We eat as a family on a four-table terrace. In the left corner, a few meters away, a couple and their two kids are devouring a rice dish. The little ones are spooning while standing and playing, and their mother decides that the second course is an ideal moment to make a ten-minute video call to her mother. She places the mobile phone ten centimeters from her face and invites the children to join the conversation. All of this, logically, is done by shouting and disturbing the silence of the other diners, who must make titanic efforts to hear each other, opting for the lifelong Mediterranean solution; raising the stakes and roaring even louder. The volume on the terrace soon reaches disco levels. My better half, of Germanic blood, states implacably: "In Germany, this group of ill-mannered people would be thrown out of the restaurant."
It's not an exaggeration. Nord enllà, where people can talk without shouting, I have visited countries where a terrace of fifty diners causes the whistle of a stream. I have also seen civilized Europeans who get up from a table when their baby cries to comfort the child at a safe distance, and even very civilized parents who correct (even punish!) their offspring when they dare to utter a mere syllable in a raised tone.
I was thinking about all this when I heard about what the pretentious people in our City Council call "the offensive against noise" in my beloved neighborhood of Ciutat Vella, a measure that will force our long-suffering baristas to close their terraces an hour earlier, specifically at eleven at night (the edict first affected the streets of Joaquim Costa, Escudellers and the squares of dels Àngels and del tripi; now it will be extended to eleven more streets, among which, as luck would have it, Sant Sever is not included).
I perfectly understand the municipal administration's efforts to save our eardrums, but I would say that (continuing with the vulgar idiolect of the council) the silent revolution we dream of will only be effective through a spartan process of re-education. Shouting is rude. It doesn't help to communicate better, nor does it make us more Mediterranean, friendly, or happy.
Madam, please seat the kids at the table (if you want them to eat while dancing a sardana, do it at home), call your damn mother from somewhere else, and then you can compete calmly seeing who fakes higher notes more to remember how handsome the kids are. Guilt is a collective burden, and it goes from said dear fellow citizen to myself, who should have gotten up to ask her to shut up, but also from visitors who behave in their own homes while in Barcelona they dedicate themselves to parading their vocal loudspeaker.
Shouting is rude. It doesn't help us communicate better, nor does it make us more Mediterranean, friendly, or happy.I know I'm writing simple obvious things, but noise begins to be eliminated by stopping shouting. This milestone does not require the promulgation of a municipal ordinance, nor the effort of our councilors, nor even the presence of the Guardia Urbana with an acoustic meter on Ferlandina street. Dear fellow citizen, if you get a call and you are in a populated place, please move to a corner: I am not interested in your life, nor if the Ikea chest of drawers that will allow you to properly store your towels has finally arrived home, in the same way that I perfectly understand that you are not interested in my noise at all. Dear fellow citizens, when you tell the umpteenth absurd anecdote or a joke attempt, do it in a low voice; it will be just as bad and, at least, it will have the delicacy of not affecting the peace of the neighboring diner and the respective intake of a sole. Only barbarians and people who have nothing to say shout.
And may our baristas not suffer. Again, our neighbors from Northern Europe show us that one can keep silent and suck with the same and exact joy. It is very well proven.
Add The New Barcelona Post as your preferred Google source for free
Stay informed with the latest news.