I was panning last night, alone at home, and started watching a programme on one of the BBC channels because I was intrigued by the title (didn't know where Magaluf was, or even what it was, now I do). I didn't watch the whole programme because it was way too upsetting. What goes on there is wrong on so many levels. Teenagers drinking literally by the bucketload. "The Erection Challenge" game that is played in the clubs between total strangers - the prize being more free booze. "Balconning" where (drunk) people climb from one hotel room balcony to another - the ambulance man who was interviewed said that last year he attended 40 incidents where people had fallen, and 12 people had died. I thought I'd heard wrong. The young interviewer spoke of a sense of 'frenzy' in the quest to see how much drink can be consumed. As part of the programme, she worked in clubs as a bartender, worked as a cleaner in the hotels, and 'rode shotgun' with the ambulance crews. The cleaners reported having to deal with horrendous stuff in the pigsty rooms when people had left (semen on the walls). She interviewed a young male receptionist, clearly traumatised by having viewed one of the falls caused by 'balconning'. All day today I've been thinking, 'How come this goes on and no one rails against it?' Not the parents, not the Spanish authorities, not the hotel owners. I thought about the MADD movement in the US (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers). How come, I wonder, are there no activists that take up this cause? Overall I was extremely grateful that I don't have young adult children who go to Magaluf on a bender. Nor will I ever go there. And the distant beach looked so beautiful in the morning sunshine.
