The epic journey to the fireworks display

I'm not entirely sure whether this is just a British thing, or completely universal, however I have myself only experienced this at British events.

So a couple of hours ago my family and I headed off to the train station because we were coming to the annual Alexandra Palace fireworks display. Being a Saturday evening the trains were quite busy as you'd expect.

Upon arriving at Finsbury Park, where the majority of people were changing to get on to the Alexandra Palace line, busy became a massive understatement. The guards at the station seemed to be under strict orders to cram as many people onto the train as possible. In true British fashion though everyone felt they deserved to be on that train, meaning that no one wanted to budge, causing a kind of stand off between the people on the train and the people wanting to get on the train.

Why I say that I feel this is mainly a British trait is because this is a very similar experience to getting on the tube. Everyone knows that another tube will be along in one minute, but because they are there they are determined to get on even if it kills them rather than waiting the one minute for a less crowded train.

Now that everyone was getting quite riled up due to the crowding on the train and the odd comments by people passively expressing their annoyance, we all then headed off the train to queue to get out of the station and on to the queue to get into Alexandra Palace.

Both of these proceeding events occurred in much the same manner as the train incident, lading to the air of tension surrounding me now as I sit on a hill outside Alexandra Palace, with thousands of other people as we wait for the fireworks display to begin.

I do fully understand the irony of my "passively expressing their annoyance" comment to just made as this post is completely me letting out steam, but it is also something I'd like to note down, and find out whether this is a universal thing. Just like when people say their version of family time at Christmas is everyone fighting, do big holiday events such as this have the same effect; everyone needs to get in quickly, or have the best space,  and feel kind of like they have the right to that because they purchased tickets for it.

Even though I've just said all of this, I have literally just experienced the complete upside to this trait, when a women over the speaker system announced "due to technical problems, the fireworks display will be delayed til 8" and everyone as one united group started booing.

Even though all of these same people had been forced in to train carriages crammed up against each over, shoving each other to get ahead in the queue and to get better seats, when a common enemy appeared all those differences were but aside and we all banded together.

I had a feeling this post would end on a slightly ranty depressing note, but that little moment has definitely turned things round. Everything has its pro's and con's I guess.