Noises off

Lying in bed this morning, before the rest of the road had really woken up, I heard this strange howling noise. Not very loud and whatever it was was some distance away.

The first thought was the howling of some wild animal, but then, here in suburban Epsom that was a bit unlikely. The second thought was the sort of noise you get from an accelerating electric motor, say a milk float of old or an electric locomotive of today. BH offered the suggestion that it was the wind in the trees or the telephone wires singing in the wind.

The noises continued intermittently, and eventually got closer, resolving themselves into the rich panoply of noises you get from a dustcart at work. All kinds of noises which I was unable decipher without being able to see what was going on. Noises which one probably did not get in the much simpler dustcarts of old into which the rubbish from dustbins was tipped by hand, with goodies being picked out into brown jute sacks, one for each dustman, hooked onto the open end of the container. And as far as I can remember, such compaction as there was was done by tipping the whole container up from the cab end, rather than by hydraulic ram inside the container. But then, how were they emptied? Puzzles for another day.

But odd how all the interesting and complicated noises that one gets at close range from a dustcart of today are stripped down, are reduced, to this much simpler howling noise at long range.

I then moved onto the wheel of fashion, whereby the electric milk floats of old went out of fashion - for reasons unknown, but which Bing could no doubt run down for me - and electric motor vehicles are now coming back into fashion, some years later.

Clearly time for breakfast.

PS: this morning being Monday morning, Greenwich time. The blogger software is somewhere in the rather later Pacific time.