Norwegian Wood

The unemployment figures around the various municipalities in Mallorca make for pretty grim reading. The highest increase for October, compared with the same month last year, has been in Estellencs which has registered an increase of 160%. All things are relative of course, and Estellencs is hardly that big a place, but areas that are strong tourism centres have seen rather better figures, if, that is, one can call increases of 47% (Pollensa) and 54% (Alcúdia) as being much better. Nearby Sa Pobla has seen unemployment rise by over 75%, yet the small municipality of Búger has witnessed only a 3 per cent increase (33 as opposed to 32 last year being out of work).

Looking again at the queues in Puerto Alcúdia yesterday, one wonders what these figures will look like for November. It is not a great situation.

Still, there is always something to look forward to that will make everyone's lives that much brighter. And what could be better in achieving this than a bit of Nordic walking. Well, quite a lot probably, but in Alcúdia fans of this curious past-time will now be able to enjoy three different routes, much of them in woodland and forest - in Barcares, La Victoria and the other around Coll Baix. For those who may not yet be up to speed, or down to slowness, with Nordic walking, it is walking with poles in the style of Nordic skiing but without skis and without snow. The real benefit from Nordic walking lies with its being tackled as an aerobic sport, i.e. putting your back into it and making an effort, otherwise it is just, well, walking with a couple of sticks. And walking with a couple of wooden sticks is how one sees it often being practised. Germans of advanced years are regularly to be heard on the streets near me, click-clacking along at a slow speed of Nordic knots. This really is not how to do it. You may as well just walk and forget the sticks. That a way, you wouldn't look quite so ridiculous. And this is one of the problems with Nordic walking; it looks daft. Anything that takes walking and turns it into a sport makes the otherwise straightforward act of one foot in front of another an object of derision - like the walks of Olympic athletics infamy, buttocks raised by the left and then by the right and feet often not staying in contact with the ground. Why not just run?

Anyway, I guess the hope is that these Nordic routes will attract great hordes of stick-bearing tourists. Alcúdia's mayor, Miquel Ferrer (as reported by "The Diario") has entered into a collaboration with the island's tourist authorities for promoting the town as a centre of Nordic walking. There is something to be said for having mates in slightly higher places. Ferrer is second-in-command in the Unió Mallorquina party to Miquel Nadal. And who is head of tourism? Yes, Miquel Nadal. To be fair, this is the culmination of a drive to make Alcúdia a place of Nordic walking wonder - it was, for example, included in the past summer's programme of sporting events in the town - so the fact that Nadal has got the gig as tourism minister is really only a coincidence. There is also the hiking route that links Coll Baix and La Victoria, of which the Nordic routes may be a part or the same; the hiking route referred to back on 7 July (Walking Back To Happiness).

But assuming that this initiative does result in some additional form of tourism, how wide might the benefits be? There is something of the cycling tourism about all this; the cycling tourism that many criticise for not helping local bars and restaurants. This is a fallacy. Cycling tourism can work very well to the advantage of bars and restaurants if they forge strong relationships with the cyclists and their organisers, as is the case with Restaurant Boy in Playa de Muro. The Nordic walkers though will be hacking around parts of Alcúdia where there is barely a watering-hole or hostelry to be found. Red Rum in Barcares or the Mirador in La Victoria may be beneficiaries but that would be about your lot.


Mallorca is not that big an island, and it can seem surprising that it can give rise to very localised weather events. During Tuesday night and into Wednesday there was an intense storm that affected Palma in particular. This is not the first time in the past month or so that Palma seems to have got it in the neck while other parts of the island have not. In the north there was nothing of this storm. And when Palma had an earlier heavy dose, nearby places like Magaluf were calm. There are, of course, all-island weather bouts, and one's impression has tended to be that the north gets the worst of the weather. But this has certainly not been the case just recently. The one part of the island that does seem to escape the worst is the east. The storm of Tuesday night did hit it, but whereas Palma was inundated with some 50 litres of rain, Porto Colom had only seven. It may be a wrong impression, but if you want to avoid the weather at its worst, then head east.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Ian Dury And The Blockheads. No live-performance youtube, but there is one with Phil Jupitus taking the Dury role (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ylvcU3iuUY). Today's title - no clues needed.

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