Even though it doesn’t look like it, I regularly go to the gym, trying to stave off gravity and improve bone density by throwing myself around in my trainers twice a week. Recently, though, this has become something of a headache, and I mean this literally.
As I’m working my way around the rooms in my gym, struggling with my lat pulldowns and using the leg press as an opportunity to sit down for as long as possible (this is always a good moment to engage a wandering trainer in a conversation about something you didn’t watch on television last night, but obviously something you have a strong opinion about), I will usually be treated to the sound of dumbbells crashing to the floor, or the weights on the multi-pack clanging against its base as they’re dropped in exhaustion.
And it’s loud. Very loud. Going to my gym right now is as bad as going to one of those German industrial metal gigs back in the Eighties featuring the likes of Einstürzende Neubauten or Laibach. My gym usually reverberates to the sound of low-level R&B, innocuous background music that is non-threatening and vaguely encouraging. These days it sounds like a heavy metal nightclub. And not in a good way.
Why? Because most people who use the gym today walk around with headphones or earbuds, lost in their own little worlds, listening to what I assume will be either a podcast of some description (probably Alastair Campbell interviewing Elizabeth Day or Elizabeth Day interviewing Alastair Campbell) or a selection of tunes from their own private Spotify library, whacked up to 11 without a thought for those of us around them.
Just very occasionally you might catch someone nodding their head a little too vigorously, or humming along to a chorus from one of Ed Sheeran’s more lamentable compositions (a sackable offence in my book), but mostly all I hear is a lot of equipment making an almighty noise as though the people using it are completely deaf. Which is rude. Very rude.
These days my gym sounds like a heavy metal nightclub. And not in a good way
Walk around London today, squeeze yourself onto the Tube, grab a pole on a bus or queue up to buy an inflation-busting sandwich in Pret and you’ll find yourself standing behind someone wearing a gigantic pair of headphones who has absolutely no understanding of personal space, and who will be acting as though they’ve got the entire immediate area to themselves. For them, their whole lives are their own private Idaho. Or Texas, maybe. Or the Kalahari.
The other thing you will have noticed is a swarm of irritatingly boisterous people with very loud voices walking around as though they’re talking to themselves, obviously assuming we all want to listen to their phone conversation, no doubt captivated by the details of the incredibly complex deal they’re attempting to close (“They’ve done all the due diligence so just what is it that these b******* want?”), their relationship with their partner (“Honestly, if he does it again I’m going to tell him to stop. Or simply take away his dog…”), or, worse, the meagre contents of their fridge (“Shall we get Deliveroo? Again? Shall we try the new Italian place? It doesn’t look too disgusting. Well, it does, but you know what I mean…”).
This I can cope with, as my irritation is leavened by the fact that they invariably look ridiculous (I’ve often uncharitably thought they all look like the Cybermen in Doctor Who), but it’s the noise in the gym that I’m having a problem with. Not only does it seriously affect the atmosphere, but if you’re a tinnitus sufferer like I am, it’s often considerably unpleasant. I’m not going to say that we should ban headphones in public, as the last time I made a joke about fining people wearing backpacks on the Tube, rather too many people took it seriously, but I’m definitely in favour of corporal punishment or some kind of punitive community service for anyone caught with a pair on their head.
And if not that, then something obviously humiliating. My first suggestion would be wearing some of those clip-on Mickey Mouse ears. All day. For a month. That’ll sort them out.
