Kill this noisy shit

Zeno and the baby frog, Provence, 1997.

Kill this noisy shit

The summer’s hit, for me? The cicada’s song. For as long as I can remember, cicadas have been part of the sunny soundtrack of my summer holidays. Those tunes of the South, the sun, the heat, of crinkled eyes, and of girls in bikinis under the umbrella pines. Frogs and crickets would pick up the night shift ; that was pretty too. But nowadays, cicadas seem to irritate vacationers. The mayor of Beausset, in Provence, has received several complaints from tourists demanding an end be put to this racket, even if pesticides need be used. Effing nasty bugs ! I mean, for heaven’s sake; we can’t even hear our mobile phones ringing!