Public Transport's Deadly Sins

1) Someone standing on the wrong side on the escalator is a classic that is never acceptable. Count on it happening when you can hear your train rolling onto the platform and the next train is not until ten minutes later...

2) Children should not travel on public transport, especially if they are loud. It only takes one screaming baby for you to take the car to work for the next 20 years.

3) To listen to music is always nice - but only if you have chosen it yourself. A lively ring tone, accordion players and kids with a yearning for tinnitus and leaking headphones is a big no-no!

4) Body odour is another classic. Eat a lot of garlic, avoid showering for a week and wear something you found in the rubbish and you can guarantee a whole train car to yourself.

5) Something everyone should know: a bus/tube train is not the same as a moving fast-food stand. Neither kebab, pizza or beer smell as good as it tastes. Travel first. Eat later. That is how you do it.

6) Rush hour and Monday morning on the underground: person in large bulky jacket, with a ruggsack and bad body awareness who suddenly turns around. How many passengers get an elbow in the neck and a ruggsack in the face?

7) Okay, they are old and frail and do not know where they are getting off. But do they need to stand first in the queue, talk to the driver for 10 minutes and then hobble towards a seat at the back of the bus? Count on a 15-minute delay.

8) Everybody running towards the train have a chance to catch the train, but only one makes it. Despite the car only being half full. Why? This is what surely happened: the person who made it first threw him/herself in, realised s/he made it and stopped abruptly just inside the doors. Nobody else succeeded in getting inside the car since s/he was blocking the opening, the doors closed and the train started rolling with the rest of the group still on the platform.

9) Zero manners and etiquette in public transport: don't get up for elders, put your feet on the seat, brag about your latest shag or malarkey your best friend really loud on your mobile phone, cough without covering your mouth and do not let those leaving the train get off first.

10) Give your accessories a seat. Of course your doggy or your bag shouldn't have to be on the floor!

List found in Östermalmsnytt (my translation/interpretation).

Mobile Flightmare

It looks like the EU will allow mobile phone calls on airplanes soon*. What a nightmare! Can you imagine dreadful 10-hour transatlantic flights with mobile phone ringing constantly and people jabbing away about relationship problems or their latest illness??!

The newspaper Svenska dagbladet reports that reactions to the news among passengers at Stockholm Bromma Airport were somewhat mixed, with several worrying about disturbance onboard. Some believed that a number of airlines will use peace and quiet onboard as a marketing tool - for those who regard one of the virtues of air travel as being the haven it provides from being reached or hearing other people being reached - while others will target passengers with the offer of mobile phone use.

Hopefully it will only be a short period of free mobile use before airlines - and passengers - come to their senses! The future probably - hopefully - holds mobile phone booths or small compartments for those who cannot stand being disconnected for a few hours instead.

* On certain flights under new European Commission rules, provided the airlines have the necessary technical equipment. The plan is to install small base stations into the cockpits of the planes. Calls made via the station will be routed to terrestrial networks via satellite link. However, according to the decision, flight captains will have the power to switch off the service if they feel it necessary.