To play audio on my phone on train?

Utterly brilliant.

We had 3 years of constant and pervasive advertising and campaigning reminding people to cover their mouths when they cough. I can’t go out in public without seeing someone hacking their germs out at everyone unfortunate enough to be within their proximity. Humans are in general stupid and inconsiderate it seems so I have no faith that a campaign would work.

This raises a good point. It shouldn’t have to be our problem to fix. Companies always find ways to shift costs onto individuals. Bloody infuriating.

A big part of the problem is how companies cut back on staff to reduce costs/ increase profits and this applies specifically to train companies. In days gone past having more train staff was a deterrent to rude train behaviour. Just the presence of an authority figure was helpful. I even remember the old buses in London with the open back entrance and the ticket collector (!) who could kick off unruly teenagers. Fewer and fewer staff emboldens bad behaviour.

I am not sure I agree. Her behaviour is poor, it's not my fault in some way because I haven't challenged her. It's on her.

You say non-threatening but quite honestly for a peacekeeping introvert, challenging a complete stranger who clearly has zero regard for others is quite formidable. It's a stress I don't need to invite into my life.

Her behaviour is selfish and annoying. I didn't want to challenge it. That doesn't mean I am not allowed to find it selfish and annoying.

Only if it's the Queen of the Night aria and you sing along to it.

Agree. I’ve just got an iPhone 16e and I ordered some headphones from Amazon for £7 the other day.

Then you can’t really complain if you’re not prepared to stand up for yourself in non-threatening circumstances!
If she starts giving aggro back, all you need to do is calmly and politely repeat that it’s inconsiderate to make other people listen to your scrolling.

My most authoritarian opinion is, if after being asked once.people don't use headphones or turn the phone off , it should be legal to take their device and destroy it in front of them.

We were once tormented by a very annoyoing Amercian woman on the Eurostar who carried out numerous phone calls on loudspeaker. Then one hero bloke just started joining in. Whe she asked him what he was doing, he just looked at her straight faced and said "You included me on this call so I thought you might want my opinion"

I totally agree about how annoying people not using headphones is. I've had success with asking people to stop. Obviously I'm not always brave enough but if it's a younger person for example then it's a kindness to them to tell them to stop in the long term. Or they'll go through life annoying people and wondering why people around them on the bus seem so grumpy with them...

Ah yes the bus FaceTiming - I do enjoy it when they're unfamiliar with the route of my bus and don't realise after the first 10 mins then signal disappears for the rest of the route

Honestly no, i didn't want to get into anything with her. She seemed like the sort of person who would have had no qualms in arguing back and I honestly can't face that aggro, also knowing I would see her week after week. I'm a peacekeeper and I just don't really have it in me to be calling people out.

I mean I’ve played peppa pig to make a point passive aggressively when on an empty ish train next to some bloke playing ‘banging tunes’ 🤷‍♀️. He turned his to headphones.

Omg why do they , and facetime conversation why!!! Like we all want to know, bloody hell, 45 mins on a bus when someone facetime her friend 😡

I bollocked a group on holiday speakers on a quiet beach fucking retards !
They did turn it off thou 😁
The mind boggles to think why would anyone want to sit on a beach and listen to your crap ruining peaceful reading and the sound of waves ! Entitled arseholes that's who !

Once the tik toks started did you not ask politely if she had any headphones? I can’t think of a much safer environment to do so. An intimidating-looking man on a train is one thing but a professional woman in her 40s outside a ballet class should be non-threatening enough to say something to. We really need to start calling out this behaviour and making people think twice about the effect on others around them.

A man on a train table at the opposite end of my carriage said 'I hope we're not going to listen to that all the way' to the mother opposite him whose child was playing a quiet tablet game (just the occasional muffled 'beep'). They switched it off. However, he talked to his companion the whole journey. His particular voice - at normal volume - was strangely piercing, and the whole carriage could hear him well above the background noise. He was also an irritating conversationalist. Unwittingly, he could have been singing 'Happy and you know it' on repeat for similar effect.

Because these scummy individuals have no shame whatsoever.

Of course you are unreasonable and it should be acceptable for other passengers to be able to open the door and throw you off the moving train.

Absolutely unreasonable as is everyone else doing it. It is just plain rude. I have no desire to hear whatever rubbish you are listening too on my journey. In the same way I have no desire to hear both sides of a conversation when people video call on transport. Use headphones - it is not that difficult to be considerate of other people.

Why are they not embarrassed???

Its infiltrating flights now too. I was on a Qatar Airways flight recently, the first time since they've started rolling out Starlink WiFi onboard. To be fair, the Captain did make an announcement about Starlink and asking folk to be mindful of noise, wear headsets and keep voice call levels low, but it was a bit wishy washy. My flight was ok noise wise but the steward said there have been problems and complaints about noisy voice calls and streaming music and sports events - just what you want when trapped at 36000ft. 🙄

PP makes a very good (and disheartening) point about all these little kids with devices shoved in front of them on public transport and restaurants, they will be growing up thinking that behaviour is just the norm.

I agree. And it should be slow and painful

I was waiting outside DDs ballet class with another mum and first she had a long, loud and pretty personal conversation with her husband on loudspeaker. Eventually that mercifully ended and I was looking forward to quiet but no, she began to scroll through tik toks on loud. I was in disbelief.

This is a professional woman in her 40s. I think because of that I had expected her to take a similar outlook to me but she clearly didn't.

Oh, I agree! Or they’d dismiss your complaints by trying to make you feel stupid for being bothered about a “little bit of noise”.

In my experience this is not the case. Young, muscular men in hoodies that I would t want to meet in an alley. I once asked a woman if she would move her shopping bags from the seat next to her and put them overhead as the carriage was packed and a young mum had a baby in her arms- I had a seat behind. She refused and carried on working on her laptop. She spoke to me in her own language and was aggressive. Several others backed me and she still refused. I gave my seat to the mum. It was a horrible. Not in a hurry for another confrontation.