we have all heard of the sort of person who drives fifty miles into the country, finds some perfectly delightful beauty sopt beside a quiet lake and then spends the rest of the day cleaning his car. compared with those terrible friends, the litter-bugs and noise-makers, this innocent creature can only be an object of admiration. he interferes with no one’s pleasure. far from it:afterall, cleanliness is said to be next to godliness. it is the noise-makers who invade the quietest corners of the earth that must surely win the prize for insensitivity. they announce their arrival with a flourish that would put the royal heralds to shame. blaring music(never classical) seems to emanate mysteriously from their persons and their possessions. if you travel up the remotest reaches of the amazon, surviving attacks by crocodiles and vicious piranha, don’t be surprised if you hear cheering crowds and football commentary shattering the peace of the jungle. it is only one of our friends with his little transistor radio. the transistor radio, that great wonder of modern technology, often no bigger than matchbox, must surely be the most hideous and diabolic of all human inventions.

　　people are arrested, fined, imprisoned, deported, certified as insane or executed for being public nuisances. you can’t loiter outside a shop for five minutes or sing the opening bars of figaro in public without arousing the suspicion of every policeman in the neighborhood. but you can walk on to a beach or into a park and let all hell loose with your little transistor and no one will turn a hair-no one in authority, that is. most of the people around you will be writhing in agony, but what can they do about it? have you ever tried asking the surly owner of a transistor to tur