In defence of mumbling: there's a poetry in our quietness  The
BBC's Tony Hall has got it wrong. The world has got too loud,
but I sense the whisper of a quiet revolution     • Jump to
comments () Eddie Redmayne in Birdsong Mustn't mumble? Eddie
Redmayne was criticised for speaking indistinctly in the BBC
adaptation of Birdsong last year. Photograph: Giles
Keytes/BBC/Working Title  Everything seems loud these days.
Ringtones, radios, car horns. Bus passengers bellowing into
their mobile phones; cinema surround sound, aeroplanes, Muzak.
The persistent hum of refrigerators, air conditioners, neon
lights. The sudden blaring of the advertising break, and the
continuity announcer whose voice whoops and whirls past our
ears. All this noise, all this racket, fighting to fill the air.
Even the written word seems more thundering now: across
Facebook, Twitter, comment threads, blogs, comes the constant
tumble of voices.  And yet amid it all, some people have trouble
hearing what is being said. In the latest edition of