Welcome to the Rudloe and environs website.

 

Here you will find news, articles and photos of an area that straddles the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in north-west Wiltshire.

 

Contributions in the form of articles or photos are welcome. Even those with completely contrary views to mine!

 

Thanks to the website builder 1&1 and Rob Brown for the original idea.

 

Rudloescene now, in January 2014, has a sister, academic rather than anarchic, website about Box history here: http://www.boxpeopleandplaces.co.uk/

It contains thoroughly professional, well-researched articles about Box and its people.

 

Contact rudloescene through the 'Contact' page.

rudloescene
rudloescene

In the title photo we again (see Articles) have a metaphor for the deaf ears of authorities with regard to the damaging effect on the environment of wailing and yelping sirens

10th April 2025 - and I guess that the reason for the inordinate length of time since the last article (below) on the subject (but also see the letters page here letters on sirens) is that I have come to the realisation that I am talking to a brick wall (title photo). But the underlying problem does not go away... emergency vehicle sirens are far too loud, ridiculously loud. And dangerous... if one of these things goes off behind you without warning, it makes you 'jump out of your skin'. I have also said repeatedly that they have little, practical effect as, until you see the associated blue light, you have no idea from which direction the siren is coming. They disturb the environment for miles around and, for example, make absurd Bath's World Heritage status. A Roman/Georgian city replete with emergency vehicle sirens?

It needn't be like this. Sirens are associated with danger and fear (vis air raid sirens). The last thing thar a very sick person would want on the journey to hospital is to have such fear invoked.

So why not replace the fearful sirens with hopeful chimes (hoping that things are going to get better, not worse). The general public should be informed that in future, emergency vehicle sirens will be replaced by hopeful chimes such as:

Note: you can play the above videos together to 'compare and contrast'

10th June 2019 and what an irony ... this morning's BBC World Service programme Boston Calling included an article about noise pollution in New York. Councillor Helen Rosenthal who has introduced a bill to replace the piercing, wailing and yelping sirens with their more gentle and melodic European hi-lo cousin, said on the subject of the wailing/yelping versions: "It's a very high-pitched, constant, incredibly irritating noise which is why we thought whether there was another model, another way to do this. This is one of those issues regarding the basic quality of life". But the irony of it! If only our American cousins knew that our authorities have replaced the "gentle and melodic" 'European model' with the piercing, high-pitched, incredibly irritating, wailing and yelping, American-style sirens! In New York, some services/hospitals have introduced the European sirens in pilot projects (see the videos).

 

Continuing with the irony theme, the video below includes the text 'If you have ever spent time in New York City, you will recognise this sound ... (wailing and yelping sirens) ... the iconic sounds of New York City'. But hold on, here in the depths of Wiltshire and in the World Heritage City of Bath we are now bombarded with wailing/yelping sirens from morning until night - see the recent rudloescene article Heads and brick walls and the letters (emails) on the subject, also referred to within the article, here in the Letters Archive Emails on sirens. So hopefully, when our authorities see sense, we will return to the 'easier on the ear and environment' but instantly recognisable European model.

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© Paul Turner