Michael Moynihan: Why is it that noisy people show no consideration for others?

It shows the ultimate flex of the solipsist; everyone must accommodate me rather than the other way around, writes Michael Moynihan

'One call was conducted at full-throated, resonant volume on behalf of the gentleman present in person in the coffee shop, and at tinny, piercing resonant volume by the other participants on the call.'

Some things stay constant in this business no matter what happens, and the decline in standards of behaviour remains one of the still points in a changing world, an ever-reliable topic for columnists everywhere.

And in every time: hundreds of years ago embattled pamphleteers, struggling in Elizabethan London for a topic that would generate a few ducats, would snap their fingers as they realised it was time to rewarm a screed on the decline of standards.