Counterpoint: British people are pretty polite, on public transport and elsewhere, they don't shout into mobile phones as loudly as they did in the early years of those devices, and lots of us now carry noise-cancelling headphones anyway.

Incidentally, wax earplugs in cinemas will change your life. The sound level is so high that you can easily hear the film through them, but you can't hear popcorn, clever comments etc.