Shock Me Like An Electric Eel

So, after the night of the demons and the fires and the barbecues and the eel specialities (in Sa Pobla at any rate), there was the day of blessing - Sant Antoni day. Yesterday was his big day out. The saint of animals who, on the eve of his saint's day, was celebrated for having spurned the advances of the devil; hence the demons and the fires. It's a familiar theme of course. La Beata in Santa Margalida, often said to be the most traditional of the Mallorcan fiestas, is based on the same idea. There isn't necessarily a huge amount of imagination surrounding some of these fiestas; a bit of tempting by Satan and a bit of telling him to sling his horns and his hook and, Antoni's your uncle, you've got yourself another fiesta. As for the actual day of Tone, many of the local towns have blessings of animals. And so people lug along their dogs, which doubtless foul the pavements and are also blissfully unaware that the bloke in the funny garb is actually blessing them and so bark and snarl when he gets a bit close. Presumably there weren't too many eels being brought along to get some religion.


Further to yesterday's piece, there was something of an outcry in response to Sr. Middelmann's observations. One has to assume that he knew that he would probably shock people into a response, and that he has. The Catalan defenders, the likes of the Obra Cultural Balear (the group that set up the talking-Catalan-in-cafés carry-on), have said that they are offended and that what Middelmann had to say was provocative and not appropriate for one who holds the post that he does with the "Fomento del Turismo". The thing is that, though he has wandered into political waters that he might have done better to stay out of and also pontificated on matters not solely to do with tourism, he might well argue that there needs to be a balance in the language debate, especially as it affects tourism. It might be recalled that another group known as "La Mesa del Turismo", back in the summer (9 July: I Say High, You Say Low), presented a manifesto in support of the defence of Castilian. One leg of this table is Air Berlin. And Middelmann holds a senior post with the airline.


Coming back to one of the stories of 2008 - the developments on Alcúdia beach - the town hall has decided that it needs to do more; to do more that probably no-one much will notice, like no-one much noticed the WiFi system and the idiotic chill-out zone. To recap - the WiFi system, the networking of a stretch of beach of some two and a half kilometres or so, was meant to be a highly innovative development (some might have said it was a vanity project, but be that as it may). By the end of August, it had attracted precisely 72 customers - along the beach at any rate. As for the chill-out zone, this was something that not even the nearby tourist office was aware of, and it was just a glorified set of loungers with some apologies of speakers hanging pathetically from some poles. Anyway, undeterred by the underwhelming experience of 2008, the town hall and the hotel association are going to effect further developments. Mind you and to be fair, these - swings and play areas for children and an upgrade of the pathway at the back of the beach - will be welcomed and will also be far more obvious than the WiFi, unless, that is, they do the sensible thing and actually publicise the internet facility, which was not the case last season. Now, had you read about this latest development in "The Bulletin", you might, like I was, have been rather taken aback. Why? Well, because it said that this was going, with assistance from the Inestur promotional organisation, to set the town hall and the hoteliers back some ... 720 million euros. I have not made a mistake. It did say 720 million, under a headline that proclaimed that millions were to be spent. If one goes to "The Bulletin's" sister paper, "Ultima Hora", you will find out the real amount - 720 thousand. Oops. So, if you were shocked to learn that the rough equivalent of the GDP of a very small nation was about to be spent on the beach at Alcúdia, you can rest easy: it isn't to be. However, you might not rest easy. Despite the rather large difference in the reported spend, 720 thousand still sounds like a bloody lot of dosh for some swings and a better pavement. 720 thousand, 720 million, who knows. Either way, the amount is either 10,000 or 10 million times more than the number who had booked WiFi on Alcúdia's beach last summer. 72 customers for the WiFi, and now 720,000 or 720 million: doesn't matter. How wonderfully serendipitous and multiplicative.

The new beach spend was decided at a recent town hall gathering at which they also looked forward to the completion of the old town Can Ramis development (finally, eventually, whenever) and the "endowment" of services along the Calles Pollentia and Teodoro Canet. The former runs from the old town down to the other roundabout (i.e. not the horse roundabout) and effectively joins on to the latter as it heads off past the main parking area in the port. But what services are these? Anyone care to guess?


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Sugababes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24nX-ZMB4Gs). Today's title - a line from a brilliant 2008 song; American hippy popsters who might just have spent some time listening to Prince.

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