Midnight Rider

I should I feel just clarify something from yesterday. Whilst there was apparently an issue with the Lagomonte system, which did lead to its being closed down for a couple of days, there is none with Bellevue's. What I had heard was that the sound from the Show Garden was being taken right up to the last minute, i.e. midnight, to which I am afraid my response is well what actually is the problem with this?

My point is that noise is an inevitability in a holiday resort. That is why the proximity of houses, apartments and the rest is an issue that requires some compromise. The midnight cut-off might actually be the thin end of the wedge. Once a time limit is placed on the music, then there is the temptation to change it, i.e. to make the cut-off earlier. That, I believe, would be a mistake.

You cannot satisfy everyone. There are of course those who have to get up early in the morning; there are also holidaymakers who prefer to retire early. But there are plenty who do not. Music into the night is one of the "romantic" associations of holiday. Years ago on some Greek island, there was an open-air disco nestling next to a rock face. It was well away from anything else. It was perfect, though even there I expect someone complained.

Puerto Alcúdia, at least that part of the town around The Mile, is essentially a purpose-built resort. But it is also a residential area. The two do not necessarily make for happy bedfellows, especially if one is kept from one's bed by the music from a bar or hotel. In a way this is though a fault of planning; the twain should ne'er have met. However, one comes back to that factory-town analogy. At least part of the point of the residential area is to house those who work in or run the bars and the hotels and all the rest.

In my experience, there is a high degree of assiduousness when it comes to complying with the demands of both limiters and the midnight cut-off. That a fault may occur in a system is one thing, but I am not personally aware of deliberate contraventions. Why would there be? The Noise Patrol is equally assiduous. I do hear that the odd bar here or there is apparently excessively loud. In which case that bar runs a risk. They don't get asked very kindly if they would mind turning the volume down a tad; the Noise Patrol doesn't operate like that.

You can't live without noise. Well not here you can't. I have spoken before about the occasional roar from the power station at night, and yet that is some two kilometres away. What can you do about it? Request that they slap the local equivalent of an ASBO on the site director? Then there are the "motos". Apparently the racket from these was meant to have been dealt with. I don't think so. Then there is the human noise. There is one hotel in The Mile area where guests frequently ask to be moved because of the noise of people leaving an adjacent bar at four or five in the morning. Human noise - shouting, screaming, wailing - is far more disruptive than any music system that is stilled on the stroke of midnight

The music systems of bars and hotels are something of an Aunt Sally. They are an easy target because they are so obvious and do not move. But they have compromised. They have had limiters imposed, and at curfew time the terraces are cleared, the doors are closed and the outdoor systems are turned off. Leave them alone.


QUIZ
Chain - George Michael to "A Different Corner" to Cornershop and therefore to "Brimful of Asha". And how do you get from that song to "Caravan of Love"? Yesterday's title - The Carpenters. Today's title - who?

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