Huh? What? Or if I’m feeling a little more polite than usual, I beg your pardon. These have become my most-uttered phrases lately - you see, I’m going deaf.
Well technically, my hearing is still within the normal limits, but my left ear is a Big Day Out or two away from slipping below the magical line and the hearing test people are worried.
It seems I’ll need a hearing aid by the time I’m 50, or earlier if I don’t make drastic changes.
I’ve already had to move desks at work so that I can hear my boss talking to me (and no it wasn’t a deaf of convenience thing… like my old dog which used to feign deafness when being told to get out of the rubbish bin, yet could always hear when the can opener was removed from the drawer and the cupboard opened).
Apparently I’m one of these (kinda) young folk the experts keep harping on about who having hearing problems caused by the devil’s music played waaaay too loud.
I’d never really taken much notice of these warnings and now I’m paying the price. The thing about hearing loss is that it’s permanent - your ears don’t magically repair themselves.
So I’m staring down a scary path, and sadly, I’m not alone.
The Australia Hearing report has found that nightclub noise levels averaged 98 decibels, which is just below the noise of a chainsaw.
Worse still, it found that the noise increased through the night up to 106dB, which can cause hearing damage after just 15 minutes.
Car racing was found to average 94dB, sports events 93dB and live music 92dB. Hearing damage can occur after an hour at 94dB.
I’m not even sure how my hearing loss happened…. I’d never been one of those kids on the bus whose headphones are so loud, all the passengers can sing along with their tunes. Sure I was an early adapter of the walkman (thanks mum and dad and that trip to Hong Kong), but I’ve always tried to be sensible about noise levels.
As an entertainment journo, I’ve spent more than my share of nights at concerts and pubs, but I never suspected it’d come to this…. constantly asking people to repeat themselves and cupping my hand around my left ear to try and hear someone at a café.
But it’s at clubs and concerts that I really struggle, the noise is sometimes so loud, I have to stick a finger in my ear just to stop the pain.
At the risk of sounding like my grandma, I pose the question…. Do we really need bass so loud its vibration can be felt in the back row? And the shriek of the guitar so intense, it resembles a bus screeching to a halt? Shouldn’t concert promoters and club owners have a duty of care to patrons to provide music at safe levels? Shouldn’t there be some kind of legislation to protect us and our ears?
I’m all about the music, man, but with middle age approaching and the possibility of relying on a machine to hear the world, I’ve decided it’s just not worth it.
So next time you see me at a concert , I’ll have some earphones wedged in my ears, and they won’t be the kind sold by Apple.
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