If you think Babbage had no distractions you know little of Mr Babbage : Organ grinders .... the worst of the "thousand nuisances that made it impossible for t

If you think Babbage had no distractions you know little of Mr Babbage : Organ grinders .... the worst of the "thousand nuisances that made it impossible for the householder to enjoy any quiet" .... such "instruments of torture" had cost him a quarter of his working life. At one point he tallied 165 nuisances in 90 days. his 1871 obituary in the London Times notes that he lived to be almost 80 "in spite of organ-grinding persecutions." http://www.futilitycloset.com/2009/04/14/quiet/ http://www.futilitycloset.com/2009/04/14/quiet/ Because of his campaigns against street music, buskers deliberately turned up at his lodgings to annoy him, even following him down the street.