Fake Adele: Mallorcan unreality

Radio One's Chris Moyles Show got its news presenter to conduct a recent interview with the American comedian and actor Chris Rock in the guise of a fake Adele. A high-pitched voice and some daft questions were mingled with a game, "what's in my sock, Chris Rock?"

Adele, being the international singing star that she is, can anticipate all manner of faking, and it is probably occurring right at this moment on the streets of Mallorca, in its bars and in its hotels. Faking is a way of life in Mallorca. The lookies sell you fake Adele CDs; karaoke bars are filled with fake, wannabe Adeles; hotel entertainment shows perpetrate the greatest entertainment horror known to man - the playback - and so Adele being mimed to. Fake Adele.

There is probably a fake Adele trib act knocking around as well. In fact, I would be amazed if there weren't one, or several. Given that, with the honourable exception of when I wrote a piece about Rud Stewart (as opposed to Rod) and received the Rud spiked haircut of approval, someone takes exception (normally the acts themselves) whenever I write about trib acts, I shall desist in saying anything negative on the matter of a fake Adele act or acts. Suffice it to say, some tribs tend to take themselves rather more seriously than they perhaps should.

It comes as a blow to the island's self-esteem, when you realise that Mallorca is built on fakery. Little of it is in fact real. To the fake CDs, DVDs, watches, sunglasses and other ware, you can add the fake karaoke-ists, the fake playbackers, the fake tribs, and then you can add even more - the fake gas inspectors, the occasional fake copper, the fake fifty euro notes, the fake invoices, the fake footy shirts, the pale tourist with the bottle of fake tan.

There is also the faking it. Faking an injury or an illness. Pulling a sicky in other words. The bane of the bar owner's life. The fake ankle twist, the fake food poisoning, the fake sore throat and high temperature. Really? Who was that who was doing a fake Adele while standing on a bar table, having polished off several vodka shots (and probably not fake vodka, though even this is not unknown)? And if the illness was that bad, how come the tan has come on so well over the past few days? More fake tan?

Then there are the über-fakes. In Mallorca, you can become someone else. There are all sorts of "other" people knocking about. At its most extreme, the creation of whole new personas or the previous persona having been consigned to history or not being admitted to can lead to the worst sort of fakes - the criminal ones. A court in Yorkshire is soon to hear about one such fake - an alleged fake, one should add, but one that involved millions of mainly Calvia euros. No one had the faintest idea until collars were being felt and the past was revealed.

In Mallorca's courts, fakes committed in the past are being investigated, sentences are being demanded. The fall of former politicians, tumbling from grace through fake accounting, is the come-uppance (or lowerance) for what has been institutionalised fakery. Has this had its day? We should applaud President Bauzá for attempting to, if not putting an end to it, at least limiting the chances of it occurring. Institutionalised fakery is what begets other fakery and legitimises it, or is it the other way round? Society's fakery has produced the politicians it deserves, ones who have merely mirrored the society from which they came.

The fake of selling a car that doesn't belong to you, the fake of selling a business that doesn't belong to you or a property that doesn't belong to you; or attempting to do one or all of these. So much faking, you don't know what is real. Nothing, or little, is as it seems. There's always something behind it (whatever it is), or you suspect there is.

Even when something is authentic, or says it is, you begin to wonder. Authentic cuisine? Well, most authentic cuisine is authentic, but some might not be. It might be fake. The restaurant itself might not be authentic. It is a restaurant, but what is its real purpose? You don't need me to spell out this possible real purpose. Do you?

From the innocent, the silly, the frivolous to the less innocent, silly and frivolous. From fake Adele to real fakes, if a fake can ever be described as real. And what was in the sock, Chris Rock? It was a stapler. Ah, but was it a fake?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.


Index for May 2012

Airport profitability - 2 May 2012, 9 May 2012
Andrés Rábago: cartoonist - 27 May 2012
Bankia crisis - 18 May 2012
Beach management and lifeguards - 12 May 2012
Carlos Delgado's girlfriend - 5 May 2012
Catholic church and property tax - 14 May 2012
Christopher Columbus: Felanitx - 10 May 2012
Discretionary tourism spend and shops - 17 May 2012
Fakes - 31 May 2012
Fray Junípero Serra - 7 May 2012
Free selection of teaching language - 11 May 2012
Google Translate: odd names - 28 May 2012
Health service in crisis? - 8 May 2012
Holiday lets - 3 May 2012
Holidaymakers and urbanised resorts - 6 May 2012
La Gola visit by politicians - 26 May 2012
La Lliga and Convergència - 13 May 2012
Magalluf's preferential treatment - 22 May 2012
Protests against President Bauzá - 19 May 2012, 26 May 2012
Refuges on dry stone route - 21 May 2012
Sa Pobla publicity distribution - 15 May 2012
Son Real - 16 May 2012
Staff drinking in bars - 30 May 2012
Tourism: disposability and commodity - 1 May 2012
Tourism: harmful government policies - 4 May 2012
Tourism prospects for summer 2012 - 29 May 2012
Towns or cities - 20 May 2012
Utz Claassen and Real Mallorca - 23 May 2012
What if tourism had developed differently - 25 May 2012