Time’s up for tinny tunes and blaring football highlights. London’s headphone cavalry has arrived

‘We all have rights and in the noisy vibrant cities of this country, there’s room for free expression, but here’s the thing: we also have a duty of care.’ Photograph: ViewApart/Getty Images

There is that scene in so many westerns films, of the kind forever playing on daytime TV, when all seems lost but suddenly the cavalry comes riding over the horizon.

The cavalry came to save me this week and they were wearing the uniforms of Transport for London, which runs the buses and many of the railways in the capital. TfL, as it is known, wants all who play stuff on their mobile phones without headphones to get out of town by sundown. Or at the very least to stop it. Signs are going up to that effect. Yeehaw! Go get them!