IF there’s one irritant that’s sure to have got on your wick at some point, it’s the unwelcome intrusion of other people’s noises into your home.
How severe the vexation depends greatly on how chipper one is feeling at the time. It’s fairly easy to put up with a pneumatic drill outside the living room window if you’re, say, packing for a holiday, but the same din accompanying the frenzied preparation of a meal for imminent guests is likely to push tempers over the edge.
And in oversubscribed cities such as this one, with multiple neighbours often in situ above and below, as well either side of us, scraping chairs, slamming doors, shrieking children or furtive knocking of bedposts can all resonate with uncomfortable clarity through crappy plasterboard walls.
Since humans don’t possess the ability to close our ears, we’re left with a small, unsatisfactory arsenal against uninvited sounds. At the basic level (at which us Brits have traditionally hovered for much of the time) you simply grin and bear it, tutting, sighing and letting out an occasional exasperated harrumph.
Others up the ante, and employ some form of physical blocking device: plugs, defenders, phones or muffs, each varying in their levels of effectiveness and ridiculousness.
And then, at the top of the scale there are the complainers, banging on the ceiling with a broom, shaking a threatening fist out the window or getting on the phone to bark their angst out at the relevant authorities.
However, something in the dynamic of our nation’s reactions has changed. We certainly have a right to try and stop the intrusion of god-awful rackets into our homes, but as the volume and range of unwelcome sounds has grown, a curious hyper-intolerance has also been allowed to flourish.
Sensitivity to certain noises seems to correlate with how much fun the noise-maker is having. And top of the anti-social pops is the playing of music.
As far as I’m concerned, loud music is one of life’s great joys, and we should be happy to know others are indulging in its emotionally enriching pleasures. Sure, having the knick-knacks rattling around on the mantelpiece at 4am while the neighbour fires up his afterparty is grounds for a stern word, but much of the time, a little bassline in the background shouldn’t be worthy of an irate call to the council.
Is what constitutes a nuisance only a matter of perspective? In many other cultures, music floats, bumps and blares out across streets and rooftops on the breeze. Of all the honking, grinding, jack-hammering acoustics of a metropolis, the playing of some tunes must be the least offensive. So why have we got our aural pollution priorities the wrong way round in London?
The same wrong-footedness sees our night-time economy clobbered by killjoys who’d prefer the streets of this global city to be empty at 11pm, their endless noise complaints stifling the musical and cultural creativity incubated in our famous clubs and venues.
Residents of Notting Hill up sticks for the country on the only two days in the calendar that make it worth the cost of living there: Carnival’s soundsystems rattling the sash windows with V.O.L.U.M.E.
I’ll admit, I tend to moan when the music is the pub is a bit too loud to talk (blame my advancing years), but I don’t think the Londoners who lodge official complaints about minor musical infringements have really thought their gripe through.
I bet many of these same people feel uncomfortable with genuine silence, regularly sticking on their own radio or TV to add a comforting thrum of inane banter or muzak in the background. I’d wager that previously reticent Brits have actually grown to rather enjoy wielding the power to have local clubs and bars shut down, or the chance to gift their neighbour a knock on the door from an intimidating official, all from behind the twitching net curtain of anonymity.
Somewhat inevitably, as I’ve been spouting these opinions, our new NW5 neighbour turns out to be partial to a spot of earth-shattering drum & bass of an evening. It was time to practice what I preach.
As the picture frames on my two young daughters’ bedroom wall gradually skewed to the ferocious sub-bass, I tucked them up and told them simply to listen to the rhythms and have sweet dreams. It worked.
When neighbours across the way had their party spill out into the back yard – all shrieking giggles and the clinking/smashing of glasses – my daughters’ intrigue kept them awake, but I was careful not to harrumph once.
Let’s bring up a new generation better equipped to endure, and even celebrate, the rich cacophony of the city. Little is more glaringly anti-social than one moaning resident near an established nightlife venue forcing the music to stop. Especially when all that’s required is a shift of perspective – or a move to the countryside.
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