What I think about when I am on the bus

Last week when I was away seeing my brother (in New Zealand) I was updating him on UK culture and I was talking about the public transport + personal music preferences issue that I experience when using the bus in Birmingham.

For those who drive everywhere you might not know about this. My brother was certainly surprised (he does tend to drive everywhere but also mobile phones have become a great deal more sophisticated in the 4 or so years he's been away) what I told him about was the phenomena of generally young people (but significantly not always) playing music on their mobile phones, without the use of headphones and so that everyone can hear. This is usually on the top deck of the bus, but not always. Sometimes two individuals will go head to head with any combination of urban to indie sounds.

Now i might be turning into a cranky old woman but I generally find the whole thing extremely annoying, however over the months I have devised some thought processes/strategies to cheer and amuse me until it stops seeming so annoying, here are a few of my potential strategies:

1. My main one would requires that I could play the clarinet/trumpet and when I hear the tinny music coming from the back of the bus I simply slowly open the case and put together my instrument in a calm and methodical way and then just stand up and play a fantastic tune.

2. Sometimes I try this one: I think to myself well it's music that they are listening to and that is great - you know they are in their way supporting the creative industries - this is a cultivated bus!

3. Sometimes I think I'd like to try this: I start a Chinese whisper campaign (something like 'when you hear the count of three everyone turn around and a. shout 'shut the **** up', b. hum c. turn the music on and up on your own phone').

4. Another idea is I carry with me at all times a big old Ghetto blaster and when I hear someone playing some tunes I just press play! Only mine is John Coltrane or Miles Davis or some sort of antidote.

5. Oh and I like this one it involves me and a small group of fellow passengers start to sing a medley of 'songs from the shows' in a cappella stylee and just belt them out (need to think of appropriate tunes I think West side story might feature not sure).

6. I do a big old bogus PR campaign on behalf of a headphone/earbud (what ever you call them) company and as a promotional thing I carry about a bunch of freebies to distribute - so I naturally give them to those folks who appear to have mislaid theirs ' Congratulations you've just won blah blah blah'..

Rant over - incidentally the point of these is not to actually do them just to amuse oneself with 'what ifs?'