Tuesday, April 12, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Iriondo stays at Mallorca Tourism Board
Pedro Iriondo, the president of the Fomento del Turismo (Mallorca Tourism Board), has received the support of his own board and will stay in his post. This despite the publicity surrounding comments he made last week about low-cost airlines and foreign workers. The board believes that the words of regional president Francesc Antich, who had called for Iriondo to be dismissed, were excessive, and it has also made it clear that it is a private body and therefore not subject to demands made by politicians.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 12 April 2011
And more of the same. Totally clear sky, negligible breeze. The forecast is now looking a little iffy for Thursday and Friday. Temperatures as of 09.00: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 13.3 C; Pollensa, 16.6 C ; Puerto Pollensa, 16.7 C.
It has remained fine and warm. Top temperature locally today has been in the interior, in Pollensa at 22.3 C.
It has remained fine and warm. Top temperature locally today has been in the interior, in Pollensa at 22.3 C.
Language At A Price: Promoting Catalan
If you thought that the forthcoming elections might just all be about the economy and might avoid the fractious topic of language, then think again. The two issues, the economy and cutbacks in public spending and language, specifically the promotion of Catalan, are coinciding.
Sorry, I need to be a bit clearer. When I say cutbacks, they don't apply to the promotion of language. While there have been cuts in many areas of public provision and support, Catalan has not been one of them. Throw this little fact in front of the Partido Popular, and wait for the language to turn blue, appropriately enough for a party that is like the British Conservative Party.
The regional government has agreed to hand over 470,000 euros in the form of new support for what is the "social use" of Catalan. The money is distributed to town halls as well as to the likes of unions and even cinemas. It is all designed as part of a process of Catalan "awareness" and is driven by the ministry of education and culture, which is run by the PSOE socialist party, and which has under its umbrella the department for language policy, controlled by the nationalists of the Mallorcan socialists (PSM).
Though the full budget for this department was trimmed by 15% in 2010, it was nonetheless 45% higher than had been the case in 2007, the year of the last local elections. The existence of the language policy department is mirrored by there being responsibilities for language, by which is meant Catalan, at town-hall level.
Is it appropriate that Catalan should be enjoying governmental financial support at a time of austerity? Given reductions in public funding for other social purposes, then the answer is possibly no. The promotion of Catalan, however, is a political issue that can defy the rational, as was the case with the similar level of funding for promoting the use of Catalan in local restaurants.
There are, though, more fundamental questions. One is whether it should be any business of governments to involve themselves in what languages are spoken. The other is why is Catalan promotion needed in islands, the Balearics, where an overwhelming majority already speak it (or a variant thereof).
The answer to the second question is wrapped up, of course, in history, culture and politics. Despite the fact that Catalan has become the de facto official language, neglecting its dual status with Castilian, despite the fact that one has instances such as the secondary school in Porreres being criticised for conducting only 1% of its teaching in Castilian, the impulse to keep promoting the language remains strong. It isn't perhaps necessary, but politics make it so.
Governments involve themselves in language, and none more so than the current Balearics regional government. The insistence on proficiency in Catalan as a necessity for working in the public sector has been a clear indication of this, an insistence that the Partido Popular would do away with. The politics of language policy are one largely of left and right, though not exclusively, as evidenced by pro-Catalanism within the PP itself.
Governments elsewhere involve themselves with language. The Welsh Assembly Government, for instance, states that it "has a statutory duty to support Welsh and promote its use". In Ireland, Irish is the first official language, and public money for education is dependent upon Irish being taught, even if Irish is not treated as a first language in the educational curriculum.
At the very heart of the Spanish Government, the national parliament, you now have a situation in which languages other than Castilian can be used. In January, a Catalonian politician became the first to address the parliament in Catalan. This development has been criticised, and not just for its cost alone, but Spain is a signatory to agreements which obliges it to not just tolerate specific languages but also to promote them. And through the government's regional wings, this is precisely what happens.
To answer the question as to whether governments should involve themselves with languages that are spoken: if not governments, so long as this involvement is tolerance or promotion and not repression, then who? It may cost nearly half a million euros for social use of Catalan, in addition to the six million plus that was spent on language policy in general in 2010, but it is a cost that comes with a moral and political obligation attached. The PP might do well to remember this.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sorry, I need to be a bit clearer. When I say cutbacks, they don't apply to the promotion of language. While there have been cuts in many areas of public provision and support, Catalan has not been one of them. Throw this little fact in front of the Partido Popular, and wait for the language to turn blue, appropriately enough for a party that is like the British Conservative Party.
The regional government has agreed to hand over 470,000 euros in the form of new support for what is the "social use" of Catalan. The money is distributed to town halls as well as to the likes of unions and even cinemas. It is all designed as part of a process of Catalan "awareness" and is driven by the ministry of education and culture, which is run by the PSOE socialist party, and which has under its umbrella the department for language policy, controlled by the nationalists of the Mallorcan socialists (PSM).
Though the full budget for this department was trimmed by 15% in 2010, it was nonetheless 45% higher than had been the case in 2007, the year of the last local elections. The existence of the language policy department is mirrored by there being responsibilities for language, by which is meant Catalan, at town-hall level.
Is it appropriate that Catalan should be enjoying governmental financial support at a time of austerity? Given reductions in public funding for other social purposes, then the answer is possibly no. The promotion of Catalan, however, is a political issue that can defy the rational, as was the case with the similar level of funding for promoting the use of Catalan in local restaurants.
There are, though, more fundamental questions. One is whether it should be any business of governments to involve themselves in what languages are spoken. The other is why is Catalan promotion needed in islands, the Balearics, where an overwhelming majority already speak it (or a variant thereof).
The answer to the second question is wrapped up, of course, in history, culture and politics. Despite the fact that Catalan has become the de facto official language, neglecting its dual status with Castilian, despite the fact that one has instances such as the secondary school in Porreres being criticised for conducting only 1% of its teaching in Castilian, the impulse to keep promoting the language remains strong. It isn't perhaps necessary, but politics make it so.
Governments involve themselves in language, and none more so than the current Balearics regional government. The insistence on proficiency in Catalan as a necessity for working in the public sector has been a clear indication of this, an insistence that the Partido Popular would do away with. The politics of language policy are one largely of left and right, though not exclusively, as evidenced by pro-Catalanism within the PP itself.
Governments elsewhere involve themselves with language. The Welsh Assembly Government, for instance, states that it "has a statutory duty to support Welsh and promote its use". In Ireland, Irish is the first official language, and public money for education is dependent upon Irish being taught, even if Irish is not treated as a first language in the educational curriculum.
At the very heart of the Spanish Government, the national parliament, you now have a situation in which languages other than Castilian can be used. In January, a Catalonian politician became the first to address the parliament in Catalan. This development has been criticised, and not just for its cost alone, but Spain is a signatory to agreements which obliges it to not just tolerate specific languages but also to promote them. And through the government's regional wings, this is precisely what happens.
To answer the question as to whether governments should involve themselves with languages that are spoken: if not governments, so long as this involvement is tolerance or promotion and not repression, then who? It may cost nearly half a million euros for social use of Catalan, in addition to the six million plus that was spent on language policy in general in 2010, but it is a cost that comes with a moral and political obligation attached. The PP might do well to remember this.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, April 11, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Alcúdia's sepia fair attracts thousands
The combined sepia (cuttlefish) gastronomy and boat fair in Puerto Alcúdia, which took place over the weekend, attracted enormous numbers of visitors, especially yesterday. The tent for samples of sepia, available from one euro a dish, was completely thronged, while the craft fair and exhibits, such as the Guardia Civil's rescue and security boats, also attracted great interest.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 11 April 2011
Spot of thunder during the night, which led to some rain but nothing significant. Quite a bit of cloud around, but the sun is also just about out. Every chance of rain later, but the rest of week looks pretty good if not the unbroken sunshine of the weekend gone. Temperatures as of 09.00: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 14.3 C; Pollensa, 17.2 C ; Puerto Pollensa, 18.3 C.
It has been a fine day once more, so none of that rain that was meant to be about. Highs in the afternoon, up to 19.00, 20.6 C (Alcúdia/Playa de Muro), 19.5 C (Pollensa) and 19.8 C (Puerto Pollensa).
It has been a fine day once more, so none of that rain that was meant to be about. Highs in the afternoon, up to 19.00, 20.6 C (Alcúdia/Playa de Muro), 19.5 C (Pollensa) and 19.8 C (Puerto Pollensa).
Choice Words: All-inclusives
Is this the end of tourism choice? Quite the reverse. It is the choice of the tourist and of the market that has led First Choice to limit choice. To the all-inclusive.
First Choice has made a fair old splash with its announcement that from 2012 it will only offer all-inclusive. The splash has caused waves in the British press and locally. There was even a debate on Five Live. It was one in which all the old arguments were tossed around, as though the advantages and disadvantages of all-inclusive were suddenly a new area for discussion. It is far from new. What is, is what "Travel Weekly" headlined by saying is a "bold and shrewd" move.
This bold and shrewd move is, of course, marketing-led. It is designed, in the words of TUI, to "differentiate the First Choice product from Thomson and its competitors". First Choice becomes the first "mainstream holiday company offering a completely all-inclusive portfolio". In other words, what TUI is doing is to create an all-inclusive brand, i.e. First Choice. It has also said that hotels which are unable (and also perhaps unwilling) to go along with the all-inclusive offer will be shifted to the Thomson programme.
This latter bit is important, because, amidst the hype and what is doubtless a gnashing of teeth in Mallorca amongst bar and restaurant owners, is the fact that hotels to which First Choice gives primacy on its website at present are mainly already all-inclusive only. There may be hotels which are not exclusive to the company that will become so and which will go the full all-inclusive route, but until one knows how many (or any) additional hotels are actually affected, it is difficult to arrive at a complete picture.
I have previously drawn into question quite how all-inclusives fit with policies of so-called tourism sustainability. TUI (and this means both First Choice and Thomson) has made much of its commitment to this vague concept. With this in mind, it is instructive to learn how TUI is spinning the First Choice move. From a press release in "Travel Weekly", therefore, I quote:
"We have been working with experts to see how we can increase the benefits of all-inclusive to local communities and putting in practices to do this." "We are doing a lot of work ... to increase communications whilst they (tourists) are on holiday, encouraging them to use local services." "We are also setting up excursions that will enable customers to get a real taste for the destination they are visiting."
This verges on the risible. When all else fails, invoke some anonymous "experts". Who are they anyway? Encouraging tourists to use local services? Of course, and so undermine the very principle of all-inclusive. Setting up excursions? This is the biggest laugh of the lot. First Choice and other tour operators sell excursions. They always have done. The real taste? What do you think? Pirates?
To be fair to First Choice, they are right when they also say that "it is a myth that people do not go out of the hotel just because they're on an all-inclusive holiday". Yes, but how many actually debunk this myth and what do they do once out of the hotel? All-inclusives, perversely, want people to go out, because most of the hotels can't cope and they've got their money already, thanks very much.
First Choice is bigging up its new offer with the bottom-line of a five hundred pound saving. This itself is a marketing-driven myth, as it depends on how drunk and how fat you want to get, but savings can, nevertheless, be derived; and these are one of the big attractions. Yet, the spin goes on. "With differentiated product, we will move further away from customers choosing tour operators based on cost alone, which is unsustainable." Clearly they are and clearly a five-hundred quid saving is in fact unimportant; nothing to do with cost alone.
The good news may be that the First Choice offer will not be that significant. For now. It is further down the line that counts, and whether other operators decide to follow suit. What would be nice, though, would be for the tour operators to be less obfuscatory and to not hide behind the spin of sustainability.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
First Choice has made a fair old splash with its announcement that from 2012 it will only offer all-inclusive. The splash has caused waves in the British press and locally. There was even a debate on Five Live. It was one in which all the old arguments were tossed around, as though the advantages and disadvantages of all-inclusive were suddenly a new area for discussion. It is far from new. What is, is what "Travel Weekly" headlined by saying is a "bold and shrewd" move.
This bold and shrewd move is, of course, marketing-led. It is designed, in the words of TUI, to "differentiate the First Choice product from Thomson and its competitors". First Choice becomes the first "mainstream holiday company offering a completely all-inclusive portfolio". In other words, what TUI is doing is to create an all-inclusive brand, i.e. First Choice. It has also said that hotels which are unable (and also perhaps unwilling) to go along with the all-inclusive offer will be shifted to the Thomson programme.
This latter bit is important, because, amidst the hype and what is doubtless a gnashing of teeth in Mallorca amongst bar and restaurant owners, is the fact that hotels to which First Choice gives primacy on its website at present are mainly already all-inclusive only. There may be hotels which are not exclusive to the company that will become so and which will go the full all-inclusive route, but until one knows how many (or any) additional hotels are actually affected, it is difficult to arrive at a complete picture.
I have previously drawn into question quite how all-inclusives fit with policies of so-called tourism sustainability. TUI (and this means both First Choice and Thomson) has made much of its commitment to this vague concept. With this in mind, it is instructive to learn how TUI is spinning the First Choice move. From a press release in "Travel Weekly", therefore, I quote:
"We have been working with experts to see how we can increase the benefits of all-inclusive to local communities and putting in practices to do this." "We are doing a lot of work ... to increase communications whilst they (tourists) are on holiday, encouraging them to use local services." "We are also setting up excursions that will enable customers to get a real taste for the destination they are visiting."
This verges on the risible. When all else fails, invoke some anonymous "experts". Who are they anyway? Encouraging tourists to use local services? Of course, and so undermine the very principle of all-inclusive. Setting up excursions? This is the biggest laugh of the lot. First Choice and other tour operators sell excursions. They always have done. The real taste? What do you think? Pirates?
To be fair to First Choice, they are right when they also say that "it is a myth that people do not go out of the hotel just because they're on an all-inclusive holiday". Yes, but how many actually debunk this myth and what do they do once out of the hotel? All-inclusives, perversely, want people to go out, because most of the hotels can't cope and they've got their money already, thanks very much.
First Choice is bigging up its new offer with the bottom-line of a five hundred pound saving. This itself is a marketing-driven myth, as it depends on how drunk and how fat you want to get, but savings can, nevertheless, be derived; and these are one of the big attractions. Yet, the spin goes on. "With differentiated product, we will move further away from customers choosing tour operators based on cost alone, which is unsustainable." Clearly they are and clearly a five-hundred quid saving is in fact unimportant; nothing to do with cost alone.
The good news may be that the First Choice offer will not be that significant. For now. It is further down the line that counts, and whether other operators decide to follow suit. What would be nice, though, would be for the tour operators to be less obfuscatory and to not hide behind the spin of sustainability.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Palm beetle goes to Europe
Rosa Estaràs, the Partido Popular MEP for the Balearics, has asked the European Commission about mechanisms for obtaining help in trying to eradicate the palm beetle that has been devastating palm trees in Mallorca, especially in Pollensa.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 10 April 2011
Well, if today is meant to see a bit of a change, it hasn't happened yet. Nice and sunny start. Temperatures as of 09.30: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 16.8 C; Pollensa, 20.6 C; Puerto Pollensa, 20.6 C.
Another glorious day. Not especially hot, but once more very pleasant. Temperatures, indeed, have not really altered much since the morning, except in Alcúdia. Everywhere in the area has registered the same high temperature, up to 17.00, one of 20.7 C.
Another glorious day. Not especially hot, but once more very pleasant. Temperatures, indeed, have not really altered much since the morning, except in Alcúdia. Everywhere in the area has registered the same high temperature, up to 17.00, one of 20.7 C.
Unfinished Symphony: Albufera
Two in the morning. Save for the Saturday-into-Sunday night birds that swoop along the main road to and from the clubs and bars of the north and who create their sampling of engine rush and techno from the in-car system, the nights are quiet. With the arrival of May, the music of the machines will start to become unrelenting. But for now, there is motor silence. Not that there is silence.
During the day, it is hard to tell what noises come from Albufera. Those which there are, are usually drowned out by the incessant traffic. At night, it is a different matter. Amidst the quietness of the road, there is only one man-made sound that comes intermittently; the throb and sometimes roar of the Es Murterar power station, a rumbling synthesizer that conveys a mood music of mystery, an industrial electronica that is aurally surreal when set against the other sounds - those of the nature park. In April, in springtime, the sounds of Albufera build up, they are constant, always changing; they are their own unfinished symphonies.
In the mix of sound and limited vision, to the fore there is the sight of the puff monsters of pines silhouetted against moonlight or the distant lights of Muro and Sa Pobla. They are the maestros, the mute conductors of the orchestras that they hide. Unseen, in the pit of Albufera, whole string, horn and percussion sections stay up all night and play for a sleeping audience. They are the phantoms of an opera that the puff monsters mask.
It is too early for the crickets. In summer, they come to dominate, with their drum-box rhythms. For now, it is the marsh frogs that are the main percussion. It is subdued, understated at present. As the weeks pass, the frogs' chorus reaches a crescendo before being supplanted by the crickets in this unending and cyclical opus.
The music of the wetlands is variously symphonic, jazz orchestra or an ambient soundscape dreamt from the imagination of Brian Eno or Philip Glass. The syncopation of the frogs is a rapid chatter of scat drumming over which wails an improvised, viola screech of a startled barn owl or over which is the high-pitched piping blast of a scops owl. This jam session with its shifting members can bring the single, irregular hoot of a different owl, a sonic bleep that rises and falls as though it were being spun around on a radar screen.
The counterpoint to the melodies of nightingales and even robins are the crow-like bursts of a night heron on its discordant Ornette Coleman sax or the comedic intermezzo of a duck disturbed into a deranged trumpeting. The party animals that fly-dance to the tunes of the Albufera night club are the bats, darting and diving and ignoring the admonitory stares of the puff monster conductors.
You can sit and listen to all this. You can have a front-row seat for an astonishing concert that costs nothing. But you can't sit too long. Not before there is a different sound, one of a sawing buzz by the ear. The mosquitoes are alive again and they are giants in spring. The bats are hungry, thankfully. They do their best, but there are only so many mosquitoes they can eat as though they were chomping on their equivalent of popcorn taken into the auditorium for the Albufera concert.
As the night orchestra quietens around dawn, so a different shift takes over. There are over hundred different types of bird in Albufera at present, some that are there all the time, like the hoopoe which joins with the bats in being a natural destroyer of the nasty. For the hoopoe, it is the moth of the processionary caterpillar. Other birds are passing through, one or two are there by accident, such as the golden eagle. And most announce themselves as dawn comes, when they can be heard because the road is nearly always silent. Just at the moment.
The sights of Albufera, during the daytime when it can be seen, are what attracts, but there is a different attraction. What can't be seen but can only be heard. At night. The unfinished symphony of Albufera.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
During the day, it is hard to tell what noises come from Albufera. Those which there are, are usually drowned out by the incessant traffic. At night, it is a different matter. Amidst the quietness of the road, there is only one man-made sound that comes intermittently; the throb and sometimes roar of the Es Murterar power station, a rumbling synthesizer that conveys a mood music of mystery, an industrial electronica that is aurally surreal when set against the other sounds - those of the nature park. In April, in springtime, the sounds of Albufera build up, they are constant, always changing; they are their own unfinished symphonies.
In the mix of sound and limited vision, to the fore there is the sight of the puff monsters of pines silhouetted against moonlight or the distant lights of Muro and Sa Pobla. They are the maestros, the mute conductors of the orchestras that they hide. Unseen, in the pit of Albufera, whole string, horn and percussion sections stay up all night and play for a sleeping audience. They are the phantoms of an opera that the puff monsters mask.
It is too early for the crickets. In summer, they come to dominate, with their drum-box rhythms. For now, it is the marsh frogs that are the main percussion. It is subdued, understated at present. As the weeks pass, the frogs' chorus reaches a crescendo before being supplanted by the crickets in this unending and cyclical opus.
The music of the wetlands is variously symphonic, jazz orchestra or an ambient soundscape dreamt from the imagination of Brian Eno or Philip Glass. The syncopation of the frogs is a rapid chatter of scat drumming over which wails an improvised, viola screech of a startled barn owl or over which is the high-pitched piping blast of a scops owl. This jam session with its shifting members can bring the single, irregular hoot of a different owl, a sonic bleep that rises and falls as though it were being spun around on a radar screen.
The counterpoint to the melodies of nightingales and even robins are the crow-like bursts of a night heron on its discordant Ornette Coleman sax or the comedic intermezzo of a duck disturbed into a deranged trumpeting. The party animals that fly-dance to the tunes of the Albufera night club are the bats, darting and diving and ignoring the admonitory stares of the puff monster conductors.
You can sit and listen to all this. You can have a front-row seat for an astonishing concert that costs nothing. But you can't sit too long. Not before there is a different sound, one of a sawing buzz by the ear. The mosquitoes are alive again and they are giants in spring. The bats are hungry, thankfully. They do their best, but there are only so many mosquitoes they can eat as though they were chomping on their equivalent of popcorn taken into the auditorium for the Albufera concert.
As the night orchestra quietens around dawn, so a different shift takes over. There are over hundred different types of bird in Albufera at present, some that are there all the time, like the hoopoe which joins with the bats in being a natural destroyer of the nasty. For the hoopoe, it is the moth of the processionary caterpillar. Other birds are passing through, one or two are there by accident, such as the golden eagle. And most announce themselves as dawn comes, when they can be heard because the road is nearly always silent. Just at the moment.
The sights of Albufera, during the daytime when it can be seen, are what attracts, but there is a different attraction. What can't be seen but can only be heard. At night. The unfinished symphony of Albufera.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, April 09, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Real Mallorca 2 : 2 Sevilla
The visit of top-six side Sevilla had particular significance because of Sevilla's coach Gregorio Manzano having been in charge at Mallorca to the end of last season. The first half saw Mallorca generally on top, the Japanese player Aki giving the home side the lead with a header on fifteen minutes. On the half hour, though, and against the run of play, a foul in the area by Ramis with a trip on Negredo led to the Sevilla striker converting the penalty. Canadian-born De Guzmán restored Mallorca's lead three minutes before the break. Sevilla came more into the game after the break and were rewarded with an equaliser through Rakitic midway through the half. The game became increasingly tetchy, with a spate of yellow cards being shown, but Sevilla continued to dominate, out-passing Mallorca though were unable to secure a winner. The draw for Mallorca does little for the team's hopes of a Europa League spot for next season.
Real Mallorca:
Aouate; Cendrós, Nunes (yellow, 76 min.), Ramis, Ayoze; Martí, Tejera (sub. Joao Victor, 69 min.); Aki (sub. Victor, 88 min.), De Guzmán (yellow, 35 min.), Castro (yellow, 8 min.; sub. Pina, 83 min.); Nsue
Goals: Aki, 15 min.; De Guzmán, 42 min.
Sevilla:
Varas; Cáceres, Fazio (yellow, 77 min.), Escudé, Navarro (yellow, 79 min.); Medel (yellow, 36 min.), Romaric (sub. Rodri, 37 min.); Perotti, Rakitic, Capel (sub. Alfaro, 78 min.); Negredo
Goals: Negredo, 30 min. (penalty); Rakitic, 68 min.
Real Mallorca:
Aouate; Cendrós, Nunes (yellow, 76 min.), Ramis, Ayoze; Martí, Tejera (sub. Joao Victor, 69 min.); Aki (sub. Victor, 88 min.), De Guzmán (yellow, 35 min.), Castro (yellow, 8 min.; sub. Pina, 83 min.); Nsue
Goals: Aki, 15 min.; De Guzmán, 42 min.
Sevilla:
Varas; Cáceres, Fazio (yellow, 77 min.), Escudé, Navarro (yellow, 79 min.); Medel (yellow, 36 min.), Romaric (sub. Rodri, 37 min.); Perotti, Rakitic, Capel (sub. Alfaro, 78 min.); Negredo
Goals: Negredo, 30 min. (penalty); Rakitic, 68 min.
MALLORCA TODAY - Fomento will decide Iriondo's future
The board of the Fomento del Turismo (Mallorca Tourism Board) will meet next week on Monday to consider the future of its president, Pedro Iriondo, in light of his comments about foreign workers and low-cost airlines. Iriondo maintains that he will not resign and that he was misinterpreted.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 9 April 2011
Another perfect spring day with not a cloud in the sky and virtually no breeze. Less possibility of rain now tomorrow, but a stronger chance of there being some on Monday, but after that, back to sunshine. Temperatures as of 09.00: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 14.8 C; Pollensa, 15.3 C; Puerto Pollensa, 15.8 C.
Not quite as warm as yesterday, but still warm and very pleasant with a light breeze taking the edge off the heat. Highs this afternoon, to 17.00: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 23.6 C; Pollensa, 23 C; Puerto Pollensa, 21.3 C.
Not quite as warm as yesterday, but still warm and very pleasant with a light breeze taking the edge off the heat. Highs this afternoon, to 17.00: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 23.6 C; Pollensa, 23 C; Puerto Pollensa, 21.3 C.
The Cappuccino Kid
The Capuchin monks have to take the credit, if credit is indeed due. There is no real historical basis for saying that the order, or one of its members, first mixed a particular type of coffee. It wouldn't, in any event, have been possible for a monk to have done so, back in the seventeenth century. The espresso machine wasn't around then. The religious origins of cappuccino are probably an urban, suburban even myth.
In the sixties, sixties Britain that is, vogue cuisine and beverages, and their pretentious naffness, were no better summed up, scoffed and imbibed than by Black Forest gateau and Blue Nun. They were the de rigueur selections of an upwardly-mobile, former working-class, flirting with the new fad of a restaurant meal. A trip to the steak house above a barn of a car showroom was my introduction to the sophistication of dining out. It really was a case of prawn cocktail, steak and chips and gateau. The permission of a small glass of Blue Nun should have been enough to have put me off alcohol for life. Oddly enough, it didn't.
There was another beverage. Coffee. The cappuccino, though, didn't inveigle itself into the drinking consciousness of the nouveau-estate dwellers so much as it did into the mouths of the regulars at the coffee bars. Coffee, and cappuccino especially, was the added caffeine rush to the amphetamine-fuelled energy of the Mods. Cappuccino rode a Vespa, its engine noise the clack that put the clack into Clacton.
The Saturday afternoon coffee at the coffee bar in the Army & Navy store. The Campari Boy, who looked much older than his sixteen years and who had developed the taste of a bitters with soda, was also the cappuccino king (or, more appropriately, queen) and spooned froth from his cup as he quoted from "A Clockwork Orange". He, we, would sometimes head off to Woking for the early-evening, so-called 3-D cinematic experience and then to a dingy club that blew our minds by being the place that first introduced us to Stevie Wonder's "Superstition".
And in Woking, a few years later, there was a face who was to become the unknowing leader of a south-west Surrey scene which, finally more constructive than engaging in the mindless vandalism of dreary suburbia, now less inclined to squaddie-baiting in Camberley or, if you really didn't value your life, Aldershot across the border into Hampshire, spawned Graham Parker, The Members and The Jam.
Paul Weller. The Cappuccino Kid. Cappuccino didn't come from monks, it wasn't from the Alex-minded queerism of Campari Boy, one that finally burst out with unashamed androgyny once Bowie had stardusted his own version of "A Clockwork Orange"; it flowed from an estate in Woking, the home of the homilist for the Mods. Cappuccino rode a Vespa.
Somewhere along the way, cappuccino acquired a chic, one removed from the insouciant coolness of an ace face in a mohair suit. Weller himself delved into the pretensions of the cappuccino life. The first outing of the Cappuccino Kid with The Style Council was unintentionally reflective of a wine-bar Thatcherism and was swiftly eschewed in favour of Red Wedge and the acerbic anger that had characterised The Jam. The onward march of cappuccino-ism, however, led to the faux-sophistication of Starbucks and Costa. And has led to the Café Cappuccino.
Puerto Pollensa now boasts a Cappuccino. Four euros, fifty. That's all it costs for a cappuccino at Cappuccino. That's the price for chic nowadays. There are few more appropriate symbols of how Mallorca has changed. What was a coffee-bar phenomenon of a new consumerist age of the 60s and 70s, a time of the first tourists descending en masse in Mallorca in search of cheap beer and spirits rather than a coffee, has now become a motif for the island's coffee-table presentation and presumptions.
Just as the Mods adopted the espresso machine as an accessory to the suits and the Fred Perrys in cultivating an image, so cappuccino is now an accessory for the image-conscious tourist or resident; oh to be seen at a Cappuccino, even if it costs four, fifty for the privilege. And the image extends into its own musical symbolism. Cappuccino has its discs of "cool", a bossa nova style mixed with understated jazz. Stan Getz for the neo-Mods of Mallorca who have been shown the alternative to the greasy spoon and the Grease tribute shows of a rival, greaser fraternity.
I can't think of cappuccino without thinking of Campari Boy and the Cappuccino Kid. Of a bitters and soda and the bitter attacks on the drudgery of suburban life. It should now taste different somehow, a cappuccino drunk under a bright sky, the froth a smooth Mallorcan antidote to both British and coffee bitterness. The music should seem altogether more relaxing. But then Weller's words, when he was winding up The Jam, have the potential to well up and catch in the throat. "The bitterest pill is hard to swallow." Which is not to decry nor to criticise; cappuccino chic is the new vogue. Just to remember the days when cappuccino rode a Vespa.
* Café Cappuccino is at Sis Pins hotel in Puerto Pollensa.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
In the sixties, sixties Britain that is, vogue cuisine and beverages, and their pretentious naffness, were no better summed up, scoffed and imbibed than by Black Forest gateau and Blue Nun. They were the de rigueur selections of an upwardly-mobile, former working-class, flirting with the new fad of a restaurant meal. A trip to the steak house above a barn of a car showroom was my introduction to the sophistication of dining out. It really was a case of prawn cocktail, steak and chips and gateau. The permission of a small glass of Blue Nun should have been enough to have put me off alcohol for life. Oddly enough, it didn't.
There was another beverage. Coffee. The cappuccino, though, didn't inveigle itself into the drinking consciousness of the nouveau-estate dwellers so much as it did into the mouths of the regulars at the coffee bars. Coffee, and cappuccino especially, was the added caffeine rush to the amphetamine-fuelled energy of the Mods. Cappuccino rode a Vespa, its engine noise the clack that put the clack into Clacton.
The Saturday afternoon coffee at the coffee bar in the Army & Navy store. The Campari Boy, who looked much older than his sixteen years and who had developed the taste of a bitters with soda, was also the cappuccino king (or, more appropriately, queen) and spooned froth from his cup as he quoted from "A Clockwork Orange". He, we, would sometimes head off to Woking for the early-evening, so-called 3-D cinematic experience and then to a dingy club that blew our minds by being the place that first introduced us to Stevie Wonder's "Superstition".
And in Woking, a few years later, there was a face who was to become the unknowing leader of a south-west Surrey scene which, finally more constructive than engaging in the mindless vandalism of dreary suburbia, now less inclined to squaddie-baiting in Camberley or, if you really didn't value your life, Aldershot across the border into Hampshire, spawned Graham Parker, The Members and The Jam.
Paul Weller. The Cappuccino Kid. Cappuccino didn't come from monks, it wasn't from the Alex-minded queerism of Campari Boy, one that finally burst out with unashamed androgyny once Bowie had stardusted his own version of "A Clockwork Orange"; it flowed from an estate in Woking, the home of the homilist for the Mods. Cappuccino rode a Vespa.
Somewhere along the way, cappuccino acquired a chic, one removed from the insouciant coolness of an ace face in a mohair suit. Weller himself delved into the pretensions of the cappuccino life. The first outing of the Cappuccino Kid with The Style Council was unintentionally reflective of a wine-bar Thatcherism and was swiftly eschewed in favour of Red Wedge and the acerbic anger that had characterised The Jam. The onward march of cappuccino-ism, however, led to the faux-sophistication of Starbucks and Costa. And has led to the Café Cappuccino.
Puerto Pollensa now boasts a Cappuccino. Four euros, fifty. That's all it costs for a cappuccino at Cappuccino. That's the price for chic nowadays. There are few more appropriate symbols of how Mallorca has changed. What was a coffee-bar phenomenon of a new consumerist age of the 60s and 70s, a time of the first tourists descending en masse in Mallorca in search of cheap beer and spirits rather than a coffee, has now become a motif for the island's coffee-table presentation and presumptions.
Just as the Mods adopted the espresso machine as an accessory to the suits and the Fred Perrys in cultivating an image, so cappuccino is now an accessory for the image-conscious tourist or resident; oh to be seen at a Cappuccino, even if it costs four, fifty for the privilege. And the image extends into its own musical symbolism. Cappuccino has its discs of "cool", a bossa nova style mixed with understated jazz. Stan Getz for the neo-Mods of Mallorca who have been shown the alternative to the greasy spoon and the Grease tribute shows of a rival, greaser fraternity.
I can't think of cappuccino without thinking of Campari Boy and the Cappuccino Kid. Of a bitters and soda and the bitter attacks on the drudgery of suburban life. It should now taste different somehow, a cappuccino drunk under a bright sky, the froth a smooth Mallorcan antidote to both British and coffee bitterness. The music should seem altogether more relaxing. But then Weller's words, when he was winding up The Jam, have the potential to well up and catch in the throat. "The bitterest pill is hard to swallow." Which is not to decry nor to criticise; cappuccino chic is the new vogue. Just to remember the days when cappuccino rode a Vespa.
* Café Cappuccino is at Sis Pins hotel in Puerto Pollensa.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, April 08, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Unidentified man falls from Bellevue balcony
A man described as foreign, without papers and not known to the hotel, fell from a second floor balcony at the Bellevue hotel complex in Puerto Alcúdia this morning at just after 3am. He was taken to Inca hospital and was said to be suffering only slight injuries.
MALLORCA TODAY - Temperatures six degrees higher than normal
Warm air from Africa has been pushing temperatures up to some six degrees higher than would normally be the case in early April. The highest temperatures have been in Palma (25.4 C registered at the university) and in Sa Pobla (25.2 C). Coastal temperatures, as is usual, have been generally a few degrees lower.
MALLORCA TODAY - Arrests in operation against cocaine network
Eleven people, the majority of them Colombian, have been detained in a police operation against cocaine distribution. Homes in Palma, Inca and Mancor de la Vall were raided as part of the operation. The centre of the sales of the cocaine appears to have been Inca.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 8 April 2011
Here we go again. Just like yesterday. Clear blue sky. Saturday still forecast to be warm and sunny, but an increasing possibility of rain on Sunday. Temperatures as of 09.00: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 10.9 C; Pollensa, 13.9 C; Puerto Pollensa, 14.8 C.
And it has been a really warm day. Less so in Puerto Pollensa where the high this afternoon was 22.5 C, but in Alcúdia/Playa de Muro and Pollensa, where the highs have topped 25 C.
And it has been a really warm day. Less so in Puerto Pollensa where the high this afternoon was 22.5 C, but in Alcúdia/Playa de Muro and Pollensa, where the highs have topped 25 C.
Look Back In Anger: Pedro Iriondo
The Fomento del Turismo, the Mallorca Tourism Board, is not a public, governmental agency. It is a private organisation. Its "junta", its own board, comprises directors of Grupotel, MAC, Sol Melia and Iberostar hotels as well as representatives of a bank (Banca March), business associations and others. The Fomento is proud of its "independence"; it is one of its values, along with, inter alia, "altruism and plurality". These words, respectively, mean concern for the welfare of others and a system of society which respects and includes minorities. They are fine, noble words. But they are just words.
The president of the Fomento, Pedro Iriondo, has been having some words of his own. They are extraordinary. They may be an expression of the independence that the Fomento holds so dear, but they do not accord with its other values. His attack on low-cost airlines, on the passengers they bring and on workers in hotels is anything but altruistic or pluralistic. It is small-minded and borders on the xenophobic. It is insular. No man is an island, and that includes Sr. Iriondo. No island is any longer an island in a global environment, and that includes Mallorca. Try telling Sr. Iriondo this.
At a forum organised by the university's school of tourism, Sr. Iriondo launched into both RyanAir and easyJet, accusing them of not bringing "quality" tourists. He lambasted the airlines' passengers, the British, who stay in unregulated apartments and in villas that they rent from other Britons. He attacked waiters and other workers who are not from Mallorca and who therefore cannot know Mallorca and cannot adequately "sell" Mallorca because they don't have a feeling for the island.
He went on to criticise the lack of business tourists from Britain, those who might attend conferences (an area of hoped-for development in Mallorca), because they don't want to fly with the low-cost airlines. He laid into the internet and into an image of Playa de Palma that is one of card-tricksters, Romanians, prostitutes and "masseurs".
If the Fomento were a public body, Sr. Iriondo would be sacked. As the head of a private body which features hotel groups for whom, one might presume, foreign waiters work, quite what other members of the junta make of his remarks, who can tell. Independence and an independent voice are fine, but not when they fly around in all directions, attacking anyone and anything in sight. EasyJet and RyanAir may attract all manner of criticisms, but they are also big business when it comes to Mallorca. One feels pretty confident in saying that Sr. Iriondo's predecessor, the director-general in Spain and Portugal of Air Berlin, Alvaro Middelmann, would never have uttered the same words.
When Sr. Iriondo rose to the presidency of the Fomento, he looked back at a time in Mallorca when everything was rosy, there were parties on the beach and everyone was happy. During his contribution to the forum, he looked back again, to his time when he started in tourism and when all waiters and other workers were Mallorcan and bought into an "I love tourists" philosophy. By looking back, not once, but twice, he has condemned himself. He is of the past.
He has looked back with a current-day anger to a time when everyone may allegedly have been happy, but they were also poorly paid (still are, many of them), lived under a dictatorship, were pretty much told what to do and what to think and did not have the greater opportunities that they now enjoy. Sr. Iriondo will know, but hasn't said this, that the tourists who came to Mallorca did so partly because the island was dirt cheap. His insistence on referring to "quality" tourists, and he is not alone in this, can be interpreted as a shocking insult.
Those not afforded the quality status are branded with something else. Yet, he ignores the fact that Mallorca was largely built on an economy-class tourism. Its tourism history is one of the mass, and the mass does not always come with huge wads of cash. It has always been the case. It was in the 1970s and remains so. The difference, back then, was that not having huge wads of cash didn't matter; indeed there weren't always huge wads, among the British, because of foreign-exchange restrictions.
Had Sr. Iriondo moderated his language, had he been less inclined to reminisce, then his words might have been treated with greater sympathy. You can just about understand what he was driving at, if you were being kind, but instead an impression has been given that is no better than one of the bar bigot for whom altruism and plurality are alien concepts.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The president of the Fomento, Pedro Iriondo, has been having some words of his own. They are extraordinary. They may be an expression of the independence that the Fomento holds so dear, but they do not accord with its other values. His attack on low-cost airlines, on the passengers they bring and on workers in hotels is anything but altruistic or pluralistic. It is small-minded and borders on the xenophobic. It is insular. No man is an island, and that includes Sr. Iriondo. No island is any longer an island in a global environment, and that includes Mallorca. Try telling Sr. Iriondo this.
At a forum organised by the university's school of tourism, Sr. Iriondo launched into both RyanAir and easyJet, accusing them of not bringing "quality" tourists. He lambasted the airlines' passengers, the British, who stay in unregulated apartments and in villas that they rent from other Britons. He attacked waiters and other workers who are not from Mallorca and who therefore cannot know Mallorca and cannot adequately "sell" Mallorca because they don't have a feeling for the island.
He went on to criticise the lack of business tourists from Britain, those who might attend conferences (an area of hoped-for development in Mallorca), because they don't want to fly with the low-cost airlines. He laid into the internet and into an image of Playa de Palma that is one of card-tricksters, Romanians, prostitutes and "masseurs".
If the Fomento were a public body, Sr. Iriondo would be sacked. As the head of a private body which features hotel groups for whom, one might presume, foreign waiters work, quite what other members of the junta make of his remarks, who can tell. Independence and an independent voice are fine, but not when they fly around in all directions, attacking anyone and anything in sight. EasyJet and RyanAir may attract all manner of criticisms, but they are also big business when it comes to Mallorca. One feels pretty confident in saying that Sr. Iriondo's predecessor, the director-general in Spain and Portugal of Air Berlin, Alvaro Middelmann, would never have uttered the same words.
When Sr. Iriondo rose to the presidency of the Fomento, he looked back at a time in Mallorca when everything was rosy, there were parties on the beach and everyone was happy. During his contribution to the forum, he looked back again, to his time when he started in tourism and when all waiters and other workers were Mallorcan and bought into an "I love tourists" philosophy. By looking back, not once, but twice, he has condemned himself. He is of the past.
He has looked back with a current-day anger to a time when everyone may allegedly have been happy, but they were also poorly paid (still are, many of them), lived under a dictatorship, were pretty much told what to do and what to think and did not have the greater opportunities that they now enjoy. Sr. Iriondo will know, but hasn't said this, that the tourists who came to Mallorca did so partly because the island was dirt cheap. His insistence on referring to "quality" tourists, and he is not alone in this, can be interpreted as a shocking insult.
Those not afforded the quality status are branded with something else. Yet, he ignores the fact that Mallorca was largely built on an economy-class tourism. Its tourism history is one of the mass, and the mass does not always come with huge wads of cash. It has always been the case. It was in the 1970s and remains so. The difference, back then, was that not having huge wads of cash didn't matter; indeed there weren't always huge wads, among the British, because of foreign-exchange restrictions.
Had Sr. Iriondo moderated his language, had he been less inclined to reminisce, then his words might have been treated with greater sympathy. You can just about understand what he was driving at, if you were being kind, but instead an impression has been given that is no better than one of the bar bigot for whom altruism and plurality are alien concepts.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, April 07, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - John Hirst court date set
John Hirst, the former resident of Calvia who ran a Ponzi scheme and who is charged with conspiracy to defraud and money laundering, is due to appear at Bradford Crown Court on 13 April.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 7 April 2011
And what do you know. Perfect spring morning. A bit of cloud over the sea, but otherwise completely clear and blue sky. Friday and Saturday are forecast to be the same, but some cloud build-up on Sunday with just an outside chance of rain. Temperatures as of 09.00: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 10.1 C; Pollensa, 16.3 C; Puerto Pollensa, 15.2 C.
And a repeat of yesterday, but a bit warmer. Highs, to 19.00, have been 20.6 C (Alcúdia/Playa de Muro), 21.7 C (Pollensa) and 19.8 C (Puerto Pollensa).
And a repeat of yesterday, but a bit warmer. Highs, to 19.00, have been 20.6 C (Alcúdia/Playa de Muro), 21.7 C (Pollensa) and 19.8 C (Puerto Pollensa).
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