Saturday, December 30, 2006

Panto And Pants Down



The panto season is upon us. Yes, even in Mallorca. And they flocked to the parliament building yesterday to see this year’s smash hit farce. Slapstick humour at its finest as Jose María Rodriguez, challenged to deny he had tipped off the Andratx mayor, repeatedly said he didn’t do it. “Oh yes, you did,” kept coming the opposition’s riposte.

But presumably the trio accused of having their pants down (bribery and money laundering) were not there, nor was Captain Hook, the PP’s leader Jaume Matas, who was accused by the socialists of making Rodriguez a scapegoat. “BEHIND YOU, HE’S BEHIND YOU!”


Anyway, while we wonder if they’ll all live happily ever after, good news on the tourism front. Confirming this year’s record number of visitors, tourism boss Joan Flaquer has announced that 12,272,323 tourists came to the Balearics this year during January and November. Hats off for such precision counting! And that number represents a 7.4% increase over the same period last year.

Of this 12million+ figure, only half a million did not arrive by air. This wholly unremarkable bit of info clearly impressed “The Bulletin” who captioned a shot of people at an airport (Palma’s, one presumes) with this: “Most tourists visiting the Balearics prefer to arrive by air”. Brilliant.

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