The people of Arenal are fed up. In demonstrating how fed up they are, they have taken to hanging black flags from balconies. It is a black flag against "the tourist who doesn't respect Arenal".
One needs to explain that this is the Arenal which is part of Llucmajor. Arenal falls into two municipalities, Palma being the other, and in Palma they have an ordinance under which "special intervention zones" have been established. The Palma Arenal is one of them. The zones mean that there is to be "zero tolerance" of anti-social behaviour and especially street/beach drinking in groups. It is debatable as to how well the Palma police are capable of keeping on top of this, but at least they have this bylaw. Cross the municipal border and there isn't one.
The legal niceties of all this are frankly lost on many of us. There are all manner of bylaws that all manner of town halls have to deal with behaviour. Why they need to have specific ordinance is anyone's guess, but it appears that they do. But when it comes to getting round to instituting ordinance, they run up against technicalities of legislation. This is what has happened in Llucmajor, and one should bear in mind that Palma had a whole raft of measures to control behaviour and what have you under a wide-ranging civic ordinance. This was deemed unacceptable by the courts. There are the technicalities for you.
Control via local bylaw is thus forever pitted against some grander law. Palma had exceeded the scope of its powers, it was said. Therefore, it dropped this all-embracing ordinance and fell back on what already existed but which seemingly hadn't been implemented. How daft is that?
To come back to Arenal, the Llucmajor bit, the reason for the black flags is the noise, mess and general misbehaviour caused by end-of-course holiday parties. These are for students - school or university - though one wonders how liberally the term student is used. They come from Spain and elsewhere, and in Arenal this year things are apparently worse than ever. The town hall has been unable to stop the "uncontrolled parties", which take place mainly on the beach. Its ordinance won't be in place until August - too late for this year, so the locals will have to see how effective it is on 2017.
Llucmajor cannot prevent there being such vacations. The same applies to other parts of the island: Alcudia, Cala Ratjada and Magalluf. In Alcudia, and specifically in Bellevue, the mayor said last year that he couldn't tell the hotel which clients it should have or not have. Which is absolutely true. Of course he can't.
Despite Alcudia saying that there was to be "maximum control" this year and despite some logistical alterations with what goes under the title Mallorca Island Festival, things are as bad as ever. Worse in some respects, given that one whole part of Bellevue has been devoted to it: all of the blocks to the right-hand side of the entrance road.
The difference between Alcudia and Arenal is that the "party" is for the most part confined to Bellevue. But not at night. The coming and going of coaches to take these "students" to a club means noise not just from the coaches but also the hundreds who make their way to the coaches. And that's just the going-out. Then there's the coming-back.
One could give chapter and verse about what is occurring in Bellevue, but you probably don't need telling. You can well imagine. At times it is total chaos. But again, because this is chiefly within hotel grounds, it is a case - in part - of out of sight, out of mind. This is not like Arenal. But there are residents affected nonetheless: those who live on the same open campus of the one-time Bellavista urbanisation. There are also the residents who live nearby, who are exposed to the noise of those who haven't got a club pass as part of their package. They instead hit the clubs of Alcudia, taking noise, mess, incivility to much of the tourism centre.
Saturation is a popular word with Balearic politicians at present. It's a word to describe, in essence, too many tourists: too many in specific places, be it Palma city centre or certain beaches. This saturation has a highly negative impact on the psyche of the locals. Used though they are to summer tourists in high numbers, when they are high numbers and are out of control, the impact is compounded many times.
The black flags of Arenal should be flown in Alcudia too. But of the apartments principally affected, there would doubtless be some idiot of a community committee member reminding people that things cannot be hung from balconies, normally towels. And herein lies part of the problem: too many stupid people worrying about stupid trivial matters like how long it might take the maintenance guys to fix something and doing absolutely nothing about wider matters. They get the problems they deserve.
Index for June 2016
Accountability and Facebook - 10 June 2016
Alcudia: tourism issues - 29 June 2016
Brexit - 26 June 2016, 27 June 2016
Car parking and overcrowding - 9 June 2016
Colonia Sant Pere - 25 June 2016
Control in Mallorca - 21 June 2016
Corruption route in Palma - 14 June 2016
Cruise ships and overcrowding - 11 June 2016
End-of-course holiday parties - 30 June 2016
Following Magalluf's lead - 17 June 2016
Foreign property purchasing - 16 June 2016
Holiday rentals - 24 June 2016
Mallorca promotion - 22 June 2016
Mallorca rich and poor - 1 June 2016
Muhammad Ali in Mallorca - 19 June 2016
Pablo Iglesias and Marxism - 8 June 2016
Podemos and Ikea - 13 June 2016
Pueblo Español - 12 June 2016
Ryanair and holiday rentals - 18 June 2016
Sa Pobla's old beach - 5 June 2016
Spain's election - 6 June 2016, 20 June 2016, 23 June 2016, 28 June 2016
Tourist saturation and hotel places - 7 June 2016
Tourist tax - 4 June 2016
Town halls and other authorities - 2 June 2016
Tramuntana appreciation in Mallorca - 15 June 2016
War graves in Mallorca - 3 June 2016
Showing posts with label Noise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Noise. Show all posts
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Limits To Exploiting The Beaches?
Old photos. There are several social media blogs which dedicate themselves to old photos of Mallorca. They spark off nostalgia for times past. They show people, buildings, streets, vehicles, landscapes. All of them are of interest, but arguably the greatest interest - certainly for tourists to Mallorca - is reserved for the photographic histories of the resorts: the changes to the front lines, the hotels which have gone or have remained, the beaches as they were. The tourist, by the very nature of Mallorca's dominant sun and beach tourism, invests emotion most heavily in the resorts: they are the tourist's domain, the tourist's memories, the tourist's past, present and future.
Of some of these photos, there are those which show how beaches were in the days just prior to the tourism explosion and once the explosion had occurred. The contrasts are predominantly those of bodies and of what bordered the beaches. There is a particular one for Palmanova. It is not certain when it was taken, but probably in the 1950s. Absent is the development, absent is a crowded beach. But on the beach, or rather off it - as in the sea - is what might seem to be an oddity. It is a pedalo.
While it is reckoned that Leonardo da Vinci may have "invented" the pedalo, its mechanics were, much later, adapted from those of the paddle steamer. That there was, therefore, a pedalo in the fifties' photo should not be odd, but somehow it does seem odd. I mean, beaches were just beaches then. Weren't they? Beachgoers made their own fun without the aid of the beach attraction.
The pedalo can probably lay claim to having been the pioneer of such attractions and its iconic status was such that, when the first "WIsh You Were Here" was broadcast (1974), what else would Judith Chalmers be sitting on, drinking champagne at Magalluf beach than a pedalo.
But by the time of that broadcast another attraction was making itself known. It was altogether more powerful and noisier. The jet ski had arrived. It shared its name with a brand of tourist divorced from the mass hoi polloi, the jet set, and as such became de rigueur for the TV and cinema of spies and socialites who headed for the Riviera and were normally always played by Roger Moore and Sophia Loren.
Pioneer that the pedalo was, it was not responsible for introducing artificiality to beaches. There was plastic in ever increasing abundance, a perversely natural consequence of the ever increasing levels of humanity that invaded the beaches. But it was essentially benign. A pedalo doesn't make any noise. A jet ski, on the other hand, does. A pedalo requires only human leg power. A jet ski does not.
Coming up to the present day, there is a growing debate regarding the use of beaches and sea that centres on ever more plastic and ever more noise. And Colonia Sant Jordi is where this debate is currently at its most fierce. Last Sunday, around a hundred residents of the resort staged a protest against the plan to install a floating waterpark and to permit two platforms for jet skis. Their objection does have an element of antagonism towards a Spanish (and so not Mallorcan) operator and a French one, but there is also concern about environmental harm, noise pollution and the sight of the waterpark.
Such waterparks have emerged recently in different resorts and they haven't been greeted with overwhelming support from residents and tourists. But how strong is this opposition? While some tourists might object, others doubtless approve. However the feelings are either way, the Colonia Sant Jordi case highlights a broader debate. Just how much "exploitation" of beaches and the sea should there be?
There are plenty of rules intended to safeguard beaches and there are plenty of initiatives, like the Blue Flag, to ensure quality. Yet there is a great deal of "privatisation" of beaches and the sea immediately by them. This is privatisation in the widest sense, i.e. private enterprises operating businesses, but it is something which rubs against deep-rooted feelings held by many a Mallorcan (and indeed Spaniard). Beaches, state-owned, are in the public domain. They are for the public to enjoy. This enjoyment, the complaint is made, is reduced by the excesses of privatisation, be these too many sun loungers that limit the use of the public domain, noise or multi-coloured plastic slides bobbing up and down on the sea.
And to these residents can be added the tourists with a sense of a shared common birthright to the simpler pleasures of what, in tourism terms, constitute Mallorca's greatest natural resource. But then maybe the exploitation is necessary. Gone are the days, it would seem, when all beachgoers could make their own fun. With or without the aid of a pedalo.
Of some of these photos, there are those which show how beaches were in the days just prior to the tourism explosion and once the explosion had occurred. The contrasts are predominantly those of bodies and of what bordered the beaches. There is a particular one for Palmanova. It is not certain when it was taken, but probably in the 1950s. Absent is the development, absent is a crowded beach. But on the beach, or rather off it - as in the sea - is what might seem to be an oddity. It is a pedalo.
While it is reckoned that Leonardo da Vinci may have "invented" the pedalo, its mechanics were, much later, adapted from those of the paddle steamer. That there was, therefore, a pedalo in the fifties' photo should not be odd, but somehow it does seem odd. I mean, beaches were just beaches then. Weren't they? Beachgoers made their own fun without the aid of the beach attraction.
The pedalo can probably lay claim to having been the pioneer of such attractions and its iconic status was such that, when the first "WIsh You Were Here" was broadcast (1974), what else would Judith Chalmers be sitting on, drinking champagne at Magalluf beach than a pedalo.
But by the time of that broadcast another attraction was making itself known. It was altogether more powerful and noisier. The jet ski had arrived. It shared its name with a brand of tourist divorced from the mass hoi polloi, the jet set, and as such became de rigueur for the TV and cinema of spies and socialites who headed for the Riviera and were normally always played by Roger Moore and Sophia Loren.
Pioneer that the pedalo was, it was not responsible for introducing artificiality to beaches. There was plastic in ever increasing abundance, a perversely natural consequence of the ever increasing levels of humanity that invaded the beaches. But it was essentially benign. A pedalo doesn't make any noise. A jet ski, on the other hand, does. A pedalo requires only human leg power. A jet ski does not.
Coming up to the present day, there is a growing debate regarding the use of beaches and sea that centres on ever more plastic and ever more noise. And Colonia Sant Jordi is where this debate is currently at its most fierce. Last Sunday, around a hundred residents of the resort staged a protest against the plan to install a floating waterpark and to permit two platforms for jet skis. Their objection does have an element of antagonism towards a Spanish (and so not Mallorcan) operator and a French one, but there is also concern about environmental harm, noise pollution and the sight of the waterpark.
Such waterparks have emerged recently in different resorts and they haven't been greeted with overwhelming support from residents and tourists. But how strong is this opposition? While some tourists might object, others doubtless approve. However the feelings are either way, the Colonia Sant Jordi case highlights a broader debate. Just how much "exploitation" of beaches and the sea should there be?
There are plenty of rules intended to safeguard beaches and there are plenty of initiatives, like the Blue Flag, to ensure quality. Yet there is a great deal of "privatisation" of beaches and the sea immediately by them. This is privatisation in the widest sense, i.e. private enterprises operating businesses, but it is something which rubs against deep-rooted feelings held by many a Mallorcan (and indeed Spaniard). Beaches, state-owned, are in the public domain. They are for the public to enjoy. This enjoyment, the complaint is made, is reduced by the excesses of privatisation, be these too many sun loungers that limit the use of the public domain, noise or multi-coloured plastic slides bobbing up and down on the sea.
And to these residents can be added the tourists with a sense of a shared common birthright to the simpler pleasures of what, in tourism terms, constitute Mallorca's greatest natural resource. But then maybe the exploitation is necessary. Gone are the days, it would seem, when all beachgoers could make their own fun. With or without the aid of a pedalo.
Wednesday, January 07, 2015
Never Been Easy: Noise in Mallorca
Imagine that you are in Mallorca one hundred years ago. You are in a village. What can you hear? Voices, metallic tools striking earth or object, a newfangled automobile, animals. Even in Palma, things wouldn't have been so different, apart from there having been that many more voices, more automobiles plus ships and very occasionally by then an aircraft. Other noises would have been the music bands of the fiesta or the bells of the church; otherwise, noise was unobtrusive.
Of developments in the twentieth century, two were arguably more profound than others. Noise and light. They were profound because of their assault on senses. Both owed much to electricity which was, one hundred years ago, still in limited supply on Mallorca. Once supply was assured and grew, once other technologies advanced or were created, the twentieth century invented noise and light pollution.
By the start of the tourism revolution, noise would still have been contained, but once Mallorca's industrial revolution arrived, the collective decibel level shot up. So many more voices, so many more vehicles, airplanes, and also the sound of tourism - entertainment. While Mallorca had its clubs before the revolution really started, they were mostly indoor and mostly confined to Palma. The club, the entertainment offer, the gramophone player went al fresco in coastal resorts.
Tourism is noise. Noise is tourism. It is the noise of millions of voices, cheers, shouts, screams, laughs. The noise of the pool aerobics pumping a beat at ten in the morning. The noise of the evening playback, karaoke, tribute act, live act. Noise, that of music and voices rising into the night skies above terraces, has existed as long as modern tourism in Mallorca has, but once upon a time that noise extended with little control into the wee small hours. It was noise that seemed appropriate and acceptable, the noise of enjoyment of balmy summer nights, starlit skies and romance, either personal or simply that of the holiday.
On 26 March 1987, the Balearics introduced Decreto 20/1987: Measures of protection against acoustic contamination of the environment. There were laws already in place, national ones, that dealt with noise, but the Balearics decree of 1987 was pioneering for a region of Spain. One of its articles referred specifically to the noise from "establishments open to the public" which did not have adequate soundproofing. It had to cease by midnight. Curiously, and from what I can see in this decree, there was no specific mention of outdoor entertainment. Nevertheless, a midnight threshold for such entertainment was to catch on, if only at the level of some municipalities. The twelve o'clock curfew came in.
Twenty years later, a law was passed. Ley 1/2007 "against the acoustic contamination of the Balearic Islands" drew on European legislation and made certain stipulations in respect of what were called "zones of special acoustic protection". These were zones with elevated noise levels on account of the existence of numerous activities, shows and public establishments; essentially, therefore, though not exclusively, tourist zones. This law established that there had to be restricted hours placed on activities which, directly or indirectly, caused these elevated noise levels. In its preamble it referred to "individuals' indisputable rights to relaxation, health and privacy", to the rights of citizens to have acoustic environmental quality and to the "main productive sector of the Balearic Islands", i.e. tourism. The preamble recognised, and said as much, that it was no easy task to reconcile these competing demands.
And of course, it never has been easy. Even had tourism been developed in specific tourist-only areas, absent of residential accommodation, it still wouldn't be easy. There is, or so one concludes from an overwhelming impression through the likes of Trip Advisor, an aversion among holidaymakers to noise going on late. Maybe even in those romantic days they didn't appreciate it either, though one feels that there was less opposition back then. There again, these are the views of British holidaymakers. The Spanish would tend to have a different take.
The twenty-first century has been one of a continuing fight against the noise pollution which sprang up with tourism but which was only belatedly tackled. Limiters, terrace curfews, these are evidence of this fight which has been occurring in the resorts for years now, and it is one extended to the La Lonja area of Palma, which isn't a specifically tourist zone but is one of those zones of special protection highlighted in the 2007 law.
I am personally inclined towards the romantic view, the one of those hot summer nights when there weren't the controls, but I am also inclined to a different productive view of the 2007 law and one that is increasing in momentum, namely that the Spanish day and night needs changing and that more sleep is required. It has never been easy? It would have been a hundred years ago.
Of developments in the twentieth century, two were arguably more profound than others. Noise and light. They were profound because of their assault on senses. Both owed much to electricity which was, one hundred years ago, still in limited supply on Mallorca. Once supply was assured and grew, once other technologies advanced or were created, the twentieth century invented noise and light pollution.
By the start of the tourism revolution, noise would still have been contained, but once Mallorca's industrial revolution arrived, the collective decibel level shot up. So many more voices, so many more vehicles, airplanes, and also the sound of tourism - entertainment. While Mallorca had its clubs before the revolution really started, they were mostly indoor and mostly confined to Palma. The club, the entertainment offer, the gramophone player went al fresco in coastal resorts.
Tourism is noise. Noise is tourism. It is the noise of millions of voices, cheers, shouts, screams, laughs. The noise of the pool aerobics pumping a beat at ten in the morning. The noise of the evening playback, karaoke, tribute act, live act. Noise, that of music and voices rising into the night skies above terraces, has existed as long as modern tourism in Mallorca has, but once upon a time that noise extended with little control into the wee small hours. It was noise that seemed appropriate and acceptable, the noise of enjoyment of balmy summer nights, starlit skies and romance, either personal or simply that of the holiday.
On 26 March 1987, the Balearics introduced Decreto 20/1987: Measures of protection against acoustic contamination of the environment. There were laws already in place, national ones, that dealt with noise, but the Balearics decree of 1987 was pioneering for a region of Spain. One of its articles referred specifically to the noise from "establishments open to the public" which did not have adequate soundproofing. It had to cease by midnight. Curiously, and from what I can see in this decree, there was no specific mention of outdoor entertainment. Nevertheless, a midnight threshold for such entertainment was to catch on, if only at the level of some municipalities. The twelve o'clock curfew came in.
Twenty years later, a law was passed. Ley 1/2007 "against the acoustic contamination of the Balearic Islands" drew on European legislation and made certain stipulations in respect of what were called "zones of special acoustic protection". These were zones with elevated noise levels on account of the existence of numerous activities, shows and public establishments; essentially, therefore, though not exclusively, tourist zones. This law established that there had to be restricted hours placed on activities which, directly or indirectly, caused these elevated noise levels. In its preamble it referred to "individuals' indisputable rights to relaxation, health and privacy", to the rights of citizens to have acoustic environmental quality and to the "main productive sector of the Balearic Islands", i.e. tourism. The preamble recognised, and said as much, that it was no easy task to reconcile these competing demands.
And of course, it never has been easy. Even had tourism been developed in specific tourist-only areas, absent of residential accommodation, it still wouldn't be easy. There is, or so one concludes from an overwhelming impression through the likes of Trip Advisor, an aversion among holidaymakers to noise going on late. Maybe even in those romantic days they didn't appreciate it either, though one feels that there was less opposition back then. There again, these are the views of British holidaymakers. The Spanish would tend to have a different take.
The twenty-first century has been one of a continuing fight against the noise pollution which sprang up with tourism but which was only belatedly tackled. Limiters, terrace curfews, these are evidence of this fight which has been occurring in the resorts for years now, and it is one extended to the La Lonja area of Palma, which isn't a specifically tourist zone but is one of those zones of special protection highlighted in the 2007 law.
I am personally inclined towards the romantic view, the one of those hot summer nights when there weren't the controls, but I am also inclined to a different productive view of the 2007 law and one that is increasing in momentum, namely that the Spanish day and night needs changing and that more sleep is required. It has never been easy? It would have been a hundred years ago.
Friday, June 27, 2014
Nights Of Noise
Yesterday, I sent Alcúdia's tourism councillor an email in which I suggested that she might like to go to the Bellevue complex and in particular the area by the Fedra blocks and witness for herself the nightly gathering of Spanish students waiting to be ferried off to their club (Menta). It's safe to presume that she did not take up the suggestion.
For the record, this is how things go. Last night was not as rowdy as previous nights had been, but it was still rowdy - eventually. It had seemed as though perhaps the message about the noise had been taken on-board. The coaches appeared to have started arriving earlier and to have started therefore leaving earlier (from around 11.30pm). There looked as though there were more people engaged in some form of control and organisation. Indeed, up until roughly one o'clock, there was nothing that could have been deemed unacceptable. There was noise, but only for the most part the low noise of chatter. The behaviour was generally that good that bottles were even being deposited in litter-bins.
But at around one o'clock, things changed. And it probably isn't too difficult to figure out why. The longer some of the students have to wait, are still in the accommodation, the longer the window of drinking opportunity. The pattern of Spanish youth going out for the night is well set. They drink cheap booze, sometimes in the form of the street botellón, prior to getting to the clubs, where they drink virtually nothing. Drink meets large groups means rowdiness.
I spoke to three people who were supervising. One of them was a security guard. I had assumed he was a member of Bellevue security. He wasn't. His job was to look after the "chicos", presumably to ensure that there were no "incidents". When asked about hotel security, he said there wasn't any, which was something of a surprise. He might not have been right. There had been other what looked as though they might have been security earlier. They were no longer in evidence. Whether they were hotel staff or not, I couldn't say. The two others were "co-ordinators" of the groups. One of them said that any complaint would have to be taken up with head office, i.e. the tour company, Finalia in Barcelona.
All three of them seemed somewhat taken aback that anyone would come and ask them to explain whether they felt it was acceptable for there to be levels of noise which, in other circumstances in Alcúdia, would not be tolerated. Taken aback, but then none of them were in a position to make any real observation. They were just doing their jobs. A classic example of there being no one with any real authority being in charge.
The final coach left around 2am. Despite the coaches seeming to have started to arrive earlier, the process of moving the students off site went on to the same sort of early-morning time as it had previously. Now morning, there is a gathering of students waiting to depart. No noise, but have they been up all night? Quite probably. Oh well, youth can handle such privation.
The issue is not the fact that Spanish students are in Alcúdia having a holiday. It is an issue primarily of the nature of Bellevue. Ideally, if there are large groups of youngsters all with the same needs to go out at midnight to enjoy themselves, they should be in a hotel for they and they alone. One which can contain and organise the groups more effectively and not allow them to disrupt the "convivencia" of a wider community. But as Bellevue is as it is, the sprawling campus that it is, with different blocks all open and with some in proximity to residential accommodation, such effective organisation is nigh on impossible.
Let's be clear, Bellevue does have its fair share of rowdy regular tourists. But not on this scale. The hotel would typically classify itself as a family hotel, but it has introduced a tourist niche that does not conform with this classification. The complex may be suited to having different types of tourist in different parts, but only if those different parts are somehow fenced off, made separate in order to lessen the impact of so many young people being on site at one time.
The number is high. When I saw the July occupancy figures for the hotel (dated 22 June), I was surprised to see that, on 1 July for example, the number of guests on full board exceeded by almost 400 the number on an all-inclusive package. I think I begin to understand why this is and why full board guests all but disappear from the mix after 4 July. The security guard told me that he was going to be around until 5 July. It all figures now. The number of full board guests declines after 1 July, but on that date it is listed as amounting to 1,298, more than a third of the entire occupancy of the Bellevue complex.
For the record, this is how things go. Last night was not as rowdy as previous nights had been, but it was still rowdy - eventually. It had seemed as though perhaps the message about the noise had been taken on-board. The coaches appeared to have started arriving earlier and to have started therefore leaving earlier (from around 11.30pm). There looked as though there were more people engaged in some form of control and organisation. Indeed, up until roughly one o'clock, there was nothing that could have been deemed unacceptable. There was noise, but only for the most part the low noise of chatter. The behaviour was generally that good that bottles were even being deposited in litter-bins.
But at around one o'clock, things changed. And it probably isn't too difficult to figure out why. The longer some of the students have to wait, are still in the accommodation, the longer the window of drinking opportunity. The pattern of Spanish youth going out for the night is well set. They drink cheap booze, sometimes in the form of the street botellón, prior to getting to the clubs, where they drink virtually nothing. Drink meets large groups means rowdiness.
I spoke to three people who were supervising. One of them was a security guard. I had assumed he was a member of Bellevue security. He wasn't. His job was to look after the "chicos", presumably to ensure that there were no "incidents". When asked about hotel security, he said there wasn't any, which was something of a surprise. He might not have been right. There had been other what looked as though they might have been security earlier. They were no longer in evidence. Whether they were hotel staff or not, I couldn't say. The two others were "co-ordinators" of the groups. One of them said that any complaint would have to be taken up with head office, i.e. the tour company, Finalia in Barcelona.
All three of them seemed somewhat taken aback that anyone would come and ask them to explain whether they felt it was acceptable for there to be levels of noise which, in other circumstances in Alcúdia, would not be tolerated. Taken aback, but then none of them were in a position to make any real observation. They were just doing their jobs. A classic example of there being no one with any real authority being in charge.
The final coach left around 2am. Despite the coaches seeming to have started to arrive earlier, the process of moving the students off site went on to the same sort of early-morning time as it had previously. Now morning, there is a gathering of students waiting to depart. No noise, but have they been up all night? Quite probably. Oh well, youth can handle such privation.
The issue is not the fact that Spanish students are in Alcúdia having a holiday. It is an issue primarily of the nature of Bellevue. Ideally, if there are large groups of youngsters all with the same needs to go out at midnight to enjoy themselves, they should be in a hotel for they and they alone. One which can contain and organise the groups more effectively and not allow them to disrupt the "convivencia" of a wider community. But as Bellevue is as it is, the sprawling campus that it is, with different blocks all open and with some in proximity to residential accommodation, such effective organisation is nigh on impossible.
Let's be clear, Bellevue does have its fair share of rowdy regular tourists. But not on this scale. The hotel would typically classify itself as a family hotel, but it has introduced a tourist niche that does not conform with this classification. The complex may be suited to having different types of tourist in different parts, but only if those different parts are somehow fenced off, made separate in order to lessen the impact of so many young people being on site at one time.
The number is high. When I saw the July occupancy figures for the hotel (dated 22 June), I was surprised to see that, on 1 July for example, the number of guests on full board exceeded by almost 400 the number on an all-inclusive package. I think I begin to understand why this is and why full board guests all but disappear from the mix after 4 July. The security guard told me that he was going to be around until 5 July. It all figures now. The number of full board guests declines after 1 July, but on that date it is listed as amounting to 1,298, more than a third of the entire occupancy of the Bellevue complex.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Organised Irresponsibility: Students on holiday
It is quarter past one on a midweek morning. A security guard gets into his car and drives off. He had been hanging around for an hour or more. Long enough to have seen the police car drive past, turn round and go. Now he has also gone. Meanwhile, the noise continues.
On Facebook, Shaggie, he of Shagalluf, posts something under the title of "Calvia council stop fooling yourselves". He is referring to "havoc" being caused by some 2,000 Spanish kids along Magalluf's strip. His post would be something which I would normally notice with only passing interest. But I take much closer interest than normal. He talks about the absence of police and about underaged kids out on the streets at night.
Spanish kids are like kids anywhere. There is a misguided notion, one typically held by a category of expatriate who is not in touch with the realities of the streets or the resorts, that Spanish kids, unlike their British counterparts, are incapable of misbehaving, getting drunk or creating noise or havoc. There are degrees of noise and havoc, granted, but let's nail the canard once and for all. Spanish kids can asbo along with the kids of other nations. And why not? They're kids.
Perhaps mercifully I was never part of a small invasion force of hundreds or thousands of my peers. There weren't organised student holiday tours back in the day. Not of the type there are now. They come from the mainland. They are packaged according to educational type. There is the holiday for kids at secondary schools celebrating the end of the summer term; the holiday for kids at the end of their Baccalaureate; the holiday for university kids (aka adults). There are those who are under age in that they are not eighteen; those who are eighteen or older. Thousands of them. In different resorts. Magalluf, Arenal, Alcúdia.
Quarter past one in the morning. The noise has been going on, as it has over successive nights, from around midnight. It is noise of shouts, screams, chants, claps, firecrackers. The noise of the botellón, the mass drinking party. The noise that could be expected from hundreds of kids. They come in waves, just as the noise comes in waves. It rises, it falls.
This is Bellevue in Alcúdia. Where else. On its outer limits the majority of the students - Baccalaureate ones, the elite ones - are housed in specific blocks of this vast holidaymaking campus. They are not alone. There are other tourists. Nearby there are the residences of the Siestas.
Alcúdia has local ordinances, just as other towns have ordinances. Since the time that it became an "eco-tourist" resort in the 1990s (a pioneering concept), it has adopted measures for environmental protection, of which noise pollution is one. Alcúdia abhors noise, especially noise after the midnight curfew. In theory.
Yet, there is no curfew in Bellevue. Not a curfew of movement, of association, of gathering. Not a curfew of size of gathering. Not a curfew of noise. Quite the opposite. This is noise organisation. From midnight, there is the sound of the multitudes. It growls like thunder, crashes like thunderclaps, bombarding the steamy night air. The sound of the students gathering for the coaches which come and go in convoy until two in the morning. The sound of the Baccalaureate asbos.
"Convivencia" is a word in Spanish which means co-existence. It is one which is used widely. It is used in legal terms, in moral terms and in terms of responsibility. Convivencia is all but a part of the nation's Constitution. It is a theoretical concept, one often breached in practice. Its application is devolved to institutions of government and to representatives of commerce. Its intention is social harmony. Mutual respect. Living together. Co-existence.
What destroys convivencia is not students enjoying their holidays. The destruction comes from a lack of institutional responsibility, a failure in duty of care, an absence of accountability and of admission. It is not just institutions of local government - Calvia, Alcúdia town halls, for example - it is also commercial organisations, such as one driven to create occupancy of a vast complex that would, in late June, otherwise have to face occupancy of well under 50%, just as it currently has to for mid-July. The commercial need dominates. Business comes from wherever business can come from. Even if the late-night organisation of this business shatters the desired calm of convivencia. The truth is that no one gives a damn, no one could care less at town halls or in business. They, those who decide, who grant permission, who book, who organise, never see or hear. They never hear the noise. They are blind to the consequences. They are the ones who are responsible, but ultimately irresponsible.
On Facebook, Shaggie, he of Shagalluf, posts something under the title of "Calvia council stop fooling yourselves". He is referring to "havoc" being caused by some 2,000 Spanish kids along Magalluf's strip. His post would be something which I would normally notice with only passing interest. But I take much closer interest than normal. He talks about the absence of police and about underaged kids out on the streets at night.
Spanish kids are like kids anywhere. There is a misguided notion, one typically held by a category of expatriate who is not in touch with the realities of the streets or the resorts, that Spanish kids, unlike their British counterparts, are incapable of misbehaving, getting drunk or creating noise or havoc. There are degrees of noise and havoc, granted, but let's nail the canard once and for all. Spanish kids can asbo along with the kids of other nations. And why not? They're kids.
Perhaps mercifully I was never part of a small invasion force of hundreds or thousands of my peers. There weren't organised student holiday tours back in the day. Not of the type there are now. They come from the mainland. They are packaged according to educational type. There is the holiday for kids at secondary schools celebrating the end of the summer term; the holiday for kids at the end of their Baccalaureate; the holiday for university kids (aka adults). There are those who are under age in that they are not eighteen; those who are eighteen or older. Thousands of them. In different resorts. Magalluf, Arenal, Alcúdia.
Quarter past one in the morning. The noise has been going on, as it has over successive nights, from around midnight. It is noise of shouts, screams, chants, claps, firecrackers. The noise of the botellón, the mass drinking party. The noise that could be expected from hundreds of kids. They come in waves, just as the noise comes in waves. It rises, it falls.
This is Bellevue in Alcúdia. Where else. On its outer limits the majority of the students - Baccalaureate ones, the elite ones - are housed in specific blocks of this vast holidaymaking campus. They are not alone. There are other tourists. Nearby there are the residences of the Siestas.
Alcúdia has local ordinances, just as other towns have ordinances. Since the time that it became an "eco-tourist" resort in the 1990s (a pioneering concept), it has adopted measures for environmental protection, of which noise pollution is one. Alcúdia abhors noise, especially noise after the midnight curfew. In theory.
Yet, there is no curfew in Bellevue. Not a curfew of movement, of association, of gathering. Not a curfew of size of gathering. Not a curfew of noise. Quite the opposite. This is noise organisation. From midnight, there is the sound of the multitudes. It growls like thunder, crashes like thunderclaps, bombarding the steamy night air. The sound of the students gathering for the coaches which come and go in convoy until two in the morning. The sound of the Baccalaureate asbos.
"Convivencia" is a word in Spanish which means co-existence. It is one which is used widely. It is used in legal terms, in moral terms and in terms of responsibility. Convivencia is all but a part of the nation's Constitution. It is a theoretical concept, one often breached in practice. Its application is devolved to institutions of government and to representatives of commerce. Its intention is social harmony. Mutual respect. Living together. Co-existence.
What destroys convivencia is not students enjoying their holidays. The destruction comes from a lack of institutional responsibility, a failure in duty of care, an absence of accountability and of admission. It is not just institutions of local government - Calvia, Alcúdia town halls, for example - it is also commercial organisations, such as one driven to create occupancy of a vast complex that would, in late June, otherwise have to face occupancy of well under 50%, just as it currently has to for mid-July. The commercial need dominates. Business comes from wherever business can come from. Even if the late-night organisation of this business shatters the desired calm of convivencia. The truth is that no one gives a damn, no one could care less at town halls or in business. They, those who decide, who grant permission, who book, who organise, never see or hear. They never hear the noise. They are blind to the consequences. They are the ones who are responsible, but ultimately irresponsible.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Boat parties in Torrenova denounced
Various groups of residents have issued complaints to Calvia town hall, the regional government and the maritime authority about the boat parties which are proving to be a particular nuisance in Torrenova. The main complaint is about the excessive noise. The residents do not reserve their complaints solely for the boat parties, as hotels are also condemned for their levels of noise.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Make Some Noise!
"If you come from Manchester, make some noise! If you come from Liverpool, make some noise! If you come from London, make some noise!" Whether it was Westwood, Trevor Nelson or P-Money, it didn't make any difference. Make some noise! The rallying cry of club time. "If you love Magalluf, make some noise! If you're having a great holiday, make some noise! If you're loving the heat, make some noise!"
Noise. Where would be without it? In some sleepy little village in the island's hinterland probably, surrounded only by the rustling of the bougainvillaea. There again, there would be a damn great Canadair suddenly looming into sound, preparing to dump its watery payload on the latest work of destruction by a pyromaniac, or a group of protesters demonstrating against the Castellano imposition, taking to the nearest dusty lane and smashing the pots and pans of a cacerolada. Or, and even in the sleepiest of villages, there would be the fiesta party, enough noise to waken the dead and unleash the demons with their whirling, fire-cracking tridents.
There is noise and there is noise. The natural Mallorcan noise is that of the Mallorcans themselves. When I first trod the boards as a teenager, my drama teacher took me to a courtyard, made me stand on one side while he was on the other. Pro-ject, he demanded. There is a difference between shouting and projecting, but the Mallorcans have been schooled in what is neither. It is a natural form of communication, known simply as loud.
Noise, you fancy therefore, begets more noise. From the natural state of noise, the addition of the unnatural registers far less than when the natural state is for quiet or for less noise. This unnaturalness is crucial to a Mallorcan summer (and sometimes a Mallorcan winter as well). Fiestas, parties, the endless stream of motos, grunting along the roads, the endless stream of traffic full stop. But rarely is it the case that whole groups of people are cajoled into making some noise, lots of it, over and over again.
The ceaseless, repetitious enjoinment of the audience at the Radio 1Xtra gig at Mallorca Rocks to make some noise on Saturday evening was like the whipping-up of troops into a frenzy prior to battle. The sheer relentlessness of the command was a mesmeric imperative amidst the mesmerism of the constant thump of music.
Make some noise. Away from Magalluf and a couple of hours later, there is noise. It comes from a villa that has been rented out. It is not from the apartment opposite where the Polish workers had been making some noise, a great deal of it, until three the previous morning, culminating in the smashing of bottles as they were discarded in the bottle bank. This hadn't been a noise of which I had been aware, thankfully because it was directed towards the sea and was blocked by the building itself. The villa's noise, though, was heading south and so in the other direction.
There is some noise, some music you can put up with, but seriously, Phil Collins? At gone two in the morning? And to make matters far worse, Phil Collins singing in Spanish. This affront to any possible definition of common courtesy and consideration required action. Make some noise? I did. It wasn't projecting, it was shouting. But I couldn't be heard. Not even by shouting through the open window through which the one-time Genesis drummer was singing his Spanish lament of one more night. One more night of making noise. Una noche más. De ruido. Though why the Germans in the villa had Phil in Spanish, I've no idea.
I don't really hold with this business of resorting to calling the cops, but I was willing to make an exception, thanks to Phil Collins. Plod was on the scene swiftly, but by the time they arrived, the windows had been closed, noise was not being made. I suspected a tip-off had been given by the Poles opposite in a rare moment of fraternity across the Oder-Neisse Line of the road.
It is quite possible that on Saturday night Mallorca registered its highest ever levels of noise. If it didn't, it wasn't for lack of trying. But then noise, and a great deal of it, is inevitable. Noise is summer, summer is noise. Restrictions on building work, sound limiters, terrace curfews. They may all have been designed to cut the noise, but there are always other noises to step up to the plate and replace them.
Make some noise? Easy, no problem, and it doesn't really need a DJ to command it.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Noise. Where would be without it? In some sleepy little village in the island's hinterland probably, surrounded only by the rustling of the bougainvillaea. There again, there would be a damn great Canadair suddenly looming into sound, preparing to dump its watery payload on the latest work of destruction by a pyromaniac, or a group of protesters demonstrating against the Castellano imposition, taking to the nearest dusty lane and smashing the pots and pans of a cacerolada. Or, and even in the sleepiest of villages, there would be the fiesta party, enough noise to waken the dead and unleash the demons with their whirling, fire-cracking tridents.
There is noise and there is noise. The natural Mallorcan noise is that of the Mallorcans themselves. When I first trod the boards as a teenager, my drama teacher took me to a courtyard, made me stand on one side while he was on the other. Pro-ject, he demanded. There is a difference between shouting and projecting, but the Mallorcans have been schooled in what is neither. It is a natural form of communication, known simply as loud.
Noise, you fancy therefore, begets more noise. From the natural state of noise, the addition of the unnatural registers far less than when the natural state is for quiet or for less noise. This unnaturalness is crucial to a Mallorcan summer (and sometimes a Mallorcan winter as well). Fiestas, parties, the endless stream of motos, grunting along the roads, the endless stream of traffic full stop. But rarely is it the case that whole groups of people are cajoled into making some noise, lots of it, over and over again.
The ceaseless, repetitious enjoinment of the audience at the Radio 1Xtra gig at Mallorca Rocks to make some noise on Saturday evening was like the whipping-up of troops into a frenzy prior to battle. The sheer relentlessness of the command was a mesmeric imperative amidst the mesmerism of the constant thump of music.
Make some noise. Away from Magalluf and a couple of hours later, there is noise. It comes from a villa that has been rented out. It is not from the apartment opposite where the Polish workers had been making some noise, a great deal of it, until three the previous morning, culminating in the smashing of bottles as they were discarded in the bottle bank. This hadn't been a noise of which I had been aware, thankfully because it was directed towards the sea and was blocked by the building itself. The villa's noise, though, was heading south and so in the other direction.
There is some noise, some music you can put up with, but seriously, Phil Collins? At gone two in the morning? And to make matters far worse, Phil Collins singing in Spanish. This affront to any possible definition of common courtesy and consideration required action. Make some noise? I did. It wasn't projecting, it was shouting. But I couldn't be heard. Not even by shouting through the open window through which the one-time Genesis drummer was singing his Spanish lament of one more night. One more night of making noise. Una noche más. De ruido. Though why the Germans in the villa had Phil in Spanish, I've no idea.
I don't really hold with this business of resorting to calling the cops, but I was willing to make an exception, thanks to Phil Collins. Plod was on the scene swiftly, but by the time they arrived, the windows had been closed, noise was not being made. I suspected a tip-off had been given by the Poles opposite in a rare moment of fraternity across the Oder-Neisse Line of the road.
It is quite possible that on Saturday night Mallorca registered its highest ever levels of noise. If it didn't, it wasn't for lack of trying. But then noise, and a great deal of it, is inevitable. Noise is summer, summer is noise. Restrictions on building work, sound limiters, terrace curfews. They may all have been designed to cut the noise, but there are always other noises to step up to the plate and replace them.
Make some noise? Easy, no problem, and it doesn't really need a DJ to command it.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, July 07, 2012
All The Nice Girls Love A Sailor
Hetty King was her name. In 1909 Hetty took the world of the music hall by storm and all the nice girls loved a sailor, primarily because a sailor had a pocketful of cash and a parrot in a cage. Quite what the parrot had to do with anything, I'm not sure. Be this as it may, back in Hetty's day, the loving of a sailor probably didn't usually extend to his going downstairs on a first date, or on any date come to that.
The Virgen del Carmen fiesta in Puerto Pollensa will this year feature a sailors' party. All the nice and not so nice girls will have the chance to love a sailor as will, one supposes, all the nice boys. But Hetty would never have sung about such things, while the chances of there being a genuine virgin over the age of consent at the Virgen fiesta would be pretty slim, one imagines. Not that it follows that a nice girl has, by definition, to be a virgin, though presumably Hetty would have preferred this to be the case.
While sexual behaviour has changed over the past 103 years, so has music. Thankfully, there is no longer the music hall. As Alexei Sayle once put it - "Friends often ask me, 'Lex, why's there no music hall any longer?', and I tell them, 'because it was crap' ". Yet fiesta music still retains some semblance of the traditional. And in a Mallorcan stylie, this means men with bagpipe things and whistley things and a brass band. Yes really, 'appen, the brass band.
Far less traditional are the fiesta DJs. These come in different guises. Regrettably, there are some who seem to think that they are the Hairy Cornflake or Ooh, Gary Davies, as they insist on going all retro and dragging out your favourite discs of the '70s (of which, let's be honest, there can be very few). Better news comes in the form of the current-day DJ, mashing-up, sound clashing, making one hell of a racket and applying so much bass that a tsunami in the nearby bay is threatened.
Better news musically, but not better news if you happen to want a good night's sleep and are anywhere in the vicinity of the sailors' party that will last until five in the morning.
This party, revived this year, was a previous tradition of Virgen del Carmen. Its new incarnation, going as a sailor, is simply a thematic device; the party itself is not new. And staging a party that goes on all night slap bang in the middle of a town is also not new or original. Most places in Mallorca indulge in such parties at least once a year; more often, if you are really lucky or unlucky, depending on your point of view, your age probably, your need for sleep or your need to be up at six o'clock to go to work.
The thing with these parties is that there appears to be a view that everyone welcomes them and will want to join in. Current-day DJs might mean that not everyone does. While I happen to think they are a great idea, I also don't happen to live anywhere near where one occurs. I still might think they were a great idea if I did, but then I might also not think they were.
While the night parties are common enough across Mallorca at fiesta time, there has been an increase in the trouble that they attract. Excessive drinking, anti-social behaviour, e.g. taking a leak in the square, and violence have dogged some. Pollensa town has experienced problems and so, most obviously, has Sa Pobla; the Districte 54 party has been dropped again this year, mainly for cost reasons, but it led to all manner of incidents last year having been banned by the previous town hall administration because of the potential ASBO-ism.
Holding an all-night party in an urban setting, be it the town square or wherever, is bound not to meet with everyone's approval. One can argue that, well, it is just one night, but in Pollensa, for example, it isn't. Or hasn't been. There is just the slight hint of double standards about such parties in that there is so much insistence otherwise on limiting noise, or at least trying to.
These misgivings notwithstanding, they are a good thing. They are a real expression of a Mallorcan summer, and the island would be a worse place without them. Noise is an inevitable by-product of summer and especially of a summer where tourism is so central and where the fiesta is also so central.
All the nice girls will love a sailor, come next Saturday night. One hopes that they will still be loving the sailor when he has had more than his fair share of rum and when he starts to think about getting the parrot out of the cage.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The Virgen del Carmen fiesta in Puerto Pollensa will this year feature a sailors' party. All the nice and not so nice girls will have the chance to love a sailor as will, one supposes, all the nice boys. But Hetty would never have sung about such things, while the chances of there being a genuine virgin over the age of consent at the Virgen fiesta would be pretty slim, one imagines. Not that it follows that a nice girl has, by definition, to be a virgin, though presumably Hetty would have preferred this to be the case.
While sexual behaviour has changed over the past 103 years, so has music. Thankfully, there is no longer the music hall. As Alexei Sayle once put it - "Friends often ask me, 'Lex, why's there no music hall any longer?', and I tell them, 'because it was crap' ". Yet fiesta music still retains some semblance of the traditional. And in a Mallorcan stylie, this means men with bagpipe things and whistley things and a brass band. Yes really, 'appen, the brass band.
Far less traditional are the fiesta DJs. These come in different guises. Regrettably, there are some who seem to think that they are the Hairy Cornflake or Ooh, Gary Davies, as they insist on going all retro and dragging out your favourite discs of the '70s (of which, let's be honest, there can be very few). Better news comes in the form of the current-day DJ, mashing-up, sound clashing, making one hell of a racket and applying so much bass that a tsunami in the nearby bay is threatened.
Better news musically, but not better news if you happen to want a good night's sleep and are anywhere in the vicinity of the sailors' party that will last until five in the morning.
This party, revived this year, was a previous tradition of Virgen del Carmen. Its new incarnation, going as a sailor, is simply a thematic device; the party itself is not new. And staging a party that goes on all night slap bang in the middle of a town is also not new or original. Most places in Mallorca indulge in such parties at least once a year; more often, if you are really lucky or unlucky, depending on your point of view, your age probably, your need for sleep or your need to be up at six o'clock to go to work.
The thing with these parties is that there appears to be a view that everyone welcomes them and will want to join in. Current-day DJs might mean that not everyone does. While I happen to think they are a great idea, I also don't happen to live anywhere near where one occurs. I still might think they were a great idea if I did, but then I might also not think they were.
While the night parties are common enough across Mallorca at fiesta time, there has been an increase in the trouble that they attract. Excessive drinking, anti-social behaviour, e.g. taking a leak in the square, and violence have dogged some. Pollensa town has experienced problems and so, most obviously, has Sa Pobla; the Districte 54 party has been dropped again this year, mainly for cost reasons, but it led to all manner of incidents last year having been banned by the previous town hall administration because of the potential ASBO-ism.
Holding an all-night party in an urban setting, be it the town square or wherever, is bound not to meet with everyone's approval. One can argue that, well, it is just one night, but in Pollensa, for example, it isn't. Or hasn't been. There is just the slight hint of double standards about such parties in that there is so much insistence otherwise on limiting noise, or at least trying to.
These misgivings notwithstanding, they are a good thing. They are a real expression of a Mallorcan summer, and the island would be a worse place without them. Noise is an inevitable by-product of summer and especially of a summer where tourism is so central and where the fiesta is also so central.
All the nice girls will love a sailor, come next Saturday night. One hopes that they will still be loving the sailor when he has had more than his fair share of rum and when he starts to think about getting the parrot out of the cage.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - New speed restriction on Mallorca motorway
From Monday, the maximum speed on the motorway between the Genova bridge and the motorway to Andratx will be cut to 80 kph. The reason for this is to attempt to cut noise. The policy may well be extended to the whole of the Via Cintura around Palma, but to a maximum of 100 kph.
Monday, June 07, 2010
All Night Long: Bar noise and music
Various municipalities across Mallorca share a similar problem, a similar "dilemma", that of balancing night-time bars and entertainment with the need for some peace and quiet. "The Diario" yesterday looked at the situation in places such as Manacor and Andratx. It could as easily have gone to other towns and resorts.
The dilemma has existed for as long as there have been night-time bars. It is not just the bars and clubs, it is also hotels, though in the case of the latter the issue is straightforward enough. Noise ceases by midnight and is often self-regulating, as it is in Playa de Muro where there are not the same impositions in terms of limiters as there are elsewhere; the hotels act with responsibility without being dictated to. Playa de Muro is also, when it comes to other forms of evening or late-night music, a rather different case to many other resorts; there just simply aren't the establishments.
The noise issue is at its most extreme in Magaluf where residents have been complaining for years and where the complaints have been getting louder. Nearby, in Son Caliu, there is an almighty row regarding the Pacha disco in what is essentially a residential zone, where the club would be open to early morning. On the other hand, the Mallorca Rocks hotel venue, which kicked off last night, keeps to the midnight curfew; The Kooks were due to have finished by 11.30, giving half an hour for those leaving to hopefully disperse.
It is the noise of people leaving (or arriving at) bars that is generally the issue. In Puerto Alcúdia, in the main tourist centre, one hears little by way of complaint, except about the shouting and whatever at three, four in the morning or later from those making their way from the likes of Cheers or Bells. Otherwise, the noise inside the establishments is contained; the midnight closure of terraces and doors is complied with.
The problem is far greater in the towns. Resort Puerto Pollensa may be, as indeed the port area of Puerto Alcúdia is also a "resort", but both are also towns. Complaints about noise are more likely to come from residents than from tourists; residents who live in the towns. But again, it is not the music from inside that creates the problem, which is why it is so difficult to understand Pollensa town hall's absurd stance on live music in bars in Puerto Pollensa, especially if this finishes by midnight.
There is no real solution, short of prohibiting anything beyond midnight, which would be a mistake and would be contrary to a culture of tourism (for some) and to a local culture which treats midnight as a starting-point not an ending-point for a night's entertainment. It is unfair, though, to say to people living by bars that they have to just lump it. Unfortunately, however, this is probably what they have to do.
Noise is a facet of holiday life and of Mallorcan life. The best thing is to go and live in the country. Or at least choose streets in towns where there are no bars. Problem is, someone has to live in the streets that do have them. Not easy.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The dilemma has existed for as long as there have been night-time bars. It is not just the bars and clubs, it is also hotels, though in the case of the latter the issue is straightforward enough. Noise ceases by midnight and is often self-regulating, as it is in Playa de Muro where there are not the same impositions in terms of limiters as there are elsewhere; the hotels act with responsibility without being dictated to. Playa de Muro is also, when it comes to other forms of evening or late-night music, a rather different case to many other resorts; there just simply aren't the establishments.
The noise issue is at its most extreme in Magaluf where residents have been complaining for years and where the complaints have been getting louder. Nearby, in Son Caliu, there is an almighty row regarding the Pacha disco in what is essentially a residential zone, where the club would be open to early morning. On the other hand, the Mallorca Rocks hotel venue, which kicked off last night, keeps to the midnight curfew; The Kooks were due to have finished by 11.30, giving half an hour for those leaving to hopefully disperse.
It is the noise of people leaving (or arriving at) bars that is generally the issue. In Puerto Alcúdia, in the main tourist centre, one hears little by way of complaint, except about the shouting and whatever at three, four in the morning or later from those making their way from the likes of Cheers or Bells. Otherwise, the noise inside the establishments is contained; the midnight closure of terraces and doors is complied with.
The problem is far greater in the towns. Resort Puerto Pollensa may be, as indeed the port area of Puerto Alcúdia is also a "resort", but both are also towns. Complaints about noise are more likely to come from residents than from tourists; residents who live in the towns. But again, it is not the music from inside that creates the problem, which is why it is so difficult to understand Pollensa town hall's absurd stance on live music in bars in Puerto Pollensa, especially if this finishes by midnight.
There is no real solution, short of prohibiting anything beyond midnight, which would be a mistake and would be contrary to a culture of tourism (for some) and to a local culture which treats midnight as a starting-point not an ending-point for a night's entertainment. It is unfair, though, to say to people living by bars that they have to just lump it. Unfortunately, however, this is probably what they have to do.
Noise is a facet of holiday life and of Mallorcan life. The best thing is to go and live in the country. Or at least choose streets in towns where there are no bars. Problem is, someone has to live in the streets that do have them. Not easy.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Acts Of Mindless Vandalism
So you arrive at your bar in the morning. Seems normal enough. Until, that is, you notice that something is not quite right.
Mindless vandalism does not always require grand gestures, those of highly visible destruction or defacement. Sometimes its nature catches you out. Like break-ins, and don't I know, initially you don't latch on, until it becomes apparent. Some time on Saturday morning, someone decided to try and pull the barrier out of the ground between the doctor's clinic and the Foxes Arms in Puerto Alcúdia. Decided to do this and also try and break in half a strut holding up the "toldo" (terrace sun shade). This someone didn't succeed in either. The barrier didn't look worse for wear, until you touched it; the strut was bent rather than broken. But the extent of the damage didn't matter. There was, as always with these things, a sense of invasion. The visible signs may not have been that obvious, but a broken this or a broken that is dangerous - for the customer. It means a day closed, a day's loss of earnings and a day spent spending money on some repairs.
A different matter. There are new neighbours. Hotel workers. Polish, it would seem. Let's not go down the Poles-on-the-rampage routine of the Don Pedro hotel in Cala San Vicente last summer, as in let's not start castigating an entire nation. But. But, when the noise on the terrace is sufficient to require two visits - from myself - to let them know that there is noise on the terrace, then I get - how do I put it - a tad hacked off. The noise is most uncommon in a quiet urbanisation. It is most out of place. Two warnings, I was at pains to point out, despite three chaps seemingly prepared to confront me. Two warnings. Number three, and I hate the idea, and it's the "denuncia". They got my drift. They might also know that I can find out which hotel they are working at. Hotels do not take kindly to being told by stroppy neighbours that their shipped-in workforce is keeping these stroppy neighbours from their shut eye. Especially as they are usually handing over the ackers for the workforce to keep stroppy neighbours awake.
Unlike residencies close to hotels and the commercial centres, you do expect peace and quiet. It's why people don't live near to hotels and commercial centres. If you do, then you have to expect rather less peace and quiet. There is also the business about the definition of "evening" and "night". This may seem bizarre, but it is a facet of the law. Noise on a domestic terrace, after midnight, is equal - in law - to noise on a bar terrace.
Yet, these two incidents are curiously instructive. In my discussions with those with several decades of living in Alcúdia, Pollensa and elsewhere, it is clear that there is a certain nostalgia for the old days of the "generalisimo". Heaven forbid, you might think. But crime was almost non-existent. No one would think of smashing a toldo support for fear of getting a thrashing from the Guardia and a lengthy stretch in the slammer. On the other hand, back in the days before Franco died, no one did much about noise. You could be on terraces till the wee smalls, playing music, dancing, drinking. It didn't matter. Now it does. The perpetrator of the Foxes vandalism will not be found, he will not get a police kicking or a sentence, but the hotel workers, high-spirited but not malicious, can get a police visit or can get a hotel-issued one-way ticket back to Poland. It doesn't, somehow, make much sense.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Mindless vandalism does not always require grand gestures, those of highly visible destruction or defacement. Sometimes its nature catches you out. Like break-ins, and don't I know, initially you don't latch on, until it becomes apparent. Some time on Saturday morning, someone decided to try and pull the barrier out of the ground between the doctor's clinic and the Foxes Arms in Puerto Alcúdia. Decided to do this and also try and break in half a strut holding up the "toldo" (terrace sun shade). This someone didn't succeed in either. The barrier didn't look worse for wear, until you touched it; the strut was bent rather than broken. But the extent of the damage didn't matter. There was, as always with these things, a sense of invasion. The visible signs may not have been that obvious, but a broken this or a broken that is dangerous - for the customer. It means a day closed, a day's loss of earnings and a day spent spending money on some repairs.
A different matter. There are new neighbours. Hotel workers. Polish, it would seem. Let's not go down the Poles-on-the-rampage routine of the Don Pedro hotel in Cala San Vicente last summer, as in let's not start castigating an entire nation. But. But, when the noise on the terrace is sufficient to require two visits - from myself - to let them know that there is noise on the terrace, then I get - how do I put it - a tad hacked off. The noise is most uncommon in a quiet urbanisation. It is most out of place. Two warnings, I was at pains to point out, despite three chaps seemingly prepared to confront me. Two warnings. Number three, and I hate the idea, and it's the "denuncia". They got my drift. They might also know that I can find out which hotel they are working at. Hotels do not take kindly to being told by stroppy neighbours that their shipped-in workforce is keeping these stroppy neighbours from their shut eye. Especially as they are usually handing over the ackers for the workforce to keep stroppy neighbours awake.
Unlike residencies close to hotels and the commercial centres, you do expect peace and quiet. It's why people don't live near to hotels and commercial centres. If you do, then you have to expect rather less peace and quiet. There is also the business about the definition of "evening" and "night". This may seem bizarre, but it is a facet of the law. Noise on a domestic terrace, after midnight, is equal - in law - to noise on a bar terrace.
Yet, these two incidents are curiously instructive. In my discussions with those with several decades of living in Alcúdia, Pollensa and elsewhere, it is clear that there is a certain nostalgia for the old days of the "generalisimo". Heaven forbid, you might think. But crime was almost non-existent. No one would think of smashing a toldo support for fear of getting a thrashing from the Guardia and a lengthy stretch in the slammer. On the other hand, back in the days before Franco died, no one did much about noise. You could be on terraces till the wee smalls, playing music, dancing, drinking. It didn't matter. Now it does. The perpetrator of the Foxes vandalism will not be found, he will not get a police kicking or a sentence, but the hotel workers, high-spirited but not malicious, can get a police visit or can get a hotel-issued one-way ticket back to Poland. It doesn't, somehow, make much sense.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Art Of Noise
5am. There's a bass sound coming from somewhere. Is it from a car in the street? No, sounds too far away. Onto the upper terrace, and it is a little clearer; not loud but discernible. It's coming from across Albufera. Sa Pobla. It's travelling some eight kilometres or so; it's coming from the party for the "Acampallengua". 5am. Hopefully, no-one in Sa Pobla was desperate for a good night's sleep; they wouldn't have had one.
And what is this "Acampallengua"? Literally it means camp language. It's pretty accurate. This is an annual occasion that moves around the island. It is a celebration of Catalan, and particularly popular with the youth; hence the party and the sports that had been arranged during the day. The camping part is that they pitch up and pitch tents and then head off to the sports, the night party, the fire run, the arts workshops, the giants and the pipers and the worthy speeches by politicos and the head of Obra Cultural Balear, the Catalan promotional organisation - "we will not make a step backwards in the struggle for our language", says he (as quoted in translation from "The Diario").
On the face of it, this event seems fair enough, a bit of camping out, a bit of football and a bit of techno. Yet I can't help feeling there is something slightly sinister about the politicisation of the event and therefore of the language. Statements such as that by the head of the Obra makes this pretty clear, and in his audience are teenagers who are being made more aware of their language (which is fair enough) but also potentially being radicalised (which may not be fair enough). Whatever. It's not my argument.
More noise. The tourism season cranking up and the sounds of entertainment are wafting across the resorts; no, wafting is way too weak, make that reverberating. By no means for the first time, there are a number of mutterings about the loudness of the Bellevue show garden sound system. I'm told that it is louder than last year. Every word can be heard clearly as far away as Magic and probably further. "Do you like The Beatles? Scream and shout ... " And so they do, and then once the show has finished at the midnight deadline they continue for some more minutes, demanding more and shouting some more.
This was a theme last year, as it will probably be a theme next year and the year after. Whether the sound system is excessive is not for me to say, but there is an ongoing difficulty in reconciling the noise of holiday and the sleeping and peace requirements of residents and probably also some holidaymakers. Were this a "problem" only occasionally, it might not all be so annoying to some, but it is every night. Not sure how you resolve it, especially when the wind is in the right (or perhaps that's the wrong) direction.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - it was about a nuclear attack on Britain and the nuclear winter that ensued, and it was horrifying. Today's title - who were the driving forces behind this outfit?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
And what is this "Acampallengua"? Literally it means camp language. It's pretty accurate. This is an annual occasion that moves around the island. It is a celebration of Catalan, and particularly popular with the youth; hence the party and the sports that had been arranged during the day. The camping part is that they pitch up and pitch tents and then head off to the sports, the night party, the fire run, the arts workshops, the giants and the pipers and the worthy speeches by politicos and the head of Obra Cultural Balear, the Catalan promotional organisation - "we will not make a step backwards in the struggle for our language", says he (as quoted in translation from "The Diario").
On the face of it, this event seems fair enough, a bit of camping out, a bit of football and a bit of techno. Yet I can't help feeling there is something slightly sinister about the politicisation of the event and therefore of the language. Statements such as that by the head of the Obra makes this pretty clear, and in his audience are teenagers who are being made more aware of their language (which is fair enough) but also potentially being radicalised (which may not be fair enough). Whatever. It's not my argument.
More noise. The tourism season cranking up and the sounds of entertainment are wafting across the resorts; no, wafting is way too weak, make that reverberating. By no means for the first time, there are a number of mutterings about the loudness of the Bellevue show garden sound system. I'm told that it is louder than last year. Every word can be heard clearly as far away as Magic and probably further. "Do you like The Beatles? Scream and shout ... " And so they do, and then once the show has finished at the midnight deadline they continue for some more minutes, demanding more and shouting some more.
This was a theme last year, as it will probably be a theme next year and the year after. Whether the sound system is excessive is not for me to say, but there is an ongoing difficulty in reconciling the noise of holiday and the sleeping and peace requirements of residents and probably also some holidaymakers. Were this a "problem" only occasionally, it might not all be so annoying to some, but it is every night. Not sure how you resolve it, especially when the wind is in the right (or perhaps that's the wrong) direction.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - it was about a nuclear attack on Britain and the nuclear winter that ensued, and it was horrifying. Today's title - who were the driving forces behind this outfit?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Shout, Shout, Let It All Out
More noise. It's not often that Leapy Lee in "Euro Weekly" pens something that is hard for anyone to disagree with, but in the current issue he has. It's about noise and the at-times absurd application of the "denuncia" (complaint) which the police are forced to act on. He cites the case of an 80 year old lady who was throwing a party and got a couple of visits from the local plod, acting on a complaint. There is a huge difference between a one-off event that finishes before midnight and persistent noise, but the ease with which people opt for a complaint should, I believe, be subject to whether they are using police time wisely. If it proves not, then the complainant should be brought to task.
But there are so many apparent inconsistencies and also unfairnesses when it comes to noise. Bars that get hammered by having to play music so low that it means a loss of business is just one example of what can be unfair. The other side of this coin is all the noise from various things on the road that are in blatant violation. The other day, there was a guy revving up and then riding a quad bike near me. It was as though Lewis Hamilton had dropped by to practise his starting-grid revving up and take-off. Then there are the motos and the din they make. Get a convoy of those, and ... I once went to the lawnmower 24-hour race at what was Oliver Reed's place. The moto is the souped-up lawnmower of the road here.
When I last spoke about noise, I got an email from John who pointed to the music events that take place in the centre of Alcúdia. This is not the only place. By coincidence, on the noise theme, someone has been writing to "The Bulletin" to complain about a similar problem in Andratx. A rock-music gig going on at two or three in the morning in a town square is a million miles away from an 80 year-old with a band in her back garden. So where is the consistency? The answer is that there isn't any.
I have noted before that noise and holidays are almost inseparable. The holidaymaker often likes his music al fresco and into the wee smalls, and the romanticism of this has been curbed by things such as the midnight curfews. In one sense, it's a shame, but in another it's a perfectly acceptable compromise. The noise of the entertainment from a hotel, assuming it is within the noise limiters, is of course obtrusive, but one cannot live in a holiday environment and expect silence. The fact that a hotel may make this same noise night after night does not get it closed down, yet a one-off party can get a denuncia. Again, where is the consistency? The system of complaint should be subject to a more rigorous test, I feel.
Anyway, finally on this, I had another noise to deal with. Most of it can be handled. But voices, voices can be a real intrusion. Periodically, for reasons that defy me, a couple of what I assume to be lucky-lucky men have used the street outside my house for a late-night rendezvous. In the street, talking, talking loudly. The other night, at close on 1am, I had had enough, went onto the upper terrace and gave a loud "oi" shout. It worked. A "sorry, sorry" and they dispersed. Maybe they were concerned that I would phone the plod and make a denuncia. Now, I would never do something like that.
And Dimple Diamond update. Man alive, is this working well. That counter is now climbing ever more. It's like the Blue Peter Christmas Appeal, edging ever upwards. Let us not let him down, everyone. Here it comes again - the runaway train in that Derby-stylie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84DmeutIAr4
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Faith No More. Today's title - easy, easy, peasy.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
But there are so many apparent inconsistencies and also unfairnesses when it comes to noise. Bars that get hammered by having to play music so low that it means a loss of business is just one example of what can be unfair. The other side of this coin is all the noise from various things on the road that are in blatant violation. The other day, there was a guy revving up and then riding a quad bike near me. It was as though Lewis Hamilton had dropped by to practise his starting-grid revving up and take-off. Then there are the motos and the din they make. Get a convoy of those, and ... I once went to the lawnmower 24-hour race at what was Oliver Reed's place. The moto is the souped-up lawnmower of the road here.
When I last spoke about noise, I got an email from John who pointed to the music events that take place in the centre of Alcúdia. This is not the only place. By coincidence, on the noise theme, someone has been writing to "The Bulletin" to complain about a similar problem in Andratx. A rock-music gig going on at two or three in the morning in a town square is a million miles away from an 80 year-old with a band in her back garden. So where is the consistency? The answer is that there isn't any.
I have noted before that noise and holidays are almost inseparable. The holidaymaker often likes his music al fresco and into the wee smalls, and the romanticism of this has been curbed by things such as the midnight curfews. In one sense, it's a shame, but in another it's a perfectly acceptable compromise. The noise of the entertainment from a hotel, assuming it is within the noise limiters, is of course obtrusive, but one cannot live in a holiday environment and expect silence. The fact that a hotel may make this same noise night after night does not get it closed down, yet a one-off party can get a denuncia. Again, where is the consistency? The system of complaint should be subject to a more rigorous test, I feel.
Anyway, finally on this, I had another noise to deal with. Most of it can be handled. But voices, voices can be a real intrusion. Periodically, for reasons that defy me, a couple of what I assume to be lucky-lucky men have used the street outside my house for a late-night rendezvous. In the street, talking, talking loudly. The other night, at close on 1am, I had had enough, went onto the upper terrace and gave a loud "oi" shout. It worked. A "sorry, sorry" and they dispersed. Maybe they were concerned that I would phone the plod and make a denuncia. Now, I would never do something like that.
And Dimple Diamond update. Man alive, is this working well. That counter is now climbing ever more. It's like the Blue Peter Christmas Appeal, edging ever upwards. Let us not let him down, everyone. Here it comes again - the runaway train in that Derby-stylie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84DmeutIAr4
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Faith No More. Today's title - easy, easy, peasy.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Lost 'n' Found
"Lost May." Where did it go? Did someone take it? Is it likely to be found?
"Mayo perdido" is a headline in today's "Ultima Hora", the newspaper which, for once, spreading as it is the bad news about this month of May, gets close to living up to its anglicised nickname of the ultimate horror. A lost May is not perhaps the ultimate in horrors but it will do for starters, though one trusts that there is nothing to follow - like a lost June as well. Under the paper's banner are photos of an empty shop, an empty beach and an empty terrace, all of them in Arenal. But for Arenal, you can probably read most of the island. The loss of May has been down to one thing - the weather. And there is still no sign of a permanent shift for the better, even if the weather maps show the latest band of cloud clearing by Monday next week, which will indeed take us into June. The Ultima also carries these headers: "Black May for tourism" and "The rain and the cold mean that the month will end up as one of the worst that can be remembered". And this "worst" was not lost on a client to whom I spoke today. My, what a good old laugh we had when I broached the subject of his invoice. Mind you, any old excuse.
Someone once said to me that Mallorcans don't take their cardies off till June. But I think he was exaggerating. Quite a few do, though not necessarily this year. And this quite a few has not been taking to the beaches and resorts during May. Though the poor and wretched old tourist has been rained off, the locals, who supplement the whole tourism industry at weekends, have stayed at home and watched Eurovision. There have been three weekends without sun; and that is not great news, even in May when some cardies remain firmly buttoned. Personally, I don't possess a cardie, but by this time of May I would not normally expect to a) still be deploying a thickish duvet or b) be wearing socks as a matter of course, even if there is - you'll be saddened to learn - a recurrence of the infected toe problem. Duvet and socks - May has been lost, but found in the winter wardrobe.
And more noise, following on from the last two days' entries. John has mailed me to suggest that maybe there is just a touch of double standards when it comes to the insistence on limiters and curfews. He refers of course to the fiestas and specifically to the annual disco-party-thrash that occurs in the centre of Alcúdia town as the culmination to Sant Jaume. The annual thrash that lasts well into the small hours; indeed well beyond sunrise. And Alcúdia is not alone in this regard. Pollensa and Puerto Pollensa both stage similar dos that run up close to breakfast time.
Now one can of course argue that it is but once a year (actually if you take in various other events, it isn't), and that the Spanish are used to doing things that much later than your average Brit, but what is good for the town halls, who run these events, is not good for the humble bar that has been served with all those decrees against noise - by the town halls. As John points out, a bar-owner could apply for a licence for something similar, but the laughter in the chambers of the ayuntamientos would be as sardonic as that of the client faced with an invoice at the end of a soggy May. Forget it, in other words.
QUIZ
Chain - "Brimful of Asha" was remixed to hitdom by Fat Boy Slim aka Norman Cook, so therefore to The Housemartins and thence to "Caravan of Love". And what's the very simple connection between "Caravan of Love" and yesterday's titlists who were The Allman Brothers Band. Today's title - "get herself lost 'n' found"; one of the greats. Who?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
"Mayo perdido" is a headline in today's "Ultima Hora", the newspaper which, for once, spreading as it is the bad news about this month of May, gets close to living up to its anglicised nickname of the ultimate horror. A lost May is not perhaps the ultimate in horrors but it will do for starters, though one trusts that there is nothing to follow - like a lost June as well. Under the paper's banner are photos of an empty shop, an empty beach and an empty terrace, all of them in Arenal. But for Arenal, you can probably read most of the island. The loss of May has been down to one thing - the weather. And there is still no sign of a permanent shift for the better, even if the weather maps show the latest band of cloud clearing by Monday next week, which will indeed take us into June. The Ultima also carries these headers: "Black May for tourism" and "The rain and the cold mean that the month will end up as one of the worst that can be remembered". And this "worst" was not lost on a client to whom I spoke today. My, what a good old laugh we had when I broached the subject of his invoice. Mind you, any old excuse.
Someone once said to me that Mallorcans don't take their cardies off till June. But I think he was exaggerating. Quite a few do, though not necessarily this year. And this quite a few has not been taking to the beaches and resorts during May. Though the poor and wretched old tourist has been rained off, the locals, who supplement the whole tourism industry at weekends, have stayed at home and watched Eurovision. There have been three weekends without sun; and that is not great news, even in May when some cardies remain firmly buttoned. Personally, I don't possess a cardie, but by this time of May I would not normally expect to a) still be deploying a thickish duvet or b) be wearing socks as a matter of course, even if there is - you'll be saddened to learn - a recurrence of the infected toe problem. Duvet and socks - May has been lost, but found in the winter wardrobe.
And more noise, following on from the last two days' entries. John has mailed me to suggest that maybe there is just a touch of double standards when it comes to the insistence on limiters and curfews. He refers of course to the fiestas and specifically to the annual disco-party-thrash that occurs in the centre of Alcúdia town as the culmination to Sant Jaume. The annual thrash that lasts well into the small hours; indeed well beyond sunrise. And Alcúdia is not alone in this regard. Pollensa and Puerto Pollensa both stage similar dos that run up close to breakfast time.
Now one can of course argue that it is but once a year (actually if you take in various other events, it isn't), and that the Spanish are used to doing things that much later than your average Brit, but what is good for the town halls, who run these events, is not good for the humble bar that has been served with all those decrees against noise - by the town halls. As John points out, a bar-owner could apply for a licence for something similar, but the laughter in the chambers of the ayuntamientos would be as sardonic as that of the client faced with an invoice at the end of a soggy May. Forget it, in other words.
QUIZ
Chain - "Brimful of Asha" was remixed to hitdom by Fat Boy Slim aka Norman Cook, so therefore to The Housemartins and thence to "Caravan of Love". And what's the very simple connection between "Caravan of Love" and yesterday's titlists who were The Allman Brothers Band. Today's title - "get herself lost 'n' found"; one of the greats. Who?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
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?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Monday, May 26, 2008
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.)
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.)
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