Is it just ME?

Or are softly spoken people a nightmare?

YOU know how it is. You’ve nodded. You’ve smiled. You’ve pulled the horrified face. You’ve done every expression you can think of, and just have to hope one of them will hit the spot — because you can’t hear a word the other person is saying.

Why are they whispering? Speak up, woman! The acoustics in this restaurant are bad enough anyway.

In my 50s I have no tolerance for the softly spoken.

Yes, I know it may be partly me. When I went to my GP and told her I kept barking at people to repeat themselves, she stuck something that looked like a gun in my ear.

One of my ears was full of wax. The answer, she said, was olive oil drops, which made me even deafer, and a session with a nurse who would flush the wax out.

The nurse poured water into my ear and grey wax came out. I was hoping it would be like one of those old black and white films where everything suddenly bursts into colour, a glorious new world.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t. It isn’t just me. People mutter. They whisper. They speak into their shoes.

At first, you think they must have vital secrets to impart — something to do with MI5, maybe, or the Brexit negotiations. Or perhaps they’re just telling you about their holiday, their weekend, or their plans to build a loft conversion.

It doesn’t help, of course, that bars often play their music so loud you have to wave crazily at the barman. It doesn’t help that the décor — bare bricks, metal chairs — often seems calculated to make sure ambient noise drowns out any words you might want to speak or hear.

But please, please, just speak up.

They mutter, they whisper, they speak into their shoes. Do they have vital secrets to impart?