Wednesday, January 02, 2008

LOUD music in Larnaka!

We heard from some friends that Anna Vissi a fairly well-known singer (although we had never heard of her before) who was born in Cyprus, was due to give a concert at the Larnaka sea-front last night.

We weren't interested in going - it was cold, and I'm not keen on pop-concerts anyway, so we forgot all about it.

Until about 9pm, when we heard the sound of fireworks. We weren't entirely sure why - there were plenty on New Year's Eve at midnight. But they didn't last long, so we shrugged and assumed it was a party somewhere.

By around 9.30, we had become aware of music playing. With a beat. We thought at first that it was a neighbour listening to television, or perhaps playing the radio loudly. By 10.00 it was getting louder. And that was in our house with double-glazed windows. When we opened a door, it was really very loud. Much louder than any of our neighbours would play music.

Then we remembered the concert. It was evidently that. We could make out a female voice singing, and - at times - talking in between songs.

It continued to get louder. I did manage to get to sleep by about 10.30 but Tim couldn't sleep. The really scary thing is that we are at least 2km away from the place where the concert was staged. We have never before heard any sea-front concerts from our house, but this wasn't just a faint noise if we listened hard, it was quite intrusive.

I dread to think what it must have been like for those crowding down to hear it. They were probably unable to hear anything at all today.

Which probably doesn't matter, since today was apparently yet another public holiday. Monday was a day off in Cyprus, so that shops could organise their stock in preparation for the introduction of euros. Yesterday was a public holiday for New Year's Day. And today was another holiday, to mark the introduction of the euro to Cyprus. I gather it was a public holiday in Malta, too.

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