The Times of course puts a negative spin on it, but I think London landing roughly middle in a survey of civility in cities isn’t too bad. In a big, very diverse city, with lots of different cultures, people may not always have the language skills, or the confidence, to fulfil the little civilities – shop assistants saying “thank you”, people holding doors open – that Readers Digest was looking for.

New York came top, which did make me wonder how much the commercial “have a nice day” culture had influenced the results.

What is unsurprising is that Asian cities are clustered at the bottom. As someone who arrived in London with a sigh of relief after the incivilities of Bangkok (sharpen your elbows before trying to board a peak-hour bus). What is generally true of Asia is that you owe a stranger absolutely nothing, not the slightest courtesy. Which doesn’t make for very nice cities.

And of course part of this is cultural – saying “thank you” is not usually, after all, very meaningful. I remember all of the odd looks I got travelling in China by saying it (in, roughly, Chinese) to waitresses who brought the food and similar. That is just a weird thing to do. (I read somewhere that in ideological times it was considered un-PC, unCommunist, in some way demeaning of a worker’s labour.)

Over on Blogcritics is posted my Thoughts on the Brazil-Australia game, combined with a little reminiscing about my sporting past.

I promise I won’t do it too often.

From this week’s Camden New Journal: “A-list versus B-list in battle of the celebrity-haunt pub”.

The pub might indeed be the haunt of celebrities, but it is not a phrase that turns around very well. Chris Evans in a white sheet anyone? (Not a bad idea, come to think of it.)

Playing with the Oxford reference collection, it came up with this quotation from Tennyson, however, which does seem appropriate:

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

(From “The Brook” 1855)

Sometimes you just read something – something practical, potentially lifesaving, and think “everyone should know that”. Here’s today’s such reading:

If a large artery is severed by a stabbing in the groin or upper thigh, the torrent of blood released under pressure will be obvious externally. It is simple to staunch the haemorrhage by applying very firm pressure just above the injury: the victim must first be pulled out flat; then, kneeling on the same side as the injury, the first-aider uses a clenched fist to apply very firm pressure just above the wound and on a line between it and the belly button.

A second fist, applied to the abdomen just below the belly button, pushing the belly wall hard against the spine, can also be used if the bleeding seems unabated. This action compresses the main artery to the lower body and both legs. A tourniquet or bandage cannot achieve sufficient direct pressure to control bleeding from the large artery in the groin.

Should the stab wound be higher in the abdomen, and a vital organ or large artery lacerated, there may be little external bleeding but the life-threatening haemorrhage will continue as the abdo-minal cavity fills with blood. The only thing a first-aider can do is apply the fist pressure as high as possible, just below the breast bone, and trust some control can be achieved until expert help arrives.

The final paragraph sounds a bit ambitious, but the first two perfectly feasible. They would certainly beat standing around wringing your hands.

With a huge hat tip – nay a bow – to Tony on Other Men’s Flowers, I’ve just found that you can access the Oxford English Dictionary and Oxford Dictionary of National Biography through your local library, at least in England. All you need is your library card number (or to get one), at least in Camden.

There’s also Encyclopaedia Britannica, Grove Music Online, Grove Art Online, and the Times Digital Archive. And it is through the website, so you can do it from home. Let’s all use it, and so help to make sure it continues!