In an amusing article yesterday entitled You Know What? Just Shut Up, Tony Long at Wired News discussed the noise pollution of modern day technology. The unnecessary beeps that my tumble dryer emits when the clothes are dry. Over and over again. The oven timer. The house alarm. And, of course, the very pinnacle of obnoxious beepery – the mobile phone. It is a topic close to my heart as I have often considered launching a campaign to outlaw the electronic beep. I don’t see hordes of white robed technophobes building bonfires out of mobile phones and portable satellite navigation units but I do see instant public humiliation for anyone caught causing a beep in public. Put them in the stocks and make them watch as an enraged beep policeman drops their polluting gadget into a bucket of water for example. That might work.

But as much as Pong! has a lot to answer for – Pong! being the first thing to beep in public places that I personally can remember – I am also starting to get outraged by the amount of light pollution that technology feels it has to emit. I like the dark. One of my dogs sometimes has a habit of wanting to be let out of the house at 4:00am and it is often me that hears the call and goes downstairs to save our carpet from any more abuse. Even on the darkest, moonless, cloudiest night I no longer need to put a light on as it seems every room is festooned with little lights to brighten my path.

It starts with the eerie blue glow creeping through the bathroom doorway. This is the electric toothbrush. The strong, blue light flashes when charging and you start to think there is a police car in the room. Next, the stairs and hallway have a green glow from the house alarm control panel joined, when the battery is getting low, by a pulsating red warning light from the radio doorbell.

As I pass the study the room is aglow with assorted reds, greens, whites and blues. Two computers, two mice with evil glowing bottoms, the ADSL modem and the network switch box all compete to turn the room into a 1960’s light show. Worse of all is my mobile phone that for reasons I cannot fathom has a flashing white light one side and a flashing blue light the other (for bluetooth). Annoyingly, they do not flash at the same frequency and are designed, I think, to send you quite mad. It is impossible to sleep in the same room as my mobile phone.

Moving on the kitchen is dominated by the oven clock, the boiler light and the fridge – all lit up to let me know they are on and ready to do service. But then you arrive at the lounge and here, technology outdoes itself. The TV, VCR, Sky Plus box, DVD player and recorder, Hi-Fi unit and phone. What a display. Almost dazzling!

Shall I tell you the worse one of the lot? It’s my Apple PowerBook and my wife’s iBook. Usually just left where we last used them – so most probably the lounge – and both in ’sleep’ mode. Which means those dazzling, pulsating bright white lights. Whenever I am in a hotel room, I have to put my mobile phone on top of my PowerBook and then cover the lot with tomorrows clothes before I can sleep.

No wonder I have always enjoyed power cuts. Well – when it’s warm enough anyway.