Almost 800,000

We're heading for another election - not just the European one - but one for the leader of the nationalist Unió Mallorquina (UM) party. Seasoned readers of this blog might be saying that it wasn't that long ago that there was one for this post. And they would be right. It was reported here on 1 December 2007 that Miguel Nadal had been elected president of the party after a fractious process that saw some falling-out with other leading members, notably Alcúdia's mayor Miguel Ferrer who subsequently became and is the party secretary. The new round of selection could well see Ferrer getting the top job. Hoorah for Alcúdia - maybe.

Nadal's name has come up in connection with one of the island's pretty regular corruption scandals, while the party has suffered a period of some instability, a point made by Ferrer. This instability has included the removal of the previous tourism minister, whose job was taken by Nadal. It's probably just politics and political parties anywhere, but Mallorca does seem to have more than its fair share of turnover at the head of its parties: the president of the Partido Popular, Rosa Estarás, recently announced that she was off to a gig in Brussels.

Meanwhile, in the capacity of his day job as tourism chief, Nadal has been outlining to the local parliament what he's up to in that day job, such as the promotional effort in Manchester where fire runs and the like were on display to entice Mancunians to the Balearics. While "hundreds of thousands" (words in translation from "The Diario") were able to get to know what the Balearics have to offer, one has to ask if they will be checking to see if there is some sort of surge from the Manchester area for Balearic holidays. If not ... . Oh, and hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands? What were they doing, including the whole population of the borough and city of Manchester in that figure plus a few more hundreds of thousands?*

Whether it's down to what the minister is doing or not, the general level of tourism activity in Mallorca does not seem as bad as many were fearing. It depends where one's talking about, but June figures are reasonable enough, and it is not only the rather more robust German market that's holding things up; the Brits are coming in greater numbers than had been thought. This is not only reassuring, it is also - I think - not unsurprising. While people have clearly suffered as a result of the economic crisis, there was always the notion that they would not give up on their holidays. Whether they spend a lot is of course a different matter, but if the numbers coming are anything like last year then that should be considered a result.

* Greater Manchester has over 2 million people, but the city and borough itself is about half a million.


REAL MALLORCA v. BARÇA
Thought I should just add, as this is about the biggest game of the season, that Barcelona are coming to Mallorca for the annual ritual slaughter of the local team. No Frills have some tickets - go to http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com for info.

QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Motherless Children", Steve Miller Band (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl_Xbh2XXww). Today's title - well, don't know if that was the number in Manchester, but where does this number come from? Something with a number as a title. Think Vietnam.

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)