Oi! Pipe down a bit!

You’re having a quiet nap or a drink with friends on the patio and suddenly there comes a great noise of guitars, drums, singing and shouting from a house across the street, disturbing your peace. You reason that a bit of noise is acceptable when people have to live together in towns and cities, but this is just too much.

Naturally, you ask the partygoers to turn down the noise a bit and, if it persists, you may decide to complain to the local authorities.

You’re having a quiet nap or a drink with friends on the patio and suddenly there comes a great noise of wailing, clapping of hands and shouts of “Hallelujah!” from a building across the road. It’s a church.

Somehow, the partygoers – er, worshippers – feel they ought to be let off the hook. It’s religion, you see.

This has happened in a district of Kenya (I’m sure it happens in other places, too, including in city areas here in good old Blighty).

But these wailing idiots are taking a case to court to challenge new rules on noise pollution.

“You cannot force worshippers who want to sing and shout in praise because even the Bible tells us to make a joyful noise to the Lord [. . .] We will sing and make noise in God’s praise even if they jail us or take us to court,” said Bishop Mark Kariuki of the Deliverance Church of Kenya.

Perhaps the best sort of deliverance for these nutcases would be deliverance to a remote part of the desert, where they could shout and wail to their hearts’ content.