Stereo phone chatter and feet on seats are pet travel hates - Kevin Buckle

Twitter, or X as we now have to call it, may not be as entertaining or indeed as good a source of information as it used to be but it is still well worth looking out for other people’s tweets and there was an entertaining comment from David Cowan the BBC’s Home Affairs correspondent this week.

People talking on their phone, often for the entire length of their journey, is a pet hate for Kevin Buckle

On Thursday while on the train home he tweeted: “Our @scotrail conductor is telling everyone to keep their feet off the seats – ‘As a company we have thought about this and set aside a large area for the storage of your feet. That’s the floor’. Superb.”

As I write this it has had over 30,000 views and a fair number of comments. I’ve wanted to comment on this before myself but always decided against as I already complain enough about shoppers and their thoughtless behaviour. However this quote was just too good to ignore and gives me the excuse to mention my other pet hate which is people talking on their phone, often for the entire length of their journey, on FaceTime.

Only last week two people got on the bus and sat behind me and instead of talking to each other they immediately got on their phones and started talking to somebody else. There was a stereo effect of chatter behind me for a good twenty minutes.

With regards to feet on seats, the back of my bus is regularly just full of kids who all feel the need to put their feet up on the seats opposite. As the bus gets full some will reluctantly take their feet down while others will stick them out daring somebody to say something. Very rarely does anybody say anything at all but often opt for attempting to sit in the seat anyway causing said feet to be removed at the last minute.

I don’t think I have ever heard anybody complain about loud phone calls which is understandable as it would be quite confrontational. Certainly that seems to be a far greater problem on the bus rather than the train, though on the train it can feel quite weird as somebody puts their phone down opposite you and then starts a FaceTime call.

Even bus stops are not safe from irritating behaviour as while smokers will always stand outside the shelter those who vape will just have a quick puff and then put their e-cigarettes back in their pocket.

For a long time I genuinely didn’t realise what the sickly sweet smell was at the Waverley Steps bus stop until it finally clicked that it was related to all the mainly kids having a quick puff.

I’m not a complete innocent myself as I am guilty of putting my bags on a train seat despite the announcements to use the overhead racks but in my defence I do put them onto my knees as soon as seats become scarce.