One On One

According to Thomas Cook, which has published a Holiday Cost of Living survey (reported in "The Bulletin" yesterday), Mallorca is the eighth cheapest holiday destination out of ten listed. Quite whether that means that Mallorca is cheap is open to question I suppose; the other way of putting it is that it is the third most expensive. Words, like statistics, can paint a thousand cost-of-living pictures. Anyway, the Cook's tour of various international destinations and their bars, supermarkets and other places checked out the comparative costs of 15 goods and services, among which were - a draught beer and a packet of cigarettes - and came up with an average daily spend for your Brit tourist of 57.80 quid (or about 73 euros for those of us who have long forgotten how to evaluate things in pounds). The tour operator estimates this little lot of 15 items works out at a saving of a bit under 15 quid compared with costs in the UK.

Whilst not entirely uninteresting, the survey does have one flaw, and it is revealed in that little word, the indefinite article "a". Admittedly, the 15 items do also include a bottle of beer, a double spirit and mixer and a bottle of wine which, together with the aforementioned "a draught beer", might, you would have thought, be sufficient alcohol for one day's intake, but more than one item might just as easily be preceded with "several". Where "a" might remain applicable would be in the altering of the item concerned to "a gallon of draught beer" or "a carton or two of Embassy". Even the most committed of smokers might find it hard to actually puff away a full two hundred per day, but a cursory observation in the tabacos of Mallorca would reveal that a carton or two (duplicated by a factor of at least ten) would not be an inaccurate estimation of the average spend.

Then there are other items in the basket that are of dubious singularity. Take a can of Coke, an ice-cream or even a UK paper. One can of Coke and one ice-cream would be barely adequate in fuelling a Brit child's hyperactivity and dietary requirements for an hour, let alone a day, which of course is one reason why all-inclusives are so popular. And whilst I was on research duty at the Continental Park the other day (see yesterday's piece), a gentleman of bellydom came to reception to ask for not just "The Sun" but also "The Star". Or maybe two red-tops constitute a - one - newspaper, though even that would be doubtful.

One might also argue that the Cook's recipe of expenditure overlooks certain other necessities, such as the all-encompassing "a trip to the chemists" - a box of paracetamol needed to cope with the hangover is, after all, easily polished off in a day or so, washed down with a gallon of draught beer, while there are all the other pharmaceutical and medical requirements - the stuff to deal with mosquito bites, something for little Tyler's ear infection that he got after going in the pool and of course a family-sized bottle of anti-sunburn cream, and having seen one example of a super-sized family at the "super family" Continental Park, make that two.

Still, Mallorca can be content with its eighth place, as the island is holding its own against the competition of Florida, in ninth, and Croatia at number ten. Moreover, when it comes to the events for single items, Mallorca does well in the pint-of-beer competition, fifth behind the champion cheap-beer destination, Cuba, though the cost of that Mallorcan pint (1.86 pounds or about 2.35 euros) does rather depend upon where and which beer. Not sure what Thomas Cook would have made of it all; his first excursion was, after all, for fellow members of the Temperance Society.


QUIZ
Chain - Split Enz was Neil Finn's group before Crowded House. And the connection from Crowded House to "Who Loves You (Pretty Baby)"? Yesterday's title - A Tribe of Toffs. Today's title - it's from a footy song. Which one?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)