They Shoot Horses Don't They

If you were to just stand under the baking sun for an hour or so, you would get pretty damn hot. You would also get stressed, then distressed. You are a warm-blooded animal. Heat without movement or relief is not good for you. Horses are warm-blooded animals, too. You are probably familiar with the white marks around the neck as some "sweat up" before a race. Why, therefore, would you let a horse stand under a hot sun without relief for an hour or so? The answer is that you probably wouldn't.

There was a short piece in "The Bulletin" yesterday which said that tourists had been unhappy at the sight of horses standing around in the sun. These are the horses that take those tourists on their horse-and-carriage rides; in this case, in Playa de Muro. There was a suggestion also that a horse appeared to be injured. The tourists contacted an animal rights group.

I was told yesterday that some tourists had been to the circus, Circo Williams, in Puerto Alcúdia. They had complained about the bears at the circus; that the animals had seemed distressed and not necessarily in the best of condition. They had wondered how "the Spanish" could allow such a thing.

In the village of Fornalutx on Saturday, there was the annual "bull run". This involves a bull being pulled along with ropes around its neck, then being allowed to run through the streets before finally being killed and eaten. There had been protests prior to the event.

You might just detect a certain theme to these three examples.

The apparent indifference to animal welfare continues, despite laws to grant rights to animals. I am wary of the local animal cruelty debate. Wary because of the expatriate propensity to be sanctimonious and to start telling the locals how they should run their affairs. You may recall a previous piece on bullfighting. I am not in favour of banning it, nor though do I like it. Whether it continues or is terminated should be a matter for the Spanish people to decide. It is not an issue whereby busy-bodying Brits should act with some sort of missionary zeal against the actions of perceived heathens.

That all said, how on Earth can something like the bull run be allowed? Just the basics of the description above are grotesque enough. While one can defend the bullfight from the point of view of its spectacle and theatre, there can be no similar defence for this. It is cruelty dressed up as tradition minus the costumes and olés. At least that is how it seems if one adopts an anthropomorphic sentimentalism, which may run counter to a less squeamish local culture.

There is a scientific debate going on regarding the extent to which animals have feelings. The debate falls into two schools, of which one - the ethological - maintains that there is evidence as to the existence of animal feelings. Notwithstanding the semantic and therefore philosophical difficulty of applying a word associated with human reactions to an animal, I am not unpersuaded by the ethological argument. Yet there remains the ambiguity of ever proving it. To this end, it is understandable that the debate, in layman terms, is polarised at one extreme by those who attribute to animals all forms of human emotion and at the other those who consider animals to be totally non-sentient in being unable to perceive, i.e. make a mental judgement: dumb animals, if you like. The Spanish, one guesses, are less prone to apply the former extreme than many British.

But there is an illogic as to what is deemed acceptable or unacceptable here. I cannot understand what the fuss is about where the now-banned duck throwing of the Can Picafort summer fiesta is concerned. I understand it even less when a bull is pursued, slain and then scoffed as part of another fiesta. It makes no sense. Perhaps ducks have more professional lobby groups than do bulls.

The circus comes to town once a year. I can remember when the circus used to come to our town when I was young. I can remember the clowns, the acrobats, the elephants, the lions. They stopped the performing animals long ago. But here they carry on. At least they don't kill bulls at circuses, and they don't shoot horses, do they?


REAL MALLORCA - THE DEAL DONE?
After the procrastination and a considerable amount of column inches devoted to will they, won't they, it would appear that Paul Davidson's acquisition of Real Mallorca is drawing to a completion. Yesterday an agreement was signed for him to pay 38 million euros for a 93% holding. This is not the final part of the equation or the final date, which is 15 October, but it would seem that the British businessman will indeed now be the club's new owner. Good luck.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Three Dog Night (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWMt5Hk0E-g), but Randy Newman wrote it, and The Animals performed it first. Today's title - yes, it was a film, but which Welsh group had a hit with it?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)