Looking For Clues

BEING SPANISH - PART FOUR (THE BAR)

The bar. When we talk of "being Spanish", it is the bar, perhaps more so than any other symbol of the tourist experience, that should typify - or not - what might be meant as being Spanish. It is to the bar to which the tourist feels drawn, as if by instinct. The bar defines holiday, and it is the bar within which the tourist can feel comfort, camaraderie and a collective expression of that holiday. But it is precisely for these reasons that the bar, the chosen bar (or bars), is rarely one that can be classified as being Spanish.

In Barcelona one time, I suggested to a friend of 30 years living there that we and some chums went for a "crawl". The idea was readily accepted, but not that of heading for the Ramblas and the likes of Michael Collins. I was being a tourist. My friend, who claims never to spend more than a euro on a beer, had his own route of bars, all of which would adhere to the description "Spanish". And these bars would be otherwise difficult to describe, except in terms of highly unremarkable, too bright, dull, smoky, and full of Spaniards. So it is here. If one dares to look around or even into a "Spanish" bar, what does one see or rather what does one not see? One does not see the sort of cosiness, the plushness, the intimacy of, say, a British pub (albeit one that is fast dying out). The Spanish bar is uniform in its graceless functionality. There are exceptions, but not many.

The only television programme in Spain worth watching is something called "Cuentame Como Pasó", a better class of soap set in the '70s. In one episode I happened to catch, there were scenes in a bar. I have no reason to assume that it was anything other than authentic. The only obvious difference to today was that the television was not plasma. Spanish bars are caught in a time-warp of Franco-era austerity. In a word, they are unattractive.

The local Spanish bar is, strictly speaking, Mallorcan Spanish, and being full of Mallorcans it is also very noisy because all Mallorcans shout. John, ex-Highlander, once sent me a story about a couple of customers who went to a locals bar and left because of what they perceived as unfriendly shouting. John subsequently rang the bar-owner who told him that there hadn't been a problem, they had just been discussing the weather!

The Spanish bar is intimidating in its sheer ordinariness and also in it actually being Spanish and being full of Spaniards, many of them shouting. The tourist is uncomfortable with such a clear expression of a different culture; it's why most avoid them and would never dream of setting foot in one. Colin, who has been providing me with some highly insightful thoughts on the notion of " being Spanish", refers to "cultural clues" that the tourist can gain. The cultural clues that are emitted from a Spanish bar are not difficult to appreciate, and if these clues suggest something with which the visitor might be uncomfortable, then he or she will not enter.

Of course, there is a difference between day and night, times of the year, days of the week and location. On a market day in summer in old-town Alcúdia, for example, people will of course go to a Spanish bar. They don't have much option. But they can sit outside, and there is security in numbers. Given a choice though, for the most part the tourist would head for the default bar that doesn't look too Spanish. There is another "of course", and that is that there are tourists and there are tourists. It would be quite wrong to suggest that everyone reacts negatively to the cultural clues, and, coincidentally, "culture" is a clue here. Take, for example, the square in Puerto Pollensa, Here, there are two bars diametrically opposite and pretty much diametrically opposed in the eyes of some tourists. Bar (café) Cultural is about as Spanish in the ways I describe above as it can get. Yet in its simplicity it is the counterpoint to Bony which, although also Spanish, is brash, comedic and almost Spanish parodic given José's "olés". It may also have something to do with prices, but that's perhaps by the by; the showy Spanishness of Bony is not to everyone's liking and, for some, they want their being Spanish understated.

But in general, the everyday tourist, your typical Brit, wlll defer to a style and to cultural clues that are more than just clues; they are strong statements. It is not just Britishness which attracts, it is also tribalism, for which there are bars - Canny Lad (Newcastle), Foxes (Leicester), Highlander (Scotland), for instance. There is a need for familiarity and for association. At the top of this piece I referred to those three "c's" - comfort, camaraderie and a collective expression. These are no more evident than in bars where the banter can centre on the football team, the towns or cities back home and also the folks back home. None of this can be obtained in a Spanish bar.

A further dimension in the search for the bar is that of internationalisation. The tourist, as with those who live locally, have, in many cases, bought into a bar transnationalism. How else can one explain the proliferation of Irish bars which, with one or two exceptions, are not Irish? A French neighbour of mine loves O'Hara's in Puerto Pollensa for example. One might expect her to opt for the Spanish bar, but no she revels in the garish opportunism of Grupo Boulevard who have taken this to an extreme state with its Australian Boulevard. But, once again, we come back to those cultural clues, and Irish, even Australian, are familiar statements, more so, one suspects, than Spanishness.

My whole thinking behind this series of features is that elusive concept of "being Spanish" and the fact that one hears an admonishment that things are not Spanish enough. Yet the tourist, overwhelmingly it seems, opts for the familiarity of the non-Spanish. There is an apparent contradiction in all this, but the explanation may lie with something that Colin has offered, and I finish with his observation:

"They (tourists of a mass variety) don’t actually want to see another culture - it is different and as such they don’t feel comfortable with it. They avoid places that feel too foreign, although at the same time bemoaning the fact that the tourist centres as not foreign enough. I don’t think that they are blind to it - they see it all too well, but view it with innate suspicion."


REAL MALLORCA - COMMENT
As most of you will know, I much prefer comments to be posted directly to me. However, an "anonymous" one for yesterday's piece, posted for the comments box, offered the opinion that the press failed to challenge Paul Davidson's claims and to also enquire as to whether he actually had the money to make the bid in the first place. To be fair, I think the Spanish press did at least raise this line of enquiry. How diligently they may have delved into Mr. Davidson's affairs is another matter, but certainly doubts had been circulating in the local media as to his financial capability. However, it should be noted that the press, in the UK at any rate, had said that Mr. Davidson had received 42 million pounds in return for the sale of shares in his company. I think it fair to say, though, that the local press lack the forensic journalistic abilities or resources for an examination of the financial situation.

The comment also suggests that Mr. Davidson was either fronting the whole exercise on behalf of someone else or was engaged in a "charade intended to get him publicity". As to the former, he had always insisted that he, and he alone, would be purchasing the club, and as for the latter, if the publicity was designed to raise his profile in Mallorca or Spain - for whatever reason - then it was an expensive way of going about it, while I reiterate the point - why would he have gone to the lengths he did, including appointing Keith Wyness as a non-exec, just for publicity?

I have yet to be convinced that he was anything other than sincere in his intentions, even if some of the thinking behind the failed takeover seemed somewhat odd.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Pink Floyd. Today's title - Yorkshire-born, sadly passed away, soul and blues singer.

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