowly, we stood next to a group of
young women – I’m guessing they were in
their twenties and they were Brits. They’d
obviously had a hell of a weekend, but they
weren’t enjoying the queue, bless them. I
know this because I relived every moment
of their weekend with them as they spoke
loudly and proudly about it all. That’s fair
enough, but every other word was the
F-bomb: ’effing this, and ’effing that, with a
solid sprinkling of the other usual suspects.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m fluent in
this dialect – and during a particularly taxing
corporate transaction I may even go into a
solo performance worthy of the Pyramid
Stage at Glastonbury. But never, ever, in
front of children. Never, in fact, in front of
strangers, whatever their age and certainly
not in front of kids. I’ve taken mine to rugby
matches where the lingo can get a bit spicy,
but people are generally mortified when they
realise they’ve let one go in front of kids. Of
course they are, right?
I suspect I’m not alone in this but if I
think cursing is getting a bit too much for
my kids (or anyone’s kids for that matter).
I’ll normally, politely, point out that young
ears are present and request that they tone
it down a bit. And 99 per cent of the time it’s
acknowledged and that’s that.
Not in the queue at Schiphol Airport, it
seems. I mentioned to the group that there
were children, including mine, in the queue,
but on this occasion my intervention wound
them up. It turns out they can “’effing swear
if they ’effing want to”. I agreed with them
that Holland is indeed a free country, but
had to accept I couldn’t do much more
as I wasn’t about to get into any sort of
altercation.
But it got me wondering whether I should
have just stood there and said nothing as
they openly described their weekend so
colourfully. Is that where we’ve now got to as
a society?
Even worse was the fact that the queue
was full of people from other countries, most
of whom speak and understand English.
It was a wonderful little advertisement for
our country. I know, I know, the French,
Germans, Italians, Swedes and Dutch all
swear too, but not on this occasion and not in
front of kids. It was really embarrassing, and
here it comes, I wasn’t angry with them – I
was disappointed.
So there it is. Would you have done
the same? Should a middle-aged bloke
have intervened in a (very public) private
conversation? Perhaps I’m out of touch with
what’s right and wrong here.
Is it ’effing’ me?
John Davies
e: [email protected]
t: 01793 412634
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THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2019
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