I Will Follow You Into The Dark

So where were we? Ah yes, that story about the parking in Puerto Pollensa being closed; the story that proved not to be a story when the mayor denied that there was any intention of doing so. Well, according to the "Diario", the chap who raised the whole issue, apparently separate to any policy of the town hall, has announced that he will be quitting his post as councillor for culture in Pollensa in order to spend more time on his other job as a director with the Mallorca council. The timing of this announcement, coming soon after this whole parking issue, does seem a little odd. Why would he have been making statements about potential changes to the parking area, albeit that they seemed to be outside his brief, if he knew he was going to be leaving the administration? Or maybe he didn't know.

And further to 16 October (The End Is The Beginning ...), another representative on the town hall, i.e. the one for Esquerra Unida-Els Verds, says that he has got the signatures of more than 300 residents who oppose the pedestrianisation, and that he will table a motion to put an end to it at a town hall meeting this week. Doubt that he'll have much success. I wonder how many of the 300 are from the Gotmar radicals. Their siding with Catalan leftists would seem most incongruous.


THE ONLY GAY CLUB IN THE VILLAGE
Something about which one doesn't hear much or indeed anything around these parts is gay culture; probably because there isn't one, in the sense of gay bars or clubs. I had always thought that were there such clubs or were there to ever be any, they would be in Can Picafort. Quite why I thought that I don't really know. Anyway, what should I see in the newsagents but a flyer for ... a gay club. And where? You got it. Can Picafort; the Son Bauló end to be precise. Opening Thursday is Momo, not to be confused with the Momo restaurant that used to be in Alcanada. So, if you happen to be one of the "most chic people", as the flyer has it, then Momo is the place for you. I'm not sure what a most chic person is. Presumably, one knows if one is. There used of course to be - for a short period - La Belle in Puerto Alcúdia. I don't know that it qualified as a gay bar as such; the drag acts were primarily for tourists - of any sexual identity. Maybe Gerard will be appearing at Momo from now on as it promises - "DJs, Drags, Dancers, Glam Dark Room". Now I'm not so naïve as to not understand what a dark room is, but what is a glam dark room? And if it's dark, how does one know?


NO LENDING? NOT SO
A while ago I spoke about the potential difficulties for new businesses in raising credit from the banks to buy traspasos. Lending may have become much tighter, but there was a heartening story told to me yesterday which proves that, so long as you have been keeping your bank account in good nick, the chances are the banks will lend. I don't know that I should say which businessman with a current restaurant or indeed for which place he has obtained the traspaso (save that it is currently one of the multitude of Chinese restaurants in Alcúdia, but will cease to be). But with all the gloomy news knocking around, there is still some light in the darkness.


FOOTBALL REPLICA KIT - UPDATE
I can announce that this blog is formally in alliance with Danny Baker's 6-0-6 in seeking to drive the horror of the football replica kit from the streets and everywhere else of the island. Following on from the earlier piece (2 October: Here I Go Again), last night's show insisted that the wearing of all replica shirts when leaving the UK is now banned. There are a few concessions once here. Shirts for non-league teams are permissible. Shirts for other teams can be worn but only in a bar if you have arrived in another shirt and then changed into the replica shirt. On leaving the bar, there would need to be a change back. Otherwise, no football shirts are to be worn in public.


And as to the weather. I mentioned that a big change was forecast. Big, big rain. Yesterday evening and last night. Temperature - down, down, down. And periods of darkness owing to power cuts. Just when you thought it was safe to blow out the candles, what happens ...


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Traffic, "The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rDJvGSFY-c), which I suppose might have been apt for one of today's stories. But to today's title - very good American indie group capable of some sweet songs; like this one. Think taxi that has passed away.

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It's A Scandal

Here's a strange old thing. A Palma councillor has become embroiled in a scandal whereby he has allegedly used 50 grands' worth of council money as payment for visits to bars and clubs - not any bar or club, these are gay venues. Sounds like a lot of money, you might think, and it is. I suppose it's not too difficult to figure out what some of the money may have been spent on.

The press is lapping it up, so to speak. Had the money gone on the attractions of girlie bars, the scandal would, I suggest, still very much be a scandal, though it might have received more of an "oh, he's a bit of a lad" reaction. Today the front page of "Ultima Hora" has a grainy photo taken by a mobile, which apparently shows Rodrigo de Santos, under a headline bearing the words "orgies" and "drugs". It's all the gift of the Gods for the media. The trousering or rather untrousering of the council's moolah seems almost irrelevant now as gay sex, rent boys and drugs all come to prominence.

There are aspects of Mallorcan life of which I am largely unaware. I knew that there were gay bars in Palma, but that's all I knew; thanks to the reporting I could now tell you where you could go and receive favours in return for cash, either one's own or a town hall's, but I won't. Mallorca, the Mallorca of Alcúdia and Pollensa, does not have a gay scene. The scene, which is low-key compared to Ibiza, is centred on Palma pretty much alone. Apart from something of a gay bit of beach in Playa de Muro, the north is gay-lite. A few years ago, I was told about a lesbian couple who would get a bit too friendly at some apartments in Puerto Alcúdia and in front of the children. The apartments are no longer for holiday rental, and the person who told me, disapprovingly of this, was himself gay. It is not something one could otherwise imagine witnessing on an everyday basis here.

However, Mallorca, and Spain, have a relaxed attitude towards homosexuality, or at least that is how it appears. The new maturity of the country's politics, echoed in the PSOE's recent election win, demonstrates that the populace can accept liberal policies such as those on same-sex marriages. Spain has been dubbed a "Nordic" country in the Mediterranean for this very reason, and this in a country of the macho and the Catholic Church, albeit that the latter has a diminishing influence. The scandal, and the prurience that it inspires, is not a reflection of attitude, it is a reflection of the media knowing a good story when they can sell newspapers. It would be the same in Britain; actually it would probably be a lot more sensationalist. That the councillor may have frequented gay clubs is of course part of the "shock" value of the story. But it should not overlook the fact of pocketing a sizable wedge of public money. What he did with it is, in some ways, beside the point.


QUIZ
Yesterday - The Hollies. Today's title - it was one of those songs that along with which duo revived whose career?

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