THERE'S no peace anywhere.
You'd think being a dolphin would be a fairly quiet business. A splash here, some squeaking there, the sound of breaking bones as you batter a baby porpoise to death.
But, no, even out at sea, you can hardly hear yourself think, or whatever it is that dolphins do with their heids.
According to a study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, the controversial marine mammals are having to shout to make themselves heard over the din of passing ships.
This is putting their health at risk because bawling causes them to take in 80% more oxygen than usual.
The research, by the Northwest Fisheries Science Centre in yonder United States, says killer whales are also at risk, which is good news for ordinary, decent sea creatures.
And so we survey the planet and find nowhere to hide. My own efforts to escape have been well documented, even finding at the ends of the earth salmon farmers rhythmically hammering on their cages.
Suburbia is little better. It's a rare ten-minute period that doesn't feature the sound of hammering or drilling. The once pastoral activity of gardening, as this column has frequently complained, is now accompanied by the sound of a battle recreation society doing the Somme.
Some people can't pull a weed without donning a safety helmet and deploying something that looks like a bazooka and sounds like an industrial incinerator chewing up an aircraft carrier.
It is, as the American researchers note, bad for our health, which makes you wonder why there's always such a racket down the gym. There, some enthusiasts listen to their own thumpy-thumpy music at top volume on headphones to drown out the racket of the thumpy-thumpy music so thoughtfully provided for us already by the gym.
We're supposed to be pumped up for action by the thumpy-thumps, but the relentless din just makes sensitive ratepayers want to flee. Ach, maybe it's just me.
As The Lord has blessed me with mild tinnitus, I never experience full silence ever anyway and sometimes have to put music or an audiobook on to drown out that.
But what we're really after is quiet sounds: the sighing of the waves, the soughing of the wind, the tweeting of peerie birdies, provided it's at a decent hour and not giving householders GBH of the earhole.
Dolphins don't even have ears so I don't know what they're complaining about. Apparently, they hear through their lower jaw, so they can't even wear earplugs.
It's a shame for them, mind. No one wants a hullabaloo down their blowhole. But what can you do beyond shouting for more quiet?
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