The curse of noise pollution

I have noticed as a long standing (albeit to be fair, usually sitting) commuter that the collective patience of my fellow travellers can be tried by the most simple of things.

Whilst on some routes maybe noise and laughter abound, on my regular 6.35am journey into London, the silence is only punctuated by the occasional snoring of already tired executives and the turning of newspaper pages.

These noises are generally classed as acceptable, as are the gentle tapping on laptop keyboards, as last minute presentations or briefing papers are prepared for early morning meetings.

However, there are unwritten noise limits, which if broken - such as by very loud snoring, or heavy handed thumping of keyboards - will bring a collective turning of heads that couldn't be better synchronised, if it had been choreographed by...by...someone famous for choreographing simultaneous head turning events - i.e. NOT Arlene Phillips!

Anyway, generally everyone stays within the rules, noise levels are low and eye contact generally avoided.

Every so often somebody new will join the carriage, which is sort of OK, as long as they don't sit in my seat, or opposite me and take up more than their half of the table (Not that I use the table, or that they don't need more than their half, but just that it is a line that shouldn't be crossed. In fact, it would be far better if the tables had permanent markings showing each passenger's personal working space or allowance !) or stretch their legs beyond their half of the floorspace etc etc.

These new people, especially if one of a pair and (not wanting to stereotype but, if they are over 60, female, wearing headscarves, slightly deaf, overly excited about going to London - most probably for the first time in their lives - and overly anxious about going to London - most probably for the first time in their lives...can you you see a theme emerging here?) travelling together, are invariably way too LOUD.

However, today's annoyance - which appeared to cause more frustration than yesterdays 6 hours of commuting time - was the fact that somebody was sending a text message, with the key "tones" switched on.

Had it been Beethoven in the carriage, bleep, bleep, bleep , bleeeeep, might (although I'm not totally convinced) have been accepted as potentially, the inspiration for something greater than a mere text message.

(For historians reading this blog (Ha!) I do accept that the above suggestion is somewhat unlikely given that Beethoven died in 1827, the first passenger train didn't arrive until 1833, and I didn't invent the videophone until 1969 but it was used for illustrative purposes only.)

Anyway, the musical texter in our carriage was no Beethoven, in fact he was more like Tolstoy (yes I know he's dead too - such a shock!) as his text was akin to War & Peace, with each letter emitting the same monotonous musical note.

How he got to the end of his novel/text message without having his phone implanted somewhere as dark as where both Tolstoy and Beethoven are buried I'm not sure, but survive he did, as did we.

However, I do think that tomorrow we should all practice our collective tutting, which over time has got slightly out of synch!