You Have A Cup Of Coffee

Oh no, here we go again. Hot on the heels of the piece of two days, another letter complaining about prices. One grows tired of this litany of expensive woe, especially when it's so skewed. Up pops someone else in "The Bulletin", this time using the price of a coffee as the stick with which to beat the cost of Mallorca. How much? 3.50 euros. 3.50 euros? Where the hell have they been taking a coffee? It can be the case that some restaurants will charge excessive amounts for the likes of a coffee, but they are usually expensive restaurants anyway. The solution is to go somewhere else, or take a post-prandial stroll to a café or bar where the coffee will be, typically, 1.50 (you can indeed pay less). Or maybe this was a special type of coffee, who knows? And that's just the problem, you never know. You never know which restaurant or bar, you don't necessarily know where it is. I daresay that in the high- and well-heeled boutique bars of Deía or Portals you can cop a big'n for one with milk. Doesn't mean to say that you pay it everywhere, and you don't. Of course you don't. So why say it? You know, I might write a letter, say I was charged five euros for a coffee. No, make that a tenner. And then I'll demand that the authorities do something about it all before the tourism apocalypse occurs. And of course I won't say where this tenner was charged, because it was all a fabrication. Can we please just give this all a rest, as it is, yes really is, rather tiresome.


Not the year of the jellyfish
Been stung by a jellyfish this year? Chances are you haven't been. According to the "Cruz Roja", its lifeguards and staff have had to attend to a mere 3,221 bathers in the Balearics who have been on the wrong end of a jellyfish tentacle. Sounds a lot? Not really. In 2008 the number was 13,767, while in 2006 - the year of the plague - it was almost double that figure at over 26 thousand. Ibiza is the place you need to go to be more likely to be stung; the number of victims there is not far off a half of that 3000 plus total for this year. Given that more people go to Mallorca than to Ibiza or Menorca, it is perhaps surprising that the fewest numbers of stings are recorded on the biggest of the islands. Or maybe the Cruz Roja doesn't patrol that many beaches in Mallorca. Anyway, it's all rather encouraging. Perhaps the winds have just been in the wrong direction and have blown the sea and the devils away. But don't get too complacent, there have, in Mallorca, been nearly 270 people stung by fishes, most obviously the weever fish. My neighbour for example. "Merde", said he when his foot expanded and he had to head off to Muro General. Well, he is French, so he would say that.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Farmer's Song", Neil Young, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxBgWTi4zIY. Today's title - the first line of a song by one of the best of the West Coast rock bands emanating from the '60s. Abracadabra.

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