The Letter

One of those fine daft little local rumpuses has cropped up in Pollensa. This one has to do with the c-cedilla (Ç).

Some of you may recall my speaking about Pollensa town hall's adoption of Ç as its tourism symbol. You can see it around and about; it's even used to draw attention to the useless www.pollensa.com, the town hall's website that cannot integrate the Ç into the domain address - so much for joined-up marketing thinking. The Ç will, for many an overseas visitor, be more symbolic of France, but it is also Catalan, and Pollença is the Catalan spelling for something that everyone else spells Pollensa. The Ç branding is an exercise in parochial marketing - it is introspective and singular in its affinity to a Catalan-understanding audience (unless you also count the French). Quite what it is meant to "say" about Pollensa (or indeed Pollença) is anyone's guess, other than declaring "we've got a Ç and you haven't", the only problem being that, unfortunately, the Pollensa Ç is not unique among place names in Mallorca, among tourist place names in Mallorca - Santa Ponsa is also cedilla-ised in Catalan. Maybe Alcúdia should brand itself Ú.

Anyway, the rumpus has to do with the confusion that is likely to be caused, so they reckon, by the fact that the Ç has also been adopted as the symbol to promote the Balearic islands' own language. Pollensa town hall wants such confusion to be avoided, and says that the Ç is a registered logo for Pollensa tourism. That it may be the symbol for this tourism, questionable in its sensibleness though it may also be, is not in dispute, though how a letter can be deemed a proprietary logo I'm not entirely sure. It would be a bit like Manchester saying that the letter "M" belongs to the city and to the city alone, whereas we all know that it belongs to James Bond. The alphabet, unlike brand names or branded abbreviations, is public property.

I'm not sure what the French make of all this, even if they know about it. Ç has international linguistic currency as being French. If anyone should be jealously guarding the letter, then it should be the French and their language police. The linguistic purpose of the cedilla is to denote that the sound is sibilant, i.e. a hiss; the local difficulty in Pollensa has all the air, or rather discordant air, of a hissy-fit.


I'm afraid to have to return to the subject of road accidents and to the notorious stretch of road along the coast between Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa. The other night there was a head-on collision between a taxi and a car being driven by a member of the Guardia Civil who was killed. Two weeks ago there was another loss of life along the same road.

The latest accident took place near to the Club Pollentia resort. Not knowing the exact circumstances of the accident, it would be wrong to speculate as to the cause, but in the immediate area by the Club Pollentia there is a combination of factors that can be, and unfortunately are, disastrous - the bend in the road just before the hotel complex coming from Alcúdia, the turning into the complex itself, speed and lack of lights. Even in daytime it can be dangerous.

Recently, a list of island blackspots was drawn up. I haven't seen the list, but locally the Alcúdia-Puerto Pollensa would be one, together with the Cala San Vicente turning off the Pollensa-Puerto Pollensa road and the frightening junction between the Puerto Alcúdia bypass that goes behind Bellevue and the road between the horse roundabout and close to the main roundabout as one comes into Alcúdia.

In the case of the Alcúdia-Puerto Pollensa road, I'm not sure what can be done. A roundabout to slow traffic might help, but there probably isn't the room. Perhaps it might just be better if the beach were to be reclaimed after all, and the road closed completely (9 May: "Road To Nowhere").


QUIZ
Chain - Nik Kershaw, "I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me"; Elton John, "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me". And what is the connection between Elton and The Who? Yesterday's title - ELO. Today's title - who originally made this song famous?

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