In his 1997 autobiography, Bloomberg by Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg reveals parts of his character that are increasingly having an impact on the people he now watches over as New York City's mayor.
He says that when he sees someone walk by a piece of scrap paper on an office floor and ignore it he wants to scream. 'Perhaps I'm compulsive, but I stop and pick it up,' he wrote.
He also tells the story of having too little desk space for his staff at one point in the expansion of his Bloomberg financial data and news empire. The solution: without telling staff, send in a carpenter one night to cut the existing desks by 45cm to create room for new ones.
These signs of near-obsessive and controlling behaviour may go a long way to explain his campaign agenda. Last year, it was banning smoking in New York's bars, this year it is a proposal to restrict nightclub hours, and to crack down on other noises, from barking dogs to lawnmowers and the jingles from ice-cream vans. Police will have the power to impose fines for excessive noise, even without the use of noise meters.
Noise pollution is the most frequently mentioned problem by callers to a city complaints hotline, well above landlords and blocked driveways. Car alarms - at first spared the mayor's attention - are now included in a city council bill. Owners of car alarms that go off will have only one excuse - if they can prove their vehicle was broken into.
Noise 'consultants' often tell us that excessive noise can lead to a break-up of marriages, loss of jobs and premature sales of homes. One investment banker even said in an article in The New York Times that police, firefighters and paramedics should stop using their sirens.