THE late Maurice Lindsay was a classical-music critic among his other roles, so the background burble of piped "muzak" in public places probably irked him more than most.

Here is his spirited attack on the phenomenon (from Requiem for a Sexual Athlete, Robert Hale, 1988).

A BRIEF ODE IN DISHONOUR OF MUZAK

Whenever two or three are gathered together,

there you will be, as sightless as religion,

to soothe collective confidences, whether

with feeble, clichéd sequences, or pidgin

tunes of the great forced back upon themselves,

repetitive as travellers through hotels

hoisted to floors in plush elevators;

waiting to lose a tooth or find a cure;

wherever planes or trains hold congregators;

beneath the supermarket's cut-price lure,

the squirting aerosoling muzak swells

to kill the fear of which dead silence smells.