You Shouldn't Do That

The tourism authorities have announced the figures of their annual cull of illegal holiday rentals on the islands. They are up, quite significantly so; perhaps all that trawling through websites in search of unregistered holiday accommodation has borne some fruit after all. There is nothing wrong with the authorities clamping down on this. It is not just undeclared income that is an issue, there are also those of safety, insurance and quality. However, there is another side to this, and that is how easy it may or may not be for owners to get the correct registration in the first place. And then there has also been some considerable confusion as to what regulations apply to which properties. This was meant to have been clarified this year, in that apartments were specifically referred to, as opposed to stand-alone houses and villas.

Whatever the legalities, there remains the suspicion that much of the drive to regulate holiday lets, which may mean a reduction in their offer, has come from the hoteliers. There have, for example, been the odd pronouncements that Mallorca's future lies with a high quality of hotel accommodation, which undoubtedly is correct, however the private rental sector tends to be overlooked, except when it comes to hammering it with regulation. But there is a contradiction here in that the increase in the do-it-yourself holiday, facilitated by the ease of airline bookings, has also led to an increased demand for rental property. Moreover, this market tends to be precisely the sort of market that the island appears to crave, i.e. it is one with a fair amount of spare dosh sloshing around to be spent in the island's economy. There are also plenty of holidaymakers who want the flexibility to be able to choose their preferred type of accommodation, and many simply do not want to stay in hotels, whatever the hoteliers might wish.

This all said, it is not as if the hotels themselves do not get inspected. The season just finished has seen the tourist authorities taking an interest in all-inclusive offers. They report that the number of exclusive all-inclusive hotels in the Balearics has increased slightly, whilst the number of those hotels which offer AI as an option has gone down. But that is all that they report. What one hears as a complaint is the degree to which holidaymakers, on arrival, are then made an offer of all-inclusive board; illegally, or so the complaint goes - I'm unclear on this. For the holidaymaker, it can seem a good deal. A relatively low daily rate of twelve or fourteen euros let's say, and everything they want - up to a point. The problem is what the holidaymaker then gets, and we are back to the issue of the actual quality of the AI offer in many instances - low-grade food and drink and slow service.


ROSS AND BRAND
As everyone and his dog has said his or her say about the Ross-Brand affair, I thought, well, why don't I. This may not sound a blog issue, but there are two aspects as to why it is. Firstly, there is the BBC angle. Take it from me, when one lives here, one really appreciates the BBC. Having largely foregone television, there is but radio, and BBC's internet radio, even without the overseas streaming for some sporting events, is an endless source of wonder. They should charge an overseas licence; I'd pay it, no problem. Secondly, there has been here the inevitable parroting of the opprobrium that has rained down on the heads of Messrs Ross and Brand and the BBC, our old mate Leapy Lee included in the critics. I wonder in all this, though, how many people actually heard the broadcast when it originally went out. Not on youtube after the event, by which stage prejudices had been established, but at the time. I was one who did, and I listened precisely because I knew the combination of the two was likely to get very "edgy"; and that of course was what happened. It was surrealistically funny in that someone of such minor celebrity as Andrew Sachs should be the point of what did get out of hand. With hindsight of course it shouldn't have been broadcast, but, apart from the "suicide" reference, which did take me aback, I personally wasn't offended by it.

But why should this whole affair matter to expats who no longer live in the UK? It ranks alongside all the other news and events from the UK as being more important than anything that occurs in Mallorca, be these to do with the British government, the NHS, education, the "broken society", sports teams or the BBC. It comes back, I suppose, to what I've said before about integration, or the lack thereof, and the pervasiveness and convenience of the media. Ross and Brand are as significant in their relative insignificance to the expat in Spain as they are to his or her relatives and friends back in the shires of England and in the rest of the UK.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Mari Wilson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWFPqGLbVa0). Today's title - from a song about transvestitism; originally by an iconic American band and covered by an iconic Manchester band.

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