This thing of young people playing their music on trains through the phone speaker really annoys me. Whatever the music, I think it is inconsiderate to others. Given the unpredictability of modern social life, asking them to turn it down, it could end up a scene, or worse, making the situation worse for everyone. It’s like smoking in a non-smoking area. Where did it come from, and how does one manage it effectively? Can’t they use their headphones? Massive, is there anything you do that will lead folk to show consideration for others? Can this be made as socially unacceptable as picking your nose in public?
Phones playing music on trains
by 46 Comments
Your only escape is noise cancelling headphones.
I always ask them politely to turn it off or use headphones. If that fails I utilise a less polite approach. Always works.
What’s your less polite approach? Curious as it really winds me up. The Metropolitan tube line in my patch of north west London is nowadays full of people doing this – watching films at full blast, FaceTime calls ditto, young blokes sprawled with legs spread wide in the aisles with music – usually absolute honking shite – banging out at full pelt. A recent thing is seeing said lads doing pull ups on the ceiling handrails too. legs flapping all over the place. The rest of us just miserably put up with it.
I was in Berlin last week, not a city without social issues by any means, but absolutely no cases of people playing loud music on their phones on the ubahn
The British disease is boorish, selfish and entitled thuggery.
You know, I’m not sure it is, really…
The British Problem is that we’ve never learned how to drink alcohol sensibly.
Other European countries have a certain amount of alcoholism and antisocial drinking, but we Brits seem to positively specialise in alcohol abuse.
I remember seeing a shock-horror documentary on Britain’s alcohol habits made many years ago, for a TV station in a Muslim country. Not terribly flattering, but there was little to deny about it.
I just say “can you just shut the f**k up?’ I’m not an aggressive chap by any means but they dont know that (!) and I find that a stern approach is hugely effective.
I’ve been sorely tempted to in the past but my innate cowardice takes over!
I think if it were socially acceptable to pick your own nose in public, many of us would make much better job of it. Mine looks as if I chose mine in the dark and underwater. Which is, I guess, exactly where it was made.
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As I hurtle towards my 60s, these days I find I am more inclined to say something straight away with. a bright and breezy “Erm…Do you mind putting on headphones?”. If they do nothing, I will not take it any further.
My main problem has not been music, more loud conversations where you are treated to the bantz from the other end on speaker phone. The last time this happened the bloke shot me a look as if I was the arsehole. He did grudgingly comply though.
People also make video calls with the volume at full blast. I don’t want to hear your conversation.
Ah but you do, because their life is so interesting that you need to hear about Kev getting a dose or Sharon getting caught short and crouching in the gutte4
Video calls or just regular ones. All ages, and more common than youth “sodcasting” in my experience.
A friend of mine on a day off listened to an entire HR-based conversation on a train once which coincidentally featured quick and fruity appraisals of four people from her office.
Take (or fake) a call yourself and passive-aggressively shout “Sorry, you’ll have to speak up. I can’t hear you over the noise some bellend on the train is making.”
This is the right answer, till they say “you calling me a bell end, bruv? You want some?”
‘Do I want some of your bellend? Your Mum’
[Is what someone vastly more bold than me might say.]
That’s when you produce a stout piece of 2×4 from your knapsack, and smite, smite, smite!
Fight fire with fire – dial up 633 Squadron, The Dambusters March, Liberty Bell, or some tasty Prog and throw it back … check the reaction
If there are others on the train then you’re being just as annoying as the original guy.
Or develop your baritone skills and sing The Blaydon Races 🏁 from the depths of your diaphragm. Encourage the rest of the carriage to join in – you may find you have delighted your fellow sufferers in finding revenge.
What I want to say, “I am going to smash that phone and make you eat the pieces.” What I do say, “You are very childish. I want you to know that.”
A railwayman writes:
It is actually against railway bylaws to play music on a train without permission. You would be quite within your rights to advise the perpetrator – I have – and, if that fails, enlist the officialdom of the conductor.
Do they still have conductors on trains in the UK? Every time I use one when back, the carriages are usually so “ram packed” ((C) J. Corbyn), I can barely make it to the out-of-order toilet
Going off on a ranty tangent here, as not conductors as such but at Kings Cross tube Friday, I swiped my card and as the gate opened, three young fellers suddenly shove past me as I went through and dashed ahead, calling back to a mate of theirs behind me to follow. The bored, glassy eyed station employee “manning” the gates just stared dully and did precisely nothing.
Tell them you’re from the Performing Rights Society and ask to see their licence.
Dress up like Charles Bronson, form a pistol with the index finger and thumb or your right hand and “shoot” the offending youngster(s)
I always get him mixed up with the malevolent bewigged teacher from Grange Hill. Would be just as effective though, I suppose
I haven’t travelled by train for over 20 years and would rather sit for hours in queues of petrol fumes, pay congestion charges, exorbitant parking fees and put up with any manner of other inconveniences rather than share a confined space with the Great British Joe Public. See also buses which are equally unpleasant places to spend time. Even as far back as the 70s I can recall a bunch of spotty teens (when I was myself a spotty teen) haranguing an old lady at the back of a bus on their way home from a fishing trip – “look a the size of my rod…..I bet you’d like to see my tackle” etc. etc. etc.
No thankyou very much.
Love trains, me. You can sleep on them, drink on them and if you buy your ticket in advance at the right time, pretty reasonable (and you get a seat)
Where I live, I’d give a shout out to the football club, the two pubs, and the village hall as being important to the community, but the actual hub of the community is to be found on the bus route in and out of the place.
I honestly don’t think car drivers know the half of what’s going on if they’re not on that bus.
We drove down to London earlier this year, I decided to stay down for a concert my wife drove back. Booked a ticket two days before travelling back to Yorkshire for £15, bargain.
Drove down with my son on Thursday, back Friday, his satnav suggested the A1 to return as there was serious blockage on the M1 we still had to do a detour travelling on that in Cambridgeshire.
I’ve got no problem with bus or train travel, as long as I don’t have to do either in the rush hour(s). London’s Tube and Overground are particularly useful ways of getting around.
Having had to do it for a living in the later years of my working life I hate driving in inner London traffic.
London traffic seems to be concentrated into Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the traditionally heavy Monday and Friday seem to be quieter. I went from Worthing to Moorgate on Tuesday, which took four and a half hours, then three and a half hours to get home on Wednesday and I didn’t leave during peak hours either day.. It’s miserable and I’m glad I don’t have to do it regularly.
Since Covid, and the remote/office balance, there are many twats about
(Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday in the office)
As Peattie and Taylor’s Alex cartoon noticed.
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Very good
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Same in Ottawa. Many many government workers now expected in the office 2 or 3 days a week. And for some reason they don’t choose Mondays or Fridays
I’d already retired (in 2016) by the time COVID came along, so I don’t know what it’s like now.
It was dispiriting having to drive about so much with my work. It seemed like I spent more time in my company van than I did actually working. And every week the traffic was a tiny bit worse than the week before.
There’s a back-road called Bunns Lane that I frequently took travelling between Edgware and Mill Hill. It passes underneath the East Coast Mainline and the M1 motorway where they run close together. Used a lot by local driving schools.
On one midweek trip along it, just a little over a mile, I counted 13 learners under instruction. Probably a lot less now.
When I lived and worked in London, a few years before and after the millennium, speaker phones weren’t a thing. But oiks putting their feet up on the seats opposite was. As a matter of principle, I would always ask whoever was doing it to put their feet down. I think as much out of surprise as anything, they invariably complied. Until one day, the young bloke I asked said ‘no’. I didn’t have any smart response to that, as it had never happened before. So I sat there awkwardly for a while, then moved away, silently fuming to myself. I’m not sure I ever bothered again on London transport, though still did so on the Liverpool St->Essex ‘vomit comet’, where they aren’t quite so feral.
I find it very annoying as well, but, I think there are some significant mitigating factors.
For many years now, most if not all phones don’t have headphones included. The idea that someone should just plug their headphones in, that is assuming a lot. Many get their phones on contract for financial reasons.
The pandemic time was when the above came into effect. So there was a long period where people got used to not having headphones. The social norms were suspended/forgotten.
Of course, it is unpleasant and rude. I think that politely reminding people, so long as you are not alone and are safe, is perfectly fine. Maybe that will encourage the purchase of headphones? But that’s the issue.
Quite a lot of modern phones, possibly the majority, don’t have headphone sockets any more. You either have to get yourself some bluetooth headphones/earbuds or get an adapter to plug your existing earphones into the phone’s power/data socket.
Cheap headphones/earbuds leak sound in both directions. So users turn up the volume to drown out extraneous sounds. People nearby get that annoying ticking/tinkling/rustling noise. Not quite as bad as a phone on speaker, but still pretty unpleasant.
When I used to commute by train I used a set of quality earbuds that blocked out extraneous noise (like the phones/voices of other commuters) and simultaneously let out very little sound themselves. Just the job but could cause you to miss train or station announcements.
Back in the “dark ages” the top deck of buses used to be a fug of smoke, now it’s been replaced by a babble of phone calls. Typically what happens is: person a sits down & makes a call, which prompts someone else to make a call, then a third person receives a call. The volume of noise increases as they each try to make themselves heard, and catching a Heathrow bus, the range of languages can be quite interesting.