I just got back from Glastonbury 2025, where I saw some truly heinous things: mounds of human faeces reaching the rim of compostable toilets, swathes of urine-soaked grass, Slowthai in the VIP area, the list goes on.
It was a welcome return... until I boarded the bus to work this morning to be met with another heinous sight. A woman with her bare feet pressed against the seats. That’s right! She had her dogs out, on show, with the soles leaning against the seat in front of her.
And she wasn’t even a weirdo, either. She was normal. Wearing a nice outfit, with her AirPods in, reading through a job application (though now I am wondering if she lost her last job due to her barefoot antics).
What’s worse is: this isn’t even the first time I’ve seen this in the last month. Two Thursdays ago, I settled onto the bus after work drinks and had to avert my gaze away from a man doing the exact same thing. Sandals off, skin out, all five little piggies on full view.
Then last week on the London subreddit, a fellow Londoner posted the same thing. A man on public transport, this time on the Great Northern train, with his legs outstretched across the seats opposite him, feet bare as the day he was born.
I know why it’s happening. On a practical level, we’re all wearing our summer shoes, which allows for a concerning ease of access. Suddenly, the prospect of stripping off your shoes and uncaging those sweaty beasts isn’t such a mental idea. You could simply... slip them out. That wouldn’t offend anyone, right? Wrong!
Because it’s not just a practical level. This is yet another example of the increasingly selfish behaviour of people on public transport. We’ve gone from playing TikToks out loud to free feet on the TfL at breakneck speed, and god knows where it will go next. I might as well pluck out my nose hairs while making direct eye contact with my busmates at this point.
Plus, think of the hygiene of it all. Not only are your feet dirty, but the London bus system is probably even dirtier. We’ve all seen what happens when you slap those seat covers a little too enthusiastically.
So, yes, I shouldn’t have to say it: but please, please, put your feet away when you’re on the bus. We’re all confined to the prisons of our shoes, and I’m afraid you don’t have the licence to be any different, unless you really want a talking to. Or to end up on some kind of website where a man called u/soletrader69 will make it his life’s mission to track you down using only your feet to identify you. Or, even worse, a person like me to photograph it and write an entire article about you. Just stop!
Maddy Mussen is a London Standard features journalist
