Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Santa Claus Is Coming To Mallorca
Christmas Day in Mallorca. The weather, as it so often is on Christmas Day, is set to be fine, meaning that Facebook will be adorned with, variously, images of folk having their Christmas turkey on the terrace and of the beaches: all designed to wish you were here.
It's a day which, for many Mallorcans, comes and goes much like any other day. The emphasis is still on the Three Kings (and New Year), but with each passing year Santa Claus and Christmas Day encroach ever further. It was surprising perhaps to note that Pollensa (and Puerto Pollensa) had Papa Noel visits yesterday. Here is a town hall led by solid Mallorcan but non-religious ideologies. On both scores, Santa seemed an anachronism. And he wasn't without his controversy. His visit was publicised using both the Castellano and the Catalan versions of his name. Why was the town hall permitting the former in this current age of revived linguistic "normalisation"; in other words, Catalan? A time of peace and goodwill to all men, and the Alternativa per Pollença can still find time to challenge language correctness.
Santa, or rather Papa, has moved in to such a degree that Inca can have - as it did on Friday - a full Papa procession (he set off from the bus station, as all good Santas do) followed by a photocall with Santa. More Facebook opportunities. In Can Picafort two weeks ago, Papa turned up at the Christmas market. There were photos there as well, and Papa was available for taking the children's letters requesting their presents, just like the Royal Pages do for the Kings. In Pollensa there had been a pre-Papa visit gathering so that parents could sort out the presents that Santa would be handing out. All very much a borrowing of Kings' tradition.
Many are the Santas to be found hanging from buildings. Such has been the Santa takeover that in the small town of Porreres last year there was disquiet as to the sheer number of Santas adorning houses. The town hall sensibly decided that it couldn't actually ban them.
It's multi-culturalism, one guesses, though of course in strictly Christian terms. The Swedes have their Santa Lucia, while the Santa original, Saint Nicholas, crops up as well. It was interesting to note that Muslim Turkey, via its national tourism social media presence, should be reminding the infidels that Nick was Turkish. Well, what else is Christmastime for but to promote holidays?
So, Christmas is here for another year. Twelve Christmases have therefore been noted on this blog (except for the one when I ended up in hospital). To all of you who come here, a Merry Christmas. It would be nice to wish a Happy New Year as well. On a less than joyous note, the idiocies of this world continue, and one fears they are becoming ever more idiotic. Peace and goodwill.
And, as is traditional for this blog at Christmas, Laura Veirs returns to see the heavenly stars.
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Defending Christmas Shopping Tradition
Mallorca, we are led to believe, resists certain temptations to undo years of tradition and so bow to the commercial imperialism of the United States and to the excesses of rampant consumerism. One manifestation of this supposed resistance is Halloween. While there may be traditionalists who eschew its trappings on the grounds that it is all an American invention, Halloween has wormed its way into the affections of many, and so in more ways than the simple consumption of Allhallowtide doughnuts.
The denial of consumerism is such that there have of course been no Mallorcans contributing to the jams to get into the FAN Mallorca Shopping complex and therefore to Trafico closing a motorway exit. Consumerism is so widely ignored that each month extensive statistics are produced which itemise how much has been spent (or not) on what particular products. The stats are produced for various reasons, one of which is to indicate the strength (or otherwise) of the local economy. Consumer spending, it might come as a shock to realise, is a vital factor in growth.
Then there is Christmas, a time when Mallorca turns its back on the various reports estimating how much every household will fork out and when municipalities (those which can afford to) drape Bon Nadal lights across roads in early November and then forget to take them down until March. No, Mallorca doesn't do Christmas. It holds up a metaphorical cross to ward off the evil spirit of the devil of commercialism in defence of religious tradition. If only it were so.
There is one good reason why there has been an appearance of avoiding the appetite for overindulgent Christmas consumerism. And that is legislation, both national and regional. Until recently, the gun to mark the start of the Christmas shopping rush was fired over the two holiday days' period of 6 and 8 December. Major stores would open their doors at seven in the morning. In they would all flock, then exit with several trolley loads. Stores were allowed to open - and still are - if one of these holiday days is a designated day when all shops (i.e. the big ones) can open, and of course they (the regional government) would have made sure that this was the case. Legislation demands that at present there are sixteen such days (Sundays and holidays) a year, soon to be reduced to ten.
Legislative reform has, however, disrupted this. Stores which were obliged to only have sales at set times of the year can now have them whenever they want to. This reform is absolutely crucial to understanding why Black Friday, a further example of gross Americana, has appeared from almost nowhere over the past two to three years. Without the reform, it couldn't happen.
Black Friday has, therefore, pushed the start of the Christmas shopping season forward a couple of weeks, and such is the lack of local Mallorca interest in this consumer bonanza that - according to surveys - at least 70% of the population will be turning its credit card hot.
However, lurking in the traditionalist background are those who insist on maintaining a tradition in defence of the smaller stores and so against the advance of big business and all the retail razzmatazz of Black Friday. Among them are elements at the town hall in Palma.
Much has been made of the decision to delay the switching-on of the Christmas lights until 3 December. The retailers wanted them to go on in order to coincide with Black Friday. The various justifications as to why there is the delay have included the fact that 25 November is considered to be too early, inviting a question as to too early for what. The answer to that is those elements within the town hall who would prefer that Black Friday had stayed firmly put on the other side of the Atlantic.
Take Antonia Martin, for example. She is the councillor for consumer affairs. She is also a member of Som Palma, the city's branch of Podemos. Last month she announced that the Christmas market would open on the same day as Black Friday in order that it could "fight" against large retailers. Martin is one of a Som Palma collective at the town hall which takes a quite different view of commercialism to others within the administration. Hence, the Christmas season has been theirs to dictate, and not the councillor for trade and tourism, Joana Adrover (PSOE).
It is politics which have determined the switching-on of the lights. Nothing else. Adrover, disposed to the lights having gone on tomorrow, knows full well that shopping is a strategic product in Spain's national tourism promotion. Consumers, both local and foreign, are key to the success of this product. But not in Palma, given the fights between the parties at the town hall. If there is one tradition being maintained, it is that of political battle.
The denial of consumerism is such that there have of course been no Mallorcans contributing to the jams to get into the FAN Mallorca Shopping complex and therefore to Trafico closing a motorway exit. Consumerism is so widely ignored that each month extensive statistics are produced which itemise how much has been spent (or not) on what particular products. The stats are produced for various reasons, one of which is to indicate the strength (or otherwise) of the local economy. Consumer spending, it might come as a shock to realise, is a vital factor in growth.
Then there is Christmas, a time when Mallorca turns its back on the various reports estimating how much every household will fork out and when municipalities (those which can afford to) drape Bon Nadal lights across roads in early November and then forget to take them down until March. No, Mallorca doesn't do Christmas. It holds up a metaphorical cross to ward off the evil spirit of the devil of commercialism in defence of religious tradition. If only it were so.
There is one good reason why there has been an appearance of avoiding the appetite for overindulgent Christmas consumerism. And that is legislation, both national and regional. Until recently, the gun to mark the start of the Christmas shopping rush was fired over the two holiday days' period of 6 and 8 December. Major stores would open their doors at seven in the morning. In they would all flock, then exit with several trolley loads. Stores were allowed to open - and still are - if one of these holiday days is a designated day when all shops (i.e. the big ones) can open, and of course they (the regional government) would have made sure that this was the case. Legislation demands that at present there are sixteen such days (Sundays and holidays) a year, soon to be reduced to ten.
Legislative reform has, however, disrupted this. Stores which were obliged to only have sales at set times of the year can now have them whenever they want to. This reform is absolutely crucial to understanding why Black Friday, a further example of gross Americana, has appeared from almost nowhere over the past two to three years. Without the reform, it couldn't happen.
Black Friday has, therefore, pushed the start of the Christmas shopping season forward a couple of weeks, and such is the lack of local Mallorca interest in this consumer bonanza that - according to surveys - at least 70% of the population will be turning its credit card hot.
However, lurking in the traditionalist background are those who insist on maintaining a tradition in defence of the smaller stores and so against the advance of big business and all the retail razzmatazz of Black Friday. Among them are elements at the town hall in Palma.
Much has been made of the decision to delay the switching-on of the Christmas lights until 3 December. The retailers wanted them to go on in order to coincide with Black Friday. The various justifications as to why there is the delay have included the fact that 25 November is considered to be too early, inviting a question as to too early for what. The answer to that is those elements within the town hall who would prefer that Black Friday had stayed firmly put on the other side of the Atlantic.
Take Antonia Martin, for example. She is the councillor for consumer affairs. She is also a member of Som Palma, the city's branch of Podemos. Last month she announced that the Christmas market would open on the same day as Black Friday in order that it could "fight" against large retailers. Martin is one of a Som Palma collective at the town hall which takes a quite different view of commercialism to others within the administration. Hence, the Christmas season has been theirs to dictate, and not the councillor for trade and tourism, Joana Adrover (PSOE).
It is politics which have determined the switching-on of the lights. Nothing else. Adrover, disposed to the lights having gone on tomorrow, knows full well that shopping is a strategic product in Spain's national tourism promotion. Consumers, both local and foreign, are key to the success of this product. But not in Palma, given the fights between the parties at the town hall. If there is one tradition being maintained, it is that of political battle.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Is It Safe To Go Back To Work Yet?
If you don't already know, you may be interested to learn that the day of Immaculate Conception, 8 December, marks the traditional start of the nativity scene-making season. It's not official, as you can get cracking on the manger and the animals whenever you fancy, but tradition - and don't we know it - has its place in Mallorcan and Spanish society and also in the calendar. Hence, 8 December is really when the nativity figurines need to be dragged out of the attic and dusted down for another festive season, one which lasts until ... . Well, when does it really stop? It may not be the same across the rest of the country but in Mallorca, no sooner have the Kings been and delivered their presents, than the natives are building bonfires and preparing to roar around the streets, setting fire to the place. The saints Anthony and Sebastian have a great deal to commend them but they do rather get in the way.
It does of course depend upon your perspective and also has something to do with where you live. Not everywhere downs tools because of Tony and Seb's feast days, but even where they don't, there are still fiestas to be had. And what's more, it's only a couple of weeks before everyone's out on the streets again, this time shunning their demons' outfits in favour of lavish costumes for Carnival.
The Christmas festivities, let's call them winter festivities in order to get to their lengthy essence, straddle some two months - longer if Carnival is later - and then, once the final sardine has been buried at Carnival, it's a case of soon be Easter.
It is tempting to conclude that no one is, therefore, working over all this time. It is an erroneous conclusion. There are, after all, the short-contract shop employees who are brought in for the Christmas season and then winter sales. Others are hard at it, such as the legal profession, charged with overseeing the future of the King's sister. Footballers are footballing, except when they have their week off and can catch a cheeky Christmas mince pie and glass of ginger wine.
Stereotyping is a trap that is easily fallen into, and apparent idleness is one that Mallorca and Spain shares with other parts of the Mediterranean. As the German newspaper "Bild" once demanded of the Greeks: "get up early and work all day", just like the Germans. But the winter festivities highlight not so much a reluctance to work as a mentality issue that surrounds the "puente" bridge weekend, of which there are potentially various ones throughout the year.
"The Wall Street Journal", in looking at the bridge-weekend phenomenon, made an assessment which led it to suggest that it is possible, what with paid time off as well, to have fifty days off a year. It also discovered that, apparently, employees needed bridge weekends as these were escape valves from the pressures of work. It has been said that the Spanish do in fact, and in general, work longer hours than most other Europeans. By the same token, however, there have been surveys to suggest that they don't. You pays your money ... .
At the heart of all this are concerns regarding productivity and competitiveness. If there is a stereotyping, then it is one that the Spanish government (currently acting government) shares. The move to alter public holidays so that if they fall on, for example, a Tuesday, they are taken instead on a Monday was a deliberate attempt to put an end to the extended bridge weekend. If the Tuesday is a holiday, then so is the Monday (and possibly the rest of the week), and there has long been a temptation, so it has been said, to indeed consider this to be a week off.
The government doesn't seem to have gone ahead with this. Immaculate Conception will fall on a Thursday this year, two days after Constitution Day. There goes a week for you, and a whole bridge week not assisted by the apparent daftness of having two national holidays within the space of three days. In truth, most of these public holidays don't lend themselves to be being moved. They are so much part of the calendar, whether for religious or secular reasons.
Might a change in government be more insistent on moving these days? If it turns out to be one influenced by anti-religious sentiment, then perhaps so, but any politician needs to be wary with tampering with the holiday love affair and so therefore upsetting the citizens.
The bridges and the extended winter festivities seem unlikely to disappear any time soon, and the tourism/travel industry will hope to goodness that they don't: bridge weekends are good business. Still, there are always those for whom these holidays are all but irrelevant. Like those who work for newspapers. Day off? What's that?
It does of course depend upon your perspective and also has something to do with where you live. Not everywhere downs tools because of Tony and Seb's feast days, but even where they don't, there are still fiestas to be had. And what's more, it's only a couple of weeks before everyone's out on the streets again, this time shunning their demons' outfits in favour of lavish costumes for Carnival.
The Christmas festivities, let's call them winter festivities in order to get to their lengthy essence, straddle some two months - longer if Carnival is later - and then, once the final sardine has been buried at Carnival, it's a case of soon be Easter.
It is tempting to conclude that no one is, therefore, working over all this time. It is an erroneous conclusion. There are, after all, the short-contract shop employees who are brought in for the Christmas season and then winter sales. Others are hard at it, such as the legal profession, charged with overseeing the future of the King's sister. Footballers are footballing, except when they have their week off and can catch a cheeky Christmas mince pie and glass of ginger wine.
Stereotyping is a trap that is easily fallen into, and apparent idleness is one that Mallorca and Spain shares with other parts of the Mediterranean. As the German newspaper "Bild" once demanded of the Greeks: "get up early and work all day", just like the Germans. But the winter festivities highlight not so much a reluctance to work as a mentality issue that surrounds the "puente" bridge weekend, of which there are potentially various ones throughout the year.
"The Wall Street Journal", in looking at the bridge-weekend phenomenon, made an assessment which led it to suggest that it is possible, what with paid time off as well, to have fifty days off a year. It also discovered that, apparently, employees needed bridge weekends as these were escape valves from the pressures of work. It has been said that the Spanish do in fact, and in general, work longer hours than most other Europeans. By the same token, however, there have been surveys to suggest that they don't. You pays your money ... .
At the heart of all this are concerns regarding productivity and competitiveness. If there is a stereotyping, then it is one that the Spanish government (currently acting government) shares. The move to alter public holidays so that if they fall on, for example, a Tuesday, they are taken instead on a Monday was a deliberate attempt to put an end to the extended bridge weekend. If the Tuesday is a holiday, then so is the Monday (and possibly the rest of the week), and there has long been a temptation, so it has been said, to indeed consider this to be a week off.
The government doesn't seem to have gone ahead with this. Immaculate Conception will fall on a Thursday this year, two days after Constitution Day. There goes a week for you, and a whole bridge week not assisted by the apparent daftness of having two national holidays within the space of three days. In truth, most of these public holidays don't lend themselves to be being moved. They are so much part of the calendar, whether for religious or secular reasons.
Might a change in government be more insistent on moving these days? If it turns out to be one influenced by anti-religious sentiment, then perhaps so, but any politician needs to be wary with tampering with the holiday love affair and so therefore upsetting the citizens.
The bridges and the extended winter festivities seem unlikely to disappear any time soon, and the tourism/travel industry will hope to goodness that they don't: bridge weekends are good business. Still, there are always those for whom these holidays are all but irrelevant. Like those who work for newspapers. Day off? What's that?
Thursday, December 18, 2014
It's Number One, It's A Spanish Christmas
I'm wondering quite when a Christmas number one became a Christmas tradition. Do we have to go back to 1954 and Winifred Atwell with "Let's Have Another Party" or a year later and Dickie Valentine's "Christmas Alphabet"? Quite possibly we do, but these were number ones during the Dark Ages of popular music before popular music actually became popular, shortened its title to pop and created an industry of diverse and brilliant imagination but which has given us as its current-day descendant-in-chief, Simon Cowell. The Christmas number one, as in hyping up its significance, can possibly be blamed on "Top Of The Pops" and the aren't-we-whacky-wearing-Santa-hats excesses of DJs whose names we are now no longer allowed to mention (well, one in particular). It is an unfortunate coincidence that a record Margaret Thatcher once chose as a desert island disc made it to number one in 1969: "Two Little Boys" by he whose name we're also not allowed to mention.
The Scaffold had got there in 1968, so the novelty number one was all their fault. Mike McGear's brother was perpetuating what by then had become the annual atrocity of the Christmas number one in 1977. "Mull of Kintyre" can't be described as the nadir of Christmas number ones because far greater depths had already been plumbed and were to be over the following years. Benny Hill, St. Winifred's School Choir, Mr. Blobby, the list is sadly all but endless.
This said, there were to be moments of light among the darkness of the novelty number one or the otherwise simply dreadful (Renée and Renato, for instance). Pink Floyd, The Human League, East 17 were able to prove that it wasn't always the case that the single that great aunts had bought nephews and nieces for Christmas had to be Shakin' Stevens. But since the emergence of Cowellism and of the counter-Cowell movement (Iron Maiden, Rage Against The Machine), the Christmas number one has acquired new and different levels of atrocity: marketing-is-everything hysteria versus the subversiveness of social media.
A strange thing about the Christmas number one is that, with the exception of Band Aid cropping up all too frequently, there haven't been Christmas-themed number ones since Cliff was on a roll at the end of the '80s and start of the '90s - two number ones interspersed, naturally enough, by Band Aid. Nowadays, the charts bear great similarity each year and so Christmas is the same each year. Slade, Wham, Wizzard and John Lennon will be with us at Christmas in perpetuity. They don't make new Christmas songs any more because it's much easier just to re-release them and market the download.
This British obsession with the Christmas number one is in sharp contrast with a Spanish indifference. This may all be a reflection, however, of what Christmas means in the two countries. Spain may have been caught up in greater Christmas fever than was once the case, but they're not looking to dust down The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl as soon as September starts. They don't really care who's number one at Christmas, but as Christmas can be said to start on 8 December, officially finish on 6 January but lurch on, as it does in Mallorca, for most of the rest of the month, then there is no great musical Christmassy climax to be had. Besides which, number one at Epiphany doesn't have the same ring about it.
There is typically an absence of Christmas songs, except for Mariah Carey. Yes, Mariah pops up almost as frequently as Band Aid does, only it's the same version of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" each year. The most recent Spanish chart had Mariah at number 12. Last year she was number 16 at Christmas. Hardly an epic sales performance, but then she was up against tough opposition: One Direction at number two, Miley Cyrus at number three; "Wrecking Ball" was most certainly not a Christmas song. And at number one was the distinctly ordinary Latin disco sound of Kiko Rivera, whose "Asi Soy Yo" is the subject of a claim for damages on account of plagiarism.
This year, the number one heading towards Christmas is David Guetta and Sam Martin with "Dangerous"; it would appear that David's habit of having to call off gigs in Spain hasn't harmed his chances of chart success. But there have been Christmas-themed number ones in Spain. Who can forget Rosana with "En Navidad" in 1997 or Crazy Frog's epic double A-side "Jingle Bells" and "Last Christmas" in 2005. (Everyone would prefer to forget Crazy Frog.) Then there was, of course, who else but Band Aid in 2004. Will they be number one again this year? No, they've been number one and gone. There are certain things for which we should be grateful.
The Scaffold had got there in 1968, so the novelty number one was all their fault. Mike McGear's brother was perpetuating what by then had become the annual atrocity of the Christmas number one in 1977. "Mull of Kintyre" can't be described as the nadir of Christmas number ones because far greater depths had already been plumbed and were to be over the following years. Benny Hill, St. Winifred's School Choir, Mr. Blobby, the list is sadly all but endless.
This said, there were to be moments of light among the darkness of the novelty number one or the otherwise simply dreadful (Renée and Renato, for instance). Pink Floyd, The Human League, East 17 were able to prove that it wasn't always the case that the single that great aunts had bought nephews and nieces for Christmas had to be Shakin' Stevens. But since the emergence of Cowellism and of the counter-Cowell movement (Iron Maiden, Rage Against The Machine), the Christmas number one has acquired new and different levels of atrocity: marketing-is-everything hysteria versus the subversiveness of social media.
A strange thing about the Christmas number one is that, with the exception of Band Aid cropping up all too frequently, there haven't been Christmas-themed number ones since Cliff was on a roll at the end of the '80s and start of the '90s - two number ones interspersed, naturally enough, by Band Aid. Nowadays, the charts bear great similarity each year and so Christmas is the same each year. Slade, Wham, Wizzard and John Lennon will be with us at Christmas in perpetuity. They don't make new Christmas songs any more because it's much easier just to re-release them and market the download.
This British obsession with the Christmas number one is in sharp contrast with a Spanish indifference. This may all be a reflection, however, of what Christmas means in the two countries. Spain may have been caught up in greater Christmas fever than was once the case, but they're not looking to dust down The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl as soon as September starts. They don't really care who's number one at Christmas, but as Christmas can be said to start on 8 December, officially finish on 6 January but lurch on, as it does in Mallorca, for most of the rest of the month, then there is no great musical Christmassy climax to be had. Besides which, number one at Epiphany doesn't have the same ring about it.
There is typically an absence of Christmas songs, except for Mariah Carey. Yes, Mariah pops up almost as frequently as Band Aid does, only it's the same version of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" each year. The most recent Spanish chart had Mariah at number 12. Last year she was number 16 at Christmas. Hardly an epic sales performance, but then she was up against tough opposition: One Direction at number two, Miley Cyrus at number three; "Wrecking Ball" was most certainly not a Christmas song. And at number one was the distinctly ordinary Latin disco sound of Kiko Rivera, whose "Asi Soy Yo" is the subject of a claim for damages on account of plagiarism.
This year, the number one heading towards Christmas is David Guetta and Sam Martin with "Dangerous"; it would appear that David's habit of having to call off gigs in Spain hasn't harmed his chances of chart success. But there have been Christmas-themed number ones in Spain. Who can forget Rosana with "En Navidad" in 1997 or Crazy Frog's epic double A-side "Jingle Bells" and "Last Christmas" in 2005. (Everyone would prefer to forget Crazy Frog.) Then there was, of course, who else but Band Aid in 2004. Will they be number one again this year? No, they've been number one and gone. There are certain things for which we should be grateful.
Sunday, December 14, 2014
The Slaughter Of The Pig
If you care to look at Mallorcan town hall websites, you will find that there are rules for this slaughter. In 2009 not all town halls were complying because, so they said, they hadn't been informed of the decree. One town hall which was complying was Sineu's. Five years later, and as with all well and truly informed town halls in Mallorca, it instructs the local citizenry that a slaughtered pig has to be given a bill of health by a vet. The animal has to have a mandatory trichinoscopic examination to check there is no trichinella parasite, the so-called pork worm. Old habits were dying hard in 2009. They didn't have such examinations in our day; that was the kind of reaction. And maybe they didn't have trichinosis disease which, at its most extreme, is fatal; death can occur within ten days of eating infected meat.
The matança (plural matances) is traditionally a gathering of family and others to perform the slaughter of a pig which has been fattened since early spring and to then prepare the pig in all manner of ways. It is a tradition that goes back over the centuries. The pig's products could sustain a family for months, and these products were to include the sobrassada. It benefited from the preservative nature of the "paprika tap de cortí" and was to become, along with other types of charcuterie, a mainstay of traditional Mallorcan cuisine.
The matança is not nowadays widely practised. Or at least the reported number of matances which this year have been subject to veterinary examination would suggest this to be the case; just over 500 inspections have been carried out. Nevertheless, and as with so many other Mallorcan traditions, there is a custom to be honoured and to be perpetuated. Which is where the town of Sineu comes into the equation. Today is the Fira de Ses Matances de Sineu, and central to the fair is a demonstration of what to do with the pig once it has been slaughtered (in an abattoir). Not a single part of the pig goes to waste - every piece of meat, the blood, the offal, the organs, the trotters, the fat are processed. It might all sound a bit gruesome, but then this is how it once was. There was no place for squeamishness when sustenance was needed, and it didn't matter that the pig had become more or less a part of the family. It might be noted that once upon a time pigs were essentially domestic animals rather than animals for farming. The production of meat was concentrated more on lamb and goat before an explosion in the cultivation of fig trees in the nineteenth century gave rise to far greater levels of pig farming; the fig is very fattening.
Tradition decrees that the slaughter of the pig doesn't occur until 11 November (Saint Martin's Day) and that it is more likely to occur nearer to Christmas time and so provide dishes for the festive period. Though the pig is the animal most commonly associated with the matança, it doesn't have exclusive rights on the slaughter; turkeys, for example, are also fattened and go towards the making of those festive meals.
The matances fair in Sineu is a recent innovation. It started in 2003 as a theme to be appended to the Fair of Saint Thomas, he who was the doubting Thomas of biblical fame. His day, as in the anniversary of his death, isn't in fact until next Sunday. But what's a week when there's a fair to be held? The second Sunday of December is Thomas's day in Sineu, and as part of the fair today there will also be a contest for the largest pig. Mallorcan fairs love a how-big-is-something competition, and last year the winning pig (the regular pink variety) weighed in at 315 kilos. There is a separate contest for the largest black pig as well.
So, in Sineu today it is all about the pig. If you prefer not to watch the demonstration put on by the pork butchers, there are plenty of gastronomic treats to sample; mostly all of them of course of pig origin and with the sobrassada taking a starring role. On balance perhaps, an event that vegetarians might prefer to give a miss, but an event which, nonetheless, is a celebration of how Mallorca once was.
Friday, December 21, 2012
All I Want Is A Noddy Holder Christmas
The Mallorcans simply don't get the whole deal with Christmas. How can they be expected to when, as with so many other things, like cricket and queuing, the British invented it? Well, Charles Dickens invented it. Had it not been for the Cratchit family Christmas there would never have been a whole industry devoted to red wrapping paper with pictures of holly and Yuletide logs nor a Far-Eastern sweatshop turning out by the yarn load socks with Santa on them. Nor would we ever have had Noddy Holder, Noel Edmonds, re-releases of Wham or cards highlighting the Miliband family dental care.
There is only type of Christmas. One of getting totally slaughtered on Christmas Eve, having spent the preceding months schlepping around Arndale centres in search of gift-wrapped boxes of soaps and shower gels, and of spending Christmas Day attempting to devour a pudding the weight of a house brick and vomiting after too much Harvey's Bristol Cream and Stone's Ginger Wine. Dickens was a great visionary. He saw the potential for Christmas, and the potential came in the form of Tesco's drinks section.
Another of Dickens' great visions was to sideline any interruptions to the true meaning of Christmas that involved hanging around in a freezing church getting chilblains and mumbling the words of "Oh Come All Ye Faithful". It's this, the church bit, that the Mallorcans don't truly understand. Rather than spend Christmas Eve in determined and undistracted praise of the brewing, wine and spirits industries, they pitch up at church in order to hear some old bird warble on about the imminent arrival of the Apocalypse. (And UNESCO call this humanity!?). Some Christmas spirit I call that, threatening the local populace with the image of the Four Horsemen of Rajoy, Bauzá, Montoro and Aguiló crashing through the front door and having away with what few coins they haven't already managed to lift and, for good measure, the meagre collection of presents that the average Mallorcan family will have been able to scrape together from the local Chinese shop and car-boot sale.
Not of course that there are Christmas presents. Not at Christmas. Whoever heard of this? How can there be Christmas presents and they are not given at Christmas? The Mallorcans should be investigated for mental cruelty to their children by making them wait twelve days for their new iPhones (those privileged few who can afford them, that is). Mañana is all very well, but by the time the Mallorcans get round to handing out the pressies, Santa is long gone, has his feet up in Lapland and Rudolph is out to pasture for another year, doing nothing more taxing than keeping a wary eye out for a passing tourism minister with a high-powered hunting rifle.
The trouble with the Mallorcans is that they've got all their dates and timings to cock. And there is nothing more wrong than with those who insist on eating turkey on Christmas Eve. The British have never fallen for this flouting of tradition, despite the best attempts of the royals who keep up the pretence that they are still really German and good mates with the Kaiser, tucking into entire herds of Norfolk livestock on Christmas Eve and then jackbooting across the Sandringham estate for some fresh air on Christmas Day. And if they were true to their German roots, on Christmas Eve they would be eating the most revolting fish known to man, or other fish, the carp. Maybe they do, for all I know.
At least the Queen gets her Christmas message spot-on, as in it is on Christmas Day, unlike the Spanish King who does his when the Mallorcan faithful are back from or going to church to be warned about the Apocalypse. How on earth he's going to manage this year to skate around the little matter of the elephant I've no idea. And then there are the other Kings, the Black and White Minstrels whose arrival heralds, finally, the moment when Christmas really kicks in, albeit twelve days too late. But when one says arrival, where, in Bethlehem, was there any mention of a dockside for the Kings to pull into? Or indeed any tourist pleasure boat for them to arrive on? Sorry, but the Mallorcans have got this totally wrong. It's no use anyone claiming that the fountain out of the field, moor and mountain that the Kings had to traverse afar while bearing gifts means the sea, as I'm not having it.
The Mallorcans are getting there. Slowly, but they are getting there. They are beginning to understand that there is more to Christmas than a Gregorian chant and a bar of nougat. But there's one thing they'll never manage. There will never be a Mallorcan Noddy Holder. "IT'S CHRISSSTMAS!".
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
There is only type of Christmas. One of getting totally slaughtered on Christmas Eve, having spent the preceding months schlepping around Arndale centres in search of gift-wrapped boxes of soaps and shower gels, and of spending Christmas Day attempting to devour a pudding the weight of a house brick and vomiting after too much Harvey's Bristol Cream and Stone's Ginger Wine. Dickens was a great visionary. He saw the potential for Christmas, and the potential came in the form of Tesco's drinks section.
Another of Dickens' great visions was to sideline any interruptions to the true meaning of Christmas that involved hanging around in a freezing church getting chilblains and mumbling the words of "Oh Come All Ye Faithful". It's this, the church bit, that the Mallorcans don't truly understand. Rather than spend Christmas Eve in determined and undistracted praise of the brewing, wine and spirits industries, they pitch up at church in order to hear some old bird warble on about the imminent arrival of the Apocalypse. (And UNESCO call this humanity!?). Some Christmas spirit I call that, threatening the local populace with the image of the Four Horsemen of Rajoy, Bauzá, Montoro and Aguiló crashing through the front door and having away with what few coins they haven't already managed to lift and, for good measure, the meagre collection of presents that the average Mallorcan family will have been able to scrape together from the local Chinese shop and car-boot sale.
Not of course that there are Christmas presents. Not at Christmas. Whoever heard of this? How can there be Christmas presents and they are not given at Christmas? The Mallorcans should be investigated for mental cruelty to their children by making them wait twelve days for their new iPhones (those privileged few who can afford them, that is). Mañana is all very well, but by the time the Mallorcans get round to handing out the pressies, Santa is long gone, has his feet up in Lapland and Rudolph is out to pasture for another year, doing nothing more taxing than keeping a wary eye out for a passing tourism minister with a high-powered hunting rifle.
The trouble with the Mallorcans is that they've got all their dates and timings to cock. And there is nothing more wrong than with those who insist on eating turkey on Christmas Eve. The British have never fallen for this flouting of tradition, despite the best attempts of the royals who keep up the pretence that they are still really German and good mates with the Kaiser, tucking into entire herds of Norfolk livestock on Christmas Eve and then jackbooting across the Sandringham estate for some fresh air on Christmas Day. And if they were true to their German roots, on Christmas Eve they would be eating the most revolting fish known to man, or other fish, the carp. Maybe they do, for all I know.
At least the Queen gets her Christmas message spot-on, as in it is on Christmas Day, unlike the Spanish King who does his when the Mallorcan faithful are back from or going to church to be warned about the Apocalypse. How on earth he's going to manage this year to skate around the little matter of the elephant I've no idea. And then there are the other Kings, the Black and White Minstrels whose arrival heralds, finally, the moment when Christmas really kicks in, albeit twelve days too late. But when one says arrival, where, in Bethlehem, was there any mention of a dockside for the Kings to pull into? Or indeed any tourist pleasure boat for them to arrive on? Sorry, but the Mallorcans have got this totally wrong. It's no use anyone claiming that the fountain out of the field, moor and mountain that the Kings had to traverse afar while bearing gifts means the sea, as I'm not having it.
The Mallorcans are getting there. Slowly, but they are getting there. They are beginning to understand that there is more to Christmas than a Gregorian chant and a bar of nougat. But there's one thing they'll never manage. There will never be a Mallorcan Noddy Holder. "IT'S CHRISSSTMAS!".
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, January 06, 2012
We Three Black And White Kings
Who remembers "The Black And White Minstrel Show"? I do and I cringe at the memory. For those who don't remember it, I should explain that it involved white male singers "blacking up". The BBC finally axed the show in the late seventies, protests against it having gone on for some ten years.
To be fair to the show, it was one of the last manifestations of a tradition that had existed in variety for many years. Al Jolson was the most famous to wear a black face, but Jolson was anything but racist. Despite Jolson having championed the causes of black entertainers, the very notion of blacking-up and its offensiveness in the current-day was what was played on and captured hilariously in the series "Benidorm". When "Mal Jolson" was performing, the expression of jaw-dropped horror on the face of the character Gavin was priceless.
All this brings me to Three Kings. Historical accuracy, in the sense that the story of the Three Kings is accurate at all, demands that one of the Kings is black. In this respect, the portrayal of the Kings at ceremonies across Mallorca yesterday can claim legitimacy, but the fact that Balthasar gets blacked up is something one finds hard to believe would be tolerated in Britain.
Sensitivity to race issues does have a cultural divide. The Spanish media demonstrates it, for example. Whereas British newspapers would not, unless it were of fundamental relevance, refer to someone's colour, the Spanish press does.
The race thing where Spain is concerned has, for most in Britain and also for Brits who live in Spain, cropped up in the context of sport, most obviously with the abuse aimed at black English footballers. There was also the incident when spectators at the Spanish Grand Prix blacked up in aiming abuse at Lewis Hamilton.
Such incidents have led to assumptions as to racism in Spain, and such incidents haven't exactly gone away. Last year the Brazilian footballer Dani Alves complained that he was regularly abused and called a monkey when playing for Barcelona. It didn't help in downplaying the existence of racism when the US State Department, no less, had to remove a phrase which read "racist prejudices could lead to the arrest of Afro-Americans who travel to Spain" from its website when Michelle Obama visited in 2010.
Sport, meanwhile, has also thrown up the Luis Suárez affair. With all the cultural and linguistic elements that this has given rise to, plus the sheer fanaticism with football, it is not surprising that it has inspired a good deal of comment in Spain. But going by, as an example, comments posted to the website of the sports newspaper "Marca", there is a fair degree of support for the English FA and a fair understanding that different rules apply in England and Britain.
One tires of the "political correctness gone mad" cliché that doubtless would be levelled at any suggestions that the Mallorcans and Spaniards might not indulge in blacking up, but lack of correctness there is and its absence barely seems to register, certainly when it comes to Three Kings. The historical accuracy line would be taken in defence, but if accuracy is needed, then why is it necessary for someone to black up? There are, after all, plenty of coloured people around, and in some towns Balthasar is indeed black.
Perhaps black people would be unconcerned and would go along with a further defence, that the Three Kings are just innocent tradition mainly aimed at children. But maybe the tradition should be considered in an educational context and whether, therefore, blacking up is still appropriate. A Spanish website ("Diario de Mallorca") had an online chat with the Kings; it was a child who asked why Balthasar had to be coloured black. And in furtherance of the tradition, sleeping children can have their cheeks blackened, as though they had been kissed by Balthasar.
It is innocent, but then "The Black And White Minstrel Show" was once considered to be just innocent entertainment. It is an exaggeration to imply that Three Kings is in some way racist. It isn't because it isn't knowingly treated or considered as such. It is also well wide of the mark to suggest that Mallorcans or the Spanish are any more racist than anyone else (I've no reason to believe this, put it that way). The problem, though, as with the Hamilton business having been a "joke", is that what may be deemed culturally innocent can create a wrong impression.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
To be fair to the show, it was one of the last manifestations of a tradition that had existed in variety for many years. Al Jolson was the most famous to wear a black face, but Jolson was anything but racist. Despite Jolson having championed the causes of black entertainers, the very notion of blacking-up and its offensiveness in the current-day was what was played on and captured hilariously in the series "Benidorm". When "Mal Jolson" was performing, the expression of jaw-dropped horror on the face of the character Gavin was priceless.
All this brings me to Three Kings. Historical accuracy, in the sense that the story of the Three Kings is accurate at all, demands that one of the Kings is black. In this respect, the portrayal of the Kings at ceremonies across Mallorca yesterday can claim legitimacy, but the fact that Balthasar gets blacked up is something one finds hard to believe would be tolerated in Britain.
Sensitivity to race issues does have a cultural divide. The Spanish media demonstrates it, for example. Whereas British newspapers would not, unless it were of fundamental relevance, refer to someone's colour, the Spanish press does.
The race thing where Spain is concerned has, for most in Britain and also for Brits who live in Spain, cropped up in the context of sport, most obviously with the abuse aimed at black English footballers. There was also the incident when spectators at the Spanish Grand Prix blacked up in aiming abuse at Lewis Hamilton.
Such incidents have led to assumptions as to racism in Spain, and such incidents haven't exactly gone away. Last year the Brazilian footballer Dani Alves complained that he was regularly abused and called a monkey when playing for Barcelona. It didn't help in downplaying the existence of racism when the US State Department, no less, had to remove a phrase which read "racist prejudices could lead to the arrest of Afro-Americans who travel to Spain" from its website when Michelle Obama visited in 2010.
Sport, meanwhile, has also thrown up the Luis Suárez affair. With all the cultural and linguistic elements that this has given rise to, plus the sheer fanaticism with football, it is not surprising that it has inspired a good deal of comment in Spain. But going by, as an example, comments posted to the website of the sports newspaper "Marca", there is a fair degree of support for the English FA and a fair understanding that different rules apply in England and Britain.
One tires of the "political correctness gone mad" cliché that doubtless would be levelled at any suggestions that the Mallorcans and Spaniards might not indulge in blacking up, but lack of correctness there is and its absence barely seems to register, certainly when it comes to Three Kings. The historical accuracy line would be taken in defence, but if accuracy is needed, then why is it necessary for someone to black up? There are, after all, plenty of coloured people around, and in some towns Balthasar is indeed black.
Perhaps black people would be unconcerned and would go along with a further defence, that the Three Kings are just innocent tradition mainly aimed at children. But maybe the tradition should be considered in an educational context and whether, therefore, blacking up is still appropriate. A Spanish website ("Diario de Mallorca") had an online chat with the Kings; it was a child who asked why Balthasar had to be coloured black. And in furtherance of the tradition, sleeping children can have their cheeks blackened, as though they had been kissed by Balthasar.
It is innocent, but then "The Black And White Minstrel Show" was once considered to be just innocent entertainment. It is an exaggeration to imply that Three Kings is in some way racist. It isn't because it isn't knowingly treated or considered as such. It is also well wide of the mark to suggest that Mallorcans or the Spanish are any more racist than anyone else (I've no reason to believe this, put it that way). The problem, though, as with the Hamilton business having been a "joke", is that what may be deemed culturally innocent can create a wrong impression.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Intangible Tourism: Sibil·la
Had you attended matins on Christmas Eve, you would have heard the chant of the Sybil - Sibil·la. The chant, together with the carrying of a sword and candles and the wearing of costumes of white or coloured tunics, was placed on Unesco's list of practices described as "intangible cultural heritage of humanity". It was done so on account of, inter alia, the chant giving the people of Mallorca "a strong feeling of identity and pride".
The Sybil was one of many practices that Unesco chose to list in 2010. Two of the others were specifically Spanish - flamenco and human towers - and a further two were shared with other countries, falconry and the Mediterranean diet. Practices from elsewhere sound somewhat bizarre and obscure, such as the scissors dance of Peru, the Kirkpinar oil wrestling festival of Turkey and the hopping procession of Echternach in Luxembourg. What all have in common is folkloric and cultural tradition.
While the likes of flamenco are known globally, the Sibil·la is not. It is performed in places other than Mallorca, but its association is firmly with Mallorca, even if its origins are not. The identity and pride referred to by Unesco have been evident from the reporting of the listing of the Sybil, but should it be something to be exploited or should it remain on the island for the islanders?
This question has been addressed by a leading local musicologist, Francesc Vicens. He worries that things shouldn't get out of hand, that Mallorca doesn't have a record of cultural symbolism, such as the Sybil, being subjected to pressures of a more global style, i.e. from outside the island. At the same time, however, he is aware that it would be a contradiction that, having been granted recognition, the Sybil should not be limited to the island alone.
What all this is about is the degree to which the Sybil will become or should become a form of promotion.
Are these concerns, however, not being slightly overstated? As I say, most of the practices listed by Unesco are fairly obscure. Does recognition mean, for example, that people will be rushing off to join in with the hopping in Echternach? Maybe they will. But so long as the Sybil remains true to itself, a further issue raised by Vicens, what really is the problem? That it might be promoted as an aspect of cultural heritage, as given the seal of Unesco approval, and might lead to tourists wishing to come to Mallorca to witness and hear it, then this can only be a positive. Is it not?
To be fair to Vicens, he is not against the Sybil being presented alongside the likes of Rafael Nadal in promoting Mallorca. Rather, what he does express concern about is how well tourism, and therefore the tourism industry and organisations, handle culture. He actually believes that it would be "fantastic" were the Sybil to be used as a way of getting tourists to know more about Mallorca. But he also believes that the tourism industry has little interest in cultural issues, which may come as a surprise to some of those in the industry, especially in the promotion agencies. However, he could well be right. And his words cut right to the bone of the discussion about cultural tourism. He says that "much is spoken about cultural tourism, but I believe that the term has been used a great deal but without planning or a strategy ... for promoting the island".
The words of the musicologist are music to my ears and to others who have been saying much the same thing. Where I would tend to disagree, however, is with the idea that the Sybil would be that strong a symbol, were the planning or strategy for its inclusion in promotion done well or not.
Pressures of a more global style, as he sees coming from what is unprecedented for Mallorca in having such a recognition for an aspect of its culture, might not actually come about. In a way, he is falling into the same trap as the tourism agencies, that of believing this culture has resonance in a wider market, when in fact it might not have. It is a trap laid by essentially insular thinking made global. It is thinking that goes along the lines of because it's important to us (Mallorcans), then it will be for others. I may be wrong, but I don't know that it will be.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The Sybil was one of many practices that Unesco chose to list in 2010. Two of the others were specifically Spanish - flamenco and human towers - and a further two were shared with other countries, falconry and the Mediterranean diet. Practices from elsewhere sound somewhat bizarre and obscure, such as the scissors dance of Peru, the Kirkpinar oil wrestling festival of Turkey and the hopping procession of Echternach in Luxembourg. What all have in common is folkloric and cultural tradition.
While the likes of flamenco are known globally, the Sibil·la is not. It is performed in places other than Mallorca, but its association is firmly with Mallorca, even if its origins are not. The identity and pride referred to by Unesco have been evident from the reporting of the listing of the Sybil, but should it be something to be exploited or should it remain on the island for the islanders?
This question has been addressed by a leading local musicologist, Francesc Vicens. He worries that things shouldn't get out of hand, that Mallorca doesn't have a record of cultural symbolism, such as the Sybil, being subjected to pressures of a more global style, i.e. from outside the island. At the same time, however, he is aware that it would be a contradiction that, having been granted recognition, the Sybil should not be limited to the island alone.
What all this is about is the degree to which the Sybil will become or should become a form of promotion.
Are these concerns, however, not being slightly overstated? As I say, most of the practices listed by Unesco are fairly obscure. Does recognition mean, for example, that people will be rushing off to join in with the hopping in Echternach? Maybe they will. But so long as the Sybil remains true to itself, a further issue raised by Vicens, what really is the problem? That it might be promoted as an aspect of cultural heritage, as given the seal of Unesco approval, and might lead to tourists wishing to come to Mallorca to witness and hear it, then this can only be a positive. Is it not?
To be fair to Vicens, he is not against the Sybil being presented alongside the likes of Rafael Nadal in promoting Mallorca. Rather, what he does express concern about is how well tourism, and therefore the tourism industry and organisations, handle culture. He actually believes that it would be "fantastic" were the Sybil to be used as a way of getting tourists to know more about Mallorca. But he also believes that the tourism industry has little interest in cultural issues, which may come as a surprise to some of those in the industry, especially in the promotion agencies. However, he could well be right. And his words cut right to the bone of the discussion about cultural tourism. He says that "much is spoken about cultural tourism, but I believe that the term has been used a great deal but without planning or a strategy ... for promoting the island".
The words of the musicologist are music to my ears and to others who have been saying much the same thing. Where I would tend to disagree, however, is with the idea that the Sybil would be that strong a symbol, were the planning or strategy for its inclusion in promotion done well or not.
Pressures of a more global style, as he sees coming from what is unprecedented for Mallorca in having such a recognition for an aspect of its culture, might not actually come about. In a way, he is falling into the same trap as the tourism agencies, that of believing this culture has resonance in a wider market, when in fact it might not have. It is a trap laid by essentially insular thinking made global. It is thinking that goes along the lines of because it's important to us (Mallorcans), then it will be for others. I may be wrong, but I don't know that it will be.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
We Three Kings
The Christmas period is finally over. The kings arrived in the towns and ports of Mallorca on the night of the fifth, performed some adoration, distributed their presents, and yesterday was the culmination of the festive season - for another year.
Distribution of presents. Now, there's a thing. It is typical for the kings to hack around the streets dropping of gifts for children, house by house. Well, this is how it happens in many instances, such as in Muro. Not for the Mallorcans a Santa's grotto, the kings get out and about, put in some legwork, shielding themselves from the rain. It's the tradition, this doling out of gifts. But is it? It's the tradition, the kings parades, such as the one from the port in Alcúdia to the old town. But is it? If Christmas, Santa and presents were largely a Victorian invention in Britain, so the "traditions" of the kings in Mallorca are mainly a thing of the last century. There were "kings" long before, but not in the sense that they have become kings now, taking part in elaborate processions and handing out some Christmas bounty to the young of the towns.
"The Diario" ran a fascinating piece yesterday. The paper spoke to various oldsters in different towns on the island, asking them to recall what the "kings" were like when they were small, back in the 1920s and 1930s. A very different picture to today's emerges from these memories. Not everywhere had a "kings" party or parade, far from it. One chap recalls that at home there was little by way of celebration and that he was an adult when he first witnessed a kings parade and anything like present-giving. He's 84 now, so it would not have been until the 1940s perhaps that there was something resembling the current-day activities, and even then the gifts amounted to little more than a couple of oranges or a chocolate sweet. Others have similar recollections. A gift might have been an ensaimada, if they were lucky, or unlucky as the case may be - depends whether you like lard and sugar. Not everyone was even that lucky. Some of those spoken to don't remember there ever being any presents.
The gifts that today's kings hand out may still not be that grand - they don't stretch to a Wii or a new mobile for every kid in the neighbourhood, at least one hopes not - but they are certainly more grand and there are far more of them. Which does rather beg a question. Who pays for them? The town halls presumably. There may not be the gross commercialism of Christmas in Mallorca by comparison with elsewhere, but Christmas - and the Kings - still come at a price and with a materialistic element that is in keeping with a contemporary culture, thus removed from the so-called tradition, even if this tradition is not quite as it seems.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Distribution of presents. Now, there's a thing. It is typical for the kings to hack around the streets dropping of gifts for children, house by house. Well, this is how it happens in many instances, such as in Muro. Not for the Mallorcans a Santa's grotto, the kings get out and about, put in some legwork, shielding themselves from the rain. It's the tradition, this doling out of gifts. But is it? It's the tradition, the kings parades, such as the one from the port in Alcúdia to the old town. But is it? If Christmas, Santa and presents were largely a Victorian invention in Britain, so the "traditions" of the kings in Mallorca are mainly a thing of the last century. There were "kings" long before, but not in the sense that they have become kings now, taking part in elaborate processions and handing out some Christmas bounty to the young of the towns.
"The Diario" ran a fascinating piece yesterday. The paper spoke to various oldsters in different towns on the island, asking them to recall what the "kings" were like when they were small, back in the 1920s and 1930s. A very different picture to today's emerges from these memories. Not everywhere had a "kings" party or parade, far from it. One chap recalls that at home there was little by way of celebration and that he was an adult when he first witnessed a kings parade and anything like present-giving. He's 84 now, so it would not have been until the 1940s perhaps that there was something resembling the current-day activities, and even then the gifts amounted to little more than a couple of oranges or a chocolate sweet. Others have similar recollections. A gift might have been an ensaimada, if they were lucky, or unlucky as the case may be - depends whether you like lard and sugar. Not everyone was even that lucky. Some of those spoken to don't remember there ever being any presents.
The gifts that today's kings hand out may still not be that grand - they don't stretch to a Wii or a new mobile for every kid in the neighbourhood, at least one hopes not - but they are certainly more grand and there are far more of them. Which does rather beg a question. Who pays for them? The town halls presumably. There may not be the gross commercialism of Christmas in Mallorca by comparison with elsewhere, but Christmas - and the Kings - still come at a price and with a materialistic element that is in keeping with a contemporary culture, thus removed from the so-called tradition, even if this tradition is not quite as it seems.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Saturday, December 20, 2008
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.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
"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.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Sunday, December 07, 2008
There's A Battle Ahead
I referred yesterday to local businesses not being influenced by the media into suspending investments and employment because of the allegedly poor predictions for 2009. As hinted, I come to a more positive aspect, and that has to do with hotels and their investments and the promises of near-to or at-zero levels of interest finance and an unloosening of restrictions to enable hotels to effect modernisations. These have been welcomed, as you might expect, by the hotels. They are positive moves, albeit that, as I said on a previous occasion, hoteliers are admitting that the measures come too late for any meaningful activity this winter. However, the winter of next year should be a period of significant investment and employment as the hotels swing into action, always assuming the local town halls don't place obstacles in front of them. And the town halls, their bureaucracies and potentially also their politicking form just one possible set of blocks; there is also, as always, the pressure of the environment defenders, most obviously GOB. Unsurprisingly, GOB objects to the fact that procedures put in place to restrict developments - which have cost time and money - are to be modified or largely removed. It goes on to say that the "economic crisis" is being used as an excuse to eliminate these procedures.
GOB is not wrong. Of course the crisis has led to the changes in these procedures. One might say that it is the economy, stupid. The problem, as ever, is finding a happy compromise in the economic and environmental tug-of-war, and the economy - from a position of weakness - is nevertheless pulling that much harder, given a helping hand by the government. In all this, both camps refer to "sustainability". They use it as it is meant in the environmental lexicon, as it has been borrowed from the panacea of "sustainable development", the environment ministry stating that the hotels will put in place efficient energy and waste-management measures. Both sides argue that this "sustainablity" of the environment, in its widest sense, is required by clients and is something that attracts those clients, or tourists to you and me. They are both spinning. Most tourists are indifferent. Many like their "environment" packaged in neat excursions to the mountains or to somewhere quaint in the interior. So long as the beach and streets are clean, they give the matter little attention, and just how many base a hotel decision on whether or not it uses low-energy bulbs? There is another, more pertinent meaning for "sustainability", and that is the purely mercenary one of sustaining the current level of tourism, if not increasing it.
GOB's objections seem largely petty. For the most part, the changes to procedures are for alterations to existing hotel stock. There is also the possibility, as GOB alludes to, of increasing that stock. Here it is perhaps on firmer ground. Gone, or so it would seem, is some of that defence of the coastline talk. But be it more development or mere refurbs, one suspects that battle lines are being drawn, and they will be those at a local level, with GOB and its political supporters (mainly the minority parties) hounding the town halls to prevent work happening. And as some town halls are dominated by the Unió Mallorquina (UM), the battles could be vicious. The UM is seen as the devil in all this by GOB, which also accuses the party of wanting to cover the island with golf courses. The UM may be a nationalist party, but it is also centre-right: classically conservative, if you like, in conserving Mallorcan interests while at the same time adhering to principles of free enterprise.
Does GOB have Mallorca's interests at heart? It sounds like a ridiculous question, as the answer has to be yes. It wishes to preserve the natural state of the island as much as possible. It is a not unworthy objective. But its predictable contrariness, whenever development raises itself as a possibility, blinds it to wider interests. It is the Luddite voice set against the industrialist. Yet despite its ability to cry wolf and to constantly poke its nose into seemingly every conceivable area of economic life on the island, it does have an important role to play. The crisis has led to the changes in procedures and to the financing available to the hotels. To deny this would be absurd. But this emphasises the most crucial debate about Mallorca and its future. As was the case with the Campos golf development, the short-term economic priorities place that debate into sharp relief, namely the degree and type of further development and its environmental effect. And then there is the backdrop to all this, and that is the as-yet unknown but apocalyptically forecast impact of climate change. The government is freeing the hotels to undertake developments to sustain tourism, but longer-term just how sustainable will that tourism be? When it comes to cutting dole queues and to boosting economic growth, the environment takes a back seat, however the government may wish to spin it. The far bigger question is being ignored, and that is the future, be it four or five years from now when any major developments, were there to be any, might come on-stream and also 30 to 40 years down the line when the seas (and the temperatures) may start to make some of the current developments appear redundant.
CHRISTMAS COMES TO ALCUDIA
Well, not yet, but the town hall is taking the Christmas wrappings off of two programmes to enliven the local scene up to and past Christmas. On the three remaining weekends of the month, there are to be markets (ever more markets), workshops, theatre and music on each Saturday, and there is also "Alcúdia tapa a tapa", a sort of bar/restaurant crawl of 16 establishments which will occur from the Friday till the Sunday. Tapas and wines will be on offer at the likes of Genestar, Cas Capella and Sa Plaça.
AND IN PUERTO POLLENSA ...
"The Diario" reports that a "platform", whatever this might mean, has been created by various citizen and business groups, the purpose of it being to act together in improvements to the town. Not sure what this is, but it sounds like the "über-association" that Garry Bonsall alluded to a couple of weeks ago. I shall doubtless find out and let you know. Sure you can't wait.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Temptations. A further clue could have been the name of a one-time bar/restaurant in Puerto Alcúdia: "Cloud Nine" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBxFTzxc0Bo). Today's title - a line from an Antipodean crowd. Brilliant song.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
GOB is not wrong. Of course the crisis has led to the changes in these procedures. One might say that it is the economy, stupid. The problem, as ever, is finding a happy compromise in the economic and environmental tug-of-war, and the economy - from a position of weakness - is nevertheless pulling that much harder, given a helping hand by the government. In all this, both camps refer to "sustainability". They use it as it is meant in the environmental lexicon, as it has been borrowed from the panacea of "sustainable development", the environment ministry stating that the hotels will put in place efficient energy and waste-management measures. Both sides argue that this "sustainablity" of the environment, in its widest sense, is required by clients and is something that attracts those clients, or tourists to you and me. They are both spinning. Most tourists are indifferent. Many like their "environment" packaged in neat excursions to the mountains or to somewhere quaint in the interior. So long as the beach and streets are clean, they give the matter little attention, and just how many base a hotel decision on whether or not it uses low-energy bulbs? There is another, more pertinent meaning for "sustainability", and that is the purely mercenary one of sustaining the current level of tourism, if not increasing it.
GOB's objections seem largely petty. For the most part, the changes to procedures are for alterations to existing hotel stock. There is also the possibility, as GOB alludes to, of increasing that stock. Here it is perhaps on firmer ground. Gone, or so it would seem, is some of that defence of the coastline talk. But be it more development or mere refurbs, one suspects that battle lines are being drawn, and they will be those at a local level, with GOB and its political supporters (mainly the minority parties) hounding the town halls to prevent work happening. And as some town halls are dominated by the Unió Mallorquina (UM), the battles could be vicious. The UM is seen as the devil in all this by GOB, which also accuses the party of wanting to cover the island with golf courses. The UM may be a nationalist party, but it is also centre-right: classically conservative, if you like, in conserving Mallorcan interests while at the same time adhering to principles of free enterprise.
Does GOB have Mallorca's interests at heart? It sounds like a ridiculous question, as the answer has to be yes. It wishes to preserve the natural state of the island as much as possible. It is a not unworthy objective. But its predictable contrariness, whenever development raises itself as a possibility, blinds it to wider interests. It is the Luddite voice set against the industrialist. Yet despite its ability to cry wolf and to constantly poke its nose into seemingly every conceivable area of economic life on the island, it does have an important role to play. The crisis has led to the changes in procedures and to the financing available to the hotels. To deny this would be absurd. But this emphasises the most crucial debate about Mallorca and its future. As was the case with the Campos golf development, the short-term economic priorities place that debate into sharp relief, namely the degree and type of further development and its environmental effect. And then there is the backdrop to all this, and that is the as-yet unknown but apocalyptically forecast impact of climate change. The government is freeing the hotels to undertake developments to sustain tourism, but longer-term just how sustainable will that tourism be? When it comes to cutting dole queues and to boosting economic growth, the environment takes a back seat, however the government may wish to spin it. The far bigger question is being ignored, and that is the future, be it four or five years from now when any major developments, were there to be any, might come on-stream and also 30 to 40 years down the line when the seas (and the temperatures) may start to make some of the current developments appear redundant.
CHRISTMAS COMES TO ALCUDIA
Well, not yet, but the town hall is taking the Christmas wrappings off of two programmes to enliven the local scene up to and past Christmas. On the three remaining weekends of the month, there are to be markets (ever more markets), workshops, theatre and music on each Saturday, and there is also "Alcúdia tapa a tapa", a sort of bar/restaurant crawl of 16 establishments which will occur from the Friday till the Sunday. Tapas and wines will be on offer at the likes of Genestar, Cas Capella and Sa Plaça.
AND IN PUERTO POLLENSA ...
"The Diario" reports that a "platform", whatever this might mean, has been created by various citizen and business groups, the purpose of it being to act together in improvements to the town. Not sure what this is, but it sounds like the "über-association" that Garry Bonsall alluded to a couple of weeks ago. I shall doubtless find out and let you know. Sure you can't wait.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Temptations. A further clue could have been the name of a one-time bar/restaurant in Puerto Alcúdia: "Cloud Nine" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBxFTzxc0Bo). Today's title - a line from an Antipodean crowd. Brilliant song.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Friday, December 21, 2007
So Here It Is Merry Christmas
The Mallorcan Christmas. Like other fiestas, there is not just one day, there is a whole series of days, nearly two weeks in the case of Christmas. The Mallorcan Christmas is, in effect, from 24 December to 6 January.
But what of this Mallorcan Christmas? There is a fascination among those from the UK who don’t live here as to what it is like. And because the UK Christmas is a festival of gluttony and goodwill to all men so long as they come bearing gifts with a sizeable price tag, there is no more fascination than in how that aspect compares.
The impression one may have is of a wholly more low-key affair in which the religious aspect, the true meaning of Christmas if you will, far outweighs the commercialism. Even I have had that impression, but I’m not sure it obtains. Go to the hypermarkets such as Al Campo and see the trolley-loads of toys and gifts being wheeled out. Observe the “cestas” (hampers) for sale in the supermarkets, the shelves of specially brought in chocolates, nut-and-biscuit selections – could just as easily be Manchester as Mallorca.
By way of appreciating the “meaning” of a Mallorcan Christmas, there is a good indication in the form of a supplement to a recent “Ultima Hora” – a 64-page pull-out Christmas special; traditional Christmas yes, but far from only. Fashion for men and women; funky hairstyles for the festive season; perfumes; decorations; crackers and designer wrapping; exclusive gifts and gift ideas; CDs and books; how to keep fit having gorged on Christmas pastries, croquettes, cheese and cold-cut collections, Balearic sausages, herb liqueurs, wines and other produce, gourmet delights, fresh seafood, special recipes to try at home. And then those traditions, one of them being the celebrated “Gordo” that can be traced back to the start of the nineteenth century. Gordo is? The mega lottery just before Christmas. Yes there is also more tradition besides, but let’s adjust this rather sanctimonious notion that at Christmas Mallorca (and Spain) is in some way less in thrall to the shopping mall and supermarket shelf than Britain. I’m not so sure it is.
And with this, I am going to sign off for the festive period. No more blogging till the new year, probably around the 4th of January. So let me wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. When I return, hopefully I will have had time to put together the annual awards and annual turkeys, but don’t bank on it. I might just have spent the intervening period gorging, visiting shopping malls, pushing a heavily-laden trolley around a supermarket …
QUIZ
Yesterday – Bob James wrote the theme. Danny de Vito was the connection. Today’s title – every shopping mall plays it.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
But what of this Mallorcan Christmas? There is a fascination among those from the UK who don’t live here as to what it is like. And because the UK Christmas is a festival of gluttony and goodwill to all men so long as they come bearing gifts with a sizeable price tag, there is no more fascination than in how that aspect compares.
The impression one may have is of a wholly more low-key affair in which the religious aspect, the true meaning of Christmas if you will, far outweighs the commercialism. Even I have had that impression, but I’m not sure it obtains. Go to the hypermarkets such as Al Campo and see the trolley-loads of toys and gifts being wheeled out. Observe the “cestas” (hampers) for sale in the supermarkets, the shelves of specially brought in chocolates, nut-and-biscuit selections – could just as easily be Manchester as Mallorca.
By way of appreciating the “meaning” of a Mallorcan Christmas, there is a good indication in the form of a supplement to a recent “Ultima Hora” – a 64-page pull-out Christmas special; traditional Christmas yes, but far from only. Fashion for men and women; funky hairstyles for the festive season; perfumes; decorations; crackers and designer wrapping; exclusive gifts and gift ideas; CDs and books; how to keep fit having gorged on Christmas pastries, croquettes, cheese and cold-cut collections, Balearic sausages, herb liqueurs, wines and other produce, gourmet delights, fresh seafood, special recipes to try at home. And then those traditions, one of them being the celebrated “Gordo” that can be traced back to the start of the nineteenth century. Gordo is? The mega lottery just before Christmas. Yes there is also more tradition besides, but let’s adjust this rather sanctimonious notion that at Christmas Mallorca (and Spain) is in some way less in thrall to the shopping mall and supermarket shelf than Britain. I’m not so sure it is.
And with this, I am going to sign off for the festive period. No more blogging till the new year, probably around the 4th of January. So let me wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. When I return, hopefully I will have had time to put together the annual awards and annual turkeys, but don’t bank on it. I might just have spent the intervening period gorging, visiting shopping malls, pushing a heavily-laden trolley around a supermarket …
QUIZ
Yesterday – Bob James wrote the theme. Danny de Vito was the connection. Today’s title – every shopping mall plays it.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Thursday, December 06, 2007
One Of The Three
December is the month for holidays. No really, even more so than most other months. Today and Saturday are both public holidays: one political, one religious – Constitution Day and Immaculate Conception. Today’s celebration relates to the fact that a referendum on the constitution for the post-Franco democratic Spain was held on the 6th December 1978. Under the constitution, in addition to statements of democracy and law, there are provisions for regional self-government and the exercise of languages. These were things negated during the Franco era. Regional autonomy and the variety of languages are two of the most profound elements of both the constitution and today’s Spain. But both lead to their tensions, not least in respect of the degree to which a local language takes precedence over the national language of Castilian or vice versa. That is no more so the case than in Mallorca and within the local educational sector, a battleground for the competing requirements of the national language and of Catalan and Mallorquín. For many, it is an absurdity that Castilian, a world language of greater practical benefit, might be subjugated not just by Catalan but also by the more obscure local version. The language issue is not one about to go away. The leader of the Partido Popular nationally, Mariano Rajoy, seems to have a particular thing about the dominance of Castilian: the national elections are only a few months away.
But while on the absurd, the fact that there are two public holidays over three days means that the intervening day, the 7th December, becomes a de facto holiday as well – the bridge or in local terms “puente” (Castilian, that is). If the intention had been, back in 1978, that subsequent anniversaries of the referendum were to be public holidays, why wasn’t it held on the 7th or the 9th or at some other time? Immaculate Conception has long been a holiday in the Catholic calendar. Might it not have made more sense had …? (Could an answer as to why there is a day’s gap be that otherwise there would be occasions when the two days would coincide with a weekend.)
Anyway, just coming back to the constitution, “Ultima Hora” presents the findings of a survey within the Balearics as to people’s satisfaction or not with the constitution as it stands. Not that surprisingly, a strong majority (78%) say that they are satisfied. I say not surprisingly as, is the constitution something people really pay much attention to, except when a pollster comes along and asks?
And after this spate of days off, we have Christmas. It is coming, the goose is getting fat, all that. The lights are being put up, though with energy-saving in mind. The shops are playing naff music. The papers have special recipes. Pretty much like anywhere, even if Christmas is less of an orgy of credit-card busting here than it is in the UK. Still, for those locally who need their anglo-Christmas fill, as always pleased to put in a word for my chums at Little Britain supermarket in Puerto Alcúdia: turkeys and all the trimmings, mince pies, brandy sauce, Christmas puddings, chocolates, cards … . To Steve and Urbano at Little Britain, God rest ye merry gentlemen. Well from the 25th at any rate.
QUIZ
Yesterday – “Going Underground”, The Jam. Today’s title – song by Manchester-ish group, think jam and add two.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
But while on the absurd, the fact that there are two public holidays over three days means that the intervening day, the 7th December, becomes a de facto holiday as well – the bridge or in local terms “puente” (Castilian, that is). If the intention had been, back in 1978, that subsequent anniversaries of the referendum were to be public holidays, why wasn’t it held on the 7th or the 9th or at some other time? Immaculate Conception has long been a holiday in the Catholic calendar. Might it not have made more sense had …? (Could an answer as to why there is a day’s gap be that otherwise there would be occasions when the two days would coincide with a weekend.)
Anyway, just coming back to the constitution, “Ultima Hora” presents the findings of a survey within the Balearics as to people’s satisfaction or not with the constitution as it stands. Not that surprisingly, a strong majority (78%) say that they are satisfied. I say not surprisingly as, is the constitution something people really pay much attention to, except when a pollster comes along and asks?
And after this spate of days off, we have Christmas. It is coming, the goose is getting fat, all that. The lights are being put up, though with energy-saving in mind. The shops are playing naff music. The papers have special recipes. Pretty much like anywhere, even if Christmas is less of an orgy of credit-card busting here than it is in the UK. Still, for those locally who need their anglo-Christmas fill, as always pleased to put in a word for my chums at Little Britain supermarket in Puerto Alcúdia: turkeys and all the trimmings, mince pies, brandy sauce, Christmas puddings, chocolates, cards … . To Steve and Urbano at Little Britain, God rest ye merry gentlemen. Well from the 25th at any rate.
QUIZ
Yesterday – “Going Underground”, The Jam. Today’s title – song by Manchester-ish group, think jam and add two.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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