The Best Laid Article Plans: Tapas route

I'm distinctly hacked off with Tomeu Cifre. I suppose it isn't his fault totally, and I should perhaps by now know that you don't rehearse your write-up or come up with your hilariously satirical photo-op idea before an event, but I'm afraid I had done both. There I was, awaiting his arrival at the opening scoff of the Puerto Pollensa tapas route, and the call comes through saying there has been a delay, or something or other. A meeting going on longer than expected. Sorry, but who does he think he is? The bloody mayor?

You will never now see the fruits of the labour that I had intended. Undeterred, however, I shall outline what these would have entailed. A headline of "Mayor in Payment Shock" to accompany a photo of hard cash being handed over in return for a tapa and caña. A line about veteran town-hall observers commenting on the fact that it had been hitherto unknown for a mayor to part with his own money for anything. An analysis as to this representation of a new era of transparency and proper governance under the Partido Popular government. An expert calculating the cost of the tapa in relation to the mayoral salary that you will never learn, but you can figure it out for yourselves, i.e. what is one euro fifty cents as a percentage of a monthly gross salary of 2,914 euros? And then, the satirical punchline of: "Next week, the mayor pays for his own beach sunbed. Not that there is a sunbed of course."

All down the pan. All that hard, creative pre-planning for nothing. Well, that's the last time I write a complimentary piece about Pollensa's mayor. He totally ruined my evening's entertainment. And there it all had been, going so well, until this so-called meeting got in the way.

For the record, and so that you have even the vaguest idea what I am on about, yesterday evening saw the start of the first tapas route in Puerto Pollensa, an ongoing series of routes every Thursday from now until eternity, one that Denise at Rustic Café had suggested as an idea in front of the mayor, who didn't obviously have another meeting, and which received his positive support as "her" project. A month or so on, and the route was opened.

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. Would there be whole armies of locals marching through the streets of Puerto Pollensa, stopping briefly for a tapa and a caña before staggering to the next hostelry? Not as far as I could make out, but this is something they might think about, especially when the tourists arrive. There can't be any complaints if a bar crawl is done in the name of gastronomy. Or at least, you wouldn't think so.

The route isn't a route as such, more a selection of eating and drinking establishments, but I suppose "selection" or "collection" or some equivalent doesn't have quite the same ring about it or the same sense of movement, of which there was some, even if it was done by car, which isn't quite the same thing as a route march. (Now I think of it would a collection of bars on a tapas route be a tapas of tapas bars?)

Still, it's all a splendid idea, even if the satire about the mayor paying for his own tapa was ruined. Doubtless, the handing over of the mayoral coins happened elsewhere once the meeting was finished. So no one could complain that the mayor was not paying his way, which is only right and proper, as everyone should. Except ... Sorry, I think I owe one euro fifty.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.