It was Willie Dixon who provided one of the means by which The Rolling Stones demonstrated that they were originally a blues group. In Little Red Rooster, Mick, as had been the case with Willie himself, pleaded for anyone seeing his little red rooster to drive it home. This was because, as Mick and Willie informed us, there had been no peace in the farmyard since the little red rooster had been gone.
The little red rooster of Pollensa is now typically driven home. Or at least to a finca belonging to the conqueror of the Sant Antoni pine on top of which the rooster (some say cock) had been too lazy to "crow for day" because it had been stuck in a bag. Well, it's always possible that it had crowed earlier on, but by seven in the evening, it would indeed have been too lazy. Once upon a time, the cock would have been driven home and ended up dead meat to be served on a plate. Not now. The cock has his own finca yard home, unless another cock from on top of the Sant Antoni pine is brought along to share the same living space and promptly kills him. Which has happened in the past.
The fact that the cock is now typically allowed to grow and crow old gracefully hasn't persuaded opponents of the pine climb that all is right in an animal-welfare style. The Alternativa per Pollença party, perfectly capable of starting a political fight - and often with very good justification - in a bag empty of a cock or anything else, has registered a motion to be debated at the next council meeting. It says that the use of a cock aloft the pine in the Plaça Vella each Sant Antoni Day in January breaches the 1992 animal-protection law.
The party objects to the use of a cock for purposes of "simple entertainment", observing that it can suffer if it is thrown or falls from the top of the pine. But the objection is based more on a point of law, and it is the one contained in the 1992 act under which traditions involving animals are defined. In itself, this is a curious approach to setting law, a seemingly arbitrary longevity established as a threshold for defining tradition or not. The law states that an act, such as the use of a cock at the Sant Antoni fiesta, can be deemed an exemption if there is evidence of one hundred years uninterrupted use. If there isn't evidence, then the involvement of live animals on fiesta occasions is proscribed.
This is the situation in Can Picafort. The use of real ducks for the mid-August swim was finally stopped ten years ago, the town hall in Santa Margalida having consistently ignored the law. Only when legal action was being taken seriously did the town hall comply. There are those in Santa Margalida, and not just at the town hall, who want the law amended and have proposed that the 100-year threshold is reduced, the point being that the earliest evidence of the ducks and swim comes from the 1930s.
As far as the cock of Pollensa is concerned, there is little documentary evidence to back up how long the cock has been a feature of the pine climb. Indeed there is little evidence that shows when the climb started (with or without a cock). A newspaper report from the early twentieth century appears to be one of the few actual references.
The Alternativa is pursuing a line that it adopted ten years ago. On its Urxella blog in March 2007, it referred to an official complaint lodged with the Balearic government by ANPBA, the national association for the protection and welfare of animals, and also to an initiative by the town hall itself (in 2004) to prevent actions that cause suffering to animals. Proceedings were to have been initiated to withdraw the cock, but these were not seen through, the suggestion having been that it would have been a vote loser.
In 2010, it would seem that the town hall was in fact fined for breaching the animal-protection law and that there is also an open case for the same reason that is outstanding since 2015. At the start of that year, the Baldea animal-rights group proposed to the town hall that the cock should be substituted by a rag-doll version. It set out seven ways in which the law was being violated, referring, for example, to "unnatural treatment" by suspending the cock at a height of some twenty metres on top of the pine. To authorise such "illegality" would warrant a charge of abuse of public office.
A hundred years or not, why should longevity have anything to do with it? Should the little red rooster stay in the farmyard and never need to be driven home?
Showing posts with label Animal welfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Animal welfare. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Saturday, December 17, 2016
Die Hard: The Traditional Pig Slaughter
Pacma is a political party, the "animalist" party against animal mistreatment. It's been around since 2003 and has failed to make any real impact. It has never had any deputies in Congress or senators, but its vote has steadily increased. In this year's general election it scooped 1.19% of the vote for Congress, up from 0.87% in December 2015 and the 0.42% of 2011.
If it remains at the margins of the Spanish political system, does the increased share of the vote represent a greater appeal or has it simply been a protest? Both perhaps. It will never assume a significant role because of its essentially single-issue nature, but it does capture at least a sense of greater awareness of animal mistreatment, while it has also been to the fore in pressing for tougher action by the courts. With the aid of the Balearic association of lawyers for animal rights, Pacma and animal-rights organisations secured the first ever custodial sentence for animal mistreatment in Spain. In October last year, a Palma court upheld an eight-month sentence for the owner of a horse called Sorky. The owner had bludgeoned the horse to death after it performed badly during a trotting race at the Manacor course.
Cases of mistreatment do now appear fairly regularly in the local media, and animal welfare has been pushed up the political agenda by the left. In Palma, as an example, the Més councillor Neus Truyol has animal welfare as one of her three main responsibilities. That party (Més) may have been jolted into greater proactivity on animal rights by a former member - Guillermo Amengual. He is the main spokesperson for the campaign Mallorca Sense Sang (Mallorca Without Blood), which has led the move to outlaw bullfighting. He left Més to join the Esquerra Unida (United Left), as it was the only party to have a formal animal-rights' section.
Amengual is also the spokesperson for AnimaNaturalis, and in a newspaper chat over six years ago, the first question he was asked referred to "matances". This is the traditional annual slaughter (that's what the word means) of pigs. His answer, promoting vegetarianism, was that the AnimaNaturalis group was against all forms of animal processing (from birth to death), regardless of cultural or religious reasons.
The cultural aspect of the matances is something with which Pacma is now taking issue. It has released a video in support of its claim that the pig slaughter is one of the most "anachronistic" examples of Spain and its disagreeable attitudes towards animals.
The "matança" is about as old as it comes in Christian Mallorca. It clearly wouldn't have been around - or one would assume not - during the Muslim occupation. But it certainly was around at the time, post-conquest, of Ramon Llull. In the early fourteenth century, he referred to the matances and to the start of the season of the slaughter. Various writers of more modern times, such as the Archduke Louis Salvador in the nineteenth century, spoke about this cultural tradition.
The pig, where livestock farmers were concerned, hadn't been particularly popular until more intensive cultivation of figs led to a pig boom in the nineteenth century: figs were an easy means of fattening pigs quickly. Prior to this, it had been behind goats and sheep. However, the pig was ubiquitous in a domestic sense. Families would have one, or more than one, which was destined for the autumn slaughter and transformation into various pig products, of which sobrassada is the best known.
The slaughter itself would be an occasion for some celebration. It could go on for several days, depending on the size of the immediate population and therefore the number of pigs. It was deeply rooted in local culture, so much so that George Sand - who found plenty to take exception to in Mallorca - complained that the Mallorcans took more care of pigs than they did people.
It is perhaps the pig's misfortune that it is versatile in terms of how it can be transformed in a culinary fashion. And it was the various possibilities that made it so popular. One pig could satisfy a family's needs for several months, if the products were made correctly, and in the case of sobrassada, the addition of the local paprika provided excellent preservative qualities.
The matances are nowadays looked upon with fondness by traditionalists, who note how they survived the swine fever of 1956 and how they have made a comeback following the migrations to the coast that occurred because of the sixties' tourism boom. But this is the traditionalist's view. Not everyone shares it, and despite town hall requirements regarding the slaughter - it has to be performed in abattoirs and under strict food safety conditions - Pacma insists that there are still slaughters by non-professionals which do not conform to established procedure.
Pacma is therefore demanding that legislation on animal welfare be rigorously applied. It would seem, if only from a food safety point of view, that it should be. There are other forces, though, the traditional ones, which consider the pig with reverence: adored and primed in order to stave off hunger. Some traditions die hard.
Saturday, July 09, 2016
What's The Left's Problem With Fiestas?
Mancor de la Vall, as noted here on 2 July, is not the only village or town where issues have arisen with the organisation of fairs and fiestas because of the actions of left-wing town halls. Mancor's had to do with the lack of a licence for music concerts at the rooms used by the cultural association Arrels. Before a last-minute agreement was reached, it had looked as though last November's Esclata-sang mushroom fair would not go ahead, the Més-led administration having refused to give permission for the concerts.
There are now two further cases. In Calvia village they celebrate Sant Jaume each year (25 July). The residents' association has long organised the fiestas, the agreement dating back to the days of PSOE mayor Margarita Nájera (in office from 1991 to 2003). This agreement was subsequently ratified by the two PP mayors who succeeded her: Carlos Delgado and Manu Onieva.
Responsibility for fiestas at Calvia currently lies with one of the deputy mayors, Israel Molina. He is from Si Se Puede Calvia, a version of Podemos in the municipality, which is part of the administration headed by PSOE mayor Alfonso Rodríguez. Molina has decided to break the agreement, one by which the residents' association had been receiving 28,000 euros each year to organise the Sant Jaume fiestas and others, such as the Christmas market.
Molina's argument is that there needs to be an open tender to decide who organises the fiestas. The residents' association says it won't enter the tender contest because it fears there won't be the same level of budget as previously. It notes that other associations in Calvia have said that they won't enter the contest either because they accept that the residents' association is the organiser. The consequence - unless some other solution is reached - is that the town hall will have to assume responsibility for organisation; otherwise there won't be any Sant Jaume fiestas.
In Port Soller, the cultural association has expressed its annoyance with the town hall over arrangements for Sant Pere (now finished). It says that it won't be organising the fiestas in future, citing lack of support from the town hall: the association has identified an absence of financial assistance and failure to grant permissions. The councillor in charge of fiestas, Laura Celià of Més, says that fiesta organisation has to meet with demands under law. One of these demands may well explain the fact that the fireworks were missing this year.
This is not the first time that Celià has been at the centre of a rumpus over fiesta arrangements. It was she who insisted to changes for the May Moors and Christians (Es Firó). These entailed the closing of bars in the main square during the climax to the battle - the bars had to open stalls in another square - and limits to numbers in the square (identified by wristbands).
Do these examples all point to anti-fiesta policies by some left-wing administrations? The first thing to say is that PSOE doesn't appear to have any issues. It is the further left that does. A second point to make is that, as the Arrels association in Mancor had believed, it might be thought that a grouping like Més with its Mallorcan nationalist identity would be all in favour of fiestas and their traditions.
The fact is that they may indeed be all in favour, but the four cases - Mancor, Calvia and the two in Soller - indicate a rigorous application of rules. For Més and Podemos offshoots there can't be any even hint of flouting rules, of favouritism, of not going by the book: that's the sort of thing that the PP (and PSOE) have been doing for years. These rules relate to the fastidious insistence on tenders and to health and safety, the latter being something that has rarely been diligently observed in the past.
The Calvia case has echoes of a different reason for a tender: licences to operate a business activity. It therefore is not dissimilar to the Gelats Valls ice-cream kiosk issue in Puerto Pollensa. A left-wing administration has gone by the book in saying that permission cannot just be simply rubber-stamped and extended year by year, as has been happening. The left wants to be seen to be working to the letter of the law, even if it angers the locals.
Might there be other examples of fiestas being affected? Quite probably. There are numerous local associations who essentially run fiestas, or parts of them, for town halls. There are also the health and safety and indeed animal welfare issues. If the regional government ever gets round to definitively approving its reform of the 1992 animal protection legislation, might fiestas such as Pollensa's Sant Antoni be jeopardised? The use of the cockerel at the top of the pine is currently permitted because it is a tradition that is over one hundred years old (the definition for use of live animals during fiestas under regional law). But if it is deemed to suffer under the reform, then what?
There are now two further cases. In Calvia village they celebrate Sant Jaume each year (25 July). The residents' association has long organised the fiestas, the agreement dating back to the days of PSOE mayor Margarita Nájera (in office from 1991 to 2003). This agreement was subsequently ratified by the two PP mayors who succeeded her: Carlos Delgado and Manu Onieva.
Responsibility for fiestas at Calvia currently lies with one of the deputy mayors, Israel Molina. He is from Si Se Puede Calvia, a version of Podemos in the municipality, which is part of the administration headed by PSOE mayor Alfonso Rodríguez. Molina has decided to break the agreement, one by which the residents' association had been receiving 28,000 euros each year to organise the Sant Jaume fiestas and others, such as the Christmas market.
Molina's argument is that there needs to be an open tender to decide who organises the fiestas. The residents' association says it won't enter the tender contest because it fears there won't be the same level of budget as previously. It notes that other associations in Calvia have said that they won't enter the contest either because they accept that the residents' association is the organiser. The consequence - unless some other solution is reached - is that the town hall will have to assume responsibility for organisation; otherwise there won't be any Sant Jaume fiestas.
In Port Soller, the cultural association has expressed its annoyance with the town hall over arrangements for Sant Pere (now finished). It says that it won't be organising the fiestas in future, citing lack of support from the town hall: the association has identified an absence of financial assistance and failure to grant permissions. The councillor in charge of fiestas, Laura Celià of Més, says that fiesta organisation has to meet with demands under law. One of these demands may well explain the fact that the fireworks were missing this year.
This is not the first time that Celià has been at the centre of a rumpus over fiesta arrangements. It was she who insisted to changes for the May Moors and Christians (Es Firó). These entailed the closing of bars in the main square during the climax to the battle - the bars had to open stalls in another square - and limits to numbers in the square (identified by wristbands).
Do these examples all point to anti-fiesta policies by some left-wing administrations? The first thing to say is that PSOE doesn't appear to have any issues. It is the further left that does. A second point to make is that, as the Arrels association in Mancor had believed, it might be thought that a grouping like Més with its Mallorcan nationalist identity would be all in favour of fiestas and their traditions.
The fact is that they may indeed be all in favour, but the four cases - Mancor, Calvia and the two in Soller - indicate a rigorous application of rules. For Més and Podemos offshoots there can't be any even hint of flouting rules, of favouritism, of not going by the book: that's the sort of thing that the PP (and PSOE) have been doing for years. These rules relate to the fastidious insistence on tenders and to health and safety, the latter being something that has rarely been diligently observed in the past.
The Calvia case has echoes of a different reason for a tender: licences to operate a business activity. It therefore is not dissimilar to the Gelats Valls ice-cream kiosk issue in Puerto Pollensa. A left-wing administration has gone by the book in saying that permission cannot just be simply rubber-stamped and extended year by year, as has been happening. The left wants to be seen to be working to the letter of the law, even if it angers the locals.
Might there be other examples of fiestas being affected? Quite probably. There are numerous local associations who essentially run fiestas, or parts of them, for town halls. There are also the health and safety and indeed animal welfare issues. If the regional government ever gets round to definitively approving its reform of the 1992 animal protection legislation, might fiestas such as Pollensa's Sant Antoni be jeopardised? The use of the cockerel at the top of the pine is currently permitted because it is a tradition that is over one hundred years old (the definition for use of live animals during fiestas under regional law). But if it is deemed to suffer under the reform, then what?
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
The Risk Of Tradition
While watching the Three Kings parade in Alcúdia on Saturday evening, an observation was made about the potential for an accident to happen, one that could involve a child scavenging for sweets being hit or run over by one of the floats. Around the time that this observation was being made, a six-year-old boy in Malaga was crushed by a float and killed.
Not all the Kings parades are as lax in terms of security as Alcúdia's is. The floats may have a "watcher", but this is all they have. Otherwise, there is very little control, except parental. The boy in Malaga, though, managed to slip away from his parents and joined other children in the hunt for sweets thrown from the floats. If there is insufficient security, accidents can happen, regardless of parental vigilance.
The mayor of Malaga has said that all safety regulations were in place but that the city's administration will have to look at its safety procedures in light of the accident. As ever, it takes a tragedy for changes to be implemented.
In Sa Pobla next week, thousands of people will descend on the town for the Sant Antoni Eve celebrations. If you have never experienced Sa Pobla's "Nit Bruixa", you will not know just how overwhelming the event can be. Some who have been once swear they will never go again. Those who do go, repeatedly, are aware of the weight of the crowds, but the unaware can be taken aback as much by the pressure of people as by the frights provided by the demons.
The town hall has announced its safety plan, one aspect of which is being able to evacuate the Plaça Major within five minutes if anything were to go wrong. The square has a capacity of 10,000 people. There are many others who aren't in the square. Moving that number of people out of the square, and speedily, requires that there is somewhere for them to go.
And what could go wrong? Very simple. Sant Antoni is about fire and very often about fire in confined areas and close to buildings. Remarkably, there are very few incidents, but they are not unknown in the various towns that celebrate Sant Antoni.
Another aspect of Sant Antoni that comes with a risk is the marauding fire-run by the demons. Some years ago, the fire-run looked as though it was under threat because of a European Union directive on pyrotechnics. So concerned were demons groups and others that a delegation was sent to Brussels to lobby against restrictions. In the end, the directive recognised traditions at fiestas and so didn't expressly proscribe them. It was meant, though, to have introduced some greater restriction on children's involvement. If it did, it has been ignored. At Muro's Sant Antoni fire night, as soon as the fires are lit and the demons start their rampage, any number of kids emerge, their hoodies doused with water, and dance like maniacs under the fire-spitting tridents.
The healthy disregard for health and safety typifies attitudes towards traditions, and inevitably one draws comparisons with elsewhere. There may well be some tightening of procedures in general following the tragedy in Malaga, but will there also be a rush to demand compensation and for criminal proceedings, as would undoubtedly be the case in Britain? Maybe there will be. In Britain, though, none of this - the parades, the fires, the fire-runs - would be permitted; certainly not in the ways that they are conducted at any rate.
Yet, there is a contrariness when it comes to welfare, that of both humans and animals, and it is a contrariness that stems from the arbitrary definition of tradition. It is one that legislates that if a tradition is a hundred years or more old, then the tradition can persist. If it isn't this old, then it can't. Hence, you get the ridiculous situation by which live ducks are banned from being released in Can Picafort, yet a live cockerel can be stuck on top of a greasy pole in Pollensa on the day of Sant Antoni (and the climbing of the pine is another act of thumbing noses at health and safety). Neither should be banned, in my opinion. Certainly not if bullfights and bull-runs can be allowed to take place. The imposition of a time definition on tradition is faintly hypocritical. There is either animal welfare or there isn't.
But such is the way here. No one, least of all me, wants the restrictiveness that exists in Britain, but occasionally, and very sadly, a death brings home the risk. And in Malaga, one small boy who will never be brought home again.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Not all the Kings parades are as lax in terms of security as Alcúdia's is. The floats may have a "watcher", but this is all they have. Otherwise, there is very little control, except parental. The boy in Malaga, though, managed to slip away from his parents and joined other children in the hunt for sweets thrown from the floats. If there is insufficient security, accidents can happen, regardless of parental vigilance.
The mayor of Malaga has said that all safety regulations were in place but that the city's administration will have to look at its safety procedures in light of the accident. As ever, it takes a tragedy for changes to be implemented.
In Sa Pobla next week, thousands of people will descend on the town for the Sant Antoni Eve celebrations. If you have never experienced Sa Pobla's "Nit Bruixa", you will not know just how overwhelming the event can be. Some who have been once swear they will never go again. Those who do go, repeatedly, are aware of the weight of the crowds, but the unaware can be taken aback as much by the pressure of people as by the frights provided by the demons.
The town hall has announced its safety plan, one aspect of which is being able to evacuate the Plaça Major within five minutes if anything were to go wrong. The square has a capacity of 10,000 people. There are many others who aren't in the square. Moving that number of people out of the square, and speedily, requires that there is somewhere for them to go.
And what could go wrong? Very simple. Sant Antoni is about fire and very often about fire in confined areas and close to buildings. Remarkably, there are very few incidents, but they are not unknown in the various towns that celebrate Sant Antoni.
Another aspect of Sant Antoni that comes with a risk is the marauding fire-run by the demons. Some years ago, the fire-run looked as though it was under threat because of a European Union directive on pyrotechnics. So concerned were demons groups and others that a delegation was sent to Brussels to lobby against restrictions. In the end, the directive recognised traditions at fiestas and so didn't expressly proscribe them. It was meant, though, to have introduced some greater restriction on children's involvement. If it did, it has been ignored. At Muro's Sant Antoni fire night, as soon as the fires are lit and the demons start their rampage, any number of kids emerge, their hoodies doused with water, and dance like maniacs under the fire-spitting tridents.
The healthy disregard for health and safety typifies attitudes towards traditions, and inevitably one draws comparisons with elsewhere. There may well be some tightening of procedures in general following the tragedy in Malaga, but will there also be a rush to demand compensation and for criminal proceedings, as would undoubtedly be the case in Britain? Maybe there will be. In Britain, though, none of this - the parades, the fires, the fire-runs - would be permitted; certainly not in the ways that they are conducted at any rate.
Yet, there is a contrariness when it comes to welfare, that of both humans and animals, and it is a contrariness that stems from the arbitrary definition of tradition. It is one that legislates that if a tradition is a hundred years or more old, then the tradition can persist. If it isn't this old, then it can't. Hence, you get the ridiculous situation by which live ducks are banned from being released in Can Picafort, yet a live cockerel can be stuck on top of a greasy pole in Pollensa on the day of Sant Antoni (and the climbing of the pine is another act of thumbing noses at health and safety). Neither should be banned, in my opinion. Certainly not if bullfights and bull-runs can be allowed to take place. The imposition of a time definition on tradition is faintly hypocritical. There is either animal welfare or there isn't.
But such is the way here. No one, least of all me, wants the restrictiveness that exists in Britain, but occasionally, and very sadly, a death brings home the risk. And in Malaga, one small boy who will never be brought home again.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
I'm A Substitute
For once a bit of animal sense, and it has come from an unexpected source - in terms of sense, that is - Pollensa town hall. The council's assembly has rejected a proposal to substitute, with replicas, the cock of the Pi de Ternelles fiesta and the lamb of Corpus Christi. (The Pi de Ternelles occurs in January as part of the Sant Antoni fiesta; the "pi" is the pine that gets soaped up and some nutters try and climb it; the lamb is not actually slaughtered, as, in accordance with the old tradition of Corpus Christi, it once was.) The Mallorcans may be showing hitherto hidden sensitivity towards animals, but there is a point beyond which the artificial replacements in the name of animal welfare all become rather silly. The Can Picafort rubber duck lunacy is an example. The notion that, for instance, an imitation lamb on wheels perhaps might be rolled through the streets of the town rather than an actual lamb is only sensible in its sheer nonsensicality; it would be an hilarious act of surreal comedy to do so. Perhaps they should substitute the live lamb on second thoughts. Indeed why stop at the animals? How about a Teletubbies version of the Last Supper at Easter for instance? Rather than an actual pine tree, environmentally destructive as it clearly is, how about one of those tinselly fake Christmas tree things? And as for the cock, please don't anybody start getting ideas about imitation cocks. Just stop it and behave yourselves.
But as I've mentioned before, the animal crackers that Pollensa town hall haven't pulled out notwithstanding, how is it that bulls can still be killed? The town hall has agreed that no animals will be killed on its patch; there again, it doesn't, unlike Alcúdia and Muro, have a bullring, or anything quite as obscene as the Fornalutx bull run. Surely a bull substitute could be introduced. Something like those souvenir bulls with a sombrero, but in large scale. Put it in the middle of the ring and let the matador accost it with the comfy chair and cushions.
Winter has come early this year. Early, that is, in respect of hotels being closed. I got quite a surprise yesterday morning. The Rio Mar in Playa de Muro. Shut. And it's not even October. What with the Lagomonte packing up next weekend, and the Viva Sunrise just a bit after, the situation in Alcúdia is not much different. The season is collapsing in on itself. Meanwhile the director-general of Iberostar says that there will be fewer hotels (not just his, but all) open this winter and the occupation will be lower. So much for all those social tourists and for that announcement (who was it made it?; politician probably) which reckoned the tourist industry would help this winter to take up the unemployment in the construction industry. They really haven't got a clue, have they. Into all this strides the editor of "The Bulletin" who says that, on top of the economic crisis comes the likely acquisition of the island's main football team by a foreigner and the resultant cry among Mallorcans as to what's happening. I can tell them exactly what's happening. It is the sound of the walls of the island's complacency tumbling around them together with the wails of politicians who have lived off that complacency and are now exposed as not only having little to turn to but also as being inadequate. It's going to be a long winter.
ISLAND FAIRS
I have been talking about the fairs that occur on the island in autumn. Today is the climax of the wine fair in Binissalem and this coming weekend is Alcúdia's fair. At this time of the year, the whole of Mallorca seems to get in on the fair act, and many of them tend to be disregarded by the visitor. However, they afford the opportunity to experience something with a touch of authenticity and to visit places that might not otherwise be on the normal visitor trail. To this end, No Frills are offering trips to two such fairs - one in Lluc and the other in Esporles. The information for the mountain fair (Lluc) and the sweet fair (Esporles) is on the WHAT'S ON BLOG - http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Bronski Beat (www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7-q1WRaKNg). Today's title - should I even be asking "who"?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
But as I've mentioned before, the animal crackers that Pollensa town hall haven't pulled out notwithstanding, how is it that bulls can still be killed? The town hall has agreed that no animals will be killed on its patch; there again, it doesn't, unlike Alcúdia and Muro, have a bullring, or anything quite as obscene as the Fornalutx bull run. Surely a bull substitute could be introduced. Something like those souvenir bulls with a sombrero, but in large scale. Put it in the middle of the ring and let the matador accost it with the comfy chair and cushions.
Winter has come early this year. Early, that is, in respect of hotels being closed. I got quite a surprise yesterday morning. The Rio Mar in Playa de Muro. Shut. And it's not even October. What with the Lagomonte packing up next weekend, and the Viva Sunrise just a bit after, the situation in Alcúdia is not much different. The season is collapsing in on itself. Meanwhile the director-general of Iberostar says that there will be fewer hotels (not just his, but all) open this winter and the occupation will be lower. So much for all those social tourists and for that announcement (who was it made it?; politician probably) which reckoned the tourist industry would help this winter to take up the unemployment in the construction industry. They really haven't got a clue, have they. Into all this strides the editor of "The Bulletin" who says that, on top of the economic crisis comes the likely acquisition of the island's main football team by a foreigner and the resultant cry among Mallorcans as to what's happening. I can tell them exactly what's happening. It is the sound of the walls of the island's complacency tumbling around them together with the wails of politicians who have lived off that complacency and are now exposed as not only having little to turn to but also as being inadequate. It's going to be a long winter.
ISLAND FAIRS
I have been talking about the fairs that occur on the island in autumn. Today is the climax of the wine fair in Binissalem and this coming weekend is Alcúdia's fair. At this time of the year, the whole of Mallorca seems to get in on the fair act, and many of them tend to be disregarded by the visitor. However, they afford the opportunity to experience something with a touch of authenticity and to visit places that might not otherwise be on the normal visitor trail. To this end, No Frills are offering trips to two such fairs - one in Lluc and the other in Esporles. The information for the mountain fair (Lluc) and the sweet fair (Esporles) is on the WHAT'S ON BLOG - http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Bronski Beat (www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7-q1WRaKNg). Today's title - should I even be asking "who"?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
They Shoot Horses Don't They
If you were to just stand under the baking sun for an hour or so, you would get pretty damn hot. You would also get stressed, then distressed. You are a warm-blooded animal. Heat without movement or relief is not good for you. Horses are warm-blooded animals, too. You are probably familiar with the white marks around the neck as some "sweat up" before a race. Why, therefore, would you let a horse stand under a hot sun without relief for an hour or so? The answer is that you probably wouldn't.
There was a short piece in "The Bulletin" yesterday which said that tourists had been unhappy at the sight of horses standing around in the sun. These are the horses that take those tourists on their horse-and-carriage rides; in this case, in Playa de Muro. There was a suggestion also that a horse appeared to be injured. The tourists contacted an animal rights group.
I was told yesterday that some tourists had been to the circus, Circo Williams, in Puerto Alcúdia. They had complained about the bears at the circus; that the animals had seemed distressed and not necessarily in the best of condition. They had wondered how "the Spanish" could allow such a thing.
In the village of Fornalutx on Saturday, there was the annual "bull run". This involves a bull being pulled along with ropes around its neck, then being allowed to run through the streets before finally being killed and eaten. There had been protests prior to the event.
You might just detect a certain theme to these three examples.
The apparent indifference to animal welfare continues, despite laws to grant rights to animals. I am wary of the local animal cruelty debate. Wary because of the expatriate propensity to be sanctimonious and to start telling the locals how they should run their affairs. You may recall a previous piece on bullfighting. I am not in favour of banning it, nor though do I like it. Whether it continues or is terminated should be a matter for the Spanish people to decide. It is not an issue whereby busy-bodying Brits should act with some sort of missionary zeal against the actions of perceived heathens.
That all said, how on Earth can something like the bull run be allowed? Just the basics of the description above are grotesque enough. While one can defend the bullfight from the point of view of its spectacle and theatre, there can be no similar defence for this. It is cruelty dressed up as tradition minus the costumes and olés. At least that is how it seems if one adopts an anthropomorphic sentimentalism, which may run counter to a less squeamish local culture.
There is a scientific debate going on regarding the extent to which animals have feelings. The debate falls into two schools, of which one - the ethological - maintains that there is evidence as to the existence of animal feelings. Notwithstanding the semantic and therefore philosophical difficulty of applying a word associated with human reactions to an animal, I am not unpersuaded by the ethological argument. Yet there remains the ambiguity of ever proving it. To this end, it is understandable that the debate, in layman terms, is polarised at one extreme by those who attribute to animals all forms of human emotion and at the other those who consider animals to be totally non-sentient in being unable to perceive, i.e. make a mental judgement: dumb animals, if you like. The Spanish, one guesses, are less prone to apply the former extreme than many British.
But there is an illogic as to what is deemed acceptable or unacceptable here. I cannot understand what the fuss is about where the now-banned duck throwing of the Can Picafort summer fiesta is concerned. I understand it even less when a bull is pursued, slain and then scoffed as part of another fiesta. It makes no sense. Perhaps ducks have more professional lobby groups than do bulls.
The circus comes to town once a year. I can remember when the circus used to come to our town when I was young. I can remember the clowns, the acrobats, the elephants, the lions. They stopped the performing animals long ago. But here they carry on. At least they don't kill bulls at circuses, and they don't shoot horses, do they?
REAL MALLORCA - THE DEAL DONE?
After the procrastination and a considerable amount of column inches devoted to will they, won't they, it would appear that Paul Davidson's acquisition of Real Mallorca is drawing to a completion. Yesterday an agreement was signed for him to pay 38 million euros for a 93% holding. This is not the final part of the equation or the final date, which is 15 October, but it would seem that the British businessman will indeed now be the club's new owner. Good luck.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Three Dog Night (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWMt5Hk0E-g), but Randy Newman wrote it, and The Animals performed it first. Today's title - yes, it was a film, but which Welsh group had a hit with it?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
There was a short piece in "The Bulletin" yesterday which said that tourists had been unhappy at the sight of horses standing around in the sun. These are the horses that take those tourists on their horse-and-carriage rides; in this case, in Playa de Muro. There was a suggestion also that a horse appeared to be injured. The tourists contacted an animal rights group.
I was told yesterday that some tourists had been to the circus, Circo Williams, in Puerto Alcúdia. They had complained about the bears at the circus; that the animals had seemed distressed and not necessarily in the best of condition. They had wondered how "the Spanish" could allow such a thing.
In the village of Fornalutx on Saturday, there was the annual "bull run". This involves a bull being pulled along with ropes around its neck, then being allowed to run through the streets before finally being killed and eaten. There had been protests prior to the event.
You might just detect a certain theme to these three examples.
The apparent indifference to animal welfare continues, despite laws to grant rights to animals. I am wary of the local animal cruelty debate. Wary because of the expatriate propensity to be sanctimonious and to start telling the locals how they should run their affairs. You may recall a previous piece on bullfighting. I am not in favour of banning it, nor though do I like it. Whether it continues or is terminated should be a matter for the Spanish people to decide. It is not an issue whereby busy-bodying Brits should act with some sort of missionary zeal against the actions of perceived heathens.
That all said, how on Earth can something like the bull run be allowed? Just the basics of the description above are grotesque enough. While one can defend the bullfight from the point of view of its spectacle and theatre, there can be no similar defence for this. It is cruelty dressed up as tradition minus the costumes and olés. At least that is how it seems if one adopts an anthropomorphic sentimentalism, which may run counter to a less squeamish local culture.
There is a scientific debate going on regarding the extent to which animals have feelings. The debate falls into two schools, of which one - the ethological - maintains that there is evidence as to the existence of animal feelings. Notwithstanding the semantic and therefore philosophical difficulty of applying a word associated with human reactions to an animal, I am not unpersuaded by the ethological argument. Yet there remains the ambiguity of ever proving it. To this end, it is understandable that the debate, in layman terms, is polarised at one extreme by those who attribute to animals all forms of human emotion and at the other those who consider animals to be totally non-sentient in being unable to perceive, i.e. make a mental judgement: dumb animals, if you like. The Spanish, one guesses, are less prone to apply the former extreme than many British.
But there is an illogic as to what is deemed acceptable or unacceptable here. I cannot understand what the fuss is about where the now-banned duck throwing of the Can Picafort summer fiesta is concerned. I understand it even less when a bull is pursued, slain and then scoffed as part of another fiesta. It makes no sense. Perhaps ducks have more professional lobby groups than do bulls.
The circus comes to town once a year. I can remember when the circus used to come to our town when I was young. I can remember the clowns, the acrobats, the elephants, the lions. They stopped the performing animals long ago. But here they carry on. At least they don't kill bulls at circuses, and they don't shoot horses, do they?
REAL MALLORCA - THE DEAL DONE?
After the procrastination and a considerable amount of column inches devoted to will they, won't they, it would appear that Paul Davidson's acquisition of Real Mallorca is drawing to a completion. Yesterday an agreement was signed for him to pay 38 million euros for a 93% holding. This is not the final part of the equation or the final date, which is 15 October, but it would seem that the British businessman will indeed now be the club's new owner. Good luck.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Three Dog Night (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWMt5Hk0E-g), but Randy Newman wrote it, and The Animals performed it first. Today's title - yes, it was a film, but which Welsh group had a hit with it?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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