Pennyroyal Tea

One of those holiday survey things. What the Brit holidaymaker takes with him or her on holiday. Apparently, 43% of tourists take their own teabags with them. Do you?

At least teabags don't take up much room in a suitcase or indeed weigh very much, so squeezing a load of bagged-up Tetleys inside a shoe isn't too much of a problem, unlike, for example, cans of Heinz baked beans or some sliced loaves. But the British enduring imbibing love affair with tea demands that the right tea is on the table wherever the Brit may wander, Mallorca or further afield. Some while ago I spoke about tea (4 November: Storm In A Teacup), remarking that "whatever that sachet with a piece of string contains, you can be confident that it isn't actually tea". And that was because local tea bears only a passing resemblance, and usually not even that, to the brackish stuff that floods out of a PG Tip. For Mallorca and Spain, read also many other countries. That 43% are probably right.

Still, if you need to go out and buy some tea, you might try one of the local so-called discount supermarkets. Since when was a discount "hard" do you suppose? But hard it is if, that is, you go to the Royal Cheapest at the top of The Mile or, allegedly, Aldi in Playa de Muro. Now I may be wrong, but I have a funny feeling that this isn't Aldi as we know it, Jim, or should that be not as "wir wissen" it, Hans.


One of the great truisms of local business is that bars come and bars do go, that restaurants come and restaurants do go. Puerto Alcúdia has lost, finally, one of its less attractive but damned good eateries. Cap Roig. What a fine place this was. The stuffed peppers and the battered cod were excellent. Toni may have occasionally sported rather eccentric head furniture in the form of his haircut, but haircuts have never been a crucial factor when it comes to culinary skills. The restaurant had been for sale for at least three years and it has now passed into other hands, or indeed haircuts. It will still be a restaurant, but a different style. It will be ... an Indian. And, your starter and main course for ten euros or so, who is behind this new Indian? Think Puerto Pollensa. All will be revealed ... . But you probably already know.


And ... some of you may have noticed that today sees the United of Manchester playing the Barcelona of Barcelona. Watch your hats around the bars tonight as the locals demonstrate their sound Catalonian credentials. But in celebration of this, and my thanks to Danny Baker, here is one of Mallorca's Z-list celebs performing a peerlessly awful thing called "Soccer Superstar". Enjoy, or more likely, don't. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Jess Conrad, and to be honest you can have him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_urjNkxaLz0.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Ewan MacColl wrote it. Here are The Dubliners doing "Dirty Old Town" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCYpgVZ4HrE. Today's title - who was this? Clue: suicide leader.

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