Put Up A Parking Lot

Well, with slightly less than a fanfare and not even the hooting of a celebratory car horn or several, the new parking area in Puerto Pollensa yesterday became a tarmacadamed reality. No more of that wrecking the suspension on bits of old rock on what was there before (the suspension-wrecking can still be achieved in Puerto Pollensa thanks to the superbly dilapidated state of some of the roads). Now, 110 cars can enjoy the luxury of white-lined parking on the plot opposite the new school. Except there won't be 110 spaces once the art, or should that be science, of Mallorcan parking is on show. This follows a mathematical principle of why let one space do, when two will do just as well. The white lines are mere guidelines to the parking of vehicles, guidelines that steer the car to come to rest either side of the white line, thus occupying two spaces. Perhaps at driving school, they don't explain that you are meant to park inside those two parallel lines, not on top of one of them. Still, once you have tried and given up squeezing into what little space has been left, you will be able to admire the 48 trees that will be sprouting up, almost one tree for every two cars or, given the exactness of the local parking technique, more like one car per tree.

Nevertheless, this parking lot is welcome. Unlike Puerto Alcúdia (in the port that is) which has a fairly large parking area, Puerto Pollensa does not. I have largely given up driving around, hunting for a street parking space. It is altogether quicker to park a distance away and walk, that distance away meaning either on the side roads of the bypass to Formentor or by the Puerto Azul and Oro Playa hotels. One of the problems in Puerto Pollensa is that, since they started filling every available bit of land with buildings, the car population has grown accordingly, and there is nowhere to house it - as it were. 110 slots, fine, but still not nearly enough.

And while on Puerto Pollensa's parking, does anyone have the faintest idea what the deal is with the parking by the nautical club? Some while ago, they introduced this crazy system whereby the driver was meant to place a piece of paper in the windscreen on which he or she had written the time of arrival. This all required that a pen or pencil and piece of paper were immediately to hand, and also that the sign saying that the driver should do this had actually been observed, which it normally had not been. The fact is that there is still a sign there and that parking is meant to be limited to an hour and a half, but no one bothers. Or maybe they just gave up as it was a totally bonkers idea, and someone finally realised that it was bonkers. If they really want to limit parking time, why not install a ticket machine?


And ... Word is that Barrie, recently departed from The Smugglers, has now taken The Highlander. Don't know. Thought he was going back to England.


QUIZ
Kajagoogoo, and Kajagoogoo were produced by Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran. So where does the name Duran Duran come from? Oh, and for those still on title questions - who?

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

Missing

At times I can't help feeling that I am a bit ahead of the game. That will sound terribly immodest, but the most recent warning about climate change - and its impact on Mallorca - and the consequent reporting of this, is somewhat old news. The fact that Mallorca, and the Balearics, stand to suffer more than most places because of climate change is something I spoke about - when it was, God knows. But there has been yet another report, and this time some of the media has picked up on it, and expressed concern. Bloody right they should be concerned.

The Balearics are at 40 degrees latitude, bang on the line for the most dramatic effects of climate change - apparently. Unlike some, for instance the failed presidential candidate Mariano Rajoy and our old mate Leapy Lee, both of whom seem to believe it's all a load of tosh, I do take the issue seriously and can well believe much of the evidence.

That there have been previous periods of warming is not a reason to assume that the current cycle is purely natural. That different camps of scientists attack each other across their learned journals is also not a reason to assume that this current cycle is not man-made. The increases in temperatures locally are already quite significant, and for 40 degrees read 40 years as a kind of ball-park for when the real impact may be felt. Some way away of course, but not so far that it doesn't begin to have an immediate effect, not least on the planning of what goes on around the heavily populated coastlines of Mallorca and on the planning of tourism going deep into this current century; the rising sea levels would make us need to head for high land perhaps. But I have said all this before, and now others are. Good. Let's have a proper discussion then, shall we?


And on a totally different subject, but kind of linking to "high land", one of the pleasing aspects of this blog is when folk mail me, quite out of the blue, let me know what's happening in their lives and wishing the blog well and also wishing people here well. I had one such mail in the inbox this morning. It was from John who used to run The Highlander in Puerto Alcúdia and who's missing Alcúdia. Apart from anything else, he said to wish everyone a good season, and anyone who's run a bar or done anything of a seasonal nature here will know that good wishes are often needed. And he'll be over in April and hope to see people.


QUIZ
Yesterday - "Drive", The Cars, which became associated with Live Aid. Today's title - ok, so John's missing Alcúdia. Who did this? Very well-known (and brilliant) and a previous quiz target.

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