stone, deaf

I occasionally wonder when people who go around with personal music players turned up to 11 for the benefit of both themselves and anyone within a thirty foot radius will start to feel the detrimental ear-effects and what impact this will have on their and others' lives. Evidently some of the prematurely deaf have been employed by the Queen's Hall to act as sound techs if the horrible still-too-loud-with-earplugs-in Salsa Celtica gig during the festival was anything to go by. Most gigs are by their very nature too loud but this was aircraft-taking-off taking-the-piss loudness. When I was desperately stuffing my ears up during the first song I tried to pointedly do so in sight of the people on the desk but they were impervious to both that action and long, hard stares.

Others of their number have been at work setting up the levels for the audio information things at the Vindolanda Roman remains site just along from Housesteads near Hadrian's Wall. Maybe the deafening setting was for the benefit of the few summer tourists who were interested enough to attempt to listen to it over the babble of the rest of their tour group but on a quiet day when only three peoplesworth of sound-absorbing skin, hair and baggage are present they really should consider quietening things. The loudness only encouraged a little shouting-child (who should probably have been in school anyway) to shout at his parents pointing out the contents of the display cases in the museum section. Unfortunately I was walking in the opposite direction so didn't get to hear either his question nor his parent's response when he reached the unlabelled case containing a large stone cock evidently erected in honour of Priapus, the Roman god of proud male genitalia.

If you're thinking of heading there, besides taking earplugs you night wish to equip yourself with either coffee or tea as required in a flask of some kind rather than risk the oddness of the brown drinks sold under either label in the cafeteria. Mine was possibly slightly more coffee than tea but it was a close-run thing. Luckily I'd just eaten an ham-and-mustard sandwich so much of the which-is-it taste was masked.