James Helmrues the demise of everyday etiquette among travellers.
MY WIFE recently sent a text to a friend but got a digit wrong. A reply soon landed in her inbox, advising her that the recipient had "no interest in your plans - so please stop texting me!" This got me thinking about modern manners - or the lack of them.
Is civility dead? Is gratuitously rude or selfish behaviour just fine? Manners seem to be lacking these days, particularly when it comes to travelling.
On the roads patience is certainly not a virtue. Linger a bit too long when the traffic lights turn green and you'll soon be on the receiving end of a cacophony of car horns - and a few choice gestures.
But nowhere are manners more lacking than in the area of air travel. After a completely unscientific survey, here are a few common complaints.
RIP - or rushing idiot passenger - syndrome. Sufferers are the sort of people who push you out of the way to get through the departure gate and on to the aircraft first. The types who somehow think that if they queue-barge, and rush on board first, the pilot will come over the PA and exclaim, "Ah, glad you're here, sir, now we can get going without waiting for the rest," and start taxiing down the runway.
This type is named RIP as the unnecessary anxiety involved can surely only lead to an early demise.
Sufferers also tend to be the ones who leap out of their seats just as the aircraft's landing gear touches terra firma, simultaneously switching on their mobile phones and opening the overhead lockers.
We're all trying to get somewhere - that's why we're on the flight, after all - so relax a little, for your sake and ours.
Asbob - or antisocial behaviour on board - syndrome. This can take several forms, all annoying. As mentioned in these pages before, some passengers hardly wait until the flight is airborne before pressing the button to tilt their seats back as far as they will go. Limbs may be crushed, kneecaps fractured, small children flattened and cups of hot liquid spilled, but as long as they can stretch out a few centimetres more, then that's fine.
Another form of Asbob, often heard on trains and buses but soon to be unveiled at 35,000ft, thanks to new technology, is bellowing into mobile phones. "I'm on a plane!" will come the deafening cry. You don't say, everyone within a large radius will think to themselves. Other people's intimate conversations are not something you want to hear while travelling, and this also goes for domestic rows and flatulence. On all counts, especially the last, keep it in until you've got there.
Likewise, if Santa delivered a swanky new iPod for Christmas, with huge headphones, then I'm delighted for you. Your music collection may also be impressively trendy, but it doesn't mean I want to listen to it from the comfort of my seat beside you. Nudge it down a notch, and do us all a favour.
Sads - or staff-abuse directors. At some ungodly hour of the morning at Dublin Airport a couple of weeks ago, through bleary eyes, I witnessed a passenger laying into a member of the ground staff over some hold-up, and it got personal. "You're useless!" shouted Mr Passenger. These staff need a break. The poor guy had probably been on shift since the middle of the night.
Unhelpful staff can make a delay feel worse, but when travel frustrations become enormous you have to ask whether it is really all the fault of the staff member in front of you.
When cabin crew are going through their safety routines, would it really hurt some folk to glance up from their newspaper or celebrity magazine?
Ryanair has recently taken a particularly dim view of passengers who refuse to listen to safety instructions. Sure, we may not need to use those yellow slides or the oxygen masks this time round - let's sincerely hope not, anyway - but at least give the crew your attention for a few seconds.
And why have a go at the security staff, just because you've got to take your belt off to pass through a metal detector? None of us enjoys partially undressing in an airport terminal (come to think of it, some probably do), but it's really not part of an elaborate party game devised by the airport authorities at your expense. I've reported on airport alerts in recent years: there is a reason for all this security, however petty it sometimes seems.
Thankfully, civility is not completely dead. Many people do offer help fellow passengers struggling with children and luggage. They still chat and pass the time on a journey, and not every swing door slaps into your face when your hands are full.
But if glamour and fun have disappeared from travel, then it's up to us to make it more bearable.
Have you any gripes about travel manners? If so, e-mail us at go@irish-times.ie