Nothing Changes: Trouble In Resorts

Oh dear, things aren't going too well, are they. You remember - how are you allowed to forget - all that stuff about tourism heading up-market, about "quality" tourism, about transformations (Magalluf's, if nowhere else), about improvements to image, about eradication of drunken tourism. You do remember, don't you. Do you remember thinking it was all nonsense? If you did, then well done. Have a banana, but don't whatever you do use it for a purpose other than eating.

Shall we put together an inventory of the past few days? Where shall we start? Ah yes, the beaches in Cala Ratjada (and sorry if I offend those who insist that Cala Agulla and Son Moll aren't Cala Ratjada). The dunes being used as a communal toilet. Loud music on the beaches. Drinking, as in alcohol in glass containers (bottles to you and me), which are verboten. German tourists may not know that they are verboten, though normal German common sense (of which there is a great deal in most circumstances) should determine the fact that taking glass onto beaches isn't one of the best ideas in the world.

From Cala Ratjada we move south to Playa de Palma. What did we find there? Among other things, the image of a colossal, pale German youth sort seated at the wall in der Nähe vom Ballermann Sechs (aka Strandlokal, aka Balneario 6), surrounded by all sorts of debris of a drinking nature. My, how the locals lapped that photo up. Elsewhere in Playa de Palma, there was someone defecating in the street (captured on video).

Then we nip over to Palmanova. Normally dwarfed on the antics' front by its rowdy neighbour, it was subjected to the unedifying spectacle of eighteen young British (male) tourists taking a jog in broad daylight across the beach road, while another one was stopping traffic (or attempting to). Just a bit of high jinks? Possibly so, but try telling the locals that, in particular any who might have had kiddies at a nearby playground.

Into Magalluf itself and there were English and Scottish so-called supporters enacting normally nightly battles on the Punta Ballena in broad daylight. It was curious to hear match reports speaking of England fans applauding their Scottish counterparts and everyone having got on famously. In Magalluf, ludicrous enmities were persisting. Bar chairs were substitutes for seats hurled in a stadium. And it was all on video and all over YouTube. Thanks to the video, as was the case with Palmanova, plod were able to identify some of the miscreants.

And plod have definitely taken an interest in the video in the Bierkönig. Yep, we're back in Playa de Palma, where a group of German neo-Nazis caused uproar by shouting "foreigners out" and brandishing the Kaiser's flag. Their fellow countrymen, very much in the majority, responded with "Nazis out". The local police service for hate crimes and intolerance has referred the matter to the prosecution service. The target of these repulsive Nazi foreigners was a "foreigner" with black skin.

So, what do we learn from all of this? We learn that there is nothing new under a burning Mallorcan June sun or within the confines of a beer hall. Nazis? Get them every year. Their targets are always the same. Drunkenness in Cala Ratjada? They've been lamenting that for ages and identifying the same cause - German youth. Streaking naked? Somewhat original perhaps, but largely because it was on video. Fighting in Magalluf? Well, who would have ever have thought?

Calvia town hall, virtuous Calvia town hall, with its transformational bylaws to support transformational Meliaisation, insists that nudists in Palmanova and brawling Scots and English are the fault of some businesses which are not adhering to the model of change. They are continuing with happy hours, with pub crawls, with low-quality all-inclusive. They're just not playing the game.

Maybe Calvia is right. But it seems all too easy to blame problems on certain businesses in-resort and not others. Not everyone travels with tour operators, but a lot do, and tour operators need to start walking the talk of responsibility rather than just filling planes, ferries and rooms with whoever can meet their volume requirements. They really don't care, even if - where British tour operators are concerned - they are starting to care about false compensation claims.

But let's not castigate British and German tour operators. What about some Spanish? Part of Alcudia is about to be laid waste to, courtesy of a Spanish tour operator. Magalluf, Playa de Palma, Cala Ratjada know the same or similar scenario.

The worst aspect of all this is that it neglects something else that hasn't changed and shows no sign of changing. Lads having a bundle, other lads streaking; they divert attention from the mugging prostitutes, the ones about whom virtuous Calvia can seemingly do nothing. Do nothing, and nothing is changing.

The Lawlessness Of Cala Ratjada

Three springs ago, Capdepera town hall took pleasure in informing its citizens and any others who might have cared that the beach police unit was back on the beat. It had sprung into operation, as the official season demands, on 1 May. The town hall was able to also provide information about how well the unit had performed the previous year, which was when it was established. No fewer than 804 "denuncias" for non-compliance with bylaws had been issued.

Town halls love this sort of thing. Calvia is an even better example. Take, for instance, its report last year about the number of pineapples that had been impounded en route to Paguera and Magalluf beaches. Designed to impress, it ends up sounding limp if not slightly ridiculous.

The following summer, in July 2015, the town hall was giving information about its police night patrol, which was responding to citizen complaints regarding noise, street drinking and what have you. Before this season started, i.e. early April, it was reported that both the beach and night units could disappear. Police representatives were refusing to negotiate with the mayor. There was open warfare as the police felt badly let down. Their salaries, it was said, were the worst in Mallorca. Three officers from the night unit had decided to leave. The whole of the beach patrol looked as if it was on its way out as well.

Although one can (often with justification) mock the statistics that town halls enjoy lavishing on their citizenships, the police union said that the two units had generated successful results. Yet here they were, on the point of collapse because of low morale. Projecting ahead to the staging of the highly popular mediaeval market in May, union representatives were suggesting that only minimum services could be provided. Officers were refusing to perform "extraordinary services". The situation with their conditions - hours as well as pay - was "unsustainable".

Towards the end of April came news that certain weekend shifts had no police at all. This problem was expected to be repeated because of the lack of officers and the row over conditions. The prospect was looming of there being times in the main tourism season with no police patrols. The entire force of 37 was inadequate for a population that can increase to some 50,000, most of them in Cala Ratjada.

Last week, councillors from the opposition Partido Popular walked out of the council meeting. Protesting against the "authoritarianism" of PSOE (the mayor, Rafel Fernández, is from PSOE), they said that the administration was in chaos, one aspect of this being the failure to come to agreements with the police. The mayor pointed out that there had been a meeting the previous day at which there were some agreements, but not on pay. Increasing salaries would "not conform to legality" insofar as public employee pay is restricted under the terms of the so-called Montoro Law, named after the national finance minister.

At the weekend, there were various reports about the apparent total breakdown of control on the beaches of Cala Agulla and Son Moll. They had become "Comanche territory", invaded by hundreds of young people getting drunk, swimming nude, playing high-powered sound equipment and roasting chickens. These young people are Germans.

Responses to these reports didn't blame the police. They blamed the mayor and the town hall and the tourists. And for Cala Ratjada, this was hardly the first time that there was news of drunken German tourists. It's been going on for years, especially because of the spring break-type holidays. Cala Ratjada, so opinion goes, is the Magalluf of north-east Mallorca. That opinion is not wrong.

There are different issues here. One is policing. There are concerns elsewhere in Mallorca about the lack of police to deal with the greatly increased numbers of tourists. We all know about Magalluf and Playa de Palma, which are the resorts the politicians and much of the media are only ever interested in, but there are issues in places that don't normally attract attention. Playa de Muro is one, but it doesn't have the problems that Cala Ratjada has.

These are not the fault of the police or the town hall. The blame lies squarely with tour operators who organise spring-break holidays and with the hotels who accept the guests. The total disregard for coexistence and for the capabilities of local services, especially police, is scandalous.

So what's to be done? In all likelihood, nothing. What there is of the beach unit in Cala Ratjada - there were apparently two cops about at the weekend - cannot cope. The Guardia could be sent in but the Guardia have other matters to attend to. Compliance with local bylaws is first and foremost a local police issue and not a Guardia one. But as the police aren't there ... .

The German Occupation Of Cala Ratjada

Coffee and cake; wheat beer, wurst and curry sauce; Schlagermusik and Bayern München shirts. Cala Ratjada is the Arenal of the north-east, an annexation through sunbedsraum: Vorsprung durch Touristik. Its alliance with Germany wasn't the result of some grand master plan for the division of Mallorca on nationality grounds. As with other resorts, it just happened because of tour operator concentration. Or, unlike for example Arenal, was there more to it? An association from the past? Possibly there was.

Cala Ratjada is about as far away as you can get from Palma and so was about as far away as seekers after tranquility could get in the first thirty plus years of the last century: seekers after tranquility and refuge. They could number among their ranks the banker Joan March. One of his "palaces" was built in Cala Ratjada. A more modest pile, overlooked by the March palace, was the summer residence of the only Mallorcan to have been Spanish prime minister - Antoni Maura.

March and Maura had established themselves in Cala Ratjada many years before they were to be joined by non-Mallorcan neighbours. Of some 400 inhabitants in the early 1930s, a quarter of them were from overseas. They came from England, Russia, Switzerland and the Netherlands. But most important among them were those who came from Germany and Austria.

Quite why Cala Ratjada became the refuge it did will doubtless be revealed in a book by municipal archivists in Capdepera - Maria Massanet and Gori Rexach - and a Swiss researcher, Gabi Einsele, about the "central European exile" in Cala Ratjada between 1930 and 1936. The rise of the Nazis and the creation of the Second Republic in Spain in 1931 were undoubtedly factors, though a political regime in Spain that was opposed to fascism still doesn't explain how Cala Ratjada came to be a chosen place of refuge.

In contrast to, for instance, Pollensa, where an initial wave of artists was to attract others during the First World War, establishing a starting-point for the benefits of Cala Ratjada is less clear. Nevertheless, soon after the Second Republic had commenced and then especially in 1932 when the Nazis' momentum was great, it became home to German Jews and pacifists, most of them sharing common interests in the arts and literature.

So it was, therefore, that journalist Heinz Kraschutzki came, as did poet and photographer, Konrad Liesegang, as well as Karl Otten (also a journalist), the Austrian writer Franz Blei, the painter Friedrich Kleukens, and someone who was to become an artist, Hugo Cyril Kulp Baruch, much better known as Jack Bilbo.

Of these, Bilbo and Otten are perhaps the most familiar names. Otten had faced being shot when things turned nasty after July 1936, but he escaped with the help of the British and was to go on to be a propagandist with the BBC. Bilbo didn't stay all that long. He arrived in Cala Ratjada in 1932 and left the following year, having sold what was, for the times, a bizarre bar named the Waikiki. With its Hawaiian design, it was for a time the principal meeting-place for the foreigners who had descended on Cala Ratjada and indeed from further afield.

Bilbo was as much an adventurer as he was an artist. Prior to coming to Mallorca, he had been Al Capone's bodyguard. Once he finally ended up in England, he became something of a celebrity: there is very odd British Pathé newsreel footage of him giving his New Year's message in 1947. Though his time in Cala Ratjada was short, his presence - and that of the Waikiki - was perhaps the most significant. When the swastikas started to be raised in Germany, the German population in Mallorca was estimated to have been around 3,000, and many of them would have made a trip to the Waikiki: a focal point for opposition to the Nazis.

But there were of course other Germans, the Nazis themselves, one of whom was Hans Dede. Initially acting consul, in 1933 he became the permanent German consul. The colony in Cala Ratjada naturally attracted his attention. Even before the Civil War, he was hard at it, denouncing the likes of Kraschutzki, who had had his German nationality taken away and was to be arrested at the outbreak of the war. Furthermore, Nazi supporters began to arrive in Cala Ratjada. The Hotel Castellet, the first hotel built in Cala Ratjada, became something of a headquarters for the Nazis. And yet curiously, while all this was going on, the mayor, Miquel Caldentey Ginard, was backing a campaign to develop tourism, seeking both local and foreign investors.

It may be pure coincidence that the resort is now so very German, but Cala Ratjada's history bears a very clear German imprint. Perhaps there is more to the resort's German association after all.

Tales Of The Llevant: Cala Ratjada

In 1956, members of the council in Santa Margalida took a journey eastwards. The purpose of the journey was to offer the award of "illustrious son" of the town in exchange for money to assist in the building of a new town hall. The illustrious son in question rarely bothered with his home town by then. He is said to have declined the offer anyway, citing financial problems, which seemed a little unlikely. He was, after all, resident in a sizable pile on the north-eastern coast of Mallorca. He was and had been for years intimately associated with virtually everything that moved or didn't move in Mallorca. He was hardly strapped for cash. He was Joan March, founder of the Banca March, Franco's banker, all-round rogue-come-philanthropist. The sizable pile was and still is in Cala Ratjada.

There is an old photo from 1905. It shows Cala Ratjada as it then was. Some fishermen's cottages are set back just from the sea, there are two fishing boats in the small port area, the coast itself is rocky and there is a rudimentary walkway/promenade with a low wall. In the background is a building which rises from behind a wooded area. It is that sizable pile. Or at least it was the first stage of its construction. Dates vary as to its completion but certainly by 1916 it was finished and acquired its full grandeur. It was the Palacio de Joan March. The photo was taken on the day of March's wedding to Leonor Servera Melis, who was a native of Capdepera, i.e. the municipality of which Cala Ratjada is a part.

In the photo there is another building, more modest than the palace but definitely much grander than the fishermen's cottages. It was to come to belong to Antoni Maura, the only Mallorcan to have ever been prime minister of Spain. By 1905, Cala Ratjada, for reasons that have no obvious explanation, had become the summer haunt of the island's rich and powerful. They built fine houses or, in the case of Joan March, an entire palace.

It is well chronicled that the then tiny fishing port became the summer destination of choice for Mallorca's elite, but it is not well chronicled as to why. Was it simply because Cala Ratjada is about the furthest point in Mallorca away from Palma? Possibly so. Possibly it was just because it offered a quiet location for relaxation and a diversion from business and political concerns. Or possibly there was another reason. Cala Ratjada became an unofficial seat of power, the elite able to meet in summertime, drawn by the already immensely influential Joan March, who in 1905 was still years away from founding the bank or being involved with the Trasmediterranea shipping company or indeed with the early electricity industry that was to eventually evolve into GESA.

Capdepera town hall was doubtless delighted to welcome this elite. March was accepted with open arms. There is no official record of there ever having been a town hall agreement, but in 1916, the palace completed, the road that runs by it was named after him. It led from an avenue named after his wife. In 1953, Capdepera, unlike Santa Margalida, didn't want anything in exchange. They named March adoptive son of the town.

In the history of Mallorca's tourism, Cala Ratjada doesn't really feature until it underwent a transformation in the 1960s. In one respect this is curious. It was, after all, a place that had been earmarked for summer vacationing by the island's rich. But perhaps this was why there was no obvious development in the inter-war years, other than a hotel, as there was in some other parts of Mallorca. The rich wanted to keep the place to themselves.

Though Cala Ratjada is described in clichéd terms as having been a picturesque tiny fishing village at the turn of the twentieth century, it wasn't as much of a backwater as might be thought. Its port was important, more so than Alcúdia's not so far away around the Cap Farrutx and so in the bay of Alcúdia. Its importance lay with the transporting of two key products - the "llata" wicker works that were made from palmitos and for which Capdepera became famous in the late nineteenth century and the "mares" stones for building purposes.

Last week that old tradition of the llata and the new one of tourism came together. On the beach of Cala Agulla, there was a day of palmito collection, as there has been for several years now, and of its working into wicker products - the "obra de pauma" - a tribute to a facet of the local economy which sustained Cala Ratjada before the arrival of tourism. In his palace, Joan March no doubt used to once draw on his cigar while sitting in his wicker chair.

The Railway That Never Was: Cala Ratjada

One hundred years ago, on 23 July, 1914, one Rafel Blanes Tolosa presented a plan for a railway line between Manacor and Artà. Over a year later, on 8 September, 1915, "La Gaceta de Madrid", a newspaper which was to eventually become (along with other major cities' "gacetas") the "Boletín Oficial del Estado", announced the bidding for the line. On 12 November that year, the result of the bidding process became known. The concession was awarded to the company S.A. Ferrocarriles de Mallorca. Blanes Tolosa was a director.

Roughly half of the finance came from the Banco de Crédito Balear in the form of a two million pesetas loan (Blanes Tolosa was also a director of the bank.). Work on the line took until 1921. There was, however, one part of the line that was missing and so one municipality that wasn't included in the project. It should have been, but it wasn't. The line was meant to have gone on to Cala Ratjada in Capdepera. It didn't and it never did.

Connecting the railway to the port would have been important, or so you might have thought. Yet, it is a curiosity of Mallorca's railway building that connections with the coast have been all but non-existent.

There was once a line from Palma's port to the Plaça d'Espanya. It closed in 1965. There was a project for a line from Palma to the port in Andratx. It was to have gone to Calvia (village) and then on to Andratx and would have involved the building of two tunnels. The extension to Alcúdia, still spoken about, was scrapped when the Civil War intervened, but the rail line there was considered very much earlier. So much so in fact that there was a ceremony in 1912 for the laying of the first stones of what was meant to have become a station in Pollensa on its route to Alcúdia from Inca. There would have been branch lines to both Puerto Pollensa and Puerto Alcúdia. Quite a few years later, there was another scheme, one which would have seen a railway connect with the seaplanes base in Puerto Pollensa. Elsewhere on the island, there was a project to take a line to Porto Cristo. None of them of course were realised.

Port Sóller is the only place that nowadays has a coastal connection, and even that isn't of course a train as such. Apart from the old station in Palma's port and one also in Arenal on the old line that went to Llucmajor and on to Santanyí, the island's coastline has been totally untouched by rail transport.

There are a number of theories as to why railways didn't extend to the coasts. One is that coastal land was relatively worthless and unpopulated. But when there were ports, and quite successful ones like Cala Ratjada's, this explanation doesn't really add up. A second one has to do with the traditional fear of the coast because of the threat of piracy. By the twentieth century, however, although there might have been the odd pirate knocking around, illegal activity was of a different nature, i.e. smuggling. Again, the explanation isn't strong. A third is financial and logistical, but when promoters often also had associations with banks, the money wasn't necessarily a problem, while the experience of the Sóller train, which required the engineering achievement of the tunnel, demonstrated that obstacles could be overcome.

There is a fourth theory, and it is specific to Cala Ratjada. It has to do with rivalries between Artà and Capdepera and between wealthy landowners. Blanes Tolosa was a wealthy man. He owned a large chunk of Artà. But though he had some aristocratic blood, he wasn't of the higher order of Mallorcan nobility. Capdepera, on other hand, was largely owned by this higher order, and it was one that wanted nothing to do with anything that smacked of the new entrepreneurial bourgeoisie and some lower-order upstart from the next town.

Maybe this was the reason why the railway line never reached Cala Ratjada. Whatever the reason, the line was never built and though it was considered many years later during the time that the Manacor-Artà line existed (the line closed in 1977), nothing came of it. When the railway line was due to have been reopened under the scheme envisaged by the Antich regional government of 2007-2011, Cala Ratjada was again spoken of. But the line of course hasn't been reopened, and it won't be. An appalling waste of money went into a project which had to be abandoned because there wasn't any more money, so the eastern part of Mallorca was denied a new railway and the possibility that it might go as far as Cala Ratjada. It was another familiar story, some will argue. It is the eastern part of Mallorca which is always neglected.

* Photo of train at Artà station from www.baleareslive.com

MALLORCA TODAY - Ex-mayor of Capdepera barred for eight years

As part of the sentencing related to the case of the Son Moll hotel in Cala Ratjada, which collapsed in December 2008 during building works, killing four workers, the mayor of Capdepera at the time, Bartomeu Alzina, has been barred from public office and employment for eight years and ordered to pay costs. The mayor was judged to have been guilty of abusing his position in not complying with licensing requirements for the building works. Others charged in the case have received custodial sentences to a maximum of two years.

MALLORCA TODAY - Wrong sand in Cala Ratjada

The regeneration of the beach at Cala Agulla in Cala Ratjada, which started yesterday with the first depositing of new sand that will eventually mean up to 2,000 cubic metres being laid, has not passed off without controversy. The new sand is not the same colour as the old, albeit that the old was disappearing. The town hall (Capdepera) admits there is a difference, but that it will hardly be noticed.

MALLORCA TODAY - One of the worst years for fires in Mallorca

The three forest fires that broke out yesterday added to what has become one of the worst years for fires in Mallorca since the turn of the century. There have so far been 106 fires, but it is still only August; the average of the past decade has been 125 per year. The fire yesterday in Capdepera, near to the resort of Cala Ratjada, affected some 20 hectares and last night wasn't completely under control.

MALLORCA TODAY - Fires in Cala Ratjada, Son Servera and Génova

Another day, another three forest fires to add to the spate of fires that have broken out on Mallorca this summer. The three today have been near to Costa d'en Blanes in the Génova area of Calvia, in forest in Son Servera and close to the resort of Cala Ratjada.

Cala Ratjada fire update 20.30. The fire broke out around 17.00 and is still threatening homes in the area. The Son Servera fire is under control, though that in Costa d'en Blanes is still also unstable.

Images from the Cala Ratjada fire from "Diario de Mallorca": http://comunidad.diariodemallorca.es/galeria-multimedia/Incendio-Capdepera/Incendio-Capdepera/31224/6.html

Walk Is Cheap

Capdepera is the municipality on the north-eastern tip of Mallorca. Its coastal resort is Cala Ratjada. It is mainly a German destination, the resort itself a peculiar stretch between two sea fronts, the main beach small and crowded, one to which one can see hordes of lilo carriers heading in summer, taking a long-ish walk from the centre of Cala Ratjada. The town has announced some "initiatives" designed to attract more tourism. And these are? Cycling, audio guides for the mediaeval castle and a Nordic walking track. These, together with promotional materials, will cost somewhat less than a hundred thousand euros.

Fine, you might think, but just look at that list again and at the budget. Cycling. Nordic walking. Me-too tourism facilities in other words. Take Nordic walking. Alcúdia has a route, Can Picafort has a route and now Capdepera is to have one. Nordic walking falls into the category of "alternative" tourism, an alternative aimed at extending the tourism offer and season.

Given the German dominance of Cala Ratjada, a Nordic walking offer makes some sense, but, as with the other resorts in the north, it is an addition to the tourism mix that will make only minimal impact. More than that, it is cheap. And it is this - the lack of cost - that is the most germane point in seeking more German tourists. For a relatively small spend, the town hall and the tourism ministry can announce that "something is being done", can be seen to be taking some action. It is, therefore, largely a PR exercise, not one aimed at more tourism but one aimed at trying to convince that effort is being put into extending the season.

Tourism minister Ferrer, in presenting these initiatives, spoke of the need to "create new attractions" to "re-invent" the island as a tourism destination and to "extract the value" that exists on the island in terms of its natural landscape and heritage. Well he would say that, as his predecessors and other tourism authority spokespeople will have done. It is spin, a formulaic pronouncement lifted from the brief manual that is phrases to use when talking about things other than sun and beach tourism.

The worry is not that there is to be a Nordic walking track, not that there is to be more cycling in Capdepera, not that there are to be audio guides to the castle which is promoted as having a "fascinating history", one bound up in battles against pirates. The worry is the spend and the me-too nature of the offers. If less than a hundred grand could be converted into half a million more tourists per year, then you would take your hat off to the brilliance of the thinking. But it won't. Nowhere, moreover, is any evidence offered as to how many new tourists might be created or how many existing tourists might be willing to not trade in Mallorca for another destination. It's not surprising, because the tourism authorities don't know. What they do know is that Nordic walking and the rest is something alternative on the cheap. This is one of the failures of Mallorca's so-called alternative tourism. There is not much by way of investment. Not much directed at grander schemes that might mean serious numbers of tourists. Not much, in fact nothing, by way of some out-of-the box thinking for creating genuine alternatives or even additions to the main summer tourism. One of the failures? No, the failure.

QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Kiss, "100,000 Years", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_a-NYivv6o.

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

That's Just The Way It Is

There was a very revealing report in "The Diario" yesterday. The paper had spoken with mayors around the island and discovered a universal admission that works related to hotel renovations occur without licences having been granted. The typical period of time needed to go through the licensing process is six months - at least. The mayor of Alcúdia was one who admitted that this happened. The reasons for this revolve around the lack of qualified personnel to hurry along the process and the necessity of dealing with other agencies, most notably the ministries for the environment and the coasts. Miquel Ferrer, Alcúdia's mayor, emphasised that, regardless of the licence situation, works had to be undertaken with the correct levels of safety.

This is the context, therefore, of the Son Moll hotel collapse in Cala Ratjada. The town hall of Capdepera, that under which Cala Ratjada falls, is by no means the only administration that "allows" (inverted commas stressed) these works to go ahead. The admission by the mayors, which will come as absolutely no surprise but is nevertheless extremely significant, throws into relief the background to the tragedy of the deaths of the workers at Son Moll. The point is that it is pretty much accepted practice that work happens without licences being in place. It may not be right, but virtually it is the de facto state of affairs - the way it is. The Son Moll case has merely acted to highlight what has been going on and does go on.

One has to ask the question. Was the absence of a licence the cause of the accident? This is obviously one for the investigators. But if all other procedures were in order, as is being claimed, can the lack of a licence really be held as a contributory or crucial factor, especially when such a lack is known to be a fact of building works for hotels? The general workers union has been arguing that the mayor of Capdepera should be indicted for not preventing the renovation at Son Moll. Maybe it has a point, but the union will know, as well as anyone else, what the system is.

We're getting into deep legal water, so I don't intend to go far, but the licence issue may just be, if not an irrelevance, then a less-than-crucial factor. I said the other day that the case reflects a societal failure - one of accepting that certain rules have to be, how can I put it, massaged. But it demonstrates also an administrative failure. When the Balearic Government announced that it would seek to reduce bureaucracy in order to facilitate the zero- or low-interest-financed modernisations of hotels, one hotelier expressed his doubts that the town halls would be quite so amenable. Yet, it isn't just the town halls. This appears to be a multi-agency failure, and one possibly with a degree of turf wars amongst the various bodies and their organisational cultures.

If one takes Alcúdia as an example - and remember that it was in Alcúdia that Sunwing went ahead with a modernisation and received a hefty fine for doing so - imagine what would happen if all the hotels applied for a licence to undertake works? Total logjam. Consider just how many hotels there are, not just in Alcúdia, but across the island. Their renovations are a part of the wider construction industry, one upon which the island's economy is so dependent. Yet, the administrative system behind the industry cannot cope. It's small wonder that work goes ahead without all the relevant permissions. And everyone appears to know that this is so. How many other modernisations are currently in progress across the island that are similar to Son Moll? If indeed it is the case that the owners filed their application in August, one might say that they should have waited till the end of the 2009 season before proceeding - by which time, one presumes, the licence would have been effected. But that would lengthen even further an already drawn-out process. Businesses and indeed the whole economy cannot be stalled or held hostage by the inadequacy of the administrative system.

It has taken the deaths of the men at Son Moll to bring the whole licence issue to the fore. It should now be down to the Balearic Government to resolve how the system of licensing can be made more efficient. I wish them luck.


Yesterday was a day for revealing stories. "The Diario" has also turned up something in respect of the projected golf development on the Son Bosc finca in Muro. And that is ... The mayor of Muro, who has supported the development, has a business association with the head of the Garden hotels group, which in turn is one of the companies that has a major shareholding in another company - Golf Playa de Muro. Another local hotel chain - Grupotel - is also a shareholder.

The mayor says that he has "no relation to or direct interest in the golf course". The exact business association is that he is a member of a further company, one in the name of the head of Garden hotels, with the same Inca address, but one established for activities on the mainland. In this respect, he doesn't. The connection to the golf development is, therefore, rather distant in terms of the companies involved, but the mere fact of any association is bound to raise questions. And that is what the paper has done. No-one is suggesting anything untoward, but the mayor's independence when it comes to what is a controversial development may appear to have been compromised.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Madonna, "La Isla Bonita". Today's title - American best known, well only really known, for this.

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Twelve Days Of A Mallorcan Christmas

Ah, yes. Chestnuts roasting over an open butane-gas heater. Jack Frost British store not nipping at anyone's toes or indeed wallets because it's been closed for years. The sounds of a traditional Spanish Yuletime in the Mallorcan supermarkets - a Phil Spector Christmas collection ronetting over the PA's. It's that time of year again, or perhaps you hadn't noticed. In keeping with the ending of the year, this blog, recognising its role as an important part of the media, will do what other sectors of the media do, and that's desperately try and fill some space with a look back and with a touch of seasonal merriment - ho, ho, ho. Expect some time soon, therefore, the review of 2008. But meantime, to help you along your way with your Christmas festivities, here is the blog's first venture into Christmas songs. Ladies and gentlemen, the Twelve Days of Christmas with a Mallorcan stylie, and some of the numbers even make sense (some don't). If you don't "get" some of the references, then there will be an explanation tomorrow. Right, clear the throat ...

"On the twelfth day of a Mallorcan Christmas, the town hall invoiced me:
Twelve Lees a-Leapying
Eleven millions tourist-ing
Ten Elvis Presleys
Nine mayors corrupting
Eight winds a-blowing
Seven knocking shops a-knocking
Six dogs a-dooing

FIVE EUROS A PINT

Four scratch cards
Three tex-mexs
Two parking spots
And a processionary caterpillar in a pine tree"

Fabulous, I'm sure you'll agree.


CALA RATJADA HOTEL TRAGEDY - LATEST
The three people, who had been arrested following the deaths of the workers at the collapsed hotel, have been released from prison, without bail, by a judge making the initial investigations. Remember what I said about back-covering? Well, blow me, one of the architects has used the very phrase "covering their backs" in respect of the town hall; indeed he says that this was the explanation given by those from the town hall who delivered notices regarding the absence of a licence.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Gladys Knight (licence to "kilt") - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW5G_05a5UU. No quiz today.

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Licence To Kill

The inevitable fall-out from the Cala Ratjada hotel tragedy has only begun. It could just turn out to be something of a landmark as the first accusations and counter-accusations indicate the frankly ludicrous nature of how this building work was allowed to proceed. Setting aside, obviously, culpability, here we have a case in which there was no licence, and yet the owners were negotiating for it after the work had begun (there is a suggestion that they had in fact applied for it in August); in which the town hall says that on three occasions it attempted to get the works stopped (the owners refute this); in which, according to neighbours, everyone knew about the works (well of course they would; it would have been pretty difficult for them not to have known); in which the town hall and the local police enabled the closing of the street in order that certain work and rubbish removal could be done; in which the architects' association says that it doubts that the town hall would have denied a licence, admits the work should not have been started without it, but goes on to say that architects accept that this way of working, without the licence, is sometimes done because of the pressures of obtaining licences in order to complete works before the tourist season and that some smaller town halls go along with this.

The above is largely taken in translation from reports in "The Diario". I wouldn't normally take this amount, but it is all highly significant and important to convey, especially the last parts, those relating to the town hall. And it says just about everything you need to know about the ways in which things seem to work here. How on earth, for example, can the town hall and the police (the police, for heaven's sake) permit the closure of a street for work relating to something that did not have a licence? Anyone care to volunteer an answer, because I'm damned if I know. Of course, there may well be some back-covering going on in all of this, but these are the "facts" as they are currently being presented, including that which suggests that, licence or no licence, the work being undertaken was otherwise in order.

Tragedy this has been in that four men have lost their lives, but there is another tragedy at play, and that is the wider implications of the case, which itself is likely to be seen as a monstrous indictment of how the "system" operates here. How many building works go on without licences? But the specifics of the licence are just symptomatic of a wider malaise, one of rule-bending and of an unwritten complicity, not necessarily of a criminal type but one of smoothing the way. It isn't just the bureaucracy that is to blame; it is an acceptance that this is "how it is". It is something that pervades much of Mallorcan society. There is a societal failure as much as there might be an institutional, a legal or a systemic failure. The men who have died might just become martyrs to something way beyond the details of the Son Moll hotel collapse, and which leads to an examination and maybe a righting of this societal failure. It's a societal licence, not just an official document, and look where it's got us. It does not have to be "how it is". It should be how it was and how it will now be in the future. Don't hold your breath.


PUERTO POLLENSA ON ICE
Ever wondered about what would happen with the yard outside the old school by the church square? Maybe you haven't. But if you have, here is the word - maybe. An ice rink. There's more to this than it seems. And is not as daft as it sounds. So I am told.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Bobby McFerrin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjnvSQuv-H4). Today's title - Bond, Motown, easy.

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Don't Worry

You would think that language was one of the last things that would have a potentially negative impact on tourism. For your Brits, it matters little that they can't use the lingo. But where they can, it is Castilian that they use. Or should it be? We are back in Catalan territory, and one local politico, the mayor of Calvià (Magaluf etc.), reckons that leading tour operators - Spanish ones, that is - are seeing a reduction in the numbers of Spanish mainland tourists coming to the Balearics because they are worried that they are going to be confronted not with the national language but with Catalan. As the mayor represents the Partido Popular, which traditionally is somewhat antagonistic towards Catalan, you might say that, well, he would say that. Except that it appears to be tour operators who are saying it. Whether these Spanish tourists need to be worried is questionable, but they appear to have the perception that Catalan prevails, even if this may not turn out to be the case.

These worries, one supposes, stem from the publicity given to various initiatives to have Catalan as the language of bars and restaurants. A far from insignificant sum of money has been devoted to just that, and the other day I mentioned this bizarre idea of people being encouraged to go to their local café for the purposes of having a chat in Catalan. The Calvià mayor is accused by the opposition parties (socialists and nationalists) of having an obsession with the Catalan question, reports "The Diario", but one might argue that they - the opposition parties, especially the Unió Mallorquina - have an obsession as well: that of imposition. At a time when there are rather weightier matters with which everyone should be concerning themselves, the politics of language - as it may or may not affect tourism - is a ridiculous diversion.

It might be argued, well what about the poor old tourist from Mallorca who goes to the mainland and is confronted with Castilian. It could be argued, but the problem does not exist that way round to any such extent; mostly everyone here can speak both languages. Only those from Catalan areas of the mainland would be able to do likewise.

In truth though, I suspect the mayor is rather overstating the case. Whatever other politicians or other bodies may have in mind, the practicalities of language are not lost on those who really matter, i.e. those with bars or restaurants. They will continue to use whatever language is necessary, and much as some town halls may use Catalan only for some things, e.g. fiesta publicity, there is no evidence - as far as I am aware - of their adopting Catalan exclusively for other material: they would be crazy to do so. Go to a local tourist information office and spend any time observing - which I do from time to time - and you will hear staff using several languages, of which Catalan is but one. The Catalan thing is not an issue, except when politicians make it so.


THE CALA RATJADA HOTEL TRAGEDY
The atrocious weather is being blamed for the collapse of the upper floors of a hotel (Son Moll) in Cala Ratjada (along the coastline going east from Alcúdia) and for the deaths of four workers engaged in renovation work. There was, so it would seem, an undermining of the building brought about by the recent rains. There is other blame being thrown around, and that has to do with the fact that, allegedly, the renovation work was being done illegally: in other words, there was no licence to do it. Shocking though the story is and though someone, or some people, will get a hammering, the question has to be asked as to why the renovation work would be done without a licence. And we may well be back to what I have said before - bureaucracy and costs of obtaining the permissions. It is just this bureaucracy that the Balearic Government wishes to now cut through in order to enable hotels to go ahead with modernisations (the hotel in question was in the process of being upgraded to a four-star). The case might just cause the authorities to seriously address the circumstances as to why alleged illegal works are done, the sort that do go on and which take a tragedy to bring into focus.

Updating the above, two architects and the manager of the works have been arrested, while the owners and the construction companies are, potentially, implicated. The owners say that all the documents they had, related to the renovation, were in order, including those for health and safety regulations, and that they were in the process of negotiating the licence. A key question, I suppose, is whether or not a licence would have been granted on the grounds of safety. Anyway, it's all in the hands of the police now, so no pre-judging.


SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT - WARNING, WARNING
I received yesterday an extraordinary email from someone I know in Alcúdia. I have no reason to believe that it is anything but genuine. What it is, is a warning not to pick up the likes of mobile phones or keyrings that may seem to have been abandoned, for example in the street. They could be dynamite - literally. This is apparently an ETA ploy. The warning seems especially aimed at those in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, but it could apply anywhere I guess. See a mobile, get away quick!


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Today's title - the other half of the title seems rather inappropriate given the Cala Ratjada and ETA stories, but anyway, who was it?

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