Many things are bountiful in our fair city. Creative potholes festooned with three-legged plastic chairs and pot plants. Bars held up by pneumatic debutantes and sleazy men sporting fake Rolexes. Culture, however, is about as common as a wet t-shirt competition in Tehran.

So it was with unbridled glee that I headed to an oriental jazz concert the other night. The music was so good it made me want to make sweet love to a piano and ride unicorns over rainbows. Sadly, my experience was tarnished by the three sophomoric half-wits sitting to my right. Fully grown thirtysomethings giggling, shouting and conveying their general idiocy throughout the concert.

I engaged in some tentative tutting, hoping this might make them aware of their overwhelming irksomeness, but to no avail. As I was regrouping my thoughts to find the appropriate plan of attack, the female of the group started eating pumpkin seeds. I kid you not. Crunching away like she was lounging by the beach having a beer. At this point I lost it, and the Englishman in me took over: ‘Excuse me, do you mind? We’re trying to enjoy a highly engrossing multi-layered jazz concert here.’

At least that’s what I think I said. I might have just emitted a bark from my bearded face and waved my hands above my head as if I’d just been released from an asylum. It seemed to work for a while, until they pulled out their iPhones and started taking pictures of each other. In their defence, they must have required a Facebook profile picture that accurately captured both their contempt for the arts and their love of darkened auditoriums.

After the show was over, my friends and I hung around the lobby engaging in prolonged discussions about our thoughts on the concert in a concerted effort to look intellectual. As my attention faded away from our pomposity, I saw my tormentor/ pumpkin-seed-enthusiast across the room, clutching the microphone of a local television station. As it turns out, she’s their arts correspondent, entrusted with showering the nation in all sorts of cultural goodness. Oh dear.

Written by Nasri Atallah