Moving, Keep On Moving

And so they come. Another season beckons and once more they come. They come, looking for work or to take up offers they have received. Every year they come. New faces, new hopes, new chances for fun. Reps, bar and restaurant workers, chefs, entertainers, kids clubs' nannies, yachties' helpers, shop assistants. They all come. They are the constant that is always inconstant, the transient and the peripatetic, the young looking for a good time and a just adequate wage, the older who seem to drift from resort to resort in search of ... . Sometimes you are never quite sure.

I have this image of a diaspora of resort refugees carrying their belongings in a battered suitcase from country to country, endlessly seeking the chance to serve some beer or fry a burger. It seems a strange life of mobility and rootlessness. A season here, a season there. This is a labour force at some kind of fringe of economies, dislocated from conventional life, traversing the Mediterranean as though they had become stateless. These are the hardened ones. The others, the youngsters who make up the majority, are different. Theirs is a simple motivation: a bit of work and a lot of partying - they hope. In truth it's the other way round, and often they get disenchanted when they discover that a bar owner does actually want you to turn up on time, look as though you have not been out till six in the morning and to work eight hours or more. And once they have hired you, they don't want you walking out or feigning "the sick".

But this would be unfair to many of the kids who come here. You meet some and think how on Earth do they keep it going. The entertainers especially. For months on end, the similar routines, just the faces of the audiences change. Somehow they do keep going, and for the most part they keep smiling. You know something, I'm full of admiration.


And totally unconnected with all the above ... I dropped by Café del Món in Playa de Muro for a coffee. Georgi was watching Nordic skiing on the TV. It really was skiing and not some geriatric Germans shuffling along with pretend skis over the pavements of Alcúdia. Anyway, the ads and trailers came on, and there was one for "Little Britain", as in the comedy show. Yes, "Little Britain" is on Spanish TV. I guess characters like Emily, Daffyd, Sebastian and Bubbles work ok in any country, though I'm not so sure about the mini Dennis Waterman. Georgi said it was very funny, it was like, and he paused, paused a bit more, it was "like Benny Hill". There you go, I'm sure Messrs Lucas and Walliams will be pleased to know that there is a part of Majorca in which they are known as the new Benny Hill.

And also ... a note about another bar that's opening up. Festas Bar in Puerto Alcúdia from tomorrow.


QUIZ
Yesterday - Bob Dylan. Today's title - brilliant single by a Brit band from, er, about eight years ago or so.

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