I Silenced Him

.

Have you noticed just how noisy the country has become?

Sitting in the garden this morning, this is what wafted up from the local shops.

“This lorry is reversing” ..beep…beep “This lorry is reversing”.

The shops are, I might add, are a good quarter of a mile away! Why does it have to be so bloody loud?

This menace of unwanted sounds. This noise purporting to be music. This 'aural garbage'.

Today we have to endure the throb of music from the window-cleaners transistor, or share a day-long, ball-by-ball cricket commentary with the builder working on next door’s extension.

We are hounded by music in shops, hotels, coaches, lifts, even in the dentist’s chair.

They had similar problems even back in Victorian times but in those days it was not recorded music, but live street entertainers.

In those days the street sounds came from German bands, Welsh choirs, black-faced minstrels, one-man bands, old men with tin whistles and of course Organ Grinders.

If today's cost of living, carries on like it is, I can see me ending up like this poor chap. I have already got the Organ and the beard!

I wouldn't mind betting, that even in those days, quite a few people got annoyed by this “aural nuisance".

…but not quite as angry as this…..

There used to be an organ man who played along our street.

He doesn’t play there any more: his heart has ceased to beat.

‘Twas on a summer evening when the light was going dim,

That I pulled out my revolver and I pointed it at him.

Was it Tuesday night or Wednesday? I can’t remember which.

But anyhow I silenced him without the slightest hitch.

.