Annoying arses with their keypad tones turned up LOUD

I was sat in the Ascot Bar for the afternoon at the Pennyhill Park Hotel in the London countryside — Bagshot in Surrey to be accurate. When I told my New York friend I was going there last night, she was really excited.

“Last time I went there, I saw Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake in the bar!” she told me over IM. If she’d been telling me by phone, it’d have been said in a breathlessly excited voice, I’m sure.

There was no Justin, no Cameron either. However, there was a tremendously unhelpful arse sat in the middle of the bar with his friend. I reckon they were both aged about 28-30.

He was unhelpful because I was trying my best to decompress, to relax, to get away from MOBILE PHONES. And alas, he had his keypad tones turned up full, full, full volume. Turned to 11. Fine if he’s just dialing a number or clicking through reading a text message, but excruciating if he’s writing a text. WITHOUT T9.

I was actually able to identify when he was pressing space and when he was cycling through the keys hunting for a letter. Regularly, everyone in the bar was subjected to this arse tapping away for 2-3 minutes across the last hour of my evening.

I almost took a video of him because, although I was at the other side of the bar, I was confident the handset would have been able to pick up the noise from the distance.

However, I did swear to myself that I’d definitely blog it when I got back. So here we go.

What an arse!

TURN YOUR KEYPAD TONES DOWN

Interestingly, he didn’t have a new message notification. Not even a beep.