London is all about chatter, it never seems to stop. Sat in the back yard at a friend’s house last weekend at three in the morning, birds were singing. It was beautiful, but not for my benefit. They have to do it at three in the morning because they can’t make themselves heard over us the rest of the time.
Sitting in my back garden, I can hear the trains grinding round the curve from Streatham Common to Streatham, hear the low hum of drum and bass from cars cruising down the next street, hear sirens wailing down the High Road, hear planes overhead leaving and entering Heathrow and Gatwick, hear my housemate’s mobile making a noise like a TV game show buzzer when she gets a text message, and in amongst that, once in a while, a fox (Foxy may not be gone after all). All those noises and yet, for London, it’s beautifully quiet.
People don’t seem to know how to handle silence. We feel obliged to fill it by talking, turning on the TV, playing music, creating artificial noise that leaves the birds confused and us no better off. This is how you know you’re in the company of a true friend or loved one – they appreciate that it’s OK for two people to sit there in silence.
I recorded these fishermen in India in 2005, singing as they pulled their nets in to shore – you don’t get that in Streatham.
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