Now hear this

The loudspeaker. It's everywhere. Not only at train stations to torment the long-suffering commuters, as you might reasonably expect, but it's presence is hammered into your consciousness from more unusual sources too:

• Vans selling tofu, with a recorded jingle not unlike the Muslim call to prayer.
• Vans collecting unwanted bicycles, appliances and furniture.
• Lorries hawking diesel fuel for home heaters in winter.
• Vans repeating candidates' names at an incredibly loud volume.
• Schoolyards, which play a dainty ditty at 5pm every day to remind kids to stop playing on the streets and go home.

I was musing on the authoritarian symbolism that the loudspeaker presents - the voice of authority, no talking back etc, when a loudspeaker announcement from city hall echoed out at 7pm across downtown Kounoyama: 

Two children are missing. A boy, five years old. A girl, six years old. Mother was expecting them home at 4:45. 

A brief description followed and instantly the whole neighbourhood was aware. The two tikes were located and returned home safe and well. Maybe the loudspeaker is not all bad. But Mickey Mouse, he's obviously evil.