Screaming owl calling
When we weren't looking, the British Library sold some of the wildlife sounds in its archives to mobile phone specialists Mobiletones, which has converted them into the short sound loops that can be used as ringtones. The polyphonic sounds are for compatible Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, NEC, Panasonic, Sharp and Siemens models and you need WAP to download them. Among the sounds being offered are Amazon Parrots chattering, Black Headed Gulls crying, Black-Throated Divers yodelling and, my personal favourite, the Barn Owl screaming. You can listen to it here. Marvellous!
But here's my worry. Having heard mobile phones ringing incessantly while using public transport and sitting in restaurants in Dublin, London, Frankfurt, Rome and Barcelona this year, and having noticed the annoyance, even anger, of those being subjected to the cacophony, I fear that this may backfire on the birds. See, if lots of people use bird sounds as their phone ringtones, and if those sounds come to be associated with noise and nuisance, the public will begin to react negatively to the real thing when they encounter it in nature. So, instead of enjoying the sound of the wild, people will suffer the stress attacks that are the downside of our always-phoneable state. It's not hard to imagine what might follow. Dark days for Barn Owls predicted.
Diarist of the day: Sir Hugh Casson, 19 October 1980[Goa] "I am approached by a smart, young, white-clad figure, who trudges from a distance across the sands like a survivor from some disastrous desert expedition. He is carrying two bottles. He suggests I need a massage. 'Ah,' he says, 'you very, very old man?very tired?very much work'?He pinches my leg and my upper arm?'very, very old,' he says, shaking his head. I am nettled by this, and, refusing his attentions walk off into the surf squaring my shoulders. I remember a previous encounter with an itinerant masseur in Agra. When I refused his administrations, he offered, in sequence, his daughter or a copy of The Reader's Digest."
