I confronted a large group of foul-mouthed, beer-swigging men on the train after they laughed at the guard and started blasting their music. What happened next shocked even me: CLARE FOGES

It was bliss, in short: a desk seat in one of the train’s private quiet carriages, flat white and flapjack, the green fields of England flashing past the window as I clicked on my laptop.

Then the horror: About ten young men began to behave more rebelliously than a gang of French football hooligans.

‘My friend!’ and ‘You bastard!’ and the lashes of laughter as young men scold each other: ‘bwahaha’. He was holding beer cans and a man was playing music on his phone and one of the others shouted at him: ‘Choon!’

We exchanged glances with the lady across the street; he was just opening a Marian Keyes novel and, like me, was clearly relishing the prospect of peace. Men in their early 20s got louder, their language worse, decibels rising to bachelorette levels. Other passengers around me frowned and rolled their eyes, as if a little facial gymnastics would tell them that.

A few minutes later, a young female train guard got into the carriage, timidly like a gazelle entering a lion’s den.

‘Guys,’ he whispered, ‘this is a quiet car…’

‘Not anymore!’ one of them retorted, and his friends laughed.

At this point I had had enough. I adopted my stern 1950s schoolmaster voice as I jumped out of my seat and strode toward the young men: ‘Listen. I know you’ve had a nice day out and are very excited, but this is a Quiet Car. Do you see the signs? Silence. People booked this carriage for work or study. You’re ruining everyone’s journey. If it’s truly impossible to keep your voice down, go somewhere else. Please.’

The young men had faces like stunned mullets. As I sat back down, a few of them passed me and got into another car, one of them muttering a quiet ‘sorry’. The rest wasn’t as quiet as the grave after my tick-tock, but it was much better.

To some my behavior may seem unnecessary, even shameful, but to hell with the British attitude of turning the other cheek.

We are experiencing a crisis of decency in this country. People are too caught up in scrolling TikTok to be kind, too selfish to pick up trash, too inconsiderate to care about the noise or smell they make, and these daily acts of selfishness aren’t called out enough. Most Brits, like my other passengers, look away or move away. The more the good majority puts up with it, the more the inconsiderate minority gets away with it.

This week I read with great excitement about Rosamund Pike’s theatrical exuberance.

The actress stars in the West End hit Inter Alia, a 100-minute tour de force that has critics shedding tears of admiration for her performance. Apparently, the idiot in row G wasn’t too keen on it, because during the emotional climax of the game, Pike noticed them texting gleefully. And he was very angry.

Rosamund Pike addresses an audience member during the curtain call for West End hit Inter Alia

The actor said: ‘Someone was texting… you know who. ‘I won’t single you out, but you know it ruins the performance.’

As the curtain closed he looked at the audience and said: ‘Someone was texting… you know who. I won’t spare you, but you know it ruins the performance. We see things, we feel things, and so when I feel and see it, it’s very difficult. ‘I’m trying to tell you a story and I feel you and I hope you feel me too.’

In the rumored images (taken on another theatergoer’s phone, of course), Pike stands with his hands on his hips, his eyebrows raised in distaste, with a gaze that could pierce solid steel. I would like to see it done as a sculpture titled The Wrath of the Middle-Aged Woman.

I say this not in a derogatory way, but with admiration and appreciation. Because when it came time to give justice to the rude people, I turned into an angry, middle-aged woman. Pike is 47 years old, I am 45 years old.

As I get older, I have less time to be rude in public places and more comfortable voicing my frustrations. You think I’m a vixen? Bulldog? Do I care?

I have miles to travel, a house to manage, bills to pay, children to raise. I don’t really care about being cute, cool, or shy. But I don’t care if you vape on the train or leave your crisp packet for someone else to pick up.

Looks like Pike and I aren’t alone. A poll this week revealed British women are the angriest in Europe. Could it be because the behavior in public places is the stupidest and most annoying behavior in Europe?

Although I never leave home with the intention of becoming a fully paid sergeant with Manners Police, I often find myself responding to the indifference of others.

At the cinema: ‘Can you ask your child to sit down, please? My daughter can’t see the screen, thank you.’ In the park: ‘Can you smoke that joint somewhere else, please? There are children here, thank you.’ And to the human spreaders on the subway: ‘Can you cross the street, please? ‘I just need a little more space – thanks.’

Is it dangerous? Only once did I feel threatened when I asked a man on a London bus to turn down the volume on very loud music. He responded by lifting his hands up to my neck as if he wanted to squeeze me like a turkey. I got off at the next stop.

There are situations where it’s wise to turn the other cheek—I wouldn’t display the same enthusiastic attitude on a lonely night bus or in downtown Chicago—but overall I think women are easier to talk to than men because things are less likely to get physically heated.

Etiquette Policing has its limits. If someone next to me on the train is eating a smelly burger, I’m not going to lecture him for it. If someone is poking me with their backpack or moving to the front of the queue, they may not have noticed or are having a rough day.

But those who seem to have forgotten their etiquette need reminding. Sometimes people in public spaces need a good scolding, not a warning.

Hannah definitely knows how to be sexy at 51

Although I am a heterosexual woman, when I saw 51-year-old Hannah Waddingham on the latest cover of the Hollywood Bible Variety, I was reminded of 1950s crime fiction writer Raymond Chandler’s Humphrey Bogart-style rants: ‘[She] she was blonde. A blonde who would make a bishop cut a hole in a stained glass window.’

Don’t discourage women from seeking help

How shocking it was to hear BBC Panorama’s allegations against a maternity unit in Nottingham; midwives referred to some heavily pregnant women with the abbreviation FOH: ‘get out of the house’. Don’t they know how frustrating the last weeks of carrying a child are? During the last of my four pregnancies I had a problem with the umbilical cord and was in and out of the day unit as if I had a season ticket – and the midwives could not have been nicer. I hope this story doesn’t discourage mothers from seeking help if they have concerns. If in doubt, get it checked.

People who like ‘selective pieces’ are just lazy

It seems that during the summer months Brits choose to cook on average three times a week to have ‘picky bits’. Where did this annoying expression come from? A trendy way of saying you can’t be bothered to cook? In any case, people over the age of ten should not be allowed to use the term ‘selective parts’ or go near a hot oven.

Prisons watchdog chief Helen Spree was caught sharing explicit photos and having an inappropriate relationship with a criminal. There have been many similar scandals involving female staff. As un-PC as it may seem, does some thought need to be given to whether employing women in prisons filled with sex-starved men creates such a problem?