Rescue Me

Look over the hill, boys, it's the cavalry. Just in time. Just in time to save the winter and its benighted tourism. The cavalry's coming from the east - Poles, Hungarians, Czechs. Praise be for the collapse of the eastern bloc.

If only. Not that there isn't to be an eastern invasion. Just that it is one by pensioners being brought to the Balearics under the subsidised scheme for social tourism. 48,000 are expected during the low season. Well, it's something I suppose, and with unemployment likely to nudge over the psychological barrier of 80,000 and even as high as 100,000 by the new year, anything will do. However, though a few hotels may benefit, that will be about your lot. The eastern European oldsters are not likely to be packing the bars, restaurants and shops of the Mallorcan resorts. And let's just put this in context shall we. If one takes the annual tourism to be in the region of 12 million, this slow-moving cavalry charge amounts to 0.4 per cent.

Still, there are always those other fringe sources of tourism, like the golf. Always the golf. Except it isn't always the golf. The development in Campos having been deposited into a bunker, now we have Binissalem refusing to allow another one to tee-off. It was almost certainly unwarranted - the course, that is - but the town hall's refusal to support its construction just emphasises the stasis of new tourism developments and also the golfing gulf between what the town halls are prepared to allow and what the tourism authorities see (wrongly in most instances) as the great future for Mallorca's tourism and, in particular, its out-of-season tourism. Shame really. They could have built a gentle pitch and putt for the pensioners.

And sport of another sort is also under a cloud. We're back with Real Mallorca. While there would appear to be a German who might be mad enough to want to take over a club that is falling rapidly and may well drop out of La Liga the way the team is going, there is no firm bid. Nor is there one from Freddy Shepherd. Whoever takes the club over, if anyone, can probably get it for a song. Why Davidson ever proposed the 38 million, God alone knows. If money cannot be found by March, the club is likely to be unable to pay its employees. It already owes significant amounts to contractors. The reality for Real is that it might just cease to be. And there is no real sign of the cavalry or of a rescue.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Bon Jovi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2vDn6Ph1YA). Today's title - who did this? Careful, it's not who you might think.

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