They Shoot Horses Don't They

If you were to just stand under the baking sun for an hour or so, you would get pretty damn hot. You would also get stressed, then distressed. You are a warm-blooded animal. Heat without movement or relief is not good for you. Horses are warm-blooded animals, too. You are probably familiar with the white marks around the neck as some "sweat up" before a race. Why, therefore, would you let a horse stand under a hot sun without relief for an hour or so? The answer is that you probably wouldn't.

There was a short piece in "The Bulletin" yesterday which said that tourists had been unhappy at the sight of horses standing around in the sun. These are the horses that take those tourists on their horse-and-carriage rides; in this case, in Playa de Muro. There was a suggestion also that a horse appeared to be injured. The tourists contacted an animal rights group.

I was told yesterday that some tourists had been to the circus, Circo Williams, in Puerto Alcúdia. They had complained about the bears at the circus; that the animals had seemed distressed and not necessarily in the best of condition. They had wondered how "the Spanish" could allow such a thing.

In the village of Fornalutx on Saturday, there was the annual "bull run". This involves a bull being pulled along with ropes around its neck, then being allowed to run through the streets before finally being killed and eaten. There had been protests prior to the event.

You might just detect a certain theme to these three examples.

The apparent indifference to animal welfare continues, despite laws to grant rights to animals. I am wary of the local animal cruelty debate. Wary because of the expatriate propensity to be sanctimonious and to start telling the locals how they should run their affairs. You may recall a previous piece on bullfighting. I am not in favour of banning it, nor though do I like it. Whether it continues or is terminated should be a matter for the Spanish people to decide. It is not an issue whereby busy-bodying Brits should act with some sort of missionary zeal against the actions of perceived heathens.

That all said, how on Earth can something like the bull run be allowed? Just the basics of the description above are grotesque enough. While one can defend the bullfight from the point of view of its spectacle and theatre, there can be no similar defence for this. It is cruelty dressed up as tradition minus the costumes and olés. At least that is how it seems if one adopts an anthropomorphic sentimentalism, which may run counter to a less squeamish local culture.

There is a scientific debate going on regarding the extent to which animals have feelings. The debate falls into two schools, of which one - the ethological - maintains that there is evidence as to the existence of animal feelings. Notwithstanding the semantic and therefore philosophical difficulty of applying a word associated with human reactions to an animal, I am not unpersuaded by the ethological argument. Yet there remains the ambiguity of ever proving it. To this end, it is understandable that the debate, in layman terms, is polarised at one extreme by those who attribute to animals all forms of human emotion and at the other those who consider animals to be totally non-sentient in being unable to perceive, i.e. make a mental judgement: dumb animals, if you like. The Spanish, one guesses, are less prone to apply the former extreme than many British.

But there is an illogic as to what is deemed acceptable or unacceptable here. I cannot understand what the fuss is about where the now-banned duck throwing of the Can Picafort summer fiesta is concerned. I understand it even less when a bull is pursued, slain and then scoffed as part of another fiesta. It makes no sense. Perhaps ducks have more professional lobby groups than do bulls.

The circus comes to town once a year. I can remember when the circus used to come to our town when I was young. I can remember the clowns, the acrobats, the elephants, the lions. They stopped the performing animals long ago. But here they carry on. At least they don't kill bulls at circuses, and they don't shoot horses, do they?


REAL MALLORCA - THE DEAL DONE?
After the procrastination and a considerable amount of column inches devoted to will they, won't they, it would appear that Paul Davidson's acquisition of Real Mallorca is drawing to a completion. Yesterday an agreement was signed for him to pay 38 million euros for a 93% holding. This is not the final part of the equation or the final date, which is 15 October, but it would seem that the British businessman will indeed now be the club's new owner. Good luck.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Three Dog Night (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWMt5Hk0E-g), but Randy Newman wrote it, and The Animals performed it first. Today's title - yes, it was a film, but which Welsh group had a hit with it?

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I'm A Cowboy, On A Steel Horse I Ride

It's not Southfork but it is a ranch. I was there the other day. Rancho Grande. Big ranch in a small country, well island. There is though a touch of the wild west even if we are heading to the east of Mallorca. Wild, as this is just land, dust, mountains to the back, dunes away towards the beach at Son Serra. Otherwise there's the house, in which one might anticipate Ben and the boys pondering the Ponderosa - Hoss and Little Joe, the two least likely of television brothers until Coronation Street tried to claim that Steve and Andy McDonald were twins. But of course there are no Cartwrights, only Pepe and the rest. And past the house is the terrace and the vast barbecue before one gets to the little zoo, the wagons, the swans, the peacocks and parrots and all those horses. The land, the ranch stretches away, and one awaits the arrival of an imaginary posse or Wyatt, Wild Bill or Jessie. I'm a cowboy; I'm wanted dead or alive.

Take the entrance track and there's a cowgirl on horseback to greet the visitors and to usher them towards the photo shoot. One of the first times I went to the ranch, a group turned up and one of its members started belittling the head and shoulders photos with a cowboy hat. Forget your cynicism. And maybe you'll forget a lot more as the sangria flows, the barbecue is stoked and the music starts. There used to be the single worst act I have ever seen in Mallorca at the ranch, and that is saying something. But he was that bad he was brilliant. And keep forgetting that cynicism and stomp with the line-dancing. There is music, much of it cowboy-themed; Natasha Bedingfield seemed somewhat incongruous the other day. In this vast open space there is not too much worry about neighbours and limiters, the music drifts out towards the darkness where somewhere is the sea and the moonlight riders.

This is the most friendly of places. I'm standing by the queue for the photos and a quad bike comes bumping across the raw-sienna earth. "Hombre." It's the Spanish learnt from Westerns. Hombre, amigo. On the straight stretch of road heading out of Can Picafort towards Son Serra is a sign off to the left which bears the words "El Paso". It's not John Wayne but Pepe on the quad; I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride. Another time I was standing at the same spot and this boy asked me if he could stroke a horse. Sometimes you detect a sadness, and it was touching as the horse blew gently. Animal therapy.

Some things come and go, but there has been a Martorell family horse business since the early '60s; it used to be in Puerto Pollensa. Forty-five years and they issued a photo souvenir to celebrate. Grainy photos of Pepe and his father, a shot in the streets of Muro in from 1966 and from 1973 by the Molins bay at Cala San Vicente, and then to today and the animals, the dancing and the cowboys.


HOUSE OF PAIN (THE BREAK-IN REMIX)
I bumped into John-Michael this morning. A lot of folk know Michael; one-time Bar Bamboo, then he ran Dreams for a period and was at Epcot after that. How is it all going? Ok, but shit. Why's that? Break-in. First-floor flat around the Magic area of Alcúdia. A couple of grand swiped off a credit card plus DVD player, PC ... .

You kind of expect tourist places to be more of a target in summer, but by no means exclusively. One neighbour had a break-in two Augusts ago; another, kitted out with state-of-the-art security (well now anyway), woke up to find an uninvited guest in the early hours. My place was done in February; more like you might anticipate as there's no one much about. I have a cricket bat, my old Gunn and Moore. It has a fine sweet spot. For one with a reputation as a Chris Tavaré dogged opener, the time I got in one good stride to an opening quick and with not much effort watched the ball sail far and far over his head into some Cambridgeshire woodlands was testimony to its good middle. It's heavy as well, a 3-pounder. It stands in a convenient position in the house.

There was that politician recently who said that the "crisis" might result in more crime. Could be, I guess. One thing is that there are going to be more this winter who have not done the required number of months to qualify for unemployment benefit. Michael was saying that it's not as if this is the first time there has been recession; it will be about the fourth in four decades. In the past people have just struggled through as best they can. But people change and the number of people increases, and so the temptations and the opportunities change and increase. It's not though that it's a case of robbing from the rich. The million-euro and much more villas have tended to be the magnets; not only them now, according to the Guardia. Anything will do.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Jump Around" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZZADbubu0Y). The Robin Williams connection? Among the schmaltz of Mrs Doubtfire was a funny scene of a kids' party with this as the music. Today's title - I never got it with this band, but this was damn good.

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A Horse, Of Course

Look away now, if you are easily offended. I am going to talk about shit. Or rather I am going to get to this via a typically circuitous route.

The other day I asked for nominations for the weird. Let´s go big here, well relatively big. Forget the mere restaurant or bar, I hereby nominate Son Serra de Marina as not just the weirdest place in northern Mallorca, but in the whole of Mallorca.

Son Serra is a ghost town even in summer. You can fully imagine tumbleweed rolling along the empty streets, and a toothless old gummer manning a one-pump garage that doubles as a bar (with no drink of course).

Can anyone tell me what the point of Son Serra is? It's as though it was developed as a mini Can Picafort and then someone forgot it was there. Unlike Can Pic, there is nothing save for less than a handful of restaurants and a nautical club that always seems shut.

Well, there is one point to Son Serra. Its beach. I’m not talking the beach where the houses end, which is constantly chocker with sea detritus, I’m talking the one further along where the Germans get their kit off.

And now I start to get to the point. Ok, I admit I have been to this beach too. It’s a very nice beach. But you can be lying there, minding your own business and suddenly be aware of a rumbling. A rumbling of hooves coming ever closer. You look up and there’s this posse of cowboys galloping towards you. It’s the Rancho Grande boys taking dobbin for a spin.

Now there is something extremely liberating and thrilling about riding horseback on a beach. But.

Horses have this tendency to crap when you least expect them to. Indeed horses are remarkable in being able to produce a motion whilst in motion. Humans can only do this trick with the aid of a dodgy curry.

So, my point is, you get these horses coming along and having a dump on the sand. Why is this seemingly ok? Dogs are meant to be banned from beaches as they too are less than decorous and choosy when at their toilet. Maybe it’s because of the volume. At least with a horse you can see only too clearly what it’s produced, and steer an avoiding course. A dog. Bit trickier. So, I suppose that’s the reason why horses can go on beaches and dogs can’t.

Enjoy the beach.


At the same time as a minor oil slick caused beaches around Magalluf to be closed for a short while, word comes of worries among Balearic hoteliers as to the jellyfish problem. Specifically, they are calling for measures to eliminate the pesky little monsters. But to suggest that jellyfish may cause tourists not to come to the islands is probably stretching a point.


Pop Quiz time: Come on down, Mark Draper. “Red Rain” was of course Peter Gabriel. Mark, you get the hour’s point-duty as no-one´s got the Crusaders’ line-up. It was: Joe Sample, Wilton Felder, Wayne Henderson and Stix Hooper.
No prizes for knowing that Peter Gabriel was an original member of Genesis, but which disgraced music entrepreneur was instrumental, as it were, in the development of Genesis’s early career?

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