I have a friend who used to try the German thing ("I no speaking English sehr good?"). Unfortunately, on no fewer than 4 occasions he got nailed...when his seatmate started to speak fluent German to him, then his 40 word vocab was exhausted very quickly.

Sleeping doesn't work to well either, and a book even less...I've definitely had loonies who proceeded to talk over both.

I really enjoy the "loonier-than-thou" approach. I once scolded my shoes and threw one of them at the floor and told him that I would not put him back on until he was prepared to behave better. That was pretty effective. However, I feel so bland if I ever use the exact same approach twice!