Going To A Go-Go

Any scam will do. Any way of extracting some moolah. The Unió Mallorquina in Santa Margalida, reports "The Diario", has denounced what it says is an illegal excursion that takes tourists in Can Picafort to two discos in Cala Rajada for the princely sum of 50 euros a pop. Those who are mad enough to fork this out (there are, after all, perfectly decent discos in Can Picafort and Puerto Alcúdia) get no receipts or guarantees from an operation that changes its departure point and coach company, meaning that it is difficult to track down. The whole thing smacks of a scam. There has been something similar cracking off in Puerto Alcúdia, involving transport to Magalluf, which may be legit but seems to rely on "ticketeros" doing the beaches and selling the trips, which almost certainly isn't.


Meantime, the Palma bombs continue to be a talking-point and a fantasy-point. There was meant to have been a bomb in Puerto Alcúdia the day before yesterday, but of course there wasn't. Understandable though it is that people start seeing bombs where none exist, there is also a fantasy element on behalf of those who want there to be bombs. It's a curious psychology, but one predicated on the fact that some see themselves somehow as police or potential heroes, imagining the reports in the press of how they saved etc, etc. It is a psychology also that actually wants the unusual. Any bag has a bomb, anyone getting up from a table, even for a moment, and leaving a carrier-bag is a bomber. Of course they are. Bombers do usually just walk in to a bar, order a beer and then ask if they can leave a bomb behind. And here it is: a black ball with two wires sticking out and bomb written on it in big white letters.

"The Bulletin", bless 'em, had its four or five pages of reporting and tourist vox-pop. The bombs are a godsend, at least it's news for once rather than front pages devoted to Top Gear or to Michael Douglas. You would hardly expect them to not devote a fair amount of space to them. But this just adds a certain tension and a sense of unreality and of disproportion. No-one was hurt, the devices themselves were not powerful, warnings were issued, even if one relating to the Italian restaurant in Portixol was misinterpreted as the voice was disguised. The bomb there did go off with people still in the restaurant. That wasn't the intention. Reporting may just fuel the publicity that it is the intention, but to be fair the media would be damned if it didn't as much as it is damned for doing so.

The police seem nowhere nearer to having a definitive idea as to time frames. The bomb in the Plaça Major in Palma may have been planted on the Saturday or even the Sunday morning; the security cameras seem not to have been working. But there is a counter-theory that all four bombs, and the fourth has now been confirmed, were left some time in advance before perhaps the Palmanova ones. Though given that there is no definitive statement as to when they (the Palmanova ones) were planted, one doesn't really know.

A poll conducted by Euronews reveals that 32% would change their plans to visit Mallorca following the bombs. No they won't.


QUIZ
Shaggy, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lutqplLMvfk. Today's title - who was this originally?

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