'No jury in the world would convict...'

[lovingboth]

Just testing, but the penalty for chatting on your mobile phone at the opera after the start of act two should be instant (but silent) death, shouldn't it?

Especially if it's just behind me.

Comments

[scopo.livejournal.com]

instant, silent, but *excruciating* for the victim ;)

apparently it's technically very easy to block mobile signals in theatres, cinemas etc but there are difficulties implementing it because of the fear that there'll be lawsuits from, say, doctors on call who pop out to the opera and who don't receive essential pages ...

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

I'm fundamentally against the instant death part of this. Remove them from the premises instantly, yes, but then deal with them in the manner of traditional jokes about being run over by a steam roller at top speed ("it was all over in a matter of hours"). In fact, the steam roller might not be a bad way of dispensing the punishment...

[uran.livejournal.com]

A cone of silence would descend upon their seat.
Then little gas jets would start releasing something lethal. That smelt like the worst fart ever, but only inside the cone.

[lovingboth]

TFS. If they got the bleep, they'd still probably have to disturb several rows in leaving.

Sentence: Death By Cheesegrater, to be carried out over the period of, say, a year.

[lovingboth]

The problem with that is that I'd want to watch their suffering!

It was distracting enough thinking of which orifices to stuff the broken pieces of her clamshell mobile, should she do it again...

[uran.livejournal.com]

Or for telcos to automatically end a call after 10 seconds if received in certain zones. Just long enough to answer and say, 'bugger off, I'm at the theatre' and if calls last longer than 9.5 seconds, the phone shocks the person violently. You should be able to smell burning hair - would that be enough? :)

[parallelgirl.livejournal.com]

I can't help thinking that death would be a bit squicky for the people sitting around the offender, and might do more to distract them from the opera than the actual offence.
But I would definitely be in favour of some kind of awful humiliation or suffering. Perhaps a humiliation from the stage, or a spotlight being shone on them or something. Failing that, may something ghastly befall them in the lobby afterwards, so that everyone can see that iniquity has its own desserts....