Dwarves of England

This is perhaps the song Warren Zevon would have written if he didn't like lyncanthropes so much. (If you don't know this reference, there is some music to which you really need to listen...)

I'm actually talking about two specific people, although the impression I have based on things I've read and heard in the past is that this is a well-propagated stereotype of some of the blue collar folk here (i.e, no claims of actual knowledge---just that I had heard about this). Also, I have only noticed it in these two people and not in others, so it could easily just be because they're old and bitter.

Anyway, take your dwarf stereotype and that's what these two people seemed to be like---all gruff and ornery and stuff. The bus driver screamed at an old customer "Do you think I'm psychic?!?" regarding a confusion about ticket prices, which are lower for people who are older. (The women's mannerisms---especially the way she phrased her queries---were admittedly annoying, but I don't think they came close to the scream-in-the-customer's face level.) The guy also complained about possibly having to go home late as a result of the delay of maybe like 1--2 minutes that she caused.

The other dwarf is one of the porters where I#m staying. I am in Wolfson Court, which is a low-quality dorm (with low-quality food, low-quality plumbing and heating, etc.) near the Isaac Newton Institute just to the west of the St. John's College rugby field (which is just to the west of the College). There are some cool architectural features of the dorm, including the switching between inside and outside within the confines of the building. This leads to lots of extra doors between different areas in addition to the metric ton of fire doors that are present. Many of these doors---especially the ones between inside parts and outside parts---get locked at night. Anyway, there are call buttons on them to reach the porter in case one gets locked out of where one wants to go. One issue that I didn't realize was that some of the doors are sticky, so that some effort can be required to open them (although I only noticed this on Sunday, so something had to have gotten changed since then). The first time I couldn't open one of those doors, I was thinking that it was because the door was locked---I put a reasonable ammount of effort and it didn't seem to do anything. I thus called the porter. First, he wasn't in his office, so I waiteda couple minutes and called again. His answer was to yell at me to just jiggle the door and it would work. It was the right solution, but it's not like I was supposed to know in advance that the door needed that. Apparently, he expected that I did have to know. He must have been annoyed that I interrupted his Solitaire game on Windows, because every time I went by the office, that's what he seemed to be doing. (i.e., not only do I think my question was reasonable but chances are good that I didn't actually interrupt other work)

As usual, this post was longer than I wanted, but there you have it. The dwarves we know and love seem to exist in the form of some (or at least two) old, crotchedly, British men.