Napoleon Did Surrender

Good God, he's back again. Is there nowhere that does not provide a photo opportunity for Enviro Man? The latest jaunt? There amidst some scrubland in the S'Albufereta, along with the mayors of Alcúdia and Pollensa. Environment minister Grimalt sharing the camera lens with his mayoral compatriots in the Unió Mallorquina, all in the name of environmental recuperation.

Albufereta, in case you don't know, is the little Albufera to be found to the side of the coastal road between Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa. Basically, it's much the same as the Albufera of Playa de Muro except much smaller, without a reception centre and without anything remotely worth looking at. It is an area that has, apparently, been classified as a recuperation priority by the European Union. Over a hundred thousand euros have been earmarked for the first phase - that of getting rid of rubbish that has accumulated and re-establishing the water land area known as Can Cullerassa which takes its name, or is it the other way round, from the stretch of beach and which also lends its name to the restaurant, albeit that this is called Can Cuarassa - not sure how that works, but apparently it is so.

It was reassuring that the photo opp in the "Diario" did not show Enviro Man and his fellow camera fodder wearing masks. Back in March, it was revealed that there was a bit of a problem with E.coli in the water of Albufereta, something which led to a sign being covered with the word "contaminado", which one assumed was not an official addition to the sign.


In a quite different matter environmental, Enviro Man's ministry, according to "The Bulletin", is coming in for a bit of a bashing from the local Chamber of Commerce for refusing to grant permission for the island of Cabrera to be used as a location for a film with Al Pacino about Napoleon. This is in fact the long-awaited adaptation of the children's book by Staton Rabin, "Betsy And The Emperor", which will also feature Emma Watson, as Betsy. I say "long-awaited" only because the film has been talked about for at least four years.

Cabrera is the largest of the small archipelago off the southern coast of Mallorca, all of which is deemed to be a nature reserve, one to which there is little by way of excursion. The regular population of Cabrera is under 100, and the ecosystem is considered that fragile that diving is forbidden. But the argument goes that filming there would not have any harmful effect, which may possibly be true, while production teams are generally pretty assiduous when it comes to tidying up after themselves and are also not unknown for being quite generous in terms of paying for locations, a possible additional source of revenue, therefore, for promoting the island, one might have thought. Moreover, goes the argument, using Cabrera would be beneficial in showing off some excellent landscape and thus attracting further tourism. Which may also be true, but not for Cabrera as such, while cinema-goers would probably need to know that Napoleon was on an island off Mallorca and not on an island in the Atlantic, as the film will be about his exile in St. Helena.

Maybe though the objection has to do with the fact that Enviro Man would not himself appear; for newspaper photographers read also film camera crews. But it might be possible for him to get a walk-on as an extra or something, planting a sign to the effect of "this scene sponsored by the Balearic Government's environment ministry on the island of Cabrera near to Mallorca". That might do the trick, so long as no-one comes along and adds "contaminado" to the sign.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Sugababes, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns6SdC8TQuQ. Today's title - and it is on the night of their great win that a story does lie, but not one I'm about to tell you.

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