The art of conversation...

[NottyImp]

... perhaps slightly off-topic, but has anyone noticed how mobile 'phones have seen both a sad decline in said topic, and a greater yet decline in common manners?

How many times do I find myself mid-way a sentence to someone, their "moby" goes off, and without a by-your-leave or "excuse me" I'm dropped while they wank around replying to their latest inane txt msg. With one particular friend (amner will know who - just think similar web-name to me) this happens approximately every 3-4 minutes.

It's disgraceful.

[lemonsherbet]

I was on the bus the other day and these two old women were talking on their mobile phones. They were 80 years plus and slighlty deaf so they kept on shouting down their phones in unison. It was a pleasure to be on the bus that day!!

[Wavid]

The mobile phone isn't yet a necessary evil, but it's getting there.

I first got one at uni, cause it worked out cheaper for me than having a 'normal' telephone. After that, I was stuck.

Still, use of them should be restricted. Anyone under the age of 18 shouldn't be allowed them, for a start! Also, they should be banned in certain places: pubs, any shop queue, public transport and almost all other public places.

[NottyImp]

Actually, I think it is a necessary evil even now. I heard a report recently that those emergency road-side 'phone boxes are not being properly maintained anymore as everyone has a mobile. No point being in the AA without one, it would seem.

[Colyngbourne]

I don't have one! I'm likely to be found fossilised at the side of a motorway then if I break down. Neither do we have an answerphone.

[ElleBee]

It's the decline in common manners that I decry the most. Cell phones seem to make people believe that the entire world is their living room. It's particularly galling to me on public transport, since I do a lot of reading then, and 'those people' are impinging on my space.

[Wavid]

People who talk loudly on mobiles on the bus/train are one of my all time public transport gripes.

Other things I detest about travelling this way include:

1. People who loudly voice their absurd opinions to their friends, and you can't say anything to them without appearing insane.

2. Having to hold onto things that other people have done. You know, you're clinging for dear life onto one of those strappy things that come down from the ceiling, and you just know that the last person to have done the same with this particular strappy thing was the weird bloke who is always sniffing his fingers.

3. Old people. This can be broken down further into a) old people who stand up and start shuffling their way down the aisle well before their stop, and therfore totter everytime the bus turns, falling into various innocent people laps and generally making people feel both uncomfortable and sick; and b) just by smelling of wee. The smelly people on buses are always old, unless they are in some other way retarted. Which brings me onto..

4. Mental people. They always sit next to me, and want to talk about whatever it is that goes on inside their mental heads. This is usually accompanied by various unpleasant habits, eg finger sniffing, arse scratching (the sniffing of fingers invariably follows this activity) and, worst of all, STARING.

5. Pissed people. They reek, as well as vomiting and pissing everywhere. Don't (often) get these in the morning on the way to work though.

6. The seats. Sometimes you are lucky and get a nice new bus. Most of the time though, you're on some clapped out old shite mobile, and end up sitting in twenty years worth of unpleasentness. Often warm, if someone else has just been in it, which is a nasty sensation, but not as bad as if the seat feels damp.

These are just a few of the reasons that I am bloody well delighted to be buying a car next weekend.

**Edit**

Just realised, I might come across as being a bit cantankerous on the basis of the above. This couldn't be further from the truth. I just don't like buses, that's all.

[Lucoid]

You bloody are cantankerous, and have been as long as I've known you! I reckon this forum is just a thinly disguised excuse for ranting about anything that rankles you. Mind you, most of the regular company on public transport isn't all that appealing, I'll give you that, but as Neil Hannon sang in 'National Express', "all human life is here", which makes it a great place for observing the human condition. Though I usually prefer to bury my head in a book or stare out of the window when do take the bus or train, which isn't that often any more. Perhaps there should be specified reading carriages on trains, along the lines of the no-mobile carriages but lined with books and magazines. No-one's allowed in them if they don't intend to read.

[Wavid]

Hhmm. I was in a foul mood yesterday, which might have affected matters slightly.

Still, I am overwhelmingly chirpy this afternoon, largely because a) it's the friday before a nice looong weekend; b) I bought a little bag of jelly lizards with the white foam stuff on the bottom from the sweetie stall on the market just now; and c) Amner is off work today, and can't depress me at all. :)

Only joking, I think he is just having time off to prepare for his momentous journey to Cardiff tomorrow.

[NottyImp]

I'm sure he is, and what a journey it will be, encompassing at least four modes of modern transport (shank's pony, le velo, el loco and that modern beast, the family car).

[Wavid]

It's a quite remarkable journey he's making. I wish him luck - it certainly must break some sort of record!

[skanky]

It's the decline in common manners that I decry the most. Cell phones seem to make people believe that the entire world is their living room. It's particularly galling to me on public transport, since I do a lot of reading then, and 'those people' are impinging on my space.

I have been telling myself for months that I'll buy a set of earplugs for just that reason.

[wshaw]

It's the decline in common manners that I decry the most. Cell phones seem to make people believe that the entire world is their living room. It's particularly galling to me on public transport, since I do a lot of reading then, and 'those people' are impinging on my space.

I have been telling myself for months that I'll buy a set of earplugs for just that reason.

I once read a piece of research (done in Finland - home of mobile phones) that suggested that what bugged people wasn't so much the volume, as the fact that they could only eavesdrop on half of the conversation .

[skanky]

That's true if you've not got anything to read (though try pretending to be the other half in your mind and all sorts of comedy lines can ensue), but when you're reading your mind gets distracted by their voice - hearing seems to override reading. Too loud personal stereos are equally annoying for that. I do use one myself (inaudible to others - it's too loud to me when it gets up to those volumes) don't listen and read at the same time hence the need for earplugs.

[Wavid]

I used to have a book and personal stereo when I had a long bus journey everyday.

The problem was that concentrating on the music and the book meant that I was mentally exhausted before I got to work! :?

[youjustmightlikeit]

If you're reading and you start listening to anybody else's conversation, then the book you're reading can't be that interesting.

You think people speaking is a problem. Well wait till the camera phone takes off. Perverts will be taking pictures of cleavages, nice legs, bums, and if possible, up skirts; i know i do! Hardbacks come in handy to cover up the raging hardons. So i for one sit firmly in both camps.

[the exile]

I used to have a book and personal stereo when I had a long bus journey everyday.

The problem was that concentrating on the music and the book meant that I was mentally exhausted before I got to work! :?
The scene,
Topdeck,
right hand side (as loud as possible)-
" Yeah, I went wiv john, it was really cool. Ent 'e great an' so wiv it!?


left hand side (head nodding furiously-ditto)-
tickatick ticktick ticketytick ticktick ticketytick tickatick ticktick ticketytick

not much to choose from really,
I hate both :cry: .

[D-Bear]

Oh boy, but I can't resist jumping into this discussion. Wavid, I second all your emotions re: public transport. And may I add a couple of my own gripes, ohpleaseohpleaseohplease?

I haven't been to England since the mid-90's, so I don't know if what I'm about to describe is going on over there, but it's pandemic here. I'm talking about cell-phone yakkers who use those near-invisible headsets that connect to the phone, which they keep in their pocket. So it looks, for all intents and purposes, as though they are stalking around, arguing loudly with no-one at all (lawyers) or giving bedtime instructions to thin air (mums) or ordering pizza take-away from some phantom restaurant located on the wall at the back of the post office. The reason for this trend, I'm told, is that many people fear getting a brain tumor from the blitzkrieg of cell-phone radio waves (or are they microwaves?) to which their tender cerebra are exposed on a neverending basis. Hey, what about my tender cerebrum? If I'm not getting a headache from their inevitably loud voices, I'm starting to hallucinate from the disconnectedness of it all, thinking that perhaps I'm the insane one and everyone else is perfectly normal. And I resent the hell out of that, let me tell you.

My other gripe: on airplanes, when flying alone, I inevitably get seated next to someone who a) smells bad b) talks incessantly c) can't sit still for ten seconds straight d) hits on me or e) all the above. Bear in mind that airplane journeys can go on for hours. And you can't just get off at the next stop, either. It's torture. As Martin Amis once said, "I am a nervous flyer, but a confident drinker and Valium-swallower". That's me! Oh yes, and what about couples (or God forbid, groups of three or more) who talk, laugh, cackle, argue, and howl at 100 decibels or more, as though they were the only ones in the cabin. One almost wishes we could go back to the days of smoking on board, because there is a chance they'd talk less if they had something stuck in their mouths. One almost wishes.

In Florida, it's still legal to drive and chat on the cell phone, by the way. You cannot imagine the results. It's a posting in itself. :shock:

[ono no komachi]

I'm with Colyngbourne on this one - I don't have a mobile phone. I think there are times when people should be incommunicado, e.g. on holiday, when out with friends, especially when in the cinema. And yes, I know the darn things can be switched off, but if you're only using the thing to receive messages - well, you can do that with a BT land line.

I once broke down on the motorway and the first phone I came to was out of order. I walked to the nearest flyover, got off the motorway and walked till I came to a public phone and called from there. After all, people are mobile too! :?

And you're right about there being a whole other topic in drivers with mobiles - it's one of the things most guaranteed to make me use the phrase 'makes my blood boil' - I do have a slanted perspective in being a motorcyclist and therefore perhaps more likely not to be seen if someone is not paying due care and attention. It makes me want to pull alongside them and bang my fist on the roof of the car.