Written in response to a recent spurt of postings about commuting irritants on the ever-excellent London by London mailing list*:

If we’re having a moan about nonthinking wankers on public transport, can I nominate people who listen to their portable music devices so loud that I can identify not only the song and the singer, but also detect the studio sound engineer’s slight asthma problem?

My concern isn’t that these people will be damaging their hearing with every passing decibel, but rather that it makes it really difficult to concentrate with an incessant tssssska-tssssska-tsssska in the vicinity. I reckon that if I can hear the music from your headphones louder than whatever’s coming through mine, then it’s too loud. And if I can’t read/think blankly/listen to music/radio when I’m commuting, then I shall go slightly mad.

In the meantime, my solution is to (with great subtlety, natch) mouth the words of the song they are listening to, in time to the music, and try to catch their eye. It tends to freak them out a little.

Any other solutions?

*Incidentally, LbL seems to have 13,999 members registered as of the moment I’m writing this, so sign up now, and you could be the, er, lucky 14,000th. Too late. 14,005 and counting. Still, your lucky number might be 14,019, so hang on in there.