How Will I Know

Somewhat dire predictions that the British will turn their backs on Mallorca this summer in favour of a fortnight in the rain on the so-called English Riviera should prove to be little more than scaremongering. Whilst the UK freezes and subsides under snow and rain, even the hardest pressed of families, concerned with the onset of rickets, will be thinking that they will need with getting some sun, at some point, and will thus spurn the overcast attractions that are Littlehampton or Morecambe. Meanwhile, the island's Chamber of Commerce is seeking to broaden Mallorca's economy by engaging in an export drive. This might sound a bit odd, as one could legitimately ask what exports. But do not scoff, for you may have in fact scoffed on one of the island's exports. i.e. the potato, though unfortunately, owing to the fact that the final quarter of 2008 was the soggiest since the year Nottingham Forest last won the FA Cup and the first section of the M1 motorway was opened, the spud harvest of Sa Pobla has been a bit of a wash-out. But never fear, because there are other exports, one of which is, apparently, computer software. I must admit I was unaware of the Mallorcan Silicon Valley, and I fancy that pirated copies of Vista are not quite what qualify as forming an export business - well not an official one at any rate. So what this software industry is exactly I'm unsure. Maybe it's the WishfulThinking.com software empire.

Another export possibility is, apparently, food and drink. To this end, there is already a successful (it claims) trade with Seoul in South Korea. This is one way, I suppose, of tackling the stray-dog problem in Mallorca: round them up and ship them off to some Korean kitchens. Given that many a dog is allowed to roam freely by its owner, I would suggest that perhaps that owner, and indeed others, is a little more careful about letting Rover out minus a chaperon, or he could end up as lunch in a Seoul restaurant.

The "big idea", though, of the as-yet unformed Mallorcan export drive is, as I mentioned a week ago, the trade in tourism expertise, otherwise known - in business circles - as "know-how". This is one of those utterly vague concepts which, because it is so vague, can be invoiced at vast amounts on the principle that the vaguer and the more obscure it all is, the more valuable it must be. It is also known, in some business circles, as "bullshit". One grand example of this know-how is that by which lesser developed countries have spent vast proportions of their GDP acquiring the skill to enable them to ruin their own economies. This particular know-how comes from and is known as the British banking sector. Anyway, the main area of know-how that is knocking around the Mallorcan economy is that to do with tourism. I confess that I have a slight problem with this. What actually does it mean? Does it refer, for example, to instructing Mongolians as to how to build entire streets of karaoke bars or is it something more general, like advising other essentially summer tourism destinations how to create a flourishing and vibrant winter tourism market, just like the one that the Mallorcan tourism expertise has produced in Mallorca? Maybe this export drive could be targeted at a market that has long suffered because of competition from Mediterranean resorts, even though it was the market in which tourism was first developed. Coals to Newcastle. But, for God's sake, don't sell too much tourism expertise or people might start taking their holidays in Britain.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Captain Beefheart (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9UKANkpPLI). And thanks to John who pointed out that it could have been Human League and also David Thomas of Pere Ubu of whom (Pere Ubu) there will probably be more at some point. Today's title - from when she was any good.

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