A small victory for decency

I do love travelling by train, truly the best form of transport man has yet invented (and I suspect ever will). So I am always particularly angry when the experience is spoiled, whether because of government policy, poor management, or, as is most frequently the problem, fellow passengers. There are several such species of locomotive pest: drunkard, leaking-earphone-wearer, threatening male youth, phone babbler, selfish-git-with-his-feet-on-the-seat-opposite. And then of course there is the most common pest of them all: teenager. The teenager will usually be found in groups of three or more. It will invariably be slouching, and in its hands will be a phone towards which all its attention is directed. It seldom converses with its fellow teenagers, except to snicker or exclaim (usually by swearing), which is done in reaction to something asinine they have seen on their phone, and which they may or may not share. However, often the asinine thing in question is automatically shared with the entire carriage because the teenager, being a solipsistic and selfish creature, always has its phone speaker on maximum volume.

I had an encounter with a group of them the other day while travelling home. They were perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old, with elaborate hairstyles and costumed in ludicrous tracksuits (the well-kept, expensive sort; ones their parents probably iron). Their demeanour was of a kind common around here: middle class, spoilt and unpleasant, clearly adherents of rap and other menacing subcultures, but not themselves thuggish. They had with them a portable speaker (always an ominous sign; the amplifier has surely been one of the most culturally and environmentally damaging inventions). Inevitably, they began to play something through it -- it was only the violent beat which suggested it might be music. At first the 'music' was relatively quiet (of course such music is never truly quiet). It was, nevertheless, loud enough that one could make out its extraordinarily ugly lyrics: everything up to and including the c word. 

(I would be mildly annoyed if someone was amplifying a Haydn string quartet on a train. It would still be a rude and inconsiderate intrusion. But to play such foul music makes the offence a thousand times worse.)

After a few minutes one of them said to turn up the volume. Suddenly it became loud. At the time I was trying to immerse myself in my book and block out the grisly aural discharge coming from the speaker. I was already failing, and with the sudden lurch in volume I lost all patience. I stood up and said, very abruptly: 'Turn it off. It's extremely annoying -- not to mention rude.'

I was fortunate. They were clearly incredulous that anyone would challenge their stupid behaviour, but nevertheless switched off their speaker. After a few moments, they began to ridicule me among themselves. And there was the odd seething remark directed to me, said with great sarcasm -- 'sorry to have stopped you reading your book', that sort of thing -- but I could not care: I had already won my victory. I returned happily to The Tempest (a delightful old Cassell edition which I had just bought, replete with those remarkable 19th century adverts for 'Mellin's Food for Infants and Invalids' and 'Shirley's Neuralgic Crystal: Invaluable to Clergymen and others who suffer from Headache caused by overwork and study'). Of course, one line from that play instantly came to mind: 'O brave new world, that has such people in it!'

I do not recommend anyone follows my example. It was foolish, not some courageous act but a moment of spontaneous anger which could have ended very badly for me. People do get attacked, even killed, for such confrontations. If those boys had the will they could have easily beaten me up -- or worse. Ideally there would be police (or conductors on the train) who would deter or stop such antisocial behaviour. It is amazing to think that police used to be able to this, alone and armed only with a truncheon and a whistle. Now they (including the transport police) have machine guns, body armour, tasers, sprays, and goodness knows what else, and yet one almost never sees them patrolling -- and if one does, they will be in pairs or groups, probably discussing sport or playing on their phones. They hardly deter crime, or indeed stop crime. I have seen groups of transport police, standing at the platform gates trying to detain people who do not present a train ticket; those without tickets just run away and jeer and swear at the police. A few guilty but somewhat admirable people stay behind, dutifully giving the police their details. But they are not the ones who are most deserving and in need of punishment.

Of course there should be no need for police to have to stop such antisocial behaviour. A healthy society should have some degree of self-regulation. Boys should be frightened of adults, not adults of boys. People generally should be self-aware enough to realise that other people might not enjoy their aural perversions. But if people will not regulate themselves, if decent people are powerless against the indecent, then it is quite justified to look to the police. People should be removed from trains if they misbehave. Why not make particularly egregious offenders spend a night in jail, when persuasion and warning is ineffective? The police will say they do not have the staff, time or resources. Yet they seem to be able to find the staff, time and resources to patrol social media in search of the silly things people say. Or to facilitate drug use at music festivals (in the name of 'safety testing'). They have the money to hire seemingly greater numbers of non-uniformed staff. And indeed, I believe the number of police officers per head has gone up decade after decade. Yet they hardly investigate, say, fraud or theft. They are seldom patrolling, except when whizzing by in cars. So why is it exactly that they cannot find the time and means to police antisocial behaviour?