Space Cowboys: The state of La Gola

I keep reliving things. I am disorientated by reoccurrences. I need to constantly check where I am - in time, if not space. Mallorca is a time continuum. Everything happens again. If not moans about all-inclusives, if not corruption cases, if not fiestas of demons and DJs, if not an editorial in "The Bulletin", then a story that I have read or have covered - just with similar words in a different order. When was it? I only know that I am in a different time because I am an archivist. I store information. I refer.

I am back in August last year. There is more heat, but this is the only clue to a different time. I have found it. 9 August - on the blog. The story in yesterday's "Diario" reinforces this déjà vu by including the word "dejadez" in its headline. It means neglect or untidiness, but the latter is too tidy a word. Vandalism, degradation; these are stronger, less tidy words. Here are some other words, very tidy, you would hope - La Gola, Puerto Pollensa.

Go back some eight months, and you can remind yourselves that there were complaints as to the state of La Gola. Graffiti, cigarette ends, dog shit - all courtesy of a whacking great investment of 800 grand to beautify what has long been an eyesore. They've invested the best part of a million in creating a dump, an unofficial, aqualanded tip of detritus that has been a colossal folly and waste. They'd have been better off draining the stagnant water and sticking up a four-storey hotel; it would have been more pleasing to the eye. But of course they wouldn't have done this because La Gola is the "green lung", a green park in "one of the most important tourist areas on the island". One that is home to birds, which can now nest on a supermarket trolley in the water. It is also home to night birds, the youth of the "botellón". Empty bottles, plastic glasses. This is nature reserve, Puerto Pollensa-style.

It's not as though it wasn't a completely worthless project. No, no, it was actually very worthy. It still may be. Assuming, that is, that they can ever sort out the management of the "wet space". La Gola falls under a consortium comprising the town hall and the environment ministry. The town hall, while mindful of the fact that nocturnal piss-ups take place in the park - and one dreads to think what this might mean in terms of the hygiene of the water - and that it needs to command plod to go and sort them out, is passing the buck to the ministry when it comes to actually maintaining La Gola. Not us alone, it protests. The ministry, now under the control of the left-wing Bloc and of course the PSM minister Vicens (he of other controversies, e.g. Muro golf, Alcúdia train), has changed those responsible for this maintenance. They had been appointed by the previous, Unió Mallorquina-run ministry. Here we go again. PSM versus UM, as with golf, as with trains. The former ministry management may have been totally ineffectual and little better (or so it seems to be alleged) than cowboys, but it - via the UM - was at least a comrade with the UM-run town hall. Now we have political rivals forming the consortium.

Reliving. Same problems, same politics. And nothing happens. Stuck in time and stuck in space - the wet space of La Gola. Trolleys and bottles stuck in the mud. What a waste of money - and space.


QUIZ:
Who were/are the musical "space cowboys"? You need to find three.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.