The quiet places that Prochnik longs to see consecrated can only ever be peripheral shelters and havens, because the world is and always has been a noisy place, in which one sound will always be pushed out by another. I am left thinking of my headmaster who used to trail his fingernails down the blackboard to get the class to simmer down. Which was worse, the terrible squawk he made, or the chatter and giggling of silly boys?