Say I'm Your Number One

More demolition. What was that bar called? Did it have a name, or was it just British Pub? I know, it was the No. 1 Pub, wasn't it? You were able to still see remnants of Union Jack signs, but little else. Three workmen, one on a mini-dozer, the other two attacking stubborn fittings and bits of concrete. It is, was, around the corner from Café Paris and the tobacconists in Can Picafort, on the beachside extension of Josep Trias. Workmen, for some reason, always seem to look suspicious when someone stops and takes more than just a passing interest in their destruction. I moved on. To the front itself. On the low wall that forms the barrier between promenade and beach was a man of ideas, dishevelled, lost in thoughts, waiting for a drink. He moved on as well, shambling back up Josep Trias, past the wreckage of the No. 1 Pub.

The beach has been partially taken over by the seaweed of winter. The promenade itself was empty, empty of people. Is it here that they are meant to be upgrading the front, or is it further down? There was no evidence of any work, except the bashing in the pub and the endless digging up of side roads, adding new cables, taking away old ones, laying new pipes, taking away old ones.

All the units on the promenade are wide. As wide as they are cavernous inside. All are shuttered down in winter, not with shutters, but with vast glass panels or perhaps they are of perspex, bending against the wind. The prom has a uniformity of reflection when the sun is still to the north and glowing as it continues to do. The buildings behind and above are blocks placed at angles with balconies, antennae and dishes. There is little of any charm, anything vaguely unusual if you study the low sky line from the Can Picafort paseo, save the muddy, purple-blue of what's it called? Why can one never remember the names of bars and hotels in Can Picafort? No, I know, Blue Bay Hotel, or something like that. Yes, I'm sure it is, but it's less a hotel, more a hostel with its own cave-like bar leading onto the vacant promenade.

Can Picafort in winter may be quiet, but it is not without some life, most of it German. Gutteral voices can be heard above the pounding of a Kango drill. There is a billboard advert for a German publication, "available in your book shop" it says in translation. The best restaurants in Mallorca. Nine euros, eighty. Does anyone actually ever buy these things? Presumably they do, if they're German.

Along the Paseo Colon that runs parallel to the promenade, shops are open - some of them. A souvenir shop seems forlorn. Who is there to buy souvenirs? Why would they? Four taxis are lined up by, what's the hotel called. Gran Bahía? In the fourth cab on the rank, the driver is listening to the radio and reading a newspaper. And if one were to return in an hour or so, he would probably still be doing so. In Café Paris, the only bar you can remember the name of, owing to its longevity, there is a German with a half-eaten croissant reading a copy of "Bild". There is no-one else at one of the few street terrace tables, yet it is a fine day, despite the breeze.

There is, though, other life, it's just that much of it is passing through, along the main coast road that they are also meant to be improving - finally. They put up new lights some time back, but the town hall threw a hissy fit because the road itself was not earmarked for improvement, unlike the sections in Playa de Muro and Alcúdia. Now, some time, they will do, so it will be easier on drivers who stop at Mercadona or who are heading either for Artà or Alcúdia, encountering the familiar traffic control at the Capellans-Eroski roundabout. The officers seem disinterested.

Nothing much happens in Can Picafort in winter, even the patrol checks.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Pink Floyd, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SlKA2Rgq20. Today's title - good enough song and maybe surprising to know who produced it.

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