Men, keep your loud conversations to yourself. Your verbal manspreading is ruining commuting for everyone

It’s bad enough that you take up so much physical space. As riveting as you think your self-important monologues are, public transport is not the place to deliver them, writes Jenny Eclair

First chairs and now phones, some men keep finding new ways to take up space (iStock)

I think I’ve coined a new phrase. Apologies to anyone else who has already been using it, but if no one has, then I’m bagsying it: “verbal manspreading”. It’s the practice of men talking as loudly as they like on public transport, for as long as they like about any subject they like, in front of anyone they like.

I had a particularly ugly incident concerning “verbal manspreading” last week, when I tackled a 40-something bloke who’d been dominating several train carriages with an incessant business conversation which he conducted on his mobile at a million decibels.

For ages, I presumed he’d forgotten that he was wearing his headphones and was unaware of how loud he was being, but no, he just didn’t care. It didn’t bother him whether other people were trying to read, snooze or conduct their own personal one to one conversations, he had stuff to say to someone on the other end of the phone and it required shouting.