Music on the office toilet? Over my corpse

In the past, when you walked on the street, you really had to do your best to do something. A singing blackbird, a cart that rattled on the boulders, a dog in the distance, a construction worker who whistled, a fart of a gentleman on the platform – that was pretty much.

Now, as soon as you get out of your door, a wall of sound is poured over you. Screaming children who ‘should be able to express themselves’ from their parents. Telephoning idiots with the speaker at the Nuclear War position. Thumping basses in the jeans store – « Do you have length 34 ??? » Pumping techno in the pub, the terror of Labor vitamins At work, godbetert.

And I’m not even talking about leaf blowers. Or rock -hard music in the Mammography bus, a reader wrote recently: « To drown out the sound from the treatment room » (think about it). Fakkin ‘Ghettoblasters in the Veluwe. Sanding machines.

And, of course, the music in the Appie. Katy Perry who is in your ear to be blasting if you have to choose between Pandanrijst and Jasmijn – my publisher always comes with the wrong home, he recently wrote, if he is already coming home – hell is the sound of others.

I received an email from ‘Bart and Catelijne’ (surname known here), written from a café-restaurant where « as so often in the hospitality industry, you can hear annoying, disturbing and in our opinion totally meaningless music in the background ». Who wants this, they wrote. « Who enjoys this? Do we have to let the sounds go over us, or should we look for peers and rebelled? »

Good question. I almost advised them to accept their fate.

Until June 5. I will never forget the day. Then I read Villamedia that colleagues from DPG, the group that issues newspapers and magazines as Fidelity,,  » Libel and de Volkskranthad submitted a petition against the music on the toilets at their new office.

Since the opening, radio stations Qmusic and rock ballad station Joe from the speakers there. Try to imagine that. Music on the office toilet.

The only place in the world pretty much, where there is still silence. The last bastion of peace. The only place where you could escape the ‘Scrum Master’, the quarterly meeting, deadly PowerPoints, or the colleague who suddenly became your boss. Where you could recover with your head against the role in fetus position.

And there now Marieke and Mattie. Guess what the sound is. And ‘Africa’ from Toto for the millionth time. To cry. Leed. Injustice.

So until June 5. The day that the annals will go in when the day that a line was finally drawn against the noise quarrel. The day that a brave Gallic village rose against the occupier and demanded: until here and no further, a bunch of jerkers.

In fact. I predict that 5 June 2025 will be commemorated in 100 years worldwide with wreaths and speeches if the day that the deterioration of our civilization was stopped. As the day that the silence is back.

Dear people – and I now also turn to Bart and Catelijne: I know that we live in uncertain, grim times, but the courageous fighters of DPG brought back hope.

Now just accept that petition, mud breeders.

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