We need light to read by, not to be dazzled by, to find our way through corridors, not to be lit up like escaping prisoners-of-war

Thank you for your cacophony of letters on the subject of noise. You clearly feel strongly about the extraordinary volume and ever-increasing sources of noise we are subject to. Writing this, I have just got off a Docklands Light Railway train that took over half an hour to complete the brief run from Bank to Canary Wharf. During that time, the "train captain" was unable to stop wittering over the PA system, at the top of his voice, misinforming "customers" about computer problems (bring back steam), signal problems, points problems and all problems to Island Gardens. Thirty minutes of Tony Hancock, fine (30 minutes of John Cage even better); but 30 minutes of reverberating verbal junk, when 30 seconds would have been more than necessary, did seem to upset passengers, although not those who, glued to thunderous personal stereos, would have been oblivious to all announcements, even one warning them that King Kong was about to pick up the horrid little train and eat it.

Several of you suggested a campaign to reduce noise at work, feeling that this would be a realistic starting point (which it would be). Rachel Andrews recommended earplugs, but warns: "Unfortunately, a lot are bright yellow".

While thinking of ways to turn down the volume of the everyday world, I'd like to ask you another question. Do you feel we make too much use of artificial light in buildings and other public spaces? The human eye works best in conditions where there is contrast between light and shadow. In fact, we not only enjoy, but thrive, in subtly, yet ever-changing lighting conditions. This is why, for example, most of the best art galleries are top-lit, and the very best, like Renzo Piano's De Menil Collection, Houston, Texas or the Dulwich Picture Gallery in south-east London, are essentially untouched by electric light. Visitors to these delightful buildings enjoy looking at sculpture and paintings in natural and ever-changing light. This animates artworks, delights the eye and stimulates the imagination.

When we even out light, we upset the eye and deny the imagination. Many modern shopping malls, offices, hospitals, university buildings and others too numerous to mention suffer from evenly spread electric lighting. This was once thought to be a good thing, but I'm sure it's not. We need light in studies to read by, not to be dazzled by; we need light to find our way through passages and corridors, not to be lit up like escaping prisoners-of-war.

About 25 years ago, the London Underground began removing the exquisite fluted bronze uplighters (designed by Charles Holden), that bathed the cream-painted ceilings of escalator shafts in soft tungsten light, replacing them with brutal and naked fluorescent tubes. The Holden lamps offered Tube passengers a kind of warmth and a sense of privacy even in the rush- hour crowd: fluorescent light bares all, highlighting each wrinkle, stain, or speck of dandruff. Within a few years, Holden's friendly lighting had given way to a model apparently drawn from remand centres, DHSS offices or other buildings designed to belittle those who have to use them.

The same sort of lighting was then applied to buses and trains, ostensibly to make life safer and brighter, but really because fluorescent tubes are cheaper to run and last longer than tungsten bulbs.

All this ugly, even light makes us feel uncomfortable and ugly, blots out the stars (and the Hale-Bopp comet), discourages the dreamer and persecutes the poetic. You may disagree. I am sure that there must be perfectly good reasons for the evenly spread lighting applied across our towns and cities, other than safety or lower running costs. Can anyone suggest some?