It's all rather alarming

I don't suppose I'm the only person woken up at three in the morning by fire or burglar alarms.

Turn it down!

Living in the town centre has its advantages but one or two minor disadvantages - and one of those is hearing a building's alarm go off at 3am. You know that it will be 30 minutes at least before the key-holder is got out of bed and arrives to turn it off. So why do alarms have to be so loud, for so long? I can find no legal requirement for alarms in buildings to sound at full volume for hours on end at either 3am or 3pm. The alarm needs to be just loud enough and long enough to tell people to evacuate the building. So surely it can't be beyond manufacturer's technical ability to devise an alarm that drops in volume after five minutes, then ten minutes before dropping to a gentle buzz after say 20 minutes? Even the hard-of-hearing will have got the message by then - and the bonus will be neighbours not disturbed for long periods of time at all hours of day and night.

* The word 'Mecca' is often misused by journalists and others ("Keswick is a Mecca for Christians", the Mecca bingo hall etc etc). It's worth always remembering that Mecca is the holiest site in the Islamic religion. So slapped wrists to the News & Star reporter today who wrote "A woman has said that she became a bride at marriage Mecca Gretna twice in just over six months".