Further to the unanimous decision by Alcúdia town hall to reject provisions of the Balearics water resources plan ("Plan Hidrológico), the town hall has made clear to the local environment ministry that it makes no sense to classify areas along the Via Corneli Atic and Avenida Tucan as falling under this plan, as much of these areas is already built on. The ministry is to allow a technical analysis to show that these areas are indeed not wetlands.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Saturday, June 15, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 15 June 2013
No Frills Excursions
Morning high (8.45am): 22.5C
Forecast high: 28C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): Southeast 3; 4 at intervals.
Another glorious morning and another very warm day. The middle of next week is likely to see a slight cooling of temperatures and there may just be the risk of the odd drop of rain.
Evening update (21.00): A high of 34.5C inland and highs of over 31C on the coast. Alerts out for high temperatures over the next couple of days; heatwave time.
Fascist Versus Communist: Spain's football past
UEFA's recent decision to allow Gibraltar to take part in its European Championship will require a touch of manipulation of the balls when they are placed in the hat in order to determine qualifying groups. Gibraltar and Spain will be kept apart. It is a political necessity and a diplomatic manoeuvre designed to avoid any embarrassment for the Spanish. If there was no manipulation and were Spain to find themselves in the same group as Gibraltar, they might feel obliged to withdraw from the competition. They probably wouldn't because, despite Spain's ongoing claims on Gibraltar, these are different political times. Very different to what they were like when the original championship, the European Nations Cup, started in the 1960s.
Politics and political tensions were a big factor back then. UEFA, for all its diplomacy now, didn't take them into account. You were drawn against whoever you were drawn, even if you happened to be at war with your opponents. In 1964, Greece and Albania found themselves in just this position. They couldn't play each other and so they both withdrew. Four years earlier, there had been a more spectacular withdrawal from the first ever Nations Cup. Spain's.
The quarter-finals, which were then two-legged home-and-away ties, were meant to have featured Spain versus the Soviet Union. You can probably imagine that this posed a slight problem. Not for the Soviets, but for the Spanish, and the Spanish regime under Franco in particular. There was no way that Franco was letting the Spanish side travel and there was even less of a way that he was going to allow the Soviets to enter Spain. The result? Without even kicking a ball, the Soviets qualified for the four-team finals in France.
The Soviet Union went on to win the inaugural Nations Cup, but had they played Spain in the quarter-finals, it is quite possible that they would never have made it to France. Spain had been favourites to beat the Soviets. It is also possible, therefore, that not only would Spain have won that first tournament but that Spain would have staged those finals. Back then, the decision as to where the finals were to be held was taken once the four finalists were known. It could have been France, it could have been Spain. It couldn't have been Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia. Politics did intervene when it came to host-nation choice.
And this was probably as well. In 1964, a similar Spain-Soviet Union issue arose. The two sides had qualified for the finals along with Denmark and Hungary. On the basis that UEFA would not stage the finals in a Communist country, the choice as to host nation was between Denmark and Spain. It wasn't much of contest. We will never know whether Spain would have played, had UEFA done the unthinkable and chosen the Soviet Union, who were after all the champions, but perhaps Franco had lightened up a tad by then. The Soviets were allowed into Spain, though more than it having been a case of having become more tolerant, Franco would have known that it would not have reflected well on Spain if he had refused entry to the Soviets. And even more likely, if he had refused them entry, Spain would have been kicked out of the tournament.
The two sides were kept apart in the semi-finals, both played on 17 June 1964. Had this been by chance or had it been deliberate? Either way, there was always the strong possibility of the two reaching the final, which is what happened, though it very nearly didn't. Spain only overcame Hungary in extra time.
And so to the final on 21 June. Fascist versus Communist. Nationalist Spain versus the supporters of the old Republican Spain. In front of General Franco and 80,000 fans (or perhaps 120,000) in Madrid's Bernabéu Stadium, there was a recipe for a good old footballing kick-fest in the finest traditions of ill-tempered matches of the time. If it was a kick-fest, then it was the Soviets who were to blame. At least, this was how the Spanish media saw it. In the "Majorca Daily Bulletin" for 23 June, there was a match report. It dealt almost exclusively with what the Spanish press had to say about the referee, England's Arthur Holland, and his apparent leniency towards and favouring of the Soviets. Despite this, Spain won.
Perhaps because it was the low-key European Nations Cup, the victory didn't create quite the stir that England's was to at the World Cup two years later. The win didn't fade from the memory though. For 44 years, Spain were dogged with the tag of the great underachievers. 2008 changed all that.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, June 14, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - New agreement on Pollensa town hall government make-up
The five Partido Popular councillors at Pollensa town hall will now officially be joined by three councillors from the Convergència who are now part of the merged El Pi party, agreement having been struck between the PP and El Pi. This will, though, still mean that there is a minority administration at the town hall, though it should also mean that there is greater stability.
See more: Ultima Hora
See more: Ultima Hora
MALLORCA TODAY - Cyclists and horse riders will need permission to use Lluc road
Ever more on the arguments over access to the old road between Pollensa and Lluc. This time it concerns cyclists and horse riders. Groups of cyclists which exceed twenty and of horses that are more than fifteen will need to gain permission from the Council of Mallorca in order to use the old road, this being a stipulation in a draft to regulate use of the road.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
MALLORCA TODAY - Ryanair charges to take ensaïmadas on board
Ryanair is to charge passengers at Palam airport who take on as hand luggage ensaïmadas which exceed the maximum permissible dimensions (55x40x20). The cost will be eight euros. It is a common to see passengers taking ensaïmadas onto planes, as they are typical gifts for friends and family on the mainland. There is a fear that the move could have a negative effect on ensaïmada production and retailing.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
MALLORCA TODAY - Alleged Muslim radical arrested in Alcúdia
A German citizen of Tunisian origin has been arrested in Alcúdia, having made threats to "kill all Spaniards" and having become increasingly aggressive as to his alleged intentions over the past week. The Guardia Civil took away various items from the man's residence, including a sword.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 14 June 2013
No Frills Excursions
Morning high (6.45am): 19C
Forecast high: 27C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): Northeast 2 to 3 increasing to 3 to 4 during the middle of the day and easing Southeast and South 2 to 3 by the evening.
A still morning with clear skies. It will be hot again, the forecast high probably on the conservative side. The weekend's weather - remaining the same.
Evening update (21.00): Another rocking day, an inland high of 31.9C and coastal of 30.3C.
Through A Mallorcan Prism Darkly
Ingmar Bergman's "Through A Glass Darkly" dealt with the theme of searching for the truth and certainties, a theme and title that had been borrowed from "1 Corinthians Chapter 13". The film focused on four characters, each of them located on the same island. The title is ambiguous, just as the line from Corinthians is ambiguous and has been translated as mirror rather than glass. Further ambiguity arises because, if you look through a glass, you can see the other side, but you can't look through a mirror. The truth is staring back at you.
If you try to look through a prism, the truth of what you are seeing is refracted and distorted. It might exist somewhere, but the prism creates uncertainties. You can look through a glass clearly but you can only look through a prism darkly, as there is no clarity.
Prisms conceal truths, but the whole world is waiting to discover what these truths might be. We will never know. That is the nature of prisms, as light is broken up. It cannot be put back together.
To draw a comparison with the Prism spy programme and what has allegedly been happening in Mallorca is laughable in its scale and in its context, but if there are any regrettable truths, then it still ranks as scandalous.
Like Bergman's film, there is an island and there are four main characters. As in "Through A Glass Darkly" they mirror each other in their quests for truths and certainties. Two of them are anti-corruption prosecutors, one is a prosecutor of drugs traffickers and organised criminals, the fourth character is a judge: Judge José Castro, pursuer of Matas, pursuer of Urdangarin, the searcher after truth.
The National Police advised these four characters on several occasions that they were being investigated by private detectives. And to these four main characters can be added those in a sub-plot, two or perhaps three socialist parliamentary deputies in the Balearics. The allegation goes that in 2010 they were being spied on by private detectives, ones who had been engaged by the Partido Popular. In fact, it isn't an allegation. Miguel Ramis, spokesperson for the PP, having first denied that socialist (i.e. PSOE) deputies were being investigated, has now admitted that his party took private detectives on in order to check on whether public funds had been used by these deputies for a trip to Andalusia.
PSOE want to know who authorised the hiring of these detectives. Was it, therefore, the now president of the Balearics? PSOE have described this spying as "grave mafioso practice", which is something of an exaggeration, but they have a right to know who ordered the spying.
Investigating some members of the opposition might not sound like much of a potential scandal, but the main plot, that involving Judge Castro and the prosecutors, is a very much more serious matter. Ramis has flatly denied that the PP had any involvement in this. No one seems to know who was behind it, or if they do, they are keeping quiet.
If you go back to the first three months of 2010, a number of significant things occurred. February was the month of the long knives when barely a day passed without news emerging of corruption that had engulfed the former Unió Mallorquina party. At the start of March, José Ramón Bauzá was elected leader of the islands' PP and at the end of the month, former PP president Jaume Matas made his first appearance before Judge Castro on corruption allegations. Unrelated these may have been, but they were the background to a view being expressed from PP circles that the party and the UM were victims of some sort of politically inspired plot. PSOE were still in power then, but when they lost the 2011 election, the PP went fishing for any evidence of PSOE wrongdoing. Tit for tat. Or this was how it seemed.
Now, with the revelations about the private detectives, it would appear that the fishing expeditions had started earlier. They, as I say, are relatively minor, but the question is whether they were part of something much bigger. Which leads us to the four main characters, of whom Castro is the best known. Someone was looking for evidence with which to discredit him and the prosecutors. To potentially influence or distort, therefore, the search for the truth.
Through a glass transparently. Through a spyglass opaquely. Through a prism darkly. Which one is it? What do you see in the mirror, Miguel?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
If you try to look through a prism, the truth of what you are seeing is refracted and distorted. It might exist somewhere, but the prism creates uncertainties. You can look through a glass clearly but you can only look through a prism darkly, as there is no clarity.
Prisms conceal truths, but the whole world is waiting to discover what these truths might be. We will never know. That is the nature of prisms, as light is broken up. It cannot be put back together.
To draw a comparison with the Prism spy programme and what has allegedly been happening in Mallorca is laughable in its scale and in its context, but if there are any regrettable truths, then it still ranks as scandalous.
Like Bergman's film, there is an island and there are four main characters. As in "Through A Glass Darkly" they mirror each other in their quests for truths and certainties. Two of them are anti-corruption prosecutors, one is a prosecutor of drugs traffickers and organised criminals, the fourth character is a judge: Judge José Castro, pursuer of Matas, pursuer of Urdangarin, the searcher after truth.
The National Police advised these four characters on several occasions that they were being investigated by private detectives. And to these four main characters can be added those in a sub-plot, two or perhaps three socialist parliamentary deputies in the Balearics. The allegation goes that in 2010 they were being spied on by private detectives, ones who had been engaged by the Partido Popular. In fact, it isn't an allegation. Miguel Ramis, spokesperson for the PP, having first denied that socialist (i.e. PSOE) deputies were being investigated, has now admitted that his party took private detectives on in order to check on whether public funds had been used by these deputies for a trip to Andalusia.
PSOE want to know who authorised the hiring of these detectives. Was it, therefore, the now president of the Balearics? PSOE have described this spying as "grave mafioso practice", which is something of an exaggeration, but they have a right to know who ordered the spying.
Investigating some members of the opposition might not sound like much of a potential scandal, but the main plot, that involving Judge Castro and the prosecutors, is a very much more serious matter. Ramis has flatly denied that the PP had any involvement in this. No one seems to know who was behind it, or if they do, they are keeping quiet.
If you go back to the first three months of 2010, a number of significant things occurred. February was the month of the long knives when barely a day passed without news emerging of corruption that had engulfed the former Unió Mallorquina party. At the start of March, José Ramón Bauzá was elected leader of the islands' PP and at the end of the month, former PP president Jaume Matas made his first appearance before Judge Castro on corruption allegations. Unrelated these may have been, but they were the background to a view being expressed from PP circles that the party and the UM were victims of some sort of politically inspired plot. PSOE were still in power then, but when they lost the 2011 election, the PP went fishing for any evidence of PSOE wrongdoing. Tit for tat. Or this was how it seemed.
Now, with the revelations about the private detectives, it would appear that the fishing expeditions had started earlier. They, as I say, are relatively minor, but the question is whether they were part of something much bigger. Which leads us to the four main characters, of whom Castro is the best known. Someone was looking for evidence with which to discredit him and the prosecutors. To potentially influence or distort, therefore, the search for the truth.
Through a glass transparently. Through a spyglass opaquely. Through a prism darkly. Which one is it? What do you see in the mirror, Miguel?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Dog initiatives in Santa Margalida
Santa Margalida town hall is getting tougher with owners who allow dogs to roam the streets unattended and so foul the streets without any subsequent removal of excrement. There are, however, to now be so-called "caniparks" for dogs, one of them having opened in Son Bauló, while the beach of Na Patana (a "rustic" beach away from Son Bauló) is to be made available for owners to take their dogs.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
MALLORCA TODAY - Strengthened police presence for Alcúdia end-of-school-year party
The now traditional party in Puerto Alcúdia to mark the end of the school year will take place tomorrow evening and night. The party, basically a gathering of mainly older schoolchildren from numerous towns in northern and central Mallorca, is expected to attract some 7000 kids. Police tutors from at least nine towns will complement Alcúdia police in maintaining order for an event that typically creates very few incidents of any significance.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 13 June 2013
No Frills Excursions
Morning high (9.00am): 21C
Forecast high: 27C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): South 2 to 3 backing Northeast 3 to 4 by midday and easing to Variable 2 by the evening.
In a word - sun. In another two words - quite hot.
Evening update (19.30): A fine, fine day. And hot. 32.9C the high inland in Sa Pobla, 30C on the coast.
An Advertising Four-Letter Word
There was this thing in a paper about a tourist guide in Seville. The particular paper isn't important and nor is the tourist guide. What is, for my purposes, is what this paper said this guide offers - a guide to the "coolest" places to go.
Anyone who uses the word "cool" or its superlative should be made to sit inside an extremely hot sauna, the hottest that can be found, clad in thermals and a heavy overcoat. And if this purgatory of heat, as opposed to coolness, isn't sufficient to drive away the use of cool forever, then the cool miscreant should also be forced to write out one thousand times, "I will never again use a stupid, hackneyed and utterly meaningless word that is designed to somehow make me (or the thing I'm describing) appear to be hip (whatever this means), down with the kids or down with much older people than kids who appear to labour under a misapprehension that they are still kids".
I have a serious problem with a great deal of what passes for advertising-speak; a problem that confronts me during every waking moment in Mallorca. There really is some nonsense out there, and some of it is cool or coolest nonsense. But I am not about to pretend that I am holier than thou. Father, forgive me, for I have sinned and used or sanctioned some of this rubbish myself.
The local Mallorcan/Spanish restaurant insists on perpetrating a promotional crime that it is pretty much unique to it (oops, unique is a bad word and it can't be pretty much unique anyway), and this is the boast that it is a "specialist in meat". The only good thing to say about this is that it does at least achieve some hint of niching the product offer. I mean, you wouldn't say "specialist in food". Or maybe you would.
This idiosyncratic meat specialism isn't the only oddity of the "authentic" or "typical" Mallorcan restaurant (both of these words also being crimes of overuse against advertising humanity). There is the "artesana" typical authenticity which infiltrates advertising as well. The British, some of them, will be up to speed with the concept of artisan cooking, but local "cocina artesana" often ends up being translated in a more readily understood way, i.e. "handmade". I'm sorry, but unless the kitchens of Mallorca have been invaded by robots, is not all cooking handmade, as in the hands can come in quite useful for the making thereof? Alternatives to this artisan culinary craft are "rustic" and "cocina casera". Rustic? What the hell is rustic? I don't want to eat something that sounds as though it is some bits of old wood that have been marinaded in oxidised iron filings for several years. And as for "cocina casera" - home cooking, in other words - how many restaurants are actually homes? Not that many, I think you'll find.
While the local restaurant can fall prey to the typically authentic, artisanal, rustic, homemade, handmade, specialised-in-meat cliché, it can also, along with many other types of business, commit sins of meaninglessness, hyperbole and the just plain wrong. So, to avoid the fires of hell that should burn under anyone who has dared to use the c-word or the c-ist-word, here are the ten words (or phrase) that, under no circumstances, should you ever use, ever again anywhere near a piece of publicity.
Team, Service, Quality, Friendly, Finest, Caring, Catering to your needs, Value, Experience and of course Unique. There are others, but these are at the top of the list. And why? Well, with some of them, think for a moment. What are the opposites? Lack of service, lack of quality, unfriendly. They are attributes that are givens, or should be. But they are also tossed around with such predictability that they have come to mean precisely nothing.
Of these, the greatest sinner of all is "team". No, no, no. Except for the very rare examples of when a team might really be a team, there is no such thing. As with the garbage that is the "team-player" of recruitment ads (meaning what exactly?), a team can only be a team under very specific conditions. I shan't bore you with the explanation as to what these conditions are, but if team has been used just because it is thought to sound good, then the team almost certainly doesn't exist.
But if there are words that should not be used, there are a few which could be. And we all know what the most important one is, don't we? It isn't cool, that's for sure. Begins with "f", four letters.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Anyone who uses the word "cool" or its superlative should be made to sit inside an extremely hot sauna, the hottest that can be found, clad in thermals and a heavy overcoat. And if this purgatory of heat, as opposed to coolness, isn't sufficient to drive away the use of cool forever, then the cool miscreant should also be forced to write out one thousand times, "I will never again use a stupid, hackneyed and utterly meaningless word that is designed to somehow make me (or the thing I'm describing) appear to be hip (whatever this means), down with the kids or down with much older people than kids who appear to labour under a misapprehension that they are still kids".
I have a serious problem with a great deal of what passes for advertising-speak; a problem that confronts me during every waking moment in Mallorca. There really is some nonsense out there, and some of it is cool or coolest nonsense. But I am not about to pretend that I am holier than thou. Father, forgive me, for I have sinned and used or sanctioned some of this rubbish myself.
The local Mallorcan/Spanish restaurant insists on perpetrating a promotional crime that it is pretty much unique to it (oops, unique is a bad word and it can't be pretty much unique anyway), and this is the boast that it is a "specialist in meat". The only good thing to say about this is that it does at least achieve some hint of niching the product offer. I mean, you wouldn't say "specialist in food". Or maybe you would.
This idiosyncratic meat specialism isn't the only oddity of the "authentic" or "typical" Mallorcan restaurant (both of these words also being crimes of overuse against advertising humanity). There is the "artesana" typical authenticity which infiltrates advertising as well. The British, some of them, will be up to speed with the concept of artisan cooking, but local "cocina artesana" often ends up being translated in a more readily understood way, i.e. "handmade". I'm sorry, but unless the kitchens of Mallorca have been invaded by robots, is not all cooking handmade, as in the hands can come in quite useful for the making thereof? Alternatives to this artisan culinary craft are "rustic" and "cocina casera". Rustic? What the hell is rustic? I don't want to eat something that sounds as though it is some bits of old wood that have been marinaded in oxidised iron filings for several years. And as for "cocina casera" - home cooking, in other words - how many restaurants are actually homes? Not that many, I think you'll find.
While the local restaurant can fall prey to the typically authentic, artisanal, rustic, homemade, handmade, specialised-in-meat cliché, it can also, along with many other types of business, commit sins of meaninglessness, hyperbole and the just plain wrong. So, to avoid the fires of hell that should burn under anyone who has dared to use the c-word or the c-ist-word, here are the ten words (or phrase) that, under no circumstances, should you ever use, ever again anywhere near a piece of publicity.
Team, Service, Quality, Friendly, Finest, Caring, Catering to your needs, Value, Experience and of course Unique. There are others, but these are at the top of the list. And why? Well, with some of them, think for a moment. What are the opposites? Lack of service, lack of quality, unfriendly. They are attributes that are givens, or should be. But they are also tossed around with such predictability that they have come to mean precisely nothing.
Of these, the greatest sinner of all is "team". No, no, no. Except for the very rare examples of when a team might really be a team, there is no such thing. As with the garbage that is the "team-player" of recruitment ads (meaning what exactly?), a team can only be a team under very specific conditions. I shan't bore you with the explanation as to what these conditions are, but if team has been used just because it is thought to sound good, then the team almost certainly doesn't exist.
But if there are words that should not be used, there are a few which could be. And we all know what the most important one is, don't we? It isn't cool, that's for sure. Begins with "f", four letters.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Cifre accused of going behind opposition in Pollensa's back - again
According to the Alternativa and Més parties, mayor Tomeu Cifre went behind their backs and those of other parties at Pollensa town hall in presenting technical reports related to the old Pollensa-Lluc road to the Council of Mallorca. This is not the first time that the mayor has been accused of not consulting with other parties and is also not the first time that a potential conflict of interest over the road has arisen, given that the mayor's family owns a finca through which the road passes.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 12 June 2013
No Frills Excursions
Morning high (9.00am): 21C
Forecast high: 26C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): Southwest 2 to 3 locally Northeast 4 in the afternoon.
Perfect morning. Things really are looking as they are settling into a pattern now and it is one of clear skies and getting warmer.
Evening update (20.15): A high of 30C inland, a little cooler by the coast. Warm enough though.
Summertime: Classic summer songs
Music is the sound of holiday and especially the sound of holiday remembered. It's why the classic song has that much greater power than one of the current day. Fun in the sun of summers past and happy days, it is a song that can spark off the memories as much as a photo album can or spark off nostalgia as much as the smell from a grill can.
Holiday music of today can have the same trivial frivolity of, say, a "Beach Baby Beach", but it is dominated by two genres which share a common lineage - club and chill. And of these, chill, despite its inoffensiveness, has acquired a ubiquity, predictability and familiarity that has left it hanging limply from the white, sanitised walls of the "chill" bar. Unattended to because no one actually listens to it, chill has become muzak wallpaper, deprived of the hippyish, beachside, sunsetting or sunrising ecstasy of Ibiza whence it originated in the '80s.
The classic, on the other hand, creates an emotion that catches the breath and transports you back to when a song, like the holiday itself, seemed to be suspended in time, suspended under the sun of a long, hot summer; moments of laughter, splashing, diving, dancing, all frozen like an ice-cool drink in a lyric, a melody or harmony.
Arguably, George Gershwin invented the summer classic, but "Summertime" was not exactly written with days by the beach in mind. It is the title that offers the allusion to holidays. As such, therefore, in order to be a summer classic, the word summer has to be somewhere in the title. Or does it?
The answer is yes and no. The greatest summer-classic song of all time shares its title with Gershwin's. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air (aka Will Smith) came up with the perfect, languid dance rhythm, sprinkled it with unforgettable imagery and sense provocation ("the smell from a grill", "the temperature's about 88") and borrowed the looking-at-girls summertime cruising of The Beach Boys, which had done more than anything to establish the summer-classic genre three decades before.
Almost any song you care to think of by The Beach Boys was a summer classic. Whether it was the euphoric burst of Brian Wilson's vocal on "Wouldn't It Be Nice" or the falsetto harmonies of "All Summer Long" (which was to become the song at the end of one of the ultimate summer films, "American Graffiti"), a Beach Boys song conjured up the atmosphere of sun, sand and sea. Indeed, with roots in surfing and California's beaches, an argument can be made for The Beach Boys having been the music of early mass tourism and even perhaps of having helped to inspire it.
While Brian Wilson was slowly going crazy, in 1967 there was the first summer of love, which, for all that you would have expected it to have produced otherwise, was notable for a song which was the total antithesis of the normal summer tune. "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" couldn't, in its title alone, have been further away from what people now required from a holiday.
Though Procol Harum had a monster hit, usual summer-classic criteria would exclude it from the ranks of the classic. It was just simply too miserable. Which was not the case when the second summer of love came along (two summers, if one is being strictly accurate). There was little chance of there being any misery. Why? In a word, ecstasy.
If you weren't loved-up in 1989, then you certainly weren't in Ibiza. But for all that this was the second summer of love - and perhaps it was just the sheer onslaught of music that emerged that year - it's hard to pinpoint any obvious summer classics: "Ride On Time", "Back To Life" perhaps.
The onslaught since technology enabled pretty much anyone to make music has created bodies of work that are all but impossible to keep track of. Back in the day, when there was far less music, classics stood out. They were more easily identifiable with a moment in time, and so when Will Smith had his hit in 1991 (and the song contained the line "think of the summers of the past"), the second "Summertime" perhaps marked the last moment of the summer classic. Nowadays, it is lost in the weight of musical output, becoming a blur like all that chill. And somewhere in Majorca, there will be a chill bar that is playing what it calls a chill tune. It will be "Summer Madness". Kool & The Gang, 1974. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince reprised it.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Holiday music of today can have the same trivial frivolity of, say, a "Beach Baby Beach", but it is dominated by two genres which share a common lineage - club and chill. And of these, chill, despite its inoffensiveness, has acquired a ubiquity, predictability and familiarity that has left it hanging limply from the white, sanitised walls of the "chill" bar. Unattended to because no one actually listens to it, chill has become muzak wallpaper, deprived of the hippyish, beachside, sunsetting or sunrising ecstasy of Ibiza whence it originated in the '80s.
The classic, on the other hand, creates an emotion that catches the breath and transports you back to when a song, like the holiday itself, seemed to be suspended in time, suspended under the sun of a long, hot summer; moments of laughter, splashing, diving, dancing, all frozen like an ice-cool drink in a lyric, a melody or harmony.
Arguably, George Gershwin invented the summer classic, but "Summertime" was not exactly written with days by the beach in mind. It is the title that offers the allusion to holidays. As such, therefore, in order to be a summer classic, the word summer has to be somewhere in the title. Or does it?
The answer is yes and no. The greatest summer-classic song of all time shares its title with Gershwin's. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air (aka Will Smith) came up with the perfect, languid dance rhythm, sprinkled it with unforgettable imagery and sense provocation ("the smell from a grill", "the temperature's about 88") and borrowed the looking-at-girls summertime cruising of The Beach Boys, which had done more than anything to establish the summer-classic genre three decades before.
Almost any song you care to think of by The Beach Boys was a summer classic. Whether it was the euphoric burst of Brian Wilson's vocal on "Wouldn't It Be Nice" or the falsetto harmonies of "All Summer Long" (which was to become the song at the end of one of the ultimate summer films, "American Graffiti"), a Beach Boys song conjured up the atmosphere of sun, sand and sea. Indeed, with roots in surfing and California's beaches, an argument can be made for The Beach Boys having been the music of early mass tourism and even perhaps of having helped to inspire it.
While Brian Wilson was slowly going crazy, in 1967 there was the first summer of love, which, for all that you would have expected it to have produced otherwise, was notable for a song which was the total antithesis of the normal summer tune. "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" couldn't, in its title alone, have been further away from what people now required from a holiday.
Though Procol Harum had a monster hit, usual summer-classic criteria would exclude it from the ranks of the classic. It was just simply too miserable. Which was not the case when the second summer of love came along (two summers, if one is being strictly accurate). There was little chance of there being any misery. Why? In a word, ecstasy.
If you weren't loved-up in 1989, then you certainly weren't in Ibiza. But for all that this was the second summer of love - and perhaps it was just the sheer onslaught of music that emerged that year - it's hard to pinpoint any obvious summer classics: "Ride On Time", "Back To Life" perhaps.
The onslaught since technology enabled pretty much anyone to make music has created bodies of work that are all but impossible to keep track of. Back in the day, when there was far less music, classics stood out. They were more easily identifiable with a moment in time, and so when Will Smith had his hit in 1991 (and the song contained the line "think of the summers of the past"), the second "Summertime" perhaps marked the last moment of the summer classic. Nowadays, it is lost in the weight of musical output, becoming a blur like all that chill. And somewhere in Majorca, there will be a chill bar that is playing what it calls a chill tune. It will be "Summer Madness". Kool & The Gang, 1974. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince reprised it.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa invests in Colonya cultural centre
The Guillem Cifre de Colonya cultural centre in Pollensa will benefit from an investment by the town hall of 150,000 euros to replace shutters and to make some architectural adjustments. The centre, named after the Pollensa philanthropist who founded the Colonya savings bank, has been managed by the town hall since the early 1990s.
See more: Ultima Hora
See more: Ultima Hora
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 11 June 2013
No Frills Excursions
Morning high (7.45am): 16C
Forecast high: 26C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): Southwest 2 to 3 locally Northeast 4 in the afternoon.
A sort of cloudy morning but it may just be more of a haze than actual cloud, though hazy weather has yet to really kick in. It may start to this week with the temperatures on the climb.
Evening update (21.45): Well, things have definitely cranked up a few notches. Summer, definitively, is here. High of 30.6C.
Balls Of Confusion: Tenancy Act
I am indebted to m'learned and good friend Will Besga for having explained in "The Bulletin" on Sunday the all but inexplicable, namely the consequences of reform of the Spanish Tenancy Act for short-term rentals. Will drew a distinction between properties which are or need to be licensed as "tourist" rentals, these being those for which owners offer services and which can be commercialised through open promotion, and properties which are not claimed to be "tourist" rentals, i.e. those for which owners do not offer services and which cannot be commercialised (or shouldn't be) through open promotion, e.g. via the internet, but which are permissible under the terms of the Tenancy Act.
Where I run up against a difficulty with this distinction is in understanding for what purpose, other than tourist, a property would be rented out on a short-term basis. But let's put this almost semantic issue to one side and get to the balls of the matter - its utter confusion.
There is a commonly held view that law in Spain is sometimes drawn up with the aim of creating confusion. Whether this is deliberate or not, if there is confusion, then it is the result of badly drafted law. And if confusion is indeed deliberately sought, then it is probably because laws are designed to so boggle people's minds that they end up doing nothing as they haven't a clue what to think, which is a peculiar philosophy for enacting legislation, to say the least. Alternatively, people do do something, and this turns out be wrong, not because people deliberately flout the law but because they don't know any better and because there is that much confusion that laws are subject to any number of interpretations or misinterpretations placed on them by all manner of agents - the forces of law, governments, the legal profession, other advisers, the bloke in the bar who reckons he knows everything.
The reform of the Tenancy Act should have been, or at least I had thought it was going to be, relatively straightforward, but because, or so it would appear, Madrid has seen fit to specifically only remove regulated tourist rentals from provisions of the act and hand responsibilities for them over to the regional government and so leave be a classification of property that is deemed not to be "tourist", the national government has merely managed to create ever more confusion.
However, some town halls in Mallorca appear not to see any distinction in these short-term rental properties. If they do, then why are they reacting as they are? Take Pollensa's mayor, Tomeu Cifre, as an example. Cifre it was who tried his level best to get Bauzá, Delgado and tourism-law-drafter-in-chief in the Balearics, Jaime Martinez, to think again on the issue of holiday lets. He had sought an exemption for Pollensa because of the town's very high level of private holiday accommodation. He tried but he failed. And now, he is expressing his disappointment at the change to the Tenancy Act.
This is not disappointment at private accommodation that is registered and regulated (because there already is a goodly amount of this) but at that accommodation which isn't, namely the so-called illegal offer, usually apartments. The fact is that, in order to maximise return on a rental property, an owner needs the ability to be able to advertise it. In Mallorca, where apartments are concerned, this has been impossible and remains impossible, except where it is done in contravention of Balearics law.
Cifre is supported in his disappointment by Antoni Pastor, the mayor of Manacor, Antoni Reus, the mayor of Santa Margalida, and Llorenç Suau in Andratx. Pastor and Reus are both members of the awkward squad, Cifre and Suau aren't; their opposition is not based on any anti-Partido Popular sentiment but on the basis of practicality and of threats to local tourism industries.
Apart from certain town halls, there are those business sectors which are fretting over the effects of the act's reform, such as supermarkets and car hire. But there is a far wider fretting going on. In Mallorca, it concerns the sheer volume of rented accommodation (an estimate puts the number of properties at 70,000), of which fewer than 10% are actually properly registered. And in Spain as a whole, there is a fret as to the government, just like the regional government in the Balearics, acting as the puppets of the hoteliers. It, or rather they (national and regional governments) are making an enormous mistake. To the tune of roughly 2,000 million euros of mistake, the overall value of the holiday-rental market.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Where I run up against a difficulty with this distinction is in understanding for what purpose, other than tourist, a property would be rented out on a short-term basis. But let's put this almost semantic issue to one side and get to the balls of the matter - its utter confusion.
There is a commonly held view that law in Spain is sometimes drawn up with the aim of creating confusion. Whether this is deliberate or not, if there is confusion, then it is the result of badly drafted law. And if confusion is indeed deliberately sought, then it is probably because laws are designed to so boggle people's minds that they end up doing nothing as they haven't a clue what to think, which is a peculiar philosophy for enacting legislation, to say the least. Alternatively, people do do something, and this turns out be wrong, not because people deliberately flout the law but because they don't know any better and because there is that much confusion that laws are subject to any number of interpretations or misinterpretations placed on them by all manner of agents - the forces of law, governments, the legal profession, other advisers, the bloke in the bar who reckons he knows everything.
The reform of the Tenancy Act should have been, or at least I had thought it was going to be, relatively straightforward, but because, or so it would appear, Madrid has seen fit to specifically only remove regulated tourist rentals from provisions of the act and hand responsibilities for them over to the regional government and so leave be a classification of property that is deemed not to be "tourist", the national government has merely managed to create ever more confusion.
However, some town halls in Mallorca appear not to see any distinction in these short-term rental properties. If they do, then why are they reacting as they are? Take Pollensa's mayor, Tomeu Cifre, as an example. Cifre it was who tried his level best to get Bauzá, Delgado and tourism-law-drafter-in-chief in the Balearics, Jaime Martinez, to think again on the issue of holiday lets. He had sought an exemption for Pollensa because of the town's very high level of private holiday accommodation. He tried but he failed. And now, he is expressing his disappointment at the change to the Tenancy Act.
This is not disappointment at private accommodation that is registered and regulated (because there already is a goodly amount of this) but at that accommodation which isn't, namely the so-called illegal offer, usually apartments. The fact is that, in order to maximise return on a rental property, an owner needs the ability to be able to advertise it. In Mallorca, where apartments are concerned, this has been impossible and remains impossible, except where it is done in contravention of Balearics law.
Cifre is supported in his disappointment by Antoni Pastor, the mayor of Manacor, Antoni Reus, the mayor of Santa Margalida, and Llorenç Suau in Andratx. Pastor and Reus are both members of the awkward squad, Cifre and Suau aren't; their opposition is not based on any anti-Partido Popular sentiment but on the basis of practicality and of threats to local tourism industries.
Apart from certain town halls, there are those business sectors which are fretting over the effects of the act's reform, such as supermarkets and car hire. But there is a far wider fretting going on. In Mallorca, it concerns the sheer volume of rented accommodation (an estimate puts the number of properties at 70,000), of which fewer than 10% are actually properly registered. And in Spain as a whole, there is a fret as to the government, just like the regional government in the Balearics, acting as the puppets of the hoteliers. It, or rather they (national and regional governments) are making an enormous mistake. To the tune of roughly 2,000 million euros of mistake, the overall value of the holiday-rental market.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, June 10, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Secondhand boat show in Puerto Pollensa in October
A secondhand boat show and accompanying activities such as workshops will be staged in Puerto Pollensa on 12 October, the intention being to raise funds for fishermen of the port who have been hit hard by economic crisis, their situation having been exacerbated by demands to pay fees in advance for storage (as previously reported - http://alcudiapollensa.blogspot.com.es/2013/01/mallorca-today-puerto-pollensa.html)
See more: Ultima Hora
See more: Ultima Hora
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