It’s August, Jim, But Not As We Know It

The best laid plans. Only a few months after opening, the Palma metro has notched up what may be a notable first in the history of metros. Not being an expert on these things, I can’t be sure, but it could be that it has attained the status of the shortest time it takes for a new metro system to be shut down owing to floods.

Now you would have thought, wouldn’t you ... . It is not as though you don’t get rain in Mallorca. It is not as though you don’t get great torrents of the stuff in a short period. Somehow though, someone seems to have ovelooked this fact. And what happens?

It was one station in particular that was affected, but sufficient to bring to a halt the service between Palma and the university. This station is near to the station for the train to Sóller, and the “Ultima Hora” paper couldn’t help but point out that the over-a-hundred-year-old train was running normally. Bit unfair perhaps, but we get the point.

The cause of the flood was yesterday’s storm, which had an impact in the north, too. Near to the Platja d’Or hotel in Puerto Alcúdia, there was a particular problem, and the bomberos (firemen) were pumping again there today. That was because it chucked it down for close on four hours this morning.

Last August was pretty variable, but this year it’s as though September has arrived early. It’s August, Jim, but not as we know it.


QUIZ
Yesterday - Crowded House. Good enough for ‘60s gurus to be among the prize-winners. Today - no prizes for knowing from where the title is adapted, but William Shatner has a place high in the echelons of all-time musical turkeys. It was a Beatles song. Which one?

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