OK, so now it’s official: We are one of – if not THE noisiest nation(s) on earth. And if that surprises you, well it shouldn’t. We do decibels like trappists do silence, we are Loud with a capital L.
When I read the recent report in Times of Malta acknowledging the fact, I thought: Yes sure, racket and clamour is certainly one field where we punch well above our weight.
Take our neighbour Mrs Bugeja, (That’s not her real name... her real name’s Mrs Anastasi); She could bellow for the planet. It is said that on a still day, she can be clearly heard... in downtown Palermo.
A few months back we had a friend from the UK staying with us. One morning she accompanied me to the local grocer shop. When we got there, Mrs Bugeja was in full flow. Our UK friend looked quite distressed and asked me later why the lady was so angry.
I had to explain that, far from being angry, she was just informing a neighbour that he daughter-in-law had recently produced twins. The noise she made was deafening – and it really did sound as though she was winding up for a fight.
Another major source of intrusive noise, heavy metal ‘music’ usually, which emits from those beaten-up cars... often vintage Ford Escorts. These mobile sound machines, invariably driven by a multi-tattooed youth with attitude and more piercings than an acupuncture patient, pass through our village blasting away at full volume.
Very few of us seem well versed in judicious use of the volume switch, on the TV or radio
I’m told this is some sort of modern-day mating ritual... whereby the multi-coloured male with the mobile juke box is saying ‘metaphorically’ to his intended: “Hey babe... let’s get stone deaf together!”
And on the same subject, very few of us seem well-versed in the judicious use of the volume switch, on the TV or radio.
When I was little more than a callow youth, back in the 1980s, I can remember walking up St Paul’s Street, Valletta, in the evening and following the plot of Dallas or ‘Dye-nasty’, blasting out of the houses and apartments en route. It was deafening to me out in the street, I can only imagine what it must have sounded like close to.
Some time back, a small party, comprising some friends and myself, were eating at a Valletta restaurant. And, almost inevitably, our evening was accompanied by the, now almost obligatory, piped schmuzak.
Just before our starters arrived I was aware that this ‘background’ music had become intrusively foreground and was almost blasting us out of our seats. Incidentally, there were about five tables occupied in the room and none of the other diners seemed in any way discomfited by the din.
After tiring of shouting at one another above the racket, I summoned the manager and asked – politely – if he could possibly turn down the volume on the speakers. He looked at me as though I had asked what time the stripper was on and replied: “You don’t like music!?”
I was momentarily too stunned to reply. No matter, my wife obliged with: “Yes we love music, but not at full volume and while we are having to compete with it.”
He shook his head and then said the one thing guaranteed to irritate even the most placid of people (me “Nobody else has complained.”
I won’t bore you with my response to this, but he did then turn the cacophony down... for a while. But within a few minutes I noticed him begin to edge up the volume, until within 20 minutes it was back up to its former level.
We had already ordered starters and main courses, but we all passed on puddings and beat a retreat, never to return. Incidentally, when I related this tale to a work colleague some days later; he at first looked puzzled, then said: “Well, is it true... you don’t like music?”
Add to this the tuneless cacophony of church bells, the futile blasting of car horns in a tailback of vehicles temporarily halted, then, of course, there are the hunters blasting away in and out of season, from before dawn.
So sure I believe it when we are dubbed the nexus of noise... the centre of commotion... the progenitors of pandemonium.
As dear old Noddy Holder once croaked: “Come on, feel the noise.” In Malta you don’t have to travel far to do so.