The commissars of noise
From Nigel Rodgers Sir; Theodore Dalrymple (`Nasty, brutish and on credit', 20 September) is absolutely right to compare the 'constant thump of very loud pop music' in Birmingham's new supermall with the propaganda of totalitarian regimes. Both aim to obliterate or overwhelm all individual choice and thought, both violate personal liberty (in the Bullring's case, that of shopping without being acoustically assaulted) and both are likely in the long term to fail, provided enough people protest, pointedly and persistently and preferably concertedly. We protesters against hellishly ubiquitous piped music can comfort ourselves with the thought that we are not (I hope) going to be sent to Siberia, although such desolate wastes may be the only places free of canned music if present trends continue.
Nigel Rodgers
National Secretary, Pipedown, the Campaign for Freedom from Piped Music, Salisbury
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