Close To You

Unless you happen to be one of those eco-egotists who enjoys the silence of the ice caps, there is no such thing as holiday without noise. And even a holiday on an ice cap is not totally silent; there is the sound of the melting ice sheets below you, but that's a whole different story. There is of course degree of noise and there is also compromise. Noise, holidays and compromise. I'm not sure you can put these three words into one coherent verb-based sentence, which is why I haven't.

When they developed holiday resorts, there was a need for proximity. The hotel factories and their human raw material wanted the bars and restaurants that the factories begat to be close by, and the bars and restaurants were only too happy to oblige. But the proximity created its own problems, not least of which was noise.

At one point, noise was mainly a thing of the spoken human voice or shouted human voice. But gradually noise became also a thing of the microphone, the music machines, the stage, the karaoke and ever more shouted human voices. It was not simply the proximity of the clusters of bars; the hotel factories became net contributors to the noise as well. Noise begat noise. Then finally, someone said that something had to be done, so they started to clear the terraces before midnight, they installed limiters on the sound systems, they made them close doors on the strike of 12. They changed the holiday forever, because noise had always been the unbrochure emblem of the holiday; noise is after midnight and laughter and shouting and music and romantic-into-the-wee-small-hours of balmy nights. They looked for compromise, and still they look for compromise.

They look but often they do not find. The midnight curfew is not enough - for some. And it isn't necessarily just a case of the wind being in the wrong direction. The noise. The sound of the entertainers, the encouragement of the audience and the cabaret song. All that noise and all that sound. There is certainly no compromise when the Noise Patrol come and close you down. Apparently this has happened to one of the hotel factories, the Lagomonte. And then there's the sound from the Bellevue Show Garden, also apparently.

When they developed holiday resorts, they should have neglected proximity. They should have avoided the temptation to make them like factory towns with the houses built within walking distance of the furnace, mill or colliery. The factory begat the houses, and the noise was that of the factory itself, which everyone came not to notice. Not so the noise of the hotel factories and their bars and restaurants.


Sort of breaking news ... Remember all that corruption stuff in Andratx. It was on this blog for ages well over a year ago. Well, the ex-mayor, Eugenio Hidalgo, has gone down for four years.


QUIZ
Chain - Forgot yesterday. Anyway, how do you get from George Michael to "Brimful of Asha"? Yesterday's title - "Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan". Today's title - who?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)