I have to admit that one reason why I like flying BA is that the crew are not afraid to take on passengers who are using Blackberries as the plane enters the runway, or wearing noise cancelling headphones in aisle seats where they could block my exit route off the aircraft.

I contrast this to most Asian carriers I have flown with, where cabin crew are generally unwilling to engage with passengers who are wilfully ignoring the rules and endangering others. I don't actively complain about people to cabin crew, but there are cases where people are, for example, on the telephone as we begin our take-off run (TG at BKK a couple of days ago) and the crew do nothing about it.

The differences between the rules in various countries is perplexing sometimes, I agree, but just because one country allows something doesn't mean everyone should. If we had that kind of "race to the bottom" in other safety matters, like the provision of life vests, then that would be viewed by most people as unacceptable. I'm not a scientist and am happy to rely on the judgement of authorities on this - I'm actually happy that they're pretty conservative. People sometimes seem to lose perspective about air travel - we are flying around in a highly pressurised metal tube at 500mph+, ten miles above the ground, passing close to lots of other metal tubes doing the same thing.