I Say! Excuse Me! Do You Mind?

By · April 18, 2006 at 23:49 pm · No comments · Latest News · Report an error ·
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There’s frequent evidence of a peculiar moral indignation associated with being forced to listen to one side of someone else’s phone conversation in a public place. Especially on trains, for some reason.

OK, it’s not frowned upon as much as the insanely annoying broadcast of tinny garage music from poxy phone-sized speakers to the rest of a carriage’s population. But people do still get quite inexplicably huffy about having to listen to other people talking on their mobiles.

So, just imagine the self-righteous stroppiness that will surely greet the proposal to put transmitters on the London Underground. One report is already describing phone usage as ‘the bane of modern commuter life’, somewhat hysterically we think (we reckon the interminable delays and dangerous overcrowding might be more of a ‘bane’, but that’s just our opinion).

So why do some of us get so hot under the collar about people using their phones in public places? After all, surely that’s what they were designed for, isn’t it? And, apart from the propensity of appalling novelty ringtones, why should someone having a conversation with a friend on a mobile be considered any more rude or irritating than someone having a conversation with a friend face-to-face?

Maybe it’s because public phone conversations can tend towards the higher ranges of conversational volume. But can they really be any louder than the groups of excitable tourists that randomly swarm onto the tube and excitedly converse with each other at EAR-SHATTERING VOLUME every day? Or maybe it’s because roughly half of all conversations on trains seem to involve continuous repetitions of “Hello!”, “Can you hear me?”, “Where are you?” or “I’m on the train” before eventually hanging up and trying again.

From our perspective, probably the biggest problem of introducing mobile phone transmitters onto the London Underground is that we can no longer use the excuse that we were stuck between Euston and Camden Town on the Northern Line and couldn’t phone in late for work. Damn.

Anyway, if any readers have strong opinions on the matter, why not share them with us? (Extra marks will be awarded for explaining your reasoning.)

(We were originally going to comment on the debate of whether allowing phone coverage on the tube represents a terrorism risk. But frankly, it’s such a stupid discussion that we just can’t be bothered to waste any more precious words on it.)

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  • Jon

    There’s an interesting (at least I thought so) article here :
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3643477.stm

    about why people find listening to someone elses mobile phone conversation so irritating. Seems to boil down to not being able to eavesdrop on the whole conversation, and feeling like you want to answer the person speaking on the phone even though you know they are talking to someone else.

  • steve

    Come on lets face it – it is bloody irritating to be subjected to someone elses turgid converstaion when you are trying to wind down after a hard day at work.

    To my mind, there is nothing more frustrating than to have to listen to someones (no doubt, fictional) corporate swagger when I’m trying to remind myself that there really is a meaningful existence to be had out there. Please leave your “blue skying” to face to face converstaions with your peers – before someone is forced to hide your cheese under a coloured hat – or something.

  • Louis

    If your the kind of person that finds either headphone noise or mobile talk on a train an infringement of your personal space then you really need to ask yourself why you are living in London and not on a farm in Wiltshire somewhere.
    Clearly the ambient noise of the train itself is in litteral terms by far the loudest noise, everything else is fringe. Decent mobiles have a sound record facility on them now. First person to send me a recording of someone listening to headphones on the train thats distinctly audible above the noise of the train and Ill pay them a fiver.

  • john

    The main annoyance for me is people using mobile phones in the morning. I mean, what is so important that you have to harp on at 8.00 am? can’t you just wait until you get into work and use the company phone like normal people.

  • http://remarkable-things.blogspot.com Mark

    I’ve got no problems with short, considerate conversations; what really gets up my nose is the loud, protracted chats which could really wait until another time. I’m just not interested in hearing intimate details of the life of a total stranger, and plus I’m one of these dizzy people who can’t read anything (ie my book) whilst there is conversation going on around me. It’s difficult enough with the clatter of the tube train. Here endeth the sermon of one grumpy old fart.

  • JK

    Surely the constant barrage of non informative public announcements by LU are more annoying. “Please touch in and out oysters, don’t leave bags, take care on the stairs, all the lines are running, don’t use touts, drugs are bad, steve is wearing a new hat…” SHUT UP!!! The information overload means we are not listening to important ones, like “please leave the station, now”. Maybe thats why I cycle!

  • Robin

    Anyone here seen Nathan Barley? Cos what he does in that show is what people find annoying. It isn’t the “hello, on my way, see you in ten”, “sorry, might be late”, “i get in at…” type on call because that’s what mobiles were made for.

    What winds everyone up is a) what another person has already called “corporate swagger. I was subjected to this on the train the other week. “Yeah mate, yeah… closed it mate bish bash bosh. Yeah, the whole lot… made a killing mate”

    and b) the Nathan Barley factor: “Alex you rimlicker! How are you fuckface?! Give that bird a tonsil jet wash geezer? … what? … you dirty bastard!

    They don’t need to make that call. They know they don’t, but it’s the equivalent of driving through town in an XR3i, windows down/system up, thinking you’re impressing everyone. Cool as you might feel, you actually just look like a wanker.

  • Ace

    There is a rhythm to a two sided conversation that we are accustomed to and can tune out. There is a rhythm to the noise of the train’s movement that we can tune out. There is a rhythm to the the announcements we’ve heard a thousand times and we can tune them out. There is no rhythm to hearing one side of a conversation and we can’t tune out so we can’t read, we can’t sit and stare into space because part of our brains are dragged towards the one sided conversation. Perhaps in a generation or so we will be able to tune out.

  • http://www.londonist.com Dave

    Thanks for all your comments.

    I think Jon and Ace hit the nail on the head – many of us probably find mobile phone conversations more intrusive than face-to-face ones because of the odd rhythm that is presented by one half of a conversation.

    Still, as always these things are only considered annoying until the next ‘new’ annoyance comes along. My tip for that next annoyance is the ‘bone phone’ (see http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/21/1074360813226.html) – I reckon that a tube train full of people holding phones to their forehead and conversing with the voices reverberating around their skull will signal a new era of lunacy…

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