Music while you work

I can't begin to understand why it struck me only yesterday.  It has been going on for many years but I just hadn't noticed it before.  Or maybe I had noticed it but had never really thought about it.  There were two or three men - builder types - working on a house I passed on the way to the park and they had a radio playing.  It wasn't loud but it was loud enough for passers-by like myself to hear it from the pavement.  For some strange reason it dawned on me that almost nobody these days appears to be capable of doing anything without background noise of some sort.  Go into any workshop or factory and there will be music playing.  Our Housing Society staff in the office have a radio on.  People walking their dogs have things plugged into their ears, presumably connected to iPads or whatever so that they can listen to music as they walk through the woods.  Children can't even do their homework without music or television playing at the same time.

Why is it that people must have that cacophony all the time?  I take great delight in listening to bird song as I walk the dog.  The robins sing all year round and there was a song thrush singing in the park one day this week.  Without the birdsong there is often the sound of the wind sighing through the trees.  When I'm working at the computer I neither need nor even like to have background music.  On the rare occasions that I do play a CD while bashing away at the keyboard, I don't even notice the music.

It's really just another form of pollution.

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The view from the bedroom yesterday morning.