Innuendo

And so, he didn't actually bother coming, but he certainly saw, and didn't much care for what he saw, and so left unconquered the nevertheless soon-to-be decaying corpse that is Un-Real Mallorca, a one-time football club gone terminal basket case. The "he" was Freddy Shepherd - why-aye; why-no, man. This was not some dodgy business or bar being flogged by a so-called agent with a tenuous claim to be thus. This was not an "oh, yea, but there's a good 25% more of black income, know what I mean, nudge, nudge" or a British bar surrounded by three large hotels that he fails to mention have just become German all-inclusives. No. There may be a good deal of dodginess surrounding the affairs of Un-Real's owner, Vicente Grande, but the club was not dodgy, just "economically unviable". There is a difference. Thus spake the erstwhile Newcastle boss in kicking into touch, once and for all, his interest in the island's La Liga club. The vultures will soon be circling; there will lie the cadaver of a lifeless football club. You don't brand something economically unviable - in public - and then expect there to be a queue of other potential purchasers waiting to pass through the turnstiles. Whether the team gets relegated or not seems largely immaterial. The chances are it will get booted out because of its financial state, and booted out using a very long ball tactic. Where, oh where, I wonder, does this leave the notion that a Brit (either Shepherd or Davidson, "The Plumber") pursuing Un-Real represented British confidence in investing in Mallorca - the island and not just the crap football club? It leaves it nowhere. Because it never was anywhere in the first place.


Of cocks and choppers
In passing yesterday, I mentioned the pine tree malarkey in Pollensa. This involves various lunatics attempting to clamber up a greased or soaped up pine tree in pursuit of a cock in a bag. And that is a cock, as in something that goes cock-a-doodle-do. It's another of those wacky local traditions, and forms part of the Pollensa Sant Antoni gig. They don't just try and set fire to each other and to the town, they try also to fall to their deaths from a greasy pine tree. My, what fun they all have. Tradition, however, goes even further than the mere climbing event itself; there is a whole carry-on attached to getting the tree in the first place. And this carry-on does make you wonder how exactly people spend their time here. A mere eighty people - only eighty of them, mind - headed off to the finca of Ternelles to the north of the town, found themselves a suitable pine tree ("pi de Ternelles") and then chopped it down. One of them was the mayor who got his own chopper out. There's a photo on "The Diario's" website to prove it, if you're interested. But before they'd even done this, or maybe it was afterwards - it doesn't really matter - they all tucked into a picnic of pa amb oli, sausage and the dreaded ensaimada. Haven't they got anything better to do? And why does it need 80 of them?

Anyway, once down, the tree is then stripped of its bark and left until being hauled off into town on the day of the do. One thing that can be said, I suppose, is that they're trusting souls around here. One could well imagine, elsewhere, that this now barkless pine tree might somehow disappear overnight and have become kitchen furniture or a fitted wardrobe before they turn up to transport the by then-absent tree to the Plaça Vella in the centre of the old town. Mind you, anyone who was daft enough to have it away with 20 metres of pine being towed behind a middle of the night 4x4 might fall foul of 80 angry Pollensa residents armed with their choppers at the ready. Not a pretty sight nor a pretty thought.


Patrick McGoohan
And apropos nothing to do with other stuff today, one of this blog's occasional "obituaries". Patrick McGoohan's gone. "The Prisoner", "Danger Man", but most importantly the former. "We want information." "You won't get it." This has been a title for an entry on the blog. Title entries tend to reflect what I like, what I admire. Not completely, but in the case of "The Prisoner", unequivocal. It was, and remains, brilliant. And God knows, it's 40 years ago. Where does it go? Be seeing you.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Rolling Stones (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3DBRbrbHnc). Today's title - one of the last and great things from? Think Freddy(ie). Never liked them much, but this was superb.

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