Come again?

Let's hope that Thom Yorke didn't take advantage of Colin Greenwood's temporary deafness during the making of In Rainbows to, for example, sell the idea of the pay what you like pricing to him.

Greenwood's hearing problems were quiet acute, but got better:

"For a few months afterwards I'd be watching the telly and suddenly hear these high pitched whistling noises as more and more high frequencies came back."

He doesn't say his hearing is now sharper than ever, but we're going to hang around outside his house with one of those silent dog whistles.

[Serious bit: really, really - get some ear protection if you're going to be exposed to loud music, either in a studio or at a gig.]

Turn that noise down. No, really.

MC Glammer emails us with a timely reminder about the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005. From April, the definition of a workplace will include music venues, with, as MC points out, consequences:

The acceptable exposure limit for staff during an 8-hours shift is 85dB. For every 3 dBs above that limit the acceptable exposure time is halved, so by the time you get to, say, a pub band in a small bar (approx 115dB) the exposure time is down to 5 minutes.

To be frank, five minutes of most pub bands is probably more than enough anyway.

The Health and Safety Executive's approach seems to be conciliatory and keen to find ways to work with the live music scene - rather than sending in blokes with clipboards to unplug speaker stacks - but for some venues, the month after next is going to be a strange environment to operate in.