Other Voices.

Distant noises of other voicesThe thing that really struck me about being back in the UK was all the noise. I’d quite forgotten that incessant roar of white noise rising up from all the newspapers, magazines, billboards and TVs; the genteel, merciless sound of opinions being made and shaped; all those intelligent ads for supermarkets and cars, the style columns and charity appeals, the rhyming radio advertisements and gossip pages; all those endless editorials about books, food, music, fashion, driving, houses, sport. All of it so well written and eminently reasonable, so politely insistent of your attention, and somehow capable of implying that your life would be inexplicably diminished if you didn’t take five extra minutes to sit down and finish that article. It took me a while longer to realise that I was spending so much time listening to all the other voices, I could no longer hear my own. It’s better here, where I still unconsciously tune most of it out.