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. Show less