It is really annoying when someone sitting near you in the cinema talks all through the film, or rattles a crisp packet. Or at the theatre someone fails to silence their mobile phone. Or in a restaurant there are loud groups spoiling your quiet meal.
Imagine you are in the middle of an important tennis match (to you and your opponent) and someone in crowd behind you carries on a conversation with their companion. What do you do in these circumstances? Stan Wawrinka playing in Paris last Wednesday got fed up with such a situation when he could hear voices continually chattering behind him. "Is the tennis disturbing you?" he asked. The Minister for Simplification of the State was embarrassed to be challenged like this. Jean-Vincent Placé was actually talking to Jean Gachassin, the head of French tennis.
Despite video evidence that M Placé did indeed spend much of the match chatting and laughing with his neighbours, he pleaded that it wasn't him particularly, there was a lot of whispering behind him.
Wawrinka lost the match.
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