From Off My Wrist

Now how about this for a bit of a dodgy carry-on? Heard the one about tourists being asked to sell their all-inclusive hotel wristbands which are then either sold on (at a profit) or just used to get free food and drink, while those who've sold them go and say they've lost their band and ask for and get a replacement? Who do you think, allegedly, or so I'm told, are to the fore in doing the buying of these wristbands? Go on, guess. Think "on the streets" and something else starting with an "s". I also understand that one hotel in the port area that has been affected by this is now well aware of what's going on. So if you flog your band for a tenner and go and demand a new one, they may just be a tad suspicious. Mind you, this wristband business or whatever system exists to show that the punter is all-inclusive is not much of a system. I know of a couple who stayed in a well-known all-inclusive in Can Picafort on a half-board basis, or at least that was what they had booked, only to discover that, with the exception of obtaining spirits, the hotel took no notice as to what board status there was. Anyone, it would seem, could have come in and helped themselves to the buffet, as indeed did this couple. The hotels should come up with something more foolproof - the scanning of a microchip implanted into the skull perhaps.


Industrial quantities
News that businesses are deserting large industrial estates in Palma because of the costs of the premises, and this despite cuts to rentals by almost a third, does make one wonder about the industrial estate in Alcúdia. Apparently, says "The Bulletin", industrial estate plots in Mallorca are the most expensive in Spain, so under the current economic circumstances it isn't surprising that businesses are looking elsewhere. But there are also a lot of them. There are, for example, estates in Pollensa, Can Picafort and now Alcúdia, the latter recently developed after fifteen years of yes-no-maybe-and-finally-yes, developed to some of the highest environmental standards, and empty. Maybe it's too early and there will be businesses clamouring to get space, but that might now seem questionable. The one advantage that the Alcúdia estate has over the other two is its proximity to the road leading to the motorway, but whether this is a major advantage is also probably questionable, though the timing of the green light for its development seemed coincidental with the building of the new road into Alcúdia.

Why does every town seem to need an industrial estate? Is there really that much demand? Or was there ever that much demand? There is a sense of the can-we-have-a-golf-course me-too about them: other towns have one, so we want one as well. But to what end? Perhaps it will all be fine and the Alcúdia estate will thrive and be packed with all sorts of business, but take a look around, for instance, the Pollensa estate and you might begin to doubt this.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Enya, "Orinoco Flow" (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xrzy7_enya-sail-away_music). Today's title - line from something by a Scottish band with an Italian name (and not Del Amitri if that is indeed Italian, which it isn't).

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