Wot We ‘Ate Abaht Our ‘Olidays

I think Alcúdia should be worried. Elsewhere on the internet, people are moanin’ and a-groanin’ about mosquitoes. “Ooh, I got terrible lumps.” “Scratched ‘em that bad.” “They woz bleedin’.”

Apparently there are those who, somewhat unedifyingly, wolf down jars of marmite in an attempt to ward the blighters off. Don’t know if that works. I reckon I’d puke up before I found out.

But there is a serious side to this. You get people issuing warnings about mosquitoes akin to an imminent nuclear attack. Perhaps the authorities should issue “Protect and Survive” propaganda. Patrick Allen: “Smear yourselves with marmite and then hide under a table.”

Yea ok, the mosquitoes can be bad, they can affect some people worse than others, but Alcúdia is not the only place in Mallorca that suffers. But get enough bad publicity and it makes people think twice about coming.


Now, I live here. But if I were on holiday, in addition to the mosquitoes, there would be other things that hack me off.

So, here is the first in another irregular series.

What I Hate About My Holidays. Any of you with suggestions, they will be gladly received (to the email address below). But here is the first.

PADDLE BALL. “Dock. Dock. Dock. Dock.” You know how it goes. You find a nice quietish speck on the beach, stretch out for some serious burning, and along come a couple of dorks with their paddle ball. Right next to you. The regular sound. “Dock. Dock. Dock. Dock.”

Just piss off and go and play with the jellyfish, won’t you.


A couple of weeks back, 20 May to be precise, I mentioned ES TURÓ restaurant near Santa Margalida. I said it was an impressive place. Now I can also report that it has some seriously impressive prices. Expensive? Not a bit of it. Very well-priced indeed. Try this. A tumbet starter and a chicken main course for a bit over a tenner. Damn good value. Given that Can Picafort is largely bereft of decent restaurants, for the price of a taxi (it’s only 6 kilometres from Can Pic), it is a really good bet. Stunning place. Great atmosphere. Nice food. Go there.


By the way, the mosquitoes seem to have largely cleared off for the time being.


Sitcom/Pop Quiz: Loads of you got it. The spoof band was “Bad News”. And going back firmly to Pop Quiz. With today’s title in mind, who recorded the album “What We Did On Our Holidays”. I reckon this is pretty tough, so double helpings of marmite to anyone who can get it. And a bonus question. Patrick Allen and “Protect and Survive”. In which record did a sample of this feature and by which group?

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The Weird

The hunt is on.

In my life as a publisher of tourist guides, I am constantly bombarded by publicity for restaurants etc that emphasises their atmosphere, their sunny terraces, the quality of their food, their specialisms (Spanish restaurants love to announce that they are, inter alia, “specialists in meat”, which has never sounded much an enticement to me, at least).

But what I do not come across, what is never publicised is whether a place is just weird.

Weirdness comes in many guises. Weird location, weird food, weird people. And weirdness is a positive, in my book at any rate. Forget your romantic ambience, I want restaurants, bars, anything that are nuts, strange, left-field, off-the-wall, bonkers. I want ghoulish ambience, ghoulish people, bearded women, restaurants with no food, bars with no drink, the inhabitants of Bedlam.

Where are these places? They must exist. So tell me. The weirder the better. And, rest assured, the weird will be given its place in the sun (irrespective of terrace) on this blog. The rules for the search are that the weirdness must be an advantage and this weirdness would make you return. So, come on ...


Meantime, the merely magnificent. Recently I discovered an astonishing restaurant near Santa Margalida. Hardly a difficult place to discover as it sits next to the main road. Except that is that no-one ever goes to Santa Margalida, which is hardly surprising as there is little worth going for if you are the average tourist. This is a mistake, however. There is a quite impressive church, totally oversized given the size of the town, and an impressively unremarkable monument thing. Santa Margalida would be a good entry for weird towns, for which I invite more input. And it should be noted that the castle-looking affair as you go towards the town belongs to one Demis Roussos, so I was told. Not weird as such, but worth a trek to spot the large Greek.

Anyway, the restaurant is Es Turó, which is part of the very old S’Alqueria des Comte. Very, very impressive. So here´s a piccy.



Manacor’s favourite son and muscle-bound tennis heart-throb, Rafael Nadal, declares in today’s “Sunday Times” that his favourite music includes Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams.

Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams. God forbid.

Go back almost a year - to 27 May last year in fact - to find out why I cannot stand Bryan Adams.


I found out yesterday that Leapy Lee was actually born Graham Pulleyblank. He goes up in my estimation.

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