I was grateful for bad behaviour encountered on a recent flight. A row or two behind me, a balding man in his 50s, dressed in golf-adjacent leisurewear, took out his smartphone and began fiddling with the keyboard. A blast of music.
Well, that’s all right. We have all, when in public, accidentally scrolled on to something noisy before embarrassedly flicking to a less disruptive place. The music kept going.
There was no doubt. The “respectable” older gentlemen was blasting out AC/DC – not the least intrusive band – while a planeload of furious citizens sniffed and tutted. When complaining about what I’m told is now called loudcasting, the tendency is to caricature the offender as a stereotypical young idiot.
You know how this goes. We get the usual anachronistic identifiers of callow idiocy. Baseball cap worn backwards.
Britney Spears on the mobile phone. Something, something, catapult sticking out of back pocket. The word “millennial” – the oldest of which cohort are now in their 40s – may even be bandied about.
Thank you, Back in Black man, for confirming that this appalling habit has now crossed the generations. We can all complain about it without seeming like the old git who won’t return the neighbouring kid’s ball when it hops over his hedge. This is one of those outrages that confirm how easy it is to live a sheltered life.
Thousands of people do it every day. They get on buses and, without headphones, watch TikToks of idiots dancing badly to Dua.
