How Can I Resist You?

The re-development of the commercial port in Alcúdia is entering its last phase. The new infrastructure - building, terminal, expanded dock facilities - will open at the end of summer in September, but not completely. The walkways need some more time, and so the whole project will be finished off in the winter.

At a final cost of close to 24 million euros, the port will be capable of accepting much heavier tonnage, thus taking some of the merchant trade from Palma, and of doubling the number of passengers on the Barcelona and Menorca routes. It will have been a major infrastructure investment project that, theoretically, will propel the port to a different level of importance. Also theoretically, it will prove to be a boost to the local economy. The question is - how much of a boost.

There has been talk of the new port becoming a stopping-off point for cruise ships. This, perhaps more than anything, could be highly significant, but it is only a possibility as yet. Despite the impressive commitment to upgrading the infrastructure, one still does have to ask what it is all going to mean. New jobs should be created especially for handling merchant shipping, but otherwise? The recent track record where major projects are concerned is not that encouraging. Go and take a look at the industrial estate in Alcúdia for instance. Not that there's anything to see. Other local estates, Pollensa and Can Picafort, are hardly full to overflowing with units.


Still on matters maritime, there is a somewhat alarming application of tax on non-Spanish boat owners. I admit that it is confusing. It was explained to me at some length yesterday. It all revolves around length of boat (15 metres or more or less), charter or non-charter, exemption licence previously granted or not. This is too tricky an area except for those steeped in the industry, but I am told it has a political dimension and is also indicative of how laws in Spain tend to be passed, forgotten about and then returned to with some vigour. And that vigour involves some swingeing demands directed, or so it would seem, against a sector that might be able to improve the size of flagging governmental coffers. I recommend following it all on the website of "The Islander" - http://www.theislander.net.


The musical has become the almost default summer entertainment mode. Around the hotels it is possible to stumble across the likes of Hairspray and Mamma Mia. The auditorium in Alcúdia tomorrow takes this one stage further - a two-hour spectacular described as "a journey through the magic of Broadway". I confess that I don't quite get it with musicals, despite a past influenced by the older musicals of Oklahoma, West Side Story etc.; the influence largely manifested itself in the form of drunken student evenings and their related singing (so-called). It is something of a mystery that the musical has made such a strong comeback, but come back it has to reinvigorate not only Broadway and the West End but also to give employment to troupes of entertainers at the auditorium and in the tourist resorts.

How can I resist you? Hmm, well actually I can. But then I'm not everyone.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Del Shannon, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D4N6YvjD9Y. Today's title - and this is from?

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