Monday, August 28, 2006

Of mobiles and other instruments

Yesterday's newspapers carried the headlines 'Amsterdam Detainees Return, Tell Their Side of The Story' and similar. While its nice to know that fellow countrymen are back safe and sound, I do wonder whether we missed-out reading between the lines. Since I was neither in Amsterdam nor on the plane, my thoughts are based totally on what the newspapers reported (or perchance 'did not'?). However, if the comments of some of the fellow passengers were correct - that the said group, or some of them anyway, refused to obey the airline stewards' requests to fasten seatbelts and turn off mobile phones; and kept exchanging places - hmm...is it just me I wonder who thinks this was unacceptable behaviour. Disregarding regulations, talking on mobile phones and generally being loud and discorteous to fellow passengers is not simply infuriatingly irritating but quite simply putting safety on the line. I doubt if this did in fact happen and if travelling on the same plane, whether I would not have complained myself (hmm..ya definitely..think I messed up the grammar in this sentence..).

That reminds me, on my last flight the teenager sitting next to me kept looking back at me with puzzled eyes when he caught me staring menacingly at him fiddling arond with his mobile and got me really irritated when instead of shutting it off he just turned around and attached some handsfree stuff and smugly put on his headphones. On being tapped on the shoulder with 'Shut off your phone if you don't mind' I was equally smugly informed that the 'phone' in fact was an 'mp3' player, and no, he would not turn it off!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That's why there's an idea of placing sign boards,"no mobile" instead if "no smoking" in flights..
Well,it seems that people believe when they are on a mobile or cell phone he or she has created a private bubble that protects them from the outside world yet that is a pre-conceived notion which anyone listening in knows is false.
btw gud to see u on my blog..keep visiting..