"Fifty-five miles an hour is the speed at which a spirited person parallel parks, not motors to Chicago", wrote P.J. O'Rourke in a memorable tirade against those who in the name of safety would "trammel freedom, liberty, and large noisy parties". This is a bad thing, obviously, and I don't think any well-balanced person would disagree.

I was reminded of this when I read about a report recently prepared by the HSE and Home Office, on whose contents will be based official recommendations to come into force by the end of the year regarding the organising of gigs. Amongst the ideas put forward are that noise levels should never exceed 104dB, and that health warnings should be printed on tickets for any gig where sound levels are likely to exceed 96dB. I can see some problems here — for starters, at the point at which someone is actually printing tickets how on earth do you decide if the noise level at a gig is likely to exceed 96dB.

It shouldn't be news to anyone that high sound pressure levels can damage your hearing but, dammit, they sound so good. This is a classic example of the general principle that most things in life that are any fun are just plain bad for you. Putting health warnings on tickets sounds a) pretty silly, and b) somehow contrary to the spirit of all forms of popular music. You know: rock'n'roll is a wild, untamed dinosaur... all that kind of thing.

But flippancy and lame-brained libertarian thinking aside, there is an important point to either learn, or be reminded of, which is simply that we should all be aware of health risks around us. For most musicians that means music played at unnecessarily high volume, dodgy wiring on stage (see Star Wires in this issue for a little on the subject), and, depending how much time you spend at a computer, possibly the same back and and eye strain problems that VDU operators report. It's up to the individual to decide whether and how to act on such knowledge, but not taking an interest in how you can increase your chances of still being able to hear your music properly in 10 or 20 years time is probably as dumb as a health warning on a ticket.