Sonic law

I heard today that although the proposed expansion of Heathrow airport is all set to go ahead, new legal documents have recently been drawn up to ensure that the new runway doesn't breach acceptable noise levels. It amazes me that this ruling has come so late in the day, but it appears that so much focus was put into making sure that a huge new runway wouldn't be in any way detrimental to the environment that the impact it would have on our sonic spectrum was overlooked.

In some ways this surprises me, but in others it just reiterates the fact that the sonic is so often ignored, we are almost oblivious to it until it becomes unusually intrusive. I have never heard people discuss the sound on the tram before, despite the fascinating daily whir discussed in a previous post, but today all other sounds were engulfed by an abrasive blast not dissimilar to the sound of sheering metal, which throbbed through our bodies, pulsed and battered our heads for the entire journey, only briefly interrupted by the crackling voice of the driver announcing the next stop.

And everyone discussed it! People got off before their stops, the carriages were filled with chatter, people mentioned deafness, headaches and pain. Having paid close attention to the sound inside the tram before though, I was fully aware that this was merely an exaggeration of a normal journey. It just happened to cross that boundary where noise can no longer be accepted as normal, it shifts from being an indescribable background drone to a pain inducing machine. Pain that is subtly inflicted during every journey.