The Rubbish Dump Of Europe

On the scale of rubbish ideas, the one by which Europe's rubbish will be shipped into Puerto Alcúdia for incineration at Son Reus in Palma is one of the more rubbish you are likely to come across. This, at any rate, is how the approval by the Council of Mallorca to permit the importing of combustible waste from other countries is being styled and is being styled, moreover, with a rare show of local political unity, Alcúdia's Partido Popular mayor having been on the phone to the environment councillor to tell her to forget the whole idea and politicians from parties to the left having waded in with their own objections.

The first question that came to mind when this was all first being announced was not to do with whether it was right or wrong to bring this rubbish to Mallorca but why on earth it was going to be shipped into Alcúdia. Palma has a ruddy great port that is much closer to Son Reus, so wouldn't it make more sense for the rubbish to be offloaded in Palma? Pere Malondra, leader of PSOE in Alcúdia, has implied that it would cause more of a fuss in Palma because there are that many more people to make a fuss. He may well be right. The feeling is that Alcúdia's being kicked around.

There again, Alcúdia is both an industrial and a passenger port, though there is a legitimate issue as to whether the industrial element should be expanded when Alcúdia already receives gas and coal for the butane plant and the power station and when it is also a port for the export of material (especially wood) for recycling on the mainland and which has a habit of being piled up and becoming an eyesore in August because mainland plants reduce operations on account of holidays, so causing a backlog (so to speak) in the shipping of the woody refuse.

The logistics of transporting the waste aside, the rhetoric has gone into overdrive. Mallorca will be the rubbish dump of Europe. It will be environmental and economic suicide. Less emotional has been Mayor Terrassa's observation that the waste doesn't fit with the tourism image of Alcúdia. Which is true, but equally nor do the rotting old power station (absurdly supposed to be partially preserved as it represents industrial heritage) and the coal trucks that shuttle between the port and the current power station.

As there seems to be no intention to import the waste during the summer, the tourism argument loses some strength. Malondra has asked, though, whether what is wanted is the promotion of tourism to tackle seasonality or the importing of waste. Which is a fair point, or would be if one could be convinced that something was genuinely being done to tackle the absence of tourism out of season.

There are, as is the norm with Mallorca's politicians, some pretty odd things being said about the waste import. María Salom, the president of the Council of Mallorca, has come out with a belter. She has observed that in Germany there are treatment plants which take waste from other countries, as would be the case at Son Reus, and that the Germans who come to Mallorca would know that this is perfectly normal. Erm, yes, María, German tourists and indeed tourists from other countries might know that it is normal to treat waste in their own countries but it doesn't follow that they would consider it normal as a backdrop to their holidays on what the Germans have long insisted on calling the "paradise island".

There is undoubtedly a disconnect between Mallorca, the paradise island, and Mallorca, a place with industry. It does seem incongruous that there should be an enormous and expensive waste-treatment plant on the paradise tourist island, but something has to be done with waste even on a paradise island.

It is the scale of the waste treatment, however, that goes to explain why Mallorca is about to become the recipient of some European rubbish. Tirme, the company which is owned by among others Endesa and which has the concession (a monopoly one) on waste treatment until 2041, has invested vast sums in incineration at Son Reus. This investment has placed its activities under the environmental-watchdog microscope. GOB, for example, has accused Tirme of concentrating on incineration instead of recycling. Friends Of The Earth say that its capacity for incineration exceeds the level of waste that is generated on Mallorca.

María Salom has pointed out that Tirme was given the go-ahead by the previous (non-PP) administration to invest some 300 million euros in new incineration plant, an investment, the environmentalists would argue, that was unnecessary. But having ploughed the investment in, Tirme needs its payback. According to Salom, Tirme has been seeking an increase of 50% in its charges for waste treatment. These charges filter down to the town halls and ultimately to taxpayers. An alternative - the only alternative, says Salom - is the import of waste and payments from other countries which will mean that Tirme doesn't have to impose its increase.

But is Salom entirely accurate in her reference to the previous administration? The person who she says gave final authorisation for work on the new incinerator was Marilena Tugores of Els Verds (the Greens), and she said so in an interview with the Mallorcadiario website on 8 September. Yet Tugores only assumed the role of environment councillor in February 2010. It may have fallen to the Greens to oversee the incinerator coming on-stream (purely because someone had to step in when all politicians from the discredited Unió Mallorquina were booted out of positions), but the Bloc, which includes the Greens, and PSOE's Francina Armengol, former president of the Council of Mallorca, have made it clear that it was the Matas PP government at the fag end of its administration in 2007 which had authorised the incinerator, the investment and the extension of Tirme's contract to 2041.

These contradictory versions only add to the political arguments that the importing of waste is engendering. In Alcúdia, the arguments are primarily to do with tourism, but they go very much wider and raise other questions, such as why did Tirme invest in new incineration facilities if they weren't really necessary.

The new plant is said to be one of the most advanced in Europe and the treatment of the waste will not, says the present environment councillor, Catalina Soler, smell or be dirty. However, ecologists argue that incineration, while it reduces the amount of waste, leaves contaminants that are harmful to humans, animals and vegetation. The Balearics association for licensed environmental scientists believes that the import should not be an option for an island with a "fragile ecosystem".

The import is, therefore, raising once more the whole issue of how Mallorca should deal with waste from whatever source. Tirme has invested in incineration, one imagines, as it believes that it is a cheaper option than recycling, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Tirme is right. Moreover, it removes waste, unlike landfill, and can generate some energy. But environmentalist groups like GOB would maintain that Tirme devotes far too little of its own energies on recycling, which is part of its obligations. By concentrating on incineration and making massive investment that was arguably unnecessary, it has required a means of getting a payback - the import of waste.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Opposition to Europe's rubbish being brought into Alcúdia's port

Unity among political parties, in Alcúdia at least. PSOE, supported by the party's island secretary-general, and the Partido Popular, in the form of mayor Coloma Terrassa, have expressed their opposition to the arrangement whereby rubbish from other European countries will be shipped to Mallorca for incineration at Son Reus and which would involve these consignments being brought into Alcúdia's port rather than into Palma's port.

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Real Mallorca is haemorrhaging fans

Sid Lowe of "The Guardian" once famously (or infamously) said that Real Mallorca had no fans (a joke that the po-faced fans that there are didn't get). It does of course have fans but the number of members has dropped alarmingly, there having been a loss of more than 8,000 members since the 2005-2006 season when there were 18,000 or so.

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 13 September 2012

Forecast was pretty much spot-on, though it was late evening before the rain and storm arrived. Heavy downpours but nothing that unusual, rainfalls of 15 to 20mm, depending on location. Quite blustery and very cloudy but dry at 7.45am with a high of 21C. There is no longer a yellow alert for rain today, though there is one for adverse coastal conditions. An improvement during the day and the forecast for the next few days seems pretty reasonable.

Afternoon update: Some quite heavy showers this morning but sun came out in the afternoon giving an area high of 25.8C. 

The Un-Complementary Sector

Back in February I wrote about the hatchet having been buried in a war between Mallorca's hoteliers and the complementary sector. The two sides agreed to present a united front in making representations to the government prior to the final drafting of the new tourism law. I suggested at the time that though "the hatchet may have been buried, it (could) just as easily be dug up again". And I wasn't wrong.

It was difficult to understand quite what the complementary sector thought that it stood to gain by getting into bed with the hoteliers, other than to believe that by being nice the hoteliers would be nice in return as in, for instance, persuading the government not to allow them (the hoteliers, that is) to be able to introduce activities open to the general public that were the domain of the complementary sector. If it did believe this, then the complementary sector was incredibly stupid.

In February the hoteliers were making conciliatory noises by implying that the introduction of "secondary activities" (discos, restaurants, whatever) should be limited, but they didn't of course attempt to persuade the government to not allow them. So now the complementary offer finds itself having to try and get some limitations, the tourism law having been approved. It's a bit late but not perhaps too late.

The tourism law does still require that some meat is put on some bones. The complementary sector, comprising restaurants, clubs, attractions and travel agencies, is issuing proposals designed to limit some of the law's damage, as it applies to them. Another aspect of the law other than that regarding secondary activities in hotels which exercised the complementary sector back in February is that to do with all-inclusives. The law is quite vague where they are concerned, precise requirements for quality plans that hotels will be required to draw up not having yet been made clear.

The complementary sector knows that it has to live with all-inclusives but its hope is that requirements of the quality plans will be that tough that some hotels might be forced to abandon the all-inclusive offer. It's a hope but whether it will be anything more than a hope is another matter.

There is a need for such quality plans and for effective ones that hotels are made to implement. In my recent article "Holiday Let Hysteria" I spoke about a generally high standard of hotel stock in Mallorca. It is generally high but there are examples of where it isn't. The hoteliers federation argument against holiday lets falls down, and not for the first time, when it insists that private accommodation can be poor and so present a bad image of Mallorca while at the same time it neglects the examples of poor hotels and their bad image. Some are all-inclusive ghettoes, and we all know which they are. If the hoteliers federation doesn't, then I can help out by pointing its president in the direction of forums and social media which will inform her.

This lack of quality covers sub-standard accommodation, inadequate service provision, repetitious meals, low-grade drinks, lengthy queues. It is a lack of quality that has been known about for years, but what has been a typical government reaction? Under the last government, the then tourism minister Joana Barceló said that inspections had not revealed a lack of quality. God knows what the inspectors were doing or where they were going then.

Such governmental complacency is not entirely unexpected. Genuinely tough quality standards could result in Mallorca's all-inclusive stock being slashed significantly. Tour operators do not benefit from a lack of quality, but they still manage to sell holidays to all-inclusives which fall below standard, and neither they nor the government have a wish to see some hotels removed from the brochures. There are other things to think of such as selling seats on airlines and generating traffic through the airport.

The current government is making much of the new law's provisions for modernising obsolete hotel stock and for overall quality enhancements, but would it really be so insistent on quality for some all-inclusives that might mean they are withdrawn from brochures? I very much doubt it, just as I very much doubt that its inspections would be as rigorous as those it intends to make in order to stamp out illegal holiday accommodation.

The complementary offer might hope that the government will be tough but the complementary sector should look at itself. Only now is it really attempting to get its voice heard after years of ineffective lobbying and after its error in February. There was never any chance of the hatchet having been buried.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Millions bring Barcelona to a standstill in independence protest

Two million say the organisers. 1.5 million say the Mossos police. 600,000 say the National Police. Choose which one, but whichever it is, there were an awful lot of people who took to the streets of Barcelona yesterday to call for Catalonian independence.

See more: El Mundo

MALLORCA TODAY - Alcúdia's financial situation shown on town hall website

Alcúdia town hall, with a surplus of 11 million euros, has set out an analysis of its financial situation since 2007 on the municipality's website (http://www.alcudia.net), a development that is quite unusual in it providing some transparency as to town hall financing.

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 12 September 2012

24 the area high at 7.45, which is on the warm side, some mist early on but due to be fine until later when, and to reiterate yesterday's afternoon update, a yellow alert for rain is due to kick in, average rainfalls being predicted of between 5 and 10 mm. Thursday's forecast also has a yellow alert for rain with a maximum rainfall up to 20 mm.

Afternoon update: 27.7 the high today. Good amounts of sun all day but cloud increasing this afternoon. Rain hasn't appeared yet (7pm) but is still due, and tomorrow is looking distinctly ropey. 

Adios, Mariano

Mariano Rajoy would never stand for a question about cocktails. He would never place himself in a position of potential lampooning by a Paxman. Rajoy is stiff, aloof, inaccessible and has taken the Iain Duncan Smith "quiet man" principle to a faux-hardman extreme. The deaf, dumb and blind PM sure plays a mean (but ineffectual) financial hardball. And when, on the rare occasion that he does venture before the people, as he did the other evening for his first television interview as prime minister (his first, note), he attempts to slap the hardball with all the authority, nervelessness and confidence that comes from using a particularly soggy piece of old rag.

The European Central Bank has announced its plan to buy up debt of virtual junk status from hard-pressed economies such as the Spanish in return for complying with a list of demands. Rajoy said that if Spain were to need a rescue (the subjunctive is pretty much irrelevant), he would not accede to conditions imposed from outside, i.e. those of the ECB and/or IMF.

Hardball? Not in the slightest. It was a statement for public consumption from a prime minister who lacks even the capacity for softball. Not if but when a rescue is needed, the terms and conditions will apply, and Rajoy knows it. The other night he dug his political grave by refusing to accept these conditions with a performance of hesitation that was without any persuasiveness. He is a lousy communicator and a lousy leadership figure.

Some time ago I was told that Rajoy believes he may not be prime minister much beyond the end of the year. I can't vouch for the veracity of this but it wouldn't surprise me if it were true, and if, more likely when, the ECB has to perform its bailout with all the Ts & Cs attached, then Rajoy would have to bail out. His position would be untenable.

Supportive noises from Frau Merkel, who has said she has confidence in the Rajoy government's cuts, are to be expected. Merkel needs to bolster Rajoy in order to try and avoid instability that might come were he to be cast aside. But Rajoy has always appeared to be a kind of post-Mourinho Avram Grant figure, a dead man walking, installed as a front man but also as a fall guy. He inspires little confidence, whatever Frau Merkel might say for spin purposes, and never has done. It's the lads in the PP dressing-room who seem to determine tactics; the gaffer is out on a limb having lost a dressing-room that he has never been truly in charge of.

One of the more extraordinary challenges to Rajoy from within his own party has come from Extremadura where the region's Partido Popular president has said that the 21% rate of IVA will not be applied and that a 13% rate will be instead. If this is evidence of gathering implosion within PP ranks, then having to bow to ECB demands could prove terminal, but one wonders if pre-emptive action might be taken with Rajoy a willing participant if he concedes that he is out of his depth.

A constructive vote of no confidence in Congress that is accompanied with the nomination of a candidate as a prime ministerial successor and so a continuation of government without resort to an election is technically possible. I'm not saying this will happen, just that it might or could, as Rajoy's performance on Spanish television will have done little to reassure nervous PP grandees, despite his attempt at hardball.

Where Rajoy succeeds in being a man of the people, or rather being like the people, is in conveying an impression of demoralisation, so capturing a national mood and one analysed in a remarkable article in "El País" which sought comparisons with the great loss of Spanish self-esteem when Cuba was lost in the 1898 war with the United States.

A bailout would be the final straw in this collective loss of esteem. One needs to appreciate the degree to which Spain, once something of a power, has struggled for years to regain some of this esteem only to now see it potentially blown apart by the humiliation that a bailout would represent. This is why Rajoy needs to be seen to be playing hardball. But he is not the man for the task as he suffers himself from the national affliction, forced into virtual silence and introspection, incapable of inspiring. Someone else is needed. A man (or woman) of the people. The question is who.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 11 September 2012

A 21.6 and humid high at 7.45am. A fair amount of light cloud but plenty of sun today with temperatures up to 30 or over. The rain for Thursday is looking more likely now but after that, back to decent, sunny weather.

Afternoon update: A high of just over 30 degrees, the forecast for tomorrow now includes a risk of rain, a yellow alert having been issued and average rainfalls being predicted of between 5 and 10 mm. Thursday's forecast also has a yellow alert for rain with a maximum rainfall up to 20 mm. The rain tomorrow, assuming it arrives, is likely to be in the evening, the rest of the day, at the moment, looking reasonable. 

One Hundred Years Of Multitude

The population of Mallorca has grown by 240% over the last 100 years. Such growth is not in the least bit surprising but what requires some explanation is why certain towns have grown while others have shrunk and so why towns that were more populous in 1910 are now less so.

The town that has experienced the greatest percentage increase is not Palma, as you might think, but Calvià. In 1910 its population was under 3,000; it is now over 50,000, making it the largest town in Mallorca after Palma. Calvia's growth is easy to explain - tourism and a related increase in the residential population. But this growth has been far from smooth; Calvià's boom has occurred over the past 30 years, 41,000 people added to a 1979 population of just over 11,000.

This growth can also be explained by the fact that Calvià is a satellite of Palma, as also are Marratxí and Llucmajor. While the rise in population in the latter is also due to tourism, Marratxí's 700% rise over 100 years is almost solely the result of the spread of the island's southern conurbation. The two other main towns on the island - Inca and Manacor - have experienced rises in population of similar degree, 260% and 230% respectively. Of the two, Inca's is more dramatic. Manacor has coastal tourism that Inca doesn't. Industry, and especially the leather industry, has made Inca the fifth largest town after Palma.

Industrial concentration and therefore migration and better infrastructure probably explain why some towns in Mallorca's interior have suffered from de-population since 1910; Sineu and Petra have declined, along with Selva and Llubí which are close to Inca.

Behind Calvià and Marratxí in terms of percentage growth comes Alcúdia. A population of slightly less than 3,000 in 1910 is now just under 20,000, and Alcúdia offers an interesting case example of how growth was engineered, both tourist and residential.

Alcúdia is the largest of the small towns in Mallorca, by which is meant that its population is less than 20,000, the threshold for towns to be reclassified in terms of municipal responsibilities and size of town hall administrations. Its growth has different explanations. Before mass tourism, it was Alcúdia, with its port potential, that was selected as the site for north-coast industrialisation; the original power station and the gas factory being located close to the port.

The power station was to prove important to what then occurred in the engineering of the purpose-built tourism and residential centre that created the sprawl away from the port area and along the coast. Ash from the power station was used in the reclamation of a huge part of Albufera and from which rose the Bellevue and Magic areas in the early 1970s.

Contrast this with neighbouring Pollensa. It was over twice the size of Alcúdia in 1910 but now has 3,000 fewer inhabitants. There was no similar tourism engineering, or none that was on the same scale as Alcúdia's. Contrast Alcúdia also with another neighbour, Muro. It was larger than Alcúdia in 1910 but its population today is only 2,350 greater than 100 years ago (just under 7,000). Unlike Alcúdia, there was no base from which to grow tourism and residential real estate. Playa de Muro didn't properly exist until the 1960s and when it came into existence there was crucially comparatively little reclamation of Albufera across the municipal boundary with Alcúdia.

Another town with an intriguing population history is Sóller. In 1910 it was the sixth largest town overall. It is still the eleventh largest but its population growth of 64% is way down on the total growth. Sóller is in a way a case of a place that peaked early. It grew in the nineteenth century on the back of its port and the export of oranges and olives and then again in the early twentieth century, partly thanks to the train tackling its isolation. But that isolation has never truly been overcome.

Then there are the interior towns that have experienced de-population. Industrial concentration elsewhere is one reason, but there are others: Sineu's population was slashed when the original rail line that had served the town was closed in the 1970s; Petra suffered from a failure to develop a wine industry; Llubí lost people due to emigration to the US.

Except for industrial towns such as Inca and towns with heavy tourism dependence, Mallorca's population has been surprisingly stable over the past one hundred years, decline in some towns compensated by modest growth in others. But the single most important reason for the overall population growth can be attributed to one place - Palma. Of an increase a touch over 600,000 people since 1910 to a Mallorca total today of 873,000, Palma is responsible for over half of it.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa beach services co-ordinator contract denounced

Nothing runs smoothly with the management of Pollensa's beaches. The Alternativa per Pollença has now complained about the contract for the co-ordinator of services (to ensure low risk through safety and emergency procedures), the same person having been contracted for seven years which apparently is a breach of how such contracts should be awarded (presumably because of a need for periodic tender processes). The Alternativa, which does lend its voting support to the Partido Popular-La Lliga coalition because the coalition rules the town hall in minority, abstained against the most recent confirmation of this contract (on 21 August), and insists that the situation cannot be allowed to persist next year.

MALLORCA TODAY - More criticism of illegal beach selling in Muro

The Convergència has added its voice to those of others who have complained about the high levels of illegal beach selling on the beaches of Playa de Muro. Mayor Fornés maintains that the situation hasn't changed from previous years and that Muro is a town hall that does much to effect detentions of those involved in illegal selling.

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 10 September 2012

Just like yesterday. Between 18 and 21 locally at 8am. Staying up around the 30 mark today, but likely to fall a bit later in the week. Otherwise no obvious change to the pattern of sun with some hazy cloud.

Afternoon update: Hotter today, a local high of 31.3C. A bit of a change has appeared for later in the week, rain looking likely on Thursday.

Viva Eurovegas!

Sheldon Adelson is an extraordinarily wealthy man. Self-made, "Forbes" magazine ranked him as the sixteenth richest person in the world in 2011. Chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, Spain may finally be on the point of receiving some of his colossal wealth.

Adelson is the man behind Eurovegas. Originally intended to be located in Catalonia near to Barcelona, the location has shifted. Madrid is now likely to be the beneficiary of a project that would create a tourist and gambling resort in the style of Las Vegas. Barcelona has been ruled out because plans for enormous skyscrapers would have posed a safety risk, given that the site would have been close to El Prat airport. Madrid, it would seem, doesn't pose such a risk.

The figures for Eurovegas are impressive. It would comprise six casinos, twelve tourist complexes each with up to 3,000 hotel places, restaurants, museums, convention centres, attractions and no doubt other things. Its cost would be in the region of 17,000 million euros. It would create 260,000 jobs and would, when completely finished, attract 11 million tourists annually.

Adelson has yet to finally decide whether to go ahead, but Eurovegas is becoming more of a probability, its first phase to be completed by 2016 and the whole project to be finished by 2022. If the numbers stack up, you would think that politicians would be lining up to bite his hand off.

There are plenty of people of course who would argue with the figures. What they can't argue with is that Las Vegas Sands has been extremely successful in developing similar resorts in Las Vegas itself and also in Macao and Singapore. Opponents might argue that Mr. Adelson is inflating the figures, but the investment required would not seem to be a deterrent given investment elsewhere, while returns have been such that the Macao project realised a payback in its first year of operation. This is a serious businessman, whatever people might think of him.

It is what people think of him that might yet scupper Eurovegas. Adelson hasn't exactly escaped the attention of courts, including the Nevada Supreme Court, but he has fought allegations to the extent that the "Daily Mail" was forced to pay out four million pounds in damages for libel. Accusations that were levelled by "The Mail" have kind of been echoed in Spain. A judge, José Manuel Gómez Benítez, who is a senior figure with the General Council of the Judiciary, has said that Eurovegas would be a "source of corruption and mafia-style activities" and that it would be "difficult to control" (I quote from a report from the EFE news agency of 12 July this year.) Benítez's position was in contrast to that of the director of Catalonia's anti-fraud office who praised the Eurovegas project, not that this seems to have done much good as Barcelona has been given the boot.

Even without the controversies that have attached themselves to Mr. Adelson, Eurovegas has always been and will remain a highly controversial project. It is one, for example, that places the Partido Popular up against the church (and Madrid is run by the PP with former prime minister Aznar's wife in charge). The church charity Caritas has been one of the most outspoken critics of the probably doomed Gran Scala project near Zaragoza. Yet for all that the church might disagree with gambling, the Spanish are one of the most gambling obsessed people in Europe, largely, one presumes, because of the vast amounts that are spent on lotteries.

But Eurovegas would be less a project for Spanish visitors than it would be for tourists from overseas: from European countries, from Russia (which might just set some alarm bells going) as well possibly from the Middle East and even China given that Chinese tourism to Spain is expected to increase significantly. And tourism from the US couldn't presumably also be ruled out.

The project would clearly stand or fall on its ability to generate the number of visitors being spoken about, but who's to say that it wouldn't. One doesn't know how the annual eleven million is arrived at, but it would be stupid to believe that an operation as successful as Las Vegas Sands doesn't have a sound idea as to the numbers.

There's a long way to go yet for Eurovegas and it will be the subject of intense debate, but one thing it has going for it is that in Madrid it probably won't be faced with a xenophobic attitude to foreign investment. Imagine what would happen in Mallorca, where the garlic and crosses would be brandished at the very mention of such a project.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - At least 50 deliberate fires on the Balearics this summer

The figure could rise as the causes of some fires are still being investigated, but the number of cases of known deliberate fires on the Balearics between May and August is at least 50 out of a total of 129, the great majority of them on Mallorca. The current number up to the end of August makes 2012 the worst year for fires since 2004.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Politicians join swim in protest at military base access

The swim to the limit to civilian access in front of Puerto Pollensa's military base, arranged as a means of protest against the base being off-limits to the public, went ahead yesterday afternoon. Some 50 people took part, including local opposition politicians.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 9 September 2012

19 degrees at 8am on another hazy, slightly misty morn. The weather seems stuck for the time being, producing days with plenty of hazy sun, quite hot in the upper 20s but the heat rather clammy thanks to the haze.

Afternoon update: A repeat of yesterday. Highs just under 30 degrees, haze over the sun but still plenty of sun even if the UV level has been down. 

Los Kinks: Mallorca and sixties pop

Francesc Vicens can't be accused of not being eclectic in his musical interests. Two years ago, the views of this Mallorcan musicologist were being widely sought when the Sibil·la chant was placed on UNESCO's list of practices which add to the "intangible cultural heritage of humanity". He has now produced a book on a subject far removed from the folk and religious heritage of the Sibil·la. Entitled "Paradise of Love", it deals with pop music and culture in the Mallorca of the sixties.

The book's subtitle is "L'Illa imaginada". From this, I take it that the book is in Catalan. It sounds as if consideration should be given to publishing it in English as well. Sixties pop groups from Mallorca would be unfamiliar to almost anyone who wasn't Mallorcan, but the groups themselves are only as important as the cultural context of the growth of tourism, the influence of pop culture from the UK and the US and the social climate of Mallorca under Franco. As such, it appears to be as much a social history as it is a musical one. Its story deserves to be told more widely.

Spanish pop music in the sixties, as far as a British audience was concerned, was of little consequence. There may have been others but the only hit song that comes to mind is Los Bravos' "Black Is Black". Los Bravos weren't completely Spanish in that the singer, Michael Kogel, was German, but Los Bravos had a connection with Mallorca. It was at the Jaima nightclub in Cala Mayor that Kogel met members of a group called Los Sonor from Madrid. They joined forces and eventually changed their name to Los Bravos.

Otherwise, Spanish popular music meant that from Latin America and the US. "Guantanamera" was a hit in 1966 for the American group The Sandpipers whose version retained some Spanish lyrics from a song that was originally Cuban; the song's title means, by the way, woman from Guantánamo, a place that has since acquired an altogether different reputation. There was Herb Alpert, who was American, and his "Spanish Flea" and very little else.

Mallorcan pop groups of the time that Vicens has chronicled will mean very little, but the names of the groups of that era certainly reflected the era: Los Bohemios; Los Millionarios, who apparently had a big hit with "Jardín de Rosas", a cover of Lynn Anderson's "Rose Garden"; Los Geminis who did their own take on Tommy James & The Shondells' "Mony, Mony"; Los Telstars who were part of Beatlemania in a Mallorcan style, though they dared to venture into Troggs territory by recording "A Girl Like You". There was also a duo, Juan and Junior; Juan was from Palma and Junior was from The Philippines and they were about as big as it got in Mallorca in those days. They were for a time part of Los Brincos who recorded a song called "El Pasaporte" which was apparently critical of Franco.

I've listened to a not terribly good quality recording of "El Pasaporte" (its English version) and it wasn't bad, though it's difficult to make the lyrics out, and I have to thank, as I also do for names of artists listed above, a remarkable resource at http://66spanishgarage.blogspot.com.es for making it available. I urge you to visit this website as it is full of absolute gems.

Being critical of Franco wasn't the best career move a pop group or anyone could make in the 1960s, but the fact that there may have been some criticism, albeit almost subliminal, does indicate the way in which the sixties brought about social change in Mallorca, and especially in Mallorca and the Costas because of tourism. Allied to nudges from the US for more liberalism in return for all the aid that was coming Franco's way, tourism plus pop culture began to erode Francoism. Yet, as Vicens appears to point out in his book, protest wasn't a facet of this new pop culture. It may not have been openly expressed in the music, but it surely played its part in altering society, given that protest had moved into the pop mainstream and away from its folk roots of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and others.

Occasionally, you stumble across an item in the local press that pulls you up and makes you think: "now that's really interesting". So it was with the piece about Vicens' book in "Ultima Hora", replete with a poster for The Kinks (and not Los Kinks) at Palma's bullring on 17 July 1966. The combination of the sixties (with all the baggage the sixties imply), tourism, a society in change, music and pop culture is a heady and vibrant mix. I do hope a way is found to publish this book in English.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Pop music in Mallorca in the sixties

Seemingly in Catalan, a new book entitled "Paradise of Love or the Imagined Island" sounds interesting nevertheless, as it looks at the influence of sixties music and culture in Mallorca, making observations about the way in which this culture was assimilated within a society still under dictatorship. Fascinating. Shame it's not in English.

See more: Ultima Hora