The most terrifying noise in the world

I’m reasonably tough. Not wrestle-a-bear-to-save-the-damsel tough, but a bit better than burst-into-tears-at-the-sight-of-a-spider wussy. Just about, anyway.

I’d fight you to prove it, but to be honest, that sounds a bit scary, and I’d probably lose. Last Saturday I came into contact with the most terrifying noise in the world ever. More alarming than, well, an alarm – even an alarmed alarm. More horrifying than someone saying “Your round? Great, I’ll have a triple whatever that really expensive whiskey is”. Louder than 50 Barry Scott’s trying to push their Cillit Bang on you. More piercing than Concorde flying in one ear and out of the other.

I went to my nearly-nine (she is now) year old niecelet Rebecca’s birthday party. There were 20+ under 10s, largely of the female variety. If that sounds pretty scary straight off, someone had done the unthinkable, and added water. Much like those film critter Gremlins, mixing children with water, in this case a swimming pool, causes them to become whirling, screeching banshees, unable to control the ear-damaging decibel levels that emanate from themselves, nor the particularly high-pitched nature of the noise.

Bats 50 miles away probably woke up startled, thinking it was Batmageddon. Dogs for miles around will have had their owners thinking the house was haunted, as their tormented ears tried to deal with the invasion of squeals, and they barked fearfully into thin air. They were the lucky ones. This swimming pool was that nostalgic, old-school sort. No fancy viewing area, shielded by glass windows and with comfy chairs and a machine vending something that might be coffee, or possibly tea (it’s hard to tell). Oh no. This one had cold, hard, benches. You had to put bags that you’d normally see being used to collect dog poo over your shoes. Then you got to sit, with the delightful smell of chlorinated water, right at the edge of the pool, with only a plastic chain between two poles for protection.

There’s a special place in Hell for whoever designs these places. Every surface is shiny and reflective, perfectly suited to reflect and multiply the sound. And oh... the sound. It’s like some kind of hive consciousness occurs between the little ‘uns, rendering normal speech unnecessary, and resulting in them making only glass-shattering ululations, as one, until you become convinced something inside your head just exploded.

Still, nature has given the youthful some kind of mechanism that allows them to make that noise without killing themselves on the spot, so clearly this is a normal evolutionary development.

On the distinct plus side, afterwards there was party food, including that most inexplicable but excellent device of fun and jeopardy, cocktail sticks with cheese & pineapple on. There was music too (although I was restrained from dancing Gangnam Style), and goodie bags. Plus Moshi Monsters chocolate cake, which makes up entirely for the inner-ear bleeding, permanent hearing loss, and sudden onset aquaphobia.

This post first appeared in my 'Thank grumpy it's Friday' column in the North West Evening Mail on Friday 22md March 2013. You can view the edited version used by the paper on their website here Because you're so goddamn lovely, you've got the full, original, version here with 65 extra words! Barry Scott went missing (no bad thing) and the brief second-to-last evolution paragraph vanished too, but they're back!

If I've made it sound like I didn't enjoy myself, that couldn't be further from the truth - it was seriously good fun. Except for the screaming.

What's next week's column about? Well, someone remixed the BBC News24 theme music without asking me first... (Subject to me being able to sustain a rant about this fact for 500 words and nothing else seeming like a better idea in the meantime.)

(Proper old-skool 90s glowy-sticks, waving your hand in front of your face, Global Hypercolour T-shirt, dancey nonsense this morning emanates forth from Grumpy Towers - It's Sash!'s Greatest Hits!)