Bar Bar Bar - How To Become The Best Bar

The controversy may have receded into the depths of early-season crisis and socially-networked speculation, but the which-are-the-best-bars debate can always be relied upon to raise its parlour-game head, be it in columnar Nelsonian form talking of the north locally or in the pages of "The Sunday Times". For there, yesterday, was a double-page spread on the world's best bars. No need for any guesswork as to the authors; they are named and some of their mugshots appear. We know who you are; we even know what some of you look like, even if we have never heard of you. What though of all the thousands, probably millions of bars everywhere that are not included in this vox-pop from a member of Blur and nightlife queens? What will they make of their exclusion? And specifically, what of all bars in Palma, save for somewhere called Bar Abaco, the choice of a co-author of "Miller's Antiques Price Guides"? This happens to be one of the best bars in the world, or so says Martin Miller, whoever he is; well, I've just told you. So, there's no need - barpersons of Palma or the rest of Mallorca, including Alcúdia - for a who-the-hell-is-Martin-Miller. Just find where he lives, and give him a slap.

To become a best bar, it seems, the bar needs to serve gin cocktails and offer "great people-watching opportunities". These are some of the attributes of the bar in Palma. People-watching is also important at a beachside restaurant in Formentera called Juan y Andrea, or so says a Michelin-starred chef by the name of Tom Aikens. So, there you have it, the two best bars in the whole of the Balearics, and clearly there are only two, and it's all down to looking at the passers-by. Oh, and in the case of the place in Formentera, it's also because of its "cool crowd". Ah yes, "cool". Not probably a word you would associate with many an Alcúdia bar, though I confess I'm not sure as to what constitutes a cool crowd, and so would be unlikely to recognise one even were it to be standing around the likes of Paco's Bugs Bunny. (And I do apologise for naming only one bar; I'll desist.)

It's all of course a question of how pretentious or not you may be. Assuming none of you reading this are "movers and cocktail shakers", as the paper dubs those nominating the world's best watering establishments, then qualification as to best bar probably comes down to rather more basic requirements - Sky, the size of the full English and how cheap it is to get off your face. And so with that in mind ... yep, you know, I reckon there's a good deal of scope to this best-bar malarkey. I can feel another book idea coming on ...


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Stranglers, "No More Heroes", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4pkNcE8nsM. Today's title - which group actually did a song with the title "Bar Bar Bar"?

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