Behind these walls is Crossrail, or at least one of the sites for Crossrail.
It's one of the largest engineering projects happening in the world right now.
But I'm not here to talk about that, I'm here to talk about what it sounds like,
because for decades now, every construction site in the world has had this noise.
[beeps]
Now obviously I've dubbed that in afterwards; it's a reversing beep, for I don't have a truck here ready to run me over.
But in the last ten years or so, increasingly, you've been hearing a different noise instead.
You've been hearing this:
[loud hiss]
a white noise reversing beep.
And that came out of an invention at Leeds University in 2001.
It's now become the standard for most major construction projects
to the extent that Crossrail does not allow vehicles with an old-school single-tone reversing beeper to actually get in.
So, why do I mention this? Because it's a fairly geeky fact to know.
Well, two reasons.
One is that it's safer.
Your ears can pick out that broadband sound, that white noise, a lot better than they can pick out beeping.
Which means that you can play it at a lesser volume, not annoy the residents around here as much, and it's safer
because your ears can pick out that tone and tell where it comes from.
A single monotone beep can do all sorts of echo things,
it's not a natural sound, your ears aren't trained for it,
but white noise, that kind of *pssh pssh pssh*, your brain can pick out where it's from.
So if you've got five trucks in there, all reversing, you'll know where they are.
And you'll know if one is about to run you over.
And that is something you might not have known.
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