Swine Flu

The swine flu situation in Mallorca is gathering some momentum. The first death attributed to "Gripe A H1N1" was recorded last week on the island, though the number of cases remains relatively low. There is a belief that, because of the degree of mobility in Mallorca, the likelihood is that it will register more cases than some other parts of Spain. Perhaps. There are plenty of regions, however, that have high levels of mobility - the major cities and of course all the tourism centres. A British tourist from Birmingham is in hospital on the island and apparently responding well.

The reports that started coming out of Germany last week, led by "Bild", have insinuated that Mallorca is something of a hotspot for the virus. This is overstating the case, but the actions of the police (national and local in the case of Calvia) in taking to wearing masks have not exactly lessened a certain sense of unease. It is being left to individual officers' discretion as to whether they don the masks or not. But if there are police roaming around with masks on, the rest of the population is quite likely to ask, then why not us. The health department thinks they are unnecessary. Nevertheless, well over 200,000 masks are being made available in the Balearics. The Partido Popular opposition in the Balearics has accused the health minister of having contributed to a "general alarm". Meanwhile, the ministry says that there is a reserve of more than ten million antiviral treatments - in Spain.

Of course there is alarm, but much of it, as in the UK, is overblown. The effects of the flu virus are not necessarily that harmful, but all that Mallorca needs right now is a dose not just of swine flu but also bad publicity. And images of police officers wearing masks do not exactly inspire confidence, even if there is sense that the police, and especially the police, take what precautions they can. But the same applies to other sectors. They may as well issue masks to everyone.

The regional government has issued its own advice to citizens. Its information provision is not that brilliant. Go to the website - http://www.caib.es - and you will see there is an announcement to click on. Try the Castellano or English pages, and what do you get? The same default information - in Catalan. Only the menu to the side of the page changes language. How useless is this? Well, one of the pieces of advice is that the transmission of the virus is the same as for any other strain, hand contamination being one means. Given the amount of handshaking that goes on in local society, one measure might be to give that a rest for the time being.

Oh, and there's one other thing health-wise. Temperatures are hitting 40 degrees in parts. Stay home, stay out of the sun, keep cool, and you probably won't get heatstroke or swine flu.


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

Join Together

Starting on Saturday, Alcúdia will be celebrating its annual Sant Jaume fiesta, the events climaxing on Saturday 25 July, the day of Sant Jaume, with the fireworks that bring the fiesta to its close. There is a further dimension to this year's fiesta. Indeed there is a double celebration. It is eighty years since the town hall building was opened and thirty years since local democracy took off following the period of Franco's dictatorship. To mark these anniversaries, there will be an act of commemoration during the fiesta week and the presentation of a book that looks at the building of "la Sala", the town hall.

These two anniversaries - of 1929 and 1979, half a century apart - are in themselves significant as they top and tail, as it were, the period of descent into turmoil, Franco and finally the restoration of the monarchy and the establishment of democracy. Though overshadowed by who and what was to come, in 1929 Spain was governed by another dictator, Miguel Primo de Rivera. He presided over the inauguration of the building, praising its "sumptuous construction". He was accompanied by Jaime, one of the sons of King Alfonso XIII. It was an ironic pairing, and whether Jaime knew anything of the compliments lavished on la Sala by Primo de Rivera is doubtful; he was a deaf mute. By the time of the inauguration, 10 September 1929, Primo de Rivera was on his last dictatorial legs. He had assumed the dictatorship in 1923, thanks to the support of Alfonso, but the king was reaching the point of wanting to sack him. A few months later in early 1930, the army failed to back the dictator: he resigned and died in March of that year; the Republic was declared the following year; the monarchy abolished and the path to Civil War created.

Primo de Rivera is sometimes considered a bit of an irrelevancy. He was far from that. Franco learned from his regime and was thus ruthless in crushing unions and Catalanism in a way that his predecessor had not been. Primo de Rivera had also headed a period of economic advance, much of it based on extravagant public spending, which partly contributed to the collapse in the peseta and to his demise. But that spending was what brought about not only la Sala but also significant other works in Alcúdia. Much restoration and construction in the town dates to the period of the first dictatorship.

La Sala was not to be the location of an actual "ayuntamiento" ("ajuntament" in Catalan) of Alcúdia until 1979. That was when the first democratically selected mayor, Pere Adrover, came to office - fifty years after the building which houses the town hall's meetings had been praised by a former dictator for its sumptuousness and for being "extremely artistic". The words "ayuntamiento" and "ajuntament" come from the Castilian and Catalan verbs ayuntar and ajuntar, meaning to join. It took half a century for them to truly join together in la Sala.

Information on the Sant Jaume fiesta and also the Sant Jaume and Santa Margalida fiestas in Sa Pobla is on the WHAT'S ON BLOG - http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com.


Swine flu
How's your swine flu doing? Want some? Then come to Mallorca. Only kidding. Not that the German newspaper "Bild" seems to be kidding. It is saying that around ten cases of swine flu in Germany have their origins in Mallorca, specifically in the Playa de Palma area. The local health authorities on the island are flatly denying that it has been contracted in Mallorca. Officially, there are, to date, six cases that have been reported in Mallorca and two more in Ibiza and one in Menorca.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Jackson Five, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYx3BR2aJA4. Today's title - who, er, yes?

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

This Used To Be My Playground

How are you feeling? Got swine flu yet? A couple had been admitted to the main national health hospital, Son Dureta, suspected of having contracted it; it turned out not to be. Any old sniffle - sorry, can't come into work today, got pig flu. Seemingly though, everyone in whatever country who has it - outside Mexico - has only a mild form of flu. No-one is exactly panicking, but to read the papers and hear the radio one would think that we are in a state of terminal pandemic. Mind you, if not swine flu, then what about malaria? It came as something of a surprise to learn that there were eight cases of malaria in the Balearics in 2008, a reduction of 16 from 2007. It was a surprise to learn that there were any. Immediately, one jumps to the conclusion that this is caused by local mosquitoes. But there was nothing in the report I saw to confirm this. Indeed I would be hugely surprised if these were not all cases of malaria having been caught in other countries.


Parques infantiles. Children's playgrounds. They are all over the place. Some are wooded and shaded, such as by the Laberinto in Playa de Muro or by the Sunwing Resort in Puerto Alcúdia; some have forgiving all-weather surfaces like the one opposite Sea Club; some are by car parks, as in Puerto Pollensa. And some are an absolute mess. Like the one next to the Coral de Mar. At least it was on Sunday afternoon. Let's be charitable and say that the boys couldn't get out to tidy up at the weekend. There again, it looked as though it had been a while since anyone had turned up with a mower or strimmer. The one advantage of some long, straggly grass was that it partially obscured the bottles, the plastic bags and all the other rubbish that had accumulated. The remarkable thing was that there were people using it. A father was lying on his back on a bench, flicking a cigarette while junior hared around. Maybe he, the father, was oblivious to the debris and was inclined merely to add to it.

Perhaps someone can tell me, as I don't know, but can you be fined for littering in Mallorca? They seem to have fines for everything else. Not that those, or indeed the rules, stop the flouting thereof. Don't jaywalk, do jaywalk. Don't drink alcohol in the streets, do drink alcohol in the streets. Don't let the dog foul the pavement without scooping it up, do ... . The casualness with which things emerge from cars as they are cruising along suggests that there is at least a relaxed attitude to imposing any sanctions, if they indeed exist. Ditto the casualness with which orange peel is discarded, and ditto the truly disgusting - the emptying of the car ashtray. How big are some of these ashtrays? Still, it's only a side road, the council will be round in a couple of weeks, tell you what, let's also go and chuck some bottles in that kiddies' play area and, while we're at it, let's drag Rover along and he can drop his lunch next to those swings.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Sinead O'Connor (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO8JWbG6bVw). Today's title - what a great song this was. Forgotten all about it until thinking "playground".

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