Life imitates art

Strap-hanging into town on the District Line, my mate was telling me about David Lodge's latest novel, Deaf Sentence, a work inspired by the author's own onset of deafness.

My friend started to explain Lodge's contention that "blindness is tragedy, deafness is comedy", but serendipity struck to illustrate her point. A cringe-making, annoying and very loud mobile phone ring tone rang out: the sort that you put on your phone when pissed and a bit bored then die of mortification when it goes off in a public place. We turned round to see who was the guilty party, expecting them to quickly quell it. But no one answered it, and it rang out loud and proud into the carriage as four, evidently unconnected, people sitting side-by-side, each plugged into their iPods, stared blankly into space, oblivious to the dirty looks of other commuters. We dissolved into laughter and agreed deafness is indeed comedy.