When the last episode of the Sopranos was broadcast this year, finishing with a sudden cut to black and silence, many baffled viewers assumed there was a fault with the signal.
We live in a society with a growing aversion to the emptiness that comes not just with silence but, more generally, with a fear of not knowing what to say.
Silence is golden, but it's under threat in a world where as business booms and prosperity looms, noise is growing.
But there was a time when it was said that a true friend is someone with whom you can sit in complete silence, without a hint of embarrassment or need to fill the space.
As Thomas Carlyle wrote: "Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as time."
Lewis Hamilton is moving to Switzerland for a quieter life
clipped from: news.bbc.co.uk 
