The Immutability Of Institutions

Institution. The word implies permanence and authority. The Parliament of Great Britain, later and now the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is one such. It's over 300 years old. It is a word that attaches itself to the non-political as well. Around 70 years after the establishment of Parliament, "The Times" was founded. Longevity and the authority of its words have afforded it institutional status. Sporting bodies are institutions. The Marylebone Cricket Club emerged at the same time as "The Times". Its authority is such that it still clings to being the keeper of the Laws of Cricket. It is a word that also has anthropomorphism. Individuals become institutions, sometimes described as national treasures. Longevity is at play here as well, as is often a touch of gravitas. Known for his comedy, Stephen Fry nonetheless has gravitas derived from being all-knowing and a polymath.

Institutions imply immutability. They don't change. And yet, they do change. Parliament at one time expanded to accommodate Ireland. More recently, it might have undergone fundamental change by losing part of Great Britain. It might yet lose it. "The Times", the first newspaper in the world to bear the name, took the bold step of not devoting its front page to small ads in 1966. It was an institution moving with the times, albeit belatedly. The MCC ceased to be the governing body of English and global cricket when its authority passed to the (then) Test and County Cricket Board and the International Cricket Council. A few years later, women were allowed to become members. The individuals as institutions constantly evolve. Fry is no longer one half of Fry and Laurie or of a cameo in "The Young Ones". One day he'll no longer be with us. Institutions die.

On Tuesday, I attended a discussion in Puerto Pollensa regarding the effects of a UK withdrawal from the European Union that had been organised by Europeos por España. The discussion drew few firm conclusions. Speculation dominates the debate. There is no institutional rule book that governs withdrawal. It has yet to be written.

The EU is an institution that has evolved from its early years as the European Coal and Steel Community. It has been constantly changing, acquiring authority. Yet for all this, it lacks longevity, just as it lacks an element of affection that applies to the national treasure institutions. Its authority is now predicated upon its size and the institutions within it, but its lack of longevity is what should make it susceptible to more radical change than normally occurs with institutions. Could those who signed up to the Single European Act and then Maastricht have been fully aware of how the EU would evolve?

What this act and treaty did was to introduce flexibility in terms of, for instance, freedom of movement but at the same time they limited flexibility. Rules applied to all, an apparently essential facet of any governing institution, but one that is nevertheless debatable. And is debatable in the UK. The EU has been an institution that has evolved via experimentation, as there was no obvious benchmark to guide its development. Institutions, despite being democratic, can't wholly abide dissent that loosens authority, but they should and they must accept this. Otherwise, their authority is in any event weakened through an unwillingness to countenance change. The UK should be granted flexibility. This way, the institution is strengthened, not weakened.

Clinging to authority and power regardless ultimately leads to a form of despotism. The institution is immutable because a powerful cadre insists that this is so. And where does this lead to? The MCC gave up its power. It was a nonsense that a members' club in St. John's Wood should maintain it, especially in the post-Packer era. The power was released to the ICC, an institution not above suspicion but not, as yet, subject to the implosions within FIFA and the IAAF.

FIFA is, in a sense, not dissimilar to the EU. It has evolved from moderate beginnings into a global power, but it has come at a price: that of quasi-despotism and being unloved in many quarters. And now, the demands are for change and for accountability and transparency. Institutions, as a rule, don't care greatly for any of these.

There is a further institution which, in its democratic era, does not have longevity. The authority of the Spanish state, contained in the Constitution, is considered immutable. But the recency of its drafting is what makes it, or should make it, subject to amendment. At the same time as Podemos, Ciudadanos and others have been effecting a shift in mentality towards transparency, Catalonia (some of it) is desirous of change. Flexibility, if this is what the people of Catalonia truly want, should be applied through a harmonious agreement that would strengthen links with the Spanish nation. Nothing should be immutable.

The Modern Christmas Carols

Ah yes, it's that time of year. Chestnuts roasting on an open butane-gas heater and the sounds of a traditional Spanish Yuletide in Mallorcan supermarkets - a Phil Spector Christmas collection ronetting over the public address systems - punctuated only by the Gregorian drone of the El Gordo lottery children, an interminable monotone almost as jolly as the Apocalyptic lyrics of the ancient Sibil·la chant.

The Mallorcan, and Spanish come that, Christmas musical tradition is not as strong as that which was born in Tin Pan Alley by Jewish songwriters indulging in heavy doses of sentimentalism and which ultimately became a Transatlantic and essentially Anglo-Saxon phenomenon - the Christmas hit. Spain, as a rule, has kept to the older Christmas song tradition. It has stuck with its "villancicos", with its "El Burrito Sabanero" or "Noche de Paz", occasionally veering off into the wider popular music market by José Feliciano-ing "Feliz Navidad" in both Spanish and English or by committing some truly unforgivable acts of musical vandalism by borrowing an English song and making it Spanish. Raphael's "La Ultima Navidad", a version of Wham's "Last Christmas", is such a sin. It serves as a good example of why the Christmas song is best left to others and why therefore Spanish supermarkets opt for Phil Spector or indeed Wham.

The Christmas carol, where the English are concerned, was first popularised by wassailers in the fifteenth century. The Spanish tradition of the "villancicos", which have come to mean carols as well as other songs at Christmas, is the product of a similar time. But it wasn't until the nineteenth century - Prince Albert, Dickens and all that - that the carol really took off and when, eventually, it was also sung in church. The English carol of late mediaeval and then Victorian times was, in a sense, a folk song. Though there may have been some liturgical origin, it was secular and it was also, as evidenced by itinerant wassailers, a form of street music. The communal, outdoor experience of singing carols has a long, long history.

So the carol was the musical staple of Christmas until Irving Berlin and others popped up in the US and created the Christmas hit, and in Spain, "Blanca Navidad" eventually found its way into the Spanish consciousness and into a list of all-time "villancico" classics.

The Spanish, despite not having embraced the Christmas hit in the same way as the British or the Americans, make no real distinction between a Christmas song and a carol. "Villancico" can apply to either and, in this regard, the Spanish may have been one step ahead of the pop world in Britain and America. The Christmas hit was something different. It wasn't a carol. But now, it is reasonable to place the Christmas hit alongside the carol. The Christmas hit has become as much a part of musical folklore as the carol. It is, therefore, as symbolic of Christmas as its very much older antecedent.

There is a point at which any popular and enduring song passes from being or having been a "hit" song into being folkloric. It's impossible to identify when that point in time occurs, but it occurs nonetheless. And Christmas songs, with their associated nostalgia, sentimentalism and messages, are the most obvious candidates for entering into this folklore tradition. "Let It Snow", another product of that mid-40s Jewish Christmas song production line, is, as with "White Christmas", as much a part of the Christmas tradition as "Silent Night", and "White Christmas" and "Silent Night" were both found on the album which did more than any other to create this tradition - Phil Spector's. It was an album which, as with the "villancico", juxtaposed the carol and the Christmas song.

That album didn't truly become popular until the early 1970s, but once popular, it unleashed Roy Wood's Wizzard, who aped the wall of sound, and Noddy Holder, who wrote the lyrics for what has every right to be considered a song in a folk tradition. In one line alone, and Holder knew he had a hit when he had written it, Slade simultaneously captured the mood of an everyman family Christmas and the nostalgia for the Irving Berlin era - "Does your granny always tell you that the old ones are the best".

So now, and it is no different whether it is a Spanish supermarket or BBC Radio One, the Christmas song is established as part of Christmas. Slade, Wizzard, John and Yoko, Wham and The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, they are all later additions to the 1940s tradition and the older one of the carol. Being more recent, it might be said that they don't have the longevity demanded in order to qualify for folklore, but their place in Christmas tradition and their popularity is vastly greater than it might otherwise have been because of popular technology - the download. And they, the Christmas hits, are the modern Christmas carols.

If you can bear it, Raphael's "La Ultima Navidad"

Who Wants To Be A Mallorcan Citizen?

There is a test of UK citizenship, courtesy of "The Guardian". It is in fact more a test of British history, so being a degree historian and keen to see if I could remember anything from the factoids with which I was bombarded at school or from Eric Evans' lectures on the Great Reform Act while at university, I duly took the plunge. Not bad as it turned out. 13 out of 15. I slipped up on when English laws were first imposed on the Welsh and the type of skilled workers who didn't come to England in large numbers from Europe in the Middle Ages. I feel I can be excused these errors. Like all of you, I would have thought that the English laws would have been in the wake of Owain Glyndwr, while the real boom in canal building, and therefore demand for canal builders (so I reckoned) was a product of the Industrial Revolution. Still, I feel suitably British, or UKish, as a result of my 13 correct answers.

I imagine that anyone from, for sake of argument Uzbekistan, who was to undergo such a test wouldn't have a clue as to answers to most of these questions and nor would they care. (I'm assuming that the relationship between England and Wales in Tudor times is not high up on the Uzbek school curriculum.) An altogether more relevant test would feature a multiple choice to name the judges on "X Factor" or Premier League football stadia which haven't been named after Middle Eastern airlines.

I feel sorry for all the Uzbeks lining up with their passport application forms and being subjected to such irrelevant questions as who were the people who worked the land under the feudal system. It's not as though most Brits, except by luck, would come up with the right answers. Were I to take the test to a local Bar Brit and subject the owners and punters to the test, I doubt that the results would be terribly convincing. So unconvincing would they be that passport control in Palma airport would be fully entitled to confiscate passports.

The test is like a bar quiz night and, as with bar quizzes wherever they might be, bickering as to the answers would reduce the whole exercise to an argument and probably a fist fight. It's unlikely you would get past question one - which countries make up "Great Britain"? - without there being a huge row, as in the significance of "Great" (once having ruled the waves versus simply big).

On the assumption that many a Brit attempting travel from Mallorca would be rendered stateless by the withdrawal of their passports, might they be able to apply for a Mallorcan citizenship? Well, there is clearly one problem with this, i.e. Mallorca isn't a state, but were it to be, what would comprise its citizenship test?

I had thought to set you all a test, but then all you would do would be to go onto Google and produce results that would suggest you were all called Miquel Cifre (like 90% of Mallorcans are; males that is, the females are Cati), so instead I shall merely raise some possibilities, to which you are more than welcome to add your own.

There would have to be some history in this test, there's no getting away from it, and so who better to feature than Ramon Llull. And he was? If you live in Mallorca and you don't know, then forget the citizenship. He is only the single most important person in Mallorca's history, except possibly King Jaume I. And why was Jaume important?

But such historical questions are, as in the UK, of only limited relevance. Far more relevant are those baffling ones to do with the modern day - How is it that there are so many looky-looky men? Are there such things as rules regarding how you negotiate a roundabout, and if so what are they? Are there such things as rules for pedestrians crossing a road, regardless of whether it's a pedestrian crossing or not? Are there such things as rules for unaccompanied dogs crossing roads? Is it obligatory to have to be able to shout when you speak in Mallorca?

Being able to answer any of these may entitle you to Mallorcan citizenship. However, there is a further slight problem, which is that, with the exception of the last question (the answer to which is yes), no Mallorcan would know the answer or even have thought of the question in the first place. My advice, therefore, is stick to the UK citizenship but be sure to brush up on your knowledge of the feudal system.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.