I thought all these people were extras from Startrek - or maybe they were wearing some sort of trendy deaf-aid.    From Wordnik.com.  [Labour MP Blue in the Tooth] Reference

Cambridge, who was helping her with research for The Knox Brothers, she described the house party to her daughter: a trendy cleric, his dull wife, a long-skirted daughter, going up to read English at Hertford, who evidently hadn't wanted to come, and Henry James's manservant (still living in Rye, but with a deaf-aid which had to be plugged into the skirting) ... contributing in a loud, shrill voice remarks like 'Mr Henry was a heavy man - nearly 16 stone - it was a job for him to push his bicycle uphill' - in the middle of all the other conversation wh: he couldn't hear.    From Wordnik.com.  [Light reading] Reference