Gangster rap; or why banning music on public transport is a bang out of order idea

So yeah man, there I am just minding my own business on the near-deserted upper deck of a 254 bus going from Hackney to Whitechapel the other day, when, bang, out of nowhere it happened. One minute there's the usual fuggy semi-quiet of your typical London bus on a drowsy summer's afternoon, the next, Abba's Take A Chance On Me is blasting out from someone's phone a few seats behind me. It's PRETTY LOUD. Abba. In this day and age. OK, so there you are. Somebody thinks it's funny or (god forbid) vaguely cool to play top-volume Abba like this in public. But hey, it's a big city. Let people do what they like, right? But then things escalate. The next minute the Abba fan (a bloke, aged about 30, strong aftershave) moves seats and comes to sit right in front of me, twisting his body round to look directly at me from under his shades. He's still playing Abba (at reduced volume) but most of all he's just staring at me without saying anything. And this is some intense staring. It goes on and on for minutes. Actually, is he looking at me from under those sunglasses or is he looking just slightly past me? It's hard to tell. But it's er, unconventional behaviour. After a while I've had enough and decide to get off the bus and walk the last couple of stops. Yes, you guessed it: at the very last moment when the doors are about to close downstairs, French Connection-like the silent Abba fan comes charging down the stairs and exits the bus as well. Nice! Anyway, it turned out he wasn't a maniac with a Zombie knife who was going to follow me through all of London's thoroughfares before finally cornering me down a blind alleyway and then hacking me to death (for disrespecting Abba?). No, he just walked behind me for a while then appeared to lose interest. Hmm, so were those cuddly Lib Dems right when they recently said playing loud music on public transport should be banned? Ha ha, no. It's a ridiculous idea. A focus-grouped piece of supposed "popular" idiocy. They should have consulted me. I'd have told them that music played out loud in public places is all part of the richness of life. Not least in a big city. Along with vehicle noises, sirens, people shouting their heads off and the manic chattering of the ring-necked parakeets. It's basically what defines most urban places. One big thing in my area (Hackney) is old Jamaican geezers going around with speakers rigged up to their bikes. They're usually blasting out reggae or ragga of some description. I can honestly say Hackney would be a worse place if they were suddenly told they'd be fined for playing some Gregory Isaacs or Cutty Ranks. Ffs! The same goes for the bone-shakingly-loud sound systems from the cars stopped at the traffic lights outside my flat. Super-loud Turkish or Middle Eastern music is a particular favourite here. The volumes are impressive: the windows of the flat literally shake and the stuff on my desk hums and vibrates (it's a little urban symphony). Bring it on, I say. Anyway, after my slightly sinister Abba experience, that same afternoon I find myself on another bus (a number 38, actually) coming home. Guess what. Within seconds of taking my seat upstairs there's a commotion below and then a burly bloke bangs his way upstairs and sits right behind me on a near-empty upper deck. He immediately starts haranguing me with questions like, "Are you a gangster? Are you mafia? Are you an ex-porn filmstar?" (Yeah, he had me with that last one). Puffing away on his roll-up and smiling and chortling like a mad man, he proceeded to barrage me with questions. Age? My job? Whether I have "lots of women"? You name it. It was a blast (sort of). So from one guy who stares and says nothing, to another who never stops talking it was, I guess, just another day in the life of a person (me) who uses a lot of buses and trains in London. It's just people, right? But the idea of criminalising loud music on public transport is laughable and belongs in the bin along with those dire "let's stop fare-dodgers" stunts from Robert Jenrick or similarly Sadiq Khan-bashing videos supposedly all about cleaning up graffiti on the Underground. It's a fucking city for fuck's sake. Street art, tags, loud music, noise: this is a city. But hang on! I will say this for the morality police types who want to silence and sanitise London's buses and trains. They could improve the quality of life in the capital if they backed one very specific new law. A law to stop people playing Abba music in public (The Abba Prevention Of Public Nuisance Act). It needs doing. Now. Please support my campaign ... 

A rare photo of Niluccio's back wall