Episode 1

Available for over a year

The author and journalist Andrew Martin has phonophobic traits, which call for some extreme actions: "So I went out to buy my first box of earplugs. I must have bought... well, about a box a month ever since. The best ones are made of wax; they're covered in cotton wool and they're about the size of aniseed balls. You get twelve in a box. Soon I know I'd become addicted to them. I had also, by then, become addicted to the use at night of electrical fans for the creation of 'white noise'. I kept them going all night long..." In the first of five essays, author Andrew Martin lays bare his life as a 'phonophobic'. How to cope with jarring sounds in the modern world? And is there an another way to live without the daily cacophony? Producer Duncan Minshull First broadcast in January 2012.