Reasons To Be Cheerful - Part One

Despite the prospect of Spain entering into recession in 2009, there are reasons to believe that the Balearics will not be joining the rest of the country. Surprising though this might sound, latest figures and prognostications indicate that the islands will have experienced growth of just under 3 per cent this year, with an anticipated growth next year of just under 1 per cent. It wouldn't be much, but equally it would not represent recession. Moreover, the situation is not felt to be anything quite as bad as the last great crisis - between 1991 and 1993. The major casualty of the economic downturn has been, as we all know, construction, but it is tourism which is holding things together. It may also come as a surprise to learn that this year has witnessed an increase in hotel takings and in tourism spend. At least that is what the government is saying. There are probably many who would disagree. Although instinct suggests that the coming year could be problematic for tourism, and could blow apart that forecast for slight growth, indications are that things could be better than might have been anticipated. It does all remain to be seen, especially if recession bites as deep as it is expected to in the UK and, to a lesser extent, in Spain itself, thus harming UK and Spanish tourism. But for the moment, there is some reason to be cautiously optimistic. And that's no bad thing, rather than constantly talking ourselves into recession and sheer pessimism.


BEING SPANISH - PART ONE
For quite some time I have been mulling over the meaning of "being Spanish" in the sense of what constitutes being Spanish - be it bar, restaurant, resort, architecture, landscape and quite probably more besides. This was all inspired by comments one finds - from tourists - that such-and-such a restaurant or so-and-so a place is either Spanish, a bit Spanish or not Spanish at all. I'd love to know what they mean, because, hard though I try, I'm damned if I know what constitutes "being Spanish". Not of course that it will stop me from having a go.

One of those comments referred to Can Picafort. For those of you unfamiliar with the resort, let me give you an impression. It is everyman resort. Largely without character, it is chock-full of hotels and, in the main part of the resort, laid out according to a grid system of roads. It is the criss-cross resort. The Son Bauló part, on the other hand, is mainly a circle. Looked at on a map, Son Bauló is like a football being kicked by the long leg of Can Picafort - a sort of Italy and Sicily turned horizontal. The two parts are joined by a section of non-descript streets with similarly non-descript houses, while the leg and football are held in place by a long, straight stick which is the main road from Alcúdia to Artà, to either side of which are more hotels, supermarkets and petrol stations. The promenade is populated with repetitious barns of restaurants. The sand in winter encroaches onto the promenade, and the impression is of a seafront not totally unlike something one might find in Britain. The marina, compared with the more luxury end of the market in Alcúdia, is a disappointment of semi-neglect. To one side of it, there is a watchtower which stands in the midst of green seaweed, deposited by the occasional turbulent waves. The whole resort was basically built from scratch. There is little that remains of a Can Picafort heritage, not in truth that it ever had one as the place itself has a history far shorter than the nearby ports of Alcúdia or Pollensa.

It was a surprise, therefore, when I read someone who described Can Picafort as being Spanish. By what criteria could it possibly be so, especially its frontline with the tired appearance of a British seaside resort? It is in Spain, but otherwise? There is but one part that hints at this elusive concept of Spanishness, and that is the Santa Eulália avenue that runs along the back of the town. It houses the two Viva hotel complexes which, unlike the obtrusive hotels dotted all over the centre of the resort, are set back in an attractive residential area that combines the shades of Mallorcan architecture - the terracottas and the yellows - with a quasi-Arabic style of handed-down Spanish house-building. But even this is phoney because of its modernity; a developer's dream of recaptured Spain which can descend into a parody akin to mock Tudor facades in England that aspire to historical context but are too often design by naffness. Drive along the avenue and it is pleasant enough until one turns back down to the main road and is assaulted by what appears to be the local housing project of apartment block with the washing out. It isn't a project, just the white tower of the back of the Tonga Sol with towels draped from every balcony. And as one leaves Can Picafort, heading towards Alcúdia, there is the bizarre enclave of Ses Casetes des Capellans with its vacation homes little more than beach huts which I have previously compared with Jaywick Sands. These huts reach into the forest and dunes of Playa de Muro, a forest of pines, themselves a feature of a natural world to be discovered all over Europe. One searches for the essence of Spanishness in Can Pic, only because someone has said that it has it, but the search is fruitless. And so one must look elsewhere. Till next time ...


PLEASE - What are your notions of "being Spanish"? It can be anything you like. Email me, as below. I'd be delighted to hear your views and perhaps use them in follow-up features. As always, any email correspondence is treated with respect, so your details are never reproduced here. Thanks.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Kylie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0G-4HBYihU). Today's title - well it was actually part three; who was it?

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