Simon Fanshawe Blog

Good manners have become unfashionable. It’s thought authoritarian to point out that someone’s behaviour is bad, that there is a right and a wrong way to do things. Being called judgmental is an accusation. There were good reasons for this. Many of us used to be judged by who we were, not how we behaved.

But in the last century, we saw an explosion of personal freedom, which enriched our lives beyond measure. However, we have come to value individual freedom far above the collective good. As a result, we are in danger of having no manners at all.

The editor of the new Lonely Planet guide to London has warned visitors to be prepared to have their sensitivities assaulted. We’re all swearing like troopers. We’re dumbstruck without the F-word, she says. And she’s right. Swearing in public is definitely on the increase. There are few people now who, when dropping a frozen chicken on their big toe, could satisfy themselves with my late mother’s restrained, “Oh, blast.” Or George Bush’s preferred, “Aw, heck.”

How do you chew?

A finger-licking, record-breaking 1,671 people complained about a KFC advert that showed women in a call centre eating with their mouths open. It’s the highest number of complaints ever received by the Advertising Standards Authority and, yippee, it’s not about sex or violence, but about manners. The vast majority of the people who contacted the ASA were, according to the judgment it issued this week, “parents who were trying to teach their children good manners and thought the commercial undermined their efforts”. The ASA disagreed, however, and decided it was a bit of fun.

No stranger to civic duty, Simon Fanshawe often steps in to chair his local groups of activists. Here, he explains why, despite bouts of doubt and eczema, he just just can’t leave things to those in charge

There are moments when I wonder whether I am just a Lady Bountiful without a stately pile. Sometimes I think that, in a previous life, I must have been a duchess. Which makes me laugh and want to wear gloves. Indoors. I always seem to be on some committee or other. My friend Jonathan calls it “being busy”. And he doesn’t mean it as a compliment. He thinks it’s interfering.
I do wonder why I do it. Sitting on boards, wearing hats, doing my bit. Chairing things such as the Economic Partnership in Brighton and Hove (now), War on Want (in the 1980s) or joining the Regional Arts Council (most recently). Maybe I am just a terrible, self-important busybody. Am I struck by middle-class guilt? Am I trying to satisfy a deep psychological weakness for needing to be useful and wanted?