By The Left: PSM and nationalism

I guess I have always been a bit of a leftie. Not that I have ever taken it particularly seriously. At university it was more a case of playing. I haven't drifted as far though as a friend from those days who was a card-carrying Trot and nowadays reads "The Telegraph" and is some banking and economics expert. University is the playground of politics. Ultimately it doesn't really mean anything, other than as a launch-pad to a political career.

However, had I grown up in Mallorca, had I grown up in the past three decades in Mallorca, and had I gone to university, I can well believe that I would now be a Mallorcan leftie, suspicious of and antagonistic towards tourism, wedded to the beardie fringe of the environment, speaking only a Mallorquín Catalan and practising my Mallorcan bagpipes to the annoyance of the neighbours. I am actually full of admiration for those with ideals, even those that seem somewhat nuts.

There was this interview on Sunday in "The Bulletin". Chances are it won't appear on the paper's website** or if it does it will soon disappear from cyberspace, given a less-than-rigorous approach to archiving. Shame, it was not without interest. The subject of the interview was one Lucy Jane Collyer, British-born but Mallorcan-grown, so to speak. She is 27, became politically active at university and is now a member of the PSM Mallorcan socialists. I can, you might find this hard to believe, connect with what she has to say, the PSM standing for social justice, the preservation of the environment and the protection of the (Catalan) language and culture. I can also agree with what she says about tourism, inasmuch as she refers to the need for "sustainable development and the development of new and alternative industries to tourism on which we have become so dependent". I also agree with her when she dismisses the idea of President Antich calling an early election, even if there might be a touch of party self-interest here, given that the PSM has secured itself a couple of healthy ministries since the Unió Mallorquina (UM) were shown the door.

** It hasn't.

All of this is fine. Where I start to have problems though are with the fact that certain issues are simply not explored. Take this one. The PSM is a member of the European Free Alliance, a European grouping comprising some credible parties such as the Scottish National Party and others that are crackpots. Lucy is to present a motion to the alliance on something called "regional insularity". What on earth is this? Insularity, by definition, means inward-looking or narrow-minded. Is this what is actually meant? It seems to imply, and there is a later reference to the support for local produce and farmers and the like, something of a back-to-the-future autarky - self-sufficiency if you prefer. It is hard to know because the subject hasn't been explored. Raise the "insularity" flag and someone should be asking some tough questions.

Then take the issue of nationalism. Behind a photo of Lucy is the party's banner "PSM Entesa Nacionalista". The PSM is a nationalist party. All we get though is that nationalism doesn't mean what it means to the English (the BNP presumably) and that it is different to the nationalism of the PSM's great rivals, the UM. To the English, the nationalism of the lunatic far right is quite different to the sensible left-of-centre SNP. But there is still confusion. What actually is nationalism? And in the Mallorcan context, what does it mean? In one respect, it makes no sense. How can an island - an island, mind - with no sense of or aspirations to nationhood spawn not one but two "nationalist" parties? Or maybe there is such an aspiration. Who knows?

In the article, Lucy says that the PSM wants "to include all members of society ... regardless of there (sic) origins". In other words it is open to all. Great. But it is not good enough to declare this openness by pointing out that a Briton, albeit one brought up in Mallorca, enjoys a prominent position in the party or that the UM once spoke about Mallorca being for Mallorcans. The Catalan issue, for example, is one that can and does alienate and deter those who might have sympathy for the PSM's nationalism, whatever this is. Protecting the language, fine, but go to the PSM's website and it is all in Catalan. No nod in the direction of Castilian or English or German. Like so many other bodies, town halls for example, who might profess inclusiveness, the PSM fails on account of its linguistic dogma. And one keeps coming back to what is meant by its brand of nationalism. The interview missed a golden opportunity to explore this and its implications for those from other countries.

The PSM and the UM are far more interesting political phenomena than the national parties, the Partido Popular and the PSOE. Far more interesting because of trying to understand what they stand for (and in the case of the UM because it's currently up to its neck in the brown stuff of corruption) and because they have a mutual hostility in seeking to claim the nationalist ground. But it's still hard to really say what either of them truly represents. And what either of them means by nationalism. Regional insularity, anyone? Worrying. Or it might be if we knew what the hell it meant.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Mallorca Take-Away

From the early-70s to the late-80s I spent a considerable amount of holiday time in Greece. It was a period of transition for the country - from rule over a backward nation by a military junta to something resembling a progressive economy. What did not change, appreciably, was the Greeks' utter distaste of anything German. The unlovely and unloved legacy left by the Nazis became, for the British, the puerile bordering on the supposedly comedic, the stuff of "Achtung! Surrender" and Gazza and Psycho wearing tin helmets. For the Dutch, it begat a fierce line in anti-German sentiment. But being a pragmatic and accommodating race (well until Geert Wilders loomed into view), they pretended to be friendly and even spoke the language. For the Greeks, however, it was the real loathe thing.

In the 70s a form of apartheid was practised in Greece. The Germans had to queue separately. A long-blond-haired student type, i.e. myself, might at first have been mistaken for being German, but when the truth emerged - English - I became like a long-lost son. Honestly, tears were shed by an aged Athenian on having some liberating English in his bar. A group of us once went for an evening at some shack of a taverna on an island the name of which I can't even remember: os, iki, ini, they all seemed to merge into one after a while. We'd been told you could eat the entire farmyard in return for a handful of drachmas. As we approached - in force - the owner was clearly unnerved. One half expected him to barricade himself in and produce an air rifle. "English?" he ventured hesitantly. "Bobby Charlton? Bee Gees?" Yes. The retsina flowed from the barrel. It was disgusting, but then retsina is.

Things do of course change. The English have turned Crete and Zante into battlegrounds of industrial alcohol. The German Mark and now Euro have filled the pockets of the tourism industry; that taverna is probably now a Biergarten. So when the suggestion was made that, in recognition of some German largesse in bailing out the Greek economy, the Greeks might hand over an island or several, it didn't sound like a complete April Fool, even if the small matter of the repayment of the war "loan" had been overlooked: out of gratitude for starving to death a significant number of its people and for occupying its territory, the Greeks handed over much of the content of the vaults of the Bank of Greece to the Nazis.

Germany does have form when it comes to wanting to buy islands. Or so the myth goes. Mallorca was once meant to have been on the shopping list of some German businessmen. As Spain is in similarly economic dire straits to Greece, it should perhaps consider putting the island on the market. But whether Germany could now afford it is another matter. President Antich is due to meet Angela Merkel during the Berlin tourism fair this week and so might pop the question. Doubtful that he'll get very far.

So if not the Germans, then who? Apparently the Chinese rate Greece as their favourite tourist destination. In a bidding war for Corfu, I think I know where my money would be, or rather whose money it would be. In building up a nice portfolio of Mediterranean holiday hotspots, Beijing might be inclined to eye up some reasonable real estate in the Balearics. As Mallorca seeks out new tourism markets and as it has also been over-run with Chinese bazars and restaurants, then an acquisition might offer - in the management lexicon - some "synergy". Who else might fancy Mallorca? Russia? Abu Dhabi? Or how about Venezuela? If the rumours about all that oil are true and Venezuela were to become the South American Saudi Arabia, then the lovable and whacky Hugo Chavez would doubtless jump at the chance of installing himself in the royal palace. It would certainly add a new dimension to the chav reputation that some parts of the island are said to have.

Meanwhile, Mallorca and Spain, in looking to ward off the acquisitive tendencies of other nations, have embarked on a new promotional campaign. "Necesito España." "I Need Spain." Very curious. Why does one need Spain? Is this some sort of competition? Fill in the missing words. "I need Spain like I need an enormous budget deficit." Shouldn't it be in a different order? "Spain Needs You." Yes it does, every last one of you, and Lord Bean is calling you all to arms. Fail to heed the call and the Albufera ducks get it; served crispy and in a Peking style.

(The photo of President Zapatero has appeared on different blogs unattributed.)


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Musical Chairs: Town halls and performing rights

One of the more bizarre cases involving performing rights in the UK concerned the so-called "singing granny" who found herself on the end of a prosecution and a fine for singing to herself at work. The Performing Rights Society later apologised.

The PRS is just one of many agencies that look to safeguard copyright and to secure royalties. Agencies exist all over the place. There is one in Spain. It is the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE). According to a piece from "The Diario", there are a number of town halls in Mallorca which don't much care for this body or for the invoices they receive from them.

If you have ever wondered about performances at fiestas and the like and about what happens in respect of payments, you might have thought only about what the performers themselves get paid. But there is another aspect. The SGAE expects a piece of the action. And it looks to the town halls to pay. It all depends what the performance is and how many people live in a given town or village, but payment is still meant to be made. Some Mallorcan municipalities are good at coughing up - Alcúdia is apparently one of them - others are far less inclined to do so, arguing that the invoices are highly subjective or that it should not be they, the town halls, who pay but the performers or the companies staging an event.

This has long been a minefield of interpretation and application. Issues of profit or non-profit intrude as do those of private versus public performance and the actual existence of copyright. In certain cases, some Mallorcan folk music you might imagine, it might actually be difficult to pin down who the rights holder is, if anyone. Charge a town hall, collect the money perhaps and then what? Who gets the royalty?

But there is far, far more to it than just a bit of ball de bot in a town square of a summer's evening. Think about it. Think about all the music in Mallorca. Radio and TV stations or CDs in bars, karaoke, shows, tribute acts, one could go on. All of it is public broadcasting or performance in some way or another. All of it is subject, or theoretically should be subject, to a licence. The SGAE has apparently been pursuing hairdressers and bakeries for playing music, while there appears to be some uncertainty surrounding the status of occasions such as wedding receptions - private or not private. Next time you're in the barber's chair or having a perm, bear in mind that a centimo or more might be going to pay to listen to Lady Gaga.

Some of this may seem heavy-handed, as it has been in the UK, and the SGAE has had any number of critics, but these criticisms have been forthcoming over the past years of greater complexity in rights protection, exemplified by factors like illegal copying and file-sharing. Bodies such as the SGAE are always going to have their detractors, but they serve a legitimate and important purpose, even if some town halls might beg to differ.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Celebrity Love Island: Faces in Mallorca

Imagine the excitement. True celebrity comes to Alcúdia. Has photos taken. Appears in newspapers. Who can it be? Who is that ageing and wasted figure? Maybe it was rather apt that Ekaterina dubbed him an "evil goblin king". There is more than a touch of the folklore grotesque, after all, though an Ent from "Lord of the Rings" might be more appropriate. "The Ents ate only liquid food. They were not immortal but they were very old." Did The Ents do a bottle of spirits a day before entering rehab one more time? A tree, especially an old tree, seems right for a Wood. A face of bark.

Ronnie Wood was in town. Possibly still is. With his Brazilian polo coach. Some liaisons just seem very strange. Don't whatever you do, Ana, let Ron near a local establishment that may or may not be frequented with leggy Russian blondes. He was ok at Satyricon. Only a name for Bacchanalian. That's all. Restaurant to the stars; oh, and me. What a shame. A week or so later and one could have got an autograph. It could have had pride of place alongside my Don Van Vliet signature (and that's Captain Beefheart for those of you who may not know).

I like Ronnie Wood. Yes, he may have done the dirty on a wife who had tried nobly to keep his life together, but there is something satisfyingly reprobate about a 60+ year-old behaving badly, even if he is now on the wagon - again. Maybe. Ronnie, before he joined The Stones and morphed into his friend Keef, was in The Faces with Rod. At a time when Rod was worth listening to, i.e. before he turned into a cabaret act. The Faces put on one of the greatest live shows I have ever seen.

Ron's brief sojourn in Alcúdia proves that A-listers can even find their way to those parts of Mallorca which are not the Redknapped "authentic" celebrity-lunch land of Portals Nous. An A-lister of character, to boot. One can only but hope that he does not suddenly announce that he has found a love for the island. It is hugely disappointing when those of admirable controversy appear to mellow and are quoted thus. "Admits to having spent an increasing amount of time on the island and has fallen in love with the place. The 'Notting Hill' star admits to having fallen in love with the holiday hotspot many years ago." Fell so in love, it had to be admitted twice - in succeeding sentences ... in so many words. All hail good subbing or indeed original copy. Whatever. But thus overboarded "The Bulletin" in gushingly celeb tones as it splashed Rhys Ifans over the front page and said he would be living in Mallorca. All this love, and he runs the risk of being made a promotional "face" or, worse still, playing charity golf tournaments in Santa Ponsa. No, Rhys, we don't want you, or Ron, professing enduring love. Just say, it's alright, I suppose (preferably in Welsh), give a shrug and scuttle off the front pages. What Mallorca needs are not vacuous statements or air-head It-girls. Offensive charm offences. Altogether more interesting and entertaining.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

We Can't Go On This Way: Sustainable tourism in Mallorca

Any idea who Ivan Murray is? Probably not. So I shall tell you. His grandmother was Canadian of Scottish origin, he lives in Port Soller and is an academic at the university in Palma, whose specialism is the sustainability of tourism in the Balearics. What he has to say is important.

In yesterday's "Diario" there was a report into findings of a study led by Dr. Murray into different facets of tourism in Mallorca (and the Balearics). Perhaps the most revealing was that in order to realise a million euros worth of tourist expenditure, the number of tourists necessary to meet this target increased by almost 500 over the period from 2003 to 2008. The 2008 figure is 1906 tourists to make the million mark, a percentage rise of 35%. Over a third more. In six years, six years before the crisis took hold.

Ok, so what, you might ask. Just another set of statistics. True. But unlike the figures which get bandied about by the regional government, and which many tend not to believe, Murray's findings are, one would hope, independent. In an interview with the Diario's Matías Vallés a couple of years ago, Vallés suggested that Murray might just be a bit of a moaning leftie. By implication, this suggests he may have an agenda. Possibly, but academic rigour, and the demands placed on academics to support their research, might negate any hint of political bias. One should take Murray's findings for what they are, because they are significant.

While government figures always seem to indicate an increase in tourist spend, Murray refutes these. There has been a year-on-year decline if you take the annual growth in the numbers necessary to meet the target of a million euros (the figure did actually drop, however, from 2007 to 2008). Moreover, the findings beg some questions, most obviously why are that many more tourists needed to reach the spending level and what does this mean for pressure on resources. No answer is given in the paper's article to the first of these, but one might begin to hazard a guess or two. Let me make one such - the rise of all-inclusives, possibly?

Murray points out that despite the reliance on tourism to sustain the Balearic economy, there is a loss in efficiency, by which he means that increasing numbers of tourists are needed just to stand still, while these increasing numbers place ever more stress on the ability to cope with them. Consider this. In 2008 the highest recorded total population of the islands (that's everyone, tourists included) occurred between 10 and 12 August. The number was 1,930,000, or 1.8 times the actual normal population. And this is a figure spread out across the whole of the Balearics. Consider Alcúdia. If one takes its resident population to be 16,000 (and one does tend to get different figures), its population at the height of summer is - a guesstimate - about 45-50,000 (there are some 26,000 hotel places in Alcúdia to which one can add other types of accommodation and the temporary workforce). Around three times the normal population in other words.

In the earlier interview, Murray was asked what would be the ideal tourism population of the islands. He didn't really answer this, but did say that twelve million tourists (roughly accurate in terms of total annual tourists) is "an aberration without comparison in the whole world".

It is often in the nature of academia to raise questions and pose problems rather than necessarily answer the questions. While Murray clearly considers the tourism population to be excessive, he has also said that, strictly speaking, only six per cent of Mallorca is "constructed". While he would not advocate more construction, his findings imply that this is what is needed in order to increase tourism numbers just so that economic growth can be - at best - in neutral. It is a deeply worrying conclusion. Where would these tourists come from anyway?

Murray has also referred to a highly polarised society. He is not wrong to do so, and by doing so he paints a picture of potential increased social division allied to an economic model - of tourism - that is not sustainable, unless there is more and more construction in order to grow the tourism population. And even then, were the trend towards all-inclusive and to a more cautiously-spending tourist to persist, the numbers would continue to rise ever more in order to keep parity with that one million benchmark. Ever more construction, ever more tourists, and for what? But one does perhaps have to ask again the question as to what this population could or should be. The problem is that no-one, not even Dr. Murray I would suggest, can give an accurate answer, because I suspect that no-one actually knows. He has said that the Balearics have been a "field of experimentation", and in this he is correct. The experiment was in introducing mass tourism and in its growing like topsy, without any real regard to its ultimate sustainability or to the changing nature of markets and competition or to economic diversification.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Taken As Read: A new party and a new law

Stuff that has been taken from the Spanish and put into English does have to be treated with a bit of care. There were two things yesterday. The first was a piece in "The Bulletin" which referred to an anti-corruption "party" being formed. It also, more accurately, stated that this was an anti-corruption "movement", but the headline with the "party" was what grabbed the attention, which is, I suppose, as it should be. The trouble is that it can give a false impression. Going on past experience, it is always wise to go and take a look at what the Spanish (or Catalan) sources actually say because you are likely to get a rather different slant on things.

This "party" is in fact a "citizens' platform" (a literal translation of "plataforma ciudadana"). There are many such platforms knocking about across Spain. What they are designed to do is to provide a, yes platform, for the people to participate in public debate in the sense that they are given a voice, even if they are not actually parties or formally part of the political process. In Mallorca, the Council of Mallorca, earlier this year, approved a new regulation that brought a forum of "social entities" into this participation process. This forum comprises, among others, the environmental pressure group GOB and the Catalan promoters OCB, Obra Cultural Balear. Both these groups are also in this anti-corruption "plataforma" along with some others, such as the Lobby de Dones, a women's group against domestic violence. Other platforms in Spain tend to be concerned with environmental matters alone, and indeed the Council of Mallorca's approval of the participation process referred specifically to environmental and socio-economic sustainability.

Associations, movements, call them what you might, have and have had every right to form. The Council's approval was something rather different, but there is a bit of a coincidence that the likes of GOB and OCB, having come rather closer to the political process, should now also be a part of something highly political - anti-corruption. What, one has to ask, does the corruption issue have to do with an environmental pressure group or, come to that, a group against domestic violence?

This anti-corruption platform is very Catalan. GOB, while it has received international recognition for its efforts, has a website which really only offers a nod in the direction of Castilian, the same strength of nod as it reserves for English and German. Otherwise, it is firmly Catalan. The OCB, obviously as a promoter of Catalan language and culture, is strictly Catalan only. Nothing wrong with this. But the OCB, while it might argue otherwise, is a highly political body. It has also, you may recall, had its brushes with the defenders of the Spanish state, i.e. the Guardia Civil.

GOB has always looked to keep out of the direct political process, even if it can seem quite close to some political parties on the left. It has also been challenged in the past to either put up, by becoming a party, or shut up. What "The Bulletin" has perhaps inadvertently done is to indicate that GOB, and other groups, may indeed have a wish to get closer to the wider political process. Maybe they do see themselves becoming a party. If so, they need to be clear. While corruption is a worthwhile subject for individuals to address, it is - one would have thought - not within the terms of charitable status (that GOB has) to become so identified with a political issue, while this is also an issue which goes beyond what the Council of Mallorca had in mind with its forum.

Whatever the real motives, there is to be a human chain formed in Palma this evening by members of the platform protesting against political corruption.


The second bit of possible Spanish misinterpretation concerned the new smoking law. Ben alerted me to this on Facebook, linking a note from an English site. It had taken the information from a Spanish news site. The English version included a line about smokers making a note for their diaries to the effect that 22 June would be the day when smoking in public places was outlawed. It did then also contradict this by mentioning a meeting on that day involving the health ministers of the different regions. But by making such a bold statement, this was, naturally enough, likely to be taken as gospel. Now, unless the Spanish parliament is minded to approve the new law before the health ministers have been shown the draft of the bill, which is what is to happen on 22 June, then I think it's probably safe to say that 22 June will not be the day for stubbing-out. What is also safe to say is that it won't be long after that the day will actually dawn. This is an issue on which there is political agreement.

And as a footnote, the new smoking law will not make provision for compensation to businesses which invested in creating no-smoking areas under the previous law. Cue any amount of anger from the bar and restaurant associations.


QUIZ - Yesterday: Arcade Fire, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEZockGkEyY

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Keep The Car Running: The car-hire price story keeps running

One can predict with a certain degree of certainty that this year will witness further heat steaming from forums and newspaper letters pages. Heat steaming from an overheating hire car, possibly not, but the heat will be steaming around it. One can predict with a certain degree of certainty that this year there will be anecdotes as to inflated prices and calls for "something to be done". The Balearic Government, the vague "authorities", perhaps even God will be told to intervene and do something. There will be stories of we are not coming to Mallorca because, stories of the downward spiral of Mallorca's tourism because. Look, don't worry, I'll write them for you. Give you a selection and you can choose which one and then forward it to the relevant website or to "The Bulletin". No, really, I can write them for you, because I know what will be said. Again. In fact the stories haven't gone away over the winter; they are now, unlike tourism, an all-year-round phenomenon.

Car hire, and its cost. At least the warnings are coming out earlier than last year, but warnings there are nevertheless. In 2009 there was something in the order of a 30% reduction in car-hire fleets in Mallorca and the islands, representing approximately 30,000 vehicles available. This figure is likely to fall by a further 5,000 this year. Just don't say you haven't been warned.

In case you are still in the dark as to why there will be fewer Golfs or Peugeot 207s clogging up the roads of Mallorca, let me explain once more. It is all the economy, stupid. The economy and the lack of bank financing. The banks took their bats home with them at the start of last year and hoarded them alongside the readies that previously had been handed over to car-hire agencies in order to acquire new fleets. The result? Fewer cars. And higher prices in many instances. Supply and demand. And the banks have still got those bats locked away in the vaults this year, to the tune of credit equating to 5,000 cabriolets or family saloons.

There is an added uncertainty though to the certainty of the outraged letters, and this concerns Hiper. In administration, this agency alone accounts for around 5,000 cars on the islands. The company is still operating and is likely to continue to do so, but at what level, one doesn't quite know.

It is, however, instructive to learn that it is the larger concerns, such as Hiper, which are being hit hardest by the absence of financing. Smaller agencies did well last year as they were able to pick up the business the larger ones could not meet. One agency of my acquaintance appears to have had little difficulty in replenishing its fleet for 2010. It also watches carefully the prices of other agencies, especially the larger ones. While not looking to charge excessively, it would be crazy if it didn't seek some profitable benefit by adjusting prices upwards. Supply and demand.

One does have to have some sympathy, however. Sympathy for tourists who may discover that they either can't get a car or can and are being asked to pay a healthy whack more than previously. The apparent rise in car-hire prices (and for one anecdote saying they were/are excessive, you can always find another which counters this) is bound to have a negative effect, if only in that it stops encouraging visitors to move around and to enjoy something more than simply the hotel pool. The car-hire agencies are, though they may not consider themselves so, part of the overall promotion of Mallorca. The alternatives to car hire are not that brilliant. The number of excursion coaches was cut last year as well. Public transport, in the form of buses, can be good (and cheap), but it can also be completely useless. Try, for example, travelling from Alcúdia to the east coast of Cala Bona or Porto Cristo. Fine if you don't mind spending several hours on a scenic route of the island's interior, can do the trip on the day that the bus goes and don't have to come back the same day.

No, I can understand people getting upset and demanding that something be done. But what? Cap prices? How would that work? Moreover, this is, after all, meant to be a free(ish) market. The best advice, the only advice is to shop around. The online broker agencies may offer better deals. Hard to know for sure, and the car-hire industry on the island is saying likewise; hard to know for sure exactly the number of cars that will be available, hard to know for sure whether there will be sufficient cars to go around. It might be less hard to know that some visitors will vote with their feet. And walk instead.


QUIZ - "Keep The Car Running"? Canadian indie. One of the best.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Scream: The anniversary of corruption in Mallorca

It was another holiday yesterday. For once, not a religious occasion, but a political one. Balearics Day, the twenty-seventh anniversary of the introduction of autonomous, regional government in the islands. How apt that a political celebration should be marked by the worst cases of political corruption that Mallorca has ever known - which is saying something. During the twenty-seven years, scandal has reared its head from time to time, but it has spent the past few weeks screaming and bellowing. Rather than dressing up in party frocks, the celebrations for Balearics Day should have witnessed Munchian mourning-black dresses, the scream of the latest political nightmare and anxiety, and hair shirts donned by discredited individuals from the political class. Henry II once did a good line in public humiliation following the murder of Thomas à Becket. No-one may have been betrayed or assassinated, but the entire system of democracy that regional autonomy was meant to have bestowed on Mallorca has been betrayed. And not for the first time. The question is whether it will be the last. You wouldn't count on it.

President Antich, in a speech to coincide with Balearics Day, has not engaged in public self-flagellation but he has offered his apologies to the people of the islands. He is resisting calls for an early election, preferring to appeal to other parties to come together. Minority rule and motions of no confidence may make this resistance futile, but the mechanics of government - and the constant harping on about the allegedly dysfunctional nature of coalition - are secondary gloss over the more fundamental issue of corruption, both within politics and within Mallorcan society. More than fretting over the electoral system, the corruption scandals should be informing a debate as to what brings them about. Balearics Day should be the focal point for what the past twenty-seven years have represented, as they have culminated in the current chaos.

Autonomous government brought with it responsibility, that of acting in accordance with democratic principles. But the revelations of the past months have suggested that this lesson has not been learned or, over the course of the past generation, has come to be forgotten. Autonomous government also brought with it the Unió Mallorquina, the party at the centre of most of the rumpuses. It was formed around the same time and in readiness for the first local elections in 1983. That it, a party designed to serve "nationalist" interests on the island, should have been exposed as one serving only its own interests is a deeply alarming condemnation of not just the wider political system but also the social system of networks and nepotism. There is a horrible sense in which "nationalist" is aligned with the self-preservation of the insular webs of family and favours. Which is not to single out the UM, far from it, but it is now symbolic of a sick system created by regionalisation that has politicised a societal preference for rule-bending. All power may well indeed corrupt, and inappropriate behaviour by politicians may indeed be taken as a signal to others in local society to misbehave, but I would argue that it is this society that begets the politics of the island, not the other way round. It has spawned Maria Munar, a figure of the UM from its inception, a Cruella de Vil who has kidnapped a doe-eyed and naïve democracy and bundled it into the back of an official limo, secreted inside a massive wedge of cash. Antich has been criticised for booting the UM out of the coalition. Booting out? He should have launched them into the far reaches of the universe. He was absolutely right to disassociate himself and the PSOE from them.

Balearics Day is the celebration of one of the most important elements of the post-Franco era, that of autonomous government. A generation on from the worthy intentions of autonomy and what does one have? A political party that can allegedly turn a ministry into its own bank. The celebration should inspire not a debate as to the technicalities of local government but soul-searching as to the intertwined mores of sectors of Mallorcan society and the political class. A generation on and one wonders what has been learned. Autonomous government was a clear statement of the rejection of Francoism. But let's not forget that Franco despised and mistrusted political parties. He did away with them, and The Scream lasted for decades.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Porn-(ge)-ography: Muro's golf course stopped

Well, what a surprise. The change in regional government that has created the "super" ministry of environment, planning and transport under the control of a single minister, the PSM Mallorcan socialist "Two Jags" Vicens, has indeed had ramifications for the golf course in Muro - as anticipated (20 February: Mallorca's Two Jags - Muro and the golf course). The ministry, and therefore government, has approved the extension of a planning restriction order involving the Albufera nature park and much of its surroundings, such as the rustic beach of Es Comú in Playa de Muro and the area of Son Bosc, the finca designated for the building of the golf course; an order aimed at stopping changes to the Playa de Muro geography. This order, known as a "Plan de Ordenación de los Recursos Naturales" (PORN), has been welcomed by the enviro pressurists, GOB. They really ought to do something about their acronyms.

The ramifications of this extension are that work on the course has to be suspended, for at least two years, while studies are undertaken into the area's natural riches and into its preservation. This comes hard on the heels of the publication by GOB of a letter from the leading British botanist, Richard Bateman, which expressed his "incredulity" as to the "destruction" of the finca and which also drew attention to the existence of a fungus that is vital to the maintenance of the rare orchid, which has been the subject of most of the environmental debate related to the golf development.

Incredulity indeed. Incredulity that further studies are needed. It is debatable whether they are needed, other than as a convenience of politics. The PSM, and Two Jags, don't want the course to go ahead. It's as simple as that.

Initial clearance work had begun on Son Bosc. The developers (and also the town hall) don't necessarily see the ministry's intervention as definitive, and they are probably right. Hanging over this decision is the possibility of an early election for the regional government. It would have to take place next year in any event. Were there to be a change in governmental complexion (with the Partido Popular restored as leaders, which is quite possible), then there is every chance that this latest delay could be reversed. It was the PP which, back in 2003, effectively removed protection for Son Bosc.

So you see, it is all a matter of politics. The new studies are a red herring. The development comes down to the wishes of the PP (and the Unió Mallorquina) against those on the left, the PSM most notably and what has become almost its provisional wing, GOB.

At the same time as the town hall and mayor Fornés were arguing that work on the course should proceed, as reports from the environment ministry had given the development the all-clear, the local authority was also announcing that it has formalised the purchase of the bull-ring in Muro from the entertainment company, Grup Balañà. It will cost 450,000 euros, and the decision to purchase the site has caused consternation among opposition politicians, aghast at such an investment, given the town hall's supposedly parlous financial situation.

Why is the town hall doing this? There is an argument that the bull-ring is part of the local heritage and so deserves to be preserved. Fair enough, it dates back to 1922. But how often is it used, and for what? There is a bull-fight during the Sant Joan fiesta in June each year, but otherwise the stadium is largely redundant. The town hall insists that there will be more events, such as concerts, but then it would say that. The town hall also believes that it is a tourist attraction and one that would be added to a "tourist route" in Muro. Who are they kidding? Muro does have some attractions, but it barely features on the tourist list of places to visit as those attractions - the church, the museum for example - are poorly promoted. Maybe the town hall reckons that the golfers would make a trip into the town (some ten kilometres from Playa de Muro). That would be wishful thinking. And moreover, no-one has ever actually stated what sort of numbers would be generated by this damn course.

The bull-ring, the golf course, they are both symptomatic of a tendency to conjure up fantasy tourism, maybe-tourism. And in the case of the bull-ring, it is also representative of something - the bull-fight - that is being rejected by increasing numbers of Spaniards and that is abhorrent to many overseas tourists. Heritage, yep, fine, but the ring also occupies some not invaluable real estate near to the centre of Muro. Of course, if the town hall were to acquire it now, then maybe it might become more valuable in the future. Now there's a thought. Or, if you were a town hall that needs to raise loans, then it is always useful to have some assets on the balance sheet. And which town hall needs to raise loans - allegedly?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Thus Spake Zarathustra - The downfall of Mother Munar

Maria Antònia Munar, matriarch of the Unió Mallorquina party and of Mallorcan politics, has finally quit her post as speaker of the Balearics parliament. Her role in the so-called "caso maquillaje" (make-up) and the corruption allegations levelled at her have - belatedly - claimed her. She is accused, along with former tourism minister Miquel Nadal, of using an audiovisual company, Video U, to divert a quarter of a million euros of public funds for the purpose of financing the UM's electoral campaigns. Her position had become untenable. The new code of politician ethics that had been introduced was meant to have led to resignations while investigations were ongoing. Munar had chosen to ignore this, until Friday.

While the case has still to be fully brought to court, the knives have already been sharpened. One does have to wonder as to what impact the press might have on any trial. So far there have only been declarations in front of the judge, though Munar has chosen her right to keep silent. Meanwhile, the outstanding "Diario" journalist, Matías Vallés, has - not for the first time - ripped a reputation to shreds. In yesterday's paper, he headlined a piece about Munar thus: "The most hated woman in Mallorca's history". Headlined it thus, and then thus spake Zarathustra. Vallés quotes Munar from a previous time, when she governed in Mallorca alongside the discredited and under-investigation ex-president Jaume Matas of the Partido Popular. At that time she told her party that there was going to be "no-one accused of corruption". With this, Vallés brands her Zarathustra. Nietzsche took the mythical character and made him "the first immoralist". Perhaps Munar considered herself an "Übermensch".

Vallés refers to Munar's lack of principles and to her relationship with Nadal. "Her beloved dolphin" is how he describes the ex-minister and Munar's anointed successor as party leader. He had previously called Nadal "ineffable". In a twist to the saga, Nadal and three directors of Video U have protested their innocence and sought to finger Munar, a delicious story of Munar handing Nadal 300 grand in readies while in the official car of the president of the Council of Mallorca (which Munar once was) all adding to the sleaze.

The characterisation of Munar as a hated woman raises an issue in respect of women in Mallorcan politics, one that has resonance in wider Mallorcan society. Vallés also refers to Munar as Lady Diada, and one has to go back a bit to understand quite what he means; there is form when it comes to Vallés and Munar. The Diada name can just as easily be Lady MacBeth - feminine compassion supplanted by ambition and ruthlessness. Generalisations are always to be treated with care, but Munar's style and demeanour are not unusual among Mallorcan women of a certain standing. It is in the Mallorcan character to exhibit a sense of superiority in any event, and for some women this can become aloofness that borders on the contemptuous. And to this can be added power lust and self-promotion. Vallés repeated yesterday some of what he said about Munar in December 2007. He mentions a magazine, paid for by the Council of Mallorca, which featured 87 photos of Munar on 83 pages. In another magazine, "Brisas", published by the Diario's competitor, the Serra group ("Ultima Hora" and "The Bulletin"), its VIP section was once full of photos of Munar in her finery. One couldn't turn a page without her staring out at you. But she is not unique.

The German neighbours the other day raised what at first seemed a strange point, followed by a question. On Sundays, they had noticed women who wear furs, wandering around with noses firmly raised in the air. What was their standing, they asked. Initially I didn't understand, until I remembered that in Germany status tends to be defined, not by class as it might be in Britain, but by profession, whether the husband's or the woman's. Talk to Germans, and their small talk is often littered with the adjective "beruflich" (professional). It matters to them. There wasn't necessarily any such equivalent in Mallorca, I ventured. Just wealth. Or power. But they had identified a trait, one seemingly compatible with Munar. Aloof and contemptuous, not just of others - the Übermensch mentality perhaps, the triumphing by making enemies (as she has admitted) - but also of the rules. Munar has been brought down by alleged rule-bending and breaking and by a hubris that is symptomatic of a social stratum in Mallorca. Vallés has not necessarily made this point, but he has nevertheless given it potential currency. If you read the native, then I recommend you take a look at his article:

http://www.diariodemallorca.es/mallorca/2010/02/27/matias-valles-mujer-odiada-historia-mallorca/549053.html

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.


Index for February 2010

Architecture, housing - 26 February 2010
Association of British Companies Menorca - 1 February 2010
Banks - 20 February 2010, 22 February 2010
Bird-watching - 8 February 2010, 9 February 2010
Bleach - 14 February 2010
Car-hire prices - 11 February 2010
Carlos Delgado - 17 February 2010
Carnival - 11 February 2010
Caso maquillaje corruption - 28 February 2010
Catalan and politics of language - 17 February 2010
China Crisis in Pollensa - 19 February 2010
Cold weather and houses in Mallorca - 12 February 2010
Cycling tourists - 3 February 2010, 8 February 2010, 13 February 2010
Foreigners' office online residency system - 15 February 2010
Halifax Bank Puerto Pollensa to close - 20 February 2010
Hotels opening at Easter - 15 February 2010
Inestur corruption case (Operación Voltor) - 4 February 2010, 5 February 2010, 6 February 2010, 7 February 2010, 9 February 2010
Mallorca Tourist Board (Fomento del Turismo) - 1 February 2010, 22 February 2010
Maria Antònia Munar resignation - 28 February 2010
Mobiles in marketing - 14 February 2010
Muro golf course - 20 February 2010
Muro's former mayor disqualified - 5 February 2010
Palm beetle - 17 February 2010
Quality tourism, so-called - 27 February 2010
Real Mallorca - 5 February 2010, 24 February 2010
Religious education - 2 February 2010
Riskal closes - 10 February 2010
Ryanair - 23 February 2010
Satyricon restaurant, Alcúdia - 21 February 2010
Spain's worst companies - 25 February 2010
The Cranberries in Palma - 19 February 2010
Tourism season 2010 - 4 February 2010, 11 February 2010
Unió Mallorquina corruption charges - 6 February 2010, 7 February 2010, 9 February 2010, 28 February 2010
Water supplies - 18 February 2010
Weather in February - 16 February 2010
What's on information (Bulletin) - 22 February 2010

Never Mind The Quality - Ever more on so-called quality tourism

There was a very good letter in "The Bulletin" yesterday. It came from Ian Morrison, a name some of you will be familiar with. You might also be familiar with some of the sentiments. They are ones you have heard many times on this blog. Mr. Morrison and I appear to share a similar past-time: banging our heads against the brick-walled numbskulls that populate the tourism authorities in Mallorca.

Here was an "open" letter to the new tourism minister. Another day, another tourism minister. Another tourism minister, another set of statements of the pointless and even the insulting. Here were references to "quality tourists", the hackneyed, pejorative but ultimately meaningless term used to describe, one supposes, bulging-pocketed tourists who eschew karaoke and lager unlike the poor sods at the "bottom end" of the market. The minister's bottom end, not mine. This is a massive and not infrequent affront. Here too were references to the promotional spend directed at this quality market and to the irrelevance of it. References to spending some of this promotional money on incentives to tour operators, on promotion via the big online agencies. References to things you will have read here before. References to things that are, if you like, common sense.

Times change, of course they do, but it remains the case that what made Mallorca in the first place still holds true. And that is the sun and beach holiday, one for families, not all of whom are necessarily loaded. This is the Mallorca brand, as I have said so often, one that they try to diminish by alternative marketing and the pursuit of this mythical "quality tourist". And what is this person anyway? Who knows? The tourism people certainly don't. It's just a term, an utterly meaningless and insulting one which has the effect merely of potentially alienating the thousands, nay millions who made and continue to make Mallorca what it is. It is the regular tourist who makes Mallorca. Not some niched ones who might prefer cultural experiences. Who the hell would fill all the hotels otherwise?

The new tourism minister, Sra. Barceló, is simply singing the same old song, as has been sung so many times over the past several years. There must be a script somewhere in the tourism ministry with certain stock phrases and words that must be trotted out at all times, even if the one uttering them hasn't a clue what he or she is talking about. The revolving door at the ministry may have raised some eyebrows among tour operators, but it doesn't really matter who's occupying the ministerial swivel-chair. It is the tour operator who decides what type of tourist comes and when. Elsewhere in the paper, the tame tour operator "inside tourism", he from the Monarch group, says that discussions are taking place with the same Sra. Barceló to offer more by way of winter tourism. On the face of it, this sounds quite encouraging and is evidence, if more is needed, that it is in the tour operators' gift to make winter tourism work. Encouraging, except that is when you read the list of the same old stuff that comprises this winter tourism. You don't need me to tell you again what this is. The tourism ministry is not irrelevant in all this, because it would be the ministry that is charged with much of the promotion that might persuade hotels to bother opening and thereby make winter tourism work - for the tour operators. And so you come back to that promotion and that spend and, in all likelihood, to the so-called quality tourist. And chances are the money would be wasted, if it's no longer being siphoned off into a political party's coffers - allegedly.

A different type of encouragement comes from the fact that the Spanish tourism ministry has a Facebook campaign. It's something. All the resorts should do the same. Using social networks would be an inexpensive alternative and arguably as effective if not more than the Nadalist corporate advertising. I spoke about this back in November (8 November: Same Old Story). Rather than increasing promotional budgets, they should be cut as a way of exercising minds gone flabby with the default thinking of celebrity marketing.

But to come back to winter tourism, you might recall an exchange about cultural (winter) tourism (27 November: The Coffee Culture Club). In this, the points were made that there are high costs associated with its marketing and selling and with the hire of coaches etc, as well as there being the need for volume to make it work for an island with a culture and history which aren't actually that remarkable, certainly when set against the fact that so many other places offer "culture" which is often more interesting. The point was also made that none of the big tour operators would think it worthwhile and for a very good reason. The ratio between the high costs of marketing and the actual returns would be poor. Here lies the rub. The business rub. Marketing spend for summer, for regular sun and beach holidays may well also be high, but so also are the returns. The ratio is highly favourable. Is Monarch, therefore, willing to lavish money on the marketing? Or would it be the tourism ministry, whose efforts might be better devoted to ensuring that the bread and butter of summer continues to feed Mallorca?

And finally ... The guy from Monarch also said the following: "Forget the sun, the Balearics has to give up going down that road." I'm struggling. Did a representative of Monarch, Cosmos and Co-Op really say this?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Living In A Box (Re-mix): Architecture in Alcúdia

The quadratic affront to the eye that is the Can Ramis building in Alcúdia old town (12 December: Toy Story - The Can Ramis Building) is an insult of non-contextual brutalism. But it is, after all, only a public building, one forged from functionalism. Nevertheless, it has no redeeming feature when placed against the neo-Gothic of historical buildings, those classified in terms of local "patrimonio" (heritage, to you and me). The straight lines, the vertical and horizontal, the wood, glass and steel form a passionless abscess-in-a-box of royal proportions - "Carlos Carbunculis".

There is, one has to presume, a whole school of what we might call the new architecture, or what might more accurately be described as Blockism. This Blockist tendency has infiltrated the residential domain, giving rise to and making rise up a cubist collectivist, close-to-communist conformity of form for housing. It might look in place in some post-modernist new town, but in Alcúdia? In Mallorca? A local fascination with and often brilliance with art and graphics has combined the old, the more recent (post-impressionism in art, for example) and the contemporary in fashioning painting, sculpture and design, but the architecture of "now" has turned its back on the vividness of colour and the diversity of cottage, villa and Moorish shapes in creating a Blockist, soulless landscape. Residential housing has been boxed in by the box of a group-thought architectural design authoritarianism, the fascism of the cuboidal, and most of it divested of primary or strong colours.

In Puerto Alcúdia, there is a new development by the Eroski supermarket and on the edge of the Lago Esperanza. It is indicative of this new conformism, one that has sprouted a pre-fabism, spawned by a computer-based template and using the rotate tool to move left, right, up or down. It has been finished off with what looks like a gradient effect from Photoshop. It is Adobe end-of-terrace. It is also redolent of sixties and seventies British town centres or council estates - the national mural of Brent, tiles of competing browns, greys and what may even be blues that looks ripe for some graffiti artist to complement. New, this "artistic" adjunct may look acceptable, though to whom one can't be quite sure, but give it a year or three or four and it will have acquired an appearance of obsolescence. As for the dwellings, the interiors, the workmanship, the fittings may well all be superior; there's no reason to suggest otherwise. But this is not the point.

The development has a certain industrial attractiveness. In a different context it might bring forth the plaudits of a local RIBA** equivalent (well, I say might), for example the context of whole new builds on land previously razed by nuclear or even conventional-warhead attack. No, architecturally, it has a utilitarian beauty, if that's not a contradiction, which it is. But the pursuit of the Blockist new architecture is changing not just the style of the housing stock in Alcúdia (and elsewhere), it is also altering the landscape, taking away that heritage of style and of colour. It is also, via its soullessness, eating away at a social and physical soul that had previously found building expression in the richness of shades of earth, sea, sun and beach. In the further pursuit of a perceived elevation of quality, it is symptomatic of the tourism conundrum - the move away, so we are told, from sea and beach to an abstract and still undefined "newness" of tourism. Architectural allegory.

Stark and lacking sympathy with the natural environment from which came a more traditional architecture and tourism, Blockism is the housing motif for the new age. But as with tourism, there is more than just a slight sense that architecture has lost its way and is striving for form from the seemingly formless, as with whatever the "new" tourism is supposed to be. Lost its way, and lost in AutoCAD and Photoshop.

** RIBA - Royal Institute of British Architects.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

FAC-You: Spain's worst companies

The Spanish equivalent of the Consumers' Association is an organisation called FACUA. It would be interesting to know if FACUA has contracts with any of the leading mobile operators, as they are all nominated as worst company of the year and get dishonourable mentions in the two other main categories of the organisation's newly instituted annual "awards", worst business practice and worst advert.

This is cracking stuff and is evidence of growing consumerist muscle in Mallorca and Spain. Our chums Ryanair have been on the receiving end of various groups' criticisms - and the airline is also nominated as one of the five worst companies, along with Air Comet - while Palma town hall has recently become the first local authority to start proceedings against a whole host of mobile operators, including the "big three" nominated by FACUA - Orange, Vodafone and Movistar - for what it claims are "abusive clauses" relating to their contracts and practices. Movistar has also recently been fined, albeit with a low penalty, for some misdemeanour.

FACUA is inviting consumers to vote for one of the five nominees in its three categories. One presumes that there is unlikely to be an awards ceremony, replete with gushing recipients, thanking God and their entire family or sending their fridge. There will be no separate appraisal of the fashion sense of the recipients as there was for the BAFTAs (sponsored of course by Orange) in "The Sunday Times", an article that brought forth a brilliant comment on the paper's website to the effect of who are all these people (mentioned in the article) and why am I reading the article, one that was outstanding in its fatuity and references to obscure fashionistas. Shame that there might not be such an appraisal, certainly where one of the nominees of worst advert is concerned - the wonderfully named bread company, Bimbo.

Among the categories of worst business practice are "irregularities in electricity invoices" - no prizes for knowing which company might be the happy recipient of this turkey or rotten tomato - and telephonic "spam", for which, take a bow, Movistar (aka Telefonica) and its miserable, puerile and counterproductive mobile bombardment with the "1485" number. Spam or cold-calling is not the problem that it is in the UK, and is generally confined to the whole telecoms sector - mobile, landlines and internet providers. FACUA might also have fingered these providers. They are part of an industry, internet provision, that is one of the worst in Europe. Slow, expensive and unreliable. Other than this, it's quite good. At a time when it has just been reported that your average Spaniard spends longer on the internet than watching television, it beggars belief just how lousy broadband can be.

If FACUA succeeds in shaming the mobile (and internet) operators into sharpening up their acts, becoming less "abusive", becoming more service-oriented, then it will have done well. Whether it does is of course another matter.

To vote on the worst companies, the worst business practices and the worst adverts, go to http://facua.org/lapeorempresa. Acknowledgement is due to the article in yesterday's "Diario".


QUIZ - Yesterday: National Lampoon threatened to kill the dog, as you can see.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Kill The Dog - Why the British don't watch Real Mallorca

What do you do on a Sunday afternoon? Any time between, say, three and six? In the UK, you may settle down on the sofa to watch the football, or you may be in a bar, watching the football. In Mallorca, you may settle down on the sofa to watch the football, or you may be in a bar, watching football. Wherever you are, what in all likelihood you are watching is the Premier League, unless you're German, in which case you'll be taking in the Bundesliga. If you're more of a nerdy football fan, you may eschew your home leagues, the leagues from where you come, in favour of some other league - La Liga, for example. If you're even more of a nerdy football fan, you may eschew those home leagues in favour of Real Mallorca; you might even go, if you happen to be in Mallorca.

I may be wrong, but before Paul Davidson came depth-plumbing and blowing his pipes full of what turned out to be fool's gold I don't recall "The Bulletin" devoting particular attention to the club or team. Prior to this, I didn't pay much attention to Real either. It was the Davidson farce that made the club worthy of anything other than indifference, so the British angle can be said to have stimulated attention. The paper's only regular column on current matters Mallorcan is about Real, and it is now - in association with the club - offering a package to the remaining home games. There is more than just a touch of desperation about this appeal to the British football fan to come and put his bum on one of the thousands of empty seats at the ONO. Look at the games coming up and you might wonder why there has to be such an appeal. Real Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia have all yet to play in Palma this season. If these games can't be sold out well in advance, you do have to ask whether Mallorca deserves a La Liga side. The stadium does, after all, have a capacity of no more than 25,000.

There are several reasons why the expat would not take up the offer. Take one - telly. What do you do on a Sunday afternoon? This coming Sunday afternoon, Liverpool will be playing Blackburn, Bayern Munich will be up against Hamburg in a top-four clash in the Bundesliga. Mallorca may be away, but even were the team to be at home - against Vallodolid - the result would be the same. Premier League, Bundesliga take precedence. It matters not that one's own team may not be playing. The home leagues are as much a part of the expat football fan's make-up as the team he actually supports, as are the cultures of those leagues - styles of play and even the language; the language of the terrace transported to the bar. Sing when you're winning? You wouldn't know what to sing at Real Mallorca, even if the fans did actually sing.

Going to a Mallorca game is at best an occasional thing, if at all. It falls into the category of being one of those things that should be done at some stage. A home match against Barça might well be that "stage". One against Gijon or Getafe? Your expat football fan would be hard pushed to have ever heard of either of them, let alone be able to locate them on a map of the mainland or even pronounce them. There is arguably greater interest among tourists than residents where Mallorca games are concerned, but this interest is part of the holiday experience and stems from a not insignificant motivation on behalf of the football fan to be able to say that he has been to such and such a ground. I once stood among a couple of thousand grumpy-looking Swiss all chomping on Wurst und Kartoffelchips during a God-awful pre-season friendly between Grasshopper Zürich and some other team whose name escapes me. And all because I could say I'd been, and to the ground of a team with a mad name, to boot.

Adopting another team is one thing. Many football fans are prone to this. But to swap allegiance from the original team, from the original league is quite another. It would be like giving up a desire for curry and bacon and eggs in favour of Mallorcan sobrasada sausage and the ensaimada. It just doesn't happen like this. Football, football teams, football leagues are too ingrained into the fan's footballing psyche. Which makes me wonder as to those who go native in support of a local team, Real in this case. La Liga may well be one of the two or three "best" leagues in world football, but it's not your expat football fan's league; it's someone else's, something to perhaps be admired, but not to get fanatical about.

Yes of course, take in the odd Real Mallorca match. God knows they need all the support and money they can lay their hands on, but don't let's believe that your average expat footy fans are about to abandon the Premier League or Bundesliga bar in their droves, because they're not. Perhaps the stronger message coming from Real Mallorca should be - if you don't come this season, you might never come if the club goes the way of all Portsmouths, ejected from the Premier mother ship without even a parachute payment. This would be along the lines of "if you don't buy this magazine, we'll kill this dog". A threat in other words. Now then, threats. That's the language your football fan understands.


QUIZ - Who threatened to kill the dog? Famous magazine cover. (I'm sure it was also an album cover by the same "group", but maybe I imagined this.)

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Ryan's Laughter - "El Mundo" And Ryanair

In inviting passengers to vote on ways that Michael O'Leary could settle a dispute with Stelios, Ryanair refer to themselves as "the world's favourite airline". You can't fault them for brassneck, though at a time when British Airways are looking at training even pilots to act as stand-in cabin crew as the former world's favourite airline plunges ever earthward on its collision course with staff, you can perhaps forgive the Irish operator a touch of hubris, to say nothing of taking the piss. And that's it with Ryanair - piss-taking. There is more than just a sense of knockabout, humour and "having a laugh" with Ryanair. How else can one treat the notions of passengers standing or paying to use the loo? They're jokes, aren't they? Anything for publicity. O'Leary is from the same school as Stelios and Branson in this respect.

But there is the other form of "having a laugh", one at the passenger's expense; the passenger who sees the expense of his flight clocking up as he has to add on the "fees" that the airline charges. "El Mundo"** has been having a go at the low-cost operator. It seems to take paying for a pee and standing in the aisles seriously, as it does examples of lax security, treatment of staff, receipt of subventions from Spanish regional governments and those added charges.
**(http://www.elmundo.es/mundodinero/2010/02/19/economia/1266605114.html)

Ryanair has a love-hate relationship with Spain, and not just because of its unauthorised use of a photo of Queen Sofia in its advertising. The regions love the business the airline brings, even if they are often forced to make certain accommodations. If not, the airline is quite willing to pack its bags and go elsewhere, though one might wonder who gets left to pay the fee for the bags. There is considerable disquiet in Spain, and even among those at governmental level, as to Ryanair's practices. The Balearic Government is meant to be pursuing legal action against the airline. Various ministries at national level have been written to by union leaders with demands to investigate the airline's labour relations and tax basis. For Ryanair, though, Spain is good business, with numerous airports, many willing to meet the airline's demand. For the passenger, believe it or not, Ryanair is also good business. Despite the negativity that flies its way, it has broadened options for the traveller.

It is those charges that do of course create the most criticism, and working one's way around Ryanair's hideous-looking website doesn't necessarily make it any easier to fathom them all out. The charges for online check-in and baggage are a nonsense. They are not included in the original price for two reasons: one, to show as low a price as possible and two, because - in the case of baggage - it is always possible to avoid the charge, assuming one can get everything into the required hand luggage size. But other airlines are in on the act. Ryanair is not unique in this regard.

One supposes that the add-ons are all about extracting as much "customer worth" as possible. This is 101 marketing for the new age. Like banks have so-called relationship managers who are ostensibly the customer's point of contact and service yet who are there to try and sell more product, so the airlines look to squeeze whatever else they can out of the customer. Unlike banks though, it is highly debatable whether Ryanair creates a relationship. Most passengers would happily go elsewhere. The airline should worry. The add-ons amount to some 20% of total revenue.

Ryanair can seem as if it is "having a laugh", but it is also disingenuous. It claims lowest-cost fares to ski resorts. Probably so, but sports equipment is levied at 40 euros a pop. Its environmental credentials include a "substantial reduction in the amount of waste" by comparison with airlines which give free meals and newspapers. This line of argument could have come from the Alastair Campbell guide to spin. The policy of a maximum weight allowance of 15kgs may be intended as a means of fuel-saving, but it also brings in extra dosh, so long as the passenger is willing to go along with it. And not all are. At Palma before Christmas, a couple weighed in with one bag at 17kgs. Rather than pay the excess, they called a relative who works in the airport and left with him some contents that brought the weight down. Ryanair's "having a laugh" is that loud that there is a whole website devoted to it - http://www.ryanaircampaign.org.

"El Mundo" is at pains to prove that Ryanair is not the cheapest of the low-costers. The paper draws comparisons with Vueling and EasyJet and also refers to the additional costs associated with booking in ways other than online, e.g. at the airport or via an agency, and to which one can add a call centre (more cost). The paper is though rather missing the point, which is that Ryanair is essentially an internet company. Automation of its processes is one aspect which allows it to be low-cost. The customer is at a distance, and that's where the airlines wants the customer, in front of a computer monitor, accessing only its website preferably. The customer is made to do some of the work, like printing out boarding passes. So much for relationship management (echoing a point I made yesterday), and any notion that the airline may wish to forge a close bond with the customer. The bond lies in the price, and the unpalatable truth for those who might want to give Ryanair a kicking, including "El Mundo", is that the prices are low, very low, even once you add on the basic add-ons for baggage and check-in. Ultimately, it's all about changing habits and expectations. Flying is far from the pleasure it once was, and all the security and faffing about that is now required has seen to that, alongside the low-cost service. Flying is now a pain in the neck, so the cheaper the better, and Ryanair knows this. Yes, its charges can seem unfair and yes, it can seem disingenuous, but play the game - rather as airports and authorities have to play the Ryanair game - and the prices are still good. At Christmas it cost, with the add-ons, sixty euros to go from Palma to Stansted. Sixty euros. You might spend that on a couple of weeks worth of petrol - and not go very far. There should perhaps be some perspective.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Personal Service - Tourism, information and banks

Our friend Pedro Iriondo, the head of the Mallorca tourist board (Fomento del Turismo) and a chap who looks variously like Nixon (the film version) or "Knuckles" Norman, an East End associate of the Krays, is back in the press pages singing a familiar song. In an interview with "The Diario", he says basically the same as he has said elsewhere, including snatches in "The Bulletin". While lengthy enough, the interview really doesn't add to the sum of our existing knowledge. What is slightly new is that he has a chance to speak about the effects of corruption at the tourism ministry. It doesn't give a very good image to tour operators - I think we could have guessed that, and indeed I have said this very thing - but it also has meant that money intended for tourism promotion (in short enough supply) has of course been allegedly filtered off in different directions. The only other thing, amidst the normal stuff about all-inclusives (bad but what can you do), seasonality (there has been lots of promotion - but how effective?) and what the coming season holds (hard to say), that was new - to me at any rate - was the idea that images of people wearing masks in Playa de Palma last summer was somehow a set up by other tourist destinations. This was all to do with swine flu, and Iriondo reckons that this, and the mask-wearing, had a negative impact on tourism numbers, more so than ETA and its bombs. Apart from stupid sensationalism by the German paper "Bild", I don't know that it did. As for suggesting that perhaps the Turks and Croats and Bulgarians had ganged together to get some bad publicity, well this does seem somewhat far-fetched.

Back in Bulletin-land, I am somewhat baffled by the paper's email what's on thing. Its website gives a daily running total of the numbers who have sent in their email address together with dates of when they plan to visit Mallorca, and for which they then get an email giving them a list of things that are going on. The daily total announcement, all a tad self-congratulatory one can't help feeling, is a bit like the Blue Peter Christmas appeal. "We've now raised 296 Fairy Liquid bottles that will be turned into a Jeep to help the starving of (add as applicable)." The reason for bafflement is why they're doing it. Seems like work for someone, when putting the information onto the website would, one might have thought, be less hassle and might also have the benefit of generating additional site traffic. There again, maybe this is all part of a more personal touch that the internet has dispensed with. Like banks. Touching on the news about the Halifax branch in Puerto Pollensa closing, what it, and indeed other Mallorcan banks, have going for them is that the customer isn't simply left to the de-personalised cyberworld of internet banking as the means of communication. Personal contact. With the bank manager. How very quaint. However, I do wonder if there isn't a drawback with this. Is the relationship with the bank manager or with the bank? When the manager leaves, might the customer also leave if there is a strong recommendation for another bank, or rather another manager? In fact this isn't a "might", it's a yes. I've done it myself.

Still, at least a relationship with a bank can endure for some years. Unlike that between tour operators and Mallorcan tourism ministers. Unless the former intend to get themselves banged up in the next cell.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Are You Being Served? - Two restaurants in Alcúdia

Old town Alcúdia. Friday evening in February, not exactly buzzing with huge numbers of diners, albeit that it is only twenty past seven. Half five, the Germans had originally suggested. "Half five!?" We settled on seven. Nothing's likely to open before seven. Even this is early - for the Spanish. For Germans it's closer to midnight.

There's a restaurant we're going to. We think. No naming and shaming. Not a big place. Old town. Quiet. Intimate, the publicity would probably say. There is a menu on a stand in the street. Lights on. No-one in. We wait a moment. A "chico" comes in. For four, we're about to say. But the words never come out. The kitchen is not ready, he says. 7.30, he says. It's 7.20. Am I hearing this correctly? Are we all hearing this correctly? Do we hear, would you like to have a drink? Do we hear, sorry we need just a few minutes, but please take a table, and I'll be with you? We hear nothing of the sort. Nor do we offer a suggestion that we could have a drink and wait a little while. The chico would evidently rather not hear such a suggestion.

The German language has some cracking words. "Wahnsinn" is one such. It means madness, insanity. It is pronounced with a maniacal, elongated first-syallable emphasis, and so has an onomatopeic, nonsensical quality. Did we hear this correctly? He basically asked us to leave. For the sake of ten minutes, he asked us to leave. On a Friday in February in the old town of Alcúdia. Not exactly buzzing, albeit that it is early. But he has declined custom. He wouldn't know for sure how much. And now he's not going to find out. "Wahnsinn."

In the square, the Constitution Square, it is quiet. No, make that dead. The café Llabres, the pizzeria and ... and Satyricon. This seems ok, it's said. I gulp, but then I'm not paying. I'm also wary of "concept" restaurants. I prefer unpretentious. But I'm always game. At least it's warm. The space heaters are roaring, filling the interior air with butaned heat. I've never quite got it with the name. Satyricon. Orgies, cannabalism, the everyday lives of everyday Roman folk. There again, some of the novel concerns a meal, an extravagant occasion with several courses. Oh, and a touch of everyday debauchery. I suppose we skip the latter and just go for the food.

It's an impressive place of galleries. Costs more if you go upstairs, I suggest. Ho, ho. Better down in the one-and-nines. Appropriate. It used to be a cinema. And the space heaters seem confined to the stalls. Heat rises though. It would need to. The ceiling seems miles away. You could imagine a Michelangelo with a pot of Dulux. Or maybe not. Oh, and no-one says we're not open. No, no.

Water comes in a jug and is poured into metal goblets. I feel a Michael Winner moment coming on. Tastes metallic - unsurprisingly. Tap, I'll be bound. Not historic. The maîtresse d' is too hard-faced. She should lighten up, like the charming waitress who is receptive to requests for taking photos. Nevertheless, the service is prompt, pleasant, helpful, not overbearing. The "menu" is opted for. 42 euros a head. Gulp. But then I'm not paying. Why not go for the Can Vidalet Sauvignon, I venture. A Pollensa bodega. Ah, ja, very Mallorcan, very near to Alcúdia. Good, I think. I must tell them at the bodega next time I'm there. The menu novella includes a photo of the head chef. Chefs come close-cropped or shaven-headed nowadays. Very Heston. Very Blumenthal. I fear we might all be attached to oxygen cylinders and be force-fed bacon and egg ice-cream via a catheter. I know the dishes are going to be poncey. I don't mind poncey, so long as it doesn't mean stopping off for fish 'n' chips on the way home. When nouvelle first took London, we did poncey in Chiswick and left starving. The Indian chippy take-away on Acton High Street did roaring business back then.

The Vidalet is most acceptable and highly fruity; light for a Cabernet and not over-powering. The four courses are preceded by a couple of small tasters. What's this? Looks like a small toffee-apple upside down. A type of ricotta painted red. Superb. Give me more. Not so. Everyone else has eaten theirs. And then on, and on. There's sufficient time between courses for digestion purposes. It's all timed to perfection. Not too quick, not too slow. Spot on. The two "girls" remain pleasant, smiling (the waitress anyway), helpful. The dishes are brought and their silver lids are lifted in synchronisation. It is all absolutely magnificent. The turbot, the solomillo - outstanding, mega-historic - the needlework twines of paprika, the purées, the sweet with a cream of some ambrosia. More, more, more; please, more. An almond liqueur. I'll take the bottle. And what do you know? I'm full. No KFC for you on the way back, young fellow m'lad. Full. Not belt-undoing full. But sated, satisfied, and served well.

This is a fine restaurant. Ostentatious, yes; tries a bit too hard, yes; but the kitchen is supreme, the service just about delicate, courtesy of the the waitress, rather too matronly where the maìtresse d' is concerned. Not economy class. But for treat purposes... . Go on, do it. On the stroll back we pass the other restaurant, the one that had been intended. Don't know if there's anyone in there. Lights on. No-one in. I do know they lost out on something like 200 euros. On a Friday in Alcúdia. Not exactly buzzing. For the sake of ten minutes and a touch of service. Satyricon got the gig and did service; did it well. The other place? The unnamed place? Hmm. Or rather, "Wahnsinn".


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Mallorca's Two Jags - Muro and the golf course

So much for confident statements. On 29 January I said that work on the golf course on the Son Bosc finca in Muro would start in two weeks. It hasn't. Maybe it will do so next week. Despite the payment of the tax to the town hall, which was seemingly the final obstacle overcome, there are now further twists. Oddly enough, neither of them seem to have to do with the environmental pressure group GOB. One twist comes from the socialist opposition at the town hall. It says that the developers have not, as they should have, submitted to the town hall the modified plan for the course, one that takes account of changes to the development in order to preserve aspects of the flora and fauna, notably the rare orchid that grows there. This runs counter to the assertion by the mayor that everything was in order to allow the works to proceed.

The second twist has to do with changes at regional government level. Although it was being said that the work would start within those two weeks (meaning that it should have started already), there is now a suggestion that a decision to proceed next week is somehow being rushed. This has to do with a possible change of heart at regional government level. And why might this be? Never more than a short pitch and then a putt away from controversy, step forward the Unió Mallorquina. Or rather, step backward. The decision by President Antich to make the UM, as it were, miss the cut and smack it out of the coalition with a driver had ramifications at the environment ministry, the authority that had to give its final blessing to the project and which did so despite the allegation that it ignored a negative report by its own officials. The ministry was, until the UM's dismissal, under the control of the UM and specifically Enviro Man, Miquel Grimalt. He was one of the ministers who lost his job as a consequence of the fracture within the coalition. The UM out of the way, Antich decided to merge the environment ministry with that for transport and planning, a ministry run by the PSM Mallorcan socialists (a member of the so-called Bloc) in the form of our old chum Biel Vicens, he who made the supposedly unsanctioned reclaim walk at the Ternelles finca in Pollensa and who was at loggerheads with Alcúdia's former mayor over the siting of the railway.

In combining the ministries, Vicens has assumed a position and a series of responsibilities not far removed from those that John Prescott once had as part of his "super-ministry". "Two Jags" Vicens we should maybe start calling him. Like Prezza once seemed all-powerful within New Labour, so Vicens has assumed significant power. He has said that he will look at ways of avoiding the golf course work going ahead and he is also on record as having voiced his objections to the course in the past; hence the apparent panic to get the bulldozers in smartish before he can stop them.

What this highlights is one of the faultlines of the coalition. The change in political colour at environment could mean the reversal of a previous decision, but this would not solely be because of competing environmental ideologies. It would also be a reflection of the battle between the PSM and the UM for the nationalist political soul of Mallorca, albeit one from opposite political positions on the left-right divide. Where the PSM sees something stamped with the UM name, it opposes - as with the Alcúdia train - and vice versa. Moreover, there is a possibility that work could indeed start at Son Bosc, only for Two Jags to wade in with an order telling them to down 'dozers.

Just when you thought they'd finally come to an agreement, something crops up. Son Bosc and its golf course is the story of Mallorcan politics. This way, that way, and maybe something will happen. Or maybe it won't.


A Little Extra Help - Or Not: The Halifax to close
Mallorcan banks vary in their service. Generally though they are good, and the personal contact to be had is something that has seemingly been forgotten in the UK. But some banks get a reputation for superior service, and one such is the Halifax in Puerto Pollensa. The branch will close on 17 March.

This was something I was aware of. What I hadn't been aware of, and I thank Kath for highlighting it, was the depth of feeling regarding the closure. Anger is just one response. Sorrow also as the staff offered "the most personal service in the north of the island". Add to this the fact that the nearest branch will, from middle March, be in Santa Ponsa. Having transferred to the Halifax only a month ago, one can appreciate that a customer - Kath - might be a little annoyed. Annoyed and also sad because of the loss of the "fantastic" help and "service second to none in the area". A little extra help. Clearly there was. Rather more than just a little extra. Think again, Halifax.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Wishful Thinking - Music in Mallorca

The geriatric, very vintage rock of recent vintage in Palma, the creaking bones and voices of a Cocker, a Cohen and a Quo, is to be supplanted this summer by a group of less vintage due to appear at the Palma Arena. The Cranberries. Dolores and the chaps. Reformed and undergoing a world tour, the Irish group will take to the stage in Palma on 31 July. There is a bit of form when it comes to Irish bands in Palma; The Corrs have also played there.

It may not be music "of the moment" but The Cranberries offer something a tad more contemporary than Rossi and Parfitt. And I admit that I have a bit of soft spot for them. Well, Dolores anyway. I presumed it was her name that triggered a dream about a "Dolores". Not that this "Dolly" looked like her. Blond, not Spanish, but with a Spanish name. Dolores Cocita, whatever that's supposed to mean. Water was coming into my imaginary flat from the one above, the one belonging to Dolly. And that was how it all began. In the dream. One of those extraordinarily vivid and detailed dreams. I wrote it down. It's the basis for something. Not sure what. But the story of Dolores will be written at some stage.

I digress. Coming hard on the news of the opening of the Mallorca Rocks venue in Magaluf, Mallorca seems to be dragging itself into a more modern music world. Sort of. We still have to put up with pop stars turned crooners like Tony Hadley, a me-too big-bandist warbler in the wake of Robbie, Rod and Paul Young, and all of them took their lead from the late Robert Palmer.

The point about most pop and rock acts is that they never actually die or completely fade away. Some go on a back-burner for years, others run short of money and so try and make some anew, others fail to make a lasting impression as solo artists (like Take That) and so realise that the sum of their parts was always greater than they as individuals, others look to cash in on the "revival" bandwagon and others just simply get forgotten and all of a sudden re-emerge as though they had never actually gone away.

When the Spans' front man pitched up at last year's Pollensa Music Festival, there was some considerable excitement. Not where I was concerned, but among some. But one could understand it; Spandau Ballet were, after all, once a big name, albeit a big name of smooth, Thatcherite, red-braces rock as opposed to the altogether grittier post-punk, dole-queue, racism-confronting, angry anti-Thatcher, socialist soul and ska of The Jam or The Specials. Which brings me to China Crisis, a phenomenon of 1980s wine-bar pop, who, like other soft acts of the time, those right for the conservatism of early MTV and that of the bromided, cowed, new complacency induced by Thatcherism - Johnny Hates Jazz, Curiosity Killed The Cat, Wang Chung - had a daft and pretentious name and a brief spell in the spotlights of Top of The Pops, a group that had completely faded from mine or probably anyone's radar, when out of the blue of economic crisis, it was announced they'd be playing the golf club in Pollensa; well, Zhan as it is now known. Cue less understandable excitement. But. There's always a but. Two in fact. China Crisis had the distinction of working with Walter Becker of Steely Dan, which should elevate them in anyone's estimation. And the second but. I have a confession. Not only do I still have in my possession a Spandau Ballet album (what was I thinking?), I also have the original vinyl 45 of the best thing the Crisis chaps did - "Wishful Thinking". Any group that can feature an oboe is ok in my book, though their gig in Pollensa seems all a bit, well odd. But maybe not. They could actually prove to be very good. As it's due to take place at the end of July, for those inclined to do so, it could be a dual-venue short break. Pollensa, China Crisis, and then to Palma for Dolores and The Cranberries who, never let it be forgotten, were responsible for one of the loveliest, greatest ever of songs. Here's the youtube - "Linger":





And "Wishful Thinking" is not far behind in the beautiful songs league, even if there's no Dolores:





China Crisis, 29 July, Zhan, Pollensa.
The Cranberries, 31 July, Palma Arena.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Tapping Up - Water supplies

You've just put the shampoo into your hair and the shower suddenly dries up; you've set the washing-machine going and then it suddenly stops; you've used the loo and when it comes to flushing there is that awful moment of low or no pressure.

Water supplies. There is an argument that the utilities are equally important, but without water ... ? Pity the poor people of Campanet who have been long-suffering where it comes to water supply and have recently been subject to as many as three cuts in a week. Think about the impact not only in homes, but also in bars, businesses and schools. They're worried that there will be inadequate drinking water as the weather warms up.

In Campanet the problem has been with tap supply, and it is one of ancient pipework that badly needs overhauling. The schoolchildren of Campanet can always bring their own water, and it is inexpensive to buy (70 centimos for five litres for example), but it's still 70 centimos multiplied many times over and above the water rate. And don't let's even start on the cost of having a water supply switched on.

Campanet is not the only town that is subject to unannounced cuts to water supplies - far from it; not the only place where something unpleasant is left to lurk under a hastily lowered lid. And wherever one looks, there is an issue with water. In Santa Margalida there is a demand for a report into why the public swimming-pool is losing twenty cubic metres per day, something that adds to accusations in the town of leakages in public money; a different sort, but the pool's water is ultimately funded by the taxpayer. In Sa Pobla a water-processing plant was established two to three years ago and has proved to be useless. Part of the solution for the town is to use water from desalination plants, notably one near Alcúdia. It has not been that straightforward, owing to the nature of the negotiations, but supply does now seem guaranteed via a mix of desalinated water and that from the island's network. In Playa de Muro there remains a question as to the quality of drinking water that dates back some years. Nitrates. The local water company in Playa de Muro (Fusosa) is a strange affair. It cannot be contacted by landline telephone after the morning. You have to know the emergency mobile number. The company has only recently established a skeleton website. At least it includes an email address. Public service? It sucks. Against all this wet utility provision, hats off to Alcúdia where there is now the bold initiative to recycle waste water for garden irrigation. It's something.

There is plenty of water in Mallorca, or rather beneath it. Huge underground reservoirs are what supply much of the island's water. They benefit from the regular soakings from September to April and even from the mountain snow. Occasionally, when the winters are exceptionally dry, there can be concerns, but nature seems to have a knack of making an adjustment, even if it means rain throughout May and into June. The availability of water isn't really the issue. It's what happens with it and what it contains - the product of the limestone on which Mallorca is largely built: the "cal", as the word has past into British usage, the cal that affects everything - from kettles to boilers to toilets to taps. Hard water. Very hard water.

Water, water everywhere. An island the size of Essex surrounded by the stuff. It hangs in the air, drenches terraces because of the dampness and humidity, infiltrates walls. Everywhere water, except from where you might most want it. Taps for instance.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.