Pour A Cup Of Black Coffee

Rafael Nadal, no sooner having been co-opted as the promotional face of Mallorca and the Balearics (actually, I think it still has to be fully ironed out, but it's on its way), now gets himself hauled into some other campaign. And that is? Well, get this one. There is this thing called "Café per la llengua" which is being launched by the Catalan promoters - Obra Cultural Balear. What it boils down to is that people will be encouraged to go along to their local café, have a coffee (or presumably any other drink) and talk in Catalan. Seriously, that is what this campaign is about. Am I missing something here? What language do many, perhaps most Mallorcans speak when they're having a coffee or indeed not having a coffee? Catalan, or rather its Mallorquín dialect. When I go into a local café, yes you may get some Castilian but generally they're speaking Catalan. So why do they need a campaign? And moreover, what are Nadal and his uncle-trainer doing getting involved? Yes, they are Mallorcan and yes they no doubt speak in Mallorquín with each other, but if, on the one hand, you are the international face of the island, with all the connotations that this has, why, on the other, contradict that internationalism with some parochialism. It all sounds a bit political, and I'm really not sure Nadal should be going along with it. But ultimately, what is the point of it? And there is something vaguely creepy about a campaign that, in the social setting of the bar or café, promotes one language over another.


PUERTO POLLENSA - BUS STATION
I should have added yesterday that the mayor is now also thinking of moving the bus stop by the marina to a position by the municipal offices. This, I suppose, makes some sense as it would mean buses would not need to come right into the centre, or would they? It would depend how they were routed, but if they were to use the disaster area that is the Calle Vicente Buades (the road in front of the municipal buildings), or indeed Calle Roger de Flor (the one that runs parallel to it) they're going to have to re-do both the roads, you would think - which would be no bad thing. The obvious route, though, would be to use the bypass and then terminate by the municipal buildings. I don't know, that doesn't sound such a bad idea, but it would cut out the bus stops on the Calle Juan XXIII if the bus were to come straight along the new road and carry on the bypass at the Eroski roundabout. And indeed, what about the stops on the front line? Are buses among the "heavy traffic" that is meant to now only use the new road? Hmm, not sure this is all being thought through. Nothing new there, then.


BLOG STUFF
Just to say that a new entry to the links section is one for a new forum - The Mallorca Forum. This is something from Hollie, who used to live in Alcúdia, and knew the likes of John and Lynne at The Highlander and Ben and Sara, as in who are now Bellevue Ben and Condes Sara. Recently, a link was also added for Puerto Pollensa.com's forum, and these both follow a pattern as the policy - such as it is - is to admit forums, blogs, myspaces, i.e. small or part sites as opposed to full sites, though there are exceptions, such as for the newspapers. Anyone with something along these lines, assuming it's appropriate, can email me if they wish to be listed.

And on a blog theme ... I was trawling through some of the very old archives of stuff that is no longer retained here, and I found this for 14 December 2005:

"Well, this could be good news indeed. Yesterday MPs in the Balearic parliament voted in favour of forming a body to monitor all-inclusive hotels. Driven by the opposition parties, who believe that such hotels are bad for the economy, the ruling PP (some of whose MPs voted in favour) have to confront the fact that they have not realised the potential harm that all-inclusives can and do cause. Former Tourism Minister Alomar spoke of a “low-quality product” in leading the move."

The ruling party is no longer the PP of course, but I wonder - whatever happened to this, do you suppose?


DIGITAL POLLENSA
Following the recent inclusion of Alcúdia in the signal coverage for the impending switchover to digital television, Pollensa is now also on-stream. The change will occur at the end of next year. It's basically the same as in the UK, so TVs will have to have the appropriate gadgets or be compatible. There is in fact quite a good article on this in the current "Euro Weekly" (one of the newspapers linked). So, anyone locally needing some background, go to the site and you'll find the article. You need to go to Virtual Newspaper then click the Mallorca version and press the forward button to page three.


DOGGY BAGS - UPDATE
Seamus emails me from England to say that you can get 125 doggy bags for 99 pence. So, for those of you struggling to get them locally, stock up when back in England. Maybe something could also be done about cats that piss up against the front-door shutters. What was that, thought I, yesterday morning? Either a cat, a dog or a very short person.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Smokey Robinson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV7XlZPdzZI). Today's title - I've used this song before, but it's such a corker, here it makes a reappearance. Girl group.

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