Put a sock in it

There are proposals in England for new laws to stop people playing music and videos out loud on their phones on public transport.

Many people find such behaviour intrusive and provocative when they're hoping for a few minutes' peace and quiet on their way to work or wherever.

In most cases people are either nervous about confronting the noisy person or if they do they're likely to get a mouthful of abuse and told to fuck off.

Personally I'm not much bothered by noisy individuals but I can see that others might be thoroughly exasperated by such inconsiderate actions.

At least they're not having intensely personal conversations that are better aired in some more private location. I mean, do you really want the whole carriage to know that your wife is divorcing you or you've just been sacked? Suddenly a bit of restraint takes over.

Other people's quirky behaviour on buses and trains isn't a big issue for me - unless they're stripping off or puking or screaming. I'm more concerned that they go where I want them to go, they're frequent, they come at the advertised time, and there are seats available.

The days when it was customary for train carriages to be in stony silence as the passengers scrutinised their copy of the Times are long gone. Nowadays you expect a fair amount of background noise on your journey.

Still shy

I've been shy ever since I can remember. At the age of five I hardly said a word when my mum and I met the headmaster of my first ever school. She had to convince the head that I wasn't normally so quiet and I would open up once I attended the school (which I did, once I was used to the teachers and the other pupils).

There's a difference of opinion about shyness. Some people say it's just selfish, leaving the conversational effort to other people and not offering anything yourself. But you could equally say that chatterboxes are selfish because they hog all the conversation and deter others from speaking.

Is shyness selfish or is it an inherent personality trait that you can't overcome however hard you try? You may really want to gabble away, but you just can't manage to?

Perhaps it's partly that the outgoing types hold opinions and beliefs so passionately that they just have to explain them to other people, while my own opinions are more flimsy and provisional and I'm not confident about airing them?

Perhaps also I'm much more interested in other people's lives, which are full of surprises and fascinating revelations, while my own life seems far too humdrum and routine to appeal to anyone else? Listening to others comes more naturally than talking about myself.

Then again, I'm often rendered shy by anyone who's intimidating or overbearing and doesn't seem to respect me.

Being shy isn't the same as being introverted of course. Shyness means not having the confidence or the ingenuity to chatter away easily, while introversion means enjoying your own company more than the company of others.

So if I enjoy both, what does that make me?

No tiny feet

Jenny and I decided very early on that we didn't want children. Lots of our friends and acquaint-ances were having children and they seemed happy enough with their choice, but it wasn't for us.

We just never had the urge. There may be many men and women who're naturally broody and simply can't wait for the patter of tiny feet, but we never felt like that. We had other priorities.

We've always been content as just the two of us, and didn't want a couple of kids possibly complicating our relationship. And we never woke up one middle-aged morning thinking, oh my god we should have had kids, and now it's too late.

There were other factors of course. My parents did a pretty clumsy job of bringing up us kids, and I didn't think I'd be any better than them. Why not leave parenting to those who have an obvious gift for it?

I think both childless couples and couples with children are somewhat baffled by each other's choices. The former think, what's the big attraction of spending twenty years bringing up unruly kids and never having any peace and quiet? The latter think, they don't know what they're missing, there's nothing like it, it's a unique experience.

Childless couples are still accused by some of being selfish, of not helping to raise the next generation. Well, we may not have children but we're paying for other people's children - their healthcare, their education, the libraries they use. So I think we're doing our bit.

No patter of tiny feet for us. Only the tiny paws of trespassing cats.

The final step

It's easy to understand someone killing themself because of a serious physical illness, or the early signs of one. Obviously they don't want to suffer endlessly or rely on long-term care.*

But when it's suicide after mental distress, people often say they don't understand why the person did it. They wonder why they didn't ask for help or why they didn't respond to the help that was given. Surely there was no need for such a drastic step?

They may even be totally unsympathetic. They may say suicide is selfish, or weak, or melodramatic, or even callous. Did they realise the grief and guilt they were inflicting on their friends and relatives?

I find such lack of sympathy and understanding quite startling. I think it's a failure of imagination, of the ability to see the extremities of pain and distress and misery the person is enduring, pain so severe that any amount of advice, therapy, drugs, support and chivvying is never going to soothe or cure it. Their psyche is so fractured, their emotions so disordered, that life is just an intolerable burden they have to get rid of.

Jenny and I had a friend who was diagnosed schizophrenic for over 30 years. When we visited her she would put on a show of being cheerful and ebullient but sometimes the mask would slip and we would see just how unhappy she was underneath. Her future was obviously cruelly limited and stuck, and eventually she killed herself. Numerous people had tried to help her but her distress was too deep-rooted to be extinguished.

It's all too common to misinterpret severe despair or depression as "being a bit pissed off" or "being up against it" and not recognise the depth and breath of an overwhelming hopelessness. Even if you recognise it, the person may feel too ashamed or timid or paralysed to admit it.

Such suffocating and unyielding misery is all too understandable. The tragedy is that even if you understand, you may be powerless to put things right.

*This suicide note from Gillian Bennett, who was in the early stages of dementia, is astonishingly rational and clear-sighted. No way was "the balance of her mind disturbed", as the cliché has it.

Wot, no kids?

Now and then I still feel a little embarr-assed that I don't have any children. Having children is seen so widely as the "normal" thing to do, that even after many years of being childless, and not in any way regretting it, I still feel it's a choice that needs to be somehow justified.

Nobody ever asks me why I don't have children, nobody ever gives any hint that it was an odd decision, but nonetheless I always feel slightly unusual, a bit of a maverick, a bit of a rebel.

I suppose it doesn't help that there are two schools close to our home, and twice a day dozens of children pour in and out of their parents' cars, the parents obviously doting on their little offspring and watching them protectively.

It also doesn't help that any woman who gets pregnant is promptly congratulated by all and sundry, everyone admires the gradually swelling belly, and when the baby finally appears, yet more congratulations are offered.

Unfortunately all the fervent enthusiasm and showers of baby-gifts, however natural they may seem, inevitably give the message that having a baby is much more impressive than not having one.

I can justify my child-free decision by pointing out how much extra cash I've had and how much that's improved my quality of life, but somehow that just makes me sound a little selfish and smug, as if other people's sacrifices for the sake of their children are worthless.

In fact being "selfish", not replenishing the human race but thinking only of our own pleasure, is what childless couples are often accused of. If I suggest that maybe the anticipated joy and reward of having children is itself a somewhat "selfish" desire, the reaction will be frosty to say the least.

I've never felt that I've missed out by not having the patter of tiny feet around the place. But it still seems a bit like the exception that proves the rule.

Rotten writers

If writers can only create their master-pieces by being thoroughly selfish and mistreating their family and friends, is that a necessary price to pay or would they be better off writing less and being more likable?

An article today points out that although James Joyce wrote brilliant novels that are acclaimed all over the world, as an individual he was quite unpleasant. His wife Nora is said to have described him as weak and neurotic, ruining her life, drinking too much and squandering money he constantly cadged off other people.

The private lives of many other writers and artists have turned out to be equally unappealing and hard for others to cope with. Behind the glossy public image there is often a less savoury tale of long-suffering spouses and domestic mayhem.

It’s standard practice to play down their shocking personal behaviour and insist that it’s the necessary downside to works of genius that will be feted for centuries to come. In any case, their dissatisfied partners are always free to walk out and find someone more attractive.

There again, it can be argued that they just happen to be inadequate individuals, and their objectionable traits have nothing to do with being writers or artists. They could stop writing tomorrow, and still be a total pain in the arse. In fact their frustrated desire to write might make them even more obnoxious.

If they stopped writing, maybe they would just take up some other all-consuming interest that would make them just as selfish and just as careless about other people’s needs.

Some people would even suggest that their flawed private lives make their creative output more interesting. Doesn’t a book written by a notorious philanderer and drug-addict have more of a frisson than one written by a polite, neatly-dressed tea-drinker? And isn’t it impressive that they even managed to write these extraordinary books despite all their personal failings?

At the end of the day, I guess it’s simply a question of what others are willing to put up with. If their nearest and dearest are prepared to suffer all manner of indignities and mistreatment in the name of public esteem and a distinguished artistic legacy, then who is to say they shouldn’t? Is it any concern of ours?

Picture courtesy of the Missouri Review, University of Missouri

In two minds

I always feel ambivalent about other people’s miseries. On the one hand I want to help them and make them feel better. On the other, I don’t want their misery to deflate my own happiness.

Should I respond altruistically or selfishly? Should I think of their well-being or my own? Should I leave them to sort out their own negative feelings or ride to the rescue?

I think this ambivalence is quite common. Although there’s a huge market for books about people’s miserable past, about the abuse and neglect and poverty and self-hatred, in our daily life we may turn away from a stranger’s rambling hard luck story with a dismissive shrug. It may be too much to handle if we’re already wrestling with a dozen problems of our own.

Some people’s misery is so personal, so rooted in their own psyche and their way of seeing things, that it can be hard to relieve it however much we try. Any amount of sympathetic listening, intelligent advice or tough talking may cheer them up for half an hour but then the misery returns.

Also, misery can be very multi-layered. It can take time to dig out the exact cause. What someone tells us to begin with may be only the most trivial bits, the bits that are easiest to talk about. It may take a lot of patient coaxing to get to the heart of what’s clawing at them.

If it’s someone we love, that patience is easily come-by. But if it’s a mere acquaintance, we’re nervous about what we might be getting into and we’re more cautious with our concern.

And of course people often hide their misery. It’s embarrassing to confess that they don’t enjoy life. They see it as a personal failure, a temperamental flaw. They’d rather keep this awful affliction to themselves. We may guess at their private sorrow, but there’s no way they’ll talk about it.

But if it’s possible to ease someone’s misery and make them a little happier, it’s one of the most satisfying feelings in the world. What more can you do for another human being?

Snowbound

When Britain is suffering its worst winter for 30 years, and roads everywhere are treacherous, I do wonder at the idiocy and selfishness of people making totally avoidable car journeys and then getting stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Up to 1000 vehicles were stuck on the A3 in Hampshire last night. Some people were evacuated to rescue centres while others had to stay in their vehicles all night in plummeting temperatures.

A 23 year old woman, eight months pregnant, her 13 month old daughter and a male friend, were marooned overnight in the snow, also in Hampshire. She complained that there was nobody to help her and no sign of the police or army.

Journalists don't seem to have asked any of these beleaguered motorists "Is your journey really necessary?" There have been endless warnings not to travel unless you absolutely have to, yet people are still heading off into the snow and ice regardless.

Then they expect instant rescue if they get stuck, no matter how expensive or difficult the rescue operation. The breakdown and emergency services are run off their feet with calls for help, yet still motorists expect every snowbound Tom, Dick and Harriet to be bailed out immediately.

Where on earth were those 1000 motorists going on a freezing winter's evening? Work is unlikely, or any routine daily chores. If they were visiting friends or relatives, or having an evening out, how exactly is that necessary? Can it not wait until the weather improves?

I especially wonder at the apparent foolishness of the eight months pregnant woman. Why was she making that obviously risky 50-mile journey? Did she not realise how dangerous it was?

Clearly the most vital motoring accessory is not a jack or a torch but a dictionary that includes the word "necessary".

Selfish cad

I didn't treat some of my early girlfriends very well. At that time I was a typical hard, selfish male with little insight into other people's inner lives. It took me quite a while to wise up.

It didn't help that I'd been to all-male schools where I never met any girls and was utterly perplexed when my first job brought me into close contact with the opposite sex.

I treated one particular woman very shoddily. She was a warm, generous person, what in the sixties we would have called a flower child - she wore floaty, wispy clothes, put flowers in her hair, read Lord of the Rings and listened to Donovan.

She fancied me enough to abandon a university course in Birmingham, move in with me in London and then take up a hideously mind-numbing job to pay the rent when my existing job suddenly ended.

I liberated her a few months later when I found another job, but by then our relationship was going downhill, or so I believed. Sex was a flop, culturally we had very different tastes, our bedsit was crummy, and I couldn't cope with her extrovert personality and messiness.

But in those days I simply didn't know how to express my thoughts and feelings. So instead of voicing my frustrations and talking them through with her, I bottled them up and said nothing. And decided that I would simply end the relationship and move on.

Which is what I did, with no explanation and no discussion. I told her it wasn't working out, that we had to split up, and that was that. Of course she was hurt, baffled, crushed, but she agreed to break up and move out.

I saw her a short while later, now going out with a lovely, gentle, thoughtful guy who seemed very good for her. So hopefully the sad experience of our own relationship was soon put behind her.

But ever since, I've pondered over how incredibly immature and insensitive I was then, and how things might have gone if I'd been more open and more aware. A lot of unnecessary heartache could have been avoided.

Pretty ain't enough

So many men are naturally highly sexed, you'd think women wouldn't need to go to such lengths to make themselves look sexy. Yet men still demand a perfect female body to make love to. They want to have their cake and eat it.

It's not enough for the woman to be female, or pretty, or likeable, or just willing. If she doesn't conform to his mental image of sultry sexiness, she's somehow spoiling his pleasure.

So she has to spend her time primping and preening, depilating and dieting, slapping on cosmetics and enduring plastic surgery, so her man can feel suitably chuffed while he's getting his rocks off. This extreme male selfishness is euphemistically passed off as "looking after your man".

A woman I once knew said her ex-husband insisted on the full female regalia - padded bra, girdle, tight skirt, high heels and thick make-up - or he would dismiss her as plain and unfeminine. She always felt like a deranged drag queen. Needless to say, the marriage didn't last very long.

If women expected men to behave the same way, to doll themselves up like some theatrical dandy, men would simply laugh and take themselves off. But they reserve the right to impose laborious and arbitrary beauty regimes on women.

Unfortunately the media happily collude in this oppressive behaviour and give women relentless advice on how to turn themselves into male fantasies, complete with doctored photos of impossibly perfect women for them to aspire to.

The utter madness of this sexual straitjacket only becomes clear when some unlucky woman who's opted for plastic surgery once too often dies on the operating table and goes to an early grave - all in the name of giving her man an extra bedtime thrill.

PS: There have been several stories recently about women who sought permanent hair removal by laser, only to have their skin irreversibly disfigured by over-powerful lasers.

PPS: Virtually all the comments have disagreed with me - the pressure for women to be physically perfect comes not from men but from their own self-criticism, from other women and from advertising that plays on women's insecurities. How wrong can one be!