BAD ADVICE Ask the Expat

Health BAD ADVICE... Ask the Expat

Not all advice is good and not all people are as genuine as you may think. Enjoy our 'bad advice' column from the expert we have all met, know and love... the Expat.

This month shhhhhh! Don't speak! Stop that din! Are you having fun? You had better stop! And now, I had better not hear you even thinking, let alone muttering under your breath! We are watching, pressed against our net curtain our dialing digit raised. This month we meet The Holy Algarve Expat Noise Abatement Society. Decibels must be kept at 20bd or under. For any amateur, that means quietly whisper if you have to make a sound at all! Brockaert Weiner from Blue Ridge, Virginia has teamed up with Veronica Chaste from Giverny, Normandy. Both say they are representing the 'silent screams' of desperate NIMBY Expats choosing to move to central districts of Algarvian towns and cities. And they are not amused!

EAST ALGARVE MAGAZINE (EAM):

"Pleased to meet you! So you are basically a neighborhood association of"... BROCKAERT: Our hands were forced! We advise anyone, accept no noise especially when it is not my own fussin' or hollering! When I moved into the centre of Olhão, the estate agent didn't inform me that the bars and nightclubs would make so much noise! VERONICA (BARELY AUDIBLY): I was told Tavira was a holy old town and had taken a vow of silence, perfect peace, and I have a silent habit. BROCKAERT: Why, I do declare, my wife and I didn't spend hundreds of thousands on luxury property to be inundated by anti-social noise! Inundated! It rattles my rafters with their racket, robbing me of my retirement! EAM: What neighborhood noises do you find most objectionable? VERONICA: The voices! I had unholy experiences back at home so can't return. It is why I wanted to be near a central church. The lambs just won't stop crying. I must have silence! The first night I moved in, when the Cathedral bells rang, I awoke in such a fright, I thought I was having a heart attack! I thought the hunchback of Notre Dame had swung through the window to announce the apocalypse. Then the hellish howling began! Monstrous beast barking that would chill even The Beast of Gévaudan! I wept and wept and had to take five valiums with a large glass of red wine I had taken from Mass when I left the nunnery. The devil had my nerves, only soothed by fingering my rosary beads. All the noise gave me a flashback of 'that' exorcism, which…! BROKEART: Now don't think about these noisy devils, these noisy devils I say, Veronica! I do say they better be damned tootin' that my say is final! I am a Yank, not a crank, I do declare! I want the Virginia summit to peak in this here town! Like my wife said, soon we will be inundated by strip clubs, streetwalkers and driveby shootings by hoodlums! Well, I say, I be damned, be damned if I will let the shrieking succubi slither by! I be damned! Coming from Blue Ridge Mountains, normal folks don't behave like that! Not even the buffalo! Wild by the liquor bent over like cattle! I didn't leave the States to find even worse! It's not what the Tribune said Portugal would be like! If I don't stop these bars, soon we will be living in the bedlam of Sodom and Gomorrah! Sodom and Gomorrah! EAM: So any noise is about immorality? VERONICA: And God saideth "And I shall stop the abundance of your singing, and the sound of your harps shall not be heard again"! And like the book of Ezakiel, take their voices and their guitars! That is why I ran in to the bar playing acoustic rock n roll to the devil and implored God to stop their singing! They started throwing money at me! They thought I was something called a 'drag queen' dressed as a nun and told me to shave my hairy Mary! I screamed Hail Mary's and spoke in tongues to stop their noise, then the bar manager turned on me. BROCKEART: And I can't believe you were forcibly committed Veronica and taken to the emergency room by those devil enablers! EAM: Devil enablers? BROKEART: Those there police! Our society calls them every day… Every day about those noisy devils! And we write emails, demand answers from the municipal council as to when they will shut those dens of sin and squalor"... "And do they care? I'll make 'em, damn tootin' say I! EAM: And have you and your members stopped any noise? BROKEART: Sure did! That local fisherman's bar of washed-up wasters has gone now after fifty years because of me hounding the Municipality. Like my wife said, if they had wholesome relationships like us, they'd have nothing to talk about! When we go out we expect couples and families to behave and barely whisper. We have measuring devices which sounds an alarm when their voices get too loud! And as for these tourists, well these touring terrorists, I say, how dare they visit? I was here first! VERONICA: My praying vigil outside the techno club brought some release. I am glad God sent a plague but how that seems to be passing, more places emerge, as the holy masks are removed! Something of biblical proportions needs to happen to stop this (weep) noise! EAM: Why don't you wear earplugs? Why don't you move out of town? BROKEART: Why don't you shut your mouth, Sir!? VERONICA: Earplugs? And risk missing the voice of the Lord? BROKEART: People need to be more adaptable and obey, and you sir should (taps head) use that empty space between your ears! EAM: We will try! How do people join your quest for silent streets? BROKEART: You can email silentnightholynight@my-pickledweiner.net but no one is allowed to use caps! I won't have shouting'! I won't have shoutin' unless I am the one shoutin' fit to beat the holy ghost! VERONICA: And please light a candle for the struggling Expats, for they are Martyrs, Martyrs against the sins of noise, soldiers struggling for divine peace as is the message of God. May the streets be annointed with holy water, and not that dribbling from the Lord of the Flies! Beware these locusts…! (She cracks a pill bottle, wincing at the crack, and starts to swallow).