When it comes to insults, it doesn't get much worse than "hijo de puta". The literal translation is bad enough, but it also means something rather more unpleasant, a word I fancy I first became aware of when Grace Slick and Marty Balin were proudly proclaiming their anarchy in song at the end of the 1960s. "Up against the wall, motherfucker." It was astonishing that Jefferson Airplane could get away with such subversion (in that their record label did not censor the record, despite having censored other Airplane material), but they did, and the word has passed into subversion folklore, now revived - in a different language - in Mallorca.
Jefferson Airplane were reincarnated as Jefferson Starship (later, simply Starship). They acquired the stars and lost their subversiveness. There is a star in Mallorca that hasn't. "L'Estel" (the star) is a fortnightly magazine. It is the centre of a real old row, having called President Bauzá "hijo de puta". The government has instructed the legal authorities to take action against the magazine because of the insult.
Are the government and the president being over-sensitive? Yes. But the insult is only part of the story. The magazine also had a go at the Partido Popular in general and at "forasteros" (Spanish "foreigners") who don't speak Catalan. Furthermore, it suggested that the Obra Cultural Balear (OCB) should be the Balearics shadow government. You might, therefore, detect a bit of a theme here. Let's put it this way, had a magazine written in Castilian called Bauzá a "hijo de puta", chances are that it might have caused little more than a ripple.
To add fuel to the fury that is apparently steaming from the ears of the PP is the fact that the magazine has enjoyed government and Council of Mallorca funding; at least it did so during the four years of the previous administration. The magazine hasn't quite bitten off the hand that has fed it, given that it was most unlikely to still be on a government grant list, but the insult does show a bit of ingratitude to the taxpayer.
The row comes hard on the heels of the government's withdrawal of funding for union worker representatives. For the public, that part of it more inclined to be sympathetic to the PP, both the grants for the representatives and for the magazine have been indicative of a pandering to the left, to the unions and to Catalanism.
And the left and Catalanism are very much what you find in "L'Estel". One of its main contributors, for example, is a member of the Ibizan wing of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Catalonia Republican Left). Another, Miquel López Crespí, is one of the usual suspects to be found behind banners at gatherings in favour of independence and the "Catalan lands". Its publisher is Mateu Joan i Florit, one more to add to our growing list of spectacularly bearded lefties. He outdoes both the Solzhenitsyn of PSOE's Alfredo Rubalcaba and the prolific grey growth of the UGT union's Cándido Mendez. To get an impression, think Rowan Williams with a suntan or even Fidel Castro.
Despite the unpleasantness of the insult and despite the grant, this has all the feel of a political agenda. There is of course clearly an agenda on behalf of "L'Estel", certainly with its suggestion that the ostensibly independent but very much pro-Catalan and pro-the Catalan lands OCB should somehow be forming an opposition, but is the government right to go after a magazine in what might be construed as an attack on the freedom of speech? It runs the risk of creating a "cause célèbre" in seeking a prosecution - that could be made to be seen as a persecution - of a publication that claims to work "in favour of the independence of our nation" (by which one guesses that Florit, who uttered this, means the Catalan nation).
Whatever the rights or wrongs of the insult and of the government seeking recourse to the law, what we have here is a case of the tensions being ratcheted up. It was precisely this that concerned many, including myself, prior to the regional elections. It was a question of how long it would take for these tensions to start to surface. They now appear to be.
Jefferson Airplane's song was called "We Can Be Together", the "we" being those who opposed the American government. There is always another "we". And in Mallorca, we are all likely to become more and more aware of who the "we's" are. Because one thing is for sure; they aren't all together.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Real Mallorca 0 : 1 Malaga
Oil-rich Malaga at Mallorca. A mismatch? The first half seemed so, Malaga being totally on top and confirming this with a headed goal by Demichelis on 39 minutes. It got better for Mallorca in the second half, and they pushed hard for an equaliser towards the end, but the lack of firepower, already exposed in the first two games of the season, was evident once more.
Mallorca:
Aouate; Zuiverloon, Chico, Ramis, Cáceres; Pina, Tissone; Tejera (Pereira 71), Alfaro (Aki 45), Nsue; Hemed (Victor 57)
Yellows: Cáceres (44); Chico (55)
Malaga:
Caballero; Gámez, Demichelis, Mathijsen, Eliseu; Toulalan, Duda (Fernández 80); Joaquín, Julio Baptista (Maresca 65), Cazorla; Van Nistelrooy (Rondón 71)
Yellow: Toulalan (68)
Goal: Demichelis (39)
Mallorca:
Aouate; Zuiverloon, Chico, Ramis, Cáceres; Pina, Tissone; Tejera (Pereira 71), Alfaro (Aki 45), Nsue; Hemed (Victor 57)
Yellows: Cáceres (44); Chico (55)
Malaga:
Caballero; Gámez, Demichelis, Mathijsen, Eliseu; Toulalan, Duda (Fernández 80); Joaquín, Julio Baptista (Maresca 65), Cazorla; Van Nistelrooy (Rondón 71)
Yellow: Toulalan (68)
Goal: Demichelis (39)
MALLORCA TODAY - Alcúdia's recycled water system doesn't work
Work over the winter months that left roads dug up and dust accumulated and which was all in aid of a system for water recycling for use by hotels in Alcúdia (at a cost of 4.5 million euros) seems to have been totally in vain. The system, which should have come on-stream in June, isn't functioning. The reason is that the level of salt in the water exceeds the 3% permitted by law, a problem not helped by what is said to be the disastrous quality of the pipework.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 17 September 2011
A fine morning, with local highs of 22 degrees at 07.00, it should remain a sunny and warm day, but at some point it's going to go pear-shaped; probably tomorrow morning. The met office is due to issue a yellow alert for heavy rain (up to 20mm per hour) and for likely storms.
Cloud did build up, not heavy enough to suggest rain but enough, plus a stiffening breeze, to keep the beaches more lightly populated than of late. An afternoon high, nevertheless, of 28.3.
Cloud did build up, not heavy enough to suggest rain but enough, plus a stiffening breeze, to keep the beaches more lightly populated than of late. An afternoon high, nevertheless, of 28.3.
Necessity For Change: Tourism
Remarkable. Firstly, that I've got a good word for the Partido Popular; secondly, that it is displaying some uncommonly common sense. Where tourism is concerned, the PP have it over the other parties. They try not to obstruct where others do try. They make enemies along the way, and they are nowhere nearer striking a sensible balance between the needs of the established tourism industry (primarily the hotels) and those of the non-established, such as the holiday let business. But praise where praise is due.
A caveat. It was the hoteliers, in the form of the Mallorca hoteliers federation, that staged a conference entitled "Tourism, The Necessity For Change". Change, where the hotels are concerned, is change that's good for the hotels. Nevertheless, the outcomes of this conference are generally positive.
Amongst them is the likelihood that Meliá Hotels International will create a new "megacomplex" of four-star accommodation out of existing hotels (the Royal Beach, the Antillas Barbados and Mallorca Beach) and that this complex will be themed. The exact nature of this theming is not yet clear, but the wish to do so is one to be welcomed.
One hopes that the themes won't be of the Flintstones variety; please God, anything but this. What one does hope is that it might be of a "theme" that Mallorca is crying out for, an all-year, all-weather complex; the theme would be akin to the Center Parcs concept. One fears that it might not be, in which case it would be a huge missed opportunity, but we will see.
Another outcome is that the tourism minister Carlos Delgado is minded to go ahead in permitting hotels to stage concerts. He could hardly say that he wouldn't, having more or less single-handedly granted Mallorca Rocks its licences both as mayor of Calvia and now as tourism minister. He's made his concert hotel bed, and now he has to lie in it; in different hotels. But good for him.
A further move, and one well heralded, is that the time when the tourism law is changed to enable condohotels seems to be drawing ever nearer. But one detects the first rumblings of division and self-interest amongst different hoteliers. There needs to a minimum size for apartments that can be converted to residential use (90 square metres), or there needs to be a stipulation that they are from existing three to four-star stock, or there needs to be provision to make sure that condos aren't simply a "refuge for the obsolete".
One would have thought that a refuge from the obsolete was a very good reason for allowing condos, always assuming investment were forthcoming to make them of sufficiently good standard. If the condo does go ahead, and it seems unlikely that it won't, then this could be good news; residential apartments in hotels means that they won't be all-inclusive.
The other side to this is that the condo idea, around for some years, is being exposed as blatantly self-serving when you take into account the fierce opposition of the hotels to the holiday-let sector. Forget all the other spin, this is the real reason for that opposition; one that allows the hotels to have the cake of conversion and of a lucrative residential tourism market and eat it, too, to the point of their gorging themselves.
And then there is something else. The PP government's finance and business minister José Aguiló is flagging up an idea that is so sensible that is one that even ordinary Joe Soaps, who are neither members of governments nor anything in particular to do with the tourism industry, have thought up; and this is the idea of social-security breaks for businesses which lengthen the season, i.e. the likes of hotels which would stay open over winter.
The idea is such a no-brainer, one wonders why it has not been introduced and not even really discussed. One reason why it hasn't is because of the debilitating culture endemic among many Spaniards and Mallorcans (and indeed other nationalities that have come to live in Mallorca) that you work for six months and then live off the state for the other six. It's time for a cultural change and for an incentive for hotels to keep open, even on reduced staffs.
There is much to be positive about what the government has been saying these past few days. There is a "necessity for change". The necessity has existed for years, but complacency, lack of will, lack of strategic thought have all prevented it. We might just have reached a stage when everyone finally understands the necessity and will actually do something about it.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
A caveat. It was the hoteliers, in the form of the Mallorca hoteliers federation, that staged a conference entitled "Tourism, The Necessity For Change". Change, where the hotels are concerned, is change that's good for the hotels. Nevertheless, the outcomes of this conference are generally positive.
Amongst them is the likelihood that Meliá Hotels International will create a new "megacomplex" of four-star accommodation out of existing hotels (the Royal Beach, the Antillas Barbados and Mallorca Beach) and that this complex will be themed. The exact nature of this theming is not yet clear, but the wish to do so is one to be welcomed.
One hopes that the themes won't be of the Flintstones variety; please God, anything but this. What one does hope is that it might be of a "theme" that Mallorca is crying out for, an all-year, all-weather complex; the theme would be akin to the Center Parcs concept. One fears that it might not be, in which case it would be a huge missed opportunity, but we will see.
Another outcome is that the tourism minister Carlos Delgado is minded to go ahead in permitting hotels to stage concerts. He could hardly say that he wouldn't, having more or less single-handedly granted Mallorca Rocks its licences both as mayor of Calvia and now as tourism minister. He's made his concert hotel bed, and now he has to lie in it; in different hotels. But good for him.
A further move, and one well heralded, is that the time when the tourism law is changed to enable condohotels seems to be drawing ever nearer. But one detects the first rumblings of division and self-interest amongst different hoteliers. There needs to a minimum size for apartments that can be converted to residential use (90 square metres), or there needs to be a stipulation that they are from existing three to four-star stock, or there needs to be provision to make sure that condos aren't simply a "refuge for the obsolete".
One would have thought that a refuge from the obsolete was a very good reason for allowing condos, always assuming investment were forthcoming to make them of sufficiently good standard. If the condo does go ahead, and it seems unlikely that it won't, then this could be good news; residential apartments in hotels means that they won't be all-inclusive.
The other side to this is that the condo idea, around for some years, is being exposed as blatantly self-serving when you take into account the fierce opposition of the hotels to the holiday-let sector. Forget all the other spin, this is the real reason for that opposition; one that allows the hotels to have the cake of conversion and of a lucrative residential tourism market and eat it, too, to the point of their gorging themselves.
And then there is something else. The PP government's finance and business minister José Aguiló is flagging up an idea that is so sensible that is one that even ordinary Joe Soaps, who are neither members of governments nor anything in particular to do with the tourism industry, have thought up; and this is the idea of social-security breaks for businesses which lengthen the season, i.e. the likes of hotels which would stay open over winter.
The idea is such a no-brainer, one wonders why it has not been introduced and not even really discussed. One reason why it hasn't is because of the debilitating culture endemic among many Spaniards and Mallorcans (and indeed other nationalities that have come to live in Mallorca) that you work for six months and then live off the state for the other six. It's time for a cultural change and for an incentive for hotels to keep open, even on reduced staffs.
There is much to be positive about what the government has been saying these past few days. There is a "necessity for change". The necessity has existed for years, but complacency, lack of will, lack of strategic thought have all prevented it. We might just have reached a stage when everyone finally understands the necessity and will actually do something about it.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, September 16, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 16 September 2011
A warm night, it cooled down sufficiently to mean a local high at 07.00 of only 21 degrees. But a warm and very sunny day in prospect. The forecast for Sunday has improved, but there is still a risk of showers, as is also the case on Monday.
It has been a fine day with maximums to 28 degrees. However, the threat of a breakdown in the weather this weekend looks more likely now. The met office is saying that temperatures will drop by up to seven degrees this weekend (Sunday probably) with rain and storms possible. By Tuesday, the temperatures will rise again but not to current levels.
It has been a fine day with maximums to 28 degrees. However, the threat of a breakdown in the weather this weekend looks more likely now. The met office is saying that temperatures will drop by up to seven degrees this weekend (Sunday probably) with rain and storms possible. By Tuesday, the temperatures will rise again but not to current levels.
MALLORCA TODAY - Alcúdia bar controversy and Carme Garcia
The former PSM member Carme Garcia, who caused upset when she supported the Partido Popular during the local elections and has since become a member of the town hall administration, has found herself in the midst of a controversy related to a town hall decision to pave some garden in the market square. The garden happens to be next to the bar Sa Murada, which is owned by her father, and will enable extra terracing for the bar. The mayor, Coloma Terrasa, says that the decision was based on a report by local police. The opposition has challenged the ethics of the decision.
Drinking Mallorca By The Bucket
Once upon a time you took a bucket and spade to the beach. You still take a bucket to the beach, but you no longer fill it with sand. You fill it instead with the boys' bevvy. Booze. Booze by the bucketloads.
The season has witnessed a growth in the sale of buckets in Mallorca's resorts, mainly Magalluf, Palmanova, Arenal and Cala Ratjada. The attraction of the bucket is not restricted by culture. Both the Brits and the Germans are bucketheads. There is a whole in their buckets, dear Lisa and liebe Lisa, a whole load of beer in their buckets.
"Drunken tourism" is becoming such an accepted term in the tourism lexicon that the Balearics Tourism Agency should give serious consideration to its inclusion in its marketing strategy. Alongside the alternatives of culture and good scoff, there would also be the promotion of drunken tourism. Where alcohol is concerned, they might have more in mind the attractions of local vino, available from boutique bodegas at absurd prices per bottle and with designer labels. Instead, they've got buckets with a sticky bar code and cold drink at bucketshop prices.
The agency wouldn't of course promote any such thing. All bad for the image and what have you: British and German youths traipsing off to the nearest beach with their buckets, crates of cheap drink and a box of straws. Oh no, you can't have gatherings of public drinking. You wouldn't get the local lads and lasses doing this. Except of course, that's exactly what you do get. If the locals can stage a "botellón", why shouldn't tourists do something similar? And, moreover, do it during the day when the sun's shining.
Boozing has been around in Mallorca as long as mass tourism has been. It might have changed in its nature - the bucket did used to be reserved solely for its accompanying spade in the good old days - but it has always been an essential part of the holiday experience. It was not only essential, it would also have been a badly missed opportunity in those good old days. A handful of pesetas for a liberal measure, followed by another handful of pesetas ... and for the same cost as a couple of Double Diamonds back in the UK, you could get tanked up enough to require a stomach pump.
Resorts in Mallorca may not be the leading exponents of drunken tourism in Spain - Lloret de Mar, as I wrote about previously, lays claim to the number-one slot - they may not even be among the leaders in the Med (think the alternatives such as Zante and its industrial alcohol), but they are still prominent, as they always have been.
Nevertheless, the growth in the phenomenon of drinking by the bucketload is causing sufficient concern for the Mallorca hoteliers' federation to call for a commission to look into the matter. What do they think this will achieve? A ban on the sale of buckets perhaps?
They could always try and get the drinking of alcohol in public places banned. Except they've tried this with the botellón with usually no effect whatsoever. In Alcúdia, there was meant to have been such a ban. If there was (or indeed still is), no one has taken much notice. Moreover, how would you define such a ban? You couldn't stop a holdaymaker (or indeed a local) cracking open a can of Saint Mick on the beach.
What the hoteliers are really concerned about is the fact that there are too many young people pitching up and occupying rooms that the hoteliers would prefer were kept for families. They're never satisfied, are they. TUI, and for once TUI is not trying to skirt the issue, has said that the youth market is important. Of course it's important. It means bums on airline seats and hanging out of balconies in hotels. Hats off to TUI. It is reported as also saying that "golfers and five star hotels alone don't fill airplanes". Well, well, well.
Quite how the youth market with their buckets and beer equates to a TUI vision of sustainable tourism I'm not sure. But sales of holidays are sales of holidays; sustainability can go hang, along with any sense that a tour operator should discriminate in terms of who it actually sells a holiday to. Which it most certainly shouldn't.
Ultimately, there is a fear that the bucketheads will drive away the family tourist. But it is a vastly overstated fear. Mallorca's tourism has always been a mix, as has that of its resorts: a bucket and spade for the kids and a bucket and beer for the older kids.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The season has witnessed a growth in the sale of buckets in Mallorca's resorts, mainly Magalluf, Palmanova, Arenal and Cala Ratjada. The attraction of the bucket is not restricted by culture. Both the Brits and the Germans are bucketheads. There is a whole in their buckets, dear Lisa and liebe Lisa, a whole load of beer in their buckets.
"Drunken tourism" is becoming such an accepted term in the tourism lexicon that the Balearics Tourism Agency should give serious consideration to its inclusion in its marketing strategy. Alongside the alternatives of culture and good scoff, there would also be the promotion of drunken tourism. Where alcohol is concerned, they might have more in mind the attractions of local vino, available from boutique bodegas at absurd prices per bottle and with designer labels. Instead, they've got buckets with a sticky bar code and cold drink at bucketshop prices.
The agency wouldn't of course promote any such thing. All bad for the image and what have you: British and German youths traipsing off to the nearest beach with their buckets, crates of cheap drink and a box of straws. Oh no, you can't have gatherings of public drinking. You wouldn't get the local lads and lasses doing this. Except of course, that's exactly what you do get. If the locals can stage a "botellón", why shouldn't tourists do something similar? And, moreover, do it during the day when the sun's shining.
Boozing has been around in Mallorca as long as mass tourism has been. It might have changed in its nature - the bucket did used to be reserved solely for its accompanying spade in the good old days - but it has always been an essential part of the holiday experience. It was not only essential, it would also have been a badly missed opportunity in those good old days. A handful of pesetas for a liberal measure, followed by another handful of pesetas ... and for the same cost as a couple of Double Diamonds back in the UK, you could get tanked up enough to require a stomach pump.
Resorts in Mallorca may not be the leading exponents of drunken tourism in Spain - Lloret de Mar, as I wrote about previously, lays claim to the number-one slot - they may not even be among the leaders in the Med (think the alternatives such as Zante and its industrial alcohol), but they are still prominent, as they always have been.
Nevertheless, the growth in the phenomenon of drinking by the bucketload is causing sufficient concern for the Mallorca hoteliers' federation to call for a commission to look into the matter. What do they think this will achieve? A ban on the sale of buckets perhaps?
They could always try and get the drinking of alcohol in public places banned. Except they've tried this with the botellón with usually no effect whatsoever. In Alcúdia, there was meant to have been such a ban. If there was (or indeed still is), no one has taken much notice. Moreover, how would you define such a ban? You couldn't stop a holdaymaker (or indeed a local) cracking open a can of Saint Mick on the beach.
What the hoteliers are really concerned about is the fact that there are too many young people pitching up and occupying rooms that the hoteliers would prefer were kept for families. They're never satisfied, are they. TUI, and for once TUI is not trying to skirt the issue, has said that the youth market is important. Of course it's important. It means bums on airline seats and hanging out of balconies in hotels. Hats off to TUI. It is reported as also saying that "golfers and five star hotels alone don't fill airplanes". Well, well, well.
Quite how the youth market with their buckets and beer equates to a TUI vision of sustainable tourism I'm not sure. But sales of holidays are sales of holidays; sustainability can go hang, along with any sense that a tour operator should discriminate in terms of who it actually sells a holiday to. Which it most certainly shouldn't.
Ultimately, there is a fear that the bucketheads will drive away the family tourist. But it is a vastly overstated fear. Mallorca's tourism has always been a mix, as has that of its resorts: a bucket and spade for the kids and a bucket and beer for the older kids.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Yet another drowning in Playa de Muro
Following the spate of drownings in the sea at Playa de Muro (three in ten days at the end of August), there was another fatality this morning. The emergency services were called just before eight this morning to attend a 76-year-old woman who unfortunately drowned, probably because of heart failure, the cause of the other recent drownings in the resort. The woman would also have been swimming when lifeguards were not on duty. The incident occurred near to the Balneario 1, i.e. in the Las Gaviotas part of Playa de Muro near to the Los Principes hotel. Sea conditions were perfectly normal.
MALLORCA TODAY - Brussels to be alerted over Muro golf course
Environmental watchdog GOB says that it intends to bring to the attention of the European Commission what it believes is the plan of the Balearic Government to unblock protection orders relating to the Son Bosc finca in Muro and so permit the development of the long-talked-about golf course.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 15 September 2011
Another rocking day to come, local highs 23plus early doors at 07.00. Sunshine all the way today. Looking increasingly dodgy for Sunday and Monday.
There turned out to be some cloud around, but only a small amount. Otherwise, another very warm day with a local high of 28 degrees. The forecast for Sunday and Monday seems to have improved now.
There turned out to be some cloud around, but only a small amount. Otherwise, another very warm day with a local high of 28 degrees. The forecast for Sunday and Monday seems to have improved now.
Union Bashing In A Balearics Style
Are the Balearics heading for a Thatcher moment? The enemy within given a sound man-bagging by the Iron Gentleman?
José Bauzá and his merry men are indulging in a spot of union bashing. This isn't the end of the brothers' power as we know it, but it might be the thin end of the industrial relations wedge. Where Bauzá leads (or is rather instructed by central office), so a Madrid newly coloured blue come November will follow.
It is becoming clearer why Bauzá has suddenly acquired an hirsute appearance. It is so he can look in the beard the likes of Cándido Mendez, the secretary-general of the UGT union. Mendez's fierce grey number makes Bauzá's designer accessory seem distinctly wimpish, but a man's got to do what a man's got to do, which is to not shave and look as hard as possible when confronting the ferocious Mendez.
The Thatcher moment, not that it actually is a Thatcher moment (yet), involves union worker representatives in the public sector. The Balearic Government is eliminating 89 of these representatives, 31 in the health sector, 34 in education and 24 in general services, along with a fund which pays for them. There are two classes of worker representatives, and the ones affected by the government's decision are those who, in effect, work full-time in their representative capacity.
As with much of anything of a political nature in the Balearics or Spain, there is a symbolic aspect to the worker representatives (found in both the public and private sectors), as they are an embodiment of workers' rights in law and under the constitution. The concept was taken from what was an established model in European countries such as Germany once democracy came to Spain. Prior to this, industrial relations didn't exist. There wasn't much industry to speak of and what relations there were tended to be somewhat one-sided; a snivelling waiter would be hauled out of a bar and a decree from the Generalísimo, announcing a 10% pay cut, would be nailed to his head.
The unions are none too impressed by the decision, and you would hardly expect them to react otherwise. The UGT (general workers) is threatening to break off relations with the government; the CCOO union believes the decision is the fore-runner of far wider cuts in the public service. Both unions accuse Bauzá and his boys of acting unilaterally and undemocratically.
A problem for the unions is that José Public might well not share their concerns. The representatives are known as "liberados sindicales", the liberado bit referring to the fact that they have been freed from their normal work. Yet the liberado tag has become something of a pejorative, as the function is seen as being a bit of a cushy number.
There is also a criticism that it observes a kind of Parkinson's Law. Work doesn't expand to fill available time, rather time expands to justify the work. And what is the work? This is another criticism, that the representative ends up indulging and supporting spurious worker grievances: Juan says that the new toilet paper in the factory loos has given him piles and so demands six months on the sick. This sort of thing.
This all said, the unions do have a legitimate beef. The government appears to have taken it upon itself to rip up an agreement dating back to 2006, and it did so at a meeting to which the unions were given a mere 24-hours notice. If Bauzá is wanting to appear to be playing the hard man, then he is succeeding, but at what price?
The government's action cannot be seen as one it has taken by itself. It may have ignored the unions, but it was a decision almost certainly taken for it elsewhere: in Madrid by the Partido Popular central office. Almost exactly a year ago, the idea of reducing (or scrapping) the worker representatives was getting a good airing. In Madrid. The president of the community of Madrid, the PP's Esperanza Aguirre, reckoned a reduction was a good idea, and so did the party's leader Mariano Rajoy. The idea has been bubbling away ever since, and, as mentioned previously, what the PP plans nationally it will try out, thanks to the compliant Bauzá, in the Balearics.
The government will argue it's all to do with saving money, but the actual saving is very small - a couple of hundred grand. The move is, therefore, political and political alone. It is also, in its own way, symbolic, and you don't need to be an expert in politics or industrial relations to appreciate what it symbolises.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
José Bauzá and his merry men are indulging in a spot of union bashing. This isn't the end of the brothers' power as we know it, but it might be the thin end of the industrial relations wedge. Where Bauzá leads (or is rather instructed by central office), so a Madrid newly coloured blue come November will follow.
It is becoming clearer why Bauzá has suddenly acquired an hirsute appearance. It is so he can look in the beard the likes of Cándido Mendez, the secretary-general of the UGT union. Mendez's fierce grey number makes Bauzá's designer accessory seem distinctly wimpish, but a man's got to do what a man's got to do, which is to not shave and look as hard as possible when confronting the ferocious Mendez.
The Thatcher moment, not that it actually is a Thatcher moment (yet), involves union worker representatives in the public sector. The Balearic Government is eliminating 89 of these representatives, 31 in the health sector, 34 in education and 24 in general services, along with a fund which pays for them. There are two classes of worker representatives, and the ones affected by the government's decision are those who, in effect, work full-time in their representative capacity.
As with much of anything of a political nature in the Balearics or Spain, there is a symbolic aspect to the worker representatives (found in both the public and private sectors), as they are an embodiment of workers' rights in law and under the constitution. The concept was taken from what was an established model in European countries such as Germany once democracy came to Spain. Prior to this, industrial relations didn't exist. There wasn't much industry to speak of and what relations there were tended to be somewhat one-sided; a snivelling waiter would be hauled out of a bar and a decree from the Generalísimo, announcing a 10% pay cut, would be nailed to his head.
The unions are none too impressed by the decision, and you would hardly expect them to react otherwise. The UGT (general workers) is threatening to break off relations with the government; the CCOO union believes the decision is the fore-runner of far wider cuts in the public service. Both unions accuse Bauzá and his boys of acting unilaterally and undemocratically.
A problem for the unions is that José Public might well not share their concerns. The representatives are known as "liberados sindicales", the liberado bit referring to the fact that they have been freed from their normal work. Yet the liberado tag has become something of a pejorative, as the function is seen as being a bit of a cushy number.
There is also a criticism that it observes a kind of Parkinson's Law. Work doesn't expand to fill available time, rather time expands to justify the work. And what is the work? This is another criticism, that the representative ends up indulging and supporting spurious worker grievances: Juan says that the new toilet paper in the factory loos has given him piles and so demands six months on the sick. This sort of thing.
This all said, the unions do have a legitimate beef. The government appears to have taken it upon itself to rip up an agreement dating back to 2006, and it did so at a meeting to which the unions were given a mere 24-hours notice. If Bauzá is wanting to appear to be playing the hard man, then he is succeeding, but at what price?
The government's action cannot be seen as one it has taken by itself. It may have ignored the unions, but it was a decision almost certainly taken for it elsewhere: in Madrid by the Partido Popular central office. Almost exactly a year ago, the idea of reducing (or scrapping) the worker representatives was getting a good airing. In Madrid. The president of the community of Madrid, the PP's Esperanza Aguirre, reckoned a reduction was a good idea, and so did the party's leader Mariano Rajoy. The idea has been bubbling away ever since, and, as mentioned previously, what the PP plans nationally it will try out, thanks to the compliant Bauzá, in the Balearics.
The government will argue it's all to do with saving money, but the actual saving is very small - a couple of hundred grand. The move is, therefore, political and political alone. It is also, in its own way, symbolic, and you don't need to be an expert in politics or industrial relations to appreciate what it symbolises.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - The new casino to finally open
Well, will it finally open? The new casino in Porto Pi has been subject to delays and announcements as to its opening on dates which have come and gone. It does now appear that it will open in less than three weeks.
MALLORCA TODAY - Another bad fire in Artà
The Artà area, which has suffered from other fires this summer, has been hit by another. 2.7 hectares of pine forest land have been affected by a fire that broke out around 13.00 this afternoon and which required the main road to Sant Llorenç to be closed for a time. There have been two other less serious fires today as well; one above Felanitx and the other, much smaller, near Llucmajor.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 14 September 2011
Warm again overnight, with temperature at 07.30 already peaking at 26 degrees. Another fine, cloudless and sunny day ahead with highs edging towards the 30 mark. The prediction is still showing a likely deterioration on Sunday and Monday next week.
And it has been another lovely day. Not too hot, with highs just over 27 degrees.
And it has been another lovely day. Not too hot, with highs just over 27 degrees.
The Weever's Tale And The Drowning Man
A common theme of most Mallorcan summers has been conspicuous by its absence this year. Jellyfish. "Plagues" or threats of plagues have not materialised, for which we should all be grateful. The absence of any biblical style invasions of the "medusa" and the resultant absence of their reporting by the media may explain why an attack by a different nasty of the waters merited some column inches. A German woman was stung by a weever fish in Peguera the other day. At first, I thought I was going to be reading that she had been killed. Thankfully, this wasn't the case, but quite why it was necessary to report a weever-fish attack I honestly can't say. Maybe it's still the silly and a very slow news season.
It's not as though there aren't other weever-fish incidents. A former neighbour of mine was stung close to the shore in Playa de Muro three summers ago. It was, in his words, indescribably painful. Actually, given that he is French, these weren't his words, but they amounted to the same. The sting required a trip to the hospital, but this was as much precautionary as really necessary.
Fatality by fish is extremely rare. In 1998 there was a death, that of a British teenager swimming off Cala Blava. The cause was something of a mystery, but it was almost certainly as the result of an acute allergic reaction to being stung by a "spider fish", which is how the weever is known locally ("pez araña").
The waters around Mallorca don't hold great terrors, but they claim lives every year. In the Balearics as a whole, eighteen people have drowned so far this summer, one more than in 2010. Playa de Muro, for some reason, seems to attract more than its fair share of drownings. Over the space of ten days at the end of August there were three fatalities.
It is not as though there is anything dangerous about the sea off Playa de Muro. The water is shallow, and the sea only becomes potentially risky with an undertow or the wrong sort of wind. Even then, it can't really be described as dangerous, no more so than any other shallow water subject to the same conditions. A common link in the three drownings was that of age; each swimmer was over 60 years old. The emergency services (by which one primarily means the Cruz Roja, the Red Cross) attributed the drownings to cardiac failure. Around 70% of all drownings in the Balearics are of people over the age of 60.
Advice on keeping safe when swimming includes not swimming alone, not swimming when there are no lifeguards on duty, i.e. too early in the morning, too late in the evening or at night, and even taking care if there are too many people in the water; it can be more difficult for a lifeguard to detect a swimmer in trouble when the sea is packed.
The advice is sound enough but is easily and temptingly ignored. Of the drownings that have occurred, the circumstances have not generally been exceptional. One of the drownings in Muro, for example, occurred at 3.30 on a Sunday afternoon. Maybe there were a lot of people in the water, but who considers this when going for a swim? Unfortunately, unfortunate things happen.
Indeed, the emergency services reckon that incidences of "reckless" swimming are on the decline. By reckless, one presumes they mean ignoring red flags, though it is not entirely clear, as it is also not entirely clear what Muro town hall means when it says that reckless swimmers will be fined.
Presumably not reckless, albeit she was swimming solo, was Teresa Planas who has just completed the 40-kilometre crossing between Menorca and Mallorca in under 14 hours. It's as well that's she has completed it, as the sea between the two islands is where the risk of the phenomenon of the meteotsunami ("rissaga") is at its greatest, and as the autumn equinox approaches, so the risk increases.
The sea and the beach come with very few risks. Drownings are generally unavoidable if they are the result of a health malfunction. Treading on weever fish is hard to avoid. But there is one risk and one example of, if you like, recklessness that can be avoided. That is the beach at night. The sea may not be risky, unless you've gone skinny dipping on a tankful, but if you have gone skinny dipping, you may not find everything as you left it. Even if you keep your clothes on and just go for a walk, there is a risk. It's best avoided.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
It's not as though there aren't other weever-fish incidents. A former neighbour of mine was stung close to the shore in Playa de Muro three summers ago. It was, in his words, indescribably painful. Actually, given that he is French, these weren't his words, but they amounted to the same. The sting required a trip to the hospital, but this was as much precautionary as really necessary.
Fatality by fish is extremely rare. In 1998 there was a death, that of a British teenager swimming off Cala Blava. The cause was something of a mystery, but it was almost certainly as the result of an acute allergic reaction to being stung by a "spider fish", which is how the weever is known locally ("pez araña").
The waters around Mallorca don't hold great terrors, but they claim lives every year. In the Balearics as a whole, eighteen people have drowned so far this summer, one more than in 2010. Playa de Muro, for some reason, seems to attract more than its fair share of drownings. Over the space of ten days at the end of August there were three fatalities.
It is not as though there is anything dangerous about the sea off Playa de Muro. The water is shallow, and the sea only becomes potentially risky with an undertow or the wrong sort of wind. Even then, it can't really be described as dangerous, no more so than any other shallow water subject to the same conditions. A common link in the three drownings was that of age; each swimmer was over 60 years old. The emergency services (by which one primarily means the Cruz Roja, the Red Cross) attributed the drownings to cardiac failure. Around 70% of all drownings in the Balearics are of people over the age of 60.
Advice on keeping safe when swimming includes not swimming alone, not swimming when there are no lifeguards on duty, i.e. too early in the morning, too late in the evening or at night, and even taking care if there are too many people in the water; it can be more difficult for a lifeguard to detect a swimmer in trouble when the sea is packed.
The advice is sound enough but is easily and temptingly ignored. Of the drownings that have occurred, the circumstances have not generally been exceptional. One of the drownings in Muro, for example, occurred at 3.30 on a Sunday afternoon. Maybe there were a lot of people in the water, but who considers this when going for a swim? Unfortunately, unfortunate things happen.
Indeed, the emergency services reckon that incidences of "reckless" swimming are on the decline. By reckless, one presumes they mean ignoring red flags, though it is not entirely clear, as it is also not entirely clear what Muro town hall means when it says that reckless swimmers will be fined.
Presumably not reckless, albeit she was swimming solo, was Teresa Planas who has just completed the 40-kilometre crossing between Menorca and Mallorca in under 14 hours. It's as well that's she has completed it, as the sea between the two islands is where the risk of the phenomenon of the meteotsunami ("rissaga") is at its greatest, and as the autumn equinox approaches, so the risk increases.
The sea and the beach come with very few risks. Drownings are generally unavoidable if they are the result of a health malfunction. Treading on weever fish is hard to avoid. But there is one risk and one example of, if you like, recklessness that can be avoided. That is the beach at night. The sea may not be risky, unless you've gone skinny dipping on a tankful, but if you have gone skinny dipping, you may not find everything as you left it. Even if you keep your clothes on and just go for a walk, there is a risk. It's best avoided.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 13 September 2011
No cloud first thing, as with the last couple of days. It looks like it will be a straightforward mid-September scorcher. Local highs to 25 by 08:00, with a possible maximum of 31 later on.
Not as hot as had been predicted, the day's highs were shy of 29 degrees, but warm enough for mid-September, that's for sure.
Not as hot as had been predicted, the day's highs were shy of 29 degrees, but warm enough for mid-September, that's for sure.
Turning Ugly: Spain's deficit
The game is as good as up for PSOE. The socialist government of José Luis Zapatero faces the prospect of having its bottom soundly spanked at the national elections in November. The standing down of Prime Minister Shoemaker has not proved sufficient to revive PSOE's fortunes. His Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn-lookalike replacement, Alfredo Rubalcaba, is destined to be cast into the Gulag of a political wilderness, thanks to the Partido Popular securing an absolute majority of at least ten seats.
The latest poll suggests that PSOE supporters have all but given up. They know they're going to get whipped, just as PSOE supporters in the Balearics knew they were bound for a hiding prior to the regional elections in May. The local PSOE-ites chucked the towel in well before May, so clear was it that José Bauzá was heading for the presidency.
What has helped to make PSOE supporters even more disaffected than they already were is the agreement struck between PSOE and the PP to amend the constitution and enshrine within it the principle of budgetary stability. It was an extraordinary step. The Spanish don't, as a rule, do constitutional reforms.
What makes it even more extraordinary is the fact that it does not obviate the need for a separate change to legislation, one that will seek to ensure that Spain's budget deficit is reduced to the European cap of three per cent of GDP by 2013. This change to the law will not actually be formalised until next year. After the elections, therefore.
The bizarreness of both the constitutional amendment and the proposed change to legislation is that it is a carve-up between Spain's two main parties. PSOE may already have accepted that it will lose the elections, but it has been acting as though it were, well, as though it were part of a coalition. It is small wonder that other parties, such as the regional powerhouses in Catalonia and the Basque Country, are somewhat miffed.
The case for budgetary stability is unquestionable, but playing the constitution card, given that legislative means exist to establish limits to spending and deficits, is unnecessary and can potentially be seen as an undermining of Spanish sovereignty. It has been denied that the European Central Bank has put pressure on Spain to invoke the constitution in respect of budgetary stability, but this is how it is being seen in some quarters.
Theoretically, a constitutional change requires a referendum, even if legally the change can be made without recourse to popular approval (or disapproval). But the absence of a referendum, the suggestion that Europe is in some way interfering with Spain's sovereignty and the collusion between PSOE and the PP raise a question as to quite how democratic this all is.
PSOE, and therefore Rubalcaba, may have seen the agreement as a last throw of the dice to try and recoup some electoral support, but if they did, it was an odd way of going about this. What they have done is to make themselves hostages to the agreement. They will be hamstrung as an opposition and will lack credibility when the PP steamroller through austerity measures that will make those that PSOE has already introduced seem like profligacy.
Who will there be to offer an effective opposition to Mariano Rajoy when he becomes prime minister? With PSOE embarrassed into silence, the opposition will fall to small parties or regional parties (and the regions, such as the Balearics, are as affected by the stability agreement as is the national government). But the main opposition may not be parliamentary. Step forward, once more, the "indignados" and the 15-M movement that was behind the occupations of squares across Spain before, in some instances, the police waded in.
Sorry to have to say this, but things are going to turn ugly. And they may get uglier still. The constitutional amendment is not just bizarre and unnecessary, it is also a potentially dangerous precedent. The PP, emboldened by what, for most people, is an arcane matter of economics, might just eye up some other parts of the constitution, parts that are rather more understandable to José Public. Language, anyone?
In the Balearics, seen as the test site for what Rajoy has up his sleeve, Bauzá has been giving the previous PSOE-led administration a very public verbal beating, tossing around incredible sums of "catastrophic" debt left behind by PSOE, amounts that it denies. The Balearics are all but bust, we know this, but Bauzá's is a tactic to paint as bleak a picture as possible and so try and ensure that the real pain to come is met with acquiescence. Unfortunately, he, and Rajoy, will not get quiet acceptance.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The latest poll suggests that PSOE supporters have all but given up. They know they're going to get whipped, just as PSOE supporters in the Balearics knew they were bound for a hiding prior to the regional elections in May. The local PSOE-ites chucked the towel in well before May, so clear was it that José Bauzá was heading for the presidency.
What has helped to make PSOE supporters even more disaffected than they already were is the agreement struck between PSOE and the PP to amend the constitution and enshrine within it the principle of budgetary stability. It was an extraordinary step. The Spanish don't, as a rule, do constitutional reforms.
What makes it even more extraordinary is the fact that it does not obviate the need for a separate change to legislation, one that will seek to ensure that Spain's budget deficit is reduced to the European cap of three per cent of GDP by 2013. This change to the law will not actually be formalised until next year. After the elections, therefore.
The bizarreness of both the constitutional amendment and the proposed change to legislation is that it is a carve-up between Spain's two main parties. PSOE may already have accepted that it will lose the elections, but it has been acting as though it were, well, as though it were part of a coalition. It is small wonder that other parties, such as the regional powerhouses in Catalonia and the Basque Country, are somewhat miffed.
The case for budgetary stability is unquestionable, but playing the constitution card, given that legislative means exist to establish limits to spending and deficits, is unnecessary and can potentially be seen as an undermining of Spanish sovereignty. It has been denied that the European Central Bank has put pressure on Spain to invoke the constitution in respect of budgetary stability, but this is how it is being seen in some quarters.
Theoretically, a constitutional change requires a referendum, even if legally the change can be made without recourse to popular approval (or disapproval). But the absence of a referendum, the suggestion that Europe is in some way interfering with Spain's sovereignty and the collusion between PSOE and the PP raise a question as to quite how democratic this all is.
PSOE, and therefore Rubalcaba, may have seen the agreement as a last throw of the dice to try and recoup some electoral support, but if they did, it was an odd way of going about this. What they have done is to make themselves hostages to the agreement. They will be hamstrung as an opposition and will lack credibility when the PP steamroller through austerity measures that will make those that PSOE has already introduced seem like profligacy.
Who will there be to offer an effective opposition to Mariano Rajoy when he becomes prime minister? With PSOE embarrassed into silence, the opposition will fall to small parties or regional parties (and the regions, such as the Balearics, are as affected by the stability agreement as is the national government). But the main opposition may not be parliamentary. Step forward, once more, the "indignados" and the 15-M movement that was behind the occupations of squares across Spain before, in some instances, the police waded in.
Sorry to have to say this, but things are going to turn ugly. And they may get uglier still. The constitutional amendment is not just bizarre and unnecessary, it is also a potentially dangerous precedent. The PP, emboldened by what, for most people, is an arcane matter of economics, might just eye up some other parts of the constitution, parts that are rather more understandable to José Public. Language, anyone?
In the Balearics, seen as the test site for what Rajoy has up his sleeve, Bauzá has been giving the previous PSOE-led administration a very public verbal beating, tossing around incredible sums of "catastrophic" debt left behind by PSOE, amounts that it denies. The Balearics are all but bust, we know this, but Bauzá's is a tactic to paint as bleak a picture as possible and so try and ensure that the real pain to come is met with acquiescence. Unfortunately, he, and Rajoy, will not get quiet acceptance.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, September 12, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 12 September 2011
A similar start as to yesterday with some cloud about. There may be cloud on and off during the other day, but otherwise plenty of sun. A very warm night, the morning high by 08.30 is already 26 degrees.
There was little movement to the morning's high. The top temperatures in the afternoon were just under 27 degrees, so cooler than the weekend was. The week still looks to be glorious, though longer range suggests that there may be a change towards the end of the week.
There was little movement to the morning's high. The top temperatures in the afternoon were just under 27 degrees, so cooler than the weekend was. The week still looks to be glorious, though longer range suggests that there may be a change towards the end of the week.
The Golden Age Of Winter Tourism
Round and round and round we go in ever-decreasing circles of repetition. The main season is coming towards its end, and so it is time for the new season to begin, that of the wailing and gnashing of teeth regarding the winter season. Or rather, what winter season?
The repetition has already begun, partly thanks to Pedro Iriondo, the head of the Fomento del Turismo (the Mallorca Tourist Board). Bars, restaurants, shops closed in winter; how can anyone be expected to sell winter tourism if they are all closed?
Sr. Iriondo is someone of a bygone era who, on assuming the presidency of the board, reminisced about a time when everyone in Mallorca was happy, there were parties on the beach and, not that he said this, it cost less than a quid to get absolutely blotto.
Ah yes, this bygone era, when the beaches and hotels were packed to the gunwales in summer and when winter tourists also flocked to the island. There is just one problem with this. The bit about winter tourism. There never was a Golden Age of winter tourism in Mallorca. It is a total myth.
Hardened veterans will insist that the Age did exist and will say, endlessly and repetitiously, that it can be re-created by, amongst other things, opening a few more shops up and keeping some hotels open. However, you can't re-create something that wasn't there.
In 2003 the Chamber of Commerce and the Economy Circle of Mallorca (a group of leading businesspeople) produced a report entitled: "The current situation of and perspectives on tourism in the Balearic Islands". It was partly an historical document and partly one that looked forward.
In it, there was a table which showed the percentage of tourists (to the Balearics) who came in the main season (defined as April to October). In 1981 this percentage was 90%. It had gone down to 85% in 1991 and back up again to 88% by 2001. From other information, it had crept back to 90% in 2008.
If the Golden Age of winter tourism ever existed, therefore, it was in the eighties, but in relative terms the level of out-of-season tourism rose only slightly. While there may well have been and were parts of Mallorca which did reasonably well in winter in the eighties, there are factors to take into account. One is that the whole debate about winter tourism, among the British, is seen through British eyes. This is a not unimportant factor.
During the eighties, the overall level of British tourism rose staggeringly (by 250% between 1981 and 1988). This followed a period of significant decline in British tourism on the back of economic difficulties in the seventies. The growth in eighties tourism was also helped by an extremely favourable exchange rate.
Dealing in percentages doesn't give the whole story. The actual numbers do. In the mid-eighties, the number of tourists per year to the Balearics was around 5 million. The number of winter tourists, peaking at 15% of the total, could never have been greater than 750,000. If this was the Golden Age of winter tourism, then what do we have now? Well, in 2008, for example, over 11 million tourists came to the Balearics, a million or more of them in winter. The Golden Age is now, not then.
How can this be, you ask. Well, partly it's the British perspective again. In 2003 the Chamber of Commerce referred to air connections from Germany in respect of winter tourism. It made no mention of those from the UK and would be even less likely to now. It has been German tourism that has been largely responsible for Mallorca's winter tourism. Which is bad news in a way, as Air Berlin is planning to cut some of its routes this winter. Its boss in Spain and Portugal, Álvaro Middelmann, blames hotels for not opening, obsolete and overpriced bars and restaurants and even the airport authority AENA for its inadequate service.
Mallorca's winter tourism is not something to be re-created but to be created. There are plenty of ideas as to how, and they can be dealt with another time. But we might hope that the Balearics Tourism Agency, augmented by the inclusion of all manner of interested parties, including the Mallorca Tourist Board and airlines, can, for once, get to grips with winter tourism. Not that you should bank on it. In thirty years time the same debate will still be had, and commentators will look back at a Golden Age of winter tourism - in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The repetition has already begun, partly thanks to Pedro Iriondo, the head of the Fomento del Turismo (the Mallorca Tourist Board). Bars, restaurants, shops closed in winter; how can anyone be expected to sell winter tourism if they are all closed?
Sr. Iriondo is someone of a bygone era who, on assuming the presidency of the board, reminisced about a time when everyone in Mallorca was happy, there were parties on the beach and, not that he said this, it cost less than a quid to get absolutely blotto.
Ah yes, this bygone era, when the beaches and hotels were packed to the gunwales in summer and when winter tourists also flocked to the island. There is just one problem with this. The bit about winter tourism. There never was a Golden Age of winter tourism in Mallorca. It is a total myth.
Hardened veterans will insist that the Age did exist and will say, endlessly and repetitiously, that it can be re-created by, amongst other things, opening a few more shops up and keeping some hotels open. However, you can't re-create something that wasn't there.
In 2003 the Chamber of Commerce and the Economy Circle of Mallorca (a group of leading businesspeople) produced a report entitled: "The current situation of and perspectives on tourism in the Balearic Islands". It was partly an historical document and partly one that looked forward.
In it, there was a table which showed the percentage of tourists (to the Balearics) who came in the main season (defined as April to October). In 1981 this percentage was 90%. It had gone down to 85% in 1991 and back up again to 88% by 2001. From other information, it had crept back to 90% in 2008.
If the Golden Age of winter tourism ever existed, therefore, it was in the eighties, but in relative terms the level of out-of-season tourism rose only slightly. While there may well have been and were parts of Mallorca which did reasonably well in winter in the eighties, there are factors to take into account. One is that the whole debate about winter tourism, among the British, is seen through British eyes. This is a not unimportant factor.
During the eighties, the overall level of British tourism rose staggeringly (by 250% between 1981 and 1988). This followed a period of significant decline in British tourism on the back of economic difficulties in the seventies. The growth in eighties tourism was also helped by an extremely favourable exchange rate.
Dealing in percentages doesn't give the whole story. The actual numbers do. In the mid-eighties, the number of tourists per year to the Balearics was around 5 million. The number of winter tourists, peaking at 15% of the total, could never have been greater than 750,000. If this was the Golden Age of winter tourism, then what do we have now? Well, in 2008, for example, over 11 million tourists came to the Balearics, a million or more of them in winter. The Golden Age is now, not then.
How can this be, you ask. Well, partly it's the British perspective again. In 2003 the Chamber of Commerce referred to air connections from Germany in respect of winter tourism. It made no mention of those from the UK and would be even less likely to now. It has been German tourism that has been largely responsible for Mallorca's winter tourism. Which is bad news in a way, as Air Berlin is planning to cut some of its routes this winter. Its boss in Spain and Portugal, Álvaro Middelmann, blames hotels for not opening, obsolete and overpriced bars and restaurants and even the airport authority AENA for its inadequate service.
Mallorca's winter tourism is not something to be re-created but to be created. There are plenty of ideas as to how, and they can be dealt with another time. But we might hope that the Balearics Tourism Agency, augmented by the inclusion of all manner of interested parties, including the Mallorca Tourist Board and airlines, can, for once, get to grips with winter tourism. Not that you should bank on it. In thirty years time the same debate will still be had, and commentators will look back at a Golden Age of winter tourism - in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Real Betis 1 : 0 Real Mallorca
A midday kick-off in a sweltering Seville produced a goalless first half with promoted Betis on top, outpassing Mallorca and having greater numbers of attempts on goal. The Betis dominance over a Mallorca side with limited attacking ambitions continued in the second half. With time running out, Betis got a deserved winner in the 86th minute. The question for Mallorca is - how are they going to score goals? A long, hard season may well be in the offing.
Betis:
Casto; Chica, Amaya, Ustantz, Nacho; Beñat, Iriney; Castro, Sevilla (Vadillo 69), Montero (Pereira 55); Molina (Santa Cruz 75)
Yellows: Amaya (10); Sevilla (54)
Goal: Castro (86)
Mallorca:
Aouate; Zuiverloon, Chico, Ramis, Cáceres; Joao Victor, Pina; Nuse, Tejera (Kevin 66), Alfaro (Tissone 84); Hemed (Castro 59)
Yellows: Cáceres (31); Joao Victor (45); Pina (79); Chico (81)
Betis:
Casto; Chica, Amaya, Ustantz, Nacho; Beñat, Iriney; Castro, Sevilla (Vadillo 69), Montero (Pereira 55); Molina (Santa Cruz 75)
Yellows: Amaya (10); Sevilla (54)
Goal: Castro (86)
Mallorca:
Aouate; Zuiverloon, Chico, Ramis, Cáceres; Joao Victor, Pina; Nuse, Tejera (Kevin 66), Alfaro (Tissone 84); Hemed (Castro 59)
Yellows: Cáceres (31); Joao Victor (45); Pina (79); Chico (81)
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 11 September 2011
A sunny start to the day but with some cloud around, as had been forecast. 23 degree high at 08.30, the cloud is likely to stay during the day with temperatures climbing to 31 later.
The cloud disappeared and then came back late in the afternoon. Highs of 29. Some cloud about tomorrow being forecast.
The cloud disappeared and then came back late in the afternoon. Highs of 29. Some cloud about tomorrow being forecast.
MALLORCA TODAY - Four hectares claimed by Pollensa fire
A Saturday afternoon and a not unfamiliar sight. A helicopter "bomber" and a Canadair are flying across the bay of Alcúdia on their way to at least two fires, the biggest near Pollensa on the La Salve finca not far from Crestatx. This fire wiped out four hectares of pine forest. A smaller fire was in the mountain village of Fornalutx.
The Return Of The Los Palmas 7: Madness in Mallorca
It's odd that a quintessentially English group like Madness should attract interest from the natives. But they do. Probably because they are a "name", a known act to the Spanish, unlike many of the British artists who have been playing Magalluf's Mallorca Rocks this summer. The Spanish will be out in force as much as the Brits.
The nutty boys are playing Mallorca Rocks on Tuesday, the penultimate gig of a season that at one point had looked as though it might have been scuppered by legal challenges to the Fiesta hotel venue. To the rescue, finally, came the tourism ministry which discovered that it could grant the necessary permissions where before it had said it couldn't. If there was something, how can one put it, convenient about the decision taken by new tourism minister Carlos Delgado who, as mayor of Calvia, had previously given the hotel the initial go-ahead, then let's be thankful for convenience.
The opposition to Mallorca Rocks was petty. Despite its having been led by the tourist businesses association Acotur, no one was in any doubt as to where the inspiration for the opposition was coming from. A bit of competition should have hurt no one. Indeed, the arrival of Mallorca Rocks should have been applauded by everyone, competitors included (even those who hadn't thought of doing something similar), in boosting Magalluf and Mallorca's reputation.
So much for the political background, and back to Madness. Their appearance, more so than Norman Cook earlier in the summer, gives the Mallorca Rocks season a seal of internationally recognised approval; hence the interest shown among the Spanish. It's good that they are playing, but I shan't be going. It's not that middle-aged men shouldn't still be performing, it's just that this is the same Madness of some thirty years ago, when they were mad.
Attending a Madness gig back in the day was not something you did without some thought and trepidation if you happened not to be a skinhead. The group's appearance and their embracing of ska and bluebeat made them the darlings of the boys with no hair and Dr. Martens. There was also a concern that the group themselves were politically far from correct, a reputation at the time that they initially did little to deflect and which also brought them into conflict with The Specials.
Though there was a commonality with the music, Madness's short involvement with The Specials' 2 Tone label seemed incongruous. The Specials, as with others on the label, The Selecter and The Beat, were fiercely anti-racist. With Madness, you weren't quite sure, and the National Front association they acquired, almost totally because of skins who were part of the NF and who turned up at their gigs, made you distinctly wary. It was only when they disassociated themselves from the skinhead movement and also moved away from the ska roots that they shook off the reputation.
The other incongruity between Madness and 2 Tone was that Madness, despite their tribute to Prince Buster which launched them on 2 Tone, were very "London". Their music, or rather their style, came to reflect this and it was, to some extent, a continuation of the London pub scene of the seventies, of Eddie And The Hot Rods, Dr. Feelgood and more obviously Kilburn And The High Roads (and later Ian Dury And The Blockheads).
The mainstays of 2 Tone were all Midlands-based, and even one group that wasn't part of 2 Tone but which formed at the same time and had its own reggae and multi-ethnic mix, UB40, was from Birmingham. And Madness weren't multi-ethnic. They were uniformly white, and their musical direction steered them towards a very white, very English sound and towards very English lyrics, when lyrics were actually used. One of their best "songs" was not a song at all, but the instrumental "Return Of The Los Palmas 7", a weirdly infectious ballroom-lounge tune that could just as easily have been put out some years before by The Bonzo Dog Band in one of their saner moments.
Madness were always a cracking band and a cracking live act. They churned out hit after hit and were permanently in the charts. They seemed as though they would go on and on, having found a commercial formula, as did UB40, that suggested a longevity that had eluded The Specials. It didn't happen, though, and by the mid-1980s they had split.
But they're back and they're playing Mallorca Rocks. Madness? It probably won't be. Not as it was. But if you're going, enjoy it. Waiter!
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The nutty boys are playing Mallorca Rocks on Tuesday, the penultimate gig of a season that at one point had looked as though it might have been scuppered by legal challenges to the Fiesta hotel venue. To the rescue, finally, came the tourism ministry which discovered that it could grant the necessary permissions where before it had said it couldn't. If there was something, how can one put it, convenient about the decision taken by new tourism minister Carlos Delgado who, as mayor of Calvia, had previously given the hotel the initial go-ahead, then let's be thankful for convenience.
The opposition to Mallorca Rocks was petty. Despite its having been led by the tourist businesses association Acotur, no one was in any doubt as to where the inspiration for the opposition was coming from. A bit of competition should have hurt no one. Indeed, the arrival of Mallorca Rocks should have been applauded by everyone, competitors included (even those who hadn't thought of doing something similar), in boosting Magalluf and Mallorca's reputation.
So much for the political background, and back to Madness. Their appearance, more so than Norman Cook earlier in the summer, gives the Mallorca Rocks season a seal of internationally recognised approval; hence the interest shown among the Spanish. It's good that they are playing, but I shan't be going. It's not that middle-aged men shouldn't still be performing, it's just that this is the same Madness of some thirty years ago, when they were mad.
Attending a Madness gig back in the day was not something you did without some thought and trepidation if you happened not to be a skinhead. The group's appearance and their embracing of ska and bluebeat made them the darlings of the boys with no hair and Dr. Martens. There was also a concern that the group themselves were politically far from correct, a reputation at the time that they initially did little to deflect and which also brought them into conflict with The Specials.
Though there was a commonality with the music, Madness's short involvement with The Specials' 2 Tone label seemed incongruous. The Specials, as with others on the label, The Selecter and The Beat, were fiercely anti-racist. With Madness, you weren't quite sure, and the National Front association they acquired, almost totally because of skins who were part of the NF and who turned up at their gigs, made you distinctly wary. It was only when they disassociated themselves from the skinhead movement and also moved away from the ska roots that they shook off the reputation.
The other incongruity between Madness and 2 Tone was that Madness, despite their tribute to Prince Buster which launched them on 2 Tone, were very "London". Their music, or rather their style, came to reflect this and it was, to some extent, a continuation of the London pub scene of the seventies, of Eddie And The Hot Rods, Dr. Feelgood and more obviously Kilburn And The High Roads (and later Ian Dury And The Blockheads).
The mainstays of 2 Tone were all Midlands-based, and even one group that wasn't part of 2 Tone but which formed at the same time and had its own reggae and multi-ethnic mix, UB40, was from Birmingham. And Madness weren't multi-ethnic. They were uniformly white, and their musical direction steered them towards a very white, very English sound and towards very English lyrics, when lyrics were actually used. One of their best "songs" was not a song at all, but the instrumental "Return Of The Los Palmas 7", a weirdly infectious ballroom-lounge tune that could just as easily have been put out some years before by The Bonzo Dog Band in one of their saner moments.
Madness were always a cracking band and a cracking live act. They churned out hit after hit and were permanently in the charts. They seemed as though they would go on and on, having found a commercial formula, as did UB40, that suggested a longevity that had eluded The Specials. It didn't happen, though, and by the mid-1980s they had split.
But they're back and they're playing Mallorca Rocks. Madness? It probably won't be. Not as it was. But if you're going, enjoy it. Waiter!
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Hotel Formentor booked for Cloud Atlas
The Hotel Formentor, says the ADN news site, is to be a beneficiary (to the tune of 25,000 euros) of filming for Cloud Atlas. Fifty people have been booked in for two nights, which would seem as though they may be 14 and 15 September, as the annual literary gathering starts at the hotel on 16 September. ADN also says that in August exclusive reservation of the whole hotel was made. As previously reported, 180 people associated with the film have been booked into hotels in the Pollensa area.
MALLORCA TODAY - Tourism ministry slammed over Pollensa festival
The Alternativa per Pollença party has criticised the Balearic Government tourism ministry and Carlos Delgado the tourism minister in particular for its "lies" in respect of funding that was due to have been made available for the Pollensa Music Festival this year. The festival had been set to receive 180,000 euros of emergency funding, assistance that the ministry seemed happy to grant on account of what it described as the important promotional role that the festival plays. However, a "contest" established by the ministry to arbitrate on the value of different artistic events has not "scored" the festival highly enough for it to merit the full award, so Pollensa town hall is being left to foot much of a bill that it seemed unable to meet prior to the ministry saying that it would help. It was aid from the ministry that helped to stage this year's festival, which, at one point, looked as though it might not take place. The funding crisis for the festival and the ministry's stance add to uncertainty surrounding the future of the festival.
MALLORCA TODAY - Cloud Atlas filming starts
Filming for the Hollywood blockbuster "Cloud Atlas" started yesterday. Local firms are benefiting from the filming, with some 70 technicians being contracted. 200 extras have also been taken on. In addition to giving Mallorca as a boost as a location for filming, the island will benefit to the tune of just under 3 million euros from "Cloud Atlas".
The Wachowski brothers, the producers of the film, and the stars are now in Mallorca. Halle Berry was apparently out and about buying from a supermarket in Puerto Soller where she is staying
The Wachowski brothers, the producers of the film, and the stars are now in Mallorca. Halle Berry was apparently out and about buying from a supermarket in Puerto Soller where she is staying
MALLORCA TODAY - Nueva Rumasa hotels sold
The Hotasa hotels of the Nueva Rumasa conglomerate have been sold in a package that will see much of the collapsed company pass into the hands of the investment group Back In Business (Posibilitum); Posibilitum it was that came to the rescue of Hotetur (Bellevue in Alcúdia) when Grupo Marsans collapsed. The Hotasa hotels include three in Can Picafort.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 10 September 2011
Another rocking day on the cards. Local high of 23 at 08.15, with 31 possible later on, and there is, as yet, no sign of the typical September storms that often hit from around 12 September.
Fab day. Highs over 30 and a high heat index at 33 degrees. Tomorrow might be cloudy at times.
Fab day. Highs over 30 and a high heat index at 33 degrees. Tomorrow might be cloudy at times.
A Normal School Day
On Monday, something extraordinary will happen. Children will be going to school. It is easy to forget that there are such things as schools, given the endless summer holidays now about to come to an end.
The return to school - "vuelta al cole" - is more of a ritual than an educational process. This ritual involves, amongst other things, column inches in the press devoted to the minutiae of the new school year. To this end, therefore, we are told that 129,569 pupils will be attending schools in the Balearics and that they will be taught by 11,366 teachers.
We are also told that, in Palma for instance, 162 police officers will be on traffic duty to ensure smooth circulation at "hot spots" and to ensure good order. Last year, a total of 534 officers throughout the Balearics oversaw the return to school. It is reassuring to know that the forces of law are on hand to prevent any trouble among rival gangs of hoody five-year-olds or unrest between parents jockeying for parking spaces in their 4x4s.
We are also informed that it costs, on average, 825 euros to kit out junior with his uniform, his sportswear, his books and pencil cases. And come the day, on Monday, the press will be at the ready to learn whether the return to school has passed off "normally". This is perhaps the strangest part of the whole ritual, as each year the normality (or not) is reported. Why should it not pass off normally? What would constitute an abnormal return to school? Finding there isn't a school any more? Whole classes of pupils being abducted by aliens?
It is, one has to conclude, the sheer abnormality of children actually going to school that makes the vuelta al cole such a big news item. Yet for all that one can raise eyebrows at a summer holiday that starts when it is still spring and ends almost as autumn's leaves begin to fall, the Mallorcan and Spanish school pupil still manages to put in significantly more hours than do pupils in some other European countries, ones in which the pupils perform far better than their Mallorcan counterparts.
The real education story, as I have mentioned before, is not the length of holidays, the school hours, or even the return to school, it is the rotten standard of public education in Mallorca and the Balearics.
Herr Bosch, Obermeisterführer for education in the Balearic Government, has spoken about increasing the number of school hours, but for now there are more pressing matters that he has to concern himself with. While he has also been speaking about "normality" existing as the new school year starts, there is the far from normal issue of what language should be used for teaching returning to the political curriculum. Far from normal, except in Mallorca.
In a widely publicised speech, the Balearics president, José Bauzá, has asserted, not for the first time, the claims of Castilian as "our language". Bauzá, who has recently sprouted a beard in an act of facial-hair sympathy with his inglorious national leader, Mariano Rajoy, appears to be backtracking on what seemed a hard line against Catalan prior to the May regional elections. He is making more accommodating noises about Catalan, but will nevertheless have been bolstered by a declaration from the Catalonian supreme court that Catalonia has an obligation to incorporate the Castilian language as a vehicle for teaching.
Herr Bosch, meantime, has announced that, by the start of the next school year, there will be an equality between Catalan and Castilian in Mallorca's educational system. So when the vuelta al cole occurs next September, things will be normal, if one accepts that there should be equality of the languages, abnormal if one doesn't (either way) and almost certainly a lack of normality, because everyone will have been engaged in a full-on row about it between now and next September.
But we shouldn't count against Bauzá and Bosch pressing further the claims of Castilian on the educational agenda over the next few months. The new model beardy Bauzá, who, with his growth, has managed to look more like Richard E. Grant than he did before, would very much prefer "Withnail y yo" to "Withnail i jo".
The Catalan question aside, Bauzá has said that, under his Partido Popular party, education will get better. He would hardly say the opposite. But "educación, educación, educación" it is, and not "educació, educació, educació". And on Monday all this education will be normal, except that little in the world of Mallorca's education can be said to be normal.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The return to school - "vuelta al cole" - is more of a ritual than an educational process. This ritual involves, amongst other things, column inches in the press devoted to the minutiae of the new school year. To this end, therefore, we are told that 129,569 pupils will be attending schools in the Balearics and that they will be taught by 11,366 teachers.
We are also told that, in Palma for instance, 162 police officers will be on traffic duty to ensure smooth circulation at "hot spots" and to ensure good order. Last year, a total of 534 officers throughout the Balearics oversaw the return to school. It is reassuring to know that the forces of law are on hand to prevent any trouble among rival gangs of hoody five-year-olds or unrest between parents jockeying for parking spaces in their 4x4s.
We are also informed that it costs, on average, 825 euros to kit out junior with his uniform, his sportswear, his books and pencil cases. And come the day, on Monday, the press will be at the ready to learn whether the return to school has passed off "normally". This is perhaps the strangest part of the whole ritual, as each year the normality (or not) is reported. Why should it not pass off normally? What would constitute an abnormal return to school? Finding there isn't a school any more? Whole classes of pupils being abducted by aliens?
It is, one has to conclude, the sheer abnormality of children actually going to school that makes the vuelta al cole such a big news item. Yet for all that one can raise eyebrows at a summer holiday that starts when it is still spring and ends almost as autumn's leaves begin to fall, the Mallorcan and Spanish school pupil still manages to put in significantly more hours than do pupils in some other European countries, ones in which the pupils perform far better than their Mallorcan counterparts.
The real education story, as I have mentioned before, is not the length of holidays, the school hours, or even the return to school, it is the rotten standard of public education in Mallorca and the Balearics.
Herr Bosch, Obermeisterführer for education in the Balearic Government, has spoken about increasing the number of school hours, but for now there are more pressing matters that he has to concern himself with. While he has also been speaking about "normality" existing as the new school year starts, there is the far from normal issue of what language should be used for teaching returning to the political curriculum. Far from normal, except in Mallorca.
In a widely publicised speech, the Balearics president, José Bauzá, has asserted, not for the first time, the claims of Castilian as "our language". Bauzá, who has recently sprouted a beard in an act of facial-hair sympathy with his inglorious national leader, Mariano Rajoy, appears to be backtracking on what seemed a hard line against Catalan prior to the May regional elections. He is making more accommodating noises about Catalan, but will nevertheless have been bolstered by a declaration from the Catalonian supreme court that Catalonia has an obligation to incorporate the Castilian language as a vehicle for teaching.
Herr Bosch, meantime, has announced that, by the start of the next school year, there will be an equality between Catalan and Castilian in Mallorca's educational system. So when the vuelta al cole occurs next September, things will be normal, if one accepts that there should be equality of the languages, abnormal if one doesn't (either way) and almost certainly a lack of normality, because everyone will have been engaged in a full-on row about it between now and next September.
But we shouldn't count against Bauzá and Bosch pressing further the claims of Castilian on the educational agenda over the next few months. The new model beardy Bauzá, who, with his growth, has managed to look more like Richard E. Grant than he did before, would very much prefer "Withnail y yo" to "Withnail i jo".
The Catalan question aside, Bauzá has said that, under his Partido Popular party, education will get better. He would hardly say the opposite. But "educación, educación, educación" it is, and not "educació, educació, educació". And on Monday all this education will be normal, except that little in the world of Mallorca's education can be said to be normal.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, September 09, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 9 September 2011
No different today. Another fresh 22 to 23 degrees start to the morning, with highs of 30 expected. Tomorrow, the same procedure.
If you thought the temperature might start to go down as we move further into September, then you would have been wrong. The highs have been higher today - over 30 degrees. Tomorrow may well be hotter, and there is little suggestion that there will be much of a change over the next few days.
If you thought the temperature might start to go down as we move further into September, then you would have been wrong. The highs have been higher today - over 30 degrees. Tomorrow may well be hotter, and there is little suggestion that there will be much of a change over the next few days.
1 In A 184: Fun 4U
The concept of a "tourist day" is a rather peculiar one. Of a season that lasts from 1 May to 31 October, one day is for tourists. What about the other 183?
Alcúdia's tourist-day celebrations have been held for a few years now. The pattern has become established. Like other celebrations, it has acquired a format which, by dint of its repetition each year, becomes a "tradition". The tradition of the day means an evening of musical entertainment, a market-ette and a mini-disco that follows a morning of fun and frolics for all the family on the beach. All the family that's still around in September, that is; a few German or Scandinavian stragglers plus Brits whose kids have bunked off the first week of the new term.
The reasons for holding the day in September are that it isn't quite as hot (a moot point) and that there were it to be held in, say, August, things would be too crowded. With tourists, that is. The last thing you want to do is to hold a tourist-day event with loads of tourists cluttering the place up.
This tourist day of football, food and fabulous Robbie Williams mirrors to an extent the tourist experience. But only to an extent. Missing from its schedule of events are the squabbles over the sun loungers, the getting lagered-up, the projectile vomiting and the all-comers' balcony-diving contest. There are perhaps certain aspects of holidays that are, however, best left uncelebrated and certainly not sanctioned by a responsible town hall. Which is what Alcúdia is. It does tourism rather well. The tourist day may be just one day in the long season, but it's better than nothing.
The hug-in of tourists has a positive benefit in that it brings those closeted away in all-inclusives out for the day. Oh, look, there's a beach! Who'd have thought? However, going by a Facebook comment regarding the beach events, the all-inclusive mentality would appear to demand that little trips out are accompanied by the services being left behind in the hotel.
It was suggested that a certain all-inclusive, well-represented by beach footy teams, should have made provision for a free bar. So, Mister First Choice, he who believes that little trips out will benefit local businesses, think again. You can lead an all-inclusive tourist to the water of a beach, but you can't make him drink something that he has to pay for out of his own pocket.
Inevitably, an occasion such as the tourist day doesn't come entirely without a commercial element. Consequently, there was some "marketing" going on. I say this, but I only became aware of one bit of marketing when I looked later at some photos. There they were, some signs for Alcúdia's estación náutica, the brand title the resort has been lumbered with and which no one understands. I had, however, completely missed the signs despite having been standing right next to them. Another triumph of branding and marketing, therefore.
Then there was the keep-fit dance routine staged by a certain hotel chain. This all seemed reasonable enough until I realised what I was listening to - the hotel song. This was a happy-happy, clappy dance-along of image and word association neurolinguistic programming. Arrange touchstone words such as celebrate, free, good time into no particular order, and bingo, you've got yourself some on-beach, tourist-day advertising.
Alcúdia's tourist day isn't the only such day that is held in Mallorca. The Palmanova and Magalluf hoteliers put one on as well: "special events to pay tribute to the tourists staying in the area". A tribute to those staying in the area at the end of September, that is. Even later than Alcúdia's, there is, however, a possibly wider context to this occasion. 27 September each year is the United Nations World Tourism Day. Mercifully, Magalluf doesn't look to follow the UN's example when it comes to its programme. This year, for example, you could enjoy "tourism linking cultures" (to be held in Egypt). Last year's, in China, sounded a real barrel of laughs - "tourism and biodiversity"; just the sort of topic that would go down a storm in the bars of Punta Ballena.
No, forget the World Tourism Day, and stick to the tourist days of Alcúdia and Magalluf. As the legend on Alcúdia's tourist day T-shirt says - "Fun 4U" (a T-shirt I am wearing with pride as I write this). And fun it is, if not necessarily for all the family. But hats off nevertheless. Just a shame it's only one day.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Alcúdia's tourist-day celebrations have been held for a few years now. The pattern has become established. Like other celebrations, it has acquired a format which, by dint of its repetition each year, becomes a "tradition". The tradition of the day means an evening of musical entertainment, a market-ette and a mini-disco that follows a morning of fun and frolics for all the family on the beach. All the family that's still around in September, that is; a few German or Scandinavian stragglers plus Brits whose kids have bunked off the first week of the new term.
The reasons for holding the day in September are that it isn't quite as hot (a moot point) and that there were it to be held in, say, August, things would be too crowded. With tourists, that is. The last thing you want to do is to hold a tourist-day event with loads of tourists cluttering the place up.
This tourist day of football, food and fabulous Robbie Williams mirrors to an extent the tourist experience. But only to an extent. Missing from its schedule of events are the squabbles over the sun loungers, the getting lagered-up, the projectile vomiting and the all-comers' balcony-diving contest. There are perhaps certain aspects of holidays that are, however, best left uncelebrated and certainly not sanctioned by a responsible town hall. Which is what Alcúdia is. It does tourism rather well. The tourist day may be just one day in the long season, but it's better than nothing.
The hug-in of tourists has a positive benefit in that it brings those closeted away in all-inclusives out for the day. Oh, look, there's a beach! Who'd have thought? However, going by a Facebook comment regarding the beach events, the all-inclusive mentality would appear to demand that little trips out are accompanied by the services being left behind in the hotel.
It was suggested that a certain all-inclusive, well-represented by beach footy teams, should have made provision for a free bar. So, Mister First Choice, he who believes that little trips out will benefit local businesses, think again. You can lead an all-inclusive tourist to the water of a beach, but you can't make him drink something that he has to pay for out of his own pocket.
Inevitably, an occasion such as the tourist day doesn't come entirely without a commercial element. Consequently, there was some "marketing" going on. I say this, but I only became aware of one bit of marketing when I looked later at some photos. There they were, some signs for Alcúdia's estación náutica, the brand title the resort has been lumbered with and which no one understands. I had, however, completely missed the signs despite having been standing right next to them. Another triumph of branding and marketing, therefore.
Then there was the keep-fit dance routine staged by a certain hotel chain. This all seemed reasonable enough until I realised what I was listening to - the hotel song. This was a happy-happy, clappy dance-along of image and word association neurolinguistic programming. Arrange touchstone words such as celebrate, free, good time into no particular order, and bingo, you've got yourself some on-beach, tourist-day advertising.
Alcúdia's tourist day isn't the only such day that is held in Mallorca. The Palmanova and Magalluf hoteliers put one on as well: "special events to pay tribute to the tourists staying in the area". A tribute to those staying in the area at the end of September, that is. Even later than Alcúdia's, there is, however, a possibly wider context to this occasion. 27 September each year is the United Nations World Tourism Day. Mercifully, Magalluf doesn't look to follow the UN's example when it comes to its programme. This year, for example, you could enjoy "tourism linking cultures" (to be held in Egypt). Last year's, in China, sounded a real barrel of laughs - "tourism and biodiversity"; just the sort of topic that would go down a storm in the bars of Punta Ballena.
No, forget the World Tourism Day, and stick to the tourist days of Alcúdia and Magalluf. As the legend on Alcúdia's tourist day T-shirt says - "Fun 4U" (a T-shirt I am wearing with pride as I write this). And fun it is, if not necessarily for all the family. But hats off nevertheless. Just a shame it's only one day.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Magalluf bars offer to pay special security tax
Bar owners along Magalluf's strip, the Punta Ballena, have offered to pay a special tax in order to ensure increased police presence in the area. The offer has been made as an alternative to the rising number of private security personnel that are being employed.
MALLORCA TODAY - Air Europa strike set to go ahead
The strike of Air Europa pilots, as from 22 September, still appears to be on the cards, following a meeting between the boss of the airline and pilots' representatives yesterday. There was a demonstration against the planned strike by employees of Globalia (of which Air Europa is a part), and Air Europa says the strike is not justified as there has never been any intention, which seems to be the basis for the pilots' grievance, to outsource flights.
MALLORCA TODAY - Fornalutx bull run passes off without incident
The annual bull run in the village of Fornalutx, the subject of protest by the animal rights group AnimaNaturalis, has taken place without incident. The bull run ("correbou") lasted twenty minutes, at the end of which the bull, which is held by ropes during the run, was "crowned" (as is the tradition).
MALLORCA TODAY - Wrong sand in Cala Ratjada
The regeneration of the beach at Cala Agulla in Cala Ratjada, which started yesterday with the first depositing of new sand that will eventually mean up to 2,000 cubic metres being laid, has not passed off without controversy. The new sand is not the same colour as the old, albeit that the old was disappearing. The town hall (Capdepera) admits there is a difference, but that it will hardly be noticed.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 8 September 2011
A repeat of yesterday. Lovely morning, touch of freshness, 23 degrees by 08.30, unbroken sun expected with a high of 30. Perfect day for Alcúdia's tourism day celebrations.
It has been another cracking day. Highs of 29, and heading to the weekend, things seem reasonably settled.
It has been another cracking day. Highs of 29, and heading to the weekend, things seem reasonably settled.
Tourism Without Tourists
If you were Mallorcan and were of an age to be going to university, you might fancy a few years at the Universitat de les Illes Balears studying tourism. The university has a strong reputation for tourism, Mallorca's main industry is tourism, so a degree should set you up nicely. Or so you might think.
There is a fair old debate going on as to the value of the tourism degree. It has been criticised for not being orientated to the tourism market itself, while obtaining a degree appears to be no guarantee of getting a job any grander than that of receptionist, assuming a job can be got at all.
It's a familiar story of course, and one not solely confined to a tourism degree or to university studies in Mallorca. But tourism is after all what Mallorca does, and the number of places on the degree course is not that high (400), so you would indeed think that something decent, career-wise, might come at the end of it.
Picking over the bones of the debate, however, another criticism emerges, and it is one of the choice of the course in the first place. Tourism, a bit like teaching (or certainly how teaching once was in the UK), is a career to get into mainly because it's there. It is a default choice. But it would seem that students embark on the degree not really appreciating what it entails.
I'm not surprised they aren't aware what the course involves. The document which sets it out runs to an excruciating 247 pages of tables, flowcharts and verbiage. Students, either before or during their studies, are not generally inclined to read what they are meant to; I can say this with some authority, as I certainly never did.
Even assuming they do read it, what do they expect to get from the course? The simple answer is a good job. But what job? This is the nub of the problem, or one of the nubs.
One can draw a comparison between tourism and publishing. I have been asked in the past for advice about "getting into publishing", to which the response has always been - what do you mean by publishing? It's the same with tourism; what is meant by it and what is meant by jobs within the industry?
Were students to read the entire prospectus for the course, they might get an inkling. Without detailing the whole course, some of its key modules cover marketing, management, finance, law and languages. English and either French or German are mandatory, but previous reports on the English-speaking abilities of students leaving the university suggest that two-thirds of them struggle with the language to the point of not understanding it.
But this isn't necessarily surprising. A multi-disciplinary tourism course makes its students Jacos of several trades and maestros of none, other than tourism, or so they might believe.
Yet, amidst the law and the management of the course, there is something which is glaring by its omission. Nowhere does there appear to be anything about the tourist himself. You can learn about some mechanics and operations of tourism but nothing about what it's like to be a tourist. Arguably, this is what the course should be about. Students in Mallorca may have some idea of what it's like to be a tourist, if they have been one, but can have no appreciation of what it's like to be a tourist in Mallorca or little appreciation of the cultures and backgrounds of the people they would hope to be make a living off.
Where are, for example, cultural studies in the tourism course? Cultural studies of the British, the Germans, the Russians or whoever. You come back, therefore, to the criticism that the course is not orientated to the market and therefore the people - the tourists - who make up the market.
Tourism is ultimately about people and understanding their needs and demands. I can think of managers in hotels in Mallorca who certainly didn't study tourism in their home countries, if they studied at university at all. They came to Mallorca and got jobs in the likes of entertainment. And because they were any good, they rose a managerial ladder. Crucially, though, they know about tourists and tourists from different cultures.
I can sympathise, however, with the students. The course seems like a reflection of much of what passes for a general debate about Mallorca's tourism. It is one in which tourism is somehow remote from its raw material, the tourists themselves. It's extraordinary, as though there is tourism but without tourists.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
There is a fair old debate going on as to the value of the tourism degree. It has been criticised for not being orientated to the tourism market itself, while obtaining a degree appears to be no guarantee of getting a job any grander than that of receptionist, assuming a job can be got at all.
It's a familiar story of course, and one not solely confined to a tourism degree or to university studies in Mallorca. But tourism is after all what Mallorca does, and the number of places on the degree course is not that high (400), so you would indeed think that something decent, career-wise, might come at the end of it.
Picking over the bones of the debate, however, another criticism emerges, and it is one of the choice of the course in the first place. Tourism, a bit like teaching (or certainly how teaching once was in the UK), is a career to get into mainly because it's there. It is a default choice. But it would seem that students embark on the degree not really appreciating what it entails.
I'm not surprised they aren't aware what the course involves. The document which sets it out runs to an excruciating 247 pages of tables, flowcharts and verbiage. Students, either before or during their studies, are not generally inclined to read what they are meant to; I can say this with some authority, as I certainly never did.
Even assuming they do read it, what do they expect to get from the course? The simple answer is a good job. But what job? This is the nub of the problem, or one of the nubs.
One can draw a comparison between tourism and publishing. I have been asked in the past for advice about "getting into publishing", to which the response has always been - what do you mean by publishing? It's the same with tourism; what is meant by it and what is meant by jobs within the industry?
Were students to read the entire prospectus for the course, they might get an inkling. Without detailing the whole course, some of its key modules cover marketing, management, finance, law and languages. English and either French or German are mandatory, but previous reports on the English-speaking abilities of students leaving the university suggest that two-thirds of them struggle with the language to the point of not understanding it.
But this isn't necessarily surprising. A multi-disciplinary tourism course makes its students Jacos of several trades and maestros of none, other than tourism, or so they might believe.
Yet, amidst the law and the management of the course, there is something which is glaring by its omission. Nowhere does there appear to be anything about the tourist himself. You can learn about some mechanics and operations of tourism but nothing about what it's like to be a tourist. Arguably, this is what the course should be about. Students in Mallorca may have some idea of what it's like to be a tourist, if they have been one, but can have no appreciation of what it's like to be a tourist in Mallorca or little appreciation of the cultures and backgrounds of the people they would hope to be make a living off.
Where are, for example, cultural studies in the tourism course? Cultural studies of the British, the Germans, the Russians or whoever. You come back, therefore, to the criticism that the course is not orientated to the market and therefore the people - the tourists - who make up the market.
Tourism is ultimately about people and understanding their needs and demands. I can think of managers in hotels in Mallorca who certainly didn't study tourism in their home countries, if they studied at university at all. They came to Mallorca and got jobs in the likes of entertainment. And because they were any good, they rose a managerial ladder. Crucially, though, they know about tourists and tourists from different cultures.
I can sympathise, however, with the students. The course seems like a reflection of much of what passes for a general debate about Mallorca's tourism. It is one in which tourism is somehow remote from its raw material, the tourists themselves. It's extraordinary, as though there is tourism but without tourists.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 7 September 2011
A glorious morning, but one with a touch of coming autumn - a slight chill in the air and a heavier dew. Local highs at 23 degrees by 09.00, and a top temperature of 30 anticipated.
It's been a superb day. Highs of 29 and unbroken sun.
It's been a superb day. Highs of 29 and unbroken sun.
The Drinking World Cup
When Saturday comes. This Saturday it will be all-day pinting. Footy in the afternoon, but before comes England's first match in the Rugby World Cup. All-day pinting for Bar Brits.
A 10.30 local time kick-off. Too early for pinting? Not on your life. The rugby fan has a prodigious capacity for alcohol. Any time, day or night, it matters nought. Cometh the rugby, cometh the drinking. A match lasting eighty minutes. A game of two halves, and a game of at least four pints.
I became truly aware of the industrial amounts of beer that can be consumed in the name of rugby in 1978. Wales versus the All Blacks at Cardiff Arms Park. A match that ended in controversy, which was about the last thing I remembered before waking up the next morning in a bedroom that was unknown to me, in a house that was unknown to me, and in a house that wasn't in Cardiff. It was in fact somewhere in Somerset.
The obsessiveness of the true rugby devotee is as great if not greater than that of the most myopic of football fan. A then house mate of mine (who also happened to be captain of Wimbledon 1st XV) used to rise uncommonly early for him on a Saturday morning in order to watch the Lions tests against New Zealand in 1983. The early rise was doubly necessary; one, to watch the match and two, to prepare and then consume the entire contents of a supermarket by way of breakfast, liberally washed down with cans of Guinness.
For Bar Brits, the opportunities await during the World Cup. Other matches may start at eight local time, but there will be hordes of thirsty and hungry rugby aficionados banging on the shutters demanding extra full breakfasts and several large, foaming drinks. It should be rugby gold for the next few weeks.
This said, not every bar benefits from a rugby audience. During the 2007 competition, one particular bar, no longer with us (and not particularly surprising) seemed determined to do everything it could to deter the rugby watcher. An England game was suddenly switched off and the dual TV system went over to some God-forsaken Championship football match and the racing from Haydock. "No one's interested," came the explanation from the misery of the bar owner, which came as a shock to those who were. He was left, studying the form for the racing in his copy of "The Sun", as the rugby deprived trooped off to find another bar.
Rugby, like cricket but unlike football, requires an intimate acquaintance with rules that not even the true fan, let alone the players, really understands. Furthermore, it is such a whirr of big blokes smashing into each other, that no one has much idea what is actually going on, and no one can follow the ball, which seems at times to be largely incidental to the game itself.
But for the completely uninitiated, suddenly captivated by the possibility and excitement of England winning something, it is a total mystery, which nevertheless demands a running commentary of incomprehension interspersed by matters unrelated to what's happening on the plasma screen. I give you, therefore, the ladies' view of rugby, as it was during the 2007 final, with occasional male interjections to offer a correction or information:
"Ooh-ooh, come on, push them. That’s good, ooh-ooh, what’s happened? He’s good, who’s he? Tait. Ooh-ooh, come on guys, what was that for? Too many tackles? No that’s League. I am trying you know. Ooh-ooh, that was good. Who’s he? Robinson. I like him. That was good. What’s happening now? Did you breast feed? That was a try. Who was that? Ooh-ooh, Steyn, he’s good. But he’s not one of ours. Isn’t he? Oh no, come on guys, well, George got this allergic reaction to eggs. What’s happened now? Who’s this referee? He’s Argentinian. Ooh-ooh, push him. Oh look he’s pushed him into that camera. England are better. Ooh-ooh. Oh, is it over?"
Sadly of course, England failed in their attempt to win the last World Cup. But four years before. Four years before. Matt Dawson's incursions, Jonny Wilkinson's drop goal, Mike Catt's boot into the terraces. England had won, and a bar in Puerto Pollensa erupted. It must have been, I guess, one o'clock or later, thanks to the extra time. The pinting had been going on since mid-morning, and by the time that Catt kicked to touch, few could really make out what they were meant to be watching. All they could make out was that England had won, and it was therefore time for yet more pinting.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
A 10.30 local time kick-off. Too early for pinting? Not on your life. The rugby fan has a prodigious capacity for alcohol. Any time, day or night, it matters nought. Cometh the rugby, cometh the drinking. A match lasting eighty minutes. A game of two halves, and a game of at least four pints.
I became truly aware of the industrial amounts of beer that can be consumed in the name of rugby in 1978. Wales versus the All Blacks at Cardiff Arms Park. A match that ended in controversy, which was about the last thing I remembered before waking up the next morning in a bedroom that was unknown to me, in a house that was unknown to me, and in a house that wasn't in Cardiff. It was in fact somewhere in Somerset.
The obsessiveness of the true rugby devotee is as great if not greater than that of the most myopic of football fan. A then house mate of mine (who also happened to be captain of Wimbledon 1st XV) used to rise uncommonly early for him on a Saturday morning in order to watch the Lions tests against New Zealand in 1983. The early rise was doubly necessary; one, to watch the match and two, to prepare and then consume the entire contents of a supermarket by way of breakfast, liberally washed down with cans of Guinness.
For Bar Brits, the opportunities await during the World Cup. Other matches may start at eight local time, but there will be hordes of thirsty and hungry rugby aficionados banging on the shutters demanding extra full breakfasts and several large, foaming drinks. It should be rugby gold for the next few weeks.
This said, not every bar benefits from a rugby audience. During the 2007 competition, one particular bar, no longer with us (and not particularly surprising) seemed determined to do everything it could to deter the rugby watcher. An England game was suddenly switched off and the dual TV system went over to some God-forsaken Championship football match and the racing from Haydock. "No one's interested," came the explanation from the misery of the bar owner, which came as a shock to those who were. He was left, studying the form for the racing in his copy of "The Sun", as the rugby deprived trooped off to find another bar.
Rugby, like cricket but unlike football, requires an intimate acquaintance with rules that not even the true fan, let alone the players, really understands. Furthermore, it is such a whirr of big blokes smashing into each other, that no one has much idea what is actually going on, and no one can follow the ball, which seems at times to be largely incidental to the game itself.
But for the completely uninitiated, suddenly captivated by the possibility and excitement of England winning something, it is a total mystery, which nevertheless demands a running commentary of incomprehension interspersed by matters unrelated to what's happening on the plasma screen. I give you, therefore, the ladies' view of rugby, as it was during the 2007 final, with occasional male interjections to offer a correction or information:
"Ooh-ooh, come on, push them. That’s good, ooh-ooh, what’s happened? He’s good, who’s he? Tait. Ooh-ooh, come on guys, what was that for? Too many tackles? No that’s League. I am trying you know. Ooh-ooh, that was good. Who’s he? Robinson. I like him. That was good. What’s happening now? Did you breast feed? That was a try. Who was that? Ooh-ooh, Steyn, he’s good. But he’s not one of ours. Isn’t he? Oh no, come on guys, well, George got this allergic reaction to eggs. What’s happened now? Who’s this referee? He’s Argentinian. Ooh-ooh, push him. Oh look he’s pushed him into that camera. England are better. Ooh-ooh. Oh, is it over?"
Sadly of course, England failed in their attempt to win the last World Cup. But four years before. Four years before. Matt Dawson's incursions, Jonny Wilkinson's drop goal, Mike Catt's boot into the terraces. England had won, and a bar in Puerto Pollensa erupted. It must have been, I guess, one o'clock or later, thanks to the extra time. The pinting had been going on since mid-morning, and by the time that Catt kicked to touch, few could really make out what they were meant to be watching. All they could make out was that England had won, and it was therefore time for yet more pinting.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Fireworks display company to close
Will there be any more fireworks displays at Mallorca's fiestas? While some town halls have cut back on their displays, it seems that many have not been paying for them. As a result, the only company in Mallorca dedicated to pyrotechnic displays, Pirotècnia Jordà de Lloret, is to cease trading because of the failure of town halls to pay it. Some debts have been outstanding for as long as three years.
MALLORCA TODAY - Puerto Pollensa fire: a resident is arrested
Local police have arrested a resident of Puerto Pollensa on suspicion of deliberately setting fire to finca land belonging to a neighbour in the La Solana area of the resort. It would appear that the man arrested was in dispute with the neighbour who had "invaded" his land and had put rubbish onto it.
MALLORCA TODAY - Sa Pobla passes its burka ban
The town hall in Sa Pobla has approved the local ban on the wearing of the burka and instituted fines that could amount to up to 3,000 euros for regular infractions of the ban. Opposition parties, which either abstained or voted with the Partido Popular administration of mayor Biel Serra, criticised the ban on various grounds, e.g. that the mayor was seeking for himself "notoriety" and that the mayor had made the move to ban the burka without consultation. Concern was also expressed that it was unnecessary and could lead to social division in the town.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 6 September 2011
There was a fair amount of rain later in the evening yesterday, and the morning is cloudy with the possibility of further showers. The temperature, though, is holding up at 25 degrees (at 09.00).
The rainfalls amounted to over 25mm in different parts of the area (both around Albufera and in Pollensa town). Earlier yesterday, the localisation of a storm was sufficient for Can Picafort to have a downpour and for other parts to escape with barely a drop of rain.
The general forecast looks quite good for the week, though the met office is warning of rain again on Thursday and Friday, especially in the north east of the island.
There has been a good amount of sun but a good amount of cloud as well today. Highs locally to just under 27 degrees.
The rainfalls amounted to over 25mm in different parts of the area (both around Albufera and in Pollensa town). Earlier yesterday, the localisation of a storm was sufficient for Can Picafort to have a downpour and for other parts to escape with barely a drop of rain.
The general forecast looks quite good for the week, though the met office is warning of rain again on Thursday and Friday, especially in the north east of the island.
There has been a good amount of sun but a good amount of cloud as well today. Highs locally to just under 27 degrees.
A Lovely Pair Of Melons
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them."
Vilafranca's annual melon fiesta and fair sadly does not last twelve nights. Were it to, then Shakespeare's line from "A Twelfth Night" would be more apposite. The fair lasts twelve nights divided by two. But greatness is, nevertheless, the theme of the fair. Greatness as in size. It matters.
Some melons are born (or rather grown) great, some achieve greatness (more than others) and some (of the growers) have greatness thrust upon them and proudly display it during the how-big-are-your-melons competition.
Showing off your melons should be the cue for a local version of Esther Rantzen to suddenly pop up with an hilarious (sic) feature for "Así Es La Vida" or, to be linguistically correct, "Així És La Vida". Simpering Cyril Fletcher would read a witty ode: "It was the competition for the meló més gros, and Tommy Morlà's meló was the grossest of them all. The gross greengrocer's contest in the village of Vilafranca, the melon 'le plus grand' in the lingua franca".
Tommy, or Tomeu to give him his usual name, has now produced the biggest melon on no fewer than five occasions. The king of the melons. Presumably he gets to keep the trophy. This year's offering was only slightly smaller, by 0.6 kilos, than the melon record-holder (a record held by Tomeu). Ooh er, missus, what a whopper.
A thing about melons is that you normally expect them to be melon-shaped. Typically, therefore, they are round or oval. The biggest melon in Vilafranca wasn't. It was more of a curved oblong. Indeed, the melon bore a startling resemblance to the biggest pumpkin in Muro during last autumn's how-big-is your-pumpkin contest, only not orange. Could it in fact be the same? A pumpkin in melon's clothing. We demand an answer.
Towns and villages across Mallorca are known for their agricultural specialisms; hence, Muro with its pumpkins, Sa Pobla with its potatoes and Vilafranca de Bonany, as it is grandly and fully known, with its melons. There should be a greengrocery guide to Mallorca and its "pueblos" and a whole new strand of alternative tourism. Forget sun and beach, here's the fruit and veg.
Such tourism might help to put Vilafranca on the map. It is on maps already, but clearly no one can find it as no one goes there. Few are likely to have even heard of the place. But were visitors to venture to Vilafranca during its melon fiesta, what fun awaits them. In addition to the biggest melon contest, there is also the melon-eating competition.
This year's winner, in the senior category, was one Pep Rosselló, who put away just under 1.8 kilos of melon in five minutes. Apparently, the secret of his success is, if you wish to try this at home, to chew and swallow. Which is pretty sound advice for most food that you put into your mouth. There is the additional bonus, where Pep is concerned, that he likes the fruit. It does help, one imagines. (If, by the way, you had read any reports of Pep's achievement in the Spanish press, you might have been forgiven for thinking that he had devoured 86 of Tomeu's 20.7 kilos of biggest melon; it's how it gets written, or at least I assume he didn't actually get through one thousand, seven hundred and ninety kilos.)
The melon-eating competition may be a bit potty, but at least it is an example of putting fruit to the purpose that it is usually intended, i.e. to be eaten, rather than thrown, which is what happens in Binissalem during its Vermar fiestas (later this month) when there is the great grape battle. There again, chucking melons at each other probably isn't a good idea, especially if they weigh over 20 kilos.
The melon fiesta is also traditional (in that 41 years of its celebration equates to being traditional), which is more than can be said for what will happen soon in the village of Bunyola which will stage its seventh come-in-your-underwear event. Cue Esther once more. Or probably not.
And the melon eating is testimony to the quality of the local fruit. According to the announcement of the MC prior to the "melon-off", the contest was to eat the "most famous melons in the world". So there we are. Vilafranca is on the map after all. It is on the globe. And the globe is melon-shaped, which in Vilafranca is like an oblong.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Vilafranca's annual melon fiesta and fair sadly does not last twelve nights. Were it to, then Shakespeare's line from "A Twelfth Night" would be more apposite. The fair lasts twelve nights divided by two. But greatness is, nevertheless, the theme of the fair. Greatness as in size. It matters.
Some melons are born (or rather grown) great, some achieve greatness (more than others) and some (of the growers) have greatness thrust upon them and proudly display it during the how-big-are-your-melons competition.
Showing off your melons should be the cue for a local version of Esther Rantzen to suddenly pop up with an hilarious (sic) feature for "Así Es La Vida" or, to be linguistically correct, "Així És La Vida". Simpering Cyril Fletcher would read a witty ode: "It was the competition for the meló més gros, and Tommy Morlà's meló was the grossest of them all. The gross greengrocer's contest in the village of Vilafranca, the melon 'le plus grand' in the lingua franca".
Tommy, or Tomeu to give him his usual name, has now produced the biggest melon on no fewer than five occasions. The king of the melons. Presumably he gets to keep the trophy. This year's offering was only slightly smaller, by 0.6 kilos, than the melon record-holder (a record held by Tomeu). Ooh er, missus, what a whopper.
A thing about melons is that you normally expect them to be melon-shaped. Typically, therefore, they are round or oval. The biggest melon in Vilafranca wasn't. It was more of a curved oblong. Indeed, the melon bore a startling resemblance to the biggest pumpkin in Muro during last autumn's how-big-is your-pumpkin contest, only not orange. Could it in fact be the same? A pumpkin in melon's clothing. We demand an answer.
Towns and villages across Mallorca are known for their agricultural specialisms; hence, Muro with its pumpkins, Sa Pobla with its potatoes and Vilafranca de Bonany, as it is grandly and fully known, with its melons. There should be a greengrocery guide to Mallorca and its "pueblos" and a whole new strand of alternative tourism. Forget sun and beach, here's the fruit and veg.
Such tourism might help to put Vilafranca on the map. It is on maps already, but clearly no one can find it as no one goes there. Few are likely to have even heard of the place. But were visitors to venture to Vilafranca during its melon fiesta, what fun awaits them. In addition to the biggest melon contest, there is also the melon-eating competition.
This year's winner, in the senior category, was one Pep Rosselló, who put away just under 1.8 kilos of melon in five minutes. Apparently, the secret of his success is, if you wish to try this at home, to chew and swallow. Which is pretty sound advice for most food that you put into your mouth. There is the additional bonus, where Pep is concerned, that he likes the fruit. It does help, one imagines. (If, by the way, you had read any reports of Pep's achievement in the Spanish press, you might have been forgiven for thinking that he had devoured 86 of Tomeu's 20.7 kilos of biggest melon; it's how it gets written, or at least I assume he didn't actually get through one thousand, seven hundred and ninety kilos.)
The melon-eating competition may be a bit potty, but at least it is an example of putting fruit to the purpose that it is usually intended, i.e. to be eaten, rather than thrown, which is what happens in Binissalem during its Vermar fiestas (later this month) when there is the great grape battle. There again, chucking melons at each other probably isn't a good idea, especially if they weigh over 20 kilos.
The melon fiesta is also traditional (in that 41 years of its celebration equates to being traditional), which is more than can be said for what will happen soon in the village of Bunyola which will stage its seventh come-in-your-underwear event. Cue Esther once more. Or probably not.
And the melon eating is testimony to the quality of the local fruit. According to the announcement of the MC prior to the "melon-off", the contest was to eat the "most famous melons in the world". So there we are. Vilafranca is on the map after all. It is on the globe. And the globe is melon-shaped, which in Vilafranca is like an oblong.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, September 05, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 5 September 2011
A fine, sunny morning, with local highs of 23 degrees at 08.30, expected to rise to 29 but for there to also be some cloud build-up and a slight risk of rain. The week ahead looks generally fine with high temperatures staying around 29 and 30 degrees.
The slight risk of rain was all that it turned out to be. Dirty great clouds came along for a time, there was some thunder, and that was it. A little bit of rain, no more, and then the sun came out again. Highs to 27 this afternoon.
The slight risk of rain was all that it turned out to be. Dirty great clouds came along for a time, there was some thunder, and that was it. A little bit of rain, no more, and then the sun came out again. Highs to 27 this afternoon.
The Smells Of Mallorca's Summer
"How the smell from a grill could spark up nostalgia." (Will Smith, aka The Fresh Prince, "Summertime".)
The evening air is a mixed grill: the charring from charcoal of meats and sardines, the bay leaves or sage tossed onto the coals, the marinades of paprika and cumin. Suspended over neighbourhoods is an invitation to succulence that never tastes quite the same as it does from a barbecue. The smell is the invitation. It hangs also over whole streets of restaurants, blending its aromas with curries and with the syrupy, oil-flamed egg of the pancake man.
These are the smells of summer.
Bacon frying in the morning. The accumulation of breakfast lingering outside a hotel. Chicken on a spit at a supermarket. The sobrasadas and other sausages of a delicatessen, bunched together in smoked and spiced clumps of charcuterie. The vinegar and oil of a Mallorcan salad and the garlic of aioli. Wet fish at the merchants or, for early birds, at the quayside. Melon and pineapple newly sliced.
A sniff of oak and caramel from a chilled white wine. Mint from a mojito. Coffee percolating on the stove. Dregs of San Miguel left in glasses overnight to go flat.
The raspberry of a mignonette, honeysuckle, the startling recognition of rosemary as you walk through a woods, and grass being cut while there is still a dew.
Vanilla-piped fragrance in a hotel lobby or the non-air-conditioned clinging of meat fat to the walls and atmosphere of a different hotel.
An old familiarity but a rarity, like that of British seaside; slimy green seaweed on flat rocks and the pervasive fishiness of sea. Coconut suntan lotion. The staleness of salt on a crusty beach towel that needs washing. And salt in the hair and on the skin. The cologne from a face and body freshener.
Chlorine from an over-active open-air swimming-pool. What may have been left in the swimming-pool.
Sweat and body odours. Trainers left on the terrace to be aired. Vomit outside a bar at three in the morning. Sewage from a cracked cesspit, pumped out by the Colis wagon and spewing onto the road. The general-rubbish wheely-bin before it gets collected. The garden-rubbish wheely with a few day's worth of mulching leaves. Fumes from buses, coaches, lorries or cars long past their MOT sell-by dates or long without regular maintenance.
The burnt sulphuric gas from the marshes in the wetlands, a peculiarly reassuring odour that sits in a still air like a bouquet of molasses from a brewery, captured by the misty ozone of an English autumn morning, or which is wafted by breezes as though they were carrying the smoke of a forest fire. And then there is also the smoke from a forest fire.
The gunpowder from a fireworks display. The petrol of flame-throwing demons. The respiratory-assaulting toxicity of deltamethrin sprayed from a Zum ant-killer can. The lavender of a loo's air freshener. The citronella of mosquito repellent. The ammonia of jellyfish treatment.
The damp wool after a burst of summer rain. The Alpine pine of a tiled floor freshly swabbed. The mango or apple of shower gel. Sheets drying on a washing line.
The pear drops of a hire car interior hopefully cleaned. The baking rubber of a hosepipe left in the sun. Cigarette smoke blowing across from the neighbour's terrace.
The cleanness of glossy print in an information centre. The collision of Armani, Givenchy and Chanel testers in a perfumery. The leather of a shoe, handbag and jacket shop.
Plastic lilos and footballs new from the shop. Pages of a novel to be leafed through for the first time. Sandwiches in foil when the cool box is opened. Diesel from the glass-bottomed boat brought in on a shorebound wind.
And there are more. The smells of summer. Mallorca's olfactory entertainment and nasal seduction. We are intoxicated by the sights of Mallorca, but we pay less attention to how the other senses are stimulated. The sounds of Mallorca could be for another time. For now, make the most of the smells of Mallorca's summer, while they and while it lasts.
And what are your smells of summer?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The evening air is a mixed grill: the charring from charcoal of meats and sardines, the bay leaves or sage tossed onto the coals, the marinades of paprika and cumin. Suspended over neighbourhoods is an invitation to succulence that never tastes quite the same as it does from a barbecue. The smell is the invitation. It hangs also over whole streets of restaurants, blending its aromas with curries and with the syrupy, oil-flamed egg of the pancake man.
These are the smells of summer.
Bacon frying in the morning. The accumulation of breakfast lingering outside a hotel. Chicken on a spit at a supermarket. The sobrasadas and other sausages of a delicatessen, bunched together in smoked and spiced clumps of charcuterie. The vinegar and oil of a Mallorcan salad and the garlic of aioli. Wet fish at the merchants or, for early birds, at the quayside. Melon and pineapple newly sliced.
A sniff of oak and caramel from a chilled white wine. Mint from a mojito. Coffee percolating on the stove. Dregs of San Miguel left in glasses overnight to go flat.
The raspberry of a mignonette, honeysuckle, the startling recognition of rosemary as you walk through a woods, and grass being cut while there is still a dew.
Vanilla-piped fragrance in a hotel lobby or the non-air-conditioned clinging of meat fat to the walls and atmosphere of a different hotel.
An old familiarity but a rarity, like that of British seaside; slimy green seaweed on flat rocks and the pervasive fishiness of sea. Coconut suntan lotion. The staleness of salt on a crusty beach towel that needs washing. And salt in the hair and on the skin. The cologne from a face and body freshener.
Chlorine from an over-active open-air swimming-pool. What may have been left in the swimming-pool.
Sweat and body odours. Trainers left on the terrace to be aired. Vomit outside a bar at three in the morning. Sewage from a cracked cesspit, pumped out by the Colis wagon and spewing onto the road. The general-rubbish wheely-bin before it gets collected. The garden-rubbish wheely with a few day's worth of mulching leaves. Fumes from buses, coaches, lorries or cars long past their MOT sell-by dates or long without regular maintenance.
The burnt sulphuric gas from the marshes in the wetlands, a peculiarly reassuring odour that sits in a still air like a bouquet of molasses from a brewery, captured by the misty ozone of an English autumn morning, or which is wafted by breezes as though they were carrying the smoke of a forest fire. And then there is also the smoke from a forest fire.
The gunpowder from a fireworks display. The petrol of flame-throwing demons. The respiratory-assaulting toxicity of deltamethrin sprayed from a Zum ant-killer can. The lavender of a loo's air freshener. The citronella of mosquito repellent. The ammonia of jellyfish treatment.
The damp wool after a burst of summer rain. The Alpine pine of a tiled floor freshly swabbed. The mango or apple of shower gel. Sheets drying on a washing line.
The pear drops of a hire car interior hopefully cleaned. The baking rubber of a hosepipe left in the sun. Cigarette smoke blowing across from the neighbour's terrace.
The cleanness of glossy print in an information centre. The collision of Armani, Givenchy and Chanel testers in a perfumery. The leather of a shoe, handbag and jacket shop.
Plastic lilos and footballs new from the shop. Pages of a novel to be leafed through for the first time. Sandwiches in foil when the cool box is opened. Diesel from the glass-bottomed boat brought in on a shorebound wind.
And there are more. The smells of summer. Mallorca's olfactory entertainment and nasal seduction. We are intoxicated by the sights of Mallorca, but we pay less attention to how the other senses are stimulated. The sounds of Mallorca could be for another time. For now, make the most of the smells of Mallorca's summer, while they and while it lasts.
And what are your smells of summer?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, September 04, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 4 September 2011
A very much fresher night and a much fresher morning, with local highs up to 22 degrees at 09.00. Bright and sunny, and an afternoon high of 29 on the cards.
There was cloud around for some of the day, but it gave way to leave a very pleasant day, with local highs of just under 28 degrees.
There was cloud around for some of the day, but it gave way to leave a very pleasant day, with local highs of just under 28 degrees.
Two Bellevues, There Are Only Two Bellevues
How do you make two hotels out of one? It's not so difficult when the one hotel is not one hotel.
What is this riddle? It is a riddle that has been perplexing hoteliers for many years. It is what on earth you do with a problem like Bellevue.
If you don't know Alcúdia's Bellevue, then you should. There simply isn't anywhere quite like it. It is an attraction in its own right. It is the single largest complex anywhere in Mallorca and probably in Spain and is testimony to an early-seventies philosophy of tourism that had seen huge complexes created elsewhere in the Mediterranean.
Unlike, say, the spaceship-style design of two of the main buildings at Cap d'Agde in the south of France, Bellevue is a series of individual apartment blocks (seventeen in all). But the thinking was similar. And this thinking conceived Bellevue as apartments, not as a hotel or hotels. Originally, they were meant to have been sold off as timeshares.
Like Cap d'Agde, the philosophy regarding the style of accommodation was one of packing as many apartments and people into an area as possible; 1400 apartments in the case of Bellevue. The accommodation was standardised into three types and was always fairly basic. The emphasis back then was straightforward; holidaymakers came for the sun alone, and the accommodation was somewhere for them to lay their heads.
Bellevue's history has been dogged by ownership and financial wrangling, while the original idea of timeshare sales failed completely. In the eighties, it was finally, after years of being all but empty, conceived as a single "hotel".
The history of ownership and financial troubles brings us up to today, to the former owners of the site, Grupo Marsans, and to a court administering the affairs of Marsans' bankrupt hotel chain, Hotetur.
An agreement, seemingly now only requiring the judge's approval, will see two hotel groups running Bellevue. BlueBay (Al Andalus Management Hotels), which currently operates the site, and Luabay, part of the Orizonia travel group, will share it, 50% each. What is really intriguing is the fact that documentation has apparently already been lodged with the Balearic Government tourism ministry which would permit the conversion of Bellevue into two hotels, or, strictly speaking, groups of hotels.
Luabay's interest stems partly, one imagines, from the fact that Bellevue was the guarantee for a debt that Marsans owed to Orizonia. Also, until earlier this year, Luabay had no hotel interests in Mallorca. It took over a hotel in Arenal and has agreed to acquire three others, all in Cala Mayor. It would appear to be in an expansion mode.
Splitting Bellevue up has long seemed to be a sensible approach. Arguably, it is too big for any one operator, while it was never actually created with the intention of being a hotel as such, certainly not a single hotel. Splitting it up, though, brings with it potential headaches, and if the agreement is formalised, as seems likely, then the two hotel groups will have to get their heads around those headaches.
One of them is how you actually split the complex. To give an idea of the layout of Bellevue, the blocks are more or less evenly distributed to both sides of a road. The trouble is that mostly all the facilities - restaurants etc. - are on one side.
Another is how the separate hotels would be marketed. They couldn't surely both be called Bellevue, could they? To do so would cause massive confusion. The name, though, is extremely well-known, albeit not necessarily for the right reasons. Bellevue may be loved by many, but there are many who hate it and give full vent to their feelings across the internet.
A further headache is tackling the age of the apartments. The size of Bellevue has always constrained redevelopment, mainly because of the sheer cost. The apartments don't have air-conditioning, for example.
Creating two hotels sounds as though it should be an opportunity, one of pushing Bellevue into the tourist twenty-first century. It offers possibilities for different markets, different styles of hotel even. Whether, though, the development would be forthcoming, who can tell? One thing, though, is for sure. The peculiar story of one of the island's most peculiar hotel complexes is set to have another chapter written.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
What is this riddle? It is a riddle that has been perplexing hoteliers for many years. It is what on earth you do with a problem like Bellevue.
If you don't know Alcúdia's Bellevue, then you should. There simply isn't anywhere quite like it. It is an attraction in its own right. It is the single largest complex anywhere in Mallorca and probably in Spain and is testimony to an early-seventies philosophy of tourism that had seen huge complexes created elsewhere in the Mediterranean.
Unlike, say, the spaceship-style design of two of the main buildings at Cap d'Agde in the south of France, Bellevue is a series of individual apartment blocks (seventeen in all). But the thinking was similar. And this thinking conceived Bellevue as apartments, not as a hotel or hotels. Originally, they were meant to have been sold off as timeshares.
Like Cap d'Agde, the philosophy regarding the style of accommodation was one of packing as many apartments and people into an area as possible; 1400 apartments in the case of Bellevue. The accommodation was standardised into three types and was always fairly basic. The emphasis back then was straightforward; holidaymakers came for the sun alone, and the accommodation was somewhere for them to lay their heads.
Bellevue's history has been dogged by ownership and financial wrangling, while the original idea of timeshare sales failed completely. In the eighties, it was finally, after years of being all but empty, conceived as a single "hotel".
The history of ownership and financial troubles brings us up to today, to the former owners of the site, Grupo Marsans, and to a court administering the affairs of Marsans' bankrupt hotel chain, Hotetur.
An agreement, seemingly now only requiring the judge's approval, will see two hotel groups running Bellevue. BlueBay (Al Andalus Management Hotels), which currently operates the site, and Luabay, part of the Orizonia travel group, will share it, 50% each. What is really intriguing is the fact that documentation has apparently already been lodged with the Balearic Government tourism ministry which would permit the conversion of Bellevue into two hotels, or, strictly speaking, groups of hotels.
Luabay's interest stems partly, one imagines, from the fact that Bellevue was the guarantee for a debt that Marsans owed to Orizonia. Also, until earlier this year, Luabay had no hotel interests in Mallorca. It took over a hotel in Arenal and has agreed to acquire three others, all in Cala Mayor. It would appear to be in an expansion mode.
Splitting Bellevue up has long seemed to be a sensible approach. Arguably, it is too big for any one operator, while it was never actually created with the intention of being a hotel as such, certainly not a single hotel. Splitting it up, though, brings with it potential headaches, and if the agreement is formalised, as seems likely, then the two hotel groups will have to get their heads around those headaches.
One of them is how you actually split the complex. To give an idea of the layout of Bellevue, the blocks are more or less evenly distributed to both sides of a road. The trouble is that mostly all the facilities - restaurants etc. - are on one side.
Another is how the separate hotels would be marketed. They couldn't surely both be called Bellevue, could they? To do so would cause massive confusion. The name, though, is extremely well-known, albeit not necessarily for the right reasons. Bellevue may be loved by many, but there are many who hate it and give full vent to their feelings across the internet.
A further headache is tackling the age of the apartments. The size of Bellevue has always constrained redevelopment, mainly because of the sheer cost. The apartments don't have air-conditioning, for example.
Creating two hotels sounds as though it should be an opportunity, one of pushing Bellevue into the tourist twenty-first century. It offers possibilities for different markets, different styles of hotel even. Whether, though, the development would be forthcoming, who can tell? One thing, though, is for sure. The peculiar story of one of the island's most peculiar hotel complexes is set to have another chapter written.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, September 03, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 3 September 2011
Another uncommonly warm night, it was still 27 degrees at midnight in Puerto Pollensa, for instance. There was distant thunder during the night and some rain around, but at present, at 09.00, the morning is fine and once more quite sticky. Local highs at 25 degrees.
The yellow alert for storms for the area will remain in place during the day. Temperatures are expected to fall today. Tomorrow there are risks of isolated showers, and heading into Monday a similar risk remains but dies out together with a new rise in temperatures.
So much then for the yellow alert and the dire predictions for today. It hasn't been brilliant, with a lot of cloud and a quite cool breeze, but there has also been a decent amount of sun and the highs have been up to 28.
The yellow alert for storms for the area will remain in place during the day. Temperatures are expected to fall today. Tomorrow there are risks of isolated showers, and heading into Monday a similar risk remains but dies out together with a new rise in temperatures.
So much then for the yellow alert and the dire predictions for today. It hasn't been brilliant, with a lot of cloud and a quite cool breeze, but there has also been a decent amount of sun and the highs have been up to 28.
Show Us Your Face
I say burka, you say burqa. Burka, burqa, let's take the whole thing off.
If you happen to be a Muslim woman and happen to habitually wear a burka (or burqa), then you might be well advised to give Sa Pobla a wide berth. Little Sa Pobla, a town fast seeking for itself the title of Mallorca's most publicity-attracting municipality, is to ban the burka. Good for Sa Pobla. Not because it's necessarily a good idea, but because it's a means of deflecting attention from the town's parlous financial state.
Banning the burka, however, could help to swell the town hall's coffers. A 50 euros fine here, 200 euros fine there, three grand for a serial burka offender. "Alhamdulillah"; Sa Pobla is suddenly rich again.
Sa Pobla has a relatively high Muslim population. Most are from Morocco, some 2,000 people out of a total of around 13,000 inhabitants. According to one blog, other Muslims are from countries such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, and the women can typically be seen, clad in the burka or niqab, at the gates of schools waiting for their children. I'll take its word for it.
The town is to become the first in the Balearics to say no to the burka. It follows where towns and cities on the peninsula have led, especially in Catalonia (and the blog I refer to is a Catalan one). The Catalans have bigged up a burka ban. The town of Lleida was the first and then Barcelona said show us your face.
There is no ban as such on the burka in Spain. The national Senate voted in favour of a ban last year, only for the Congress to not vote in favour. The issue is meant to be up for debate, but seems to have been lost along with a general law on rellgious freedoms. Nevertheless, ban or no ban, the Islamic Human Rights Commission has complained that the Spanish Government permits local councils to regulate as they see fit.
When I first heard about Sa Pobla's ban, my reaction was "how can they?". I am not against them banning the burka - it is an absurdity; obscenity even - but on what basis can local authorities take such a measure? An order of good government, citizenship and co-existence would seem to allow them to do so. However, this is an issue on which the state should be arbitrating and legislating, not a small town in Mallorca.
The state should be legislating because ad-hoc bans are questionable in terms of the constitution, which explicitly makes provisions for religious freedoms and for safeguarding (for all people in Spain) their traditions, cultures and human rights.
It is this constitutional aspect that ties up with mooted reforms of laws on religious freedoms. The key word in all of this is "co-existence", one seemingly invoked in the local law in Sa Pobla, and "harmonious co-existence" in particular. This, and its definition in law and under the constitution, is a potential minefield. What exactly would represent the parameters of "harmonious co-existence"?
For the mayor of Sa Pobla, it is pretty clear what it means. The town should not be subject to "elements which ... distort the co-existence". Moreover, there should be integration based on the "values of our society, which is Mallorcan". It is the very mention of "Mallorcan", however, that shows how complicated the debate is and therefore how complicated any legal or constitutional amendment would be.
Are law and the constitution meant to reflect the traditions of every individual part of Spain when it comes to co-existence and religious freedoms? Because this is what the mayor seems to be suggesting. In Andalusia, there are values, as there are in Galicia and in Catalonia.
And to raise the "values" word is a minefield of its own. What are the values of Mallorcan society in any event? Or indeed of Spanish society?
The values, for which read also traditions, will mean that in Sa Pobla a blanket ban on the face being covered will not be totally blanket. A son of Michael Jackson would probably be included, and the wearing of balaclavas will certainly be included, but exceptions will be made for the pointy-head hoodies of Easter processions, for demons and beasties and for the "big heads" of fiesta times.
The difference is that the burka is not something worn for a specific celebration. Its wearing is absurd. Sa Pobla is not wrong to seek its banning, but it is wrong in that it should be the state which is deciding and in that it, as with other local councils, should not be allowed to play fast and loose with the constitution.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
If you happen to be a Muslim woman and happen to habitually wear a burka (or burqa), then you might be well advised to give Sa Pobla a wide berth. Little Sa Pobla, a town fast seeking for itself the title of Mallorca's most publicity-attracting municipality, is to ban the burka. Good for Sa Pobla. Not because it's necessarily a good idea, but because it's a means of deflecting attention from the town's parlous financial state.
Banning the burka, however, could help to swell the town hall's coffers. A 50 euros fine here, 200 euros fine there, three grand for a serial burka offender. "Alhamdulillah"; Sa Pobla is suddenly rich again.
Sa Pobla has a relatively high Muslim population. Most are from Morocco, some 2,000 people out of a total of around 13,000 inhabitants. According to one blog, other Muslims are from countries such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, and the women can typically be seen, clad in the burka or niqab, at the gates of schools waiting for their children. I'll take its word for it.
The town is to become the first in the Balearics to say no to the burka. It follows where towns and cities on the peninsula have led, especially in Catalonia (and the blog I refer to is a Catalan one). The Catalans have bigged up a burka ban. The town of Lleida was the first and then Barcelona said show us your face.
There is no ban as such on the burka in Spain. The national Senate voted in favour of a ban last year, only for the Congress to not vote in favour. The issue is meant to be up for debate, but seems to have been lost along with a general law on rellgious freedoms. Nevertheless, ban or no ban, the Islamic Human Rights Commission has complained that the Spanish Government permits local councils to regulate as they see fit.
When I first heard about Sa Pobla's ban, my reaction was "how can they?". I am not against them banning the burka - it is an absurdity; obscenity even - but on what basis can local authorities take such a measure? An order of good government, citizenship and co-existence would seem to allow them to do so. However, this is an issue on which the state should be arbitrating and legislating, not a small town in Mallorca.
The state should be legislating because ad-hoc bans are questionable in terms of the constitution, which explicitly makes provisions for religious freedoms and for safeguarding (for all people in Spain) their traditions, cultures and human rights.
It is this constitutional aspect that ties up with mooted reforms of laws on religious freedoms. The key word in all of this is "co-existence", one seemingly invoked in the local law in Sa Pobla, and "harmonious co-existence" in particular. This, and its definition in law and under the constitution, is a potential minefield. What exactly would represent the parameters of "harmonious co-existence"?
For the mayor of Sa Pobla, it is pretty clear what it means. The town should not be subject to "elements which ... distort the co-existence". Moreover, there should be integration based on the "values of our society, which is Mallorcan". It is the very mention of "Mallorcan", however, that shows how complicated the debate is and therefore how complicated any legal or constitutional amendment would be.
Are law and the constitution meant to reflect the traditions of every individual part of Spain when it comes to co-existence and religious freedoms? Because this is what the mayor seems to be suggesting. In Andalusia, there are values, as there are in Galicia and in Catalonia.
And to raise the "values" word is a minefield of its own. What are the values of Mallorcan society in any event? Or indeed of Spanish society?
The values, for which read also traditions, will mean that in Sa Pobla a blanket ban on the face being covered will not be totally blanket. A son of Michael Jackson would probably be included, and the wearing of balaclavas will certainly be included, but exceptions will be made for the pointy-head hoodies of Easter processions, for demons and beasties and for the "big heads" of fiesta times.
The difference is that the burka is not something worn for a specific celebration. Its wearing is absurd. Sa Pobla is not wrong to seek its banning, but it is wrong in that it should be the state which is deciding and in that it, as with other local councils, should not be allowed to play fast and loose with the constitution.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, September 02, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa town hall unable to approve budget
The minority town hall administration of eight councillors (Partido Popular and La Lliga) in Pollensa has had its budget for 2011 blocked by the nine-person opposition. The administration had hoped that the councillor for the Unió Mollera Pollencina would abstain, but he chose to vote against. Opposition groups complain that they have had insufficient time to consider the budget proposals.
MALLORCA TODAY - Sa Pobla to ban the burka
Sa Pobla town hall intends to introduce a ban on the wearing of the burka and the niqab in public areas in the town, which would include schools, health centres as well as public spaces, such as squares. The ban, which would include the wearing of any other form of clothing that hides a person's identity, would apply in a town with a 25% immigrant population.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 2 September 2011
A really quite oppressive morning with temperatures by 08.30 at close to 25 degrees. The forecast is for a build-up of a cloud today with highs up to 30 degrees and for rain tomorrow with the risk of thunderstorms. There should be an improvement from Sunday.
It has been very muggy all day and from early morning Mallorca is on a state of yellow alert for heavy rains and storms with downpours of up to 20mm per hour being forecast.
It has been very muggy all day and from early morning Mallorca is on a state of yellow alert for heavy rains and storms with downpours of up to 20mm per hour being forecast.
Mr. Kyle's Holidays
Goodbye, summer. Goodbye, August. Goodbye to 31 days of total ... of total, erm, brown stuff. For the hyper-sensitive, I have changed one word and substituted it with two.
Facebook is a fabulous resource. When you're mulling over what to write, toying with the withholding of state money to various town halls in Mallorca or grants for various trade fairs being stopped while at the same time the building of the Palacio de Congresos is going full steam ahead, Facebook can throw up something altogether more important. Like August.
The bit about the 31 days of total you know what are not my words. They come from Facebook. He knows who he is, as he will also know his reference to "The Jeremy Kyle Show". A commentator will also know who he is, he who has made reference to chav families and scenes from "Benidorm". (I have incidentally deleted the expletives.)
Ok, a bit of context is needed here. These remarks emanate from bar owners in The Mile area of Alcúdia. Less than complimentary about August, they are also less than complimentary about some of the punters to be found in the area. How to win friends and influence potential customers, you might think. Possibly, but the sentiments have not exactly been known not to be aired previously. What they refer to is the fact that August's tourism, if I can be polite, is not of quite the same standard as that of other months of the summer, such as July or September.
The August moan, as I suppose we should call it, has long been with us. Longer certainly than since August 2007 when I wrote about this very subject and wrote about it, moreover, from the point of view of a business in Playa de Muro where the tourist might be thought to be less chav, have deeper pockets and tend not to appear on "The Jeremy Kyle Show". The August moan is most certainly not solely confined to Alcúdia's Mile.
The allusion to "The Jeremy Kyle Show", if you're not quite up to speed with this, is one that characterises tourism punters (the female variety, that is) as being akin to Karen Matthews, though possibly not quite as attractive and mercifully less likely to indulge in fake kidnappings. The Kyle show is inhabited by such people.
The reference, that to the programme "Benidorm", has, for me, some association with the Kyle show. One of the funniest moments in any episode of "Benidorm" was when an Al Jolson tribute ("Mal Jolson") was performing. The look of jaw-dropped, appalled bemusement on the face of Gavin when he realised that he was watching an act who had "blacked up" was both hilarious and probably very similar to my own when I first saw the Kyle show.
This is, of course, extraordinarily unfair on the overwhelming majority of tourists who aren't likely to turn up on the Kyle show and is also unfair on those who are neither chavs nor simply cheapskates. But the point is taken.
However, it's not as if August is the only month when Kyle-like tourism descends on parts of Alcúdia or other resorts. In early June, a month of generally genteel and well-heeled tourism, I happened across some visitors who were staying in a certain hotel not that far from the bars owned by my friends mentioned above.
"It's like 'The Jeremy Kyle Show'," said one.
What we have to deduce from this is that Jeremy Kyle, whether he is aware of it or not, has introduced a whole new category of tourist, a whole stratum of society (British) that is now Kyle-esque. (In fact he probably is aware of it and more than happy that it exists.) His show, and his type of guest, has passed into the popular lexicon. In a sense, it is a great cultural achievement; to have lent your name to a section of society.
No one deserves to be barred from holidaying, whether Kyle-esque or not. Everyone deserves a holiday. Most people would probably agree, so long as some of the holidaymakers were not in their own backyards.
August, peak season, should be a month for businesses to really reap the benefits. That it may not be is not, however, just down to the Kyle-like tourist. It's an expensive month for any tourist, and it is a month which attracts a predominantly family tourist, for obvious reasons, who has forked out heavily on the cost of the holiday alone.
It isn't the best of months. Not as good as it should be. I can totally understand bar owners and others being grateful to see the back of it. Welcome to September.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Facebook is a fabulous resource. When you're mulling over what to write, toying with the withholding of state money to various town halls in Mallorca or grants for various trade fairs being stopped while at the same time the building of the Palacio de Congresos is going full steam ahead, Facebook can throw up something altogether more important. Like August.
The bit about the 31 days of total you know what are not my words. They come from Facebook. He knows who he is, as he will also know his reference to "The Jeremy Kyle Show". A commentator will also know who he is, he who has made reference to chav families and scenes from "Benidorm". (I have incidentally deleted the expletives.)
Ok, a bit of context is needed here. These remarks emanate from bar owners in The Mile area of Alcúdia. Less than complimentary about August, they are also less than complimentary about some of the punters to be found in the area. How to win friends and influence potential customers, you might think. Possibly, but the sentiments have not exactly been known not to be aired previously. What they refer to is the fact that August's tourism, if I can be polite, is not of quite the same standard as that of other months of the summer, such as July or September.
The August moan, as I suppose we should call it, has long been with us. Longer certainly than since August 2007 when I wrote about this very subject and wrote about it, moreover, from the point of view of a business in Playa de Muro where the tourist might be thought to be less chav, have deeper pockets and tend not to appear on "The Jeremy Kyle Show". The August moan is most certainly not solely confined to Alcúdia's Mile.
The allusion to "The Jeremy Kyle Show", if you're not quite up to speed with this, is one that characterises tourism punters (the female variety, that is) as being akin to Karen Matthews, though possibly not quite as attractive and mercifully less likely to indulge in fake kidnappings. The Kyle show is inhabited by such people.
The reference, that to the programme "Benidorm", has, for me, some association with the Kyle show. One of the funniest moments in any episode of "Benidorm" was when an Al Jolson tribute ("Mal Jolson") was performing. The look of jaw-dropped, appalled bemusement on the face of Gavin when he realised that he was watching an act who had "blacked up" was both hilarious and probably very similar to my own when I first saw the Kyle show.
This is, of course, extraordinarily unfair on the overwhelming majority of tourists who aren't likely to turn up on the Kyle show and is also unfair on those who are neither chavs nor simply cheapskates. But the point is taken.
However, it's not as if August is the only month when Kyle-like tourism descends on parts of Alcúdia or other resorts. In early June, a month of generally genteel and well-heeled tourism, I happened across some visitors who were staying in a certain hotel not that far from the bars owned by my friends mentioned above.
"It's like 'The Jeremy Kyle Show'," said one.
What we have to deduce from this is that Jeremy Kyle, whether he is aware of it or not, has introduced a whole new category of tourist, a whole stratum of society (British) that is now Kyle-esque. (In fact he probably is aware of it and more than happy that it exists.) His show, and his type of guest, has passed into the popular lexicon. In a sense, it is a great cultural achievement; to have lent your name to a section of society.
No one deserves to be barred from holidaying, whether Kyle-esque or not. Everyone deserves a holiday. Most people would probably agree, so long as some of the holidaymakers were not in their own backyards.
August, peak season, should be a month for businesses to really reap the benefits. That it may not be is not, however, just down to the Kyle-like tourist. It's an expensive month for any tourist, and it is a month which attracts a predominantly family tourist, for obvious reasons, who has forked out heavily on the cost of the holiday alone.
It isn't the best of months. Not as good as it should be. I can totally understand bar owners and others being grateful to see the back of it. Welcome to September.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, September 01, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Air Europa pilots to strike
Air Europa faces the possibility of strike action being taken by its pilots as from 22 September. Unless a resolution can be found, the strikes will be called for Mondays and Thursdays every week and will be indefinite. Air Europa flights include a regular route between Palma and Gatwick.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 1 September 2011
A cloudy morning with local highs at 09.00 of 24 to 25. The highs should get up to 31, though there is a chance of some light rain.
The month of August was slightly warmer than usual and, with the exception of the 3mm of rain that fell around Alcúdia on 30 August, there was no rain that is commonly associated with the second half of August.
The first few days of September will see some unsettled weather with temperatures falling by up to five degrees and Saturday expected to be stormy.
Well, if the temperatures were supposed to have started falling today, no one mentioned it to the local weather. A steamy high of just under 32 locally with that old heat index climbing to 35 degrees.
The month of August was slightly warmer than usual and, with the exception of the 3mm of rain that fell around Alcúdia on 30 August, there was no rain that is commonly associated with the second half of August.
The first few days of September will see some unsettled weather with temperatures falling by up to five degrees and Saturday expected to be stormy.
Well, if the temperatures were supposed to have started falling today, no one mentioned it to the local weather. A steamy high of just under 32 locally with that old heat index climbing to 35 degrees.
Mouthing Off
Certain acronyms for organisations don't do these organisations any favours. The FA, for instance, can all too easily represent what critics claim it does, or rather doesn't do. And it's sweet.
Acronyms come in different forms. Some, like the FA, are spoken as individual letters; others are spoken as words. One of these is GOB. Its full name is a mouthful - Grup Balear d'Ornitolgia i Defensa de la Naturalesa. The D and the N have been discarded in allowing for a simpler pronunciation and in also allowing for an Anglicisation and for jokes at its expense. Got a hell of a gob on it. It's got a gob on. A gobby bunch of environmentalists.
Whenever an environmental issue emerges from some threatened undergrowth, and sometimes when it doesn't, GOB has a lot to say for itself. It is in the nature of the work of nature's defenders that it should feel compelled to make utterances against the designs of government, constructors, hotels, tourists, buses, road builders, drivers, and whoever else happens to loom onto the potentially harmful environmental horizon. It is work that is never done.
Mallorca For Sale is GOB's latest campaign. Not that it wants to sell Mallorca of course; it is fearful that Jolly Joe Bauzá and his Partido Popular chums will. GOB is outraged that Bauzá is contemplating creating some dynamism for the moribund Mallorcan economy by easing laws to enable the building of theme parks, more commercial centres and even a Formula 1 circuit. Consequently, it has started an online petition against the forces of development.
Some of this is dreadfully old hat. In the case of Muro's golf course, the hat dates back to the nineties and we're still no nearer knowing who might actually get to wear it. So old are some of the projected developments that GOB complains about, and so tedious are the endless arguments, that most people gave up long ago taking any interest in them.
It's not to say that GOB doesn't engage in good works. It does. But its constant carping has a touch of the cry-wolf; the public might believe in what GOB says but it withdraws its sympathy because there is so much carping and precious little by way of alternative solutions, save for the we should all go back to the land and live off wind and solar energy variety.
Nevertheless, it is an indication of the degree to which the environment plays a key role in decision-making in Mallorca, that of both business and government, that GOB's voice is given such prominence. Because the environment is such an important issue to the island, it is only right and proper that a strong environmental lobby exists to try and prevent excesses. GOB serves this purpose, and it does its job well in looking to meet its objectives of the "conservation, dissemination and study of nature and the environment of the Balearic Islands".
However, the centrality of the environment to the decision-making process has pushed GOB ever further towards politicisation. It is a charity, but its independence and indeed its objectives have become potentially compromised.
The Muro golf course was a case in point. When the PSM (Mallorcan socialists) assumed control of the environment department in the last regional government, the immediate decision to put a halt to the course's development came as absolutely no surprise; the closeness between the PSM and GOB and the similar statements the two were coming out with made it appear as though GOB was like the PSM's provisional wing.
The left having been pretty much eclipsed at the last election, the strongest voices of opposition are emanating from groups which are, in theory at any rate, not political, e.g. GOB. And when the established political left has managed to raise its weary voice, there too is GOB to add its support. But to issues that have nothing to do with GOB. Go back and look at its objectives. Where in any of these is there anything about the TV Mallorca radio and television station? Yet, there was GOB leaping to the station's defence. When an anti-corruption platform emerged last year, which was one of the groups? Yep, GOB. Again, there is nothing in its objectives about corruption.
In the past, GOB has been challenged to basically put up or shut up by coming out and making itself a political entity. It won't do, and nor should it, because it does perform an important function. But as it allows itself to be so constantly involved in the political process and to be involved in matters which are not within its remit, then its function does become open to question.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Acronyms come in different forms. Some, like the FA, are spoken as individual letters; others are spoken as words. One of these is GOB. Its full name is a mouthful - Grup Balear d'Ornitolgia i Defensa de la Naturalesa. The D and the N have been discarded in allowing for a simpler pronunciation and in also allowing for an Anglicisation and for jokes at its expense. Got a hell of a gob on it. It's got a gob on. A gobby bunch of environmentalists.
Whenever an environmental issue emerges from some threatened undergrowth, and sometimes when it doesn't, GOB has a lot to say for itself. It is in the nature of the work of nature's defenders that it should feel compelled to make utterances against the designs of government, constructors, hotels, tourists, buses, road builders, drivers, and whoever else happens to loom onto the potentially harmful environmental horizon. It is work that is never done.
Mallorca For Sale is GOB's latest campaign. Not that it wants to sell Mallorca of course; it is fearful that Jolly Joe Bauzá and his Partido Popular chums will. GOB is outraged that Bauzá is contemplating creating some dynamism for the moribund Mallorcan economy by easing laws to enable the building of theme parks, more commercial centres and even a Formula 1 circuit. Consequently, it has started an online petition against the forces of development.
Some of this is dreadfully old hat. In the case of Muro's golf course, the hat dates back to the nineties and we're still no nearer knowing who might actually get to wear it. So old are some of the projected developments that GOB complains about, and so tedious are the endless arguments, that most people gave up long ago taking any interest in them.
It's not to say that GOB doesn't engage in good works. It does. But its constant carping has a touch of the cry-wolf; the public might believe in what GOB says but it withdraws its sympathy because there is so much carping and precious little by way of alternative solutions, save for the we should all go back to the land and live off wind and solar energy variety.
Nevertheless, it is an indication of the degree to which the environment plays a key role in decision-making in Mallorca, that of both business and government, that GOB's voice is given such prominence. Because the environment is such an important issue to the island, it is only right and proper that a strong environmental lobby exists to try and prevent excesses. GOB serves this purpose, and it does its job well in looking to meet its objectives of the "conservation, dissemination and study of nature and the environment of the Balearic Islands".
However, the centrality of the environment to the decision-making process has pushed GOB ever further towards politicisation. It is a charity, but its independence and indeed its objectives have become potentially compromised.
The Muro golf course was a case in point. When the PSM (Mallorcan socialists) assumed control of the environment department in the last regional government, the immediate decision to put a halt to the course's development came as absolutely no surprise; the closeness between the PSM and GOB and the similar statements the two were coming out with made it appear as though GOB was like the PSM's provisional wing.
The left having been pretty much eclipsed at the last election, the strongest voices of opposition are emanating from groups which are, in theory at any rate, not political, e.g. GOB. And when the established political left has managed to raise its weary voice, there too is GOB to add its support. But to issues that have nothing to do with GOB. Go back and look at its objectives. Where in any of these is there anything about the TV Mallorca radio and television station? Yet, there was GOB leaping to the station's defence. When an anti-corruption platform emerged last year, which was one of the groups? Yep, GOB. Again, there is nothing in its objectives about corruption.
In the past, GOB has been challenged to basically put up or shut up by coming out and making itself a political entity. It won't do, and nor should it, because it does perform an important function. But as it allows itself to be so constantly involved in the political process and to be involved in matters which are not within its remit, then its function does become open to question.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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