When I said there was an almighty row in the House…

The first question at PMQS was about British fishermen after Brexit. As she invariably does when this subject is raised, Theresa May reassured everyone we would “take back control of our waters”.

I wish she’d stop using that peculiar phrase. It makes her sound as if she’s narrating an advert for Tena.

I’d love to be able to tell you what else was said, but I can’t because I couldn’t hear it. Something you don’t realise until you’ve watched PMQS in person: just how extraordinarily loud it can be. I went to my first in November 2011, in the distant days of Cameron v Miliband, and the din almost blew my shoes off. Watching on TV gives you no sense at all of the volume. That’s because, although there are dozens of microphones, at any given moment only one is actually on: the one nearest the MP speaking. So if you’re watching on TV, you hear that MP loud and clear, with the heckling no more than a tinny little hiss in the background.

When you’re there, though, you find it’s not a hiss. It’s a roar that seems to fill every square millimetre of the chamber, top to bottom, end to end. Which means that, at the angriest and most hostile moments, you catch barely a syllable of what’s being said.

May v Corbyn is often lifeless. Yesterday, though, it was blistering: perhaps the rowdiest confrontation they’ve had. After a bitter exchange about Universal Credit, the Labour leader launched into a final, furious diatribe. “I can see the sullen faces behind the Prime Minister,” he snapped. “And it’s not just the European Research Group, it’s…”

But what he said next – indeed, what he said for the next minute – I have no idea, because every last word of it was drowned out by 300 Tories, all bellowing at the top of their lungs. What he said, at least to the gallery, was utterly inaudible. For all I knew, he could have been complaining to Mrs May about the BBC moving Doctor Who to Sundays, Aston Villa’s struggles or an outbreak of greenfly on his begonias. I couldn’t even make out what the Tories were shouting at him. How the stenographers at Hansard were going to transcribe it, I couldn’t imagine:

Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab): “Mr Speaker–”

All hon members: “RRAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!–”

Normally in these circumstances the Speaker hops to his feet, barks for order and then loftily instructs everyone to “take a soothing medicament”.

But this time, bizarrely, he didn’t. Then again, maybe he did, and we just couldn’t hear him.