I listened with considerable aesthetic satisfaction one day this week
to a vigorous and heart-felt philippic by a distinguished literary personality on ,what he called the domination of the listener. Normally a country-diveller, he came to London for two or three years and congratulated himself on having discovered a 'quiet back- water in which to live and write. Utter and comprehensive illusion He could, he says, have picked off from his window with a .22 rifle no fewer than seven 'receiving-sets (I can't think why he didn't), One or other was certain to be blaring at any hour of the day ; at some hours all were blaring together. Now, he violently ejaculated, instead of the listener . being disciplined he is to be officially pampered. The peaceful citizen is to be compelled to acquire at his own expense some gadget to silence his Hoover or refrigerator or electric iron in order that disturbers of the public peace may disturb it still more to their satisfaction than they do today. "Now who shall arbitrate ? Ten men [or in this case seven] love what I hate."
* * * *
Previous page
