When Their Mother Is Gone

One of Jose Mourinho's more admirable traits is a willingness to make substitutions in the first half or at half-time when things aren't going that well for his team. Do something about it early, rather than wait. It's something of a leap from The Special One to an Indian in Alcúdia, but the principle is similar - I suppose. The second Indian of Siraj, Mother India, which has been maternal for a mere month or so, is to be reborn as a steak house, or maybe that's give birth. Step forward J.R. Ewing, Pammy, Bobby and Miss Ellie, for it is to be called Dallas. I always thought the theme music to "Dallas" sounded a bit like the Mars a day, helps you work, rest and play advert, which I mention apropos of absolutely nothing, save "Dallas". Perhaps though, Pammy will soon awaken from a long sleep and discover that the economic crisis was all a dream and that the world is just one nice warm shower, a big house on a ranch and a Man from Atlantis-husband with an oil company. And so it will be for all of us who will suddenly snap from gloomy crisis mode into a sunny disposition of bulging pockets and a strong pound. Or perhaps it isn't a dream. Anyway, this isn't really the reason for Siraj Mourinho's pre-half time getting the chaps on the bench to warm up; what is, or so it seems, is that the maternal Indian was nicking customers from the - er, where's this metaphor thing going - from the let's call it the mother ship Indian, aka Taste of India. Hence, he's taking off Sachin Tendulkar and bringing on Brian McBride, or something like that - I can't think of any Indian footballers; there must be some, but you get my drift. Don't you?


Catalan protest
Here we go again. Or here we went again. On Saturday there was another demo type thing. Part protest and part mass advocacy. For ... Catalan. I can hear the sounds of pencils being sharpened by antagonised expats preparing to fire off outraged letters to "The Bulletin". Actually, the letters are not normally that outraged. Writers always seem to try and maintain a balance by, for example, invoking the unacceptable discrimination towards and banning of Catalan during Franco's era, but then going on to basically issue a plague on both the Catalan houses - whatever they might be. It's a similar angle to the "I'm not a racist but ..." line of argument.

The gathering of pro-Catalanists in Palma included those from the health sector, defending the insistence on the use of Catalan by medical staff in the island's national health service, as well as some usual political suspects from the usual political party suspects. In other words, the Partido Popular was pretty thin on the ground. The marchers' protests were aimed at "attacks" from the likes of the PP on the language. But one can't help feeling that there is a sense in which the protesters doth protest too much. If anything, one would have said that Castilian was the language under attack.

And how popular was this demonstration? Depends on which figures you want to believe. The police said that there were 4,000; the organisers said 15,000. Not much difference there then. Let's say there were 9,500. Would that be a lot? Don't really know. Perhaps people were too busy doing other things, like running businesses and making pre-half time substitutions.


German nudists
More man in Munich. Yep, he's back and still not living in Munich, but Alastair tells me, further to nude Nordic walking and all things German nonconformist (not in a religious sense but in every sense), that there is in fact a German airline that will fly German nudists - tackle out whilst en route - to some island in the Baltic Sea. What more proof does one need as to German loopiness and admirable individualism?


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Eagles (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPospvRqP_s). Today's title - a line from a traditional song given excellent treatment on an album by the joker, space cowboy, gangster of love. Who he and therefore the band?

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