Elves, Demons And Clichés

I have an aversion to the cliché, to lexicological laziness, to the presumption of a jocular shared value inherent to the oft-repeated "bon mot". One such has assumed diffusion and usage that is so widespread, it might deserve a place in the Oxford English collection of idioms.

Yet I despair of the pixiated fracturing of "health". Its elfin corruption into "elf", with its postfixation of "and safety", is meant as a whimsy of word play. It succeeds insofar as it has passed into common usage as a means of encapsulating a collective appreciation of excessive or unnecessary resort to legislation or jobsworthing intervention. But when usage becomes common, the joke, such as it ever was, loses any force it may once have been able to lay claim to. It becomes tired, worn-out: enervated expressionism.

"Elf and safety", and its lifeless fellow-travelling quasi-maxims of "the whole world's gone made" and "you couldn't make it up, could you", are designed to create maximum indignation with a minimum of originality. And no, you couldn't make it up, because someone else did. A long, long time ago.

For all this, however, invoking the "elf" expression has a certain appositeness of otherworldliness when applied to demons, beasties and other semi-beings that go bump and bang in the night. It is one limited to an association of the mythological and mysterious. Or should be. Inevitably, though, it is limply spirited into the real world as the flat little gag that contrasts Anglo-Saxon and Brusselian obsession with corporeal protection with a Mallorcan disregard for life, limb and being lit up.

Two years ago, almost to the day, 150 assorted mayors, other politicians, businesspeople, artists and union representatives all had an away day or two or three to Brussels paid for by the local government. Their mission: to stop any interference with the tradition of the fire-run and with the birthright of every Mallorcan child to be set fire to during such a run.

Europe duly ignored them and passed its directive on pyrotechnics. I say ignored, but this directive, all-embracing in covering issues such as the transportation of fireworks as well as events that featured pyrotechnics, was quite clear in recognising that local traditions which might require someone suffering third-degree burns should be allowed to continue.

The main implication for the fire fiestas, as covered by the directive, was the participation of minors. It was never the intention that the fire-runs should be outlawed, and yet this was how it was portrayed, a Palma councillor threatening legal action at the whole world (well, Brussels) going mad. The elfin propaganda-ists failed to even bother reading the directive (understandable enough, admittedly; have you ever tried reading one?), but they should have known that, regardless of the directive being adopted by the Spanish Government (which it was), no one would take a blind bit of notice (which they didn't).

If you had, for example, attended the Sant Antoni fire-runs, you would have seen minors being showered by firefalls. Remarkable it may be that A&E and burns units are not packed out on the nights of fire fiestas, but they aren't. Accidents, despite all the fire-related events in Mallorca, are uncommon. There was the poor chap, one of the island's leading fireworks display organisers, who blew himself up during the Petra fiestas last summer, but if you must do such organising for a living, you have to expect the possibility of not living.

The vague threat that children's involvement in the fire-runs might actually be stopped has now been addressed by the regional government. It has agreed to recognise the "correfocs" as something of religious, cultural and traditional character (which is pretty much what the directive allowed for). It comes with certain conditions attached, but the tradition has been secured along with the youthful exuberance that sees kids jumping around with maniacal and pagan abandon under the demons' trident wands of fire.

There will be those who consider this a triumph of risk-taking over the risk-aversion of the compliance-choked legislation of Europe that is typically and slavishly adhered to in the UK. There will be those who will continue, on witnessing the fire-runs, to resort to the elf expression in suggesting that the elf movement will put a stop to the demons. But they will neglect the fact that the matter has been dealt with and that Europe did not and does not obsess about the fire-runs. There will continue to be those who say that the elf movement would never allow such things in the UK, and they'd be right up to a point. The difference, though, is that, unlike the UK, Mallorca has never forgotten that there are such things as traditions. It is collective forgetfulness which allows mischievously compulsive, law-amending elves to flourish as the sprites of statute-making, but not in Mallorca, where the elves will not stop the demons.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.