Saturday, April 12, 2008

Stay With Me

It has to do with the time of the year. The season has not started as such, Easter has come and gone and there is a hiatus until the 1 May launch of the season proper. And so it has to do with the time of the year, especially this year because of that post-Easter gap. Nerves. You can sense them. Nerves and wariness. Because I operate all over the place, I get asked in Puerto Alcúdia what's it like in Puerto Pollensa, and vice versa; what's it like in the port by those in the old town of Alcúdia; what's it like along The Mile by those in the port? Even during one evening, you can get asked. Are there many a round? Go into a bar, a bit quiet, and they want to know if there are some throngs somewhere nearby that they are missing out on, and the answer is that there are not. No one really believes the fact that hotel occupancies are good, even when I say that I have the news from the horse's mouths - as it, or they, were. But not at the moment is the reply. Whenever are they good at this time of the year is the obvious retort.

This is the phoney season, before it all kicks off. The weather is all over the place, which does not help the anxious mood. Nowhere is governed by the weather more than Mallorca. This may be a stereotypical British topic of conversation, but it is a very real topic here. Especially at this time of the year.

But in a few weeks time, it will be close to bedlam, at least traders would hope so, and the nerves and worries will be replaced by tiredness and short temper. And the weather will get hot, and so that tiredness and temper become more acute. Again the weather. If it is not close to bedlam ...


And on a totally different matter. Another oddity from "The Bulletin", this time in the Riki Lash thing. It may well have been the lady herself who used the word, but even so. This particular lady runs a restaurant and she wishes to thank both "new and staid customers". Staid? What exactly is a staid customer? "A quiet and steady character" to quote the Oxford. Staid is an archaic past tense form of the verb to stay, but would never have been applied as an adjective. So what can a staid customer be? Someone must know.


QUIZ: Yesterday - The Corrs. Today's title - which band did this?

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