Becca, I'm with you on the public conversations. Makes me want to heckle! I don't know which is worse, all these people walking round with earache talking to themselves, or the ones that wander lonely as a cloud, reading or sending text messages. I want to slap their hand upwards from underneath as I go by, and see how far the phone travels!
Someone I know said that when cell phones started to get small enough to fit in the palm of the hand; he thought how nice it was to see so much traditional singing going on in the street( a la Ewan MacColl-not-finger-in-the-ear.).