I'm inclined to agree with Arch here, you shouldn't expect reward for doing what's required, and I think that was the thrust of the old man's comment too.
But equally I appreciate the motivation behind CoG's comment; that is, to point out that not all cyclists rlj.
Cross purposes methinks.
It would have been nice if the one or other of them had acknowledged CoG with an unprompted 'present company excepted' kind of remark, rather than just ignore him, but I'm inclined to take that as an indicator of just how entrenched the anti-cyclist position has become in London/the UK. Sad really.