All Bound For La La Land

"He's justified and he's ancient, he drives a Kangoo Van. He's justified and he's ancient, part of the master plan. They called him up in Felanitx and said Balti, stand for president. All bound for La La Land."

Borrowing from the words of Tammy Wynette and the KLF, Balti Picornell is justified as a determined Republican, he is ancient insofar as his appearance is one of having remained at Yasgur's Farm and the Woodstock Festival, while he does indeed drive a van. According to Tammy, the justified and ancient had an ice-cream van, but let's be honest, when was the last time you saw an ice-cream van in Mallorca. The nearest one gets is a lorry with a crane to lift an ice-cream kiosk from space it has occupied for centuries in Puerto Pollensa and at which septuagenarians hurl walking-sticks in protest at the eviction of their dairy goodness heritage.

Balti's van has been newly acquired. We learned this last week. Seemingly, he had a bit of a prang with his ancient Twingo and traded it in for a Kangoo. Does he have shares in Renault? Probably not, but it is most reassuring to learn that the Balearic parliament's president prefers something modest with which he can traverse the island by road, assuming that the roads are actually open.

Such modesty is all part of Balti's endearing charm, as also are his dining habits. We are yet to learn whether Balti does in fact eat Balti - a question I have been asking ever since he was elevated to the parliamentary presidency - but we are at least edging a little closer to knowing the Picornell prandial instincts. And we have to thank fellow Podemosite, Aitor Morrás, for offering the insight, which he did on Twitter last week.

Balti, opined Aitor in fewer than 140 characters, was "great" for having had a "dish of the day" at the Cafeteria Concord while on an official visit to Ibiza. You are probably as unfamiliar with this establishment as I was prior to Aitor's tweet. So I can inform you, courtesy of the gastronomic oracle that is TripAdvisor, that it ranks 127 out of 430 restaurants in Ibiza Town and receives 13 excellent reviews out of 17. "WanMadrid", for example, says that its prices are reasonable, something which is unusual for Ibiza. Moreover, its tortilla is "spectacular".

So was that it? Was tortilla Baltl's dish of the day? Aitor didn't get as far as explaining that. In fact, he removed the tweet. Whatever for? Did Balti not wish to be revealed as a modest diner? We will probably never know.

Still, Balti had his new (secondhand) Kangoo to continue him on his journey to La La Land (as opposed to the KLF's Mu Mu Land), which is where, were he a fellow traveller with Més (which he clearly isn't), he would have encountered Palma's Neus Truyol. In case you need reminding, Neus has, when not single-handedly been saving the city from drought, been pursuing a policy of converting Palma into Europe's recycling central. And pursuant to this, her Emaya municipal services agency staged the world premiere of its new video last week. Well, it went up on YouTube (4,075 views at time of writing).

This epic of awareness-raising, one might have hoped, would be replete with singing rubbish containers. "Please stuff me with your 1.5 litre plastic bottles from Eroski (other supermarkets do also apply)." Something snappy along those lines. Alas no. What we have instead is "La La Land, the Emaya Remix". From now on, all citizens, taking their lead from the video, will dance their way to the nearest containers, and they will wear broad smiles as they deposit the evidence of the previous night's drinking.

In the absence of the singing containers, they could at least have got Neus to do the dancing and singing, accompanied by fellow Mésite, the soon-to-be-mayor Noguera. But no. A PR trick missed, one fancies.

* The video is of the original Justified And Ancient, in case you were wondering as to the reference.

Més Clean Up The Mess

Bravo for the Mésites. Where would we be, where would Palma in particular be without them? And if we weren't aware, then we could always find out from the leaflet they produced last week telling us how Messianic they have been. Miracles have been performed. The Mésites have cast their spells. Wizards of eco-ism and of nationalism, Palma has variously been made more transparent, more open to culture, more participative, greener, cleaner and sustainable. And all because of Més.

If nothing else, this self-tribute does rather confirm what Marga Duran of the PP has suggested: that there are separate governments in Palma. The spells have been weaved not with the aid of Som Palma (aka Podemos) or, Heaven forbid, PSOE, but by the Mésites alone. Not that this is altogether surprising. Més do after all have the mayor of Palma in their ranks. Yes, Smiler might have the title (for now), but everyone knows that Noggin's the boss. In years to come, Alcover's folk tales of ye olde Mallorca will be replaced by the sagas of Noggin the Nog, the mayor of Palma with his Lego who single-handedly remodelled the model of Palma. Antoni Noguera, (second deputy) mayor for the Model of the City, who endowed the city with the Hanging Gardens of the Marivent, temples like Artemis, and statues to great Gods such as Zeus, retitled Noggin.

But if one looks closely, are these miracles all they seem? Take being cleaner, for example. City cleanliness is the bailiwick of Neus Truyol (truly a Mésite). Neus is fifth deputy mayor of Palma. There are seemingly several hundred deputy mayors in Palma, and there will probably be more once "more participative" means allowing non-elected citizens to have the title as well. But as fifth in line to Smiler's throne, Neus is also president of Emaya, the multi-municipal agency that looks after everything from reservoirs in the Tramuntana without a great deal of water, to scrubbing unpleasant slogans about tourists off walls of protected buildings in the city centre, and to collecting mattresses that have been dumped on the streets.

It's a sizable responsibility for someone whose Wikipedia page suggests is, other than being fifth deputy mayor, gainfully occupied as a "sociologist". As fifth deputy she also has the onerous task of looking after Palma's agriculture, something that you might have missed when last shopping at El Corte Inglés. Perhaps one day she will decree that the peasants of the outer reaches of the city can drive their herds along the Born. That would be one way of getting rid of the terraces, though whether Emaya would have enough personnel and machinery to clean up the mess would be doubtful. 

Which brings us to the flak that Neus has been copping about the state of Palma's streets. There is the particular issue of what we are led to believe are huge mountains of discarded mattresses, rusting washing-machines, baths, sinks, toilets, sofas, wardrobes and entire kitchens littering the streets and thus impeding the free movement of the citizens and the farmers with their beef herds. This is all due to the change to the household junk system that Neus decided was a good idea. She still does think it's a good idea. Unlike mostly anyone else.

So, have Més cleaned up the mess and made Palma cleaner or have they not? There can be only one way to find out, and that would be to hold a referendum. "More participative", so let the citizens decide. Oh, maybe they will. Under three years to go to the next election.

MALLORCA TODAY - Palma binmen's strike is called off

As had been anticipated, strikes on eleven days this month by Emaya employees who provide refuse collection and cleaning services in Palma, Llucmajor and Sóller have been called off.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Cleaning and refuse strike in Palma likely to be called off

It is expected that, following a meeting with Mayor Isern, workers with Palma's Emaya environment division, responsible for street cleaning and refuse collection, will tomorrow call off their planned strikes for August.

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Palma public workers announce 12 days of strikes

The Emaya environment service workers in Palma are to strike on 12 separate days, eleven in August and one in September, in protest at measures taken by Palma town hall, which include the loss of jobs and longer working hours. The Emaya strikes, unless they are called off, add to those already announced by bus drivers in Palma.

The strikes will most obviously affect cleaning and refuse-collection services, and there is a possibility that other services will be affected but these would be subject to separate announcements. In addition to Palma, Llucmajor and Sóller will also be affected as Emaya operates services in these towns as well.

See more: Ultima Hora