Physical Attraction

Well over a year after the announcement of the new museum for Pollentia in Alcúdia (27 August 2007, "It's Build A House Where We Can Stay"), they're finally getting round to drawing up a draft plan. Well, not quite yet; don't let's get too excited, it'll be another three months or so. But they're working on it. These things take time, you know. They don't happen overnight. Like the power station conversion; that's only - what - getting on for two years since they set that all in motion. The fact that they haven't got the finance sorted out - or hadn't when they made a presentation a month or so back at the Auditorium - is a mere trifle. No, no, these things must take time, especially as so many need to have their say-so. In the case of the new Pollentia museum, the consortium overseeing it involves the town hall, central Mallorcan bods and also Madrid, and it is Madrid which is actually paying for the museum, so I suppose they have an interest to make sure it goes according to plan, unlike other local developments, such as Can Ramis.

And talking of consortia ... The new tourism promotion consortium in Muro - to which I referred on 2 December ("And There's A Message That I'm Sending Out") - has been active. Know what it's gone and done? It's produced a leaflet. Know what's included in this leaflet, one that's to be available at the Fitur tourism fair in Madrid next week? Included is the fact that the golf course on the Son Bosc finca near to Playa de Muro is one of the "main tourist attractions" in the northern area (quote taken in translation from "The Diario"). There is one slight drawback. There is no golf course. Well, not yet, there isn't. And there are still various hoops to pass through, to say nothing of militant enviros strapping themselves to rare orchids in defiance of bulldozers, which may yet prevent the course ever seeing the light of an early-morning tee-off. The piece in The Diario mentions the fact that the website of one of the main parties in the consortium - the hotel association - says that a golf course is being planned. I had pointed this out myself in the article of 2 December. But note that it is being planned. There is a fair difference, I would say, between planned and being one of the main tourist attractions.

I'm no expert but something tells me that, unless something actually physically exists, it is stretching a point to suggest that it is an attraction. The mayor of Muro doesn't seem to have too much difficulty with all this, given that the only thing holding the golf development back is a modification to the project - that to avoid the rare orchid where the eighth hole was originally meant to have gone. It may well be the case that everything else is more or less tickety-boo, but only the other day we had the minister for mobility giving the course the thumbs-down, albeit that he seemed to have placed himself firmly in the enviros' camp (16 January: "Land Of Confusion").

It's good, though, that the Muro consortium has got its arse in gear and is heading off to Madrid to do some promotion. There is nothing wrong with that at all. However, if someone books a holiday on the basis of a golf course, are they not going to be slightly disappointed? Or. I can imagine at the Fitur fair someone approaching a Muro representative, clutching the relevant promotional literature and asking about the golf course. "Ah yes," would come the reply. "It isn't actually built yet." "But it says here that it is one of the area's main tourist attractions." "Yes, well, it will be. But not just yet." "When is it likely to be?" "Erm, well, erm, can you wait there a minute, I just need to have a word with my colleague..." Actually it would be worth taking a flight to Madrid just so that one could go to the Muro stand and ask them about their golf course. Priceless.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Robert De Niro's Waiting", Bananarama (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N7fZ1UiacI). Today's title - it's included in what was an enormous reggae hit for an American-Jamaican who, so it is claimed, takes his name from a Scooby-Doo character.

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