I have been on two trains this weekend.

On each journey, in my carriage, has been an Australian woman with a voice somehow switched to perpetual twitter/high volume overload.

And how do they manage that thing where their voice carries forever? Maybe it's from hundreds of years of shouting across miles of sheep, I don't know, but they don't shut up and they don't say anything remotely worth over-hearing.

I'm not expecting an enlightening literary dissection of Crime and Punishment, an insightful analysis of world economic forces or even a few thoughts on Vivienne Westwood's autumn-winter collection. But no-one is interested in the time they danced to Agadoo, what they thought of the London Eye or why there aren't enough apprentices in blah's office for blah to get the job done on time on budget... all while eating a bag of crisps designed to feed a family of 32.

The girl in front of me on the way to Sheffield ate those crisps while discussing how she was going to cut something out of something else. For a whole bloody hour. I'm guessing the man she was talking/eating at was English because you couldn't hear him.

Thankfully only an hour of my life, but I could hear her over my ipod and it was on loud enough to make Lemmy's ears bleed.

I know - and thank God we are - past a world where little girls are taught to be seen and not heard. But keeping your voice down to a level that respects the needs of fellow travellers and not consuming food in a manner that resembles a front-loading washing machine on spin cycle would be appreciated.