I haven't seen one person lose it since I've been in England. And by "lose it" I mean what we all see from time to time in the U.S.: someone in a checkout line yells at the cashier, two drivers jaw through open windows at a stoplight, a parent screams at her child on the subway, someone angrily asks to see the restaurant's manager, a friend shouts at their insurance company over the phone. About 75% of everyone in the DMV is in some state of losing it.
Nothing like that ever happens here. Politeness reigns. If you bump into someone and it's clearly your fault, they'll say "I'm sorry." You know how in most places if you get on the bus and you don't quite know the procedure--do I give the driver the money, do I put it in this machine, do use this pass that might have only half the fare, etc.--you can feel driver barely contain his grousing, and anyone behind you will start their eye rolling or bellyaching or outright complaining. Not here. You can get on a bus, ask the driver 10 questions about where you're trying to go, count out your change like a foreigner, and the driver will pleasantly say thank you, and all the while the ten people behind waited patiently without a bit of resentment. I've seen 20 high school kids get off a public bus and, unprompted, every single one said thank you to the driver. In other countries there's always some kind of menace just around the corner: some guy will want to beat you up at the bar for no reason, a traffic cop will get outraged you're not turning fast enough, someone will bowl you over to get on the crowded train. I remember flying into Boston a few months ago, getting on the Red Line, and looking at a guy for one second too long. He screamed "What the fuck you looking at!?" That's the welcoming committee in Boston.
Never, ever any such thing in England. Go anywhere, ask a question of anyone, and you'll find nothing but cordiality. It's quite a relief.
Though there's a flipside to this politeness. The English may always treat you with geniality, but they'll never invite you anywhere. And this is the most striking difference between the U.K. and my years in Ecuador and Tanzania. In those 3rd world countries, by the time you catch a bus from the airport to your hotel, you'll have five or six invitations to someone's house. In Tanzania you call complete strangers your brother, sister, mother, father, son, or daughter upon first meeting. The whole country is your family when you land. In England? Not so. I talked to a Polish woman who moved to Sheffield two years ago, and she said she barely has one English friend. Anthropologist Kate Fox says it's typical for the English to hustle home, "pull up the drawbridge," and stay inside. Neighbors barely know each other. Your high school mates are your small circle of friends into adulthood. Fox makes a distinction between negative politeness and positive politeness: positive politeness is when you go out of your way and take action to help someone. But with negative politeness, "negative" isn't pejorative--it just means you're polite by not intruding upon anyone, by respecting their space and their privacy. It's the politeness of leaving someone alone.
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