Always Shines On TV

The more I think about it, the more I think I might, were I in a position to worry about such things, be worried that this Top Gear Classic Car Rally thing might not be the wonderful advert for Mallorca some seem to believe that it will be. Put it this way - why are they coming to Mallorca, for this particular rally? Clarkson and the boys don't do veiled PR exercises for tourist authorities; they do taking the piss. And that, the more I think about it, is what might, perhaps should, worry some.

Oh that these were still the glory days of motoring - a sedate drive in the countryside, yer best girl by yer side, yer dashing moustache and yer Brylcreemed hair set in concrete against the open-topped breeze; the mountains in the background as yer pull up by a marina for a G and T stiffener with David Niven. Unfortunately, things aren't like that anymore. There is also the not inconsiderable factor of Clarkson's total absence of political correctness. This, as anyone who reads him will be aware, manifests itself in a variety of ways, such as the fact that he would be the last person who might be described as an environmentalism fellow traveller. Then there is the matter of killing wildlife.

I fear there may be this rather misguided impression that this is all going to be an advert for Mallorcan landscape and its wonderful environment. There may well indeed be landscape, but there will also be some serious pollution occurring. Those classic cars do about a kilometre to the gallon. Haring around the roads going into the Tramuntana could be bad news for local hares as well. Or indeed any other poor animal that happens to get in the way. A classic car rally is just about the single most environmentally damaging event that one could possibly dream up, which is probably part of the reason that they're taking part. Then there is the potential for, well, just taking the Michael, and there is no shortage of potential in this respect.

The Top Gear programme comes at a time when apparently there is to be some reality thing showing how expats here are coping, or not, with the credit crunch. Doubtless there will be some poor saps who put their hands up to take part and are made to look total idiots - for that is the way it is with TV. Take also this "Sun, Sea and A&E" reality docu (5 February: Murder On The Dancefloor). There have been three articles about this programme in "The Bulletin" over the past week. Why, do you suppose? Because it's news? I doubt it. Seems more like PR for the show, and moreover, if it has not received criticism for being patronising, then it should have; patronising because the message that has come out of the programme is that Mallorca has good health facilities - as if this should come as a big surprise. This is Mallorca, not some basket case bit of African jungle.

All these shows may, in some respects, be beneficial for Mallorca, but please don't let's be naïve in thinking that they exist just as a way of promoting the island.


Following on from yesterday's item about Brussels and Balearic money and fire runs and so on, a local councillor from Palma has apparently been impressing upon European commissioners that were it to be the case that fire runs were outlawed then legal action would probably be taken to reverse this. As I said before, how to win friends and influence bureaucracts. Here we have a councillor making a sort of threat while at the same time many - some other 149 or so - compatriots are attempting to extract money from the same political entity. Here's a scenario, a dilemma and a question for you to consider: You are a Mallorcan politician, you go to Brussels as part of a delegation to try and obtain a whole bunch more funding from the European piggy-bank. The Euro-meisters say, "ok, we'll give you the money, so long as you agree to stop setting fire to your streets and to conducting fire runs, and to following - to the letter - the European directive on pyrotechnics". Do you, as a Mallorcan politician, accept this as a reasonable compromise, dismiss it as a form of bribery or demand the money and the continuation of the tradition?

It's most unlikely that this scenario would occur, but there does come a point where you can't have your cake and set fire to it, too, which is what the 150 who have marched on Brussels would presumably want.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Deep Purple (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WX_4FNoto4). Today's title - for years I thought the lyric meant that the sun shone onto the television set.

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