Metropol

Sporting a headache, I was enticed by the Quiet Carriage (and it's leather seats) on my train back home this morning.

Having made myself comfortable, I tucked into a quality newspaper (The Mirror) when an American family sat down next to me who would not - shut - up.

Now I mean absolutely no insult to my friends in the US, but it was possibly the worst accent to interupt any silence with!

I'm now at home, relaxed, cup of tea in hand, and feeling qualified for a slot in the next series of Grumpy Old Men.

If you were in a quiet area you should have told them to shut up

I've taken to bellowing at people recently. A person sticking a leaflet in my face the other day was subjected to "i am on the phone, do i look like i want to read your stupid leaflet?" being shouted very loudly into their face.

I have the annoying Spanish man who pesters you in the shopping centre about his precious nail files in my sights too.

Or better yet threaten to sue them!

Japanese people are insanely polite when it comes to public transport - they won't even take a call unless they go to the bits in between the carriages on trains (well, that's more to do with standing up when they talk, but they're still very quiet on trains etc). In a sense, they're anti-chavs. Makes for a lovely journey though. This leads me nicely onto my travel name-dropping. In the corridors of the Tokyo subway I wound up next walking near a bratty American girl who was having the all-too-familiar shrill loudmouth conversation with her friend, and no matter how much distance I put between us on the surprisingly long walk, all I could hear was her voice carrying down the hushed hallways. Tsk. Embarrassing. Foreigners stand out enough there without blaring inane conversation every which way. Anyway, bringing it back on-topic: You can't go anywhere without an insensitive american clod being a gobshite.

I find the voices of southern teenage girls to be particularly annoying.

Especially when you get a group of them sat right behind you on a train. And that's *before* they start to play each other what songs they have in naff quality on their phones.

I honestly find all southern girls annoying when they talk. They're either incredibly mannish sounding, opinionated about things they have no grasp of (to be fair, that could be any art student) or have an upward intonation at the end of every sentence? like they're asking a question? Or all three.

Was in London the other week at Madame Tussaud's and this insufferable American Jewish family insisted on crowding themselves round every model I tried to look at and shouted out about it in detail. "OH YAH! DATS BUHZZ AALDRIN!" They also walked in front of the camera about 3 times when I was trying to have my photo taken with the Hitler model, but I laughed at the irony of it when I got home. Yes, Americans can be very ignorant.

rts wrote:Sporting a headache, I was enticed by the Quiet Carriage (and it's leather seats) on my train back home this morning.

Which train company provides these havens of peace? I've just booked my train journey back to Cheshire for Christmas (unfortunately AirSouthWest won't allow Oscar the dog to fly because they think he's a suicide bomber). My outward journey is with "Crosscountry" and the return a combination of "Virgin" and "Crosscountry".

I'm hoping they provide a quiet carriage. I can't be doing with having to listen to someone elses iPod, or them chattering away on the phone. On trains I like to just read a newspaper or a book and then doze off for an hour or two (I am able to fall asleep anywhere)

I guess it's worth bringing up here, the other week when I went to london, I had a seat booked on my train, but it was cancelled, so I had to get on the next train, and there were no free seats, so I was sat on my arse by the doors for a couple of hours. Would I have been able to get a refund?

Actually, I can't complain really, there was a free seat in first class, so I sat there, read my book and put on a stern face so it looked like I belonged in first class.

StuartPlymouth wrote:Which train company provides these havens of peace?

First Great Western. I have to admit this was one of their high points. One of their low-points is not stopping at an advertised station, my stop incidentally, because "the platform is too short" so whizzing on another twenty miles for me to get another train back. It was Friday night too!

StuartPlymouth wrote:Which train company provides these havens of peace? I've just booked my train journey back to Cheshire for Christmas (unfortunately AirSouthWest won't allow Oscar the dog to fly because they think he's a suicide bomber). My outward journey is with "Crosscountry" and the return a combination of "Virgin" and "Crosscountry".

I'm hoping they provide a quiet carriage. I can't be doing with having to listen to someone elses iPod, or them chattering away on the phone. On trains I like to just read a newspaper or a book and then doze off for an hour or two (I am able to fall asleep anywhere)

Both Virgin and CrossCountry offer Quiet zones. Your best bet might be to pre-purchase your tickets and get a reservation (either online or pop into your station). Virgin still guarantees being able to book into the Quiet Zone, CrossCountry (which took over Virgin's non-London routes last weekend) is using an older reservations system and don't seem to necessarily be able to guarantee it.