It's one of those stories which pops up on a regular basis, normally about once a year and not because of the annual day, i.e. 12 October, when Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas, specifically the island he called San Salvador.
The recurring story is the one of where Columbus came from. Whole lives' works have been spent in the attempt to prove that the generally accepted view that he came from Genoa is bunkum. Why do people persist in seeking to disprove the Genoa theory and in wishing to locate his origin elsewhere? Different reasons. Scholarly obstinacy is one. The desire to reveal a whole different truth (and a real one at that) is another. To expose a conspiracy is a third.
The conspiracy is twofold. One is that a Catholic-centred perception of Columbus cannot permit him to be or to have been of a Jewish background. The other is the Hispanic necessity. In the name of the Crown of Castile and of Isabel I, the queen at the time, albeit she was married to an Aragonese, Ferdinand, and in the subsequent name of Castile over centuries, to grant Columbus a Catalan background is an impossibility.
The Jewish-Catalan collision is central to the theory of the Ibizan researcher Nito Verdera. In an interview with "El Mundo", he has once more explained why he believes that Columbus - his family at any rate - had moved to Ibiza from Catalonia, why he is convinced that this family and Columbus were "conversos" (converted from Judaism to Catholicism), and why therefore Columbus was born in Ibiza Town.
Verdera has established a museum in Ibiza. The house where it is located was documented in the fourteenth century as having been lived in by a Francesc Colom. The surname is important. This Catalan style was to appear in various documents concerning Columbus. The Castellano style - Colón - did not.
The name is an essential ingredient in Verdera's argument. Linguistics in more general terms are also essential, as they have been with other researchers. In 2009, for example, Estelle Irizarry, emeritus professor of Spanish literature at the University of Georgetown in Washington, published her "The DNA Of The Writings Of Columbus". Irizarry places Columbus as having come from Catalan-speaking Aragon and having been descended from the Jewish-Spanish race persecuted from the fourteenth century. The language used by Columbus, she maintains, was Ladino-Catalan, Ladino having been the language of the Sephardic Jews.
In the Balearics, the more recognised Columbus alternative theory is that of Gabriel Verd. Columbus - Cristòfor Colom - was born in Felanitx in 1460 (not 1451, which is the year usually given) and was the illegitimate son of the Prince of Viana from Aragon, the brother of Ferdinand. He was therefore the king's nephew. His mother was Margarita Colom, and he was to rise to the prominence he did in the Spanish court because of this secretive family background. This is an important part of Verd's theory, because the Genoa connection - Columbus had a humble background - has never really adequately explained how Columbus came to be hanging around royal circles.
Verdera dismisses Verd's theory. Columbus, according to Verd, would have only been 46 when he died in 1506. There are documents which suggest he was 60 when he died, meaning he had been born earlier than 1451 (in Genoa) and certainly earlier then 1460 (in Felanitx at the finca of s'Alqueria Roja to be precise). Verdera is also upset that he, unlike Verd, has not been given financial support for his research. In 2004, María Antonia Munar, then the president of the Council of Mallorca, approved a grant of over 50,000 euros. "I have a patent interest in Christopher Columbus being from Mallorca. I feel satisfied at having shown my support for Professor Gabriel Verd, and I intend to continue to do so," she said. A research programme, "Development of Human Genetic Research on Columbus's Origins", was to receive the grant to study theories that Columbus was born in Mallorca and "whose staunchest supporter is the historian Gabriel Verd".
The Ibiza theory, as far as Verdera is concerned, is the accurate one. Likewise, Verd sticks to his Felanitx theory. They can't both be right, and only limited numbers of people will believe that either of them is right. Among those who refuse to believe either of them are all the scholars down the years who have maintained that Columbus - Christoffa Corombo - was from Genoa. An alternative theory, were it ever proven, would leave an awful lot of people with egg on their faces.
And this - definitive proof - is unlikely to ever be unearthed. For all the counter theories, there are ones that give credence to Genoa having been his birthplace. Much is made of Columbus not having written in Italian, but the Ligurian of Genoa was not a written language. He wouldn't necessarily have known Italian. But the search for proof continues nonetheless.
Index for November 2016
Airbnb - 11 November 2016, 19 November 2016
Balearic maximum population - 4 November 2016
Canaries tourism website - 15 November 2016
Christmas shopping - 26 November 2016
Christopher Columbus - 30 November 2016
Creative tourism - 17 November 2016
Day of the Dead - 1 November 2016
Dijous Bo - 12 November 2016
Donald Trump and Spain - 10 November 2016
Employment and seasonality - 2 November 2016
Golf history - 13 November 2016
Holiday brochures - 9 November 2016
Interior tourism - 22 November 2016
José Ramón Bauzá - 28 November 2016
Podemos at war - 14 November 2016
Politicians' clothing sense - 20 November 2016
Puerto Pollensa - 21 November 2016
Regionalism - 16 November 2016
Slogans and tourism - 29 November 2016
Tourism debate in the Balearics - 18 November 2016
Tourism minister - 6 November 2016, 8 November 2016
Tourism promotion - 3 November 2016, 5 November 2016
Trasmediterránea - 27 November 2016
Travel fairs of the past - 7 November 2016
Showing posts with label Ibiza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ibiza. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Tourists And Their Creative Urges
Tucked away in a conference hall at last week's World Travel Market, Estonia was receiving an award. So were Mexico, Italy and Cyprus - two in fact in the case of the latter. One of the speakers at this event was Vicent Torres, the president of the Council of Ibiza. His presentation was based around a slogan - "be creative, transform tourism".
Ibiza is a member of the Creative Tourism Network, an international organisation, the origins of which go back to another conference: one held in January 2000 in Portugal. Greg Richards, one of the foremost thinkers on cultural tourism, was giving a lecture. While saying that cultural tourism was growing rapidly, he pointed to a potential drawback. It could be summed up in two ways - "not another bloody cathedral" and "this or that happened in the year 1637". In other words, cultural tourism has a great propensity to be repetitive or dull.
Listening to this lecture was Crispin Reynolds, whose background was principally in the arts world: he had been chief executive of the Theatre Royal in Bath. He was taken by what Richards was saying. They met, they spoke and some time later they came up with the concept of creative tourism, defined as offering "visitors the opportunity to develop their creative potential through active participation in courses and learning experiences which are characteristic of the holiday destination where they are undertaken". Cultural tourism had to be interactive and creative in order that cultural tourists could be fully engaged. From this came the Creative Tourism Network.
But what actually is this creative tourism? A marketing specialist in the subject, which is how her website describes her, says that research shows that people have a "growing desire to connect with each other and feel more in touch local communities". Based on this research, she was looking to develop workshops in Kent, such as for cooking with Kent produce, knitting, woodcarving, painting.
Barcelona claims to have the world's first creative tourism platform and has had it since 2005. Visitors are therefore able, among other things, to learn flamenco dancing, engage in fashion design or make bread (in a creative fashion). As this is all promoted in English, one has to assume that they've overcome what might otherwise be something of a stumbling block. When baking bread (creatively), it does help if you can understand what you are being told, unless you don't speak English.
In Ibiza, they reckon they can crack the nut of seasonality and become a year-round destination by providing courses in anything from art to gastronomy to photography to organic farming. There are also visits "with charm" to bodegas, agricultural cooperatives, artisan workshops or eco farms. This is all couched, inevitably, in "sustainability" terms. For once, the word can be used with real justification. It is not invasive of the environment, unless there are great masses traipsing across eco farms (unlikely, admittedly), it boosts employment and business, it is respectful of this local business and culture.
And as importantly, it doesn't require great investment, if any. When there are people and businesses already doing things and making things, investment is not required. As a concept, therefore, it has much to commend it. But how much can it be developed or is it being developed?
Ten years ago, there was a meeting under the auspices of Unesco at which it was envisaged that in ten years time there would be, variously, a growing network of creative cities, the packaging of local products and creative offerings, and local creative history curricula. Two years ago, research was submitted for a project in the Costa del Sol - its reinvention through creative tourism. The project may see the full light of day, but as far as the Creative Tourism Network's website is concerned, the only creative tourism in Andalusia is based on the town of Lucena. And it is one of only a small number of global "creative-friendly destinations": Barcelona and Ibiza are two of them. The growing network of cities that had been envisaged ten years ago seems to need more time to really start growing.
In Mallorca, there is to be an international seminar on experiential tourism. It isn't that different to creative tourism. In fact, it doesn't seem to be different at all: just another way of calling it and imbuing it with the worthiness of sustainability. Here is, therefore, a further means of attempting to find the Holy Grail that unlocks the negative impact of seasonality. And where might it lead? Visitors being instructed in building dry-stone walls or being shown how to make ensaimadas?
In a sense there isn't anything new about all this. Working farms, cookery courses, art classes; they've been around for years. Putting them all into a coherent form, though, is new. But how many tourists would be attracted? By comparison, there's still something to be said for another bloody cathedral.
Ibiza is a member of the Creative Tourism Network, an international organisation, the origins of which go back to another conference: one held in January 2000 in Portugal. Greg Richards, one of the foremost thinkers on cultural tourism, was giving a lecture. While saying that cultural tourism was growing rapidly, he pointed to a potential drawback. It could be summed up in two ways - "not another bloody cathedral" and "this or that happened in the year 1637". In other words, cultural tourism has a great propensity to be repetitive or dull.
Listening to this lecture was Crispin Reynolds, whose background was principally in the arts world: he had been chief executive of the Theatre Royal in Bath. He was taken by what Richards was saying. They met, they spoke and some time later they came up with the concept of creative tourism, defined as offering "visitors the opportunity to develop their creative potential through active participation in courses and learning experiences which are characteristic of the holiday destination where they are undertaken". Cultural tourism had to be interactive and creative in order that cultural tourists could be fully engaged. From this came the Creative Tourism Network.
But what actually is this creative tourism? A marketing specialist in the subject, which is how her website describes her, says that research shows that people have a "growing desire to connect with each other and feel more in touch local communities". Based on this research, she was looking to develop workshops in Kent, such as for cooking with Kent produce, knitting, woodcarving, painting.
Barcelona claims to have the world's first creative tourism platform and has had it since 2005. Visitors are therefore able, among other things, to learn flamenco dancing, engage in fashion design or make bread (in a creative fashion). As this is all promoted in English, one has to assume that they've overcome what might otherwise be something of a stumbling block. When baking bread (creatively), it does help if you can understand what you are being told, unless you don't speak English.
In Ibiza, they reckon they can crack the nut of seasonality and become a year-round destination by providing courses in anything from art to gastronomy to photography to organic farming. There are also visits "with charm" to bodegas, agricultural cooperatives, artisan workshops or eco farms. This is all couched, inevitably, in "sustainability" terms. For once, the word can be used with real justification. It is not invasive of the environment, unless there are great masses traipsing across eco farms (unlikely, admittedly), it boosts employment and business, it is respectful of this local business and culture.
And as importantly, it doesn't require great investment, if any. When there are people and businesses already doing things and making things, investment is not required. As a concept, therefore, it has much to commend it. But how much can it be developed or is it being developed?
Ten years ago, there was a meeting under the auspices of Unesco at which it was envisaged that in ten years time there would be, variously, a growing network of creative cities, the packaging of local products and creative offerings, and local creative history curricula. Two years ago, research was submitted for a project in the Costa del Sol - its reinvention through creative tourism. The project may see the full light of day, but as far as the Creative Tourism Network's website is concerned, the only creative tourism in Andalusia is based on the town of Lucena. And it is one of only a small number of global "creative-friendly destinations": Barcelona and Ibiza are two of them. The growing network of cities that had been envisaged ten years ago seems to need more time to really start growing.
In Mallorca, there is to be an international seminar on experiential tourism. It isn't that different to creative tourism. In fact, it doesn't seem to be different at all: just another way of calling it and imbuing it with the worthiness of sustainability. Here is, therefore, a further means of attempting to find the Holy Grail that unlocks the negative impact of seasonality. And where might it lead? Visitors being instructed in building dry-stone walls or being shown how to make ensaimadas?
In a sense there isn't anything new about all this. Working farms, cookery courses, art classes; they've been around for years. Putting them all into a coherent form, though, is new. But how many tourists would be attracted? By comparison, there's still something to be said for another bloody cathedral.
Sunday, July 10, 2016
The Forgetfulness Of Clubs' Finances
Clubs are suddenly very much in fashion - news fashion, that is. The police and the tax agency have made them so. One of them is Amnesia, the Ibiza club that regularly features among awards for the best club in the world and which has been with us since the start of the 1970s. Amnesia, more than any other club, gave Ibiza its club reputation. It now looks as if it might acquire a different reputation.
Over recent days, the club and other property belonging to its owner, Martin Ferrer, have been raided by the Guardia Civil. The operation was ordered through a combination of an investigating judge in Ibiza, the tax agency and the Guardia Civil's central operations unit. The judge has since issued an order to "block" a total of sixteen properties belonging to Ferrer, meaning that they cannot be sold or their assets transferred. The scope of the operation is such that it involves property as far away as Leon on the mainland, where Ferrer has a house in Crémenes and various others.
The raid on Amnesia, which was over two days, extended to the opening of bank safe deposits. At least two million euros have been found. Ferrer was arrested but has been released, much to the perplexity of the prosecution service which had called for his precautionary detention and that of others. Nevertheless, the Guardia's criminal police and the tax agency believe they have the documentation they need and so it will not be altered or somehow disappear. Tax fraud and money laundering are the main charges that prosecutors are levelling.
The nature of the operation is such that Guardia detectives were moved in from Mallorca. Virtually no officers in Ibiza have been involved. At the room they have occupied at the Ibiza headquarters, the first thing that was done was to change the lock. A preliminary estimation by the tax agency of the level of alleged fraud is nearly five million euros. This figure relates to only two years - 2012 and 2013 - and this particular investigation was sparked by an anonymous tip-off directed principally against the former chief financial officer of Amnesia and related companies, Josep Aymar, with Ferrer also implicated.
The case has been several months in the unfolding. The prosecution service, on receipt of a report from the tax agency, lodged it was the court back in October. There had been a period of investigation prior to this, with the anonymous information and the facts it offered having been scrutinised.
The operation against Amnesia is not an isolated one. In fact it falls under a massive nationwide action. Dubbed "Operation Chopin", a total of 87 clubs were raided across Spain when officers from the Guardia, the National Police and the Mossos in Catalonia moved in early on Saturday morning at times when the clubs were closing: in the case of Amnesia, it typically closes at 7am. Among these clubs were other well-known ones in Ibiza - Space and Privilege - as well as BCM in Magalluf. Chopin is thus a major operation against potential tax fraud that embraces much of the elite of Balearic and Spanish nightlife.
The scale is enormous, the coordination of the action impressive. There were four clubs in the Balearics that were raided, but elsewhere there were as many as twenty (in Valencia), sixteen in both Catalonia and Galicia and ten in Andalusia. Together these clubs represent some twenty per cent of the entire turnover of Spain's nightlife sector. But what actually is the turnover? That's something for investigators to identify. Approximately 75% of revenue is cash.
As to Ferrer, it is not the first time that he has been the focus of an investigation. There was one in 2011 related to VAT returns five years previously. His involvement with Aymar is said to have been financially disadvantageous to him in that there were poor investment decisions, such as the Amnesia Barcelona project. An allegation is that the debt and interest that needed to be paid for that resulted in the diversion of funds in order to service the repayments; this represented, therefore, a loss for the tax agency, which is a polite way of saying that a fraud was committed.
Where does this all lead to? It's impossible to say. This is an investigation into a sector in which cash dominates. Establishing alleged trails of money laundering therefore becomes central. Unravelling them will not happen overnight; say between 12 midnight and 7am, when a club would be open.
Over recent days, the club and other property belonging to its owner, Martin Ferrer, have been raided by the Guardia Civil. The operation was ordered through a combination of an investigating judge in Ibiza, the tax agency and the Guardia Civil's central operations unit. The judge has since issued an order to "block" a total of sixteen properties belonging to Ferrer, meaning that they cannot be sold or their assets transferred. The scope of the operation is such that it involves property as far away as Leon on the mainland, where Ferrer has a house in Crémenes and various others.
The raid on Amnesia, which was over two days, extended to the opening of bank safe deposits. At least two million euros have been found. Ferrer was arrested but has been released, much to the perplexity of the prosecution service which had called for his precautionary detention and that of others. Nevertheless, the Guardia's criminal police and the tax agency believe they have the documentation they need and so it will not be altered or somehow disappear. Tax fraud and money laundering are the main charges that prosecutors are levelling.
The nature of the operation is such that Guardia detectives were moved in from Mallorca. Virtually no officers in Ibiza have been involved. At the room they have occupied at the Ibiza headquarters, the first thing that was done was to change the lock. A preliminary estimation by the tax agency of the level of alleged fraud is nearly five million euros. This figure relates to only two years - 2012 and 2013 - and this particular investigation was sparked by an anonymous tip-off directed principally against the former chief financial officer of Amnesia and related companies, Josep Aymar, with Ferrer also implicated.
The case has been several months in the unfolding. The prosecution service, on receipt of a report from the tax agency, lodged it was the court back in October. There had been a period of investigation prior to this, with the anonymous information and the facts it offered having been scrutinised.
The operation against Amnesia is not an isolated one. In fact it falls under a massive nationwide action. Dubbed "Operation Chopin", a total of 87 clubs were raided across Spain when officers from the Guardia, the National Police and the Mossos in Catalonia moved in early on Saturday morning at times when the clubs were closing: in the case of Amnesia, it typically closes at 7am. Among these clubs were other well-known ones in Ibiza - Space and Privilege - as well as BCM in Magalluf. Chopin is thus a major operation against potential tax fraud that embraces much of the elite of Balearic and Spanish nightlife.
The scale is enormous, the coordination of the action impressive. There were four clubs in the Balearics that were raided, but elsewhere there were as many as twenty (in Valencia), sixteen in both Catalonia and Galicia and ten in Andalusia. Together these clubs represent some twenty per cent of the entire turnover of Spain's nightlife sector. But what actually is the turnover? That's something for investigators to identify. Approximately 75% of revenue is cash.
As to Ferrer, it is not the first time that he has been the focus of an investigation. There was one in 2011 related to VAT returns five years previously. His involvement with Aymar is said to have been financially disadvantageous to him in that there were poor investment decisions, such as the Amnesia Barcelona project. An allegation is that the debt and interest that needed to be paid for that resulted in the diversion of funds in order to service the repayments; this represented, therefore, a loss for the tax agency, which is a polite way of saying that a fraud was committed.
Where does this all lead to? It's impossible to say. This is an investigation into a sector in which cash dominates. Establishing alleged trails of money laundering therefore becomes central. Unravelling them will not happen overnight; say between 12 midnight and 7am, when a club would be open.
Friday, October 02, 2015
The Balearics Under Zombie Attack
I've no wish to alarm you unduly, but that bloke sitting next to you in the bar, can you be absolutely sure he isn't a zombie? There are zombie attacks every ten minutes, you know. Yes really.
Certain inhabitants of bars might give the impression of having gone into a zombie state, but the alarm being spread as regards zombies in our midst is probably exaggerated. I mean, someone who's taken onboard several gallons too many may have adopted the appearance of the undead, but generally speaking he won't have joined the ranks. On balance, it would be more likely that he was actually dead rather than in death no-man's land.
The every-ten-minutes-there's-a-zombie-attack alarm is of course all a publicity ruse. Partly, it is because of "The Walking Dead", but it is also because in Mallorca and the Balearics, normally sensible people are playing at being zombies. This is, I'm sorry to have to say, not a phenomenon confined to those who don't know better, i.e. children, but is in fact the pastime of grown-ups who really should do.
It is all a bit frightening, not that the zombies are frightening as such, but rather like there are those limping around labouring, in "me 'earty" fashion, under the misapprehension that they are Johnny Depp and so therefore pirates, there are also members of the adult class who seem to think they are zombies. The only upside of this, as far as I can see, is that piratical hegemony that has ruled for so long might be challenged. It's not much of a benefit, agreed, but one does have to try and look on the bright side and for some good out of all this zombie carrying-on.
When, do you suppose, will they open a zombie-themed hotel? Yes, I know, I know, but before you start saying low end of the all-inclusive market, the clientele in these cannot, in all truth, claim any zombie status. The thing with zombies, those who wish to carry the game to its logical conclusion that is, is that they can't drink alcohol. Or eat pizza. So I'm sorry, let's have no all-inclusive jibes, albeit I fancy that if and when they open the zombie-themed hotel, it would have to be all-inclusive. Let's face it, no self-respecting hotel, if this is the correct term, would wish a zombie clientele to be walking the streets of the resorts at any time of day or night: normally night, I fancy.
Now, you might think that they'd never do something as daft as have a zombie-themed hotel. Well I'm sorry, but they might well do. If they can have a zombie cruise ship, then they can certainly have a hotel as well. A zombie ship? Oh yes, indeed. It moored up in Ibiza just a short time ago. Not only that, the zombies took to the streets of San Antonio one dark morning before sun-up and were joined, with a payment of 29 euros per not-undead local, by indigenous Ibizan zombies. The town hall and the local police had gone along with the whole thing, and even informed the residents that they shouldn't be concerned by this zombie invasion.
It was all the idea of zombie enthusiasts who set up a WhatsApp group and who, at just short of 300 euros a pop, were able to catch the zombie ship from Valencia. And what an experience it was, especially for those who weren't zombies. Being confined to a ship on the open seas, there's no escape, and so they were never sure when a zombie might attack.
There are, it has to be said, cruises and then there are cruises. In the scheme of things a zombie cruise would not be the cruise of choice for the majority. Just as the Mein Schiff that has its heavy-metal clientele wouldn't be the preference of another majority. Eighteen-stone, tattoed Germans, head-banging and manically waving air guitars for twenty-four hours a day on a ship, sounds as close to hell as it can get, but not quite as hellish as zombies.
Or have I got this wrong? I think I may have. Why not zombies? Why not heavy-metal hairies with Megadeth t-shirts? It's all in the name of enjoyment after all, while Themes 'R' Us might be said to be the thematic slogan of contemporary tourism. And then, where zombies are concerned, Mallorca has some specific recent form in this regard. Films. In the summer the finishing touches to "Turbulencia zombi" by a Mallorcan director were made in the Palma area of Sant Jordi, and last September there were hordes of zombies being filmed at the likes of Cala Tuent for "Generation Z".
The zombies are here. So watch out. You never know when one might attack.
Certain inhabitants of bars might give the impression of having gone into a zombie state, but the alarm being spread as regards zombies in our midst is probably exaggerated. I mean, someone who's taken onboard several gallons too many may have adopted the appearance of the undead, but generally speaking he won't have joined the ranks. On balance, it would be more likely that he was actually dead rather than in death no-man's land.
The every-ten-minutes-there's-a-zombie-attack alarm is of course all a publicity ruse. Partly, it is because of "The Walking Dead", but it is also because in Mallorca and the Balearics, normally sensible people are playing at being zombies. This is, I'm sorry to have to say, not a phenomenon confined to those who don't know better, i.e. children, but is in fact the pastime of grown-ups who really should do.
It is all a bit frightening, not that the zombies are frightening as such, but rather like there are those limping around labouring, in "me 'earty" fashion, under the misapprehension that they are Johnny Depp and so therefore pirates, there are also members of the adult class who seem to think they are zombies. The only upside of this, as far as I can see, is that piratical hegemony that has ruled for so long might be challenged. It's not much of a benefit, agreed, but one does have to try and look on the bright side and for some good out of all this zombie carrying-on.
When, do you suppose, will they open a zombie-themed hotel? Yes, I know, I know, but before you start saying low end of the all-inclusive market, the clientele in these cannot, in all truth, claim any zombie status. The thing with zombies, those who wish to carry the game to its logical conclusion that is, is that they can't drink alcohol. Or eat pizza. So I'm sorry, let's have no all-inclusive jibes, albeit I fancy that if and when they open the zombie-themed hotel, it would have to be all-inclusive. Let's face it, no self-respecting hotel, if this is the correct term, would wish a zombie clientele to be walking the streets of the resorts at any time of day or night: normally night, I fancy.
Now, you might think that they'd never do something as daft as have a zombie-themed hotel. Well I'm sorry, but they might well do. If they can have a zombie cruise ship, then they can certainly have a hotel as well. A zombie ship? Oh yes, indeed. It moored up in Ibiza just a short time ago. Not only that, the zombies took to the streets of San Antonio one dark morning before sun-up and were joined, with a payment of 29 euros per not-undead local, by indigenous Ibizan zombies. The town hall and the local police had gone along with the whole thing, and even informed the residents that they shouldn't be concerned by this zombie invasion.
It was all the idea of zombie enthusiasts who set up a WhatsApp group and who, at just short of 300 euros a pop, were able to catch the zombie ship from Valencia. And what an experience it was, especially for those who weren't zombies. Being confined to a ship on the open seas, there's no escape, and so they were never sure when a zombie might attack.
There are, it has to be said, cruises and then there are cruises. In the scheme of things a zombie cruise would not be the cruise of choice for the majority. Just as the Mein Schiff that has its heavy-metal clientele wouldn't be the preference of another majority. Eighteen-stone, tattoed Germans, head-banging and manically waving air guitars for twenty-four hours a day on a ship, sounds as close to hell as it can get, but not quite as hellish as zombies.
Or have I got this wrong? I think I may have. Why not zombies? Why not heavy-metal hairies with Megadeth t-shirts? It's all in the name of enjoyment after all, while Themes 'R' Us might be said to be the thematic slogan of contemporary tourism. And then, where zombies are concerned, Mallorca has some specific recent form in this regard. Films. In the summer the finishing touches to "Turbulencia zombi" by a Mallorcan director were made in the Palma area of Sant Jordi, and last September there were hordes of zombies being filmed at the likes of Cala Tuent for "Generation Z".
The zombies are here. So watch out. You never know when one might attack.
Sunday, February 02, 2014
Oil Politics: Balearics and Canaries
"It's all about the price of oil," lamented Billy Bragg. The oil men in the White House didn't give a damn, but one in particular gave enough of a damn to give the appearance of a justified, non-oil-driven adventure by bringing along whichever ally, irrelevant or not, he could. José María Aznar was such an ally. If he was then mocked for being "Tony's little friend", he must have been Bush's very tiny friend. All about the price of oil.
In 2002, a royal decree of the government of José María Aznar was finally approved and published in the Official Bulletin. It paved the way for oil prospecting off the coasts of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. It was a decree with the backing of Aznar, the then vice-premier, Mariano Rajoy, and the environment minister at the time, the now disgraced ex-president of the Balearics, Jaume Matas.
For various reasons, this prospecting didn't happen. One was that the Spanish Supreme Court blocked Repsol's attempts to start exploration in 2004. This was after the government had changed and Aznar was no longer prime minister. But while the arguments over the exploration centred on the environmental impact, in the background were international political issues.
Following 9/11, the American Government moved to strengthen its relations with Morocco, and a free trade treaty was signed between the two countries. Morocco became the first African country to have such a treaty. This, however, was problematic for Spain. And the reason why was oil. Or the possibility of oil and to which country it might actually belong.
If you look at a map you will see that the Canaries lie off the coast of Morocco. Only a comparatively short distance to the south is the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Morocco claims sovereignty over Western Sahara, a territory which, under US-led pressure at the United Nations, Spain was forced to give up in 1975; the UN doesn't recognise Morocco's sovereignty claims. Exploration for oil off Western Sahara started, at the behest of the Moroccan Government, in 2002. It has since come to a halt, partly because of the lack of clarity over legal status. But the point is that oil fields which may or not exist off the Canaries could extend into territorial waters that are not Spanish and are either Moroccan or Western Saharan.
The trade agreement and cosier relationship between the US and Morocco were problematic for Spain because it needed (or would need) US support in any dispute over rights to oil. Was it all about the price of oil? Well, there are those who would argue that the only reason Aznar and Spain sided so strongly with Bush against Saddam wasn't so much to do with oil in Iraq but to do with oil in the Atlantic.
The international politics may have shifted since then, but the arguments are still the same, and they have been boiling up in the Canaries. An oil platform belonging to Cairn Energy sits in readiness for drilling work on behalf of Repsol to start this year. Aznar is no longer prime minister, but his one-time second-in-command is, and the Partido Popular administration has given the go-ahead to prospect for what could amount to 38 million barrels of oil a year.
Opposition in the Canaries has come from hoteliers and others in the tourism industry, from environmentalists and from local politicians in the regional government and at island councils. It is only really the Canaries business confederation that supports the national government in undertaking a venture which, for some in the Canaries, amounts to the islands being treated "like a colony" and being exploited against their wishes.
There is a much more tangled web surrounding the exploration off the Canaries than that to do with a subterranean sea mountain which runs from a location some 70 kilometres from the mainland at Cabo de la Nao to 45 kilometres off Ibiza. It is this mountain that has been designated for oil exploration. At one end is rare seaweed; at the other, in the waters near Ibiza, is posidonia sea grass, which is not unique to the Balearics but is otherwise also rare. The opposition to the exploration is as unified in the Balearics as it is in the Canaries, but it has a notable difference; the political leadership in the Canaries is not Partido Popular.
So, one has a situation in which the regional PP in the Balearics opposes the national PP. President Bauzá is against the exploration because of the potential harm that could be caused to tourism. Whether the opposition, in more general economic terms, is right is another matter. At least in the Balearics, though, there are no international politics to be concerned with other than those of a European Commission nature. And the EC, for one, needs convincing as to environmental safeguards.
In 2002, a royal decree of the government of José María Aznar was finally approved and published in the Official Bulletin. It paved the way for oil prospecting off the coasts of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. It was a decree with the backing of Aznar, the then vice-premier, Mariano Rajoy, and the environment minister at the time, the now disgraced ex-president of the Balearics, Jaume Matas.
For various reasons, this prospecting didn't happen. One was that the Spanish Supreme Court blocked Repsol's attempts to start exploration in 2004. This was after the government had changed and Aznar was no longer prime minister. But while the arguments over the exploration centred on the environmental impact, in the background were international political issues.
Following 9/11, the American Government moved to strengthen its relations with Morocco, and a free trade treaty was signed between the two countries. Morocco became the first African country to have such a treaty. This, however, was problematic for Spain. And the reason why was oil. Or the possibility of oil and to which country it might actually belong.
If you look at a map you will see that the Canaries lie off the coast of Morocco. Only a comparatively short distance to the south is the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Morocco claims sovereignty over Western Sahara, a territory which, under US-led pressure at the United Nations, Spain was forced to give up in 1975; the UN doesn't recognise Morocco's sovereignty claims. Exploration for oil off Western Sahara started, at the behest of the Moroccan Government, in 2002. It has since come to a halt, partly because of the lack of clarity over legal status. But the point is that oil fields which may or not exist off the Canaries could extend into territorial waters that are not Spanish and are either Moroccan or Western Saharan.
The trade agreement and cosier relationship between the US and Morocco were problematic for Spain because it needed (or would need) US support in any dispute over rights to oil. Was it all about the price of oil? Well, there are those who would argue that the only reason Aznar and Spain sided so strongly with Bush against Saddam wasn't so much to do with oil in Iraq but to do with oil in the Atlantic.
The international politics may have shifted since then, but the arguments are still the same, and they have been boiling up in the Canaries. An oil platform belonging to Cairn Energy sits in readiness for drilling work on behalf of Repsol to start this year. Aznar is no longer prime minister, but his one-time second-in-command is, and the Partido Popular administration has given the go-ahead to prospect for what could amount to 38 million barrels of oil a year.
Opposition in the Canaries has come from hoteliers and others in the tourism industry, from environmentalists and from local politicians in the regional government and at island councils. It is only really the Canaries business confederation that supports the national government in undertaking a venture which, for some in the Canaries, amounts to the islands being treated "like a colony" and being exploited against their wishes.
There is a much more tangled web surrounding the exploration off the Canaries than that to do with a subterranean sea mountain which runs from a location some 70 kilometres from the mainland at Cabo de la Nao to 45 kilometres off Ibiza. It is this mountain that has been designated for oil exploration. At one end is rare seaweed; at the other, in the waters near Ibiza, is posidonia sea grass, which is not unique to the Balearics but is otherwise also rare. The opposition to the exploration is as unified in the Balearics as it is in the Canaries, but it has a notable difference; the political leadership in the Canaries is not Partido Popular.
So, one has a situation in which the regional PP in the Balearics opposes the national PP. President Bauzá is against the exploration because of the potential harm that could be caused to tourism. Whether the opposition, in more general economic terms, is right is another matter. At least in the Balearics, though, there are no international politics to be concerned with other than those of a European Commission nature. And the EC, for one, needs convincing as to environmental safeguards.
Friday, January 31, 2014
A Gay Fuss About Nothing In Ibiza
LGTB tourism - lesbian, gay, transsexual, bisexual tourism - equates to ten per cent of global tourism but to fifteen per cent of global tourism spend. The gay tourism market is one characterised by good spenders. It is a market which is increasingly attractive to destinations and to tour operators, and a mark of its importance as a tourism sector was to be found at Madrid's Fitur travel fair where Fitur Gay was one of six specific areas of tourism and travel interest in addition to the main fair.
Mallorca doesn't have a reputation for gay tourism. Certainly not by comparison with, say, Benidorm, Sitges or Ibiza. The Council of Mallorca probably wouldn't see a huge advantage from getting involved with a video to promote gay tourism. The Council of Ibiza, on the other hand, has seen such an advantage. A four-minute video - "Ibiza, LGTB Friendly" - has been placed on the island's official tourism promotion website and on the Council's Facebook page. It is a video that I wouldn't have watched had it not been for the fact that it has been denounced.
Were you unaware of any complaint about this video, you might have looked at it and thought that it was what you might have expected and then thought no more of it. The music - a kind of Coldplay oh-oh-oh stadium singalong (lyric, "moving at the speed of light" as opposed to sound) meets a bit of Avicii club style - is frankly pretty dire and is therefore in keeping with the awful music that typically accompanies promotional videos. There are scenes of beaches, drinks, bars, food, people in a car. All unexceptional. Yes, there are a lot of pecs, six packs and bare torsos (male and female) and a spot of same-sex getting up close but not overly personal, but then promotional videos for a non-gay market might just as easily feature the same sort of images with one obvious difference.
The "denuncia" of the video, one which apparently portrays Ibiza as a "Bacchanalian island", has come from an organisation to which I have drawn attention in the past. It is the Instituto de Política Familiar de Baleares, the institute of family policy. Knowing that it was this institute which had been doing the complaining was all I needed to know prior to even seeing the video. I was not going to be exposed to any Bacchanalian scenes.
The institute has demanded the withdrawal of the video and sanctions against those responsible for it having appeared. Its complaints have been lodged with two women's organisations and with, bizarrely, Tráfico. The video, it is alleged, shows women as sex objects and has scenes which denigrate women. Having seen the video once, I was compelled to watch it a second time as I hadn't been aware of anything of the sort. True, there are a few breasts, but then there are also all those male chests as well. If one's being really sensitive, one could argue that it is men being shown as sex objects as well as or more than women.
And how, pray, does Tráfico come into all of this? Well, this is where the complaint gets really odd and presents straws to clutch at. In one scene, two blokes are driving along, all happy, smiling and laughing, and the driver has only one hand on the wheel. Next thing you see is the car taking a tight corner on a mountain road. The implication is that the driver has taken the corner with only one hand on the wheel, though of course you can't be certain that this is the case. Furthermore, the video supposedly makes much of drinking alcohol (as though this were in the least bit unusual), but because of the drinking and the one hand on the wheel, the complaint has been made to Tráfico.
The opposition to the video is laughable. One presumes that the institute isn't a great supporter of "el turismo gay" or of gay full stop. Its opposition is a clutching at straws; the highlighting of a promotional video which is most certainly not offensive. But then what can you expect? This is an institute which first really came to my attention over three years ago when it was calling for a ban on topless sunbathing (by women). It opposed this on the grounds that it exceeded norms of decorum. Digging around to find out more about the institute led to an interview with its national president in the magazine for an organisation called Foro Arbil in which he said that he was in total agreement with the aims of the organisation, one which is not exactly left-wing.
The institute is perfectly entitled to its views, but can it be taken seriously when it complains about an inconsequential video which, were it not for the promotion of gay tourism, would have passed without any comment.
Index for January 2014
Alcúdia ecotourism - 17 January 2014
Alexandre Ballester - 10 January 2014
Burgos protests - 19 January 2014
Catalonia's tourism - 29 January 2014
Cursach hotel management in Magalluf - 11 January 2014
Demons' traditions - 12 January 2014
Els Valldemossa - 24 January 2014
Extremadura tourism promotion - 20 January 2014
Hotel modernisation: a slow process - 7 January 2014
Ibiza gay tourism - 31 January 2014
Illesbalears.es - 30 January 2014
Joan Miró, Japan and Portugal - 25 January 2014
Law of symbols - 16 January 2014
Local administration reform - 13 January 2014
Malén Ortiz disappearance - 2 January 2014
Mallorca in 2014 - 1 January 2014
Maritime museum - 27 January 2014
Montuïri tourism - 6 January 2014
Palma World Heritage Site - 22 January 2014
Palomares incident - 15 January 2014
Pollensa School history - 3 January 2014
Porto Cristo's magazine - 28 January 2014
President Bauzá non-appearance at Sant Antoni - 21 January 2014
Public-private tourism collaboration - 23 January 2014
Sant Sebastià tradition - 18 January 2014
Selva tourism - 9 January 2014
Signs in Castilian and Catalan - 8 January 2014
Spain's abortion reform - 4 January 2014
The Beatles and Mallorca - 14 January 2014
Three Kings - 5 January 2014
Works of art and IVA - 26 January
Wednesday, October 09, 2013
Hippie Island: The curious story of Ibiza
An exhibition being held in Malmö, Sweden will be coming to an end this weekend. It is an exhibition devoted to hippies of the Soviet era, entitled "The Psychedelic Underground of 1970s Estonia". The exhibition considers how the hippie movement in Estonia took shape and was able to survive, despite attempts to subvert it by a Soviet regime which viewed it as a genuine political threat.
It seems remarkable that a counter-culture movement based on peace, love, freedom and free-thinking could even have existed in the Soviet Union, but somehow it was able to establish itself, and in Estonia there were ingredients that made it more likely to catch on there than in other parts of the old USSR. Estonia is close to Nordic countries with which it has long had much in common, especially with Finland, as the Estonian language comes from the same Uralic family as Finnish. Since gaining independence, Estonia has moved pretty easily towards a Nordic liberal model, reflecting perhaps an inherent attitude among Estonians that had remained beneath the surface during Soviet times. It was also on the periphery of the Soviet Union, though that didn't mean it was wholly disregarded; its position on the Baltic was, after all, pretty strategic for a paranoid Soviet military and government.
But its location may, nevertheless, be important in understanding how a hippie movement could have sprung up, because there is a certain similarity, in terms of remoteness, to how hippie culture caught hold in Franco's Spain; this was not a culture of mainland Spain but of Ibiza.
It is one of the oddities of the 1960s and 1970s that hippies became associated with islands that were controlled by two fascist regimes. Ibiza was one, the other was the south side of Crete. The hippy trail that didn't venture beyond Europe had two end points; the shorter route was to Ibiza, the longer one was to Crete. The similarity between the two islands was their relative isolation. Franco could effectively ignore the hippies in Ibiza, as the Greek colonels could ignore those in Crete. So long as they caused no trouble, and they never did, then they were left alone.
Ibiza, though, became the epicentre of Spanish and European hippydom. It was cut off from the mainland but it was also a lot easier to get to than to Crete. Because it (and Formentera for that matter) was less developed for tourism than Mallorca (and possibly Menorca), Ibiza had more going for it as the magnet to attract Spain's and Europe's hippies.
It is a matter of interest, though, why hippies would have descended on an island under fascist rule and why, despite the remoteness of the Balearics, they were able to in such great numbers. Free-thinking, free-loving hippies were, as in Estonia, the total antithesis of an authoritarian state which, in Spain's case, was dominated by the straightjacket of Falangist intellectual dogma and strict Catholicism. But it is perhaps an example of how contrary the Franco regime could be, when it suited. Hippies they may have been, but they were still tourists - sort of - and they did add to the local economy.
Seemingly, the greatest concerns that the hippies had involved the Guardia Civil nabbing them when they were cavorting about kit-off. Otherwise, and as a report from the "Majorca Daily Bulletin" of 4 July 1970 revealed, hippies ran up against the forces of the law only when they were being asked to get washed. The report says that hippies were "invited" to wash and clean themselves up for a hippie wedding that was taking place on Ibiza.
It would appear, and this is an additional curiosity, that just prior to Franco's death and immediately afterwards hippies were abandoning Ibiza. It has been suggested that this was to do with external events, such as the end of the Vietnam War, and that the hippie movement had simply run out of steam. But even if there was an exodus then, Ibiza didn't lose its hippie culture or anything like it. What happened was that, in part, it metamorphosised, and music had much to do with this. In 1973, there was a notable arrival on Ibiza. José Padilla. He was to eventually become identified with the Café del Mar and ambient music, which, together with trance and rave, were to no small extent the offspring of psychedelia. The Ibiza clubs, and Pacha and Amnesia both opened in 1973, have of course become the stuff of legend.
The Ibiza hippie culture lives on. And as such, it is a fascinating example of how an imported social movement came to mould an island's very being. In Estonia, I'll bet they wished that they had had better weather.
It seems remarkable that a counter-culture movement based on peace, love, freedom and free-thinking could even have existed in the Soviet Union, but somehow it was able to establish itself, and in Estonia there were ingredients that made it more likely to catch on there than in other parts of the old USSR. Estonia is close to Nordic countries with which it has long had much in common, especially with Finland, as the Estonian language comes from the same Uralic family as Finnish. Since gaining independence, Estonia has moved pretty easily towards a Nordic liberal model, reflecting perhaps an inherent attitude among Estonians that had remained beneath the surface during Soviet times. It was also on the periphery of the Soviet Union, though that didn't mean it was wholly disregarded; its position on the Baltic was, after all, pretty strategic for a paranoid Soviet military and government.
But its location may, nevertheless, be important in understanding how a hippie movement could have sprung up, because there is a certain similarity, in terms of remoteness, to how hippie culture caught hold in Franco's Spain; this was not a culture of mainland Spain but of Ibiza.
It is one of the oddities of the 1960s and 1970s that hippies became associated with islands that were controlled by two fascist regimes. Ibiza was one, the other was the south side of Crete. The hippy trail that didn't venture beyond Europe had two end points; the shorter route was to Ibiza, the longer one was to Crete. The similarity between the two islands was their relative isolation. Franco could effectively ignore the hippies in Ibiza, as the Greek colonels could ignore those in Crete. So long as they caused no trouble, and they never did, then they were left alone.
Ibiza, though, became the epicentre of Spanish and European hippydom. It was cut off from the mainland but it was also a lot easier to get to than to Crete. Because it (and Formentera for that matter) was less developed for tourism than Mallorca (and possibly Menorca), Ibiza had more going for it as the magnet to attract Spain's and Europe's hippies.
It is a matter of interest, though, why hippies would have descended on an island under fascist rule and why, despite the remoteness of the Balearics, they were able to in such great numbers. Free-thinking, free-loving hippies were, as in Estonia, the total antithesis of an authoritarian state which, in Spain's case, was dominated by the straightjacket of Falangist intellectual dogma and strict Catholicism. But it is perhaps an example of how contrary the Franco regime could be, when it suited. Hippies they may have been, but they were still tourists - sort of - and they did add to the local economy.
Seemingly, the greatest concerns that the hippies had involved the Guardia Civil nabbing them when they were cavorting about kit-off. Otherwise, and as a report from the "Majorca Daily Bulletin" of 4 July 1970 revealed, hippies ran up against the forces of the law only when they were being asked to get washed. The report says that hippies were "invited" to wash and clean themselves up for a hippie wedding that was taking place on Ibiza.
It would appear, and this is an additional curiosity, that just prior to Franco's death and immediately afterwards hippies were abandoning Ibiza. It has been suggested that this was to do with external events, such as the end of the Vietnam War, and that the hippie movement had simply run out of steam. But even if there was an exodus then, Ibiza didn't lose its hippie culture or anything like it. What happened was that, in part, it metamorphosised, and music had much to do with this. In 1973, there was a notable arrival on Ibiza. José Padilla. He was to eventually become identified with the Café del Mar and ambient music, which, together with trance and rave, were to no small extent the offspring of psychedelia. The Ibiza clubs, and Pacha and Amnesia both opened in 1973, have of course become the stuff of legend.
The Ibiza hippie culture lives on. And as such, it is a fascinating example of how an imported social movement came to mould an island's very being. In Estonia, I'll bet they wished that they had had better weather.
Thursday, May 02, 2013
Tourism Promotion In Reverse
In August 2011, the Partido Popular, making efforts to eliminate duplication in public administration on the islands, ensured that the governmental bodies it dominates in Mallorca - the regional government itself and the island's council - agreed on the removal of one example of this duplication: tourism promotion and affairs. The Fundación Mallorca Turismo, part of the council, was wound up, its responsibilities passing to the government's tourism ministry. At that time, the president of the Council of Mallorca was admitting that it was 330 millions in the red. Getting rid of certain duplicative responsibilities, such as those for tourism, was not only a sensible and pragmatic move it was also one that was long overdue. Opponents of the PP insisted that it was a change that was evidence of some unstated agenda on behalf of the PP to centralise different responsibilities, which was nonsense. It was evidence of a desire for greater efficiency, but as one opposition party, the Mallorcan socialists, had previously advocated more not less duplication through responsibilities passing to the Council of Mallorca, such organisational common sense was always unlikely to be understood.
That was August 2011. In May 2013, the government is putting things into reverse. The islands' councils are to be given responsibilities for tourism promotion. The Balearics Tourism Agency, part of the tourism ministry, will retain responsibilities for market research, quality and co-ordination with the central government's tourism promotion agency Turespaña. Otherwise, it's going to be as you were.
Why is this happening? It isn't happening because the government particularly wants it to happen but because the councils in Ibiza and Menorca have kicked up such an almighty great fuss. (Note, by the way, that the Council of Mallorca hadn't been making a fuss.) Their wish to take charge of their own tourism promotion was made clear at the recent travel fair in Madrid where representatives of the two islands (three, as Formentera is linked to Ibiza) were angered by the small amount of representation they had at the Balearics stand. Similar disquiet had been expressed at previous travel fairs. And there was particular anger because Palma, now with its own tourism promotion campaign and organisation, had separate representation at the stand. Things got so bad in Madrid that tourism minister, Carlos Delgado, was told to get lost and stay away from their minimalist booths by the Menorcan and Ibizan representatives.
I can understand that there was and is resentment at the special treatment reserved for Palma, but there again, and in pure population terms, Palma is considerably bigger than Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera put together. It might stick in the craw with some, but they should just lump it; Palma is far too important for it to not have some special treatment. Complaints about the city being portrayed as the "fifth island" are probably convenient ones in any event. Behind Menorca and Ibiza's dissatisfaction is a political stand-off between members of the PP in both islands and with President Bauzá. This is especially so in Ibiza where some PP people consider the president to be persona non grata; all due, it would seem, to disagreements over Bauzá's attitude towards regionalism.
The government's decision to backtrack on the organisation of tourism promotion smacks of politicking. The previous rationalisation was correct, but the government appears to be bowing to the political necessity to maintain or regain support in the other islands. So much for tough decisions. By performing a U-turn, the government will undermine Delgado's role and also that of the Balearics Tourism Agency, and it is not as if Delgado wasn't perfectly aware of the need to promote the various islands separately. He had been that rare beast in Balearics tourism politics who recognised that the branding of the islands as a job-lot made little sense; he said this even before becoming tourism minister.
The Mallorcan hoteliers federation is just one organisation that is unimpressed by the reversal in policy, arguing that, because the islands have the same markets to promote to, this promotion should come under one authority. So long as the individual islands are branded as distinct entities with distinct attributes, then the federation is right to argue this. But then it has its own agenda, one that has differed to that in Menorca, the island which attempted to obtain a far more relaxed approach to holiday lets and apartments in the new tourism law. Shifting responsibilities for promotion won't change the law in this regard, but this difference in attitude just went to emphasise the lack of harmony when it comes to tourism matters. Giving the councils more of a say is not going to resolve this.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
That was August 2011. In May 2013, the government is putting things into reverse. The islands' councils are to be given responsibilities for tourism promotion. The Balearics Tourism Agency, part of the tourism ministry, will retain responsibilities for market research, quality and co-ordination with the central government's tourism promotion agency Turespaña. Otherwise, it's going to be as you were.
Why is this happening? It isn't happening because the government particularly wants it to happen but because the councils in Ibiza and Menorca have kicked up such an almighty great fuss. (Note, by the way, that the Council of Mallorca hadn't been making a fuss.) Their wish to take charge of their own tourism promotion was made clear at the recent travel fair in Madrid where representatives of the two islands (three, as Formentera is linked to Ibiza) were angered by the small amount of representation they had at the Balearics stand. Similar disquiet had been expressed at previous travel fairs. And there was particular anger because Palma, now with its own tourism promotion campaign and organisation, had separate representation at the stand. Things got so bad in Madrid that tourism minister, Carlos Delgado, was told to get lost and stay away from their minimalist booths by the Menorcan and Ibizan representatives.
I can understand that there was and is resentment at the special treatment reserved for Palma, but there again, and in pure population terms, Palma is considerably bigger than Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera put together. It might stick in the craw with some, but they should just lump it; Palma is far too important for it to not have some special treatment. Complaints about the city being portrayed as the "fifth island" are probably convenient ones in any event. Behind Menorca and Ibiza's dissatisfaction is a political stand-off between members of the PP in both islands and with President Bauzá. This is especially so in Ibiza where some PP people consider the president to be persona non grata; all due, it would seem, to disagreements over Bauzá's attitude towards regionalism.
The government's decision to backtrack on the organisation of tourism promotion smacks of politicking. The previous rationalisation was correct, but the government appears to be bowing to the political necessity to maintain or regain support in the other islands. So much for tough decisions. By performing a U-turn, the government will undermine Delgado's role and also that of the Balearics Tourism Agency, and it is not as if Delgado wasn't perfectly aware of the need to promote the various islands separately. He had been that rare beast in Balearics tourism politics who recognised that the branding of the islands as a job-lot made little sense; he said this even before becoming tourism minister.
The Mallorcan hoteliers federation is just one organisation that is unimpressed by the reversal in policy, arguing that, because the islands have the same markets to promote to, this promotion should come under one authority. So long as the individual islands are branded as distinct entities with distinct attributes, then the federation is right to argue this. But then it has its own agenda, one that has differed to that in Menorca, the island which attempted to obtain a far more relaxed approach to holiday lets and apartments in the new tourism law. Shifting responsibilities for promotion won't change the law in this regard, but this difference in attitude just went to emphasise the lack of harmony when it comes to tourism matters. Giving the councils more of a say is not going to resolve this.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
No Comment: Columbus came from Ibiza
You will have heard of María Antonia Munar. She was the one-time leader of the Council of Mallorca who is going through a process of various court hearings and trials to do with her alleged misdeeds while in public office. Munar was, as a member of the discredited Unió Mallorquina, particularly keen on advancing claims that Mallorca might have to elevate the island's status. To do so fitted with a philosophy of Mallorcan nationalism, and one such claim had to do with Christopher Columbus.
In October 2004, Munar said in her capacity as leader of the Council: "I have a patent interest in Christopher Columbus being from Mallorca. I feel satisfied at having shown my support for Professor Gabriel Verd, and I intend to continue to do so". This quote was reported in the local press as was a note regarding a research programme, "Development of Human Genetic Research on Columbus's Origins", which was to receive a grant of nearly 54,000 euros to study theories that Columbus was born in Mallorca and "whose staunchest supporter is the historian Gabriel Verd".
At the end of this quote from the local press on a website - www.cristobalcolondeibiza.com - there are two words: "no comment". They are intended to be critical, as they are supplied by Nito Verdera, a writer from Ibiza and also an investigator into Columbus's origins. His "no comment" was deliberately sarcastic; he has no time for Verd's theory that Columbus was Mallorcan and no time for Columbus's origins being hi-jacked for political reasons, which he was basically accusing Munar of.
Verd's theory, and it is one to which I have referred on several occasions, places Columbus's roots in the town of Felanitx in Mallorca's south-east. It is a theory with which I have some sympathy but it does have discrepancies. There again, mostly any theory to do with where Columbus came from has some discrepancy or other, even the accepted one to do with his birthplace having been Genoa. It is is the fact that there have long been some questions arising from the Genoa theory that has created the Columbus "industry" and prompted numerous counter-theories. This said, these counter-theories have often been as a consequence of political aims, though it is also fair to say that the Genoa theory has been subject to these as well; Mussolini urged Italian historians to defend Columbus's Italian nationality.
Verdera's belief is that Columbus's mother tongue was Catalan, that he was a converted Jew and that he came from Ibiza. Each of these claims has support elsewhere; Verdera is not alone in having come up with any of them. But getting official backing for his theory has proved difficult. Until now. And only sort of.
Ibiza town hall has just engaged in something decidedly odd. It has voted in favour of permitting the idea that Columbus was from Ibiza to be disseminated. It has done so on condition that it doesn't cost any money to do so, and it was only an agreement by various parties at the town hall that it wouldn't cost anything that carried the vote; the lady mayor of Ibiza had in fact been opposed to the motion.
Just one of the oddities with this decision is that it is one that comes not from the Council of Ibiza but from the Ibiza Town town hall. I confess to knowing little of Ibiza's internal political workings, but now I have found out something about them, a question arises: why is there a town hall for Ibiza Town and for other places on Ibiza when the population is only around 130,000 and there is a Council as well? The answer would appear to be to enable a town hall to devote its time and energies to an issue about which it is clearly unconvinced.
There does, in all of this, seem to be a bit of inter-island rivalry. Verdera clearly doesn't think much of Verd's theory. What Verd thinks of Verdera's I couldn't honestly say, but I would imagine that he would disagree with him. In the battle of the historians with similar names, Verd has an advantage over Verdera when it comes to official support. There was Munar's backing, while the mayor of Felanitx, Gabriel Tauler, has been beating the Columbus drum for some time, partly in the hope of attracting American tourists.
So, which of them is right? Verd or Verdera? The chances are that both are wrong and there is a great deal of history (to do with the Genoa connection) that would need to be disproved once and for all to make either of them right. Which is not to say that either is wrong in trying to prove their theories. But Columbus having been an Ibizan? I don't know, so it's best just to say "no comment".
N.B. The website link mentioned above will take you to an English version of Verdera's views. Click Part V under English.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
In October 2004, Munar said in her capacity as leader of the Council: "I have a patent interest in Christopher Columbus being from Mallorca. I feel satisfied at having shown my support for Professor Gabriel Verd, and I intend to continue to do so". This quote was reported in the local press as was a note regarding a research programme, "Development of Human Genetic Research on Columbus's Origins", which was to receive a grant of nearly 54,000 euros to study theories that Columbus was born in Mallorca and "whose staunchest supporter is the historian Gabriel Verd".
At the end of this quote from the local press on a website - www.cristobalcolondeibiza.com - there are two words: "no comment". They are intended to be critical, as they are supplied by Nito Verdera, a writer from Ibiza and also an investigator into Columbus's origins. His "no comment" was deliberately sarcastic; he has no time for Verd's theory that Columbus was Mallorcan and no time for Columbus's origins being hi-jacked for political reasons, which he was basically accusing Munar of.
Verd's theory, and it is one to which I have referred on several occasions, places Columbus's roots in the town of Felanitx in Mallorca's south-east. It is a theory with which I have some sympathy but it does have discrepancies. There again, mostly any theory to do with where Columbus came from has some discrepancy or other, even the accepted one to do with his birthplace having been Genoa. It is is the fact that there have long been some questions arising from the Genoa theory that has created the Columbus "industry" and prompted numerous counter-theories. This said, these counter-theories have often been as a consequence of political aims, though it is also fair to say that the Genoa theory has been subject to these as well; Mussolini urged Italian historians to defend Columbus's Italian nationality.
Verdera's belief is that Columbus's mother tongue was Catalan, that he was a converted Jew and that he came from Ibiza. Each of these claims has support elsewhere; Verdera is not alone in having come up with any of them. But getting official backing for his theory has proved difficult. Until now. And only sort of.
Ibiza town hall has just engaged in something decidedly odd. It has voted in favour of permitting the idea that Columbus was from Ibiza to be disseminated. It has done so on condition that it doesn't cost any money to do so, and it was only an agreement by various parties at the town hall that it wouldn't cost anything that carried the vote; the lady mayor of Ibiza had in fact been opposed to the motion.
Just one of the oddities with this decision is that it is one that comes not from the Council of Ibiza but from the Ibiza Town town hall. I confess to knowing little of Ibiza's internal political workings, but now I have found out something about them, a question arises: why is there a town hall for Ibiza Town and for other places on Ibiza when the population is only around 130,000 and there is a Council as well? The answer would appear to be to enable a town hall to devote its time and energies to an issue about which it is clearly unconvinced.
There does, in all of this, seem to be a bit of inter-island rivalry. Verdera clearly doesn't think much of Verd's theory. What Verd thinks of Verdera's I couldn't honestly say, but I would imagine that he would disagree with him. In the battle of the historians with similar names, Verd has an advantage over Verdera when it comes to official support. There was Munar's backing, while the mayor of Felanitx, Gabriel Tauler, has been beating the Columbus drum for some time, partly in the hope of attracting American tourists.
So, which of them is right? Verd or Verdera? The chances are that both are wrong and there is a great deal of history (to do with the Genoa connection) that would need to be disproved once and for all to make either of them right. Which is not to say that either is wrong in trying to prove their theories. But Columbus having been an Ibizan? I don't know, so it's best just to say "no comment".
N.B. The website link mentioned above will take you to an English version of Verdera's views. Click Part V under English.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, September 19, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Thousand evacuated in huge Ibiza fire
Despite the change to the weather, the fires keep raging. There were three more yesterday, by far the worst being in Ibiza where a thousand people had to be evacuated from the Roca Llisa urbanisation in Cala Llonga which broke out at around 20.00 last night and required fire-fighting assistance from the mainland. No injuries have been reported, but the seriousness of the fire required that it was put at level 2 on the scale of gravity, one notch lower than the most serious. The fire claimed some 115 hectares of largely pine forest.
In Mallorca, meanwhile, there were two more fires, one heading towards Puigpunyent from Palma and the other, the more serious, near to the Festival Park commercial and entertainment centre in Marratxí. Three homes had to be evacuated.
In Mallorca, meanwhile, there were two more fires, one heading towards Puigpunyent from Palma and the other, the more serious, near to the Festival Park commercial and entertainment centre in Marratxí. Three homes had to be evacuated.
Friday, July 29, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Another balcony death in Ibiza
A 23-year-old British tourist has died after falling from a second-floor balcony at tourist apartments in Sant Antoni in Ibiza.
Saturday, July 02, 2011
All Fall Down: Balcony diving again
On the "Ultima Hora" website some wag posted a comment under a news item. It read (and I'm translating here): "Balearic tourist promotion. Blue-flag beaches. UNESCO mountain heritage. University Hospital Son Espases (specialists in balconying)".
You can probably work out what the news item was about. The day after someone died falling out of a hotel in Ibiza, two more didn't quite bite the dust in terminal fashion: one in Cala Rajada, the other in Sa Coma. I might be inclined to make a not so funny gag about comas in Sa Coma, but I won't; in any event the one who made the descent suffered relatively minor injuries.
Balconying. Balcony diving. I've done the subject before, but it doesn't stop me doing it again. Another person commented under the news item that it was the "theme of the summer". Which may be true, but then it was last summer's theme too. And what a fine theme it is as well. If it weren't for the case that it can end in tragedy, as it did in Ibiza, then we could all have a jolly good laugh. Actually, we do have a laugh, because what else can you do when you learn of the lack of brain capacity of some visitors to Majorca and the Balearics and the potential for the brain to be permanently lacking as it spills out onto some poolside concrete.
Rather than repeat what has been said before, let's consider some of the thought processes and justifications that have been forthcoming from the incidents of what may be balcony diving or may be falls as a result of climbing from balcony to balcony.
Instead of just admitting that falls are because someone was mad enough to try and dive into a pool, what you get is some other reason. Not from the police, the paramedics or the hotels, but from the ones who have suffered injuries or from their friends.
One thing about balconies is that they have railings or some other elevated barrier. They are there for a good reason. To stop you falling off. I can think of only two really good excuses as to why anyone might find him or herself on such a barrier. One is that there is a fire. The other is that an axe murderer has broken into the room. Both might require that a certain risk is taken in effecting an escape. Otherwise there isn't a good excuse.
Nevertheless, you get excuses. The fall was the result of a slip. The hotel was negligent. Neither is satisfactory because they ignore the obvious and seek a justification or to apportion blame. I can give you an example of how this goes.
When one particular incident occurred, I posted something about it onto this blog. This attracted a great number of comments, one coming from someone claiming to be the person who had fallen (and it may well have been this person) and who refuted the idea that it had been a case of balcony diving. The best of all was someone who reckoned that the hotel should be sued.
Do people deliberately fall from balconies as a way of trying to extract compensation? It would be an extreme way to do so, but you can bet your life that compensation and ambulance-chasing legal firms are likely to loom into the equation.
The Ibizan hoteliers' president has been at pains to point out that the railing at the hotel in Ibiza is of a height that conforms with requirements and that everything possible has been done to prevent the sort of incident which occurred there. But why should he have to make this confirmation? Well, why do you think?
Hotels in Majorca and the Balearics fall foul of compensation claims all the time, and many are spurious. I mentioned all this in an article back in February ("Trying It On", 22 February). And the poor hotel is normally left with no alternative but to cough up for cases that are brought not in Spain but in the UK or elsewhere. With balcony diving, well, you would deny you'd done this if there was some possibility of getting compensation; not even ambulance-chasers could surely get it to stick if it was admitted, though you wouldn't put it past them trying. And crazy it would be if the hotel were held liable because someone had been crazy enough to take a dive.
There is such a thing as assuming responsibility, but the notion has become obsolete thanks to the rush to compensatory litigation and to assigning blame when blame resides elsewhere - splattered over a hotel terrace.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
You can probably work out what the news item was about. The day after someone died falling out of a hotel in Ibiza, two more didn't quite bite the dust in terminal fashion: one in Cala Rajada, the other in Sa Coma. I might be inclined to make a not so funny gag about comas in Sa Coma, but I won't; in any event the one who made the descent suffered relatively minor injuries.
Balconying. Balcony diving. I've done the subject before, but it doesn't stop me doing it again. Another person commented under the news item that it was the "theme of the summer". Which may be true, but then it was last summer's theme too. And what a fine theme it is as well. If it weren't for the case that it can end in tragedy, as it did in Ibiza, then we could all have a jolly good laugh. Actually, we do have a laugh, because what else can you do when you learn of the lack of brain capacity of some visitors to Majorca and the Balearics and the potential for the brain to be permanently lacking as it spills out onto some poolside concrete.
Rather than repeat what has been said before, let's consider some of the thought processes and justifications that have been forthcoming from the incidents of what may be balcony diving or may be falls as a result of climbing from balcony to balcony.
Instead of just admitting that falls are because someone was mad enough to try and dive into a pool, what you get is some other reason. Not from the police, the paramedics or the hotels, but from the ones who have suffered injuries or from their friends.
One thing about balconies is that they have railings or some other elevated barrier. They are there for a good reason. To stop you falling off. I can think of only two really good excuses as to why anyone might find him or herself on such a barrier. One is that there is a fire. The other is that an axe murderer has broken into the room. Both might require that a certain risk is taken in effecting an escape. Otherwise there isn't a good excuse.
Nevertheless, you get excuses. The fall was the result of a slip. The hotel was negligent. Neither is satisfactory because they ignore the obvious and seek a justification or to apportion blame. I can give you an example of how this goes.
When one particular incident occurred, I posted something about it onto this blog. This attracted a great number of comments, one coming from someone claiming to be the person who had fallen (and it may well have been this person) and who refuted the idea that it had been a case of balcony diving. The best of all was someone who reckoned that the hotel should be sued.
Do people deliberately fall from balconies as a way of trying to extract compensation? It would be an extreme way to do so, but you can bet your life that compensation and ambulance-chasing legal firms are likely to loom into the equation.
The Ibizan hoteliers' president has been at pains to point out that the railing at the hotel in Ibiza is of a height that conforms with requirements and that everything possible has been done to prevent the sort of incident which occurred there. But why should he have to make this confirmation? Well, why do you think?
Hotels in Majorca and the Balearics fall foul of compensation claims all the time, and many are spurious. I mentioned all this in an article back in February ("Trying It On", 22 February). And the poor hotel is normally left with no alternative but to cough up for cases that are brought not in Spain but in the UK or elsewhere. With balcony diving, well, you would deny you'd done this if there was some possibility of getting compensation; not even ambulance-chasers could surely get it to stick if it was admitted, though you wouldn't put it past them trying. And crazy it would be if the hotel were held liable because someone had been crazy enough to take a dive.
There is such a thing as assuming responsibility, but the notion has become obsolete thanks to the rush to compensatory litigation and to assigning blame when blame resides elsewhere - splattered over a hotel terrace.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - British tourist dies in Ibiza hotel balcony fall
A 24-year-old British tourist, identified only as R.M., has died as the result of a fall from the balcony of a fourth-floor room at the hotel Els Pins in Sant Antoni, Ibiza.
Friday, February 25, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - PP opposes oil exploration off the Balearics
The Partido Popular has added its voice to those registering opposition to the permission given by central government for oil exploration to be conducted between the gulf of Valencia and the Balearics (Ibiza). The PP's opposition is on top of that of regional president Francesc Antich, the concerns being potential harm to the environment and tourism. There is also the spectre of the sinking of the Don Pedro merchant ship in 2007 which resulted in heavy oil spills, the closure of beaches and a negative impact on Ibiza's tourism.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Fire, Fire: Balearics ablaze
Pour on water, pour on water.
Ibiza has been burning. So has Mallorca. A couple of afternoons ago, there was a plume of smoke to be seen rising somewhere past Can Picafort. Lazing for a while on the beach, there were suddenly bits of burnt debris drifting on the wind and settling on the sand. Some people started to get into a bit of a panic. There are those moments on a beach when you become aware of everyone looking at something. And there it was. Another cloud of smoke. Quite a bit closer. At which point I thought perhaps I ought also to panic.
Legging it back from the beach, I had visions of a conflagration. Burning houses and exploding cars. Nothing of the sort. It was a fair distance away. By Albufera, en route to Muro town. The burnt stuff was flying about, however. Loads of it, charred confetti, toasted ticker-tape. Seemed a pretty extreme way of finally putting a halt to the golf course, ventured I, but no one seemed to appreciate the joke. As far as I'm aware, the fire and the course were, and are, unrelated.
A Canadair fire-fighter was in full flight, passing low over Albufera and putting on its water-gathering show for those on the beach who hadn't panicked. The air was distinctly smoky. Two fires going off simultaneously, and the wind strong, it smelt like a giant barbecue but later became indistinguishable from the regular summertime whiff of torched sulphur that rises out of the Albufera swamp.
The other fire, in fact between Son Serra and Petra, was altogether more serious, if not on an Ibiza scale. The boys in green are taking rather more interest in this than might normally be the case, as the fire was on finca land belonging to the chief prosecutor for the Balearics. All three fires seemed to have been started either by accidental negligence (believed to be the case in Ibiza) or deliberately.
Mallorca does burn, but rarely dramatically. The Ibiza fire is the most significant on all the islands since 2006. Each year there are minor fires, such as those on the Sant Marti mountain in Alcúdia, invariably the result of a discarded cigarette but little more than a spectator sport for those watching the water bombers.
A campaign was launched last year, usefully of course only in Catalan. You will still see the posters around - "ni 1 foc al bosc" (not one fire in the forest). It was intended as a reminder following the loss of 23 hectares of Balearics woodland to fire in 2008: the Ibiza one alone has affected 400 hectares, the Son Serra fire, 140 hectares, not all woodland, but the two fires show the scale of what have been abnormal events.
There are dense woodlands on Mallorca, but the island is not a Corsica, which is essentially thick forest on high mountains surrounded by flat plains of coast, some within furnace distance of forest. I was once caught up in a Corsica fire. The island burnt a treat, and the police were hunting a German "pyromaniac"; Corsica used to attract some strange fire-starting, lunatic tourists. But what Mallorca does have in common is the mistral (mestral in Catalan) and other winds; it is the mistral that tends to cause as much havoc as the fires themselves in Corsica and southern France.
One other difference is that the Canadair pilots do not have hero status in Mallorca as they do in Corsica. I watched the plane fly into the smoke of Albufera and then lost sight of it for a while. Only when it suddenly roared over within touching distance was I sure it was going back for more water. In Corsica, pilots sometimes don't come back. The fires there are an entirely different beast, the planes diving into valleys of thick smoke, pilots flying blind; it's trees or cables that normally cause them to crash.
The fires of the Balearics have been serious, but rarely, if ever, will they be truly catastrophic in a Corsican style, even if the Ibiza one is being described as a "natural disaster". Not one fire in the forest. There have been three - in so many days. That's bad enough.
QUIZ:
Yesterday - Tears For Fears: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xq81h_tears-for-fears-laid-so-low_music
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Ibiza has been burning. So has Mallorca. A couple of afternoons ago, there was a plume of smoke to be seen rising somewhere past Can Picafort. Lazing for a while on the beach, there were suddenly bits of burnt debris drifting on the wind and settling on the sand. Some people started to get into a bit of a panic. There are those moments on a beach when you become aware of everyone looking at something. And there it was. Another cloud of smoke. Quite a bit closer. At which point I thought perhaps I ought also to panic.
Legging it back from the beach, I had visions of a conflagration. Burning houses and exploding cars. Nothing of the sort. It was a fair distance away. By Albufera, en route to Muro town. The burnt stuff was flying about, however. Loads of it, charred confetti, toasted ticker-tape. Seemed a pretty extreme way of finally putting a halt to the golf course, ventured I, but no one seemed to appreciate the joke. As far as I'm aware, the fire and the course were, and are, unrelated.
A Canadair fire-fighter was in full flight, passing low over Albufera and putting on its water-gathering show for those on the beach who hadn't panicked. The air was distinctly smoky. Two fires going off simultaneously, and the wind strong, it smelt like a giant barbecue but later became indistinguishable from the regular summertime whiff of torched sulphur that rises out of the Albufera swamp.
The other fire, in fact between Son Serra and Petra, was altogether more serious, if not on an Ibiza scale. The boys in green are taking rather more interest in this than might normally be the case, as the fire was on finca land belonging to the chief prosecutor for the Balearics. All three fires seemed to have been started either by accidental negligence (believed to be the case in Ibiza) or deliberately.
Mallorca does burn, but rarely dramatically. The Ibiza fire is the most significant on all the islands since 2006. Each year there are minor fires, such as those on the Sant Marti mountain in Alcúdia, invariably the result of a discarded cigarette but little more than a spectator sport for those watching the water bombers.
A campaign was launched last year, usefully of course only in Catalan. You will still see the posters around - "ni 1 foc al bosc" (not one fire in the forest). It was intended as a reminder following the loss of 23 hectares of Balearics woodland to fire in 2008: the Ibiza one alone has affected 400 hectares, the Son Serra fire, 140 hectares, not all woodland, but the two fires show the scale of what have been abnormal events.
There are dense woodlands on Mallorca, but the island is not a Corsica, which is essentially thick forest on high mountains surrounded by flat plains of coast, some within furnace distance of forest. I was once caught up in a Corsica fire. The island burnt a treat, and the police were hunting a German "pyromaniac"; Corsica used to attract some strange fire-starting, lunatic tourists. But what Mallorca does have in common is the mistral (mestral in Catalan) and other winds; it is the mistral that tends to cause as much havoc as the fires themselves in Corsica and southern France.
One other difference is that the Canadair pilots do not have hero status in Mallorca as they do in Corsica. I watched the plane fly into the smoke of Albufera and then lost sight of it for a while. Only when it suddenly roared over within touching distance was I sure it was going back for more water. In Corsica, pilots sometimes don't come back. The fires there are an entirely different beast, the planes diving into valleys of thick smoke, pilots flying blind; it's trees or cables that normally cause them to crash.
The fires of the Balearics have been serious, but rarely, if ever, will they be truly catastrophic in a Corsican style, even if the Ibiza one is being described as a "natural disaster". Not one fire in the forest. There have been three - in so many days. That's bad enough.
QUIZ:
Yesterday - Tears For Fears: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xq81h_tears-for-fears-laid-so-low_music
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
The Big Chill
Summertime, and the living is easy.
A lyric and a mood that will forever be summer and summer music. But the very mention of summer in the lyric or title is too much of a giveaway. Summer music. It is more mood than overt statement of fact. The holiday plays all sorts of summer music; neither mood nor lyric. Can a karaoke "we will rock you" being belted out by a tenth-rate cabaret Freddie Mercury from a hotel stage be described as summer music? It is not summer; it is barely music. All that tribute and all that entertainment, and none of it is summer except in a temporal way - because it happens to be summer.
Mood, atmosphere, evocativeness. Suggestions of beach, sun and the idyllic sensations caused by the association of summer through music. Some twenty years or more ago I was in Zante, at a time before it had been invaded by the lager and pills battalions. At the end of Laganas beach was a bar. It was run by a couple of American-accented Demis Roussos lookalikes. It played music most of the day - out onto the beach from a couple of speakers by the entrance. The music was never anything other than laidback, cool if you like; chilled to use a more up-to-date word. Summer music. Mood and atmosphere. If only they'd known. Perhaps a whole genre might have grown from a beach-side bar in Greece rather than one in the Balearics.
Mallorca does not really have a summer music tradition, but the Balearics do, Ibiza most obviously. And it is the Ibiza tradition that can be found in Mallorca; chilled is the word, or chill-out. Summer music. The influence of Ibiza's Café del Mar runs deeper than just the pirated copies of the compilations to be found in the rucksacks and carrier bags of the lucky-lucky men. It can be heard all over; some clubs became Café del Mar shrines of impersonation. The old Mambo Playa in Playa de Muro was one; it even sub-titled itself the Sunset Bar, despite the sun setting in the opposite direction from over the sea - it was in fact Sunrise Bar but had often closed by the time of the first flickers of the new dawn. The sunset, and the music which accompanied it, was what inspired Café del Mar and especially Jose Padilla. On a recent BBC radio documentary he spoke of how he would coincide the last emotion of a track as the final flash of the sun dropped into the sea.
Chill-out, though a pejorative when it encroaches into the easy listening, largely defines the music of Café del Mar, or perhaps it's the other way round - Café del Mar has defined chill-out. That same documentary sought to create a history of chill-out that, rather tenuously, found an origination in the work of Erik Satie. It was on firmer territory with more contemporary artists such as Brian Eno and The Orb. But Café del Mar stands apart from the experimentation of "Music for Films" or the electro-influenced psychedelia of "Little Fluffy Clouds"; it took the ambient of Eno and integrated it with Latin rhythm and flamenco that typifies the style of much of the Ibiza output - one of mood, atmosphere and of the sun and beach. House and Balearic beat yes, but the trance and chill of Café del Mar is the motif of Ibiza and Balearic music - summer music. From the pioneers such as Padilla have come others - Fundación Eivissa are one of the finest. I've looked for their "Doñana", but can't find it. It is a track of breathtaking drama and emotion; it deserves to be heard widely. In its absence I have selected some others. These are summer music. Ibiza perhaps, but Mallorca as well.
Jose Padilla, "El Sueño de Ibiza" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WV6SovEu_Q
Fundación Eivissa, "Es Vedra" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc9OxgQtVSo
Chambao, "Verde Mar" (Fundación Eivissa) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMoW8D3_0M
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Small Faces. And when I saw this, having not seen the Small Faces for donkey's years, I thought blimey, Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher (Marriott and Laine) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=446xNbvs0a8. Today's title - film; who starred? (There are a few to choose from.) The title, by the way, lent itself to a chill festival which has been running this weekend.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
A lyric and a mood that will forever be summer and summer music. But the very mention of summer in the lyric or title is too much of a giveaway. Summer music. It is more mood than overt statement of fact. The holiday plays all sorts of summer music; neither mood nor lyric. Can a karaoke "we will rock you" being belted out by a tenth-rate cabaret Freddie Mercury from a hotel stage be described as summer music? It is not summer; it is barely music. All that tribute and all that entertainment, and none of it is summer except in a temporal way - because it happens to be summer.
Mood, atmosphere, evocativeness. Suggestions of beach, sun and the idyllic sensations caused by the association of summer through music. Some twenty years or more ago I was in Zante, at a time before it had been invaded by the lager and pills battalions. At the end of Laganas beach was a bar. It was run by a couple of American-accented Demis Roussos lookalikes. It played music most of the day - out onto the beach from a couple of speakers by the entrance. The music was never anything other than laidback, cool if you like; chilled to use a more up-to-date word. Summer music. Mood and atmosphere. If only they'd known. Perhaps a whole genre might have grown from a beach-side bar in Greece rather than one in the Balearics.
Mallorca does not really have a summer music tradition, but the Balearics do, Ibiza most obviously. And it is the Ibiza tradition that can be found in Mallorca; chilled is the word, or chill-out. Summer music. The influence of Ibiza's Café del Mar runs deeper than just the pirated copies of the compilations to be found in the rucksacks and carrier bags of the lucky-lucky men. It can be heard all over; some clubs became Café del Mar shrines of impersonation. The old Mambo Playa in Playa de Muro was one; it even sub-titled itself the Sunset Bar, despite the sun setting in the opposite direction from over the sea - it was in fact Sunrise Bar but had often closed by the time of the first flickers of the new dawn. The sunset, and the music which accompanied it, was what inspired Café del Mar and especially Jose Padilla. On a recent BBC radio documentary he spoke of how he would coincide the last emotion of a track as the final flash of the sun dropped into the sea.
Chill-out, though a pejorative when it encroaches into the easy listening, largely defines the music of Café del Mar, or perhaps it's the other way round - Café del Mar has defined chill-out. That same documentary sought to create a history of chill-out that, rather tenuously, found an origination in the work of Erik Satie. It was on firmer territory with more contemporary artists such as Brian Eno and The Orb. But Café del Mar stands apart from the experimentation of "Music for Films" or the electro-influenced psychedelia of "Little Fluffy Clouds"; it took the ambient of Eno and integrated it with Latin rhythm and flamenco that typifies the style of much of the Ibiza output - one of mood, atmosphere and of the sun and beach. House and Balearic beat yes, but the trance and chill of Café del Mar is the motif of Ibiza and Balearic music - summer music. From the pioneers such as Padilla have come others - Fundación Eivissa are one of the finest. I've looked for their "Doñana", but can't find it. It is a track of breathtaking drama and emotion; it deserves to be heard widely. In its absence I have selected some others. These are summer music. Ibiza perhaps, but Mallorca as well.
Jose Padilla, "El Sueño de Ibiza" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WV6SovEu_Q
Fundación Eivissa, "Es Vedra" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc9OxgQtVSo
Chambao, "Verde Mar" (Fundación Eivissa) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMoW8D3_0M
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Small Faces. And when I saw this, having not seen the Small Faces for donkey's years, I thought blimey, Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher (Marriott and Laine) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=446xNbvs0a8. Today's title - film; who starred? (There are a few to choose from.) The title, by the way, lent itself to a chill festival which has been running this weekend.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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