CF Tourists - is it worse ??

[WeWillLookBack]

We have just got back from a few days in Cornwall - we live in Devon, so spend a lot of time in both counties and are very used to tourists and holiday makers. We stayed in a 'pub with rooms on the beach, which was lovely. However - I am utterly gobsmacked by the level of CF we have witnessed in the 3 days. It feels like peoples entitlement is off the scale. I don't know how those in hospitality are dealing with it.

Wednesday - Woman went mental at the poor young lad serving in the beer garden - insisted she had booked a table outside. Very politely told her that they do not take reservations for the garden, just the restaurant. Screaming ' Are you calling me a liar'. He went in, and didn't come back out.

Friday AM - they serve breakfast for guests 8am-9.30am, then open for breakfast at 9.30am (lots of signs saying open at 9.30am). At 8.30am a group were outside - rattling the door. Member of staff opens the door, and lets them know they open at 9.30am. Lots of moaning - insisting they can have breakfast now etc. She says no - very polite. So he tells her it is disgusting that they allow guests to sit in the window eating when others can't ! ( and to make up for their error, they should serve them breakfast too)

Friday evening - Family of 6 rocked up - no space in the beer garden. Started shouting - so the owner came out. Man very angry - they had driven for 6 hours - and the kids needed feeding. The owner was great - polite but firm. The man actually suggested the owner walk around the beer garden and checked when people were leaving so they could secure a table. He said no. A lot of swearing. Asked to leave.

Drive home Saturday morning. Along a winding road along the coast - car in front just stops. Man gets out and stands looking at the sea. Single lane - so I cant go around him. After a few moments I beep - he stomps over to my car and says 'Can I help you' ... I say you have blocked the road - could you move please. To which he responds 'I am looking at the view - maybe you could just be kind' FFS !!!

DP's late father took us to a pizza restaurant in DP's home town up north, and at the end of the meal complained to the waiter that his pizza was burnt. He had eaten it all the same, but kept a tiny bit of burnt crust as evidence. The waiter said 'But you've eaten it, Mr S' (He was a regular!). Then the waiter said 'I'll knock it off the bill just this once'. We were all either embarrassed or trying not to laugh. We still chuckle about it now.

I also just went on holiday in Devon and didn't witness any of this type of behaviour. What i have noticed since moving back to the UK is how polite and friendly people typically are - holding open doors, letting you go first in traffic, striking up friendly conversations.

I was once packing my shopping into my car in a parking space quite a distance from the supermarket. Some people walking past saw me struggle with the trolley, helped and said they were heading to the supermarket said they would take the trolley back for me.

I have experienced so many random acts of kindness like this since being back here.

Not everyone is an arsehole.

I know this isn’t relevant to now but in the late 1970’s I worked in a London event venue, sometimes in the Bar and sometimes the Restaurant.

While some people were impatient and rude I can only remember one that would fit the ‘Entitled CF’ category and that was David Icke. This was when he was a lowly Sports Commentator and hadn’t yet attained Son Of God status.

I was serving in the salad section, customer asked for lettuce, I picked up some lettuce with tongs and put it on their plate…you get the picture. Mr Icke requested lettuce, I provided lettuce. He tipped it off his plate and back into the tray because he wanted to choose his lettuce. I offered him the tongs to choose his own lettuce but he insisted on each individual leaf being presented for inspection and he decided whether it was acceptable. This took quite a while and a big queue built up behind, it was during a break in the event so everyone was in a hurry.

When he had chosen sufficient lettuce he just walked off without even a thank you. The thing was that I could see no difference between the leaves he accepted and those rejected.

When a colleague cleared his table he showed me the plate and he hadn’t even eaten the sodding lettuce!

Exactly.

We weren't hovering closely; just nearby. One of them caught my eye and mentioned the pudding. They were really nice, about our age, they stopped to chat once we were sat down, and we still see them around. I was trying to show how nice strangers can be.

i’m told British tourists are often the favourites abroad. Most polite and friendly. In all honesty having come back from overseas recently and encountering a lot of French tourists I can see why they say it. We gave up smiling at them because they’d just cut you dead. The worst was a man who barged into a disabled person in our party because he didn’t move out of his way quickly enough. I felt like punching him!

In fairness to the North Wales communities, the 'incomers' who move there, live and work there are welcome. The people who buy up the relatively cheap housing for 'holiday lets' and 'investments' are not. I don't see why they should be welcomed there either, they're isolating themselves and stopping potential residents from moving there.

I live in South Wales, I don't believe there's the same issue here. West Wales and North Wales are outstandingly beautiful.

We live in Cornwall and are lucky enough to have a large garden which is accessed either by steps from the side of our house or by a garden gate which is off a public footpath. I regularly find people having a picnic in our garden, kids playing on my kids swings during the summer holiday even though there is a private sign on the gate. I don't understand the sense of entitlement. Ive now put a lock on our hot tub as i'm pretty sure I'll come back one day to find people in it!

Do you need wellies for the NC500?

I must be lucky then. I was on a TGV from G de Lyon to Marseille and had a lovely chat with an elderly lady from Avranches who thought I was Belgian.

Yes! I've seen people leaning on doors to shops and businesses on the Royal Mile, watching the street theatre, completely oblivious to other people trying to leave or enter the premises. How can people be so utterly oblivious and ignorant!

Having been stuck on the A303 countless times because people are stopping to photograph Stonehenge I completely believe it.

Most of my local bus drivers will refuse to set off until the offender has moved.

Maybe you could just be kind

The be kind movement has a hell of a lot to answer for

It's all a bit 'get off my land'

Since the uptake of social media, UK society has become more entitled and thoroughly coarse.
It's just awful that folk don't think before they speak, and just as tho their thoughts are in shorthand, rapid response, straight from the hip, speech at a fast pace, without forethought.
It's a very selfish, rude society we have become, lacking respect for anything and everyone.
And children learn from adults so I only see it getting worse unless we start controlling ourselves and teaching them respect.
Perhaps also the outcome of an overcrowded island.😢

It’s ‘main character syndrome’. As far as some people are concerned they are the main character in the world and everyone else’s needs or wants is immaterial. Listening to music at full volume wherever they are is an example.

I have a French friend who I met on a train in Japan, where we were both living. He started speaking to me in French as he thought I looked French - when I replied (also in French) he decided I was Belgian .

We are still in touch 30 years later.

He was very French in some ways though - if we went to tourist attractions, and they had leaflets in Japanese and English, he'd demand the Japanese one rather than the English one even though he couldn't read a word of it .

To the people saying that people from other countries are rude too: Yes, buuut .... whenever I have heard about someone entering a private garden/field/house/terrace/ playground anywhere in the world the intruders have always been from an Anglo Saxon country.

A tourist stopped me a whole ago and asked if I could take his photo outside an attraction. Showed me the zoom etc and I took a few photos. I gave him back the camera and he then said he'd like to check them. He then declared they weren't good enough and that he wanted more of the attraction in the photo and told me, not asked me to take the photo again. He was handed back his camera very quickly at this point.

Yes, the attitude was “and why wouldn’t you want to give my cherubs whatever they desire? How very dare you not delight in being allowed to indulge them!”. It was almost like she thought she was doing me some sort of favour. Most bizarre!

I'm enjoying the wellies debate. I assume the tourist attraction gets enough business with its current footwear policy, from people who either live locally and have wellies, people who saw it before travelling and brought wellies or people who arrived on holiday with wellies then found out about it. I imagine if business suffers they will reconsider selling or hiring out wellies.

Many many people living in places like Devon and Cornwall don’t get a single penny from the tourist industry.
I grew up in the West Country and I don’t know one single person who makes any money at all from tourism.

"I can see you'd advise wellies but why compulsory when it's so unlikely that people would have them with them?"
Because they'll blame you if their feet get wet?

What is wrong with ‘get off my land’? Wouldn’t you be pissed off if people were on your drive or in your garden?