Come on now, admit it. How often do you ever watch a television programme in Spanish? If you don't live in Mallorca or Spain, you're forgiven, but if you do ... . There is one very good reason for not watching Spanish telly, apart from the language issue, and this is that, for the most part, it is unrelenting garbage. Better that you stick to "X Factor" or "I'm A Celebrity"; altogether more culturally enriching.
I'm not going to be holier than thou. I don't watch Spanish telly much. I used to, before I realised just how bad it was. What limited diet I have is largely confined to football. I should make more of an effort as there are some gems of the bizarre, such as the channel which seems to be devoted to a woman reading Tarot cards or human towers competitions replete with slow-mo action replays of a small child slipping and crashing onto the bodies below.
Foreign programmes are usually always dubbed, and there are an awful lot of them. Yes, you can view some in the original language as well, but for the Spaniard the voiceover (VO) is preferable. The Germans do it as well to films and telly programmes. It is so ridiculous that I once saw an interview with the boy who was the German "Harry Potter" and who had become a star in his own right. In Spanish I have watched "The Shawshank Redemption" with a Morgan Freeman who probably comes from Madrid and who almost certainly isn't black.
Dubbing, as opposed to showing programmes in the original language (almost always, therefore, English) with subtitles, may lead to the madness of an actor's personality being stripped away by a VO artist, but it can also have a serious aspect, in that it inhibits the learning of English.
However, the experience in Germany is quite telling. Though German TV dubs, the standard of English in Germany is high, far higher than it is in Mallorca or Spain. Television does have a role to play in teaching English, and no more so than in the Netherlands where, together with an educational system which promotes English from an early age, the watching of shows in English has been established practice for many years, given that the BBC has long been available. But television can't overcome an instinctive problem, one to do with the sounds of language.
There is an article by Nick Lyne about Spanish television, dubbing and language acquisition on the qorreo.com website. It's interesting, but what is even more interesting is a comment about the article. This makes the point that the Spanish language has a "particularly not-rich set of sounds in its register". This means that it can be difficult to pronounce, speak and therefore learn other languages, such as English.
The contrast is made with, for example, Dutch which is a much richer language in terms of sounds. I would guess that the same applies to German. The greater the range of sounds in a native tongue, the easier it is to acquire other languages; or so the theory seems to go. Without getting too technical, Spanish has comparatively few spoken sounds compared with English. A linguist at the Spanish equivalent of the Open University has made the point that Spanish pronunciation of English is poor because the greater number of English sounds are reduced to the few of Spanish. (Incidentally, Catalan has a few more sounds than Spanish which should, in theory, make things easier.)
The imbalance in sound recognition has major implications for the teaching of English in schools. The same linguist has said that no one seems to be bothering to make the acquisition of new sounds a key element of English. The extension of English use in teaching in Spanish and Mallorcan schools is all well and good, but how good are the teachers themselves at speaking it correctly? Despite the number of years of English instruction, the professor of language psychology at the University of Navarra is concerned that pupils leave school still not knowing how to speak English.
Earlier this year, a survey of students at the university in Palma discovered that 68% admitted to not understanding English. It may not be essential for all of them in their future careers that they do, but given the importance of English in international business and in local tourism the deficiency is somewhat startling. By a remarkable coincidence, a survey of foreign language use by students and adults in different European countries by the Eurostat research organisation at the European Commission revealed that 68% of secondary school pupils in Spain learn one foreign language - English. Learn, but can they use?
The same Eurostat survey placed Spain in the bottom three of countries in which adults speak no foreign language. And no, the UK was not behind Spain; in fact the UK does pretty well in this respect.
But to return to television. Much recent debate surrounding language and whether English originals should be shown on TV was kicked off by Fox's decision to broadcast "House" in English with subtitles. So, you'll be able to watch it in English if you want to. The question is: will the Spanish?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Murphy's Law: Catastrophes
"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."
It's tempting fate to look back at 2010 before it has finished. Anything that can go wrong, still has time to go wrong. What more can we expect? Reindeer going on strike over Christmas? No flying for Santa. Maybe it would be as well, if air-traffic control decides to down radars again.
There's something apt about Murphy's Law and the air-traffic controllers. The Murphy of the Law was engaged in the measurement of G-forces in conditions of aircraft acceleration. The experiments, that went wrong, used crash test dummies and then chimps. Air-traffic control has made dummies and monkeys out of all those who had hoped for even moderate acceleration of airplanes.
The other monkeys, those of the Spanish Government, are calling for stiff prison sentences for the controllers. Cage the gorillas of the radar towers as punishment for their guerrilla tactics. It's still hard to understand quite why the controllers' mass-sicky strike took place, given that they had appeared to have been thrown some bananas back in summer.
What can go wrong will go wrong.
And it did over the "puente" of the Constitution Day/Immaculate Conception holiday bridge. Airlines and Mallorca's hoteliers and other businesses have described the impact of the strike as catastrophic: reservations cancelled, restaurants not as thronged as they might have been. There again, catastrophe has been 2010's fellow traveller, or would have been if travel had been as smooth as one would have hoped. But then, it wouldn't have been catastrophic.
The strike that affected the "puente" negatively was a bridge too far for Mallorca. If the island could speak it would be protesting that it has had it up to its neck this year.
Up to the neck, well, up to the waist at any rate, was where many found themselves barely 48 hours into the start of the season in early May. The animals were boarding two by two - chimps, gorillas, whatever - as Arks were floated on apocalyptic floods.
An Ark can be useful when what can go wrong does go wrong. No one saw it coming, until it started blinding aircraft pilots. Air-traffic control had more than just aircraft images on the screen to monitor when Iceland blew its gasket. If Murphy's Law hadn't existed, it would have come into being in April. As it turned out, it wasn't the end of the tourism world as we know it. But there remains a fear that what goes wrong could go seriously wrong.
The air-traffic controllers' strike and the volcano, catastrophes both if you believe in hyperbole, point to one great worry - the vulnerability and fragility of Mallorca. Paradise islands are all very well, except when they are cut off from the infernos of the mainlands. While some extra Arks set sail and came to the rescue from the fallout from the fiery hell of Eyjafjallajökull, they were a drop in the Mediterranean of mass transport to the havens of Barcelona, Valencia or Dénia.
There were catastrophes that weren't catastrophes. The public-sector and general strikes were whimpers of indifference. The anarchy predicted for Greece is nowhere to be seen on a Spanish horizon, but the economic hurricane could yet rip Spain to shreds and brew up a tidal wave of discontent that roars, rolls and crashes in from a deceptively serene skyline.
And in the face of hurricanes and tidal waves, air-traffic controllers will be irrelevant and Arks will be redundant, because Mallorca's vulnerability and fragility have a far greater threat. This is not Murphy's Law. We know what can go wrong as it already has. It won't happen next year or the year after next. You know what it is. Give it 40 years is what the climate changers believe.
Then you'll really be talking about catastrophe.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
It's tempting fate to look back at 2010 before it has finished. Anything that can go wrong, still has time to go wrong. What more can we expect? Reindeer going on strike over Christmas? No flying for Santa. Maybe it would be as well, if air-traffic control decides to down radars again.
There's something apt about Murphy's Law and the air-traffic controllers. The Murphy of the Law was engaged in the measurement of G-forces in conditions of aircraft acceleration. The experiments, that went wrong, used crash test dummies and then chimps. Air-traffic control has made dummies and monkeys out of all those who had hoped for even moderate acceleration of airplanes.
The other monkeys, those of the Spanish Government, are calling for stiff prison sentences for the controllers. Cage the gorillas of the radar towers as punishment for their guerrilla tactics. It's still hard to understand quite why the controllers' mass-sicky strike took place, given that they had appeared to have been thrown some bananas back in summer.
What can go wrong will go wrong.
And it did over the "puente" of the Constitution Day/Immaculate Conception holiday bridge. Airlines and Mallorca's hoteliers and other businesses have described the impact of the strike as catastrophic: reservations cancelled, restaurants not as thronged as they might have been. There again, catastrophe has been 2010's fellow traveller, or would have been if travel had been as smooth as one would have hoped. But then, it wouldn't have been catastrophic.
The strike that affected the "puente" negatively was a bridge too far for Mallorca. If the island could speak it would be protesting that it has had it up to its neck this year.
Up to the neck, well, up to the waist at any rate, was where many found themselves barely 48 hours into the start of the season in early May. The animals were boarding two by two - chimps, gorillas, whatever - as Arks were floated on apocalyptic floods.
An Ark can be useful when what can go wrong does go wrong. No one saw it coming, until it started blinding aircraft pilots. Air-traffic control had more than just aircraft images on the screen to monitor when Iceland blew its gasket. If Murphy's Law hadn't existed, it would have come into being in April. As it turned out, it wasn't the end of the tourism world as we know it. But there remains a fear that what goes wrong could go seriously wrong.
The air-traffic controllers' strike and the volcano, catastrophes both if you believe in hyperbole, point to one great worry - the vulnerability and fragility of Mallorca. Paradise islands are all very well, except when they are cut off from the infernos of the mainlands. While some extra Arks set sail and came to the rescue from the fallout from the fiery hell of Eyjafjallajökull, they were a drop in the Mediterranean of mass transport to the havens of Barcelona, Valencia or Dénia.
There were catastrophes that weren't catastrophes. The public-sector and general strikes were whimpers of indifference. The anarchy predicted for Greece is nowhere to be seen on a Spanish horizon, but the economic hurricane could yet rip Spain to shreds and brew up a tidal wave of discontent that roars, rolls and crashes in from a deceptively serene skyline.
And in the face of hurricanes and tidal waves, air-traffic controllers will be irrelevant and Arks will be redundant, because Mallorca's vulnerability and fragility have a far greater threat. This is not Murphy's Law. We know what can go wrong as it already has. It won't happen next year or the year after next. You know what it is. Give it 40 years is what the climate changers believe.
Then you'll really be talking about catastrophe.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Comprehension Lessons: Education in Mallorca
Hype, spin, fantasy. Ill-informed, wrong, misleading.
Pick any of the above. Now interpret it. Comprehend it, in other words, by using other words, and also be able to use it in context.
You are probably not a student at a secondary school in the Balearics. Were you to be, you wouldn't be much good at interpreting or comprehending. And this is not an English test. Interpretation of text, any text, is something you're pretty lousy at.
Why choose the above words? It can often be revealing to discover what is trotted out on the internet in the name of Mallorca and the Balearics, and which can be any of the above. "Fantastic." "High standards". Just two examples of what is said about education in Mallorca. You can interpret these examples as being indicative of these words. Or rather, you should interpret them thus, if, that is, you take time to look at the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) report into educational standards which is produced under the auspices of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).
This report looks not only at national standards. In the case of Spain, it breaks them down by regions. Not all, because not all are covered, but most. In three main categories - mathematics, reading comprehension, science - the Balearics are in the bottom five. In fact, only in maths do the Balearics climb out of the bottom four, and only the Canaries and the "autonomous cities" of Ceuta and Melilla, the Spanish enclaves in Morocco, are worse than the Balearics.
Fantastic? Doesn't sound like it, does it. Of the three measures, the Balearics are below the Spanish average and, by quite some margin, the OECD average.
The findings are significant. They give a wholly different impression of educational standards than the "hype" would have it, and there is an unmistakable pattern to them. The four non-mainland parts of Spain are the worst places for children to be educated. This raises its own question. Are these places somehow disadvantaged when it comes to the provision of education? There is another possibility. Maybe they're just not very good. The teaching unions would suggest that there is a disadvantage and an inequality between regions of Spain.
If one considers economic performance and levels of wealth as indicators of advantage or disadvantage, there is something to be said for this argument. Ceuta and Melilla have the lowest GDPs of all the Spanish regions. The Balearics rank only 12th out of the 17 regions plus the two autonomous cities, but there is a very different picture when you consider GDP per head of population. The Balearics are one of the wealthier regions, up there with the big earners such as Madrid, the Basque Country and Catalonia.
Living and educational standards do not necessarily coincide, but a generally accepted principle is that the higher the standard of living, the better the education. So what's going wrong in the Balearics?
For some, the low standards being achieved will be evidence of the politics of language. Possibly so. The problems with comprehension could indeed be evidence of this, as may also be the level of immigration. But there is arguably a more important issue, and it is one that contradicts the "fantastic" image. It is one of indiscipline and poor motivation and one, moreover, which debunks the notion that higher standards of living automatically mean better education. Or better pupils at any rate.
In state schools, and one probably should distinguish between public and private education, a complaint that is made is that disruptiveness is often the product of children of the better-off. Why should this be? A reason lies with the wealth and with the knowledge that an education doesn't matter if there are over-indulgent parents who will see the kids right when they leave school. A further issue, and particularly so in coastal areas, is the lifestyle. The beach, the summer and all that goes with them are seductive in creating a laidback atmosphere. It might sound great, but not if it inculcates an attitude whereby school is an inconvenience prior to papa setting you up in a bar or the family business or your taking a job as a waiter or on a boat.
It is no coincidence that the best-performing regions are the likes of Castile-Leon and Madrid. It is also no coincidence that two other regions with strong sun-and-beach connections aren't that much better than the Balearics, namely Murcia and Andalusia.
The language of education and the constant fuss that surrounds it will probably be singled out as the reason for poor educational performance, but to do so would be to disguise other factors which may be the real reasons for this performance. Whatever the reason, interpret the words correctly and don't believe the hype.
* The findings of the report relate to 15-year-old pupils. All regions of Spain were included except for Valencia, Extremadura and Castile-La Mancha.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Pick any of the above. Now interpret it. Comprehend it, in other words, by using other words, and also be able to use it in context.
You are probably not a student at a secondary school in the Balearics. Were you to be, you wouldn't be much good at interpreting or comprehending. And this is not an English test. Interpretation of text, any text, is something you're pretty lousy at.
Why choose the above words? It can often be revealing to discover what is trotted out on the internet in the name of Mallorca and the Balearics, and which can be any of the above. "Fantastic." "High standards". Just two examples of what is said about education in Mallorca. You can interpret these examples as being indicative of these words. Or rather, you should interpret them thus, if, that is, you take time to look at the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) report into educational standards which is produced under the auspices of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).
This report looks not only at national standards. In the case of Spain, it breaks them down by regions. Not all, because not all are covered, but most. In three main categories - mathematics, reading comprehension, science - the Balearics are in the bottom five. In fact, only in maths do the Balearics climb out of the bottom four, and only the Canaries and the "autonomous cities" of Ceuta and Melilla, the Spanish enclaves in Morocco, are worse than the Balearics.
Fantastic? Doesn't sound like it, does it. Of the three measures, the Balearics are below the Spanish average and, by quite some margin, the OECD average.
The findings are significant. They give a wholly different impression of educational standards than the "hype" would have it, and there is an unmistakable pattern to them. The four non-mainland parts of Spain are the worst places for children to be educated. This raises its own question. Are these places somehow disadvantaged when it comes to the provision of education? There is another possibility. Maybe they're just not very good. The teaching unions would suggest that there is a disadvantage and an inequality between regions of Spain.
If one considers economic performance and levels of wealth as indicators of advantage or disadvantage, there is something to be said for this argument. Ceuta and Melilla have the lowest GDPs of all the Spanish regions. The Balearics rank only 12th out of the 17 regions plus the two autonomous cities, but there is a very different picture when you consider GDP per head of population. The Balearics are one of the wealthier regions, up there with the big earners such as Madrid, the Basque Country and Catalonia.
Living and educational standards do not necessarily coincide, but a generally accepted principle is that the higher the standard of living, the better the education. So what's going wrong in the Balearics?
For some, the low standards being achieved will be evidence of the politics of language. Possibly so. The problems with comprehension could indeed be evidence of this, as may also be the level of immigration. But there is arguably a more important issue, and it is one that contradicts the "fantastic" image. It is one of indiscipline and poor motivation and one, moreover, which debunks the notion that higher standards of living automatically mean better education. Or better pupils at any rate.
In state schools, and one probably should distinguish between public and private education, a complaint that is made is that disruptiveness is often the product of children of the better-off. Why should this be? A reason lies with the wealth and with the knowledge that an education doesn't matter if there are over-indulgent parents who will see the kids right when they leave school. A further issue, and particularly so in coastal areas, is the lifestyle. The beach, the summer and all that goes with them are seductive in creating a laidback atmosphere. It might sound great, but not if it inculcates an attitude whereby school is an inconvenience prior to papa setting you up in a bar or the family business or your taking a job as a waiter or on a boat.
It is no coincidence that the best-performing regions are the likes of Castile-Leon and Madrid. It is also no coincidence that two other regions with strong sun-and-beach connections aren't that much better than the Balearics, namely Murcia and Andalusia.
The language of education and the constant fuss that surrounds it will probably be singled out as the reason for poor educational performance, but to do so would be to disguise other factors which may be the real reasons for this performance. Whatever the reason, interpret the words correctly and don't believe the hype.
* The findings of the report relate to 15-year-old pupils. All regions of Spain were included except for Valencia, Extremadura and Castile-La Mancha.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Culture At A Price
Where would we be without the plenitude of statistics that inform every last bit of Mallorcan and Spanish life? An awful lot less bored probably. To the diligent data collection performed at national level, we must add the micro-managerialism of the Balearics own mathematically minded. The islands' statistics institute has been bean-counting around in local cultural life in contributing to the national annual report into cultural stats. Yes, every last thing is entered into Excel, given a percentage, an average and a comparison. It is numerical Nirvana.
It doesn't come as a huge surprise to learn that spending on culture (broadly defined to include entertainment as well as the more high-brow) has fallen. This descent into Philistinism is not as pronounced in the Balearics as some other parts of Spain, but spending slumped by nearly 7% in 2009. The growth areas were home entertainment and the internet, which are culturally questionable, and the theatre, which isn't. Live music performance has been one of the biggest losers.
The staggering precision of these statistics is that we are told that in 2009 there were 11,378 popular musical concerts in the Balearics. Who on earth counts this stuff and why? Indeed, how do they count it? The decline in concerts was to the tune of 1,541 and the number of spectators fell by 132,000. This is mind-boggling in terms of its apparent uselessness.
Nevertheless, a snapshot of cultural health or sickness has some merit in allowing for general quality of life to be gauged. So the number-crunching is not completely useless. What is unclear from that figure for concerts is how many, if any, were free. There is an awful lot of culture in Mallorca which doesn't cost anything, such as that during fiestas or staged thanks to the generosity of town halls or whoever. But this free culture isn't free because much of it comes out of the public purse, which means taxpayers' money.
As a very rudimentary guide, let me give an example of what this costs. In Santa Margalida a couple of years ago, they proposed raising the annual spending on fiestas to around 800,000 euros. The town has a registered population of roughly 10,600. 75 euros per person for the fiestas in the town, Can Picafort and Son Serra, and a goodly chunk of this goes up in smoke in a short period - the half an hour it takes to send rockets into the sky. Well, fireworks are culture, are they not?
75 euros doesn't sound a lot, except of course it isn't distributed evenly, while there are plenty who pay not a centimo - tourists and those from other towns. Sometimes there is an attempt to generate income, as was the case with the Carl Cox concert in Can Picafort this summer. Free to residents of the town, it cost up to 35 euros a pop for anyone else, and wasn't that well-attended, probably as a consequence and despite Cox's celebrity.
A question arises with this "free" culture as to whether, rather than simply compiling numbers, anyone ever indulges in some more meaningful maths, as in conducting a cost-benefit analysis. If income to a town, through its bars, restaurants and so on, outstrips the costs of putting on events, then fine. But it would be nice to know if it actually does.
Of course, one can argue that even running at a loss should not matter, as fiestas and their like are all part of "cultural life". True, but this highlights the nebulous nature of what cultural life actually means, especially to visitors.
That great example of specious statistics gathering, tourism spend, has, as one of its core measurements, money tourists spend on "excursions". The problem with this is that excursions are undefined. They can mean anything from a trip to an historic site or to Pirates and Marineland, and I rather suspect that it normally means the latter two. Both are "cultural" in the broadest sense of the word, but neither qualifies as cultural tourism of the sort tourism bodies have in mind.
Buried within the report into cultural spending is a rather telling statistic (yes, there is one). It is the fact that the number of visitors to the Balearics in 2009 who came for cultural purposes fell. Don't ask how they arrive at the figure; let's just accept that they do. As cultural tourism is supposed to be such an important element of "alternative" tourism, such a decline does not lend support to this importance. And again, one has to ask what the visitor means by cultural purposes.
Where this report is good is that it does at least attempt to distinguish between different cultural activities, and it is this specificity is what is missing from information we are fed about tourists. If this were to be forthcoming, then we might be able to form a better appreciation as to what culture means to tourists, but one has the suspicion that the vagueness of the concept is rather as tourism bodies prefer it. This-a-way it can mean anything you like. But whatever it means, it will still cost, and there will be a statistician to put a figure to it.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
It doesn't come as a huge surprise to learn that spending on culture (broadly defined to include entertainment as well as the more high-brow) has fallen. This descent into Philistinism is not as pronounced in the Balearics as some other parts of Spain, but spending slumped by nearly 7% in 2009. The growth areas were home entertainment and the internet, which are culturally questionable, and the theatre, which isn't. Live music performance has been one of the biggest losers.
The staggering precision of these statistics is that we are told that in 2009 there were 11,378 popular musical concerts in the Balearics. Who on earth counts this stuff and why? Indeed, how do they count it? The decline in concerts was to the tune of 1,541 and the number of spectators fell by 132,000. This is mind-boggling in terms of its apparent uselessness.
Nevertheless, a snapshot of cultural health or sickness has some merit in allowing for general quality of life to be gauged. So the number-crunching is not completely useless. What is unclear from that figure for concerts is how many, if any, were free. There is an awful lot of culture in Mallorca which doesn't cost anything, such as that during fiestas or staged thanks to the generosity of town halls or whoever. But this free culture isn't free because much of it comes out of the public purse, which means taxpayers' money.
As a very rudimentary guide, let me give an example of what this costs. In Santa Margalida a couple of years ago, they proposed raising the annual spending on fiestas to around 800,000 euros. The town has a registered population of roughly 10,600. 75 euros per person for the fiestas in the town, Can Picafort and Son Serra, and a goodly chunk of this goes up in smoke in a short period - the half an hour it takes to send rockets into the sky. Well, fireworks are culture, are they not?
75 euros doesn't sound a lot, except of course it isn't distributed evenly, while there are plenty who pay not a centimo - tourists and those from other towns. Sometimes there is an attempt to generate income, as was the case with the Carl Cox concert in Can Picafort this summer. Free to residents of the town, it cost up to 35 euros a pop for anyone else, and wasn't that well-attended, probably as a consequence and despite Cox's celebrity.
A question arises with this "free" culture as to whether, rather than simply compiling numbers, anyone ever indulges in some more meaningful maths, as in conducting a cost-benefit analysis. If income to a town, through its bars, restaurants and so on, outstrips the costs of putting on events, then fine. But it would be nice to know if it actually does.
Of course, one can argue that even running at a loss should not matter, as fiestas and their like are all part of "cultural life". True, but this highlights the nebulous nature of what cultural life actually means, especially to visitors.
That great example of specious statistics gathering, tourism spend, has, as one of its core measurements, money tourists spend on "excursions". The problem with this is that excursions are undefined. They can mean anything from a trip to an historic site or to Pirates and Marineland, and I rather suspect that it normally means the latter two. Both are "cultural" in the broadest sense of the word, but neither qualifies as cultural tourism of the sort tourism bodies have in mind.
Buried within the report into cultural spending is a rather telling statistic (yes, there is one). It is the fact that the number of visitors to the Balearics in 2009 who came for cultural purposes fell. Don't ask how they arrive at the figure; let's just accept that they do. As cultural tourism is supposed to be such an important element of "alternative" tourism, such a decline does not lend support to this importance. And again, one has to ask what the visitor means by cultural purposes.
Where this report is good is that it does at least attempt to distinguish between different cultural activities, and it is this specificity is what is missing from information we are fed about tourists. If this were to be forthcoming, then we might be able to form a better appreciation as to what culture means to tourists, but one has the suspicion that the vagueness of the concept is rather as tourism bodies prefer it. This-a-way it can mean anything you like. But whatever it means, it will still cost, and there will be a statistician to put a figure to it.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Immaculate Misconceptions: Mallorca's holidays
There are misconceptions surrounding public holidays in Mallorca, not least the misconception related to the day off for Immaculate Conception. It is not the day when Mary was mysteriously taken by the Holy Ghost, or whoever it was; that was in fact on 25 March, which isn't a public holiday. What makes 8 December immaculate is that this was when Mary was conceived. Or at least I think that's what it's all about, unless I am labouring under a misconception. Or maybe Mary went into labour having had a misconception. I really don't know. But on 1 May I wouldn't be labouring under a misconception, as this is Labour Day. So, no chance of getting that wrong.
What there is every chance of is forgetting that a public holiday is a public holiday because it does not coincide with one from the land in which one was raised, as is the case with Immaculate Conception. The misconception, however, is that there is a public holiday in Mallorca approximately every fortnight. In England there are eight holiday days, in Mallorca there are thirteen. So, not so many more after all.
However, there is a bit of latitude. Officially, any municipality can have a maximum of fourteen holidays a year, which gives it room for manoeuvre to add the local patron saint's day. I say officially, but there is a bit of craftiness that goes on. In Alcúdia, as an example, there is a saint's day for the town itself (Sant Jaume) and one for the port (Sant Pere). A holiday in the old town is not strictly speaking a holiday in the port or vice versa, but of course this is what happens. Indeed it would be difficult to think how it couldn't happen, given that they are the same municipality. Then there are holidays which are nothing to do with the likes of Alcúdia directly but which have sort of crept in, such as Sants Antoni and Sebastian in January. They aren't holidays, but unofficially have become so.
Where confusion and further misconception as to the number of holidays can arise is with this business of municipalities deciding. I'll give you a case in point. One day I happened to go along to the municipal building in Playa de Muro wherein is the local sub-post office. Tourist information was open as usual, but the post office was shut. "Fiesta," came the word from the helpful Cati at the information reception. "Fiesta? Where? Not here there isn't." "No. In Can Picafort." "But this is Muro." "Yes, but the post office is in Can Picafort." There was something distinctly fishy about this. The post office quite clearly wasn't in Can Picafort. It, or rather its locked door, was staring me in the face. "The main post office is in Can Picafort," added Cati. "But there's a main post office in Muro town." "Yes, but this one doesn't belong to it. It's Can Picafort's."
More fool I, of course, for having forgotten that this was the duck-tossing day off in Can Picafort and for not being intimately associated with the intricacies of postal service organization. Similarly, were one in Can Picafort and wanted, on the same day, to go to the local Eroski, it would be shut. If you were none the wiser, and why would you be, you might assume that all supermarkets would be closed. But they wouldn't be. There would be another Eroski a short drive away in Alcúdia that would be open. Perish the thought though that Eroski, being a Basque company, might decide to apply the Basque Country Day to its Mallorcan shops as from next year when the day is to be introduced.
Despite this confusion, there is, if you are of a mind to think like this, the potential to increase your own personal number of holidays substantially. Bear in mind that on 15 August, you can be on one side of the roundabout entering Can Picafort from Playa de Muro and you will be working. Go to the other side, and you'll be on holiday. How many municipalities are there in Mallorca? 53? Something like that. Each with its own saint's day. Even allowing for the fact that some towns have the same saints, my guess is that you could, by moving around the island, be on holiday for at least 50 days of the year. Now you're talking. And now you're also talking about how those misconceptions aren't so misconceived after all.
But to return to the hard core of nationally or regionally observed holidays, two are relatively recent additions. Balearics Day is one, Constitution Day the other, and it has been a holiday since 1979 and celebrates the referendum on the constitution that was held on 6 December 1978. But why did they choose 6 December? The Constitution had been approved on 31 October of that year. It actually came into effect on 29 December. 31 October might have made sense, as 1 November was already a national holiday. But no, 6 December it was, with 7 December between it and Immaculate Conception. It was all another bit of craftiness, as it means there is a three-day holiday. And 29 December wouldn't have meant much, because from now until 6 January and indeed further on until Antoni and Sebastian, it's all pretty much a holiday anyway.
Misconceptions? Maybe not. Happy holidays.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
What there is every chance of is forgetting that a public holiday is a public holiday because it does not coincide with one from the land in which one was raised, as is the case with Immaculate Conception. The misconception, however, is that there is a public holiday in Mallorca approximately every fortnight. In England there are eight holiday days, in Mallorca there are thirteen. So, not so many more after all.
However, there is a bit of latitude. Officially, any municipality can have a maximum of fourteen holidays a year, which gives it room for manoeuvre to add the local patron saint's day. I say officially, but there is a bit of craftiness that goes on. In Alcúdia, as an example, there is a saint's day for the town itself (Sant Jaume) and one for the port (Sant Pere). A holiday in the old town is not strictly speaking a holiday in the port or vice versa, but of course this is what happens. Indeed it would be difficult to think how it couldn't happen, given that they are the same municipality. Then there are holidays which are nothing to do with the likes of Alcúdia directly but which have sort of crept in, such as Sants Antoni and Sebastian in January. They aren't holidays, but unofficially have become so.
Where confusion and further misconception as to the number of holidays can arise is with this business of municipalities deciding. I'll give you a case in point. One day I happened to go along to the municipal building in Playa de Muro wherein is the local sub-post office. Tourist information was open as usual, but the post office was shut. "Fiesta," came the word from the helpful Cati at the information reception. "Fiesta? Where? Not here there isn't." "No. In Can Picafort." "But this is Muro." "Yes, but the post office is in Can Picafort." There was something distinctly fishy about this. The post office quite clearly wasn't in Can Picafort. It, or rather its locked door, was staring me in the face. "The main post office is in Can Picafort," added Cati. "But there's a main post office in Muro town." "Yes, but this one doesn't belong to it. It's Can Picafort's."
More fool I, of course, for having forgotten that this was the duck-tossing day off in Can Picafort and for not being intimately associated with the intricacies of postal service organization. Similarly, were one in Can Picafort and wanted, on the same day, to go to the local Eroski, it would be shut. If you were none the wiser, and why would you be, you might assume that all supermarkets would be closed. But they wouldn't be. There would be another Eroski a short drive away in Alcúdia that would be open. Perish the thought though that Eroski, being a Basque company, might decide to apply the Basque Country Day to its Mallorcan shops as from next year when the day is to be introduced.
Despite this confusion, there is, if you are of a mind to think like this, the potential to increase your own personal number of holidays substantially. Bear in mind that on 15 August, you can be on one side of the roundabout entering Can Picafort from Playa de Muro and you will be working. Go to the other side, and you'll be on holiday. How many municipalities are there in Mallorca? 53? Something like that. Each with its own saint's day. Even allowing for the fact that some towns have the same saints, my guess is that you could, by moving around the island, be on holiday for at least 50 days of the year. Now you're talking. And now you're also talking about how those misconceptions aren't so misconceived after all.
But to return to the hard core of nationally or regionally observed holidays, two are relatively recent additions. Balearics Day is one, Constitution Day the other, and it has been a holiday since 1979 and celebrates the referendum on the constitution that was held on 6 December 1978. But why did they choose 6 December? The Constitution had been approved on 31 October of that year. It actually came into effect on 29 December. 31 October might have made sense, as 1 November was already a national holiday. But no, 6 December it was, with 7 December between it and Immaculate Conception. It was all another bit of craftiness, as it means there is a three-day holiday. And 29 December wouldn't have meant much, because from now until 6 January and indeed further on until Antoni and Sebastian, it's all pretty much a holiday anyway.
Misconceptions? Maybe not. Happy holidays.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Glittering Prizes: Tourism awards
It's that time of the year. Out of mothballs come the dicky bows and cummerbunds, the evening gowns and the tiaras (not I suppose that a tiara is ever in mothballs, but you get my drift). The awards ceremony season is upon us. The season for self-congratulation and honours. The glittering occasions for the great and good.
There are some awards you'd think they'd rather keep a bit quiet. Like Christmas bonuses being awarded to bankers, prizes for the local tourism industry might seem like bad PR. In fact, they did keep them rather quiet, as in, while the Fomento del Turismo awards event was reported, there was no mention as to who had actually been presented with the gongs. Even the Fomento's own website was silent on the matter.
The Fomento, aka the Mallorca Tourist Board, is a strange organization in that it is private, not a government body. Indeed it has at times suffered from less than marvellous relations with government, but this year there was tourism minister Joana Barceló together with the board's president and the winners. The photos proved that there were winners after all, but you would need to recognize them to know who they were.
Being unable to put names to them, there is no alternative. We're just going to have make our own up. The tourism awards to honour the outstanding year that 2010 has been. There are plenty of new categories this year, which demonstrate that 2010 has been a year of genuine innovation. So here goes ...
The Guinness Book Of Records Award to the shortest-serving tourism minister in history. And the winner was ... Yes, Miguel Ferrer. 58 days in office. Sufficient time for his having been able to announce how bold he was going to be during the 18 months he would have at tourism's helm, only to be told to take his pen and clear off when he and the rest of his Unió Mallorquina party were shown the governmental door.
The Saddest Former Tourism Minister of 2010. It went to ... Miguel Ferrer. He was seen walking his dog in the streets of Alcúdia not long after his dismissal. He wandered down the Calle Mayor, past the town hall building where only a short time before he had reigned supreme as the town's mayor. Now out of two jobs, it was symbolic that the doors of the town hall were firmly shut.
The Whistling In The Dark To Keep Up Spirits Award was handed, as every year, to the Spanish national statistics office for its tireless efforts in producing tourism spend information that made everyone realize that things were much better than they thought.
The Ant and Dec I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of This Promotion Award was graciously accepted by Rafael Nadal whose luxury boat in which he cruised around the islands of the Balearics ("these islands of joy" went the advert) ran aground when the tourism ministry ran out of dosh.
(Following the presentation to Nadal, there was a musical interlude when a Corrs tribute act performed the advert's song. If it wasn't they who had done the original, it didn't half sound like them.)
The David Attenborough Award for Natural Phenomena in a Tourism Context was handed to the country of Iceland, which served to prove how effective a small bit of God-forsaken ice and rock in the North Atlantic can be in bringing the entire tourism industry to a halt.
The FIFA Award for Moral Certitude went to the Balearics own tourism ministry for having made anti-corruption investigation the islands' one growth industry, thus providing a legacy of which the ministry can be proud.
And a special, last-minute presentation, the Throwing A Sicky 'Cos We Only Earn Some 400 Grand A Year Award, was sheepishly received by Spanish air-traffic controllers and was met with rapturous applause when they were swiftly also handed notice of disciplinary proceedings.
All in all, a year of great achievement, and after the awards event all those attending went back to their hotel. Booking one had been a little difficult as there were hardly any open, but one was found and suitably enough it was of course all-inclusive.
Here's to an even better 2011.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
There are some awards you'd think they'd rather keep a bit quiet. Like Christmas bonuses being awarded to bankers, prizes for the local tourism industry might seem like bad PR. In fact, they did keep them rather quiet, as in, while the Fomento del Turismo awards event was reported, there was no mention as to who had actually been presented with the gongs. Even the Fomento's own website was silent on the matter.
The Fomento, aka the Mallorca Tourist Board, is a strange organization in that it is private, not a government body. Indeed it has at times suffered from less than marvellous relations with government, but this year there was tourism minister Joana Barceló together with the board's president and the winners. The photos proved that there were winners after all, but you would need to recognize them to know who they were.
Being unable to put names to them, there is no alternative. We're just going to have make our own up. The tourism awards to honour the outstanding year that 2010 has been. There are plenty of new categories this year, which demonstrate that 2010 has been a year of genuine innovation. So here goes ...
The Guinness Book Of Records Award to the shortest-serving tourism minister in history. And the winner was ... Yes, Miguel Ferrer. 58 days in office. Sufficient time for his having been able to announce how bold he was going to be during the 18 months he would have at tourism's helm, only to be told to take his pen and clear off when he and the rest of his Unió Mallorquina party were shown the governmental door.
The Saddest Former Tourism Minister of 2010. It went to ... Miguel Ferrer. He was seen walking his dog in the streets of Alcúdia not long after his dismissal. He wandered down the Calle Mayor, past the town hall building where only a short time before he had reigned supreme as the town's mayor. Now out of two jobs, it was symbolic that the doors of the town hall were firmly shut.
The Whistling In The Dark To Keep Up Spirits Award was handed, as every year, to the Spanish national statistics office for its tireless efforts in producing tourism spend information that made everyone realize that things were much better than they thought.
The Ant and Dec I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of This Promotion Award was graciously accepted by Rafael Nadal whose luxury boat in which he cruised around the islands of the Balearics ("these islands of joy" went the advert) ran aground when the tourism ministry ran out of dosh.
(Following the presentation to Nadal, there was a musical interlude when a Corrs tribute act performed the advert's song. If it wasn't they who had done the original, it didn't half sound like them.)
The David Attenborough Award for Natural Phenomena in a Tourism Context was handed to the country of Iceland, which served to prove how effective a small bit of God-forsaken ice and rock in the North Atlantic can be in bringing the entire tourism industry to a halt.
The FIFA Award for Moral Certitude went to the Balearics own tourism ministry for having made anti-corruption investigation the islands' one growth industry, thus providing a legacy of which the ministry can be proud.
And a special, last-minute presentation, the Throwing A Sicky 'Cos We Only Earn Some 400 Grand A Year Award, was sheepishly received by Spanish air-traffic controllers and was met with rapturous applause when they were swiftly also handed notice of disciplinary proceedings.
All in all, a year of great achievement, and after the awards event all those attending went back to their hotel. Booking one had been a little difficult as there were hardly any open, but one was found and suitably enough it was of course all-inclusive.
Here's to an even better 2011.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, December 05, 2010
Fade Away
How long ago was it? Forty years. More maybe. No one ever seems to be able to say for certain. It's their age catching up with them. Memory playing tricks, disappearing or revolving in circles of confusion. Let's say it was around 1970, shall we. Exactitude isn't necessary.
Back then, towards the far end of Playa de Muro, an area sometimes misleadingly referred to as Alcúdia Pins which is further on, was all but uninhabited. What lay by the sea was sand, dunes' scrub, reeds and grass from Albufera. Not far away a hotel was being put up. It was to be the Esperanza. The story goes that the hotel was named after the daughter of the man whose family owned much of the land that stretched from what became Alcúdia's Bellevue and Mile area down to the forest that separates current-day Playa de Muro from Can Picafort.
There were plenty of stones and bricks that went into the building of the hotel. So many that there were a lot spare. They went much of the way to the building of two houses, one a bungalow, the other a grander affair on two levels. There was an absence of utilities and no road as such. A machete was a useful tool to hack away at the scrub and grass.
The two houses took shape and became the first of an urbanization. The bungalow had to be all but re-built some years later; there were no proper foundations. The house was that much more solid. It was, still is just about, the seaside home of a couple from the hinterland. Not rich people. Straightforward, regular Mallorcans, but they were not stand-offish. They might once have been where foreigners were concerned, but they have known many over all these years and have become friends, such as with the German woman who owned the bungalow but who died a couple of years ago.
I hadn't seen the old man for quite some time. In summer it was usual for him to be there, tending the garden. His wife, rather shaky, pottered around inside or stood on the roof terrace and shouted at neighbours, as was her preferred form of communication. It was never unfriendly, just that, in a far from untypical Mallorcan manner, volume outweighed content. The conversation, such as it was, tended to revolve around the not infrequent "desastres" involving "clientes", those who rented two flats in the house.
I saw the old man the other day. It was a bit of a shock. He has gone downhill quite suddenly. I asked him how he was, but didn't tarry long. I didn't want to embarrass him. I could see how he was, and the words of another German neighbour, one who has had a chalet there for almost as long as the original two, came into my mind. "He was crying. He said that he knew that he was dying."
There had been tears when the German woman had passed away. The old lady, the wife of the old man, had taken my arm as we had gone to spread the word. Standing in the road, heads shaking, kind words being spoken. She, the old lady, was grateful for the gifts, such as the geranium pots. They would remind her of her long-time German friend.
The old man said that his wife was well, but I know she isn't. She doesn't come to the house now. She doesn't go with her husband for their little trip to the sea. They would do this on most occasions when they came to the house in winter. He would drive to the beach's edge and might forage for some bits of wood. She would hobble to the wooden sand-break, stare at the sea and then shout a bit.
And afterwards they would go to the house where there were no winter clients to be "un desastre", just the overwhelmingly musty smell and the icebox interior before the fire started to crackle and the rooms would fill with the sweet essence of woodsmoke. Incongruous amidst the antique and dark furniture that cluttered up their flat was a flat-screen telly chirping in generally incomprehensible Mallorquín.
The old man had come with a nephew, a cheery fellow who once chatted with me in the street and explained his prostate problem and, more alarmingly, his erectile dysfunction. I didn't exactly know him that well. So much for stand-offishness. You wonder, at times, why the Mallorcans have this reputation. The old man and he, even the summer before last, used to go together for their Sunday morning swim in the sea. The nephew was his usual happy self, unlike the old man who lowered himself uneasily into the passenger seat of the car he used to drive.
He's fading away, as is his wife. The German neighbour has already faded away. And their fading will end a chapter of Playa de Muro's history. Because they are its history in this particular part of the resort. They were the first, the pioneers if you like, they who tamed the wild east of Alcúdia all those years ago. It seems almost appropriate. The resort is not dying of course, but has it, like other parts of Mallorca that developed from little or nothing at around the same time, run out of the vigour, the life that took it so far? The resort is now no youngster. It has matured, along with the industry that created it. Life cycles are real enough. For resorts, for industries. And for people.
I don't know if I'll see him again.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Back then, towards the far end of Playa de Muro, an area sometimes misleadingly referred to as Alcúdia Pins which is further on, was all but uninhabited. What lay by the sea was sand, dunes' scrub, reeds and grass from Albufera. Not far away a hotel was being put up. It was to be the Esperanza. The story goes that the hotel was named after the daughter of the man whose family owned much of the land that stretched from what became Alcúdia's Bellevue and Mile area down to the forest that separates current-day Playa de Muro from Can Picafort.
There were plenty of stones and bricks that went into the building of the hotel. So many that there were a lot spare. They went much of the way to the building of two houses, one a bungalow, the other a grander affair on two levels. There was an absence of utilities and no road as such. A machete was a useful tool to hack away at the scrub and grass.
The two houses took shape and became the first of an urbanization. The bungalow had to be all but re-built some years later; there were no proper foundations. The house was that much more solid. It was, still is just about, the seaside home of a couple from the hinterland. Not rich people. Straightforward, regular Mallorcans, but they were not stand-offish. They might once have been where foreigners were concerned, but they have known many over all these years and have become friends, such as with the German woman who owned the bungalow but who died a couple of years ago.
I hadn't seen the old man for quite some time. In summer it was usual for him to be there, tending the garden. His wife, rather shaky, pottered around inside or stood on the roof terrace and shouted at neighbours, as was her preferred form of communication. It was never unfriendly, just that, in a far from untypical Mallorcan manner, volume outweighed content. The conversation, such as it was, tended to revolve around the not infrequent "desastres" involving "clientes", those who rented two flats in the house.
I saw the old man the other day. It was a bit of a shock. He has gone downhill quite suddenly. I asked him how he was, but didn't tarry long. I didn't want to embarrass him. I could see how he was, and the words of another German neighbour, one who has had a chalet there for almost as long as the original two, came into my mind. "He was crying. He said that he knew that he was dying."
There had been tears when the German woman had passed away. The old lady, the wife of the old man, had taken my arm as we had gone to spread the word. Standing in the road, heads shaking, kind words being spoken. She, the old lady, was grateful for the gifts, such as the geranium pots. They would remind her of her long-time German friend.
The old man said that his wife was well, but I know she isn't. She doesn't come to the house now. She doesn't go with her husband for their little trip to the sea. They would do this on most occasions when they came to the house in winter. He would drive to the beach's edge and might forage for some bits of wood. She would hobble to the wooden sand-break, stare at the sea and then shout a bit.
And afterwards they would go to the house where there were no winter clients to be "un desastre", just the overwhelmingly musty smell and the icebox interior before the fire started to crackle and the rooms would fill with the sweet essence of woodsmoke. Incongruous amidst the antique and dark furniture that cluttered up their flat was a flat-screen telly chirping in generally incomprehensible Mallorquín.
The old man had come with a nephew, a cheery fellow who once chatted with me in the street and explained his prostate problem and, more alarmingly, his erectile dysfunction. I didn't exactly know him that well. So much for stand-offishness. You wonder, at times, why the Mallorcans have this reputation. The old man and he, even the summer before last, used to go together for their Sunday morning swim in the sea. The nephew was his usual happy self, unlike the old man who lowered himself uneasily into the passenger seat of the car he used to drive.
He's fading away, as is his wife. The German neighbour has already faded away. And their fading will end a chapter of Playa de Muro's history. Because they are its history in this particular part of the resort. They were the first, the pioneers if you like, they who tamed the wild east of Alcúdia all those years ago. It seems almost appropriate. The resort is not dying of course, but has it, like other parts of Mallorca that developed from little or nothing at around the same time, run out of the vigour, the life that took it so far? The resort is now no youngster. It has matured, along with the industry that created it. Life cycles are real enough. For resorts, for industries. And for people.
I don't know if I'll see him again.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, December 04, 2010
WikiWorld: Spain, Wikileaks and World Cup
Wikileaks and World Cups. They tell you much about a nation's diminished role in the scheme of things. A political leader considered to be pretty much useless by the Americans and humiliation by the quasi-nation that is FIFA.
But so much for Gordon Brown and England. Another nation has to cope with its own minor role in the scheme of things. So minor it had to combine with a minor-minor nation to try and prise the World Cup out of the clutches of the Russian mafia that has made the country one of its favourite offshore bases.
Spain is not a world power. Centuries ago it was. It has had to adjust to being an also-ran, which doesn't stop it trying to reclaim some one-time glory and importance. But when it does, it ends up looking a tad silly. As with the presidential predecessor José María Aznar. "My friend Tony" were the words put into the mouth of Aznar when he was being savaged by the satirists. The little man of world politics like a mini David Steel sitting on the shoulders of the really powerful and his lackey.
This was Iraq. Aznar stood shoulder to shoulder - well, slightly lower than shoulder to shoulder in fact - with Bush and Blair, desperate for some international kudos that had long since deserted Spain. Aznar's back in the news, thanks to the splendidly cringeworthy revelations from Wikileaks.
In 2007 Aznar confided in the American ambassador to Spain who, praise be, then broke the confidence. He was thinking of a return to frontline politics and all because he doubted that his successor as national leader of the Partido Popular, Mariano Rajoy, was up to the job. There are many who would have agreed with Aznar then and would still do so.
Poor old Rajoy. If, and it really isn't much of a choice, he were to succeed Zapatero as national president, it would be a case of trading in Mr. Bean for Mr. Grey, the uninspiring, uncharismatic bearded blunder of the PP. For one who aspires to great office, to a place on the world stage (sort of), he has an unerring capacity to come over all Bush-like, as was the case when he pooh-poohed climate change because his cousin had said so. It was only slightly better than taking the word of the bloke in the pub. Admittedly his cousin was a physics academic, but going on the say-so of one person, a relative, is a rather worrying trait for a potential national leader.
While we have been bombarded with information of seemingly rather greater importance, Spain, appropriately enough, has been relegated to the footnote category of Wikileaking. In the world scheme of things, matters Spanish are not exactly earth-shattering, but "El Pais", a sort of "Guardian" of the Spanish media left, has nevertheless been informing the Spanish public about not only Rajoy but also US pressure to stop Spanish High Court investigations into matters such as alleged war crimes in Iraq and about the use of Palma airport for rendition flights.
Wikileaks, Spanish style, doesn't make for easy reading if you are a Spanish politician, as US officials don't seem to be overly impressed. The King, on the other hand, is approved of by the Americans. And then there's Zapatero himself. He has not enjoyed great relations with the US, who doubtless see him conveying a rather bemused, bumbling, if genial, persona. Just as he was when to everyone's surprise, including his own, he snatched the presidency from Aznar. But this doesn't stop him turning up at events like the World Cup vote. Not that it did much good. Nor did the vain attempt by the president of the Spanish football federation, Ángel María Villar, to butter up the FIFA voters with his grovelling declaration that: "FIFA is clean and does things with honesty. You are all honest and hardworking and worry about football".
The Spanish, and indeed President Zapatero, do have rather more pressing issues to worry about than the failed World Cup bid, but there has been some anger regarding the decision to hand the 2018 tournament to Russia. One commentator has suggested that "we (the Spanish presumably) should emigrate to another planet".
Ah yes, to another planet, another world, where there would be no Wikileaks, Spain and England would still rule the waves and have their empires and there would be no "clean" FIFA to prevent Spain and England from forever more sharing the hosting of the World Cup between them.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
But so much for Gordon Brown and England. Another nation has to cope with its own minor role in the scheme of things. So minor it had to combine with a minor-minor nation to try and prise the World Cup out of the clutches of the Russian mafia that has made the country one of its favourite offshore bases.
Spain is not a world power. Centuries ago it was. It has had to adjust to being an also-ran, which doesn't stop it trying to reclaim some one-time glory and importance. But when it does, it ends up looking a tad silly. As with the presidential predecessor José María Aznar. "My friend Tony" were the words put into the mouth of Aznar when he was being savaged by the satirists. The little man of world politics like a mini David Steel sitting on the shoulders of the really powerful and his lackey.
This was Iraq. Aznar stood shoulder to shoulder - well, slightly lower than shoulder to shoulder in fact - with Bush and Blair, desperate for some international kudos that had long since deserted Spain. Aznar's back in the news, thanks to the splendidly cringeworthy revelations from Wikileaks.
In 2007 Aznar confided in the American ambassador to Spain who, praise be, then broke the confidence. He was thinking of a return to frontline politics and all because he doubted that his successor as national leader of the Partido Popular, Mariano Rajoy, was up to the job. There are many who would have agreed with Aznar then and would still do so.
Poor old Rajoy. If, and it really isn't much of a choice, he were to succeed Zapatero as national president, it would be a case of trading in Mr. Bean for Mr. Grey, the uninspiring, uncharismatic bearded blunder of the PP. For one who aspires to great office, to a place on the world stage (sort of), he has an unerring capacity to come over all Bush-like, as was the case when he pooh-poohed climate change because his cousin had said so. It was only slightly better than taking the word of the bloke in the pub. Admittedly his cousin was a physics academic, but going on the say-so of one person, a relative, is a rather worrying trait for a potential national leader.
While we have been bombarded with information of seemingly rather greater importance, Spain, appropriately enough, has been relegated to the footnote category of Wikileaking. In the world scheme of things, matters Spanish are not exactly earth-shattering, but "El Pais", a sort of "Guardian" of the Spanish media left, has nevertheless been informing the Spanish public about not only Rajoy but also US pressure to stop Spanish High Court investigations into matters such as alleged war crimes in Iraq and about the use of Palma airport for rendition flights.
Wikileaks, Spanish style, doesn't make for easy reading if you are a Spanish politician, as US officials don't seem to be overly impressed. The King, on the other hand, is approved of by the Americans. And then there's Zapatero himself. He has not enjoyed great relations with the US, who doubtless see him conveying a rather bemused, bumbling, if genial, persona. Just as he was when to everyone's surprise, including his own, he snatched the presidency from Aznar. But this doesn't stop him turning up at events like the World Cup vote. Not that it did much good. Nor did the vain attempt by the president of the Spanish football federation, Ángel María Villar, to butter up the FIFA voters with his grovelling declaration that: "FIFA is clean and does things with honesty. You are all honest and hardworking and worry about football".
The Spanish, and indeed President Zapatero, do have rather more pressing issues to worry about than the failed World Cup bid, but there has been some anger regarding the decision to hand the 2018 tournament to Russia. One commentator has suggested that "we (the Spanish presumably) should emigrate to another planet".
Ah yes, to another planet, another world, where there would be no Wikileaks, Spain and England would still rule the waves and have their empires and there would be no "clean" FIFA to prevent Spain and England from forever more sharing the hosting of the World Cup between them.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, December 03, 2010
Unsustainable: Transport infrastructure in Puerto Pollensa
The company that had been contracted to draw up a plan for so-called "sustainable transport" in Puerto Pollensa has had its contract rescinded. The town hall's decision to take the contract away will doubtless have been greeted by some cheering and the raising of glasses in the "moll", in particular by those who had raised concerns as to how appropriate the awarding of the contract had been in the first place.
The context of the contract and now its withdrawal was the abandonment in autumn 2008 of the botched project to pedestrianize a length of Puerto Pollensa's coast road and the town hall's subsequent desire to conduct a more all-embracing study of transport infrastructure in the resort.
In Pollensa there is a party, the Alternativa, which makes a thorough nuisance of itself in challenging the town hall, especially with regard to developments in the port. Quite rightly so. In April it was the Alternativa, aka Pepe Garcia, that questioned the process of the award of the contract.
Three companies were invited to pitch, none of them, according to Garcia, with seemingly any previous experience in the particular area of transport. The company which got the contract, but has now lost it, was Podarcis. The Alternativa was quick to point to the links between this company and the nephew of Francisca Ramón. Who she? The town hall's delegate in Puerto Pollensa.
Podarcis, to be fair to it, was looking to do the right things. One of the main reasons for the collapse of the 2008 pedestrianization was an absence of consultation. On its blog, Podarcis, referring to the final signing of the contract at the end of June, said that it would create a website which would inform residents about the plan and invite exchange of opinions related to it.
Though it may not have conducted a previous study of the exact type required for Puerto Pollensa, Podarcis can boast a fairly impressive list of infrastructure projects. It would be wrong to suggest that it didn't have credibility; it did. But the association with Ramón was always likely to make life difficult. It is perhaps convenient for all concerned, other than Podarcis, that the contract has been removed on account of what are considered to be "deficiencies" as highlighted by a technical review of the plan.
The very need for a plan, however, seemed slightly strange. Though it clearly had the pedestrianization in mind, and this will now once more be placed on the back-burner, the question arises as to why such a plan was not conducted a few years ago before the new by-pass road that cuts through the Ullal, Gotmar and Pinaret urbanizations was built.
The by-pass and the pedestrianization are one of the same thing in terms of the original plan for both that was drawn up as long ago as 1967. So long as pedestrianization is not effected, the by-pass remains if not a white elephant then under-used. Forward thinking, that the new plan for sustainable transport now envisages, was previously lacking at a time when it should have been performed. A justification for the by-pass and pedestrianization that the mayor offered was that these were planned for - 40 years before. Plans can be altered. It was no justification at all, especially as a different plan - to potentially close the entire coast road between Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa (one being eyed up by the environmentalists and the Costas) - would put the whole scheme for transport in the resort up in the air.
The one thing in the latest plan's favour is that, one would hope at any rate, it would represent rather more joined-up thinking than the piecemeal style of infrastructure development of the ill-conceived pedestrianization project of 2008 and yet another plan - that of linking pedestrianization to further construction in Ullal (the latter pretty much approved by the Council of Mallorca under its land reclassification remit).
That the technical review has pointed to a lack of clearly defined solutions that the sustainable transport plan would have produced probably scuppers any developments until at least after the coming local elections, though there is, lurking in the background, the possibility for drawing on central government finance under the Plan E scheme for projects as yet undefined.
But more than anything, the story of Puerto Pollensa and its transport, over and above local political rivalries and suggestions of nepotism, is one of multi-agency lack of co-ordination. The town hall, the Council of Mallorca, the Costas, to say nothing, in all likelihood, of the transport ministry at regional government level as well as central government's development ministry should all be involved in homing in on a definitive plan together, through proper consultation, with local businesses and residents. This, though, is the problem. There are just too many agencies, too many agendas. Sustainable? It can't hope to be.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The context of the contract and now its withdrawal was the abandonment in autumn 2008 of the botched project to pedestrianize a length of Puerto Pollensa's coast road and the town hall's subsequent desire to conduct a more all-embracing study of transport infrastructure in the resort.
In Pollensa there is a party, the Alternativa, which makes a thorough nuisance of itself in challenging the town hall, especially with regard to developments in the port. Quite rightly so. In April it was the Alternativa, aka Pepe Garcia, that questioned the process of the award of the contract.
Three companies were invited to pitch, none of them, according to Garcia, with seemingly any previous experience in the particular area of transport. The company which got the contract, but has now lost it, was Podarcis. The Alternativa was quick to point to the links between this company and the nephew of Francisca Ramón. Who she? The town hall's delegate in Puerto Pollensa.
Podarcis, to be fair to it, was looking to do the right things. One of the main reasons for the collapse of the 2008 pedestrianization was an absence of consultation. On its blog, Podarcis, referring to the final signing of the contract at the end of June, said that it would create a website which would inform residents about the plan and invite exchange of opinions related to it.
Though it may not have conducted a previous study of the exact type required for Puerto Pollensa, Podarcis can boast a fairly impressive list of infrastructure projects. It would be wrong to suggest that it didn't have credibility; it did. But the association with Ramón was always likely to make life difficult. It is perhaps convenient for all concerned, other than Podarcis, that the contract has been removed on account of what are considered to be "deficiencies" as highlighted by a technical review of the plan.
The very need for a plan, however, seemed slightly strange. Though it clearly had the pedestrianization in mind, and this will now once more be placed on the back-burner, the question arises as to why such a plan was not conducted a few years ago before the new by-pass road that cuts through the Ullal, Gotmar and Pinaret urbanizations was built.
The by-pass and the pedestrianization are one of the same thing in terms of the original plan for both that was drawn up as long ago as 1967. So long as pedestrianization is not effected, the by-pass remains if not a white elephant then under-used. Forward thinking, that the new plan for sustainable transport now envisages, was previously lacking at a time when it should have been performed. A justification for the by-pass and pedestrianization that the mayor offered was that these were planned for - 40 years before. Plans can be altered. It was no justification at all, especially as a different plan - to potentially close the entire coast road between Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa (one being eyed up by the environmentalists and the Costas) - would put the whole scheme for transport in the resort up in the air.
The one thing in the latest plan's favour is that, one would hope at any rate, it would represent rather more joined-up thinking than the piecemeal style of infrastructure development of the ill-conceived pedestrianization project of 2008 and yet another plan - that of linking pedestrianization to further construction in Ullal (the latter pretty much approved by the Council of Mallorca under its land reclassification remit).
That the technical review has pointed to a lack of clearly defined solutions that the sustainable transport plan would have produced probably scuppers any developments until at least after the coming local elections, though there is, lurking in the background, the possibility for drawing on central government finance under the Plan E scheme for projects as yet undefined.
But more than anything, the story of Puerto Pollensa and its transport, over and above local political rivalries and suggestions of nepotism, is one of multi-agency lack of co-ordination. The town hall, the Council of Mallorca, the Costas, to say nothing, in all likelihood, of the transport ministry at regional government level as well as central government's development ministry should all be involved in homing in on a definitive plan together, through proper consultation, with local businesses and residents. This, though, is the problem. There are just too many agencies, too many agendas. Sustainable? It can't hope to be.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, December 02, 2010
More Than Just A Pain In The Neck: Dystonia
Following the appearance of this article in the issue of "Talk Of The North" published today, this is the article about dystonia that was in the publication.
You know how it is. You wake up one morning. You've been lying awkwardly. The neck's stiff. It takes some time to shake off. It can be inconvenient to say the least. Bending your head to wash, turning your head when driving. Awkward, and it nags away until finally it just goes away.
You don't know how it is. You wake up one morning. The neck's stiff, but it's more than stiff. It's agony. And you can't shake it off. The neck has twisted, distorted. It's not going away, because it's permanent and there's no cure.
Julie Sanderson knows how it is. It started to come on in July last year. What she didn't know, initially, and nor did the medics, was that she was suffering from dystonia. And in her case, one of the variants of the complaint - cervical dystonia.
Dystonia is little known and little understood. It can affect anyone, of any age. It can affect different parts of the body, the most severe types being "multifocal" and generalised which affect several muscle groups. Common to all forms of dystonia is the fact that they are neurological disorders, resulting in involuntary movements and abnormalities of posture or even of speech and sight.
Diagnosis of dystonia is not straightforward. At Muro hospital, the medics thought Julie's problem might be a trapped nerve. Two months after the onset of the condition, however, there was no improvement. Indeed it was getting worse, her neck now constantly turned to one side and the pain unrelenting. Julie realised there was more to this than a trapped nerve. "There was no brain-neck connection." Hard as she might have tried to move her head, there was no response.
The breakthrough came in an unexpected way. During a visit to the pediatrician with her elder daughter, it was he who recognised the dystonia, and a suggestion of diagnosis which led to scans and then finally to treatment by the specialist Dr. Francisco Molina at Son Dureta, now at Son Espases. That treatment is one of the few available to dystonia sufferers. It involves the injection of Botox into the muscles every three months.
The Botox in effect weakens the muscles. Combined with muscle relaxants, it does at least allow Julie to lead something of a more normal life and to be able sleep more properly. But everyday activities are still a struggle. Anything from making the beds to reading a book can be difficult. Julie, separated from her husband, has come to rely on her daughters, mother and sister for assistance. And being a part of a family which runs a bar, the Jolly Roger in Puerto Alcúdia, has also not been easy. Not just in terms of the practicalities but also in terms of the "looks" and some of the comments.
"It was really quite upsetting to begin with. People seemed to treat it as a bit of a joke, and there would be all sorts of, well, pretty immature remarks. Mostly of a sexual nature." The initial responses from those who did not understand the condition added to how badly Julie felt, and how depressed the condition made her. It was the very involuntary nature of the neck movements that made it especially tough. The head can suddenly swivel to such a degree that, as Julie says, "you look like you're in 'The Exorcist' ".
"You have to learn to live with it, though. That's all you can do. Take the Botox every three months, and that's about it." She has started to take reassurance from the fact that as time has gone one, she has found out more about dystonia and read about others who suffer similarly. She mentions an article she found in the "Daily Mail" in which someone, two years after contracting dystonia, has now come to terms with it.
There is a more radical treatment than the Botox, and this is deep-brain stimulation. This requires the implanting of an electrode, analogous to a pacemaker, and is a procedure that is also used to treat Parkinson's disease. It is not, though, one that Dr. Molina is inclined to recommend. Chances of success are less than 50%, while the procedure tends to be reserved for patients who develop resistance to the Botox.
With the treatments only limited, there is a not unnatural desire to look for alternatives. Julie has been to two chiropractors, one who decided she was crazy and the other who reckoned the condition could be cured. It just made it worse. Dr. Molina was far from impressed when he was told. Manipulation of the muscles, even through gentle massage, can be harmful and also undo the work of the Botox. Despite the Botox alleviating the pain, ideally Julie would do very little in order not to make the Botox wear off too quickly. As it is, the injections have to be timed exactly. If not, then the neck would twist more and the head droop.
There are reckoned to be around 30 cases of dystonia in Mallorca which are similar to Julie's. Its comparative rareness is what can make it difficult to diagnose and is what means that there is an ignorance of the condition outside of the medical world. Julie wants to try and make people more aware of dystonia and also to reach out to other sufferers. Other than family and friends and the work of Dr. Molina, there is no support network for dystonia. And as with many conditions, this can be of huge psychological importance in coping with what is a cruelly debilitating disorder.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
You know how it is. You wake up one morning. You've been lying awkwardly. The neck's stiff. It takes some time to shake off. It can be inconvenient to say the least. Bending your head to wash, turning your head when driving. Awkward, and it nags away until finally it just goes away.
You don't know how it is. You wake up one morning. The neck's stiff, but it's more than stiff. It's agony. And you can't shake it off. The neck has twisted, distorted. It's not going away, because it's permanent and there's no cure.
Julie Sanderson knows how it is. It started to come on in July last year. What she didn't know, initially, and nor did the medics, was that she was suffering from dystonia. And in her case, one of the variants of the complaint - cervical dystonia.
Dystonia is little known and little understood. It can affect anyone, of any age. It can affect different parts of the body, the most severe types being "multifocal" and generalised which affect several muscle groups. Common to all forms of dystonia is the fact that they are neurological disorders, resulting in involuntary movements and abnormalities of posture or even of speech and sight.
Diagnosis of dystonia is not straightforward. At Muro hospital, the medics thought Julie's problem might be a trapped nerve. Two months after the onset of the condition, however, there was no improvement. Indeed it was getting worse, her neck now constantly turned to one side and the pain unrelenting. Julie realised there was more to this than a trapped nerve. "There was no brain-neck connection." Hard as she might have tried to move her head, there was no response.
The breakthrough came in an unexpected way. During a visit to the pediatrician with her elder daughter, it was he who recognised the dystonia, and a suggestion of diagnosis which led to scans and then finally to treatment by the specialist Dr. Francisco Molina at Son Dureta, now at Son Espases. That treatment is one of the few available to dystonia sufferers. It involves the injection of Botox into the muscles every three months.
The Botox in effect weakens the muscles. Combined with muscle relaxants, it does at least allow Julie to lead something of a more normal life and to be able sleep more properly. But everyday activities are still a struggle. Anything from making the beds to reading a book can be difficult. Julie, separated from her husband, has come to rely on her daughters, mother and sister for assistance. And being a part of a family which runs a bar, the Jolly Roger in Puerto Alcúdia, has also not been easy. Not just in terms of the practicalities but also in terms of the "looks" and some of the comments.
"It was really quite upsetting to begin with. People seemed to treat it as a bit of a joke, and there would be all sorts of, well, pretty immature remarks. Mostly of a sexual nature." The initial responses from those who did not understand the condition added to how badly Julie felt, and how depressed the condition made her. It was the very involuntary nature of the neck movements that made it especially tough. The head can suddenly swivel to such a degree that, as Julie says, "you look like you're in 'The Exorcist' ".
"You have to learn to live with it, though. That's all you can do. Take the Botox every three months, and that's about it." She has started to take reassurance from the fact that as time has gone one, she has found out more about dystonia and read about others who suffer similarly. She mentions an article she found in the "Daily Mail" in which someone, two years after contracting dystonia, has now come to terms with it.
There is a more radical treatment than the Botox, and this is deep-brain stimulation. This requires the implanting of an electrode, analogous to a pacemaker, and is a procedure that is also used to treat Parkinson's disease. It is not, though, one that Dr. Molina is inclined to recommend. Chances of success are less than 50%, while the procedure tends to be reserved for patients who develop resistance to the Botox.
With the treatments only limited, there is a not unnatural desire to look for alternatives. Julie has been to two chiropractors, one who decided she was crazy and the other who reckoned the condition could be cured. It just made it worse. Dr. Molina was far from impressed when he was told. Manipulation of the muscles, even through gentle massage, can be harmful and also undo the work of the Botox. Despite the Botox alleviating the pain, ideally Julie would do very little in order not to make the Botox wear off too quickly. As it is, the injections have to be timed exactly. If not, then the neck would twist more and the head droop.
There are reckoned to be around 30 cases of dystonia in Mallorca which are similar to Julie's. Its comparative rareness is what can make it difficult to diagnose and is what means that there is an ignorance of the condition outside of the medical world. Julie wants to try and make people more aware of dystonia and also to reach out to other sufferers. Other than family and friends and the work of Dr. Molina, there is no support network for dystonia. And as with many conditions, this can be of huge psychological importance in coping with what is a cruelly debilitating disorder.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Do Me A Favour: Spas, corruption and society
One of the features of quality and service improvements to Mallorca's hotels has been the introduction of spas - beauty salons, jacuzzis, wellness sessions, all that sort of carry-on. Demand for spas has come from tour operators who see them as important in upgrading the standard of hotels. Provision for their additional creation was covered by the virtually zero-rate interest finance offered by the regional government as a way of assisting hotel upgrades during the crisis and by the so-called "decreto Nadal" which cut out some bureaucratic procedures in order to facilitate renovation and development work at hotels. The reclassification of hotels that is to take place within the next few years will take account of spas.
All good stuff, but as usual there is a rather different story to be told. Note that "decreto". Who was the Nadal in question? Miguel. The former tourism minister and the "chosen one" by his predecessor as leader of the Unió Mallorquina, the matriarchal Mother Maria, Munar of that ilk. Nadal and Mother have since fallen out, their lovey-dovey photos regularly reproduced in order to stress the irony of the breakdown in their relationship, Nadal trying for all he's worth to avoid taking the rap for corruption allegations that have come his and Mother's way.
Building spas was fair enough, but who do you think was instrumental in a process for the spas - the number of which could be expected to increase - to be accredited and given quality ratings?
Maria Antònia Munar, never a hair out of place, always looking a million dollars, but don't let's ask where the dollars might have come from. As befits a one-time president of the Council of Mallorca and speaker of the regional parliament, she did of course need to look a million dollars.
Mother Munar had a personal beautician, and it was thanks to Munar that the beautician, Marisol Carrasco, along with two partners, managed to secure the contract, worth around a hundred thousand euros, to audit and certify hotel spas. The process of awarding the contract was rigged. There were three companies invited to tender for the award of the contract from the Inestur agency within the tourism ministry. However, all three belonged to the same group of people - those who won the contract.
Two former tourism ministers and key men in the UM, Francesc Buils and his successor, the aforementioned Nadal, were also keys to the process as it unravelled. Buils, himself implicated in scandal, had to have his arm twisted in order to set the process in motion. By whom? Yep, Mother. Nadal was the one who signed off on the invoices to Carrasco's company once the auditing work had commenced last year. A fourth UM politician, Antoni Oliver, is also tied up in this deal. Oliver is the former director of Inestur and was a mate of one of Carrasco's partners, one Josep Lluís Capllonch who owns a cosmetics firm in Pollensa. The role of Oliver in Pollensa's own politics has been subject to questions raised by opposition groups in the town.
The story of the spas - and all this information is, by the way, in the public domain - tells you much about how the "system" works in Mallorca. Personal favours allied to political ones. All that seems to be missing in this instance is familial nepotism. It is a system that stinks in such a rotten way that not even the aromas from a spa could get rid of the stench. And in Mother you have, or had, someone who treated her party as her own personal fiefdom, with the wretched Buils, Nadal and others her subservient Mark Antonys.
Nothing in the UM appeared to happen without Mother's bidding or approval. The election of her successor, Nadal, was a case in point. She let the chosen one have his scrapes with his rivals, Ferrer and Grimalt, let him throw his toys out of the pram and then stepped in to give them a telling-off and to approve him as leader, an outcome that had never been in question. The UM, in particular the party's mechanism in Palma, was as close as you could get to familial nepotism without there actually being blood ties. But it was a metaphor for a society in which deference - matriarchal or patriarchal - persists, and which goes a long way in explaining the "system".
Back in March, I wrote about the emergence of all the scandal that had engulfed Munar and the UM. Then I said that rather than there being concerns as to an electoral system that facilitates coalition (wrongly being singled out as a breeding ground for corruption), the "corruption scandals should be informing a debate as to what brings them about"; that it is society (Mallorcan) that "begets the politics of the island, not the other way round". In other words, it is societal collusion or at least societal mores and the way in which society operates which breed political corruption.
The other day there was a debate, one that featured leading figures from the university. A professor of law said that "so long as there is no ethical or moral transformation in society, the law will solve nothing". I suppose I feel vindicated in what I had said in March.
The spa story is a relatively minor matter when compared to some of the other charges that have been emerging, but is significant in that it highlights what many suspect, which is that little or nothing happens - be it spas or whatever - without someone benefiting in a way that they shouldn't. The spas should be places of health, but even they have been tainted by disease.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
All good stuff, but as usual there is a rather different story to be told. Note that "decreto". Who was the Nadal in question? Miguel. The former tourism minister and the "chosen one" by his predecessor as leader of the Unió Mallorquina, the matriarchal Mother Maria, Munar of that ilk. Nadal and Mother have since fallen out, their lovey-dovey photos regularly reproduced in order to stress the irony of the breakdown in their relationship, Nadal trying for all he's worth to avoid taking the rap for corruption allegations that have come his and Mother's way.
Building spas was fair enough, but who do you think was instrumental in a process for the spas - the number of which could be expected to increase - to be accredited and given quality ratings?
Maria Antònia Munar, never a hair out of place, always looking a million dollars, but don't let's ask where the dollars might have come from. As befits a one-time president of the Council of Mallorca and speaker of the regional parliament, she did of course need to look a million dollars.
Mother Munar had a personal beautician, and it was thanks to Munar that the beautician, Marisol Carrasco, along with two partners, managed to secure the contract, worth around a hundred thousand euros, to audit and certify hotel spas. The process of awarding the contract was rigged. There were three companies invited to tender for the award of the contract from the Inestur agency within the tourism ministry. However, all three belonged to the same group of people - those who won the contract.
Two former tourism ministers and key men in the UM, Francesc Buils and his successor, the aforementioned Nadal, were also keys to the process as it unravelled. Buils, himself implicated in scandal, had to have his arm twisted in order to set the process in motion. By whom? Yep, Mother. Nadal was the one who signed off on the invoices to Carrasco's company once the auditing work had commenced last year. A fourth UM politician, Antoni Oliver, is also tied up in this deal. Oliver is the former director of Inestur and was a mate of one of Carrasco's partners, one Josep Lluís Capllonch who owns a cosmetics firm in Pollensa. The role of Oliver in Pollensa's own politics has been subject to questions raised by opposition groups in the town.
The story of the spas - and all this information is, by the way, in the public domain - tells you much about how the "system" works in Mallorca. Personal favours allied to political ones. All that seems to be missing in this instance is familial nepotism. It is a system that stinks in such a rotten way that not even the aromas from a spa could get rid of the stench. And in Mother you have, or had, someone who treated her party as her own personal fiefdom, with the wretched Buils, Nadal and others her subservient Mark Antonys.
Nothing in the UM appeared to happen without Mother's bidding or approval. The election of her successor, Nadal, was a case in point. She let the chosen one have his scrapes with his rivals, Ferrer and Grimalt, let him throw his toys out of the pram and then stepped in to give them a telling-off and to approve him as leader, an outcome that had never been in question. The UM, in particular the party's mechanism in Palma, was as close as you could get to familial nepotism without there actually being blood ties. But it was a metaphor for a society in which deference - matriarchal or patriarchal - persists, and which goes a long way in explaining the "system".
Back in March, I wrote about the emergence of all the scandal that had engulfed Munar and the UM. Then I said that rather than there being concerns as to an electoral system that facilitates coalition (wrongly being singled out as a breeding ground for corruption), the "corruption scandals should be informing a debate as to what brings them about"; that it is society (Mallorcan) that "begets the politics of the island, not the other way round". In other words, it is societal collusion or at least societal mores and the way in which society operates which breed political corruption.
The other day there was a debate, one that featured leading figures from the university. A professor of law said that "so long as there is no ethical or moral transformation in society, the law will solve nothing". I suppose I feel vindicated in what I had said in March.
The spa story is a relatively minor matter when compared to some of the other charges that have been emerging, but is significant in that it highlights what many suspect, which is that little or nothing happens - be it spas or whatever - without someone benefiting in a way that they shouldn't. The spas should be places of health, but even they have been tainted by disease.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
The Division Bell: Town halls, hotels and local business
One day we learn that the number of hotel places in Mallorca devoted to all-inclusive is set to double in 2011. The next we find out that the hotel federation is calling on the Council of Mallorca to press upon town halls the need to make their tourist areas prettier.
The two things don't add up. On the principle that all-inclusive guests tend to stay in situ, then what is the point in beautifying the surroundings? And if the doubling of all-inclusive places for next year were to be repeated in subsequent years, there would be even less point, other than so that guests can peer out from their balconies at well-tended museum pieces or can be transported to and from the airport through resorts which resemble empty film sets badly in need of a producer or two.
But the federation has a point. A quick drive through Can Picafort confirms it. Winter doesn't find the place at its best of course, certainly not when it is undergoing its annual dig for victory, but even in summer it's not exactly a thing of beauty. And so it is elsewhere, even in Puerto Pollensa which is meant to be a thing of beauty. This didn't stop the demonstration in June, one inspired by what was and still is perceived as the neglect of the resort. Oddly enough, the local hoteliers shunned the demonstration. So much for solidarity either with other businesses or with the hoteliers of the island.
Can Picafort and Puerto Pollensa both emphasize what the federation is saying, or at least implying, as they are representative of a common enough complaint that emanates from the resorts and is directed at town halls some kilometres away. In Can Picafort, while Santa Margalida town hall devotes funds to redoing the town's La Beata garden, money has mainly to be begged from the regional government environment ministry to improve the narrow promenade. It's something, even if there's not much that can be done about what lies next to the prom, and I'm not referring to the beach.
The complaint is that town halls, closeted away in their old-town buildings, ignore their resorts in favour of the towns themselves. This may be more a perception than fact, but perception goes a long way, and in another town, Muro, there is little denying the fact that its resort receives barely any type of improvement or intervention from the town hall except for its own annual event - the how-much-can-we-fine the bloke with the sunbeds concession. The town itself has been the beneficiary of municipal and tourism ministry finance, as in they laid some new pavements on which all the tourists who don't go there can walk.
Alcúdia is an exception. It is surely no coincidence that the connection between the old town, and therefore the town hall building, and the port area is all but seamless. There is no distance factor. Both the old town within the walls and the port area were a mess some years ago, but not now. The transformation of both would seem to be evidence of what the hotel federation is asking for. There may still be the resort's gloriously unsophisticated Mile area, but the town hall has continued to do what it can, such as with recent spend on the beach to install new showers, an improved beach walkway, lighting and play areas.
If the hotel federation manages to bring the town and down-there in the resorts closer together, then fine, but it manages itself to remain at loggerheads with what else is down there - the restaurants, bars and other businesses. Doubling the number of all-inclusive places is unlikely to improve relations, soured earlier this year by the hotels saying that local businesses moan too much and do nothing themselves by way of improving their product or promoting resorts. And again they have a point, as in Magalluf.
One of the better, most recent initiatives in Mallorca has been the introduction of the Mallorca Rocks concerts at the eponymous hotel, owned by the Fiesta group. Not only was this a good idea, it was also successful this summer, so much so that the number of concerts is going to increase in 2011. Step forward the local tourist business association to complain and to worry that the idea of "themed" hotels might spread.
Yet here is something fresh, something to be welcomed. But not by all, it would seem. And so, as ever, you have bodies pulling in different directions, ringing a division bell of opposing, antagonistic views. Just as town halls seem unable to accept their responsibilities for their resorts, so you have the hotels and local business warring in disagreement, Puerto Pollensa's hoteliers loftily declining to support a protest and, moreover, the hotels themselves helping to add to the undermining of the Playa de Palma renewal by insisting that 3-star accommodation has to be maintained. And mention of Playa de Palma is apposite, because this was meant to be a beautification of a resort. Remind me, who are now calling on improvements to resorts? Oh yes, the hotels.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The two things don't add up. On the principle that all-inclusive guests tend to stay in situ, then what is the point in beautifying the surroundings? And if the doubling of all-inclusive places for next year were to be repeated in subsequent years, there would be even less point, other than so that guests can peer out from their balconies at well-tended museum pieces or can be transported to and from the airport through resorts which resemble empty film sets badly in need of a producer or two.
But the federation has a point. A quick drive through Can Picafort confirms it. Winter doesn't find the place at its best of course, certainly not when it is undergoing its annual dig for victory, but even in summer it's not exactly a thing of beauty. And so it is elsewhere, even in Puerto Pollensa which is meant to be a thing of beauty. This didn't stop the demonstration in June, one inspired by what was and still is perceived as the neglect of the resort. Oddly enough, the local hoteliers shunned the demonstration. So much for solidarity either with other businesses or with the hoteliers of the island.
Can Picafort and Puerto Pollensa both emphasize what the federation is saying, or at least implying, as they are representative of a common enough complaint that emanates from the resorts and is directed at town halls some kilometres away. In Can Picafort, while Santa Margalida town hall devotes funds to redoing the town's La Beata garden, money has mainly to be begged from the regional government environment ministry to improve the narrow promenade. It's something, even if there's not much that can be done about what lies next to the prom, and I'm not referring to the beach.
The complaint is that town halls, closeted away in their old-town buildings, ignore their resorts in favour of the towns themselves. This may be more a perception than fact, but perception goes a long way, and in another town, Muro, there is little denying the fact that its resort receives barely any type of improvement or intervention from the town hall except for its own annual event - the how-much-can-we-fine the bloke with the sunbeds concession. The town itself has been the beneficiary of municipal and tourism ministry finance, as in they laid some new pavements on which all the tourists who don't go there can walk.
Alcúdia is an exception. It is surely no coincidence that the connection between the old town, and therefore the town hall building, and the port area is all but seamless. There is no distance factor. Both the old town within the walls and the port area were a mess some years ago, but not now. The transformation of both would seem to be evidence of what the hotel federation is asking for. There may still be the resort's gloriously unsophisticated Mile area, but the town hall has continued to do what it can, such as with recent spend on the beach to install new showers, an improved beach walkway, lighting and play areas.
If the hotel federation manages to bring the town and down-there in the resorts closer together, then fine, but it manages itself to remain at loggerheads with what else is down there - the restaurants, bars and other businesses. Doubling the number of all-inclusive places is unlikely to improve relations, soured earlier this year by the hotels saying that local businesses moan too much and do nothing themselves by way of improving their product or promoting resorts. And again they have a point, as in Magalluf.
One of the better, most recent initiatives in Mallorca has been the introduction of the Mallorca Rocks concerts at the eponymous hotel, owned by the Fiesta group. Not only was this a good idea, it was also successful this summer, so much so that the number of concerts is going to increase in 2011. Step forward the local tourist business association to complain and to worry that the idea of "themed" hotels might spread.
Yet here is something fresh, something to be welcomed. But not by all, it would seem. And so, as ever, you have bodies pulling in different directions, ringing a division bell of opposing, antagonistic views. Just as town halls seem unable to accept their responsibilities for their resorts, so you have the hotels and local business warring in disagreement, Puerto Pollensa's hoteliers loftily declining to support a protest and, moreover, the hotels themselves helping to add to the undermining of the Playa de Palma renewal by insisting that 3-star accommodation has to be maintained. And mention of Playa de Palma is apposite, because this was meant to be a beautification of a resort. Remind me, who are now calling on improvements to resorts? Oh yes, the hotels.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Chain Reaction: Bankruptcies and non-payments
Spain's economic woes are receiving plenty of airing, but what about what is happening on the ground? The crisis is such that one has an impression that much economic life in Mallorca is all but grinding to a halt, brought about by a lack of credit, non-payments, negative cash flows and bankruptcies.
Businesses in Mallorca are caught in the chain reaction of the absence of liquidity in both the private and public sectors. Of the latter, those affected are suppliers to town halls and other governmental bodies and those linked directly to government agencies. Take chemists, for instance. Some had started posting notices to the effect that they could not supply prescriptions through the local health system because the health agency, IB-Salut, was not paying them. IB-Salut, and its problems have been known about for months, is another division of regional government, like the tourism ministry, so in debt that the government is having to bail it out. The government has at least sought to reassure the chemists and patients of the health system that prescriptions will be guaranteed.
The town halls, notorious as bad payers even in the good times, can typically take six months or more in honouring invoices. The Council of Mallorca has had to reach into its pockets to give the town halls some cash that they cannot otherwise raise because central government has imposed restrictions on their capacity to borrow and thus get into further debt.
It's not all bad news. One town hall, Alcúdia's, is being reimbursed by central government, following a protracted legal battle to get back IVA which was wrongly charged to its services agency, EMSA. The 600,000 or so euros that the court has so far agreed to could rise. In the meantime, the repaid IVA will help to clear debts the town hall has to suppliers.
If only all town halls or businesses could benefit from such windfalls. If only, especially for smaller businesses, there were mechanisms to prevent their bankruptcy when faced with what is an increasingly common occurrence, the protection of voluntary administration by larger businesses which then do not make payments while they buy time to try and sort out their affairs. For the smaller businesses, their suppliers, there simply isn't the time. And so they try and come to agreements with their own creditors or go bust and then find themselves blacklisted by banks.
The main business sectors affected have been construction, hostelry (in its widest sense, to include hotels as well as restaurants etc.) and transport. And there have been some big names that have got into difficulty. One of these is Marsans, formerly the ultimate owner, through the hotel chain Hotetur, of the Bellevue complex in Alcúdia. The sale of Marsans' businesses earlier this year looked as though it might have brought salvation. The problems have persisted, though the new owners seem to have arrived at a solution that will see creditors paid and so stave off a court order that was to place Hotetur in voluntary administration, one that creditors had not sought when urging the court to force bankruptcy in pursuit of the money they were owed.
Even if a solution is found, there is also the effect on local business confidence to be taken into account. In the case of the huge Bellevue, any uncertainty sets the rumour mill ablaze, one not helped by staff being paid only 70% of their October salaries (as was being reported in the middle of November). Just the threat of administration for a major employer and purchaser of services, to say nothing of supplier of tourists, is sufficient to drain even more life from the sick body of the local economy.
Lawyers have expressed concerns about the bankruptcy law which came into force in 2004. It was one, they say, drafted at a time when things were good and when bankruptcy was relatively uncommon. Since 2008 the trickle has become an avalanche. While voluntary status has its benefits for the company facing bankruptcy, it does little for suppliers.
One lawyer has described the system as an abuse of the law, and the overwhelming majority of companies that enter administration subsequently fail, some of them emerging later under new names with new owners, for example, a son or daughter, thus getting around the banks' blacklist. It has been said that the law makes it easy to simply close and disappear but also to get re-established in a different guise. And then perhaps to set the same chain reaction in motion, of smaller businesses, the suppliers, being left unpaid and ending up going to the wall all over again.
The chain reaction is likely to continue, likely to get worse. You can also describe the situation as a vicious circle, and the question is when or if the circle will be broken, because there is no sign of it being so.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Index for November 2010
Bankruptcies, non-payments and - 30 November 2010
Capdepera, new agriculture and - 13 November 2010
Catalonian independence, Joan Laporta and - 16 November 2010
Celebrity advertising, Rafael Nadal and - 3 November 2010
Chinese tourists - 24 November 2010, 25 November 2010
Christmas, spending and - 15 November 2010
Dunes in Can Picafort and Playa de Muro - 2 November 2010
Ensaïmada - 8 November 2010
Euro, Europeanism and Ireland - 23 November 2010
Facebook and tourism promotion - 4 November 2010
German versus British tourism - 9 November 2010
Golfers in Balearics, low number of - 27 November 2010
Graffiti artists face prison sentences - 28 November 2010
Guardia Civil and Catalan incidents - 18 November 2010
Hotel over-supply - 1 November 2010
Hunting - 11 November 2010
Inca hospital and patient information - 12 November 2010
Loneliness, expatriate - 5 November 2010
Mallorca identity and resorts - 22 November 2010
Muro employees paying salaries back - 25 November 2010
Playa de Palma regeneration - 20 November 2010
Pollensa and local tourism - 21 November 2010
Pope and Spanish secularism - 7 November 2010
Pumpkin, Muro fair and - 14 November 2010
RNE3, Siglo 21 and - 26 November 2010
Royal wedding (Kate and William) - 19 November 2010
Surnames and spelling rules, new - 6 November 2010
Tourism secretary-of-state and ministers - 29 November 2010
TripAdvisor and review sites - 10 November 2010
Underage drinking in Spain - 17 November 2010
Businesses in Mallorca are caught in the chain reaction of the absence of liquidity in both the private and public sectors. Of the latter, those affected are suppliers to town halls and other governmental bodies and those linked directly to government agencies. Take chemists, for instance. Some had started posting notices to the effect that they could not supply prescriptions through the local health system because the health agency, IB-Salut, was not paying them. IB-Salut, and its problems have been known about for months, is another division of regional government, like the tourism ministry, so in debt that the government is having to bail it out. The government has at least sought to reassure the chemists and patients of the health system that prescriptions will be guaranteed.
The town halls, notorious as bad payers even in the good times, can typically take six months or more in honouring invoices. The Council of Mallorca has had to reach into its pockets to give the town halls some cash that they cannot otherwise raise because central government has imposed restrictions on their capacity to borrow and thus get into further debt.
It's not all bad news. One town hall, Alcúdia's, is being reimbursed by central government, following a protracted legal battle to get back IVA which was wrongly charged to its services agency, EMSA. The 600,000 or so euros that the court has so far agreed to could rise. In the meantime, the repaid IVA will help to clear debts the town hall has to suppliers.
If only all town halls or businesses could benefit from such windfalls. If only, especially for smaller businesses, there were mechanisms to prevent their bankruptcy when faced with what is an increasingly common occurrence, the protection of voluntary administration by larger businesses which then do not make payments while they buy time to try and sort out their affairs. For the smaller businesses, their suppliers, there simply isn't the time. And so they try and come to agreements with their own creditors or go bust and then find themselves blacklisted by banks.
The main business sectors affected have been construction, hostelry (in its widest sense, to include hotels as well as restaurants etc.) and transport. And there have been some big names that have got into difficulty. One of these is Marsans, formerly the ultimate owner, through the hotel chain Hotetur, of the Bellevue complex in Alcúdia. The sale of Marsans' businesses earlier this year looked as though it might have brought salvation. The problems have persisted, though the new owners seem to have arrived at a solution that will see creditors paid and so stave off a court order that was to place Hotetur in voluntary administration, one that creditors had not sought when urging the court to force bankruptcy in pursuit of the money they were owed.
Even if a solution is found, there is also the effect on local business confidence to be taken into account. In the case of the huge Bellevue, any uncertainty sets the rumour mill ablaze, one not helped by staff being paid only 70% of their October salaries (as was being reported in the middle of November). Just the threat of administration for a major employer and purchaser of services, to say nothing of supplier of tourists, is sufficient to drain even more life from the sick body of the local economy.
Lawyers have expressed concerns about the bankruptcy law which came into force in 2004. It was one, they say, drafted at a time when things were good and when bankruptcy was relatively uncommon. Since 2008 the trickle has become an avalanche. While voluntary status has its benefits for the company facing bankruptcy, it does little for suppliers.
One lawyer has described the system as an abuse of the law, and the overwhelming majority of companies that enter administration subsequently fail, some of them emerging later under new names with new owners, for example, a son or daughter, thus getting around the banks' blacklist. It has been said that the law makes it easy to simply close and disappear but also to get re-established in a different guise. And then perhaps to set the same chain reaction in motion, of smaller businesses, the suppliers, being left unpaid and ending up going to the wall all over again.
The chain reaction is likely to continue, likely to get worse. You can also describe the situation as a vicious circle, and the question is when or if the circle will be broken, because there is no sign of it being so.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Index for November 2010
Bankruptcies, non-payments and - 30 November 2010
Capdepera, new agriculture and - 13 November 2010
Catalonian independence, Joan Laporta and - 16 November 2010
Celebrity advertising, Rafael Nadal and - 3 November 2010
Chinese tourists - 24 November 2010, 25 November 2010
Christmas, spending and - 15 November 2010
Dunes in Can Picafort and Playa de Muro - 2 November 2010
Ensaïmada - 8 November 2010
Euro, Europeanism and Ireland - 23 November 2010
Facebook and tourism promotion - 4 November 2010
German versus British tourism - 9 November 2010
Golfers in Balearics, low number of - 27 November 2010
Graffiti artists face prison sentences - 28 November 2010
Guardia Civil and Catalan incidents - 18 November 2010
Hotel over-supply - 1 November 2010
Hunting - 11 November 2010
Inca hospital and patient information - 12 November 2010
Loneliness, expatriate - 5 November 2010
Mallorca identity and resorts - 22 November 2010
Muro employees paying salaries back - 25 November 2010
Playa de Palma regeneration - 20 November 2010
Pollensa and local tourism - 21 November 2010
Pope and Spanish secularism - 7 November 2010
Pumpkin, Muro fair and - 14 November 2010
RNE3, Siglo 21 and - 26 November 2010
Royal wedding (Kate and William) - 19 November 2010
Surnames and spelling rules, new - 6 November 2010
Tourism secretary-of-state and ministers - 29 November 2010
TripAdvisor and review sites - 10 November 2010
Underage drinking in Spain - 17 November 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Right People, Right Jobs: Tourism ministers
Some heavyweight names have been calling on the Spanish Government to establish a separate tourism ministry and minister, which would mean it taking a U-turn and admitting that a realignment of ministerial posts effected in July was a mistake.
These names include Mallorcan hotel and tourism companies, the former tourism secretary-of-state Joan Mesquida and the president of the Balearics Francesc Antich.
The Mallorcan companies (Globalia, Riu and Sol Melià) made their call during a high-level pow-wow with President Zapatero and his cabinet, designed to bring the great and good of the business world to the talking table and find solutions to Spain's economic mess. Mesquida made his call some days before, and Antich added weight to the companies' demand, reinforcing the view of all parties that, as tourism amounts to such a significant part of GDP (12%), a minister is needed.
The decision in July to in effect downgrade tourism by getting rid of the position of secretary-of-state and merging it with the portfolio for national commerce seemed at the time somewhat perverse, but it was all part of a governmental drive to cut costs. It was one that was mirrored in the Balearics where, in a similar cost-saving drive, the tourism ministry was merged with employment.
At national level, tourism has been and is a part of a super ministry that includes also industry and commerce. The position of secretary-of-state for tourism only, scrapped in July, was only some two years old. It was one formed, as one commentator has put it, in the "days of wine and roses", alongside other new ministerial appointments. Its being dispensed with was far from the tourism snub that it was portrayed and is still being portrayed.
Nevertheless, given that tourism amounts to a sizable chunk of national GDP (and you can always find figures which suggest it is not as high), it might seem sensible to have a dedicated secretary-of-state, especially as tourism is an industry that, one might hope, would be central to economic recovery and also as Spain's tourism faces the kinds of competitive threats that it does. Sensible. But would it be necessary? Mesquida is still part of the same super ministry, and the very fact that tourism is singled out as one element of the ministerial triad along with industry and commerce gives it the kudos it deserves.
The discussion as to the importance of the post has tended to overlook what has happened since Mesquida was made its first appointee. And to overlook Mesquida's credentials for the post. Prior to it he was the director-general for the Guardia Civil and then the newly combined National Police and Guardia. Before this he was the Balearics' treasury minister.
In his time as secretary-of-state, he oversaw the so-called "Q" quality campaign for restaurants and other establishments, one that cost half a million euros and one that has subsequently been allowed to fade away. He also oversaw the launch of the worldwide and bizarrely sloganed "I Need Spain" campaign earlier this year, at the same time defending his government's decision to impose an increase in IVA on tourist business (his previous treasury experience coming to the fore no doubt).
His appointment in 2008 was loudly praised in Mallorca. As you might expect for someone who is a native of Felanitx. Antich said at the time that here was someone who knew well the needs of the Balearics and who would make the execution of certain projects, notably the regeneration of Playa de Palma, that much easier. So what happened with this, then?
If you track back further to Mesquida's time at the treasury, it was he, together with the then tourism minister Celestí Alomar, who came up with the ill-fated eco-tax. Alomar bore the brunt of the tourism industry's opprobrium, but the tax was, after all, a fiscal measure.
Mesquida was unlucky in that his appointment coincided with the crisis, but the point is that having the right person in the job, however it is titled and whatever portfolios it combines, matters as much as the position in the governmental hierarchy. And this brings us to what has occurred in the Balearics.
For President Antich to be pressing for a national tourism minister seems a bit rich when it was he who merged the local tourism minister's responsibilities with employment. The economic importance of tourism is far greater in the Balearics (80% of GDP is what is normally quoted). And just as important is having the right minister. So what has happened? Under separate Antich administrations, there have been Alomar, vilified by the very industry he was supposed to represent, and since 2007 a series of Unió Mallorquina politicians who became tourism minister thanks to the UM having been divvied up responsibility for tourism under the spoils of coalition.
One after the other they came and went - Buils for exceeding his powers, Nadal and Flaquer for being implicated in scandal. And then came the short-lived Ferrer, appointed partly because it was Buggins's turn and partly because he was the mayor of a town with a high level of tourism. One also, Alcúdia, that has been ravaged by all-inclusives, over which he as mayor and as tourism minister had not the slightest power to prevent.
What matters is the right person for the job and that politicians "get it" where tourism is concerned. With this in mind, let's leave the last words to that gift which keeps on giving, the Partido Popular's José Ramón Bauzá. The Balearics face tourism attack from, he says, Turkey, eastern Europe and ... and the Baltics. The Baltics? Maybe he has indeed been influenced by his mate Delgado in Calvia. The stag and hen-do tourism of Tallinn is doing damage to that of Magalluf. Can't think what else he can be talking about.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
These names include Mallorcan hotel and tourism companies, the former tourism secretary-of-state Joan Mesquida and the president of the Balearics Francesc Antich.
The Mallorcan companies (Globalia, Riu and Sol Melià) made their call during a high-level pow-wow with President Zapatero and his cabinet, designed to bring the great and good of the business world to the talking table and find solutions to Spain's economic mess. Mesquida made his call some days before, and Antich added weight to the companies' demand, reinforcing the view of all parties that, as tourism amounts to such a significant part of GDP (12%), a minister is needed.
The decision in July to in effect downgrade tourism by getting rid of the position of secretary-of-state and merging it with the portfolio for national commerce seemed at the time somewhat perverse, but it was all part of a governmental drive to cut costs. It was one that was mirrored in the Balearics where, in a similar cost-saving drive, the tourism ministry was merged with employment.
At national level, tourism has been and is a part of a super ministry that includes also industry and commerce. The position of secretary-of-state for tourism only, scrapped in July, was only some two years old. It was one formed, as one commentator has put it, in the "days of wine and roses", alongside other new ministerial appointments. Its being dispensed with was far from the tourism snub that it was portrayed and is still being portrayed.
Nevertheless, given that tourism amounts to a sizable chunk of national GDP (and you can always find figures which suggest it is not as high), it might seem sensible to have a dedicated secretary-of-state, especially as tourism is an industry that, one might hope, would be central to economic recovery and also as Spain's tourism faces the kinds of competitive threats that it does. Sensible. But would it be necessary? Mesquida is still part of the same super ministry, and the very fact that tourism is singled out as one element of the ministerial triad along with industry and commerce gives it the kudos it deserves.
The discussion as to the importance of the post has tended to overlook what has happened since Mesquida was made its first appointee. And to overlook Mesquida's credentials for the post. Prior to it he was the director-general for the Guardia Civil and then the newly combined National Police and Guardia. Before this he was the Balearics' treasury minister.
In his time as secretary-of-state, he oversaw the so-called "Q" quality campaign for restaurants and other establishments, one that cost half a million euros and one that has subsequently been allowed to fade away. He also oversaw the launch of the worldwide and bizarrely sloganed "I Need Spain" campaign earlier this year, at the same time defending his government's decision to impose an increase in IVA on tourist business (his previous treasury experience coming to the fore no doubt).
His appointment in 2008 was loudly praised in Mallorca. As you might expect for someone who is a native of Felanitx. Antich said at the time that here was someone who knew well the needs of the Balearics and who would make the execution of certain projects, notably the regeneration of Playa de Palma, that much easier. So what happened with this, then?
If you track back further to Mesquida's time at the treasury, it was he, together with the then tourism minister Celestí Alomar, who came up with the ill-fated eco-tax. Alomar bore the brunt of the tourism industry's opprobrium, but the tax was, after all, a fiscal measure.
Mesquida was unlucky in that his appointment coincided with the crisis, but the point is that having the right person in the job, however it is titled and whatever portfolios it combines, matters as much as the position in the governmental hierarchy. And this brings us to what has occurred in the Balearics.
For President Antich to be pressing for a national tourism minister seems a bit rich when it was he who merged the local tourism minister's responsibilities with employment. The economic importance of tourism is far greater in the Balearics (80% of GDP is what is normally quoted). And just as important is having the right minister. So what has happened? Under separate Antich administrations, there have been Alomar, vilified by the very industry he was supposed to represent, and since 2007 a series of Unió Mallorquina politicians who became tourism minister thanks to the UM having been divvied up responsibility for tourism under the spoils of coalition.
One after the other they came and went - Buils for exceeding his powers, Nadal and Flaquer for being implicated in scandal. And then came the short-lived Ferrer, appointed partly because it was Buggins's turn and partly because he was the mayor of a town with a high level of tourism. One also, Alcúdia, that has been ravaged by all-inclusives, over which he as mayor and as tourism minister had not the slightest power to prevent.
What matters is the right person for the job and that politicians "get it" where tourism is concerned. With this in mind, let's leave the last words to that gift which keeps on giving, the Partido Popular's José Ramón Bauzá. The Balearics face tourism attack from, he says, Turkey, eastern Europe and ... and the Baltics. The Baltics? Maybe he has indeed been influenced by his mate Delgado in Calvia. The stag and hen-do tourism of Tallinn is doing damage to that of Magalluf. Can't think what else he can be talking about.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Notorious: Graffiti and urban youth culture
If you type "graffiti Mallorca" into Google, the second entry that comes up is for "imágenes de graffiti mallorca" (you do incidentally have to use the double-l version, as it won't work in the same way with the "j"). Click on the link for images and then scroll down to around the fourteenth line of photos and there is one of mine, a photo that is and not, I hasten to add, the graffiti. It's not graffiti of an artistic style; it is just written. It is "Mallorca tiene un secreto", variations on which in both Spanish and English have cropped up all over the place.
I was interested in going hunting for information on graffiti in Mallorca, because two graffiti artists are facing prison sentences of three years each for having put their work onto buildings in Palma as well as on trains that run to Inca and Manacor. For anyone familiar with urban street art in London and pretty much any other city or town in the UK, the graffiti is nothing unusual, but the growth of such art in Mallorca has prompted the police to take action against the two, identified, as with other graffiti artists, by their "tags" or signatures, nearly always seemingly obscure combinations of letters. Not that they are always obscure. "WHERE" is a tag of one artist involved with a graffiti project in Porto Cristo. And you can see the work on YouTube.
It isn't necessarily difficult to find out who the perpetrators are. The internet is full of not just Facebook artists but also blogs and websites to which they contribute or run. One such, and he is very much more on the "established" end of the scene is Torrelló aka Gun_star who has a site which when you go to it tells you that this is his "fucking website", "wankas". The site also has a poster for an event at Son Amar on 11 December - "Big Bang", one element of which is a percussion spectacular which features one ... Gun_star.
The threat of prison for the Palma artists is not the first occasion on which the police have moved against graffiti-ists. A few months ago the mayor of Inca initiated action against some school kids who had been defacing walls on their way home from school, initially suggesting that the parents be fined. There is a difference between some scrawling on walls and some street art, but many would argue that there is no difference - both are acts of vandalism.
A curious aspect of street or urban art, call it as you will, is how one reconciles the very nature of the phenomenon - the daubing of public buildings and transport - and the degree to which it is somehow sanctioned. Continue with the search in Google, and you will find references to courses in graffiti art. Workshops are organized during annual fiestas. These take place in Pollensa, for example, and its port is a place that has been blighted, some might say, by an outbreak of graffiti, some of it clearly "tagged".
A further curiosity, for those inclined to adopt a blinkered and over-romantic view of Mallorca, is how such seemingly anti-social activity can occur on the "beautiful" island. It isn't curious at all. Much in the same way as alcohol and drugs are part of Mallorcan youth culture, so also is graffiti. This culture is, furthermore, part of a standardisation across cultures and in which there is also the influence of music. I came across Gun_star via a website hhgroups.com ("hh" standing for hip hop). Graffiti has always been a core element of hip hop, and the website says that "el hip hop es nuestra cultura" (our culture). The YouTube video for the Porto Cristo "project" has a hip-hop soundtrack to accompany it.
The point about much urban art is that it is astonishing in its scale and audacity. Whether it's right is another matter. But graffiti-ists thrive on the thrill of notoriety; it's all wrapped up with a culture that could have spawned a rap artist who became notorious partly because of his name - The Notorious B.I.G. A three-year stretch might not be what the graffiti-ists of Palma might have wanted, but by leaving their calling cards, it was only a matter of time if the police were minded to pull them in. The stretch might only help in reinforcing the image and the myth and might even propel them into the "established" graffiti world of a Banksy where there is real fame to be cultivated and money to be made.
Criminal damage, though, is criminal damage. Reconciling the art, and its promotion, and the vandalism will remain an issue, however. And as far Mallorca and its secret is concerned, getting to the bottom of the enigma of some graffiti is another matter. I'm still no nearer knowing what it all means and what the secret is.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
I was interested in going hunting for information on graffiti in Mallorca, because two graffiti artists are facing prison sentences of three years each for having put their work onto buildings in Palma as well as on trains that run to Inca and Manacor. For anyone familiar with urban street art in London and pretty much any other city or town in the UK, the graffiti is nothing unusual, but the growth of such art in Mallorca has prompted the police to take action against the two, identified, as with other graffiti artists, by their "tags" or signatures, nearly always seemingly obscure combinations of letters. Not that they are always obscure. "WHERE" is a tag of one artist involved with a graffiti project in Porto Cristo. And you can see the work on YouTube.
It isn't necessarily difficult to find out who the perpetrators are. The internet is full of not just Facebook artists but also blogs and websites to which they contribute or run. One such, and he is very much more on the "established" end of the scene is Torrelló aka Gun_star who has a site which when you go to it tells you that this is his "fucking website", "wankas". The site also has a poster for an event at Son Amar on 11 December - "Big Bang", one element of which is a percussion spectacular which features one ... Gun_star.
The threat of prison for the Palma artists is not the first occasion on which the police have moved against graffiti-ists. A few months ago the mayor of Inca initiated action against some school kids who had been defacing walls on their way home from school, initially suggesting that the parents be fined. There is a difference between some scrawling on walls and some street art, but many would argue that there is no difference - both are acts of vandalism.
A curious aspect of street or urban art, call it as you will, is how one reconciles the very nature of the phenomenon - the daubing of public buildings and transport - and the degree to which it is somehow sanctioned. Continue with the search in Google, and you will find references to courses in graffiti art. Workshops are organized during annual fiestas. These take place in Pollensa, for example, and its port is a place that has been blighted, some might say, by an outbreak of graffiti, some of it clearly "tagged".
A further curiosity, for those inclined to adopt a blinkered and over-romantic view of Mallorca, is how such seemingly anti-social activity can occur on the "beautiful" island. It isn't curious at all. Much in the same way as alcohol and drugs are part of Mallorcan youth culture, so also is graffiti. This culture is, furthermore, part of a standardisation across cultures and in which there is also the influence of music. I came across Gun_star via a website hhgroups.com ("hh" standing for hip hop). Graffiti has always been a core element of hip hop, and the website says that "el hip hop es nuestra cultura" (our culture). The YouTube video for the Porto Cristo "project" has a hip-hop soundtrack to accompany it.
The point about much urban art is that it is astonishing in its scale and audacity. Whether it's right is another matter. But graffiti-ists thrive on the thrill of notoriety; it's all wrapped up with a culture that could have spawned a rap artist who became notorious partly because of his name - The Notorious B.I.G. A three-year stretch might not be what the graffiti-ists of Palma might have wanted, but by leaving their calling cards, it was only a matter of time if the police were minded to pull them in. The stretch might only help in reinforcing the image and the myth and might even propel them into the "established" graffiti world of a Banksy where there is real fame to be cultivated and money to be made.
Criminal damage, though, is criminal damage. Reconciling the art, and its promotion, and the vandalism will remain an issue, however. And as far Mallorca and its secret is concerned, getting to the bottom of the enigma of some graffiti is another matter. I'm still no nearer knowing what it all means and what the secret is.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Crazy Golf: Too many courses in the Balearics?
Where do you go in Spain to have a quiet round of golf? The Balearics. Whole courses uninhabited by the one thing they should be inhabited with - golfers. Golfers of a local variety that is. Ignoring overseas players, a survey by the information company 11811, reveals that there are fewer registered golfers on the islands, relative to the number of courses, than any other region of Spain. The finding is slightly misleading as a further discovery of the survey is that the number of registered players per head of population is the sixth highest in the country. But what really gives the game away regarding how unused courses are in the Balearics is the fact that there are more courses for each and every resident of the islands than anywhere else in Spain.
The revelation as to the low numbers of golfers is nothing new. In April 2008 a different survey came to the same conclusion. Golf, far from booming, seems to be standing still. Is the relative unpopularity of the sport among residents, however, important in the wider debate surrounding golf courses? Local golfers are really only a sub-plot to the main story of golf tourism, but the fact that they are spread so thinly across the islands' courses - 387 registered players per course - represents a weakness in the "home" market and raises the question as to whether Mallorca and the islands need more courses.
A year on from that previous survey, the Balearics business confederation (CAEB) issued its own report which stated that as many as five more courses were needed in Mallorca alone. These were courses, it said, that were necessary for the development of golf tourism, and it received support from the then tourism minister Miguel Nadal. The support was not unexpected; Nadal's party, the Unió Mallorquina, has been cast, alongside the Partido Popular, as the devil of golf expansion by both the left and environmentalists.
The arguments advanced by CAEB for the islands as a whole are those echoed in the endless row regarding the development of the Muro golf course. These are well-rehearsed arguments: higher-value tourists; diversification of the tourism offer; a means of countering tourism seasonality.
The problem with these arguments is that they are just that - arguments. What invariably seems to be lacking is evidence as to what more courses would actually mean in terms of increased tourism. One would hope that a business confederation could be capable of presenting a sound business case in favour of more courses, just as one would hope that the Muro course developers could do the same. If so, then where is it?
Beyond the claims and the prospects of some employment being created, the pro-golf lobby has failed to win hearts and minds by pointing to serious numbers. Were it to, then it might do better in the propaganda war with the anti-golf lobby, bolstered recently by a report from an international organisation (the Ramsar Convention on wetlands) which recommends that Muro should definitely be scrapped because of the environmental impact. Furthermore, it is the no-to-golf side which attempts to come up with figures that dispute the yes-to-golf's arguments.
In September the environmental watchdog GOB produced what it reckoned was proof that golf does nothing to increase low-season tourism. Based on hotel occupancy figures, it argued that were there golf tourism demand in the likes of Alcúdia or Pollensa then hotels would be open, which with some exceptions they are not. It wasn't proof because GOB had overlooked non-hotel accommodation and figures from November to March, but it did nevertheless suggest that the quieter months of April and October did not show any real benefit from golf tourism.
Though tenuous, GOB's findings do deserve some attention, while more rigorous research for the off season would not go amiss. And to these findings, we have to take into account what appears to be the lack of a bedrock of support for golf in the local market. One wonders to what degree, if at all, the apparent unpopularity of golf is a reflection of the environmental case. It would also be interesting to know how many of the registered golfers in the Balearics are foreign residents.
What do local people think about the development of new courses? Are they ever asked? In Muro a flavour of opinion was evident in October last year when townspeople demonstrated against the possible demolition of the bungalows in Ses Casetes des Capellans. One prominent banner read: "A golf course is for the rich. Capellans is worth much more".
Local demand for golf is only part of the equation, but it cannot be overlooked. If one takes Muro's course, what might this demand be? Excluding the population of neighbouring Alcúdia, where a course exists, the combined population of Muro and its other neighbours - Santa Margalida, Sa Pobla, Búger and Llubi (where there are no courses) - is around 35,000. Extrapolating from the figures in the latest survey, this would mean a course that might attract 260 registered players. 260 across five towns. It doesn't sound like much of an argument for building a golf course. You would need an awful lot of golfing tourists to make it work. An awful lot of golfers that no one seems able to put a figure to. Crazy.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The revelation as to the low numbers of golfers is nothing new. In April 2008 a different survey came to the same conclusion. Golf, far from booming, seems to be standing still. Is the relative unpopularity of the sport among residents, however, important in the wider debate surrounding golf courses? Local golfers are really only a sub-plot to the main story of golf tourism, but the fact that they are spread so thinly across the islands' courses - 387 registered players per course - represents a weakness in the "home" market and raises the question as to whether Mallorca and the islands need more courses.
A year on from that previous survey, the Balearics business confederation (CAEB) issued its own report which stated that as many as five more courses were needed in Mallorca alone. These were courses, it said, that were necessary for the development of golf tourism, and it received support from the then tourism minister Miguel Nadal. The support was not unexpected; Nadal's party, the Unió Mallorquina, has been cast, alongside the Partido Popular, as the devil of golf expansion by both the left and environmentalists.
The arguments advanced by CAEB for the islands as a whole are those echoed in the endless row regarding the development of the Muro golf course. These are well-rehearsed arguments: higher-value tourists; diversification of the tourism offer; a means of countering tourism seasonality.
The problem with these arguments is that they are just that - arguments. What invariably seems to be lacking is evidence as to what more courses would actually mean in terms of increased tourism. One would hope that a business confederation could be capable of presenting a sound business case in favour of more courses, just as one would hope that the Muro course developers could do the same. If so, then where is it?
Beyond the claims and the prospects of some employment being created, the pro-golf lobby has failed to win hearts and minds by pointing to serious numbers. Were it to, then it might do better in the propaganda war with the anti-golf lobby, bolstered recently by a report from an international organisation (the Ramsar Convention on wetlands) which recommends that Muro should definitely be scrapped because of the environmental impact. Furthermore, it is the no-to-golf side which attempts to come up with figures that dispute the yes-to-golf's arguments.
In September the environmental watchdog GOB produced what it reckoned was proof that golf does nothing to increase low-season tourism. Based on hotel occupancy figures, it argued that were there golf tourism demand in the likes of Alcúdia or Pollensa then hotels would be open, which with some exceptions they are not. It wasn't proof because GOB had overlooked non-hotel accommodation and figures from November to March, but it did nevertheless suggest that the quieter months of April and October did not show any real benefit from golf tourism.
Though tenuous, GOB's findings do deserve some attention, while more rigorous research for the off season would not go amiss. And to these findings, we have to take into account what appears to be the lack of a bedrock of support for golf in the local market. One wonders to what degree, if at all, the apparent unpopularity of golf is a reflection of the environmental case. It would also be interesting to know how many of the registered golfers in the Balearics are foreign residents.
What do local people think about the development of new courses? Are they ever asked? In Muro a flavour of opinion was evident in October last year when townspeople demonstrated against the possible demolition of the bungalows in Ses Casetes des Capellans. One prominent banner read: "A golf course is for the rich. Capellans is worth much more".
Local demand for golf is only part of the equation, but it cannot be overlooked. If one takes Muro's course, what might this demand be? Excluding the population of neighbouring Alcúdia, where a course exists, the combined population of Muro and its other neighbours - Santa Margalida, Sa Pobla, Búger and Llubi (where there are no courses) - is around 35,000. Extrapolating from the figures in the latest survey, this would mean a course that might attract 260 registered players. 260 across five towns. It doesn't sound like much of an argument for building a golf course. You would need an awful lot of golfing tourists to make it work. An awful lot of golfers that no one seems able to put a figure to. Crazy.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, November 26, 2010
On My Radio: Siglo 21 and RNE3
"Hola. ¿Qué pasa?"
At midday, six days a week, these are the words which greet you to a radio show. It's called "Siglo Veintiuno". Twenty-first century. The words are spoken by Tomás Fernando Flores. The show is on the national station RNE3. Flores, to use an overworked word, is something of a doyen of the Spanish music scene, both on radio and in the press.
His show, one that specializes in electronic, experimental and dance music, is extraordinary in the extent to which it is at the cutting-edge and extraordinary in that it should go out at the time that it does. But it is not so extraordinary when you consider just how unusual, how eclectic and avant-garde and how downright different RNE3 is. There is little to which it can be compared. The BBC's 6 Music maybe, but that is on the margins of the BBC's network; it isn't mainstream. RNE3 is the main music channel on Spain's national broadcast network, but its output is, for the most part, anything but in the mainstream.
On RNE3 you can hear just about any form of music you care to think of that conforms to "popular" music in its broadest sense. The big exception is classical; RNE has its own classical station. Otherwise the music ranges from rock to jazz to flamenco to world to hip-hop to folk to experimental and dance. And there is even some pop. Nothing that unusual in this coverage, but RNE3's style is far from usual.
Flores is an institution. Fifty next year, he has been broadcasting with RNE3 since the early '80s. His style, like others on the station, is reserved mixed with a certain authority. There is little that is flippant about his presenting. He's deadly serious about his music, and it is the music that matters. One of the most peculiar aspects of his show is that it airs at midday. It is the sort of programme you might expect to occupy a late-evening slot on Radio 1. But this peculiarity tells you all you need to know about RNE3. It doesn't compromise. Flores' natural audience might not be listening at midday, mainly because it's not awake, but it can of course catch up via internet playback.
I caught the RNE3 bug some years ago. One thing that did it was tuning in at eight in the morning and sitting captivated by a track that went on for a good ten minutes. It was electronic, ethereal with a children's choir. The announcer said it was by Catherine Denby, but I have never managed to find any mention of her subsequently, just emphasizing how left-field RNE3 can be. I hadn't misheard the name, though mishearing is not difficult. Spanish pronunciations can confuse. Who were "Ire" I once wondered, before realizing they were the French electronic dance duo Air. The former Stone Roses' singer Ian Brown is no longer Ian on RNE3. He is Iron Brown.
But that ethereal track at the eight in the morning, soothing though it was, was not exactly the sort of thing you'd find Chris Moyles or Chris Evans playing. It is the very weirdness of RNE3 that says much about how it, as a national broadcaster, differs from the BBC. Ratings seem immaterial. If they were, then Flores would be shunted off to midnight, and midday would be packed with something altogether more frothy and lightweight. The station doesn't seem to wish to compete with all the more "poppy" stations or overtly dance stations, such as Flaix, that are available. One wonders if there isn't perhaps a lesson for the BBC in this, it being that the Spanish take their culture seriously to the point of being almost perverse.
Flores though is not some remote, professorial type. He has been a DJ for instance at the Benicàssim music festival that is staged annually north of Valencia. The other day he was doing his bit for next year's festival in 2011, including having Bobby Gillespie, sounding as off his head as he looks on stage, reciting the "Siglo Veintiuno" slogan. Primal Scream will be headlining at Benicàssim along with the Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes this coming July. (A note here perhaps for Mallorca. Why is it that Benicàssim, a town of some 18,000 - the rough equivalent in population terms therefore of the likes of Alcúdia or Pollensa - can stage such a festival, given also that it is some 90 kilometres from the nearest airport?)
I don't know if RNE3 or indeed Flores have ever won an international award. Looking down the list of gold, silver and bronze winners at the 2010 New York Festivals radio programme and promotion awards, there was no mention. But mentions would be deserved.
"Hola. ¿Qué pasa?" Listening to the radio. "Siglo 21".
* RNE3 is on 92.3FM (south of the island) and 97.4FM (north). Also at http://www.rtve.es/radio/radio3/. For "Siglo 21", click "Electrónica" for more information, to download or to play back.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
At midday, six days a week, these are the words which greet you to a radio show. It's called "Siglo Veintiuno". Twenty-first century. The words are spoken by Tomás Fernando Flores. The show is on the national station RNE3. Flores, to use an overworked word, is something of a doyen of the Spanish music scene, both on radio and in the press.
His show, one that specializes in electronic, experimental and dance music, is extraordinary in the extent to which it is at the cutting-edge and extraordinary in that it should go out at the time that it does. But it is not so extraordinary when you consider just how unusual, how eclectic and avant-garde and how downright different RNE3 is. There is little to which it can be compared. The BBC's 6 Music maybe, but that is on the margins of the BBC's network; it isn't mainstream. RNE3 is the main music channel on Spain's national broadcast network, but its output is, for the most part, anything but in the mainstream.
On RNE3 you can hear just about any form of music you care to think of that conforms to "popular" music in its broadest sense. The big exception is classical; RNE has its own classical station. Otherwise the music ranges from rock to jazz to flamenco to world to hip-hop to folk to experimental and dance. And there is even some pop. Nothing that unusual in this coverage, but RNE3's style is far from usual.
Flores is an institution. Fifty next year, he has been broadcasting with RNE3 since the early '80s. His style, like others on the station, is reserved mixed with a certain authority. There is little that is flippant about his presenting. He's deadly serious about his music, and it is the music that matters. One of the most peculiar aspects of his show is that it airs at midday. It is the sort of programme you might expect to occupy a late-evening slot on Radio 1. But this peculiarity tells you all you need to know about RNE3. It doesn't compromise. Flores' natural audience might not be listening at midday, mainly because it's not awake, but it can of course catch up via internet playback.
I caught the RNE3 bug some years ago. One thing that did it was tuning in at eight in the morning and sitting captivated by a track that went on for a good ten minutes. It was electronic, ethereal with a children's choir. The announcer said it was by Catherine Denby, but I have never managed to find any mention of her subsequently, just emphasizing how left-field RNE3 can be. I hadn't misheard the name, though mishearing is not difficult. Spanish pronunciations can confuse. Who were "Ire" I once wondered, before realizing they were the French electronic dance duo Air. The former Stone Roses' singer Ian Brown is no longer Ian on RNE3. He is Iron Brown.
But that ethereal track at the eight in the morning, soothing though it was, was not exactly the sort of thing you'd find Chris Moyles or Chris Evans playing. It is the very weirdness of RNE3 that says much about how it, as a national broadcaster, differs from the BBC. Ratings seem immaterial. If they were, then Flores would be shunted off to midnight, and midday would be packed with something altogether more frothy and lightweight. The station doesn't seem to wish to compete with all the more "poppy" stations or overtly dance stations, such as Flaix, that are available. One wonders if there isn't perhaps a lesson for the BBC in this, it being that the Spanish take their culture seriously to the point of being almost perverse.
Flores though is not some remote, professorial type. He has been a DJ for instance at the Benicàssim music festival that is staged annually north of Valencia. The other day he was doing his bit for next year's festival in 2011, including having Bobby Gillespie, sounding as off his head as he looks on stage, reciting the "Siglo Veintiuno" slogan. Primal Scream will be headlining at Benicàssim along with the Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes this coming July. (A note here perhaps for Mallorca. Why is it that Benicàssim, a town of some 18,000 - the rough equivalent in population terms therefore of the likes of Alcúdia or Pollensa - can stage such a festival, given also that it is some 90 kilometres from the nearest airport?)
I don't know if RNE3 or indeed Flores have ever won an international award. Looking down the list of gold, silver and bronze winners at the 2010 New York Festivals radio programme and promotion awards, there was no mention. But mentions would be deserved.
"Hola. ¿Qué pasa?" Listening to the radio. "Siglo 21".
* RNE3 is on 92.3FM (south of the island) and 97.4FM (north). Also at http://www.rtve.es/radio/radio3/. For "Siglo 21", click "Electrónica" for more information, to download or to play back.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
We Want Our Money Back: Town hall employees in Muro
Along the canal in Playa de Muro that connects Albufera with the sea are moorings for boats. These are not grand boats; they are mainly small fishing craft. The owners have been expressing their concerns regarding security. And have been doing so for nigh on two years. They have wanted a security barrier to be installed, but have also wanted greater vigilance from the police.
The local police in Muro have not had an easy relationship with the town hall. In March there were complaints that they had to go out on patrol wearing their own clothes because the town hall was only issuing uniforms as and when they were necessary. The mayor added that the town hall was aware that there was some moonlighting where uniforms were concerned; boots being worn by some local police when they went hunting.
Prior to the complaints about uniforms, it was revealed that Muro town hall was one of the island's authorities that had overseen a massive increase in its spending on personnel since the turn of the century. A 152% rise on town hall employees, which include the police. And this rise was set to become higher because of pay increases for staff from the start of this year.
The mayor, Martí Fornés, sought opinion from the regional government as to these increases which had been previously approved by all parties at the town hall, including that of the mayor before he assumed office. This all-party agreement was emphasised by the spokesperson for the opposition socialist group who admitted that the increases of around 5% were illegal in that they contravened a law which was allowing for only 0.3% increases. He pointed out that everyone knew they were illegal, but still approved them for employees who were in any event earning less than their counterparts in neighbouring towns.
The government ruled unsurprisingly that the increases were indeed illegal and so, commencing with salary payments from October, insisted that the money be paid back, be it through monthly deductions, a one-off deduction or through the withholding of at least part of the Christmas bonus. Also unsurprisingly the news didn't go down well with the opposition and especially the employees.
To make the point that there was dissatisfaction, town hall employees staged a protest during Muro's fair over the weekend of 13-14 November, confronting the mayor with their grievance. The town hall has now announced that it will look at disciplinary procedures against three employees for abandoning their places of work in order to make the protest.
That no one appears to dispute the illegality of the salary increases might make you wonder what the fuss is about. But try telling that to the employees, faced with lower pay packets in the lead-up to Christmas. It doesn't do much for morale, and this leads us back to the police and their uniforms and to the boats and their security as well as to security in a resort with high numbers of unattended holiday and second homes and a town which has suffered like others from the noise and mess of the botellón.
Pay increases may have to be in line with government stipulations, but a wider issue lies with priorities in public spending. Sure it's a different budget, but was it wholly appropriate that in March Muro town hall should have spent getting on for half a million euros in purchasing the town's bullring from Grup Balaña? This stages one fight a year. The town hall has spoken about other events being held, but what are they and who would be paying for them?
The town hall was also faced, having acquired the bullring, with spending more in order that it should meet health and safety requirements so that the bullfight could be put on. Heritage is one thing, but when money is tight it might be argued that employees such as the police deserve greater priority, to which one might add the contractor for rubbish collection which, as it was being reported in early October, had outstanding invoices for the first eight months of the year.
Town hall finances, not just in Muro, are in a mess. Partly this may be due to staffing levels; Muro's 152% increase in personnel spend over the last decade is not solely down to salaries. But as important is that what money there is is spent wisely. Yes, Muro's employees have been paid money they shouldn't have been, but you can understand their being upset and their being prepared to voice this. Disciplining them is not the answer, as the bigger question should relate to sound financial management and not morale-sapping personnel management.
Chinese Tourism
My thanks to Alastair for pointing out that I missed a bit of a trick where Chinese tourists were concerned, namely ... gambling. I should have been more on the ball, roulette or otherwise, in recalling that some while ago there was discussion in Alcúdia as to what Chinese workers do with themselves when not working. The answer was, of course, that they are pumping coins into slot machines. With this in mind, therefore, the opening of several more casinos in Mallorca is what is needed to secure a Chinese tourism future. Or else, they'll all be off to the multi-casino, multi-theme park "Gran Scala" near Zaragoza.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The local police in Muro have not had an easy relationship with the town hall. In March there were complaints that they had to go out on patrol wearing their own clothes because the town hall was only issuing uniforms as and when they were necessary. The mayor added that the town hall was aware that there was some moonlighting where uniforms were concerned; boots being worn by some local police when they went hunting.
Prior to the complaints about uniforms, it was revealed that Muro town hall was one of the island's authorities that had overseen a massive increase in its spending on personnel since the turn of the century. A 152% rise on town hall employees, which include the police. And this rise was set to become higher because of pay increases for staff from the start of this year.
The mayor, Martí Fornés, sought opinion from the regional government as to these increases which had been previously approved by all parties at the town hall, including that of the mayor before he assumed office. This all-party agreement was emphasised by the spokesperson for the opposition socialist group who admitted that the increases of around 5% were illegal in that they contravened a law which was allowing for only 0.3% increases. He pointed out that everyone knew they were illegal, but still approved them for employees who were in any event earning less than their counterparts in neighbouring towns.
The government ruled unsurprisingly that the increases were indeed illegal and so, commencing with salary payments from October, insisted that the money be paid back, be it through monthly deductions, a one-off deduction or through the withholding of at least part of the Christmas bonus. Also unsurprisingly the news didn't go down well with the opposition and especially the employees.
To make the point that there was dissatisfaction, town hall employees staged a protest during Muro's fair over the weekend of 13-14 November, confronting the mayor with their grievance. The town hall has now announced that it will look at disciplinary procedures against three employees for abandoning their places of work in order to make the protest.
That no one appears to dispute the illegality of the salary increases might make you wonder what the fuss is about. But try telling that to the employees, faced with lower pay packets in the lead-up to Christmas. It doesn't do much for morale, and this leads us back to the police and their uniforms and to the boats and their security as well as to security in a resort with high numbers of unattended holiday and second homes and a town which has suffered like others from the noise and mess of the botellón.
Pay increases may have to be in line with government stipulations, but a wider issue lies with priorities in public spending. Sure it's a different budget, but was it wholly appropriate that in March Muro town hall should have spent getting on for half a million euros in purchasing the town's bullring from Grup Balaña? This stages one fight a year. The town hall has spoken about other events being held, but what are they and who would be paying for them?
The town hall was also faced, having acquired the bullring, with spending more in order that it should meet health and safety requirements so that the bullfight could be put on. Heritage is one thing, but when money is tight it might be argued that employees such as the police deserve greater priority, to which one might add the contractor for rubbish collection which, as it was being reported in early October, had outstanding invoices for the first eight months of the year.
Town hall finances, not just in Muro, are in a mess. Partly this may be due to staffing levels; Muro's 152% increase in personnel spend over the last decade is not solely down to salaries. But as important is that what money there is is spent wisely. Yes, Muro's employees have been paid money they shouldn't have been, but you can understand their being upset and their being prepared to voice this. Disciplining them is not the answer, as the bigger question should relate to sound financial management and not morale-sapping personnel management.
Chinese Tourism
My thanks to Alastair for pointing out that I missed a bit of a trick where Chinese tourists were concerned, namely ... gambling. I should have been more on the ball, roulette or otherwise, in recalling that some while ago there was discussion in Alcúdia as to what Chinese workers do with themselves when not working. The answer was, of course, that they are pumping coins into slot machines. With this in mind, therefore, the opening of several more casinos in Mallorca is what is needed to secure a Chinese tourism future. Or else, they'll all be off to the multi-casino, multi-theme park "Gran Scala" near Zaragoza.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Chinese Water Torture: Tourism from China
In Palma there is an undistinguished shop which has in its name the words "El" and "Corte". Not the grand department store of El Corte Inglés, but a Chinese bazaar called El Corte Chino. Had a bit of shopping been on the agenda when Xi Jinping came a-visiting, the former would have been on the itinerary and not the bazaar. One imagines that the vice-president of China has already got shedloads of plastic flowers and tea-towels back home in the official residence.
Xi has been in town, Palma that is. Suddenly Mallorca has become the voguish destination for world leaders and their wives, Mrs. Obama having stopped over for a spot of lunch with the royals back in the summer. Of the two, Xi is considerably more important. For one very good reason: all his fellow countrymen and women. Those on whom Mallorca has its eye as potential tourists and as potential purchasers of local wine and olive oil.
In March this year the first international congress looking at Chinese-Spanish tourism took place in Palma. The background to this was the Chinese Government's intention, by 2015, to be overseeing the despatch of some 83 million Chinese tourists overseas. Mallorca and Spain are rather keen on getting some of the action. The congress looked not just at the bigger picture of all those millions hacking through Palma airport but also at the detail as to how to treat Chinese guests - what they eat, what they want to see and what they buy. And one presumes that these needs and wants extend beyond a Chinese restaurant all-you-can-scoff-for-eight-euros "buffet libre" and being unable to go shopping at a Chinese bazaar hypermarket because it's been declared to be illegal.
As importantly, the congress sought to address how to eliminate mental barriers that might impede what otherwise might be a pot of tourism gold at the Far-Eastern end of the rainbow. And these are not just barriers which might exist in the minds of Mallorcans or Spaniards. Spain is still a country largely unknown to most Chinese; there's a lot of education to be undertaken before they start flocking in. It helps of course if promotion is done with Chinese lettering, though not if it means paying a grand per letter in order to translate the name of the one-time Balearics tourism promotion agency - IBATUR.
But were all these Chinese to one day turn up, what would they want from Mallorca? Local nosebag? Sun and beach? Neither would be at the top of the Chinese tourist's wish-list. He or she is not a great experimenter when it comes to cuisine, so you can forget much of that gastronomy malarkey, but be grateful that Sa Pobla is expanding its rice output and that Mallorca has its own line in noodles.
As for sun and beach, well the Chinese might like to look at the sea, rather like British pensioners lined up on benches or in deckchairs in Eastbourne and staring out at the Channel, but they're not wildly keen on all the tanning. White skin is revered, insofar as the Chinese have white skin. The sight of a German roasting into an ever darker shade of mahogany or a Brit radiating like the stop signal on a traffic light suggests that special enclaves would need to be found for the Chinese to prevent them from being offended by all the off-white bodies.
At the risk of racial stereotyping, when a group of Chinese "lads" were on the local beach a couple of summers ago, I found it distinctly odd. I mean, you just don't see the Chinese on the beach. The sea, for them, seems to be like some sort of Chinese water torture, especially if they are confronted by factored-up sun worshippers.
There are further problems for Mallorca, one a different form of water torture to be overcome - that of cold water, which the Chinese don't drink. Then there is the fact that earlier this year we discovered that the Chinese rate Greece as their favourite tourist destination. Not, one presumes, because they head off for industrial quantities of industrial alcohol in Zante but because they are all traipsing around the Acropolis. Which means, therefore, culture. Ah yes, culture. Mallorcan culture. Of which there is so much. There is some but it's not on the scale of a Spanish city such as Santiago de Compostela, earmarked a few years ago as a "recommended" destination for the Chinese tourist and something which puts into context a scheme in Torremolinos to organise Chinese tourist guides. Torremolinos!?
So when, or rather if the Chinese descend on Mallorca, it will be to Bellver Castle or the Tramuntana mountains that they ascend. Which is probably as well in the case of the mountains, for there is one further thing about the Chinese. The smoking. That which they wouldn't be able to do in bars or restaurants.
Xi's visit will doubtless be spun as being deeply significant in terms of fostering the development of Chinese tourism to Mallorca, but if what appeals to the Chinese are culture and scenery, there are, unfortunately for Mallorca, any number of places with far more culture and far more scenery. 83 million? Probably have to settle for 83.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Xi has been in town, Palma that is. Suddenly Mallorca has become the voguish destination for world leaders and their wives, Mrs. Obama having stopped over for a spot of lunch with the royals back in the summer. Of the two, Xi is considerably more important. For one very good reason: all his fellow countrymen and women. Those on whom Mallorca has its eye as potential tourists and as potential purchasers of local wine and olive oil.
In March this year the first international congress looking at Chinese-Spanish tourism took place in Palma. The background to this was the Chinese Government's intention, by 2015, to be overseeing the despatch of some 83 million Chinese tourists overseas. Mallorca and Spain are rather keen on getting some of the action. The congress looked not just at the bigger picture of all those millions hacking through Palma airport but also at the detail as to how to treat Chinese guests - what they eat, what they want to see and what they buy. And one presumes that these needs and wants extend beyond a Chinese restaurant all-you-can-scoff-for-eight-euros "buffet libre" and being unable to go shopping at a Chinese bazaar hypermarket because it's been declared to be illegal.
As importantly, the congress sought to address how to eliminate mental barriers that might impede what otherwise might be a pot of tourism gold at the Far-Eastern end of the rainbow. And these are not just barriers which might exist in the minds of Mallorcans or Spaniards. Spain is still a country largely unknown to most Chinese; there's a lot of education to be undertaken before they start flocking in. It helps of course if promotion is done with Chinese lettering, though not if it means paying a grand per letter in order to translate the name of the one-time Balearics tourism promotion agency - IBATUR.
But were all these Chinese to one day turn up, what would they want from Mallorca? Local nosebag? Sun and beach? Neither would be at the top of the Chinese tourist's wish-list. He or she is not a great experimenter when it comes to cuisine, so you can forget much of that gastronomy malarkey, but be grateful that Sa Pobla is expanding its rice output and that Mallorca has its own line in noodles.
As for sun and beach, well the Chinese might like to look at the sea, rather like British pensioners lined up on benches or in deckchairs in Eastbourne and staring out at the Channel, but they're not wildly keen on all the tanning. White skin is revered, insofar as the Chinese have white skin. The sight of a German roasting into an ever darker shade of mahogany or a Brit radiating like the stop signal on a traffic light suggests that special enclaves would need to be found for the Chinese to prevent them from being offended by all the off-white bodies.
At the risk of racial stereotyping, when a group of Chinese "lads" were on the local beach a couple of summers ago, I found it distinctly odd. I mean, you just don't see the Chinese on the beach. The sea, for them, seems to be like some sort of Chinese water torture, especially if they are confronted by factored-up sun worshippers.
There are further problems for Mallorca, one a different form of water torture to be overcome - that of cold water, which the Chinese don't drink. Then there is the fact that earlier this year we discovered that the Chinese rate Greece as their favourite tourist destination. Not, one presumes, because they head off for industrial quantities of industrial alcohol in Zante but because they are all traipsing around the Acropolis. Which means, therefore, culture. Ah yes, culture. Mallorcan culture. Of which there is so much. There is some but it's not on the scale of a Spanish city such as Santiago de Compostela, earmarked a few years ago as a "recommended" destination for the Chinese tourist and something which puts into context a scheme in Torremolinos to organise Chinese tourist guides. Torremolinos!?
So when, or rather if the Chinese descend on Mallorca, it will be to Bellver Castle or the Tramuntana mountains that they ascend. Which is probably as well in the case of the mountains, for there is one further thing about the Chinese. The smoking. That which they wouldn't be able to do in bars or restaurants.
Xi's visit will doubtless be spun as being deeply significant in terms of fostering the development of Chinese tourism to Mallorca, but if what appeals to the Chinese are culture and scenery, there are, unfortunately for Mallorca, any number of places with far more culture and far more scenery. 83 million? Probably have to settle for 83.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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