Bend It

Flexibility. This might be a good word; a good word to describe how things are here. Not flexibility in the positive sense so much - as in he/she demonstrated flexibility in his/her thinking - but flexibility in the maybe we'll do what we're told to or maybe we won't sense. And often one fancies it is the latter. Let's take smoking in cafés shall we. Without wishing to puff on an old pipe once more and blow some smoke rings of explanation as to how the law is meant to apply (with the emphasis on the "meant to"), suffice it to say that, in some establishments, there is a no-smoking area and a smoking area. Theoretically, there is meant to be some physical division between the two, but let's not get bogged down in theory, for in practice what you have is a theoretical no-smoking area which is right next to a practical smoking area. In other words, it doesn't make any real difference whether one part of the café is dubbed "no smoking" because the smoke is available to all. How charitable these regulations are. And even in the no-smoking area, the rigidity of that no-smoking command is, yes, flexible. Or to use another word - ignored.

Now, without wishing to finger anywhere or anyone in particular, and given that I happen to like the place and am familiar with its coffees, pastries and baguettes, there is a café in Puerto Alcúdia that is mightily popular with locals and expats alike. It has - or had the other day when I was there - a particularly flexible approach to smoking (or no smoking, as it may be). Right by my head and therefore next to my table was a sign that read "zona no fumadors". I don't think I need to translate. I hadn't appreciated that the zona no fumadors appears to extend to one table alone, as - at the next table - were a trio, two of whom I recognised from a bar which, without wishing to finger anywhere or anyone, is by the grand canal in Puerto Alcúdia, and one of the two was puffing away heartily. At the adjoining table were two "girls", who I didn't recognise, and who were both happily making some serious inroads into a packet of Marlboro.

Flexible. It's not far from bendy, is it. And bendy is not far from bent. And bent is not far from rules. Flexible, that'll be it.


Meantime, rare old sport in the Junior Common Rooms, sometimes known as the local town halls. The only thing that appears to be missing from meetings of the town hall politicos is vast quantities of alcohol, which were deemed a pre-requisite in my day of student politics in the JCRs. Alcohol, though, was not the only requirement. I once chaired a special meeting that was a vote of no confidence in the editors of the college rag. It was packed out, but it didn't stop me having my apple crumble and custard while it was going on. But anyway, where was I? Ah yes, only slightly more relevant than JCR politics is what goes on in the town halls. Always good for a spat is Santa Margalida where the spokesman for the Unió Mallorquina was expelled from a meeting for having the audacity to accuse the mayor (Partido Popular) of high-handedness and something called "indocumentado", which, though it is pretty clear, I'm unsure as to the precise sense in which it is being used, and one needs to be a bit cautious as this all revolves around some 800 grands worth of invoices. Anyway, it all sounds like jolly good fun with accusations being hurled about to do with curbing freedom of expression and all that sort of stuff. There again, 800 grand is on rather a grander scale than debates we used to have about donating 20 quid to the Shrewsbury Three or the Iranian Ninety-One or the M Twenty-Five or the Temperance Seven - whatever cause it happened to be, and it was invariably of a right-on far-left nature and involved endless discussion as to whether payments were "ultra vires". If there is one or rather are two words that describe my university life, they would be ultra and vires, and I still don't know what they mean.

But the Junior Common Room to beat them all is of course that in Pollensa, where mayor Cerdà is under fire for the town's cleaning arrangements. When isn't he under fire? The United Left/Greens, the one-man mayoral destruction unit that is Pepe García, is having a go about the fact that the company that does the cleaning - sort of - has not had a contract for several months. Ah look, just don't worry about it. It'll be an oversight. You know how flexible things can be here.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Beverley Knight (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vobWLTdCzvo). Today's title - the lead singer sadly died recently.

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)