h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's about 8:30 on a Saturday night, and the downstairs neighbors are having a little get-together, so I can kind of hear their radio. I can also hear a little of the traffic from the street, especially when the buses go past the corner.

There's still the odd bird or two, as it's not quite dark out yet. This time of evening on a Saturday night there's usually the occasional car alarm or horn, the ice cream truck comes by at some point, and perhaps a group of youngsters out walking. I haven't heard any of the above yet this evening.

The distant surf.

Rain dripping off the guttering.

An oyster-catcher calling.

The sound of the snow that is about to arrive.


No people noise at all


I read a novel earlier in the year where the American character stops on the side of the road by a Scottish Loch and has five minutes where he hears no human made noise. He thought that was a long time

I think the encroachment of industrial noise into the wilderness is one of the least recognised pollutions and one of the saddest.

"Rain dripping off the guttering."

I wish!

PP

<> (kea)

I guess it always depends, but I've always loved the sound of people hanging out at the tapa bars in my street. It's a very gentle 'hum of humanity' sound that, when I was living alone, always made me feel somehow less alone.

I've also been in the very middle of nowhere - northern Manitoba in Canada in summer on camping trips. The only sounds *should* have been the gentle lapping of the waves on the lake and the far off cry of the loons. But nope. The most obvious sound was the constant buzzing of flicking mosquitos!

Don't get me wrong. I love nature and all that. But I do get a bit tired of people who have never experienced *The Canadian Wilderness* telling me how gorgeous it is, from photos they've seen. Clearly the photos don't show the clouds of mosquitos and black flies that make one's life a total misery if they are actually out there.

az

Similarly, Loch Lomond is beautiful but at around sunset in September, you're gonna get eaten !!!

Love this conversation:
It is nearly 9pm here in India and the only sound I can hear within is is the gentle hum of the AC. On the outside I hear a cricket doing what it normally does and here I find myself contemplating why does it keep doing that incessantly? How is it different from our minds and the noise that it keeps making fliting from one thought to another. Only in the external silence does one realise the noise within, isn't that so?
I live in an ashram - its called the Abode of Peace or Prasanthi Nilayam. Get a lot of time and peace to think such thoughts and destroy the peace.

Interesting, Satyajit.

It's now 5.30 on a Sunday afternoon. The only sounds I can hear are my electric fan going, my washing machine finishing its cycle and pretty much nothing else but the occasional birdsong. It's siesta time in Sevilla.

az