Getting to know all about you, getting to hope you like me - Susan Morrison

Good morning

​On a visit north recently I was reminded of rule one of Small Scottish Place, which is to say ‘good morning’ or ‘hello’ when passing anyone, even people you don’t know.

It's a nice touch and one I felt we should export and thus I did resolve, dear reader, to carry this pleasant habit with me to the very next place I visited.

I was in London this week. My relentless charm offensive went about as well as you can imagine.

To address an obvious concern, yes, once more I was south of the Border. Barely bothered the place for well-nigh a decade and now I’m back more often than touring B-List Britain’s Got Talent finalist. OK, D-list.

Just a quick update for you all. Yes, London is still there, it's still full of people we don’t know and once again I am forced to conclude that somehow they are hoarding spring and summer.

I stepped off the train and immediately regretted ne’er casting a cloot till May is oot. Had to jettison the semmit. And the balaklava.

To be fair the first person I visited my self-imposed cheeriness on did smile and wished me a good morning in return. But he was the ticket guy at Kings Cross Station, and he was half way through unpicking me from the ticket gate. I’d managed to get through, but my backpack hadn’t, leaving me flailing around like an Anderson puppet with a drunk pulling the strings.

There are lots of people in London. I quickly realised that saying hello to everyone was probably a tough ask, and anyway all that smiling would just deepen my laughter lines.

My greet ‘n’ grin campaign died a death pretty quickly in the Underground, so I fell back to vaguely smiling at people, and do you know, they smiled back, if in a slightly startled way. I even tried a few drive-by smiles on the escalators, but boy, was it tiring.

Eventually I packed it in and let my face fall into small angry Scottish woman mode. Much more comfortable. And that’s when I realised, London people aren’t unfriendly, they’re just exhausted.