Old Fart At Play: Public decency in Mallorca

I apologise for this title. If you are offended, or have already been offended, please avert your eyes. I risk offending public decency. What follows includes references to bodily functions and nudity. Look away NOW!

One of Captain Beefheart's finest moments was entitled "Old Fart At Play". The old fart was smart, reckoned the Captain. He went on:

"Momma was flatten'n lard

With her red enamel rollin' pin

When the fishhead broke the window

Rubber eye erect 'n precisely detailed

Airholes from which breath should come

Is now closely fit

With the chatter of the old fart inside".

No, I have no idea what it's about either. But it sounds rude. Offensive to public decency. Possibly.

They know a thing or two about breaking wind and public decency in Malawi. A political row has broken out over a proposed law to ban farting in public. The Justice Minister says that the law will promote public decency. The Solicitor-General disagrees. "How any reasonable or sensible person can construe the provision to criminalising farting in public is beyond me." He might have said that it was behind him.

As far as I am aware, there are no limits as to the breaking of wind in Mallorca. This is probably as well. A diet, for some, that is rich in pulses would make any ban a physical impossibility. But otherwise, public decency is a subject of some lack of clarity and attempts at lawmaking directed at something other than flatulence.

Is it, for example, really acceptable to point Percy at the pavement? Or at a tree or grass verge? You might be tempted to think it was, given its apparent prevalence. But no, you can be fined, something I avoided on an occasion when I flouted the law. On the side of the motorway going into Palma. There was a traffic jam. I was on the point of explosion. Hazard lights on. Parked on the hard shoulder. Blessed relief. And in full view.

Town halls have tried to take measures to reduce public peeing, though they might take more were they to install public lavs. One attempt was by Pollensa town hall which asked very nicely for people not to use the streets for the purpose of relieving themselves during the Moors and Christians thrash a couple of years ago. It seemed rather inauthentic. The original event was probably full of pipework washing the streets down.

Hygiene is clearly a factor when it comes to pissoir al fresco. And so it is too with lack of clothing. Concern there was last summer in Palma as to the number of bare male upper-halves on the tourist bus or on café seats. All that sweat, you see, to say nothing of the unsightliness, depending, I suppose, on what sort of an upper-half it is. Which leads us to the delicate issue of public nudity. Public decency is more an issue of public taste rather than being offended by kit-offery in principle. And by public taste, I mean what sort of a body is sans kit.

There are degrees of public shedding of clothes, and some of it can be only partial and still cause huge offence, as with those lugging considerable amounts of bright white and blotchy pink lard (Beefheart's momma or otherwise) around with them and sporting a bra as they lumber along Alcúdia's greasy Mile. The local Eroski used to have a sign up which requested that shirts and something on feet should be worn in-store. They gave up on account of the armies of Jimmy Multi-Bellies heading for the San Miguel section.

The morally outraged Christian right, through such organisations as the Instituto de Política Familiar, has tried to get toplessness (women's, that is) on beaches and by pools banned. They may have a point in some instances. But generally, such prudishness is not given much houseroom or beach space. Indeed, you have the uncertainty as to whether the full kit-off is actually permissible or not, anywhere on a beach. It's not something I suggest you try putting to the test, but there is a view, well that of the Spanish naturist federation anyway, that au naturel is au k.

It tends to be down to individual town halls as to how they interpret public nudity. In Barcelona, so I understand, the full in-the-buff is considered to be a right, though presumably not if you're wobbling along the Ramblas.

Far safer then, that if you do wish to indulge in some potential offending of public decency, that you stick to the wind-breaking variety. But if you do, just be careful in case there are any passing Malawians who get downwind of you.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.