t's funny how we sometimes find ourselves unable for whatever reason of telling someone that what they are doing is affecting us in some way, for better or worse.
There's a man in my street who delivers newspapers every morning in his estate car, driving from house to house, leaving the engine running as he gets out and carries a single newspaper to a house, before getting back in the car and driving a few yards to the next house. I want to say something, ask him has he considered the craziness of what he's doing. But something always stops me.. usually because I'm late for work... but I also wonder that maybe there's some logical reason, apart from sheer laziness and disregard for the environment, for what he's doing. Some logic behind this madness... and by the time I've finished wondering this I've already walked past him and beyond the point of being able to say something without missing my train.
Talking of trains, every day on my commute to work I usually find myself being bombarded by various walls of sounds emitting through the headphones that are simultaneously ensuring their wearers will have severely impaired hearing in 20 years or so.
I usually don't let other people's music on trains bother me. Providing it is decent enough music I just save some battery power on my own ipod while I listen to theirs. When the music is bad however or it's noticeably affecting others around me for the worse then I feel the need to do something about it.
There was a man the on the train the other day standing next to me struggling to read his book above the noisy distractions going on around him. One very well built man had his ipod on rather too loud. The book reading man kept glancing over at him, then back to his book, at the man, back to the book... After a while I think the music man finally realised that his ipod was too loud and turned it down. All was well for a while, until the bloke standing behind the book man put his walkman on, possibly acting out of a comradely effort for Music Man One. Music Man Two's music was far worse and even louder and annoying. The book man started to shake his head, sighed lots (which of course Music Man Two couldn't hear) and then, whilst still holding his book in his right hand he attempted to mould his left arm into a makeshift ear plug. I would have gladly given him some of the ear wax currently blocking my right ear if I could, but after about 30 secs of listening to Music Man Two's shitty music I simple lent over, and politely asked him to turn it down... which he did and pretty soon peace and order was restored. The book man by then had got himself so wound up by the whole thing that I'm not sure if the relative silence that followed allowed him to enjoy his book any more. I hope it did, or perhaps he won't feel so bad about saying something himself next time... or he'll have a polite word with the newspaper man for me ;)
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