Peace and quiet

How incredible to think that the UK charts could be topped by two different silent tracks in the space of less than two months.

This week the British Legion are bidding for the top spot to mark Remembrance Sunday with single '2 Minute Silence', the video for which features David Cameron alongside the likes of Thom Yorke and Peter Capaldi. They're up against stiff competition, though, in the form of the re-Robbified Take That's comeback 'The Flood'.

And then, following on from the successful campaign to push Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing In The Name' to Christmas #1 ahead of the X Factor winner last year, there's Cage Against The Machine, which (fingers crossed) will hopefully see John Cage's '4'33"' silencing the airwaves over the festive period. A word of advice from one commenter on the Guardian's article: "Sounds better whilst stoned". Wonder what the John Cage Trust make of the campaign - they've taken a dim view of misuse of Cage's concept elsewhere, such as when it was appropriated by Wombles composer Mike Batt...

The prospect of silent nights has prompted a BBC Magazine article on the power of silence that unsurprisingly strikes a chord with someone who spent the best part of five years writing about the phenomenon in its various guises for a PhD (hence, if you were wondering, the name of this blog). Nice to see Harold Pinter getting a mention and Adam Jaworski making a contribution.