On his way to a silent retreat somewhere or other, Stuart Jeffries runs into a noisy couple on the train, and his description of the encounter leads him to some reflections on 'the hell of other people's noise' and the general downward drift of the world in this regard. I have a lot of sympathy for what he says, but also a closing reservation about the piece as a whole. I'll get to that in due course.
First, the sympathy. On trains. It can drive a person absolutely nuts. You're trying to read and for the first phase of the journey you're constantly assaulted by announcements from the train manager or whoever, telling you stuff you mostly already know, like where your train is going - and in the most loving detail - and stuff you don't want to know, like the safety precautions you might like to read about. At Manchester Piccadilly you're told that the train will stop at Stockport, Macclesfield, Stoke-on-Trent and Milton Keynes; at Stockport 10 minutes later, that it will stop at Macclesfield, Stoke-on-Trent and Milton Keynes; at Macclesfield 12 minutes later, that it will stop at Stoke-on-Trent and Milton Keynes... I know, I know, it's for the new people getting on at each station. But the hell with that. I've been travelling on trains in this country from long before these announcement practices began, and in those earlier days people generally knew where to get off. Then there's all the rest of the ambient noise, the worst kind being the long mobile phone conversation, or the endless sequence of such conversations from the same person sitting right near you. Quiet carriage? As Jeffries says, forget about it. No one who wants to share their noise with others is going to let that 'quiet carriage' status bother them. Some people I know well are untroubled, when reading, by noise close by. But me, I'm not so lucky. When I get on a train these days, I pray (in a manner of speaking). When the prayer fails, as it often does, I move somewhere else in the train if I can. It can be a journey of many seats.
And then, never mind reading. Stand on a major station and listen to them telling you all the things you aren't allowed to do. You mustn't smoke. You mustn't cycle. You mustn't skateboard or rollerblade, or drop litter. In the end you start to wonder when they're going to say, 'Please don't copulate on the platforms; do not squash pieces of cake into the faces of other customers'. The London Underground today: from the minute you enter there, they will not leave you alone with their bloody announcements. This part of the Circle Line is closed for woojles; the Metropolitan Line is flooded; if you want to get down the bottom of the Northern Line, then go via Bank, not Charing Cross - or, possibly, tough. Those trying to get to Belsize Park should consider travelling to Rugby and taking a coach from there.
If you'll excuse the expression, just shut up for a bit hey, why don't you? Ah, but it's for the information of customers. OK, so stuff the information at the entrances and let them read it if they want to and if not, suffer the consequences should there in fact be any consequences. At Highgate station - pronounced on the intercom 'Highgt' - they have loudspeakers on one of the escalators taking you right out of the place, so that you'll be alert to the information that may (may) be of interest to someone just coming in.
So, enough already. Why don't they just quieten the whole thing down and improve everyone's day, just like that and by a factor of plenty? And yet, and yet. Much as I fume and rant about this when the mood takes me, would I ever take myself off to a silent retreat? Ha! Pull the other one. I'd as soon join a circle of SWP bus-ticket collectors. Too much noise is annoying and sometimes maddening. But to want to be cut off from normal peace and quiet, with a certain amount of tolerable sound (including, when you want it, human conversation, a spot of music, that sort of thing)... well, I won't say you can't do it if it's to your taste, but it sure ain't to mine. A moderate in all things, I stand, in this, for the sensible in-between.