Muzak like a cancer grows in the Eden of silence

A brook babbled it's merry way over gravel and around boulders, stirring reeds and splashing stones. The silver birches glistened in a gentle breeze, shading us from a strong sun set in a cobalt blue sky. Wildfowl dabbed for passing morsels and fish glinted in the clear waters.

Occasionally, an egret rose majestically from its treetop perch and flapped languidly to another resting place to dream of a supper of fat carp dined on at leisure.

It was a scene from Arcadia, a land of milk and honey from which the woes of the outside world were banished. Or it would have been but for a dreadful intrusion: music was being piped from speakers set in trees at regular intervals. Or, more accurately, it was its diminished runt of a cousin, muzak.