We're Tumbling Down

80%.

Following yesterday's 100%, a fall of twenty per cent, but no less significant. Not 80% home-made, but 80% down, as in 80% less revenue. This was the admission from the owner of a shop, a branch of which is on the front line in Puerto Pollensa. Stop for one moment and think what that means. You shouldn't need to think very long.

The economic malaise, especially that affecting the British tourist, was always likely to translate into a tough season for shops. More than places of food or drink, shops offer something purely discretionary, unless they are supermarkets or are selling underpants. The shop concerned is not alone. One nearby is reporting a similar tumble. Partly, this may well reflect the overwhelming Britishness of Puerto Pollensa. Another opinion is that there is a quasi-Club Mac-ist dumbing-down of PP, i.e. tourist stock with, in the main, less than bulging pockets. Even for places of food and drink, things are not universally rosy. Maybe there is some truth in the 60% decline at a well-known PP bar that helped to push a well-known bar owner to a breakdown.

There is a weakness in a place being essentially a one-product resort, as is the case with Puerto Pollensa. Contrast it with Puerto Alcúdia where there is a far greater diversity in terms of nationalities and relatively far greater numbers of non-Brits; the Scandinavians in particular are doing much to hold Alcúdia together, and reflect the historical importance of the Scandinavian market to the resort. Any one-product or largely one-product business is susceptible to adverse market conditions. And a mark of that one-product Britishness, it might be recalled, was reflected in advice to German tourists in "Bild" to give Puerto Pollensa a miss because it was a "well-known English holiday citadel" (4 June, 2008: Hans Plays With Lotte, Lotte Plays With Jane).

While bars and restaurants have long been potential victims of punters "doing a runner", shops have their own problems in the form of what the trade likes to call "shrinkage": shoplifting to you and me. It may not be peculiar to this season, but anecdotally there appears to be an increase. In a way, it is desperately sad. One shop owner in Alcúdia's old town tells of incidents that previously were rare. One such involved a lady who went off with a bag. When tackled, she said that she didn't have any money. A gift for someone back home, maybe? No money, so what to do? In the ensuing struggle, the lady did actually wet herself. Her camera was also taken from her, and she was told that she could get it back from the police. She did finally leave the scene with the bag, and presumably did not go and claim the camera.


More home-made
Coming back to percentages, my thanks to Ben for admitting to have been moaning in a Victor Meldrew-ish manner about the home-made claim for some years. He makes a good point in respect of an episode in a pub in England when the owner was challenged as to the home-made nature of the breakfast. Bacon, sausages and so on are prepared as opposed to being made, and prepared, moreover, on the premises, as opposed to the home. Theoretically, an establishment could make sausages or even go to the lengths of curing and smoking or whatever you do to turn Porky into bacon, but one suspects that this is not normally the case. And then one comes to the 100%. Could food be, for example, 85.7% home-made? It wouldn't have the same ring, I guess. "Our burgers are 85.7% made in the home." No, it wouldn't work. It either has to be 100% or not, and I leave it to you to decide as to whether 100 or zero is the more meaningful number.

There is always the alternative, namely "hand-made". This claim one does encounter from time to time. Much as it may sound like a Blue Peter exercise involving sticky-back plastic and your mum's best table, it isn't an altogether spurious claim. There are indeed restaurants where the chef slaves for hours over, for instance, the hand crafting of some ravioli. All good stuff, but invariably it costs an arm and a leg. Making by hand carries a premium; man hours, cost of, and all that. Nope, if the price is right, I couldn't really care less where or how it's made. Bring on that tex-mex; yumm, yumm.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - England football team. Here it is, but first you get the good one (Skinner and Baddiel): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8nkLV1V8B4. Today's title - line from a terrific song with a Byker Grove "ooh".

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