During my early days as an aspiring journalist, fresh out of university, I sat a written test in the course of an application process. I had become extremely used to sitting exams in quiet, sterile, academic environments, cavernous halls bound by strict rules of dress and decorum, where you could hear the scratch of your own pencil. There I was, trying to concentrate, with the random sonic buffet of real life in the background: the burble of conversation, someone opening the ring-pull on a can of Coke, a jackhammer from a nearby building site juddering away. After I turned in my paper, I was asked how I’d found it. I explained, politely but self-righteously, that I’d found it impossible to concentrate; I’d
