Morning high (8.00am): 16.4C
Forecast high: 21C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 12 December - Cloud, sun, 16C; 13 December - Sun, cloud, 17C; 14 December - Sun, cloud, 19C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southwest 6 to 7 occasionally 8 easing West 5 by the evening. Waves up to four metres.
Very windy but dry and mild. The wind will ease later and there should be the odd sunny spell. Some chance of a shower.
Evening update (20.00): The wind has eased. There was some rain, but only a little. High of 17.6C around midday and then slumped during the afternoon.
Monday, December 11, 2017
The Emerging Government Of Mallorca
"The Council of Mallorca is rapidly becoming its own independent state within the loose alliance known as the autonomous community of the Balearics." These were my words from a few weeks ago. They were within the context of Catalonia and the concerns of the Council's president, Miquel Ensenyat, with the way two Balearic senators were going to vote on Article 155.
There was also reference to the Council taking over responsibilities for tourism promotion. It is to assume these powers in the new year as well as some to do with social services that the government is likewise transferring. Moving on from this handover, there is now further evidence of the advance towards the Council as an independent state. Ensenyat wants public transport to be run by the Council and not the government. He even has a plan already drafted. Talk about pre-emptive.
The government hasn't said a dicky bird about letting the Council make the buses and trains run on time. Had it said anything, this would have been decidedly odd, given that it is in the midst of an overhaul of the public transport network: one that doesn't entail another institution running the show. So why is Ensenyat making his bid for transport and would it matter if the Council were indeed to end up being responsible?
As for the latter question, it probably wouldn't matter. I can't imagine that any of you would be remotely concerned about which branch of local government was in charge. All you would be concerned with would be that there is an efficient service. Both the government and the Council are equally capable of guaranteeing efficiency or making a complete pig's ear. It matters not which one it is.
In Ibiza and Menorca the island councils in effect run the bus services. They fall under the same TIB (Transport Illes Balears) umbrella, but the councils have the responsibilities. There are no train services other than in Mallorca, although El Pi is proposing that Menorca should have one. So as the other councils look after buses and as the rail network is specific to Mallorca, then why shouldn't the Council of Mallorca take over public transport? It hardly sounds like a revolutionary idea.
One can answer the first question in terms of Ensenyat making what appears to be a logical proposal and nothing more. But underpinning this is what he has said in the past about a Mallorca government. Although occasional mistaken references are made to such an institution, it doesn't exist. The Council of Mallorca is a local administration, not a government. Ensenyat, however, would like it to be a government, even if this were limited to the perception of being a government (for the time being at any rate).
There was recent talk about who might emerge as the Més candidate for the Balearic presidency in 2019. Biel Barceló has ruled himself out. Ensenyat, whose reputation has by and large soared since becoming the Council president, has suggested that he's not interested. He's quite happy to stay at the Council. For Ensenyat, one feels, there is a "project", always assuming that the electorate permit him to continue with it, and this is to bolster the Council and to make it a quasi-government.
Underpinning this ambition is clear political intent. It is the Més vision of sovereignty, one which, in the case of Mallorca, comes with its ancient historical connotations. The days are long gone when in mediaeval times Mallorca was - for only a comparatively brief time - an independent entity (kingdom). And back in those mediaeval days there was the forebear of today's Council - the Gran i General Consell.
Transferring public transport to the Council would, on the face of it, be straightforward. There already is a model for this in Mallorca anyway, and that's Palma, which operates its own bus service. But where might ambitions for responsibilities end? Ultimately they would be tied up in statutes that apply to the regional government and to the councils, and these are important. The Spanish government deals with regional governments not with devolved governments within regions. Ah but, what about constitutional reform? Perhaps so, but a federalist model, were it to ever come about, would mean a strengthening of regional governments and not administrations within them.
Setting aside all the history and ideology, Ensenyat is essentially revisiting what has been an underlying tension ever since regional government came into being: the tension between the Council and the government as to respective roles and powers. This has in the past led to colossal duplication, and solely because the Council was allowed to get away with it. Ensenyat has recognised that there was duplication and is aware of the need to avoid it, but it is already beginning to return. Tourism is a case in point. Social services may be another, then there would be transport. After that, what else?
There was also reference to the Council taking over responsibilities for tourism promotion. It is to assume these powers in the new year as well as some to do with social services that the government is likewise transferring. Moving on from this handover, there is now further evidence of the advance towards the Council as an independent state. Ensenyat wants public transport to be run by the Council and not the government. He even has a plan already drafted. Talk about pre-emptive.
The government hasn't said a dicky bird about letting the Council make the buses and trains run on time. Had it said anything, this would have been decidedly odd, given that it is in the midst of an overhaul of the public transport network: one that doesn't entail another institution running the show. So why is Ensenyat making his bid for transport and would it matter if the Council were indeed to end up being responsible?
As for the latter question, it probably wouldn't matter. I can't imagine that any of you would be remotely concerned about which branch of local government was in charge. All you would be concerned with would be that there is an efficient service. Both the government and the Council are equally capable of guaranteeing efficiency or making a complete pig's ear. It matters not which one it is.
In Ibiza and Menorca the island councils in effect run the bus services. They fall under the same TIB (Transport Illes Balears) umbrella, but the councils have the responsibilities. There are no train services other than in Mallorca, although El Pi is proposing that Menorca should have one. So as the other councils look after buses and as the rail network is specific to Mallorca, then why shouldn't the Council of Mallorca take over public transport? It hardly sounds like a revolutionary idea.
One can answer the first question in terms of Ensenyat making what appears to be a logical proposal and nothing more. But underpinning this is what he has said in the past about a Mallorca government. Although occasional mistaken references are made to such an institution, it doesn't exist. The Council of Mallorca is a local administration, not a government. Ensenyat, however, would like it to be a government, even if this were limited to the perception of being a government (for the time being at any rate).
There was recent talk about who might emerge as the Més candidate for the Balearic presidency in 2019. Biel Barceló has ruled himself out. Ensenyat, whose reputation has by and large soared since becoming the Council president, has suggested that he's not interested. He's quite happy to stay at the Council. For Ensenyat, one feels, there is a "project", always assuming that the electorate permit him to continue with it, and this is to bolster the Council and to make it a quasi-government.
Underpinning this ambition is clear political intent. It is the Més vision of sovereignty, one which, in the case of Mallorca, comes with its ancient historical connotations. The days are long gone when in mediaeval times Mallorca was - for only a comparatively brief time - an independent entity (kingdom). And back in those mediaeval days there was the forebear of today's Council - the Gran i General Consell.
Transferring public transport to the Council would, on the face of it, be straightforward. There already is a model for this in Mallorca anyway, and that's Palma, which operates its own bus service. But where might ambitions for responsibilities end? Ultimately they would be tied up in statutes that apply to the regional government and to the councils, and these are important. The Spanish government deals with regional governments not with devolved governments within regions. Ah but, what about constitutional reform? Perhaps so, but a federalist model, were it to ever come about, would mean a strengthening of regional governments and not administrations within them.
Setting aside all the history and ideology, Ensenyat is essentially revisiting what has been an underlying tension ever since regional government came into being: the tension between the Council and the government as to respective roles and powers. This has in the past led to colossal duplication, and solely because the Council was allowed to get away with it. Ensenyat has recognised that there was duplication and is aware of the need to avoid it, but it is already beginning to return. Tourism is a case in point. Social services may be another, then there would be transport. After that, what else?
Sunday, December 10, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 10 December 2017
Morning high (8.23am): 10.3C
Forecast high: 20C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 11 December - Cloud, sun, wind, 21C; 12 December - Cloud, sun, 17C; 13 December - Sun, cloud, 16C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southwest 5. Swells of two metres.
So, Cyclone Ana is supposedly due to affect the Balearics today. Not any sign of anything dramatic in the local forecasts, it must be said. Rough by the coasts and a bit windy, otherwise ok. Tomorrow may be a different story.
Evening update (19.30): High of 18.5C. Cyclone Ana not made an impression yet. Fairly breezy though.
Forecast high: 20C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 11 December - Cloud, sun, wind, 21C; 12 December - Cloud, sun, 17C; 13 December - Sun, cloud, 16C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southwest 5. Swells of two metres.
So, Cyclone Ana is supposedly due to affect the Balearics today. Not any sign of anything dramatic in the local forecasts, it must be said. Rough by the coasts and a bit windy, otherwise ok. Tomorrow may be a different story.
Evening update (19.30): High of 18.5C. Cyclone Ana not made an impression yet. Fairly breezy though.
Cati And The 4,500 Million
Let's not talk about writing off Third World debt, let's talk Spanish debt - Spanish regional debt, one region in particular. If you happen to be a Balearic finance ministry, and I accept that none of you are, it's a pretty good deal if you can get the main man with the national piggy bank to wipe off the minor matter of 4,500 million euros. Remove that slight inconvenience, and the regional budget will boom further than it already has. Crikey, they might even be able to dispense with tourist tax revenue.
Cati Cladera, for she is the Balearic finance minister, has devoted more or less her entire tenure in pursuit of pots of gold which, were they to be forthcoming, would up the chances of her still being finance minister after the next election. Or so she might hope (see below). She has variously harangued and cosied up to the minister for the national piggy bank, the count with the keys to the mountains of gold, Cristobal Montoro. We are currently in a renewed phase when she has a go at him and is then nice to him in consecutive sentences. Ultimately, he is the keyholder, so there's only so much chastising that she can indulge in.
It isn't entirely Montoro's fault that the Balearic government owes Madrid well over 6,000 million euros. There have, after all, been his predecessors. They are equally to blame, and this is because they haven't seen fit to change the regional financing regime. As a consequence, the Balearic debt mountain has risen to - in total - something around 9,000 million. The bulk of this, the 6,000 million-plus, is Madrid's, and Madrid will probably have to wait for hell (or Catalonia) to freeze over before it ever gets it back. Out of this 9,000 million, one can set aside what's owed to nasty capitalists like banks. Or rather, one can't set this aside - as in writing it off - because banks generally don't operate like that. Which is probably just as well, unless one wishes the entire global financial system to finally and terminally implode.
Debt owed to national governments is a different matter. Of course it is, especially if a national government is solely responsible for half the total debt because of an unfair financing system. This is the story according to Cati anyway. How she arrives at a convenient roughly 50% (the 4,500 million), I haven't the faintest idea. Let's just accept that she's taken out a bit of paper and come up with the figure. Who is anyone to disagree? She does at least appear to accept, it should be pointed out, that the remaining 1,500 million-plus owed to Madrid isn't actually Madrid's fault. Which is reasonable of her.
So, is Montoro about to accede to Cati's request? Erm, probably not. Just as he is also unlikely to go along with various other Cati demands, such as a revision (favourable revision) of the entire economic regime for the Balearics, of which the financing system is a part. Montoro got the leader of the Balearic Partido Popular, Biel Company, to pass a message on to Cati last week. There's a bit of a problem with setting the budget for next year, so there'll be no moves on this.
If one interpreted what Montoro was saying, it wasn't that he isn't considering a revision but that he was wanting Cati's boss, Francina Armengol, to have a word in the shell-like of her boss, Pedro Sánchez. If PSOE were to stop being obstructive, the national budget could be set, and then - bingo! - here's a new financing deal for the Balearics. Maybe.
Cati Cladera, for she is the Balearic finance minister, has devoted more or less her entire tenure in pursuit of pots of gold which, were they to be forthcoming, would up the chances of her still being finance minister after the next election. Or so she might hope (see below). She has variously harangued and cosied up to the minister for the national piggy bank, the count with the keys to the mountains of gold, Cristobal Montoro. We are currently in a renewed phase when she has a go at him and is then nice to him in consecutive sentences. Ultimately, he is the keyholder, so there's only so much chastising that she can indulge in.
It isn't entirely Montoro's fault that the Balearic government owes Madrid well over 6,000 million euros. There have, after all, been his predecessors. They are equally to blame, and this is because they haven't seen fit to change the regional financing regime. As a consequence, the Balearic debt mountain has risen to - in total - something around 9,000 million. The bulk of this, the 6,000 million-plus, is Madrid's, and Madrid will probably have to wait for hell (or Catalonia) to freeze over before it ever gets it back. Out of this 9,000 million, one can set aside what's owed to nasty capitalists like banks. Or rather, one can't set this aside - as in writing it off - because banks generally don't operate like that. Which is probably just as well, unless one wishes the entire global financial system to finally and terminally implode.
Debt owed to national governments is a different matter. Of course it is, especially if a national government is solely responsible for half the total debt because of an unfair financing system. This is the story according to Cati anyway. How she arrives at a convenient roughly 50% (the 4,500 million), I haven't the faintest idea. Let's just accept that she's taken out a bit of paper and come up with the figure. Who is anyone to disagree? She does at least appear to accept, it should be pointed out, that the remaining 1,500 million-plus owed to Madrid isn't actually Madrid's fault. Which is reasonable of her.
So, is Montoro about to accede to Cati's request? Erm, probably not. Just as he is also unlikely to go along with various other Cati demands, such as a revision (favourable revision) of the entire economic regime for the Balearics, of which the financing system is a part. Montoro got the leader of the Balearic Partido Popular, Biel Company, to pass a message on to Cati last week. There's a bit of a problem with setting the budget for next year, so there'll be no moves on this.
If one interpreted what Montoro was saying, it wasn't that he isn't considering a revision but that he was wanting Cati's boss, Francina Armengol, to have a word in the shell-like of her boss, Pedro Sánchez. If PSOE were to stop being obstructive, the national budget could be set, and then - bingo! - here's a new financing deal for the Balearics. Maybe.
Saturday, December 09, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 9 December 2017
Morning high (7.36am): 12.7C
Forecast high: 15C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 10 December - Sun, 20C; 11 December - Cloud, sun, wind, 21C; 12 December - Cloud, 17C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 4 veering Southeast 3 by the evening. Swells of two to three metres reducing.
Thick cloud first thing. The odd sunny spell but expected to be grey for much of the day with some rain possible.
Evening update (19.45): High of 11.6C around 9am and got colder. Some rain and no sun.
Forecast high: 15C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 10 December - Sun, 20C; 11 December - Cloud, sun, wind, 21C; 12 December - Cloud, 17C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 4 veering Southeast 3 by the evening. Swells of two to three metres reducing.
Thick cloud first thing. The odd sunny spell but expected to be grey for much of the day with some rain possible.
Evening update (19.45): High of 11.6C around 9am and got colder. Some rain and no sun.
Dealing With Tourismphobia, Not Pointing Fingers
Tourismphobia has raised its less than lovely head again. There have been no "anti-tourist" incidents, but there has been talk, and those doing the talking have been Exceltur and the cruise industry.
Exceltur, the alliance for touristic excellence, is an elite association of 23 companies, most of which are directly involved with travel and tourism. Among these 23 are Iberostar, Melíá, Palladium and Riu: four of the leading hotel groups in the Balearics. To these can be added Globalia, of which Be Live Hotels is a part, and major hotel chains not based in the Balearics - Hotusa, Lopespan, NH, Playa Senator. The other members represent airlines, car rentals, online booking agencies (e.g Hotelbeds, based in Palma), finance, private health, theme parks and transport (in the form of the Renfe rail operator). Facebook is also a member.
So, the membership is weighted towards the hotel sector, and the powerful hotel sector at that. When Exceltur issues its regular tourism industry "barometers" - the latest has just come out - it draws conclusions over and above the statistics provided. According to Exceltur, uncontrolled holiday rentals are the cause of tourismphobia, aka anti-tourism.
Given the presence of the nine hotel groups, this conclusion is hardly surprising. It is also not surprising, as Exceltur has spent the recent past trading reports with Aptur, the holiday rentals association, in seeking to demonstrate an economic benefit from rentals that is significantly different to the one that Aptur maintains, i.e. the Exceltur one is very much lower.
But what about the other members, for example car rentals? Europcar, which now has the go-ahead to acquire Goldcar, is the representative within Exceltur. As we know - or have been told frequently - the vastly increased number of hire cars in Mallorca has been because of the diversion of tourists from other destinations and the increased number of tourists booking holiday rentals. The car-hire sector has thus done well because of holiday rentals.
Facebook is interesting, and not least because it is moving into - you might have guessed it - the rentals market. At present this service operates only in the US, but it will be only a matter of time before it is rolled out elsewhere.
Despite its other members, Exceltur gives the impression of being just a hotelier mouthpiece. As a result, one gets a one-eyed view of an issue like holiday rentals. And the same, it might be said, applies to Aptur on the opposing side of the debate. To assert that tourismphobia is the consequence of uncontrolled rentals is true up to a point, but rentals aren't the only cause.
Too easily neglected in this debate is the role played by social attitudes. Tourism per se is the target of anti-sentiment, and this follows principles set out many years ago by theorists such as George Doxey. A certain point is reached at which attitudes turn to resentment.
One can argue that politicians have whipped up this anti-sentiment, and they have to an extent. But have they just been reflecting a societal attitude, even if it remains - at its most extreme of expression - one of a small minority? There are various contributory factors. Rentals are one. But pay and working conditions are among others, while to take the example of Palma, it was as much the number of cruise-ship passengers as Airbnb rentals that stoked anti-sentiment.
With Exceltur and all others in the tourism sector there needs to be a more nuanced debate and not one that just points fingers. Rentals are not going away, however much Exceltur might want them to. So there has to be some greater accommodation (so to speak) and more objective communications.
At the International Cruise Summit in Madrid, meanwhile, they were discussing tourismphobia and "massification" caused by cruise passengers. On behalf of Royal Caribbean it was noted that under one per cent of all tourists who visit Barcelona do so on a cruise ship. This tiny number, however, is highly and easily visible, which is also the case in Palma; hence, there are the cries of "massification" and the consequent anti-sentiment.
In Palma, by spreading cruise passengers around - which the town hall has been working on - the impact is lessened, so this is probably a policy worthy of further development. Ultimately, though, whatever the cruise industry does to try and show its benefits - which has been done recently with a report identifying the employment created and the total economic benefit - there will still be those who don't wish to listen. There is a social issue with tourism, and it is one that all parties - government, tour operators, hoteliers, Airbnb, cruise operators and others - need to recognise and to arrive at common-sense responses.
Exceltur, the alliance for touristic excellence, is an elite association of 23 companies, most of which are directly involved with travel and tourism. Among these 23 are Iberostar, Melíá, Palladium and Riu: four of the leading hotel groups in the Balearics. To these can be added Globalia, of which Be Live Hotels is a part, and major hotel chains not based in the Balearics - Hotusa, Lopespan, NH, Playa Senator. The other members represent airlines, car rentals, online booking agencies (e.g Hotelbeds, based in Palma), finance, private health, theme parks and transport (in the form of the Renfe rail operator). Facebook is also a member.
So, the membership is weighted towards the hotel sector, and the powerful hotel sector at that. When Exceltur issues its regular tourism industry "barometers" - the latest has just come out - it draws conclusions over and above the statistics provided. According to Exceltur, uncontrolled holiday rentals are the cause of tourismphobia, aka anti-tourism.
Given the presence of the nine hotel groups, this conclusion is hardly surprising. It is also not surprising, as Exceltur has spent the recent past trading reports with Aptur, the holiday rentals association, in seeking to demonstrate an economic benefit from rentals that is significantly different to the one that Aptur maintains, i.e. the Exceltur one is very much lower.
But what about the other members, for example car rentals? Europcar, which now has the go-ahead to acquire Goldcar, is the representative within Exceltur. As we know - or have been told frequently - the vastly increased number of hire cars in Mallorca has been because of the diversion of tourists from other destinations and the increased number of tourists booking holiday rentals. The car-hire sector has thus done well because of holiday rentals.
Facebook is interesting, and not least because it is moving into - you might have guessed it - the rentals market. At present this service operates only in the US, but it will be only a matter of time before it is rolled out elsewhere.
Despite its other members, Exceltur gives the impression of being just a hotelier mouthpiece. As a result, one gets a one-eyed view of an issue like holiday rentals. And the same, it might be said, applies to Aptur on the opposing side of the debate. To assert that tourismphobia is the consequence of uncontrolled rentals is true up to a point, but rentals aren't the only cause.
Too easily neglected in this debate is the role played by social attitudes. Tourism per se is the target of anti-sentiment, and this follows principles set out many years ago by theorists such as George Doxey. A certain point is reached at which attitudes turn to resentment.
One can argue that politicians have whipped up this anti-sentiment, and they have to an extent. But have they just been reflecting a societal attitude, even if it remains - at its most extreme of expression - one of a small minority? There are various contributory factors. Rentals are one. But pay and working conditions are among others, while to take the example of Palma, it was as much the number of cruise-ship passengers as Airbnb rentals that stoked anti-sentiment.
With Exceltur and all others in the tourism sector there needs to be a more nuanced debate and not one that just points fingers. Rentals are not going away, however much Exceltur might want them to. So there has to be some greater accommodation (so to speak) and more objective communications.
At the International Cruise Summit in Madrid, meanwhile, they were discussing tourismphobia and "massification" caused by cruise passengers. On behalf of Royal Caribbean it was noted that under one per cent of all tourists who visit Barcelona do so on a cruise ship. This tiny number, however, is highly and easily visible, which is also the case in Palma; hence, there are the cries of "massification" and the consequent anti-sentiment.
In Palma, by spreading cruise passengers around - which the town hall has been working on - the impact is lessened, so this is probably a policy worthy of further development. Ultimately, though, whatever the cruise industry does to try and show its benefits - which has been done recently with a report identifying the employment created and the total economic benefit - there will still be those who don't wish to listen. There is a social issue with tourism, and it is one that all parties - government, tour operators, hoteliers, Airbnb, cruise operators and others - need to recognise and to arrive at common-sense responses.
Friday, December 08, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 8 December 2017
Morning high (7.57am): 6.8C
Forecast high: 19C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 9 December - Rain, 15C; 10 December - Cloud, sun, 20C; 11 December - Cloud, wind, 21C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): West-Southwest 4 to 5 veering Northwest in the afternoon.
Happy Immaculate Conception. Another day, another fiesta. Nice until this evening when rain is due to arrive.
Evening update (21.00): Mixed, but ok. High of 19.4C.
Forecast high: 19C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 9 December - Rain, 15C; 10 December - Cloud, sun, 20C; 11 December - Cloud, wind, 21C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): West-Southwest 4 to 5 veering Northwest in the afternoon.
Happy Immaculate Conception. Another day, another fiesta. Nice until this evening when rain is due to arrive.
Evening update (21.00): Mixed, but ok. High of 19.4C.
Agenda 2030: The Different Mass
Do you know what Agenda 2030 is? And no, this isn't Més and their ambitions for Balearic independence by 2030. They haven't monikered it agenda as such. Or not yet at any rate. Més are, however, and in a different sense, part of Agenda 2030. Are you getting warmer?
I'm guessing that you don't know what Agenda 2030 is. If my guess is correct, then it has failed - thus far - to make the impression its sponsors would wish, these sponsors being the United Nations. Ah yes, the UN, you're now surely getting warmer. If not, then let me give you a gentle reminder. You'll remember of course what 2017 is. Won't you? You don't remember? Shame on you. This soon-to-finish year has been the International Year of Sustainable Tourism. There, you must remember now.
Who knows about these things? Who cares about these things? The ordinary man, woman and child in the street, be they tourist or not-tourist, do they know or care? The International Year of Sustainable Tourism; it's as if it has never been. For the great majority, it may as well not have been. As tourists we just get on with being tourists, whether we are sustainable, whether destinations are sustainable, whether tourism is sustainable. Or not.
So, given the fact that this year will have passed mostly everyone by, Agenda 2030 - just over twelve years off - will have failed totally in having captured the public's imagination. But what might seem to be another initiative with lofty principles, littered with platitudes and supporting reports, diagrams and conferences is intended as the latest attempt to save us all from ourselves, whether tourists or not. Agenda 2030 is shorthand for Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Inherent to the agenda are sustainable development goals - seventeen of them with 169 targets. Blimey.
What are these goals to do with? Well, there are issues such as health and education, energy, the environment, water, social justice. The UN and its sustainable agendas can appear (and often are) to be directed at the so-called Third World, but they cross over into the previous worlds, ones such as the Balearics.
The problem is the lack of connection: one between them (the UN, governments, institutions) and us. Yes, they do of course attempt to make the connection, and in the Balearics they try and do little else. But as observed previously, the more the sustainable drum is beaten, the greater the likelihood that we all switch off, assuming we had switched on in the first place.
All of this stuff is meant to be global, by which I don't just mean the globe of the world. It is global in infiltrating the minds of every man jack (and woman jill) of us. It doesn't because you only have to appreciate the reactions to the Balearic take on the sustainable development year in order to realise why not. Armed with a sustainable tourism tax and a manual of platitudes (such as those to do with the environment, water and social justice), and there are the many who decry the tax before moving on to slam other tourism policy. Rentals? The government's devil's work. What is to become of the property market? What is to become of "my" business (not mine - I don't have one - but others)? Whither tourism, full stop?
Inherent to such reactions is self-interest. Yes, that stubborn human trait of looking after number one. Initiatives such as Agenda 2030 presuppose a subordinating of self-interest to a common good (however this might be defined). This is just one reason why they are difficult if not impossible to pull off.
In order to try and get them to work, at least in part, demands a reshaping of perceptions. God knows it's a mountainous task, but within the framework of a perceptual shift, tourism plays a very key role, whether this is tourism to obscure corners of the globe, to grand cities or to Mallorca. Sustainability, despite my frequently voiced scepticism, is actually pretty important.
Capturing the public's imagination. Herein lies a clue. Capturing the imagination and re-imagining. In Mallorca there is a highly resistant, in-built opposition to alternatives. This is because of the self-interest and of how things have always been (since the 1960s anyway). But is it impossible to re-imagine Mallorca's tourism? Why does it have to be as it has been? Where's the rulebook which insists that it must be.
This government strains every last drop from the sustainable well. Some of it, such as Better in Winter, is arrant or at least semantic nonsense, though you can't blame the government for trying. But other parts? Fundamentally, the concept of mass tourism in Mallorca needs re-imagining, and it will mean reduced mass. Agenda 2030? By then, things will be very different.
I'm guessing that you don't know what Agenda 2030 is. If my guess is correct, then it has failed - thus far - to make the impression its sponsors would wish, these sponsors being the United Nations. Ah yes, the UN, you're now surely getting warmer. If not, then let me give you a gentle reminder. You'll remember of course what 2017 is. Won't you? You don't remember? Shame on you. This soon-to-finish year has been the International Year of Sustainable Tourism. There, you must remember now.
Who knows about these things? Who cares about these things? The ordinary man, woman and child in the street, be they tourist or not-tourist, do they know or care? The International Year of Sustainable Tourism; it's as if it has never been. For the great majority, it may as well not have been. As tourists we just get on with being tourists, whether we are sustainable, whether destinations are sustainable, whether tourism is sustainable. Or not.
So, given the fact that this year will have passed mostly everyone by, Agenda 2030 - just over twelve years off - will have failed totally in having captured the public's imagination. But what might seem to be another initiative with lofty principles, littered with platitudes and supporting reports, diagrams and conferences is intended as the latest attempt to save us all from ourselves, whether tourists or not. Agenda 2030 is shorthand for Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Inherent to the agenda are sustainable development goals - seventeen of them with 169 targets. Blimey.
What are these goals to do with? Well, there are issues such as health and education, energy, the environment, water, social justice. The UN and its sustainable agendas can appear (and often are) to be directed at the so-called Third World, but they cross over into the previous worlds, ones such as the Balearics.
The problem is the lack of connection: one between them (the UN, governments, institutions) and us. Yes, they do of course attempt to make the connection, and in the Balearics they try and do little else. But as observed previously, the more the sustainable drum is beaten, the greater the likelihood that we all switch off, assuming we had switched on in the first place.
All of this stuff is meant to be global, by which I don't just mean the globe of the world. It is global in infiltrating the minds of every man jack (and woman jill) of us. It doesn't because you only have to appreciate the reactions to the Balearic take on the sustainable development year in order to realise why not. Armed with a sustainable tourism tax and a manual of platitudes (such as those to do with the environment, water and social justice), and there are the many who decry the tax before moving on to slam other tourism policy. Rentals? The government's devil's work. What is to become of the property market? What is to become of "my" business (not mine - I don't have one - but others)? Whither tourism, full stop?
Inherent to such reactions is self-interest. Yes, that stubborn human trait of looking after number one. Initiatives such as Agenda 2030 presuppose a subordinating of self-interest to a common good (however this might be defined). This is just one reason why they are difficult if not impossible to pull off.
In order to try and get them to work, at least in part, demands a reshaping of perceptions. God knows it's a mountainous task, but within the framework of a perceptual shift, tourism plays a very key role, whether this is tourism to obscure corners of the globe, to grand cities or to Mallorca. Sustainability, despite my frequently voiced scepticism, is actually pretty important.
Capturing the public's imagination. Herein lies a clue. Capturing the imagination and re-imagining. In Mallorca there is a highly resistant, in-built opposition to alternatives. This is because of the self-interest and of how things have always been (since the 1960s anyway). But is it impossible to re-imagine Mallorca's tourism? Why does it have to be as it has been? Where's the rulebook which insists that it must be.
This government strains every last drop from the sustainable well. Some of it, such as Better in Winter, is arrant or at least semantic nonsense, though you can't blame the government for trying. But other parts? Fundamentally, the concept of mass tourism in Mallorca needs re-imagining, and it will mean reduced mass. Agenda 2030? By then, things will be very different.
Thursday, December 07, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 7 December 2017
Morning high (7.15am): 3.8C
Forecast high: 19C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 8 December - Sun, cloud, 18C; 9 December - Rain, 14C; 10 December - Cloud, 18C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): South-Southwest 3, occasionally 4.
As with yesterday. Cold early on and bright and warm later. Things set to go downhill again from tomorrow afternoon.
Evening update (19.15): High of 19.5C. Got cloudy in the afternoon.
Forecast high: 19C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 8 December - Sun, cloud, 18C; 9 December - Rain, 14C; 10 December - Cloud, 18C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): South-Southwest 3, occasionally 4.
As with yesterday. Cold early on and bright and warm later. Things set to go downhill again from tomorrow afternoon.
Evening update (19.15): High of 19.5C. Got cloudy in the afternoon.
Unhealthy Obsessions
Governing the Balearics isn't that complicated. A glance at the ministries will show that government by and large conforms to requirements that you would expect. Excluded from these ministries are, for instance, any need for defence or foreign affairs. These are not matters for a regional government, unless perhaps that government is Catalonia's.
Government is basically about internal issues, and the greatest of these - as determined by the size of the budgets - are health and education. Of the 5,000 million euros overall budget for 2018, these two areas account for slightly more than half the total. Health has 1,584 million; education 935 million. The president has let it be known that the latter of these will be up to the 1,000 million mark by the end of the current administration.
Health and education in terms of their delivery shouldn't be complicated. There's no denying that there are complexities with management, but the principles are straightforward. The government, any government, is charged with making people better, caring for them, teaching them, developing them. Straightforward.
Maybe it is this simplicity of principle which turns the straightforward into the complicated. There is something of an old belief from management thinking that problems are needed in order to justify management's existence. Problems are thus created. Out of smooth operations can chaos be manufactured. If there weren't problems, there would be no solutions or search for solutions. There would be no triumphalism among those deemed to have done the solving; probably the ones who generated the problems in the first place.
Business management, generally speaking, is not subject to ideologies. Different theories, different practices, different ways of doing things; yes, but these are not ideological. Likewise, managing important government departments can be open to these alternative approaches. They should be. Being open to something different for the better can only be positive. But ideologies intrude. Politics ensure that they do, and it is these politics which make matters complicated.
The Balearic health service is by and large an admirable institution. At a basic level, for example getting a doctor's appointment, it is a piece of cake; at least in my experience. Request one and the chances are you'll be seen the next day. There is agonising over waiting lists and waiting times for consultations with specialists and for operations, but these lists and times are mostly acceptable, and the government is working to reduce them. All in all, the health service is something that the Balearics can be proud of. So why try and complicate matters?
It is important when dealing with a person's health that there is proper communication, but is the insistence on Catalan for health workers solely a matter of communication? How many native Mallorcans can't speak two languages? It is of course valuable and useful for health staff to speak Catalan. This shouldn't be in doubt, but why is there such an obsession with it? There's just the one reason. Ideology. And it can threaten to undermine what is otherwise a very fine service.
President Armengol is insisting that there won't be a failure to cover all posts in the health service because of language. In other words, she is accepting that non-Catalan speakers have to be recruited. If they weren't, then the health service would be undermined. Yet there are those who make the insistence. What, therefore, is more important? Making people better, caring for them, or what language they use?
This unhealthy obsession with linguistic ideology is even more evident in education. We know this all too well, given the experiences of recent years and the crazy insistences that have been made and disguised as educational betterment, when they are nothing of the sort. Hand in hand with the language now come the allegations of political indoctrination related to independence and the influence of agitator groups, some members of which are themselves teachers.
Around 2,500 million euros and these most important of government areas become hugely expensive budget playthings. As a consequence, ministerial time, civil servant time, service management time, doctor time, teacher time is devoted to non-core issues. In education there is nothing more core than improving performance standards, and yet all that effort is expended on incessant ideological shifts and goalpost-moving: continuous complication rather than continuous improvement.
These obsessions manifest themselves in other ways. In Palma, where the administration mirrors that of the government, there are key issues facing the city, such as its services, its housing, its infrastructure. And yet time, effort and column inches are instead devoted to non-essential matters. The Feixina monument is an example. An overwhelming majority of public opinion is said to be against its demolition, but the town hall (and the Council of Mallorca) plough on regardless.
Administrations are thus diverted from what really matters, wrapped up in the self-importance and self-imposition of their obsessions, leaving those who require their attention (the public) bewildered by these manoeuvres of political justification.
Government is basically about internal issues, and the greatest of these - as determined by the size of the budgets - are health and education. Of the 5,000 million euros overall budget for 2018, these two areas account for slightly more than half the total. Health has 1,584 million; education 935 million. The president has let it be known that the latter of these will be up to the 1,000 million mark by the end of the current administration.
Health and education in terms of their delivery shouldn't be complicated. There's no denying that there are complexities with management, but the principles are straightforward. The government, any government, is charged with making people better, caring for them, teaching them, developing them. Straightforward.
Maybe it is this simplicity of principle which turns the straightforward into the complicated. There is something of an old belief from management thinking that problems are needed in order to justify management's existence. Problems are thus created. Out of smooth operations can chaos be manufactured. If there weren't problems, there would be no solutions or search for solutions. There would be no triumphalism among those deemed to have done the solving; probably the ones who generated the problems in the first place.
Business management, generally speaking, is not subject to ideologies. Different theories, different practices, different ways of doing things; yes, but these are not ideological. Likewise, managing important government departments can be open to these alternative approaches. They should be. Being open to something different for the better can only be positive. But ideologies intrude. Politics ensure that they do, and it is these politics which make matters complicated.
The Balearic health service is by and large an admirable institution. At a basic level, for example getting a doctor's appointment, it is a piece of cake; at least in my experience. Request one and the chances are you'll be seen the next day. There is agonising over waiting lists and waiting times for consultations with specialists and for operations, but these lists and times are mostly acceptable, and the government is working to reduce them. All in all, the health service is something that the Balearics can be proud of. So why try and complicate matters?
It is important when dealing with a person's health that there is proper communication, but is the insistence on Catalan for health workers solely a matter of communication? How many native Mallorcans can't speak two languages? It is of course valuable and useful for health staff to speak Catalan. This shouldn't be in doubt, but why is there such an obsession with it? There's just the one reason. Ideology. And it can threaten to undermine what is otherwise a very fine service.
President Armengol is insisting that there won't be a failure to cover all posts in the health service because of language. In other words, she is accepting that non-Catalan speakers have to be recruited. If they weren't, then the health service would be undermined. Yet there are those who make the insistence. What, therefore, is more important? Making people better, caring for them, or what language they use?
This unhealthy obsession with linguistic ideology is even more evident in education. We know this all too well, given the experiences of recent years and the crazy insistences that have been made and disguised as educational betterment, when they are nothing of the sort. Hand in hand with the language now come the allegations of political indoctrination related to independence and the influence of agitator groups, some members of which are themselves teachers.
Around 2,500 million euros and these most important of government areas become hugely expensive budget playthings. As a consequence, ministerial time, civil servant time, service management time, doctor time, teacher time is devoted to non-core issues. In education there is nothing more core than improving performance standards, and yet all that effort is expended on incessant ideological shifts and goalpost-moving: continuous complication rather than continuous improvement.
These obsessions manifest themselves in other ways. In Palma, where the administration mirrors that of the government, there are key issues facing the city, such as its services, its housing, its infrastructure. And yet time, effort and column inches are instead devoted to non-essential matters. The Feixina monument is an example. An overwhelming majority of public opinion is said to be against its demolition, but the town hall (and the Council of Mallorca) plough on regardless.
Administrations are thus diverted from what really matters, wrapped up in the self-importance and self-imposition of their obsessions, leaving those who require their attention (the public) bewildered by these manoeuvres of political justification.
Wednesday, December 06, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 6 December 2017
Morning high (7.59am): 3.3C
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 7 December - Sun, cloud, 19C; 8 December - Sun, cloud, 19C; 9 December - Rain, 15C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southwest 2 to 3.
Cold morning. Sunny day.
Evening update (20.00): Good. High of 19.6C.
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 7 December - Sun, cloud, 19C; 8 December - Sun, cloud, 19C; 9 December - Rain, 15C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southwest 2 to 3.
Cold morning. Sunny day.
Evening update (20.00): Good. High of 19.6C.
The Judge Who Finally Retired
José Castro may be thanking his lucky stars that he's not younger. As it is, he would normally have retired earlier. He stayed on until he was 72. There were investigations and continuity that needed him.
Judge Castro, the hero of the people, Judge Dread for some (those in his sights); he rode into court - well, not quite - on his high-powered bike. On a steel horse he rode, wanting them dead or alive. Not, it should be said, that there were too many deaths, other than natural ones. Who was it coined the "Sicily without the bodies" bon mot? Matias Vallés or Andreu Manresa, so it is argued. If he were a younger man, one begins to wonder if he might discover the bodies. If there are any: allegedly, always allegedly, the stock adverb to constantly be applied.
Cursach came too late for Judge Castro. He, Cursach, was in any event the domain of another judge, Manuel Penalva. In a way, Penalva stumbled across Cursach. He wasn't the prime target, but investigations have a funny way - funny, hilarious, troubling, convoluted, despicable ways of finding their unexpected courses. The course that led to Cursach started with some suspect police exams. Mallorca never ceases to surprise and amaze.
Someone else deserved the limelight, if this is the right way to describe being the investigating judge for a case that eclipses any others to have preceded it. The limelight might not genuinely be what any judge wants. Not with this case. Penalva awaits a decision on his possible recusal. And you have to ask why and how this possibility has come about.
But to return to the now retired Castro. Some will say that he enjoyed, even cultivated the limelight. I don't think he did either. His high-profile status couldn't have meant anything else other than the limelight. As with prosecutors, such as Pedro Horrach, eminent investigating judges have celebrity thrust upon them. It goes with the territory. This is Mallorca, this is Spain, where judges and prosecutors are as well-known as any celebrity villains (alleged or proven) they pursue.
He became a judge in 1976. He started out in Seville. He came to Mallorca in 1985. He was initially a judge with the social court dealing with employment and labour affairs. Six years later he went to the Court of Instruction, the principal court for criminal investigation. He stayed there. He is the longest serving judge in the Balearics and quite possibly in Spain. Such longevity is bound to rub off in the form of some celebrity.
We know him mainly because of the names he is associated with. He investigated a former president of the Balearics, Jaume Matas. The cases against Matas are still arriving in court. But years before, soon after moving to the Court of Instruction, there was a serving president in whom he took an interest. Castro, it is said, was convinced that Gabriel Cañellas was behind the so-called "caso Calvia", one into bribery at Calvia town hall. The Balearic High Court was to decide that there wasn't evidence.
There have also been Princess Cristina and her husband Iñaki Urdangarin, with Matas almost a bit-part supporting actor to the principals in the "caso Nóos". Castro believed there was a case against the princess. Horrach didn't. There was, as a result, something of a professional falling-out, but he insists that they have remained friends. The disagreement nevertheless served to cloud the public's perceptions not just of the princess but also of judge and prosecutor. Those perceptions are probably still clouded.
Castro accepted the prosecution of the so-called and now discredited far-right union, Manos Limpias. As someone who was approached by Podemos to stand for election, his independence - politically and legally - was impeccable. The disagreement with Horrach was impeccable; they just saw and interpreted things differently. In a recent interview, he said that the Infanta (Cristina) was "the éminence grise". A definition of this is "a person who exercises power or influence in a certain sphere without holding an official position". In that interview, he set out in quite staggering detail what he believed was the case against the princess.
So, he has now retired. Mallorca has lost its most famous judge, one held in massive regard by the public. Penalva is an unwitting recipient of the baton of public interest. One can only wonder what Castro makes of events and wonder if he would have wanted to be the investigator. Not that a judge necessarily chooses to be; he or she can't avoid the responsibility.
And it is an almighty responsibility. There will be those who query the judicial process here, and I am one of them. This process, because of its highly public character, places judges and prosecutors under greater pressure than would otherwise be the case. They deal with it, and it is remarkable that they do.
Judge Castro, the hero of the people, Judge Dread for some (those in his sights); he rode into court - well, not quite - on his high-powered bike. On a steel horse he rode, wanting them dead or alive. Not, it should be said, that there were too many deaths, other than natural ones. Who was it coined the "Sicily without the bodies" bon mot? Matias Vallés or Andreu Manresa, so it is argued. If he were a younger man, one begins to wonder if he might discover the bodies. If there are any: allegedly, always allegedly, the stock adverb to constantly be applied.
Cursach came too late for Judge Castro. He, Cursach, was in any event the domain of another judge, Manuel Penalva. In a way, Penalva stumbled across Cursach. He wasn't the prime target, but investigations have a funny way - funny, hilarious, troubling, convoluted, despicable ways of finding their unexpected courses. The course that led to Cursach started with some suspect police exams. Mallorca never ceases to surprise and amaze.
Someone else deserved the limelight, if this is the right way to describe being the investigating judge for a case that eclipses any others to have preceded it. The limelight might not genuinely be what any judge wants. Not with this case. Penalva awaits a decision on his possible recusal. And you have to ask why and how this possibility has come about.
But to return to the now retired Castro. Some will say that he enjoyed, even cultivated the limelight. I don't think he did either. His high-profile status couldn't have meant anything else other than the limelight. As with prosecutors, such as Pedro Horrach, eminent investigating judges have celebrity thrust upon them. It goes with the territory. This is Mallorca, this is Spain, where judges and prosecutors are as well-known as any celebrity villains (alleged or proven) they pursue.
He became a judge in 1976. He started out in Seville. He came to Mallorca in 1985. He was initially a judge with the social court dealing with employment and labour affairs. Six years later he went to the Court of Instruction, the principal court for criminal investigation. He stayed there. He is the longest serving judge in the Balearics and quite possibly in Spain. Such longevity is bound to rub off in the form of some celebrity.
We know him mainly because of the names he is associated with. He investigated a former president of the Balearics, Jaume Matas. The cases against Matas are still arriving in court. But years before, soon after moving to the Court of Instruction, there was a serving president in whom he took an interest. Castro, it is said, was convinced that Gabriel Cañellas was behind the so-called "caso Calvia", one into bribery at Calvia town hall. The Balearic High Court was to decide that there wasn't evidence.
There have also been Princess Cristina and her husband Iñaki Urdangarin, with Matas almost a bit-part supporting actor to the principals in the "caso Nóos". Castro believed there was a case against the princess. Horrach didn't. There was, as a result, something of a professional falling-out, but he insists that they have remained friends. The disagreement nevertheless served to cloud the public's perceptions not just of the princess but also of judge and prosecutor. Those perceptions are probably still clouded.
Castro accepted the prosecution of the so-called and now discredited far-right union, Manos Limpias. As someone who was approached by Podemos to stand for election, his independence - politically and legally - was impeccable. The disagreement with Horrach was impeccable; they just saw and interpreted things differently. In a recent interview, he said that the Infanta (Cristina) was "the éminence grise". A definition of this is "a person who exercises power or influence in a certain sphere without holding an official position". In that interview, he set out in quite staggering detail what he believed was the case against the princess.
So, he has now retired. Mallorca has lost its most famous judge, one held in massive regard by the public. Penalva is an unwitting recipient of the baton of public interest. One can only wonder what Castro makes of events and wonder if he would have wanted to be the investigator. Not that a judge necessarily chooses to be; he or she can't avoid the responsibility.
And it is an almighty responsibility. There will be those who query the judicial process here, and I am one of them. This process, because of its highly public character, places judges and prosecutors under greater pressure than would otherwise be the case. They deal with it, and it is remarkable that they do.
Tuesday, December 05, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 5 December 2017
Morning high (7.27am): 8.7C
Forecast high: 16C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 6 December - Sun, cloud, 18C; 7 December - Sun, cloud, 19C; 8 December - Cloud, 18C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): West-Northwest 3 to 4. Swells to two metres.
Down to two degrees in areas. Warming up reasonably for a decent day.
Evening update (21.45): Decent. High of 17.2C.
Forecast high: 16C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 6 December - Sun, cloud, 18C; 7 December - Sun, cloud, 19C; 8 December - Cloud, 18C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): West-Northwest 3 to 4. Swells to two metres.
Down to two degrees in areas. Warming up reasonably for a decent day.
Evening update (21.45): Decent. High of 17.2C.
The Legend Of Sineu's Port
The idea that Sineu was once a sea port had been floated, so to speak, almost one hundred years before. The article in the 1915 Anales de Sineu recognised that in 1825 there would have been some incredulity at the thought that the sea used to lap near the village centre. A drawing with the article demonstrated the apparent absurdity of the notion.
It was apparently a Doctor Beuth-Schinkel who had raised the possibility. In 1825 he had come to Mallorca on a study trip, and when he wrote up his findings, he was to declare that Sineu would have had one of the most beautiful ports in Europe, albeit he couldn't give an exact time as to when this port had existed.
Sineu is one of the places in Mallorca which lays claim to being the island's geographic centre. As such, and even allowing for changes to Mallorca's topography and the land's relationship with the sea, the potential for Sineu having been a sea port seems frankly preposterous. This, it would seem, is what people thought in 1825 when Doctor Beuth-Schinkel presented his evidence. By 1915, they were beginning to wonder if he might have been right but certainly weren't convinced.
There are some sea fossils near to the monument to the cyclist Francisco Alomar. This was one source of the evidence. Another was the fact that there were names such as Cas Mariner and Can Barques. But was any of this irrefutable proof?
The article from 1915 states that Karls Beuth-Schinkel was an expert in natural sciences and an official from the Kaiser's court. This was presumably Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia. But who was this Karls Beuth-Schinkel? One allows for a possible error in the Christian name - Karl rather than Karls - but I have been unsuccessful in tracing him. There was a Karl Friedrich Schinkel from that era, and he was a highly eminent architect. He was a good friend of Peter Beuth, who was a minister in the Kaiser's government. There is nowadays a Beuth-Schinkel Museum in Berlin.
Neither of these - Karl Friedrich Schinkel or Peter Beuth - fits with this Karls Beuth-Schinkel, who is thus someone rather mysterious. In fact his very presence in Sineu is drawn into question by the 1915 article. There were no official documents of the time to suggest he was in Sineu, and there surely would have been, had he been from the Kaiser's court. As to whether he might have been a resident for any time, there was likewise no reference to his name having become established. Elsewhere in Mallorca there was, says the 1915 article, hardly anyone with this name. But by saying that there was "hardly anyone" doesn't rule out the possibility that there was someone.
A question that arises, though, has to do with the mention of Cas Mariner, Can Barques and others. This must have meant that he had indeed been in Sineu. Well, not necessarily. He could have studied the names in some way that hadn't required his having been in Sineu or indeed ever having set foot on Mallorcan soil.
The conclusion one has to draw is that Karls Beuth-Schinkel, if indeed he ever existed, had come up with a fantasy or a hoax. If the sea had really reached as far as Sineu, it's reasonable to suggest that we would by now know about it. There would also be evidence of the sea having been as far inland as, for instance, Santa Margalida or Llubi. And there is absolutely none.
In Roman times, which is from when we first have a true appreciation of Mallorca's geography, the sea did encroach, but not by much. In Alcudia, any possible remaining evidence of the Roman port gates is believed to now be buried under development in Puerto Alcudia.
The sea port of Sineu has to be a fiction. Karls Beuth-Schinkel may have been a fiction. Nevertheless, a 2009 document "Sineu, vila de llegenda" refers to the port. But such is the stuff of legend.
There is, however, a possible slight twist to the tale. The story about the port had apparently first appeared in a weekly publication entitled La Aurora on 18 December. The editor of this would seem to have also been the editor of Anales de Sineu who had originally suggested that the article should be published a bit later - on 28 December. And 28 December is Spain's equivalent of April Fools' Day.
Monday, December 04, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 4 December 2017
Morning high (8.02am): 4.3C
Forecast high: 16C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 5 December - Sun, cloud, 17C; 6 December - Cloud, 18C; 7 December - Sun, cloud, 19C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northwest 3 to 4.
Clear sky. Cold. Morning low of just under one degree. Sunny day to come.
Evening update (19.30): Much better. High of 18.4C.
Forecast high: 16C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 5 December - Sun, cloud, 17C; 6 December - Cloud, 18C; 7 December - Sun, cloud, 19C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northwest 3 to 4.
Clear sky. Cold. Morning low of just under one degree. Sunny day to come.
Evening update (19.30): Much better. High of 18.4C.
Prohibition: A Problem Of Enforcement
The regional government, prompted by the health ministry and town halls, is to prohibit alcohol. No, you're ok: not prohibit booze for everyone, just the underage, the under-18s. Al Capone can rest easy in his grave. He won't be needed, and anyone who fancies cashing in by opening up a speakeasy will be disappointed.
The temperance drive by the Balearic government seems at variance with the culture that it administers. Prohibition in the US was promoted by Protestants. Puritanism, although the term referred to a purification from Catholicism, expanded its meaning. The Puritans of New England were the founding fathers of Protestant abstinence, though it might be noted that the Pilgrim Fathers had arrived in the New World with copious amounts of alcohol. Nevertheless, the state of Maine was the first to ever have prohibition, seventy years before the Volstead Act introduced it nationwide.
Although there was the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America (and had been from the 1870s), Catholics were almost universally opposed to prohibition. Culturally, drink and religion had more or less always gone hand in hand, and American Catholics weren't about to deny the tradition of centuries.
Prohibition in the US was a huge error. All it achieved was to allow gangsters such as Capone to flourish. It proved impossible to truly enforce because, among other things, there simply weren't the cops to enforce it. There were around thirty federal agents per state, and American states are generally speaking quite large.
What we are talking about in the Balearics, or what the government is talking about, is of course a very different type of prohibition. Under-18s are not allowed to buy alcohol, and from some time in 2018 they will be banned from drinking it. The exact terms of this prohibition will doubtless become clearer. One presumes that the government doesn't intend interfering with what might be drunk around the family dining table. Or perhaps it does.
The chief motivations for this legislation are the street-drinking "botellón" and what happens at fiestas, where the botellón can be and is magnified enormously. During the summer there was a campaign designed to warn of the risks of alcohol, especially when the "verbena" night parties were in full swing. In 2018, we can assume that the campaign is to be intensified and, moreover, be backed by the strong arm of legislation.
Drinking by teenagers in Mallorca (and in Spain) is recognised as having been a growing social problem for several years. An aspect of this has been the greatly increased attendance at and popularity of the night parties. Once upon a time they were local and comparatively quiet events. This is no longer the case, and fiesta flashpoints exist in some more unlikely parts of Mallorca, such as the tiny village of Biniali.
Then there is the "botellón" for which no fiesta excuse is required. It happens everywhere. Regular are the reports of residents denouncing street drinking. Villages, towns, it makes no difference, and the hand-wringing has been wrung for years, normally to no appreciable effect. And this has partly been due to the oddities of local ordinance. One should ask why, as an example, Palma town hall has felt the need to establish special intervention zones for dealing with the botellón, i.e. areas of the city that attract street drinking. Can't the police just deal with it anyway?
In Alcudia, the town hall passed new ordinance in August which set out fines for drinking out of any type of container. Previously, it was an offence to drink from a glass container on the public way. It now doesn't matter, but the mere fact that the town hall should have to specify the type of container highlights the absurdity of some bylaws. In Alcudia, moreover, there is the regular "botellón", which still takes place. Yet police controls are supposed to have been stepped up.
Alcudia was also the location for the June "macrobotellón". When the schools finished, thousands of kids descended on Puerto Alcudia. Police tutors from other municipalities would be on hand to attempt to deter underage drinking, but what did they think was going to happen? All those kids, the vast majority under the age of eighteen (and as young as fourteen), heading to the beaches and the nightlife areas? Were they there to compare notes about their final maths assignments?
There is no denying the fact there is a problem. Mallorcan and Spanish youngsters are not the virtuous abstainers that some might believe them to be. Far from it. The "culture" of alcohol is abused, and trouble accompanies it (as do health and other risks). But ultimately, and whatever righteous campaigns the administrations come up with and whatever the legislation will be, it comes down to enforcement. In the America of prohibition, they discovered that enforcement was nigh on impossible. The police weren't available. Are they in Mallorca?
The temperance drive by the Balearic government seems at variance with the culture that it administers. Prohibition in the US was promoted by Protestants. Puritanism, although the term referred to a purification from Catholicism, expanded its meaning. The Puritans of New England were the founding fathers of Protestant abstinence, though it might be noted that the Pilgrim Fathers had arrived in the New World with copious amounts of alcohol. Nevertheless, the state of Maine was the first to ever have prohibition, seventy years before the Volstead Act introduced it nationwide.
Although there was the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America (and had been from the 1870s), Catholics were almost universally opposed to prohibition. Culturally, drink and religion had more or less always gone hand in hand, and American Catholics weren't about to deny the tradition of centuries.
Prohibition in the US was a huge error. All it achieved was to allow gangsters such as Capone to flourish. It proved impossible to truly enforce because, among other things, there simply weren't the cops to enforce it. There were around thirty federal agents per state, and American states are generally speaking quite large.
What we are talking about in the Balearics, or what the government is talking about, is of course a very different type of prohibition. Under-18s are not allowed to buy alcohol, and from some time in 2018 they will be banned from drinking it. The exact terms of this prohibition will doubtless become clearer. One presumes that the government doesn't intend interfering with what might be drunk around the family dining table. Or perhaps it does.
The chief motivations for this legislation are the street-drinking "botellón" and what happens at fiestas, where the botellón can be and is magnified enormously. During the summer there was a campaign designed to warn of the risks of alcohol, especially when the "verbena" night parties were in full swing. In 2018, we can assume that the campaign is to be intensified and, moreover, be backed by the strong arm of legislation.
Drinking by teenagers in Mallorca (and in Spain) is recognised as having been a growing social problem for several years. An aspect of this has been the greatly increased attendance at and popularity of the night parties. Once upon a time they were local and comparatively quiet events. This is no longer the case, and fiesta flashpoints exist in some more unlikely parts of Mallorca, such as the tiny village of Biniali.
Then there is the "botellón" for which no fiesta excuse is required. It happens everywhere. Regular are the reports of residents denouncing street drinking. Villages, towns, it makes no difference, and the hand-wringing has been wrung for years, normally to no appreciable effect. And this has partly been due to the oddities of local ordinance. One should ask why, as an example, Palma town hall has felt the need to establish special intervention zones for dealing with the botellón, i.e. areas of the city that attract street drinking. Can't the police just deal with it anyway?
In Alcudia, the town hall passed new ordinance in August which set out fines for drinking out of any type of container. Previously, it was an offence to drink from a glass container on the public way. It now doesn't matter, but the mere fact that the town hall should have to specify the type of container highlights the absurdity of some bylaws. In Alcudia, moreover, there is the regular "botellón", which still takes place. Yet police controls are supposed to have been stepped up.
Alcudia was also the location for the June "macrobotellón". When the schools finished, thousands of kids descended on Puerto Alcudia. Police tutors from other municipalities would be on hand to attempt to deter underage drinking, but what did they think was going to happen? All those kids, the vast majority under the age of eighteen (and as young as fourteen), heading to the beaches and the nightlife areas? Were they there to compare notes about their final maths assignments?
There is no denying the fact there is a problem. Mallorcan and Spanish youngsters are not the virtuous abstainers that some might believe them to be. Far from it. The "culture" of alcohol is abused, and trouble accompanies it (as do health and other risks). But ultimately, and whatever righteous campaigns the administrations come up with and whatever the legislation will be, it comes down to enforcement. In the America of prohibition, they discovered that enforcement was nigh on impossible. The police weren't available. Are they in Mallorca?
Sunday, December 03, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 3 December 2017
Morning high (6.56am): 7C
Forecast high: 15C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 4 December - Sun, cloud, 16C; 5 December - Cloud, 17C; 6 December - Sun, cloud, 18C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North-Northwest 6 to 7 easing 4 in the afternoon.
Hopefully some more sun today and not as chilly. Amber alert for coastal conditions, especially this morning.
Evening update (19.15): High of 13.9C. Some rain this morning. Got better and the sun was out.
Forecast high: 15C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 4 December - Sun, cloud, 16C; 5 December - Cloud, 17C; 6 December - Sun, cloud, 18C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North-Northwest 6 to 7 easing 4 in the afternoon.
Hopefully some more sun today and not as chilly. Amber alert for coastal conditions, especially this morning.
Evening update (19.15): High of 13.9C. Some rain this morning. Got better and the sun was out.
The Week The Past Caught Up - Again
Ciudadanos, the Citizens, is a relatively new political party. It was born in Catalonia eleven years ago. (Oh Catalonia, root of all Spain's malaise.) This new-born political formation was modern, business-oriented, anti-corruption, wedded to Spanish unity, a counterpoint to any thoughts of Catalan secession and also to any Catalan dominance. It still is all of these things. It has proved to be moderately successful in taking its brand of Partido Popular-lite politics (the PP minus the corruption and with less austerity) onto a broader plain. It has modestly conquered Spain. It partially reigns (sic) on the plain, not just Spain's but also Mallorca's. And that's the problem.
Its leader, the one-time swimming champion, the occasional "little twerp" Albert Rivera, discovered last week that he was being compared to José Antonio Primo de Rivera. And who is he? Not is; was. José Antonio was the son of Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, the first dictator, the forerunner of you know who. José Antonio was also, and more pertinently, the founder of the Falange. It clearly ran in the blood. For his sins (and there were sins), José Antonio was charged with military rebellion and conspiracy by the still Republican government. He was shot on 20 November, 1936.
Shall I compare thee in a fascist way? Who made the comparison? Was it Podemos? Was it one of the wilder Catalan elements? The Ruffian, Gabriel Rufián of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, perhaps? It was neither. It was the number two in PSOE. Adriana Lastra, Pedro Sánchez's right-hand (left-hand) woman, opined that Rivera had arrived kicking and screaming with his new-born party as a form of Adolfo Suárez reincarnate - Suárez, the godfather of democratic transition. But as the new-born grew, he started his own transition. Into José Antonio Primo de Rivera.
The C's, said Adriana, have moved to the right of the PP, which was a massive condemnation in its own right. The party has "no respect" for the style of autonomous government in Spain, that which filters down to the regions - Catalonia being one of them. Every day, Adriana continued, the C's move more to the right. Was she in fact claiming that the C's are a far-right party? When presented with this question, Adriana realised quite what she had been saying. She withdrew her remarks and apologised. But she had made them nevertheless.
Rivera does have the ability to get under people's skin. He is a sort of Aussie cricketer sledger type of politician, but then so are various others, not least The Ruffian, his left-wing opposite in Catalonia. But the Falange? Really, what was she thinking? Well, she was thinking what all too many think. The latest bout of Catalan soul-searching and navel-gazing has unleashed what is always there just beneath the surface ready to break into the light of day. The past. Spain can't do without it. A national form of self-pity characterises society and not just political society.
There was a time, certainly during Zapatero's period as prime minister, when a new-found maturity appeared to have been attained, a dispensing of the past but also an attempt at the reconciliation that was denied by the amnesia of the post-Franco amnesty. Rivera and the C's were a product of the Zapatero era. Forward-looking. But unfortunately they aren't. They, as with all other parties, are stuck with their historical memories. Puigdemont has merely taken these to an extreme and has in the process facilitated the remembrance of the past. None of them can move forward because they are all victims of this debilitating self-pity.
From a motorway bridge in Barcelona the other day, seven dolls were hanged. Heads down, they bore the logos of the C's, the PP and the Catalan wing of PSOE. The release of political prisoners was the demand that accompanied them. Of course Junqueras and the rest should be released. Wrongs there have been, but incarceration achieves nothing more than fuel the memories of the wrongs of the past. And in the midst of this are the C's, whose modest successes are giving other parties the jitters. Notably those towards the left.
In the Balearics, the membership of the C's has shot up by 20% in the past few weeks. Such a statistic will not have gone unnoticed and has not gone unnoticed by the promoters of nascent Balearic independence - Més, to whom, so the right-wing press regularly insist, can be added the name of Francina Armengol. What fools there can sometimes be on the right in drawing such an assumption.
The C's in the Balearics, and in particular their scholarly leader Xavier Pericay, are on the end of a campaign to discredit them. The main reason for this is the C's insistence that there is political pro-independence indoctrination in Balearic schools. The campaign has been started by the Unió Obrera Balear, in which the one-time hunger-striking teacher from Llucmajor, Jaume Sastre, is a key player. A poster reads: "Who are the new Inquisitors who wish to intimidate and make purges among the teachers of the Balearics?" There are photos of Pericay and Olga Ballester of the C's.
And so, the past goes even further back. From the Falange to the Inquisition.
Its leader, the one-time swimming champion, the occasional "little twerp" Albert Rivera, discovered last week that he was being compared to José Antonio Primo de Rivera. And who is he? Not is; was. José Antonio was the son of Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, the first dictator, the forerunner of you know who. José Antonio was also, and more pertinently, the founder of the Falange. It clearly ran in the blood. For his sins (and there were sins), José Antonio was charged with military rebellion and conspiracy by the still Republican government. He was shot on 20 November, 1936.
Shall I compare thee in a fascist way? Who made the comparison? Was it Podemos? Was it one of the wilder Catalan elements? The Ruffian, Gabriel Rufián of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, perhaps? It was neither. It was the number two in PSOE. Adriana Lastra, Pedro Sánchez's right-hand (left-hand) woman, opined that Rivera had arrived kicking and screaming with his new-born party as a form of Adolfo Suárez reincarnate - Suárez, the godfather of democratic transition. But as the new-born grew, he started his own transition. Into José Antonio Primo de Rivera.
The C's, said Adriana, have moved to the right of the PP, which was a massive condemnation in its own right. The party has "no respect" for the style of autonomous government in Spain, that which filters down to the regions - Catalonia being one of them. Every day, Adriana continued, the C's move more to the right. Was she in fact claiming that the C's are a far-right party? When presented with this question, Adriana realised quite what she had been saying. She withdrew her remarks and apologised. But she had made them nevertheless.
Rivera does have the ability to get under people's skin. He is a sort of Aussie cricketer sledger type of politician, but then so are various others, not least The Ruffian, his left-wing opposite in Catalonia. But the Falange? Really, what was she thinking? Well, she was thinking what all too many think. The latest bout of Catalan soul-searching and navel-gazing has unleashed what is always there just beneath the surface ready to break into the light of day. The past. Spain can't do without it. A national form of self-pity characterises society and not just political society.
There was a time, certainly during Zapatero's period as prime minister, when a new-found maturity appeared to have been attained, a dispensing of the past but also an attempt at the reconciliation that was denied by the amnesia of the post-Franco amnesty. Rivera and the C's were a product of the Zapatero era. Forward-looking. But unfortunately they aren't. They, as with all other parties, are stuck with their historical memories. Puigdemont has merely taken these to an extreme and has in the process facilitated the remembrance of the past. None of them can move forward because they are all victims of this debilitating self-pity.
From a motorway bridge in Barcelona the other day, seven dolls were hanged. Heads down, they bore the logos of the C's, the PP and the Catalan wing of PSOE. The release of political prisoners was the demand that accompanied them. Of course Junqueras and the rest should be released. Wrongs there have been, but incarceration achieves nothing more than fuel the memories of the wrongs of the past. And in the midst of this are the C's, whose modest successes are giving other parties the jitters. Notably those towards the left.
In the Balearics, the membership of the C's has shot up by 20% in the past few weeks. Such a statistic will not have gone unnoticed and has not gone unnoticed by the promoters of nascent Balearic independence - Més, to whom, so the right-wing press regularly insist, can be added the name of Francina Armengol. What fools there can sometimes be on the right in drawing such an assumption.
The C's in the Balearics, and in particular their scholarly leader Xavier Pericay, are on the end of a campaign to discredit them. The main reason for this is the C's insistence that there is political pro-independence indoctrination in Balearic schools. The campaign has been started by the Unió Obrera Balear, in which the one-time hunger-striking teacher from Llucmajor, Jaume Sastre, is a key player. A poster reads: "Who are the new Inquisitors who wish to intimidate and make purges among the teachers of the Balearics?" There are photos of Pericay and Olga Ballester of the C's.
And so, the past goes even further back. From the Falange to the Inquisition.
Saturday, December 02, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 2 December 2017
Morning high (7.39am): 8.8C
Forecast high: 13C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 3 December - Cloud, sun, wind, 15C; 4 December - Sun, cloud, 16C; 5 December - Cloud, sun, 17C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North-Northeast 6 to 7 easing temporarily Northwest 4 to 6 in the morning.
More brutal looking clouds hovering. Lows of just over two degrees in areas at half seven this morning. Forecast suggests an improvement from some time tomorrow.
Evening update (19.30): Some sun, some rain, cold. High of 11C.
Forecast high: 13C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 3 December - Cloud, sun, wind, 15C; 4 December - Sun, cloud, 16C; 5 December - Cloud, sun, 17C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North-Northeast 6 to 7 easing temporarily Northwest 4 to 6 in the morning.
More brutal looking clouds hovering. Lows of just over two degrees in areas at half seven this morning. Forecast suggests an improvement from some time tomorrow.
Evening update (19.30): Some sun, some rain, cold. High of 11C.
How The Melody Maker Became A Hotel Brand
You might have thought that this would have been the end of the story, but a few years later a Spanish businessman entered the scene. He was and is Javier Hidalgo, who is now the CEO of Globalia, of which Llucmajor-headquartered Air Europa is a part and which also boasts the Be Live hotel chain. Hidalgo acquired the rights to the Melody Maker name. The intention was to turn it into a fashion and music brand. And this is what has happened. The music is no longer a magazine but has become a Be Live niche.
So, it has been with some fanfare that Globalia have announced that the one-time ME Cancún in Mexico (a Meliá hotel) is to become the Melody Maker Cancún. Aimed at a 35-50 age range, it is said that it will take Las Vegas to Cancún. It will be thematic, have music, emphasise its gastronomy and offer all sorts of five-star facilities for its clientele. For now, the plan is to roll it out elsewhere in Central and South America, but it is always possible that it will make its way over here (Ibiza would perhaps be more likely than Majorca).
This then is what has happened to that famous old music paper. The promotion of the Cancún hotel uses the Melody Maker logo as many will remember it from the 1960s and 1970s. As such, it looks somewhat odd, old-fashioned even, but that old logo lives on nevertheless.
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