Spain's government has faced some difficult issues this year, none more so than one beginning with C. But things could have been very much more difficult for the government (and for most of us), had there been an attack by zombies. The possibility of such an attack and the defence against it was raised in the Senate by one Carles Mulet of the Compromís party in Valencia.
Carles wanted to know what plans there were for a zombie apocalypse. The government wasn't able to provide a swift response. It needed, among other things, to consult the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy. According to the dictionary, zombies are "people who are supposed to be dead and are revived by the art of witchcraft in order to dominate their will". Given this definition, the government concluded that there was "doubtful probability of such a circumstance arising".
Carles wasn't overly impressed, but it seemed as if he hadn't really believed Spain was in imminent danger of a zombie attack. He was using it all as a metaphor. Hence: "The government has no plan of action for the zombie apocalypse. Its answer can be interpreted as meaning that the government itself is a zombie apocalypse, a human catastrophe brought about by stupefied and automaton people."
The relocation of Es Trenc
The Balearic government, meantime, was finally completing its legislation for the Es Trenc Nature Park. After many months of delay and endless arguments, the legislation was about to be published on the Official Bulletin when someone spotted an error in the nick of time.
This was just as well. Once on the Official Bulletin, things are official and it takes a lot to make them unofficial. In the case of the nature park, had the mistake not been noticed, Kenya and Ethiopia would now be able to boast having the park. The latitudes and longitudes for the park, as noted in the legislation, were wrong - by some several thousand kilometres.
Some might have in fact thought the park or at least Es Trenc beach had indeed been relocated. The promised chiringuitos, to replace the demolished ones, never appeared, while the sunloungers took an age to see the light of midsummer.
Hunt the tourist
There was a spot of anti-tourism agitation knocking around during the summer, but one of the last places that such sentiment might have been expected to have emerged was Esporles. It doesn't really have vast numbers of tourists. Still, this didn't prevent them coming up with a new game for their "jocs tradicionals" (traditional games) that are played during the summer fiestas.
This was "hunt the guiri", as in foreign tourist. It wasn't xenophobic, the organising committee insisted, just a spot of humour with an ironic touch that took "massification" and holiday rentals as its themes. No offence was meant and none was taken, probably because there weren't any tourists.
Kelvin MacKenzie
Even The Sun decided that enough was enough. Its one-time editor, Kelvin MacKenzie, was sacked because he compared footballer Ross Barkley to a gorilla. Shortly before this (it was something to do with Gibraltar) he had hoped the UK would say goodbye to all Spaniards living in the UK, that there would be a holiday boycott of Spain, that a special tax could be place on Rioja and that the state visit by King Felipe would be ruined. No sense of xenophobia there, then.
The CIA files
Declassified CIA files revealed that Joan March, Franco's banker, had been involved with the sale of Jewish assets. Michael Olian, who was a contrabandist like March, sold the assets of French Jews at reduced prices through an agreement with a Swiss bank in Madrid. Joan March was a beneficiary of this. The CIA had wanted to arrest March but was unable to as Spain was, in their words, "supposedly neutral" and because obstacles were placed in front of American intelligence by "our diplomats".
The files also pointed to Mallorca having been the focus for what in 1947 was felt might have been the imminent resurgence of the Nazi Party.
Josep Ferragut
Josep Ferragut's name crops up quite regularly nowadays, even though he died in 1968. He was the architect responsible, among other things, for the Gesa building in Palma and the Glass Church in Playa de Palma. In June there was a premiere at Bellver Castle for a documentary on his life and death.
Ferragut was a homosexual. He was bludgeoned to death by two men (supposedly rent boys) and his body left on the Bunyola road, a few kilometres from Palma. The two were arrested, held in custody and then released some eighteen months later. The case never went to court.
The truth about his murder will probably never be known. Was he murdered by two male prostitutes or had there been other motives? Ferragut was outspoken against corruption. His ethics frustrated building developments. He referred to "barbarities", such as ones in Puerto Pollensa. He had plenty of enemies.
Showing posts with label Joan March. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joan March. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 27, 2017
Monday, January 30, 2017
Joan March And The CIA Files
The left-wing opposition at Santa Margalida town hall wants to revoke the title of illustrious son that was awarded to Joan March in 1956. There are three reasons why. One is because of information that has come from recently declassified CIA documents; not least the fact that he was involved with the sale of Jewish assets.
Joan March is known (and now mostly reviled) for all sorts of things. Being Franco's banker is just one. Another relates to the role he played in the Second World War and its aftermath. He also figures in the First World War, but by the time that war broke out in 1939 he had assumed a far more significant role. As the CIA files indicate, he was one of the most important businesspeople in Europe.
He used his business influences in different ways, such as with playing both sides during the war. His connections to both the British and the Germans have been well documented. For the Nazis, for instance, he supplied submarines in the Mediterranean from ships with the Trasmediterránea line. The same shipping company was the means by which Jews were transported to New York. March was paid handsomely for movements that were not permitted. When the FBI sought to intervene, it was Churchill who had a word with Roosevelt.
The CIA files really only confirm what was known about March's involvement in the war. A great deal of information had been gathered about him by the British, the French, the Russians, the Germans and the Americans. At the end of the war, the Americans and the Russians discovered a mountain of documentation related to him in Berlin. What the CIA now reveal is that a contrabandist, Michael Olian, was investigated in 1946 within the framework of Nazi war crimes. He sold assets of French Jews at reduced prices through an agreement with a Swiss bank in Madrid. Joan March was one of two beneficiaries.
March was untouchable. Although he principally treated the war as a grand business opportunity, there was also his duplicity. The Americans, or at least the Office of Strategic Services (which was to become the CIA), wanted to detain him. March had Churchill to thank for the fact that he was not detained and was to amass ever greater fortune and business power after the war. The CIA was unable to arrest March because Spain was "supposedly neutral". Obstacles were placed in front of American intelligence by "our diplomats".
The CIA files in some ways are more revealing about the post-war activities of Nazis in Mallorca. To what extent, if any, March was involved in Nazi activity isn't stated. Such involvement was probably unnecessary, as what emerges is a picture of how the Franco regime consented to the presence of Nazis and would indeed provide protection.
The Nazi presence on the island had been established prior to the war. Hans Dede became the permanent German consul in 1933 and remained so during the war. It was Dede who had pursued, with local assistance, German Jews and pacifists who had settled in Mallorca: in Cala Ratjada in particular. One was Karl Otten, who the British helped to escape. He became a propagandist with the BBC. Another was Hugo Cyril Kulp Baruch, better known as Jack Bilbo, who had established the Waikiki bar, but who left Mallorca when he recognised that the island wasn't the safe haven he had hoped it would be.
The CIA files establish that Dede had originally and ostensibly arrived in Mallorca as the employee of a company. He was categorised as being "notoriously anti-Semitic". He was also a spy. Following the war, the Allies demanded that he be handed over. It was too late. He had gone to South America. But, and as one dossier in the CIA files shows, there was apparently no shortage of Nazis residents on the island after the war. Military people and scientists, they were the focus of what in 1947, according to the CIA, was an imminent resurgence of the Nazi Party.
But was there really a resurgence? Nazism had been well embedded during the war and prior to it: there had, for example, been a Nazi rally in Portals Nous in 1938. Although there may have been Nazis on the island, did they pose the type of threat the CIA files hint at? Of the better-known names, Dede was no longer in Mallorca. Otto Skorzeny, who was to live in Barcares in Alcudia, wasn't here in 1947. He was undergoing de-Nazification, but didn't renounce National Socialism. He escaped and went to Madrid in 1948.
The point is that whatever strength of Nazi sentiment there may have been in the years immediately following the war, this didn't create a momentum. Mallorca and Spain did, after all, have its own brand of fascism to sustain it.
Joan March is known (and now mostly reviled) for all sorts of things. Being Franco's banker is just one. Another relates to the role he played in the Second World War and its aftermath. He also figures in the First World War, but by the time that war broke out in 1939 he had assumed a far more significant role. As the CIA files indicate, he was one of the most important businesspeople in Europe.
He used his business influences in different ways, such as with playing both sides during the war. His connections to both the British and the Germans have been well documented. For the Nazis, for instance, he supplied submarines in the Mediterranean from ships with the Trasmediterránea line. The same shipping company was the means by which Jews were transported to New York. March was paid handsomely for movements that were not permitted. When the FBI sought to intervene, it was Churchill who had a word with Roosevelt.
The CIA files really only confirm what was known about March's involvement in the war. A great deal of information had been gathered about him by the British, the French, the Russians, the Germans and the Americans. At the end of the war, the Americans and the Russians discovered a mountain of documentation related to him in Berlin. What the CIA now reveal is that a contrabandist, Michael Olian, was investigated in 1946 within the framework of Nazi war crimes. He sold assets of French Jews at reduced prices through an agreement with a Swiss bank in Madrid. Joan March was one of two beneficiaries.
March was untouchable. Although he principally treated the war as a grand business opportunity, there was also his duplicity. The Americans, or at least the Office of Strategic Services (which was to become the CIA), wanted to detain him. March had Churchill to thank for the fact that he was not detained and was to amass ever greater fortune and business power after the war. The CIA was unable to arrest March because Spain was "supposedly neutral". Obstacles were placed in front of American intelligence by "our diplomats".
The CIA files in some ways are more revealing about the post-war activities of Nazis in Mallorca. To what extent, if any, March was involved in Nazi activity isn't stated. Such involvement was probably unnecessary, as what emerges is a picture of how the Franco regime consented to the presence of Nazis and would indeed provide protection.
The Nazi presence on the island had been established prior to the war. Hans Dede became the permanent German consul in 1933 and remained so during the war. It was Dede who had pursued, with local assistance, German Jews and pacifists who had settled in Mallorca: in Cala Ratjada in particular. One was Karl Otten, who the British helped to escape. He became a propagandist with the BBC. Another was Hugo Cyril Kulp Baruch, better known as Jack Bilbo, who had established the Waikiki bar, but who left Mallorca when he recognised that the island wasn't the safe haven he had hoped it would be.
The CIA files establish that Dede had originally and ostensibly arrived in Mallorca as the employee of a company. He was categorised as being "notoriously anti-Semitic". He was also a spy. Following the war, the Allies demanded that he be handed over. It was too late. He had gone to South America. But, and as one dossier in the CIA files shows, there was apparently no shortage of Nazis residents on the island after the war. Military people and scientists, they were the focus of what in 1947, according to the CIA, was an imminent resurgence of the Nazi Party.
But was there really a resurgence? Nazism had been well embedded during the war and prior to it: there had, for example, been a Nazi rally in Portals Nous in 1938. Although there may have been Nazis on the island, did they pose the type of threat the CIA files hint at? Of the better-known names, Dede was no longer in Mallorca. Otto Skorzeny, who was to live in Barcares in Alcudia, wasn't here in 1947. He was undergoing de-Nazification, but didn't renounce National Socialism. He escaped and went to Madrid in 1948.
The point is that whatever strength of Nazi sentiment there may have been in the years immediately following the war, this didn't create a momentum. Mallorca and Spain did, after all, have its own brand of fascism to sustain it.
Sunday, November 27, 2016
One Hundred Years Of Shipping
In Barcelona on 25 November one hundred years ago, four men put their signatures to a document. It was the deed of incorporation of a new company. Its name was Compañía Trasmediterránea, the most famous of Spain's shipping companies and one that was also to become associated with notoriety.
The four directors of the new company were Jose Juan Dómine, Vicente Ferrer Peset, Joaquín María Tintoré and Enrique García Corrons. Each of them already had shipping interests, but Trasmediterránea was to become an altogether grander operation than any of them had been involved with up to that time. And the reason for that lay with a name not on that deed.
In January 1917, the shipping activities of Trasmediterránea started. It had at its disposal 44 ships. A year later, control of the company was to be taken via another shipping operator - Isleña Marítima. The owner of that company was Joan March Ordinas, later to be known, among other things, as the last pirate of the Mediterranean.
Santa Margalida-born March was by then a very wealthy man. He had acquired his wealth at a young age. The story of how he came by his wealth has been told many times. And having control of shipping companies was an on the face of it legitimate means of acquiring further illicit wealth - from smuggling. In fact, it had been March who had really created Trasmediterránea in the first place.
Trasmediterránea was of course perfectly legitimate and the business grew rapidly, thanks to it having a virtual monopoly on cargo and passenger transport and on official postal services. Its operations embraced the Balearics, the mainland, north Africa and the Canaries. By 1921, the fleet had increased to seventy ships.
March, who founded the Banca March in 1926, was able to get contracts with a succession of governments, even the Republican government (which was to send him to prison, from which he was able to escape). His contacts were such that Alfonso XIII was a shareholder; the king was apparently given 3,000 shares by March. In recognition of such generosity, Trasmediterránea was awarded the contract for moving troops, supplies and equipment to north Africa during the Rif War of the first half of the 1920s.
Then came Franco and the Civil War. March, Franco's banker, was able to supply ships to the Nationalists. It has been said of the relationship between the shipping company and Franco that Trasmediterránea conducted "peculiar" missions. Among these, after the Civil War had ended, was a collaboration with the Nazis: Trasmediterránea ships would help supply submarines out on the high sea.
March, as is well known, played all sides. While he helped the Nazis, he was also responsible for transporting Jews to safety. They paid, and very handsomely too, to be taken to New York. This was despite Trasmediterránea not having permission to undertake transatlantic voyages. When the FBI took an interest, it was Winston Churchill who intervened. March was his favourite Mallorcan spy.
Joan March died in 1962 - some still believe the road accident to have been suspicious - but his name was to live on with Trasmediterránea. Fifty years ago, the "Juan March" (the Spanish version of his name was used) was launched. The March family still controlled the company, but in January 1978 Trasmediterránea was partially taken over by the Spanish government. It was said that the sale was because the shipping industry was experiencing great difficulty. In fact, Trasmediterránea was on the point of bankruptcy. The government of Adolfo Suárez paid the equivalent of 2.60 euros per share for more than half the shares.
It was to be fully nationalised in 1997 and then privatised five years later, sold to the construction company Acciona for 259 million euros plus the taking-on of over 200 million euros debt.
The four directors of the new company were Jose Juan Dómine, Vicente Ferrer Peset, Joaquín María Tintoré and Enrique García Corrons. Each of them already had shipping interests, but Trasmediterránea was to become an altogether grander operation than any of them had been involved with up to that time. And the reason for that lay with a name not on that deed.
In January 1917, the shipping activities of Trasmediterránea started. It had at its disposal 44 ships. A year later, control of the company was to be taken via another shipping operator - Isleña Marítima. The owner of that company was Joan March Ordinas, later to be known, among other things, as the last pirate of the Mediterranean.
Santa Margalida-born March was by then a very wealthy man. He had acquired his wealth at a young age. The story of how he came by his wealth has been told many times. And having control of shipping companies was an on the face of it legitimate means of acquiring further illicit wealth - from smuggling. In fact, it had been March who had really created Trasmediterránea in the first place.
Trasmediterránea was of course perfectly legitimate and the business grew rapidly, thanks to it having a virtual monopoly on cargo and passenger transport and on official postal services. Its operations embraced the Balearics, the mainland, north Africa and the Canaries. By 1921, the fleet had increased to seventy ships.
March, who founded the Banca March in 1926, was able to get contracts with a succession of governments, even the Republican government (which was to send him to prison, from which he was able to escape). His contacts were such that Alfonso XIII was a shareholder; the king was apparently given 3,000 shares by March. In recognition of such generosity, Trasmediterránea was awarded the contract for moving troops, supplies and equipment to north Africa during the Rif War of the first half of the 1920s.
Then came Franco and the Civil War. March, Franco's banker, was able to supply ships to the Nationalists. It has been said of the relationship between the shipping company and Franco that Trasmediterránea conducted "peculiar" missions. Among these, after the Civil War had ended, was a collaboration with the Nazis: Trasmediterránea ships would help supply submarines out on the high sea.
March, as is well known, played all sides. While he helped the Nazis, he was also responsible for transporting Jews to safety. They paid, and very handsomely too, to be taken to New York. This was despite Trasmediterránea not having permission to undertake transatlantic voyages. When the FBI took an interest, it was Winston Churchill who intervened. March was his favourite Mallorcan spy.
Joan March died in 1962 - some still believe the road accident to have been suspicious - but his name was to live on with Trasmediterránea. Fifty years ago, the "Juan March" (the Spanish version of his name was used) was launched. The March family still controlled the company, but in January 1978 Trasmediterránea was partially taken over by the Spanish government. It was said that the sale was because the shipping industry was experiencing great difficulty. In fact, Trasmediterránea was on the point of bankruptcy. The government of Adolfo Suárez paid the equivalent of 2.60 euros per share for more than half the shares.
It was to be fully nationalised in 1997 and then privatised five years later, sold to the construction company Acciona for 259 million euros plus the taking-on of over 200 million euros debt.
Monday, December 21, 2015
On The Trail Of Winston Churchill
In the 13 December 1935 edition of "La Vanguardia", the newspaper included a small item at the foot of its page devoted to news from "the regions". In the Balearics section it reported that the ex-Conservative minister, Winston Churchill, had arrived with his wife on board the "Ciudad de Palma", which had crossed from Barcelona to the Mallorcan capital. He was met by the (English) Vice-Consul and then headed for Formentor, where he was planning on spending some time.
Churchill would not have found Mallorca at its warmest. Above mention of his arrival, the paper said that the whole of the northern mountain area was covered in snow and that the temperature was a mere four degrees. There was another reason for a certain frostiness, not one mentioned on that page of the paper: the cold fears and anxieties of conflict.
It was the Hotel Formentor where Winston and Clementine stayed. This hotel, grand then as it still is, had not enjoyed the greatest of fortunes since its completion. Or at least the person behind it had not. Adan Diehl, the Argentinian poet, had by then left Mallorca along with his wife. It had been mostly her fortune which had been sunk into Diehl's hotel. They returned to Argentina all but penniless, grateful to the locals of Pollensa who had helped pay for their voyage: they, in turn, grateful to Diehl for having created this splendid hotel.
But why was Churchill in Mallorca eighty years ago this month? Another newspaper, "ABC", reported that he was planning on writing and painting. It also reported that he showed an interest in Spain's political situation, asking if it was true that the country was threatened by a "wave of leftism" (an even greater wave than there already was). While he asked about this, he declined to answer questions about international events.
In November that year, the Conservatives had won the general election. Churchill, who had been hoping for the post as First Lord of the Admiralty, was not given it, Baldwin preferring to "keep him fresh to be prime minister" in the event of war. He took himself off, therefore, for a Mediterranean break. His main intention, including getting some sun, was to work on the third volume of "Marlborough: His Life and Times". If he had intended spending longer in Mallorca, this wasn't to prove to be the case. By Christmas Eve, "ABC" was carrying a photo of him and Clementine back in Barcelona. He then went to Morocco, and she returned to England.
But Churchill would have been all too aware of the political situation when he had arrived, and though he might not have been in the cabinet, he remained immensely influential and important. His status was such that the Vice-Consul who had greeted him in Palma had ensured that ample quantities of food and drink were laid on when Churchill visited him. The Vice-Consul was to become someone in whom Churchill placed a great deal of trust: his spy chief in Spain, Alan Hillgarth.
Not long before Churchill had arrived in Mallorca, a British resident of the island was asked by the authorities about a road. This resident was Robert Graves, and the road in question was the main road from Cala Deya. Graves was already aware, in November of that year, of a German who had been accused of spying in Soller, the evidence for which was that he owned a radio. As for the road, rumours were abounding that it was to be used by a landing force. Nothing came of the need for Graves to have to speak to the authorities, but the fact was that in Mallorca in late 1935 there was a great deal of anxiety, one that Hillgarth shared for two reasons: possible war with Italy and what was indeed a "wave of leftism", to which Robert Graves was to refer in a letter, noting the alarm that the "Daily Mail" had spread with a report of "Red Riots".
Given Mallorca's geographical situation and the tensions, pre-Civil War, with Italy, it was understandable that there would have been anxieties and all sorts of rumours. And this again raises the question as to why Churchill was in Mallorca in late 1935. Was it solely for a writing and painting holiday? Maybe it was, but that period spent on the island was to prove to be highly significant. Hillgarth it was who was to eventually be involved with the plan to bribe Franco to keep out of the Second World War, and crucial to that plan was the banker (and Franco's banker) Joan March, described in September 1935 by the "Chicago Tribune" as the "boss of the Balearics". March was one of Hillgarth's key informants.
In the Hotel Formentor, the grand hotel overlooking the bay of Pollensa, did Churchill meet Joan March in December 1935?
Churchill would not have found Mallorca at its warmest. Above mention of his arrival, the paper said that the whole of the northern mountain area was covered in snow and that the temperature was a mere four degrees. There was another reason for a certain frostiness, not one mentioned on that page of the paper: the cold fears and anxieties of conflict.
It was the Hotel Formentor where Winston and Clementine stayed. This hotel, grand then as it still is, had not enjoyed the greatest of fortunes since its completion. Or at least the person behind it had not. Adan Diehl, the Argentinian poet, had by then left Mallorca along with his wife. It had been mostly her fortune which had been sunk into Diehl's hotel. They returned to Argentina all but penniless, grateful to the locals of Pollensa who had helped pay for their voyage: they, in turn, grateful to Diehl for having created this splendid hotel.
But why was Churchill in Mallorca eighty years ago this month? Another newspaper, "ABC", reported that he was planning on writing and painting. It also reported that he showed an interest in Spain's political situation, asking if it was true that the country was threatened by a "wave of leftism" (an even greater wave than there already was). While he asked about this, he declined to answer questions about international events.
In November that year, the Conservatives had won the general election. Churchill, who had been hoping for the post as First Lord of the Admiralty, was not given it, Baldwin preferring to "keep him fresh to be prime minister" in the event of war. He took himself off, therefore, for a Mediterranean break. His main intention, including getting some sun, was to work on the third volume of "Marlborough: His Life and Times". If he had intended spending longer in Mallorca, this wasn't to prove to be the case. By Christmas Eve, "ABC" was carrying a photo of him and Clementine back in Barcelona. He then went to Morocco, and she returned to England.
But Churchill would have been all too aware of the political situation when he had arrived, and though he might not have been in the cabinet, he remained immensely influential and important. His status was such that the Vice-Consul who had greeted him in Palma had ensured that ample quantities of food and drink were laid on when Churchill visited him. The Vice-Consul was to become someone in whom Churchill placed a great deal of trust: his spy chief in Spain, Alan Hillgarth.
Not long before Churchill had arrived in Mallorca, a British resident of the island was asked by the authorities about a road. This resident was Robert Graves, and the road in question was the main road from Cala Deya. Graves was already aware, in November of that year, of a German who had been accused of spying in Soller, the evidence for which was that he owned a radio. As for the road, rumours were abounding that it was to be used by a landing force. Nothing came of the need for Graves to have to speak to the authorities, but the fact was that in Mallorca in late 1935 there was a great deal of anxiety, one that Hillgarth shared for two reasons: possible war with Italy and what was indeed a "wave of leftism", to which Robert Graves was to refer in a letter, noting the alarm that the "Daily Mail" had spread with a report of "Red Riots".
Given Mallorca's geographical situation and the tensions, pre-Civil War, with Italy, it was understandable that there would have been anxieties and all sorts of rumours. And this again raises the question as to why Churchill was in Mallorca in late 1935. Was it solely for a writing and painting holiday? Maybe it was, but that period spent on the island was to prove to be highly significant. Hillgarth it was who was to eventually be involved with the plan to bribe Franco to keep out of the Second World War, and crucial to that plan was the banker (and Franco's banker) Joan March, described in September 1935 by the "Chicago Tribune" as the "boss of the Balearics". March was one of Hillgarth's key informants.
In the Hotel Formentor, the grand hotel overlooking the bay of Pollensa, did Churchill meet Joan March in December 1935?
Friday, January 09, 2015
Rafael Nadal Airport
It wasn't in fact a news story, but it looked like it. The "Diario de Mallorca" journalist Matias Valles had made some predictions for 2015. One of them was that Mallorca's hoteliers would like Palma's Son Sant Joan airport renamed. Their preference was for Aeropuerto Rafael Nadal.
With the story out, the newspaper asked its readers what they thought of this potential renaming. They gave three other options that could be chosen instead. The result? Well, Nadal didn't win. He came second but he didn't come close. The winner was that old mediaevalist swot and show-off, Ramon Llull. The winning margin over Nadal was by almost sixty percentage points. Llull polled 76%, Nadal 17%. As for the other two, well they were barely at the races. Antoni Maura, the Mallorcan who was several times president of Spain in the early twentieth century and who was generally held responsible for the massacre of "Tragic Week" in Barcelona in 1909, got 4%, one more point than Joan March, founder of the Banca March, associate of Franco's to the extent of having helped him with finance, smuggler, and all-round rotten egg, as history has come to revile him.
Assuming that there is actually any virtue in naming an airport after someone prominent, what does the overwhelming support for Llull say? Anything? Perhaps the readers were having a bit of a laugh at what was in any event a jokey item, but one doubts this. The reverence shown to Llull is all but absolute. He and Nadal, centuries apart, are the most famous people that Mallorca has produced, even if Nadal's fame (internationally) is of a level that Llull didn't ever and will never attain.
Culturally and historically important he was, Llull, for all his religion and mysticism, was not an insular man in as much as he didn't confine himself to Mallorca in times when most might have done. He had a wider vision, especially that of spreading Christianity and converting Muslims. It was a contentious vision, one made even more so today, but Llull was a man of the world; the part of the world that was understood then.
But now he is a symbol for insularity and for a parochial Catalanism of which I very much doubt he would have approved. Nadal is a global figure, one with much respect in his home island, but a sportsperson removed from the navelgazing nature of Mallorcan society. In a way, and despite his renown and potentially ambassadorial role for Mallorca, he doesn't fit with the earnest, zealous even Mallorcanism. He is simply too famous for his own good.
Of the other two in the poll, neither stood a chance. Maura begat Maurism, the street violence-led movement that wasn't his idea but which was formed in his name nonetheless and which can be seen as a precursor of what was to happen in the 1930s. March? Well, enough has been said and written about him to know that he wouldn't ever be the bookies' choice for an airport naming.
If one considers that there is some validity in and benefit from naming an airport, the foursome reveal that Mallorca has a very limited choice. In truth, only Nadal has any real or true international recognition or reputation. March has been written about often, as of course have Llull and Maura, but they are still names of comparative insignificance outside Mallorca and Spain. The island doesn't deal in the globally recognised, or hadn't until Nadal came along. Its recognition has been more that of what the island is - a holidaying destination - and that, where the world is concerned, is all it is. Renaming the airport? Why not? Call it Mallorca Airport. Everyone would know that.
With the story out, the newspaper asked its readers what they thought of this potential renaming. They gave three other options that could be chosen instead. The result? Well, Nadal didn't win. He came second but he didn't come close. The winner was that old mediaevalist swot and show-off, Ramon Llull. The winning margin over Nadal was by almost sixty percentage points. Llull polled 76%, Nadal 17%. As for the other two, well they were barely at the races. Antoni Maura, the Mallorcan who was several times president of Spain in the early twentieth century and who was generally held responsible for the massacre of "Tragic Week" in Barcelona in 1909, got 4%, one more point than Joan March, founder of the Banca March, associate of Franco's to the extent of having helped him with finance, smuggler, and all-round rotten egg, as history has come to revile him.
Assuming that there is actually any virtue in naming an airport after someone prominent, what does the overwhelming support for Llull say? Anything? Perhaps the readers were having a bit of a laugh at what was in any event a jokey item, but one doubts this. The reverence shown to Llull is all but absolute. He and Nadal, centuries apart, are the most famous people that Mallorca has produced, even if Nadal's fame (internationally) is of a level that Llull didn't ever and will never attain.
Culturally and historically important he was, Llull, for all his religion and mysticism, was not an insular man in as much as he didn't confine himself to Mallorca in times when most might have done. He had a wider vision, especially that of spreading Christianity and converting Muslims. It was a contentious vision, one made even more so today, but Llull was a man of the world; the part of the world that was understood then.
But now he is a symbol for insularity and for a parochial Catalanism of which I very much doubt he would have approved. Nadal is a global figure, one with much respect in his home island, but a sportsperson removed from the navelgazing nature of Mallorcan society. In a way, and despite his renown and potentially ambassadorial role for Mallorca, he doesn't fit with the earnest, zealous even Mallorcanism. He is simply too famous for his own good.
Of the other two in the poll, neither stood a chance. Maura begat Maurism, the street violence-led movement that wasn't his idea but which was formed in his name nonetheless and which can be seen as a precursor of what was to happen in the 1930s. March? Well, enough has been said and written about him to know that he wouldn't ever be the bookies' choice for an airport naming.
If one considers that there is some validity in and benefit from naming an airport, the foursome reveal that Mallorca has a very limited choice. In truth, only Nadal has any real or true international recognition or reputation. March has been written about often, as of course have Llull and Maura, but they are still names of comparative insignificance outside Mallorca and Spain. The island doesn't deal in the globally recognised, or hadn't until Nadal came along. Its recognition has been more that of what the island is - a holidaying destination - and that, where the world is concerned, is all it is. Renaming the airport? Why not? Call it Mallorca Airport. Everyone would know that.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Great "Vilers": Joan Mascaró i Fornés
But he was a rogue who pretty much controlled Mallorca. He became Spain's wealthiest man. Perhaps there is just a touch of jealousy. While Santa Margalida's one-time affluence from agriculture had declined over the years, March was new wealth. Banking, shipping, petrol. He owned the lot, and what he owned survive to this day - Banca March, Trasmediterranea, Campsa.
This coming Tuesday, there is to be a day of culture as part of the La Beata fiestas. It is actually an evening, but no matter. It will take place in the Casal de Cultura Joan Mascaró i Fornés, and Mascaró was a son of Santa Margalida who did nothing to have any honour taken away. He was an unusual and remarkable man. And, perhaps as proof that rogues seek redemption through good works, he was a recipient of Joan March's benevolence.
Mascaró was born in 1897 in a small farmhouse on the finca s’Hort d’en Degollat, the site of the fiestas' haymaking celebrations which take place today. His parents were of humble farming stock, so his background was such that he hadn’t been destined to become the great scholar he became. But at the age of seven, he went to live with an uncle in Palma, where he studied and, at the age of sixteen, he became fascinated in the occult and Oriental spiritualism.
He mastered English to the extent that he was employed in 1916 as a secretary at the British Consulate, and it was his ability in English which brought him to the attention of Joan March. It was March who was to be Mascaró’s patron, and in 1929, having been funded to attend Cambridge University, he emerged with a degree in English Literature and Classical Oriental Languages.
Mascaró was to travel and to work in what was then Ceylon, and in 1935 he completed the first translation into Catalan of the “Bhagavad Gita”, one of the most important scriptures of the Hindu culture and religion. He was eventually to translate this epic into English, and when it was published by Penguin in 1962, he suddenly found himself catapulted into international fame. His work was greeted with great praise by scholars and the non-scholarly, one of the latter having been George Harrison, with whom Mascaró was to conduct a correspondence. He was to also translate other texts from the “Upanishads”, which is the collection of Hindu texts of which “Bhagavad Gita” is one.
Despite his extensive research into Hindu literature and culture, Mascaró never lost sight of his Catalan origins and culture. His translations into Catalan, which had been more or less lost during Franco times, were revived and re-published in the 1980s.
He died at the age of 89 in 1987, his remains being taken from Cambridge, where he had lived, in order to be buried in Santa Margalida. Mascaró is held in a position of reverence in Santa Margalida. For his advocacy of Catalan and for his widely acclaimed translations, he is remembered fondly, whereas his benefactor, Joan March, is not.
Wednesday, August 06, 2014
Mallorca And War: The collaborators
Collaboration in wartime comes about for different reasons. Coercion and threats, sympathies with a cause, expectation of personal gain. Collaboration by Mallorcans during the Great War was not the consequence of the first of these. There were sympathies on both sides, but such sympathies never really carried a great deal of weight. Spain was never likely to have been placed in a position where it needed to break its neutrality. But the country was placed in an awkward and potentially threatening situation because of one particular act of collaboration with the Central Powers.
The Mediterranean theatre during the war was well away from the Balearics, but by sheer fact of geography - being in the Mediterranean - Mallorca, despite neutrality, was dragged into the war. And the person who dragged the island in was Joan March. Though March was in effect an agent for the British secret services, he played both sides. It is generally believed that his personal sympathies were with the Allies, and he was, during World War Two, to express to Churchill his desire to assist against the Nazis and the Axis Powers. (Churchill, one understands, quite warmed to March. He knew full well that he was a rogue, but Churchill adopted a pragmatic attitude to such roguishness.)
But wherever his sympathies lay, March had greater motivations than ideology. Above all else, he was out to get what he could get, and it didn't really seem to bother him where he got this from. Though he was informing British intelligence about ship movements, he was also involved with supplying the other side and specifically U-boats belonging to the Austro-Hungarian fleet. In 1915, there was a major international incident when it was discovered that U-boats were sheltering off the island of Cabrera. Across the strait which separates the Cabrera archipelago from Mallorca was and is S'Avall, a finca by Colonia Sant Jordi. Its owner? Joan March.
There was a suspicion that the Spanish Government was complicit in this affair. It knew what March was doing and allowed him to do it. Or so it was believed, and indeed it is hard to believe that it was unaware of the U-boats. Churchill, then still First Lord of the Admiralty, insisted that the Spanish took some action. And it did. It expropriated the island of Cabrera from its owner Sebastian Feliu, citing reasons of national security. The island is to this day the government's property. The national security was such that a clear violation of neutrality might have posed a threat to Spain. It is highly doubtful that the British would have actually declared war on Spain, if only because the Italians were coming in on the Allies side at that time, and so it would have been counterproductive. Besides which, the swift action of the Spanish allayed fears that they were not acting in good faith when it came to being neutral. Nevertheless, it was the unscrupulous opportunist March who nearly messed things up.
But March wasn't the only one who threatened to compromise Spain and Mallorca's position by seeking some gain through collaboration with the Central Powers. The French had good reason to believe that there were a number of people from Sóller, a town with traditionally strong and friendly relations with France, who were engaged in supplying German U-boats off the coast of Mallorca. The newspaper, "Le Petit Marseillais", reported that early into the war there were those in Sóller who were making fuel and other supplies available to the Germans. The paper cited the testimony of a Mallorcan fisherman that several U-boats had been supplied on 20 September. Someone by the name of Vicens was named by the French as heading this conspiracy of collaboration. The French also accused the Maritima Sollerense shipping company of being engaged in the illegal supply of fuel to the Germans. The company protested its innocence, formally complaining to the French consulate in Palma and claiming that, despite neutrality, it and also the people of Sóller were firmly behind the Allies. (Collaboration could of course work in different ways.)
There was a different form of collaboration, one which was also centred on Sóller (and neighbouring Fornalutx). A fruit exporter by the name of Joan Mayol, originally from Fornalutx, had been exporting to Germany and Switzerland before the outbreak of war. He continued to export but only to Switzerland. However, these exports were then sold on to Germany at vast profit. Mayol was convicted under a law that had been drawn up in 1915, was sentenced to five years in prison but later acquitted following the intervention of Jeroni Estades - him again - in his capacity as a parliamentary deputy.
Perhaps there were other collaborators. If there were, it is doubtful that they had any other motive than personal gain. War or no war, Mallorca's entrepreneurs were determined to remain active.
The Mediterranean theatre during the war was well away from the Balearics, but by sheer fact of geography - being in the Mediterranean - Mallorca, despite neutrality, was dragged into the war. And the person who dragged the island in was Joan March. Though March was in effect an agent for the British secret services, he played both sides. It is generally believed that his personal sympathies were with the Allies, and he was, during World War Two, to express to Churchill his desire to assist against the Nazis and the Axis Powers. (Churchill, one understands, quite warmed to March. He knew full well that he was a rogue, but Churchill adopted a pragmatic attitude to such roguishness.)
But wherever his sympathies lay, March had greater motivations than ideology. Above all else, he was out to get what he could get, and it didn't really seem to bother him where he got this from. Though he was informing British intelligence about ship movements, he was also involved with supplying the other side and specifically U-boats belonging to the Austro-Hungarian fleet. In 1915, there was a major international incident when it was discovered that U-boats were sheltering off the island of Cabrera. Across the strait which separates the Cabrera archipelago from Mallorca was and is S'Avall, a finca by Colonia Sant Jordi. Its owner? Joan March.
There was a suspicion that the Spanish Government was complicit in this affair. It knew what March was doing and allowed him to do it. Or so it was believed, and indeed it is hard to believe that it was unaware of the U-boats. Churchill, then still First Lord of the Admiralty, insisted that the Spanish took some action. And it did. It expropriated the island of Cabrera from its owner Sebastian Feliu, citing reasons of national security. The island is to this day the government's property. The national security was such that a clear violation of neutrality might have posed a threat to Spain. It is highly doubtful that the British would have actually declared war on Spain, if only because the Italians were coming in on the Allies side at that time, and so it would have been counterproductive. Besides which, the swift action of the Spanish allayed fears that they were not acting in good faith when it came to being neutral. Nevertheless, it was the unscrupulous opportunist March who nearly messed things up.
But March wasn't the only one who threatened to compromise Spain and Mallorca's position by seeking some gain through collaboration with the Central Powers. The French had good reason to believe that there were a number of people from Sóller, a town with traditionally strong and friendly relations with France, who were engaged in supplying German U-boats off the coast of Mallorca. The newspaper, "Le Petit Marseillais", reported that early into the war there were those in Sóller who were making fuel and other supplies available to the Germans. The paper cited the testimony of a Mallorcan fisherman that several U-boats had been supplied on 20 September. Someone by the name of Vicens was named by the French as heading this conspiracy of collaboration. The French also accused the Maritima Sollerense shipping company of being engaged in the illegal supply of fuel to the Germans. The company protested its innocence, formally complaining to the French consulate in Palma and claiming that, despite neutrality, it and also the people of Sóller were firmly behind the Allies. (Collaboration could of course work in different ways.)
There was a different form of collaboration, one which was also centred on Sóller (and neighbouring Fornalutx). A fruit exporter by the name of Joan Mayol, originally from Fornalutx, had been exporting to Germany and Switzerland before the outbreak of war. He continued to export but only to Switzerland. However, these exports were then sold on to Germany at vast profit. Mayol was convicted under a law that had been drawn up in 1915, was sentenced to five years in prison but later acquitted following the intervention of Jeroni Estades - him again - in his capacity as a parliamentary deputy.
Perhaps there were other collaborators. If there were, it is doubtful that they had any other motive than personal gain. War or no war, Mallorca's entrepreneurs were determined to remain active.
Monday, August 04, 2014
Declaration Of War And Mallorca
The night of 4 August, 1914 would doubtless have been like nights in early August in Mallorca have always been. It would have been sultry. The sounds would have been those of cicadas. Far away from Mallorca it was also a warm night. The windows of the Admiralty in London were thrown open. The sounds were of the singing of "God Save The King" and of the chimes of Big Ben. A telegram went out across the world. As Churchill concluded: "the deed was done".
On that sultry night in August, assuming they were aware of events in London, who among people in Mallorca would have been taking notice? Perhaps everyone. It was war, after all. But it was someone else's war, and confirmation of that came three days later. Spain was neutral. There would have been those who paid greater notice; foreign residents and visitors in El Terreno, for example, and also the Archduke Louis Salvador, perhaps even then preparing to leave. Summoned back to Austria-Hungary, his presence in neutral Mallorca, his love for Mallorca notwithstanding, would have been awkward had he stayed.
Someone else who would have been paying careful attention would have been Joan March, probably resident in his summer palace in Cala Ratjada. What can we imagine of that night of 4 August, 1914? Would there have been a small dinner party at the March palace? Lobster and wines, followed by the men taking themselves to a discrete terrace to discuss affairs of war while they smoked cigars and drank their brandy? Antoni Maura was a summer neighbour of March's in Cala Ratjada. He was not prime minister then, but he was eventually to advocate Spain's siding with the Allies. Perhaps, for the time being though, neutrality was best. There were riches to be made while the world went to war and Spain didn't.
While Maura was the politician, March was the businessman. What might he have been eyeing up? When might it have become opportune for him to be involved with the British secret service? March, as useful to Britain during the Great War as he was to be during the Second World War. Useful, even though British intelligence dubbed him a "scoundrel of the deepest dye". He maintained links with the Germans during the Great War and used those links to give British intelligence information as to German shipping movements. On the night of 4 August, March was probably contemplating having a good war, and he was right to have contemplated this. By 1915, the Italian Government was being informed as to the spy-network activities of Charles Thoroton. Based in Gibraltar, Thoroton's network extended across Spain and into Morocco. The Italian Consulate in Gibraltar reported that all the Spanish coasts were under the surveillance and control of Thoroton, "who is informed of all ship movements ... the English authority is in liaison with a Juan March, a contrabandist with control of over 240 motor ships and monoplanes ... this covers all ship movements from the Balearic Islands ... he gains a lot of money".
There would have been others who were taking special notice on the night of 4 August. They weren't foreigners and they weren't the powerful. They were ordinary Mallorcans who knew people abroad. On that night, would relatives and friends of Jaime and Antonio Oliver in Sóller, of Juan Mora Ferrer, also from Sóller, of Jaime Llabrés Bestard from Establiments and José Niell from Sineu have been concerned about German advances into Belgium? On 20 August, they were shot and killed at the shop in Liège that the Oliver brothers ran, having returned given that the Battle of Liège had finished.
The initial explanation for their deaths was that they had been caught up in an exchange of gunfire. Almost a month later, a businessman from Inca, Sebastian Simonet, had managed to get back to Mallorca. He told a very different story. It was reported in the Mallorcan newspaper "La Almudaina". He said that the Mallorcans had been arrested by drunk German soldiers, handcuffed, taken to grounds at the university and shot by firing squads.
There was outrage, and the outrage was all the greater because the Spanish Government appeared indifferent to what had happened. The matter was nonetheless raised in the Cortes, Jeroni Estades, he of the Sóller train and by then a parliamentary deputy, being one of those who demanded a stronger response. Eventually, the government, via the Spanish Embassy in Berlin, was able to extract compensation for the men's deaths.
But back to more pleasant matters. On the night of 4 August, the people of Binissalem would still have been celebrating events of two days before. On that day, the town's football club was officially founded and the first match played. A hundred years on, and the centenary has been duly honoured. Far away war was starting. In Mallorca they kicked footballs. In peace.
On that sultry night in August, assuming they were aware of events in London, who among people in Mallorca would have been taking notice? Perhaps everyone. It was war, after all. But it was someone else's war, and confirmation of that came three days later. Spain was neutral. There would have been those who paid greater notice; foreign residents and visitors in El Terreno, for example, and also the Archduke Louis Salvador, perhaps even then preparing to leave. Summoned back to Austria-Hungary, his presence in neutral Mallorca, his love for Mallorca notwithstanding, would have been awkward had he stayed.
Someone else who would have been paying careful attention would have been Joan March, probably resident in his summer palace in Cala Ratjada. What can we imagine of that night of 4 August, 1914? Would there have been a small dinner party at the March palace? Lobster and wines, followed by the men taking themselves to a discrete terrace to discuss affairs of war while they smoked cigars and drank their brandy? Antoni Maura was a summer neighbour of March's in Cala Ratjada. He was not prime minister then, but he was eventually to advocate Spain's siding with the Allies. Perhaps, for the time being though, neutrality was best. There were riches to be made while the world went to war and Spain didn't.
While Maura was the politician, March was the businessman. What might he have been eyeing up? When might it have become opportune for him to be involved with the British secret service? March, as useful to Britain during the Great War as he was to be during the Second World War. Useful, even though British intelligence dubbed him a "scoundrel of the deepest dye". He maintained links with the Germans during the Great War and used those links to give British intelligence information as to German shipping movements. On the night of 4 August, March was probably contemplating having a good war, and he was right to have contemplated this. By 1915, the Italian Government was being informed as to the spy-network activities of Charles Thoroton. Based in Gibraltar, Thoroton's network extended across Spain and into Morocco. The Italian Consulate in Gibraltar reported that all the Spanish coasts were under the surveillance and control of Thoroton, "who is informed of all ship movements ... the English authority is in liaison with a Juan March, a contrabandist with control of over 240 motor ships and monoplanes ... this covers all ship movements from the Balearic Islands ... he gains a lot of money".
There would have been others who were taking special notice on the night of 4 August. They weren't foreigners and they weren't the powerful. They were ordinary Mallorcans who knew people abroad. On that night, would relatives and friends of Jaime and Antonio Oliver in Sóller, of Juan Mora Ferrer, also from Sóller, of Jaime Llabrés Bestard from Establiments and José Niell from Sineu have been concerned about German advances into Belgium? On 20 August, they were shot and killed at the shop in Liège that the Oliver brothers ran, having returned given that the Battle of Liège had finished.
The initial explanation for their deaths was that they had been caught up in an exchange of gunfire. Almost a month later, a businessman from Inca, Sebastian Simonet, had managed to get back to Mallorca. He told a very different story. It was reported in the Mallorcan newspaper "La Almudaina". He said that the Mallorcans had been arrested by drunk German soldiers, handcuffed, taken to grounds at the university and shot by firing squads.
There was outrage, and the outrage was all the greater because the Spanish Government appeared indifferent to what had happened. The matter was nonetheless raised in the Cortes, Jeroni Estades, he of the Sóller train and by then a parliamentary deputy, being one of those who demanded a stronger response. Eventually, the government, via the Spanish Embassy in Berlin, was able to extract compensation for the men's deaths.
But back to more pleasant matters. On the night of 4 August, the people of Binissalem would still have been celebrating events of two days before. On that day, the town's football club was officially founded and the first match played. A hundred years on, and the centenary has been duly honoured. Far away war was starting. In Mallorca they kicked footballs. In peace.
Monday, July 28, 2014
Tales Of The Llevant: Cala Ratjada
In 1956, members of the council in Santa Margalida took a journey eastwards. The purpose of the journey was to offer the award of "illustrious son" of the town in exchange for money to assist in the building of a new town hall. The illustrious son in question rarely bothered with his home town by then. He is said to have declined the offer anyway, citing financial problems, which seemed a little unlikely. He was, after all, resident in a sizable pile on the north-eastern coast of Mallorca. He was and had been for years intimately associated with virtually everything that moved or didn't move in Mallorca. He was hardly strapped for cash. He was Joan March, founder of the Banca March, Franco's banker, all-round rogue-come-philanthropist. The sizable pile was and still is in Cala Ratjada.
There is an old photo from 1905. It shows Cala Ratjada as it then was. Some fishermen's cottages are set back just from the sea, there are two fishing boats in the small port area, the coast itself is rocky and there is a rudimentary walkway/promenade with a low wall. In the background is a building which rises from behind a wooded area. It is that sizable pile. Or at least it was the first stage of its construction. Dates vary as to its completion but certainly by 1916 it was finished and acquired its full grandeur. It was the Palacio de Joan March. The photo was taken on the day of March's wedding to Leonor Servera Melis, who was a native of Capdepera, i.e. the municipality of which Cala Ratjada is a part.
In the photo there is another building, more modest than the palace but definitely much grander than the fishermen's cottages. It was to come to belong to Antoni Maura, the only Mallorcan to have ever been prime minister of Spain. By 1905, Cala Ratjada, for reasons that have no obvious explanation, had become the summer haunt of the island's rich and powerful. They built fine houses or, in the case of Joan March, an entire palace.
It is well chronicled that the then tiny fishing port became the summer destination of choice for Mallorca's elite, but it is not well chronicled as to why. Was it simply because Cala Ratjada is about the furthest point in Mallorca away from Palma? Possibly so. Possibly it was just because it offered a quiet location for relaxation and a diversion from business and political concerns. Or possibly there was another reason. Cala Ratjada became an unofficial seat of power, the elite able to meet in summertime, drawn by the already immensely influential Joan March, who in 1905 was still years away from founding the bank or being involved with the Trasmediterranea shipping company or indeed with the early electricity industry that was to eventually evolve into GESA.
Capdepera town hall was doubtless delighted to welcome this elite. March was accepted with open arms. There is no official record of there ever having been a town hall agreement, but in 1916, the palace completed, the road that runs by it was named after him. It led from an avenue named after his wife. In 1953, Capdepera, unlike Santa Margalida, didn't want anything in exchange. They named March adoptive son of the town.
In the history of Mallorca's tourism, Cala Ratjada doesn't really feature until it underwent a transformation in the 1960s. In one respect this is curious. It was, after all, a place that had been earmarked for summer vacationing by the island's rich. But perhaps this was why there was no obvious development in the inter-war years, other than a hotel, as there was in some other parts of Mallorca. The rich wanted to keep the place to themselves.
Though Cala Ratjada is described in clichéd terms as having been a picturesque tiny fishing village at the turn of the twentieth century, it wasn't as much of a backwater as might be thought. Its port was important, more so than Alcúdia's not so far away around the Cap Farrutx and so in the bay of Alcúdia. Its importance lay with the transporting of two key products - the "llata" wicker works that were made from palmitos and for which Capdepera became famous in the late nineteenth century and the "mares" stones for building purposes.
Last week that old tradition of the llata and the new one of tourism came together. On the beach of Cala Agulla, there was a day of palmito collection, as there has been for several years now, and of its working into wicker products - the "obra de pauma" - a tribute to a facet of the local economy which sustained Cala Ratjada before the arrival of tourism. In his palace, Joan March no doubt used to once draw on his cigar while sitting in his wicker chair.
There is an old photo from 1905. It shows Cala Ratjada as it then was. Some fishermen's cottages are set back just from the sea, there are two fishing boats in the small port area, the coast itself is rocky and there is a rudimentary walkway/promenade with a low wall. In the background is a building which rises from behind a wooded area. It is that sizable pile. Or at least it was the first stage of its construction. Dates vary as to its completion but certainly by 1916 it was finished and acquired its full grandeur. It was the Palacio de Joan March. The photo was taken on the day of March's wedding to Leonor Servera Melis, who was a native of Capdepera, i.e. the municipality of which Cala Ratjada is a part.
In the photo there is another building, more modest than the palace but definitely much grander than the fishermen's cottages. It was to come to belong to Antoni Maura, the only Mallorcan to have ever been prime minister of Spain. By 1905, Cala Ratjada, for reasons that have no obvious explanation, had become the summer haunt of the island's rich and powerful. They built fine houses or, in the case of Joan March, an entire palace.
It is well chronicled that the then tiny fishing port became the summer destination of choice for Mallorca's elite, but it is not well chronicled as to why. Was it simply because Cala Ratjada is about the furthest point in Mallorca away from Palma? Possibly so. Possibly it was just because it offered a quiet location for relaxation and a diversion from business and political concerns. Or possibly there was another reason. Cala Ratjada became an unofficial seat of power, the elite able to meet in summertime, drawn by the already immensely influential Joan March, who in 1905 was still years away from founding the bank or being involved with the Trasmediterranea shipping company or indeed with the early electricity industry that was to eventually evolve into GESA.
Capdepera town hall was doubtless delighted to welcome this elite. March was accepted with open arms. There is no official record of there ever having been a town hall agreement, but in 1916, the palace completed, the road that runs by it was named after him. It led from an avenue named after his wife. In 1953, Capdepera, unlike Santa Margalida, didn't want anything in exchange. They named March adoptive son of the town.
In the history of Mallorca's tourism, Cala Ratjada doesn't really feature until it underwent a transformation in the 1960s. In one respect this is curious. It was, after all, a place that had been earmarked for summer vacationing by the island's rich. But perhaps this was why there was no obvious development in the inter-war years, other than a hotel, as there was in some other parts of Mallorca. The rich wanted to keep the place to themselves.
Though Cala Ratjada is described in clichéd terms as having been a picturesque tiny fishing village at the turn of the twentieth century, it wasn't as much of a backwater as might be thought. Its port was important, more so than Alcúdia's not so far away around the Cap Farrutx and so in the bay of Alcúdia. Its importance lay with the transporting of two key products - the "llata" wicker works that were made from palmitos and for which Capdepera became famous in the late nineteenth century and the "mares" stones for building purposes.
Last week that old tradition of the llata and the new one of tourism came together. On the beach of Cala Agulla, there was a day of palmito collection, as there has been for several years now, and of its working into wicker products - the "obra de pauma" - a tribute to a facet of the local economy which sustained Cala Ratjada before the arrival of tourism. In his palace, Joan March no doubt used to once draw on his cigar while sitting in his wicker chair.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
A Notorious Son Of Santa Margalida
The reasons for this dislike are well-known. He was associated with Franco. His fortune, certainly the roots of it from his young days, came from smuggling, while there is good evidence to indicate that he was still involved in smuggling quite some years after he had become a prominent businessman. Stories of intrigue and of doing away with people surround him, and there is also the question mark over his own death. Was the car crash an accident or not?
March was born in Santa Margalida. This association is something which the people of the town (most of them anyway) would rather didn't exist. It is an association, though, which has been given new life. Unknown to pretty much everyone in Santa Margalida, March had been named as an illustrious son of the town in 1956. This only came to light when a historian stumbled across the agreement drawn up by the town hall in that year quite by chance; the town's records are being digitised, and in the process the document was discovered.
One says that he was named as an illustrious son, but the document which did so was filed away and forgotten about. March was nominated with this title but it was never actually bestowed upon him. Despite this, the discovery that he was going to be named an illustrious son and the existence of the document which confirms this have caused a fuss in Santa Margalida.
The town hall's ruling administration comprises members of a local coalition - Suma pel Canvi - which is made up of independents and the PSOE socialist party and this in turn forms a coalition with the Convergència. The Suma people want the title to be withdrawn, the Convergència isn't so sure, while the opposition Partido Popular is keeping quiet on the subject.
The reason for Suma wanting the title withdrawn is March's Francoist background. Commonly referred to as Franco's banker, March, where Suma is concerned, was the man who financed Franco's coup and so also financed Nationalism and the repression of Republicanism.
This Francoist connection emphasises a point I made recently about the extent to which Franco still dominates Spanish life, and so March is a particularly sensitive subject for Mallorcans and not just Mallorcans from Santa Margalida. But is Suma making something of a March and Francoist mountain out of the molehill of a document everyone had forgotten existed? It isn't as if March was actually ever made an illustrious son, and the reason why he wasn't is perhaps more interesting and revealing than the document itself.
It would appear that this honorary title was a form of cash for honours arrangement. At the time, back in 1956, Santa Margalida town hall, strapped for cash, needed some financial help to build a new town hall. Who did it think of as a potential benefactor? Someone who was a financier and who would do nicely as an illustrious son. March, however, was not inclined to help with the financing. He claimed to have had his own financial problems at the time as well. The request refused, the town hall representatives thought better of awarding him the title but rather than just withdrawing it, the relevant document was filed, perhaps to be revived at some future date.
The desire for the current-day administration to have the honour withdrawn doesn't make total sense, as March never actually received it. Indeed, as the town hall's predecessors some fifty-odd years ago had effectively attempted to bribe March (itself ironic as March wasn't exactly unacquainted with such a method), the current-day guardians of the town might feel rather embarrassed to admit to the attempted bribe.
It is understandable, given the Franco connection, that the Suma should wish to formally strip March of the title, but - and by no means wishing to sound like an apologist for March - one does have to wonder if the contemporary narrative as it is applied to him has airbrushed out less negative factors. He is a fascinating individual for many reasons. He was clearly a very powerful man, but to what extent might it be said that he was instrumental in the general development and well-being of Mallorca? He was, among other things, involved in shipping and the early electricity industry. He also founded the Banca March, and it was the existence of an established banking system in Mallorca that was a factor in facilitating the eventual boom in tourism.
Notorious son of Santa Margalida would probably be a more apt title, but it is notoriety that needs some nuance.
* The photo, pretty obviously, is from the cover of the book by Pere Ferrer about the most mysterious man in the world. Ferrer is not the historian mentioned in the article.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Joan March And The Gibraltar Smuggling Connection
There are few more controversial figures in Mallorca's history than Joan March. This son of Santa Margalida has been all but officially disavowed by the town; airbrushed from the past. Yet, March's name is to be found close to the town hall building outside a different building - a bank. He founded the Banca March and founded a dynasty that has made his family one of the richest in the world.
March arouses controversy for different reasons. His initial wealth came from smuggling tobacco and from dealing on the black market during the First World War. He was to become closely associated with Franco. He died in what are still questionable circumstances; was the car crash in which he lost his life in 1962 really an accident?
March was well known before he acquired the tag "Franco's banker". His fame or notoriety was such that in the edition of the "ABC" newspaper for 5 November, 1933 there was a full-page report based on an interview with him that had been conducted by journalists in Algeciras. The interview had been done by phone. March was in Gibraltar. He had sought a safe haven because he was on the run, having bribed his way out of prison. His crime? His various illegal dealings; he had been convicted of smuggling, tax fraud and bribery. In the year after "ABC" conducted its interview (March was staying at the Rock Hotel before, with British assistance, going to Paris), a book came out which explored his nefarious activities; it was called "The Last Pirate in the Mediterranean".
March was not unfamiliar with Gibraltar or with parts of Spain near to it. In 1928, he bought a considerable amount of land just up the coast from Gibraltar. It was to become Sotogrande, which is now the largest privately owned residential development in Andalusia and summer residence for some of Spain's richest and most powerful families. At the time, it was an area that required cultivation and development. March entrusted this development to farming families from Campos and Ses Salines. Raimundo Burguera was from one of these families. He became March's right-hand man and was one of those who helped him to escape from prison.
The story of these Mallorcan families is told in a recently published book by the professors Margalida Juan Taberner and Honorat Bauçà Roig. Its title is "El Tesorillo, the Mallorcans in the footsteps of March"; El Tesorillo was the name of the land and there is now what is known as an autonomous local entity - San Martin del Tesorillo - not far from Sotogrande. The book is full of murder, intrigue and betrayal, but a couple of questions arise from this story. One is why did March ship a load of Mallorcans over to what was inhospitable land in Andalusia, and the second, more crucially, was why did he acquire the land in the first place.
The answer to the first question lies partly in the vastly greater agricultural skills of Mallorcan farmers but also in the emphasis that March placed on loyalty. He thus displayed a trait that is key to understanding current-day Mallorca. There is a premium on loyalty, which may be no bad thing, but it can lead to things that aren't so good, such as nepotism, corruption or, back in March's day, rather worse. As to why he bought the land, a reason was so that there was a base for doing business with northern Africa and with Gibraltar. Not all of this business was dodgy, but a good deal of it was. The farms that were created at El Tesorillo were the cover for smuggling that continued after the Civil War and which was conducted with March's express wish. Burguera was crucial in all this as he spoke French, which was of course widely spoken in northern Africa.
The extent to which Gibraltar actually figured in this smuggling is probably open to guesswork, but Burguera, who was married to a Panamanian woman, was, astonishingly enough, made Panama's consul in Lisbon. This gave him diplomatic immunity. He could go, more or less, where he wanted to. Or where March wanted him to go.
At a time when the current arguments about Gibraltar raise issues to do with smuggling and loss of tax revenues for the Spanish Government, it is perhaps worth recalling that tobacco smuggling has gone on for centuries and that one of the biggest smugglers of all had a perfect base just along the coast from Gibraltar: Joan March, the banker who was given refuge by the British in Gibraltar, the banker who helped fund Franco and who did so with the ill-gotten gains of smuggling from the southern tip of Spain.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
March arouses controversy for different reasons. His initial wealth came from smuggling tobacco and from dealing on the black market during the First World War. He was to become closely associated with Franco. He died in what are still questionable circumstances; was the car crash in which he lost his life in 1962 really an accident?
March was well known before he acquired the tag "Franco's banker". His fame or notoriety was such that in the edition of the "ABC" newspaper for 5 November, 1933 there was a full-page report based on an interview with him that had been conducted by journalists in Algeciras. The interview had been done by phone. March was in Gibraltar. He had sought a safe haven because he was on the run, having bribed his way out of prison. His crime? His various illegal dealings; he had been convicted of smuggling, tax fraud and bribery. In the year after "ABC" conducted its interview (March was staying at the Rock Hotel before, with British assistance, going to Paris), a book came out which explored his nefarious activities; it was called "The Last Pirate in the Mediterranean".
March was not unfamiliar with Gibraltar or with parts of Spain near to it. In 1928, he bought a considerable amount of land just up the coast from Gibraltar. It was to become Sotogrande, which is now the largest privately owned residential development in Andalusia and summer residence for some of Spain's richest and most powerful families. At the time, it was an area that required cultivation and development. March entrusted this development to farming families from Campos and Ses Salines. Raimundo Burguera was from one of these families. He became March's right-hand man and was one of those who helped him to escape from prison.
The story of these Mallorcan families is told in a recently published book by the professors Margalida Juan Taberner and Honorat Bauçà Roig. Its title is "El Tesorillo, the Mallorcans in the footsteps of March"; El Tesorillo was the name of the land and there is now what is known as an autonomous local entity - San Martin del Tesorillo - not far from Sotogrande. The book is full of murder, intrigue and betrayal, but a couple of questions arise from this story. One is why did March ship a load of Mallorcans over to what was inhospitable land in Andalusia, and the second, more crucially, was why did he acquire the land in the first place.
The answer to the first question lies partly in the vastly greater agricultural skills of Mallorcan farmers but also in the emphasis that March placed on loyalty. He thus displayed a trait that is key to understanding current-day Mallorca. There is a premium on loyalty, which may be no bad thing, but it can lead to things that aren't so good, such as nepotism, corruption or, back in March's day, rather worse. As to why he bought the land, a reason was so that there was a base for doing business with northern Africa and with Gibraltar. Not all of this business was dodgy, but a good deal of it was. The farms that were created at El Tesorillo were the cover for smuggling that continued after the Civil War and which was conducted with March's express wish. Burguera was crucial in all this as he spoke French, which was of course widely spoken in northern Africa.
The extent to which Gibraltar actually figured in this smuggling is probably open to guesswork, but Burguera, who was married to a Panamanian woman, was, astonishingly enough, made Panama's consul in Lisbon. This gave him diplomatic immunity. He could go, more or less, where he wanted to. Or where March wanted him to go.
At a time when the current arguments about Gibraltar raise issues to do with smuggling and loss of tax revenues for the Spanish Government, it is perhaps worth recalling that tobacco smuggling has gone on for centuries and that one of the biggest smugglers of all had a perfect base just along the coast from Gibraltar: Joan March, the banker who was given refuge by the British in Gibraltar, the banker who helped fund Franco and who did so with the ill-gotten gains of smuggling from the southern tip of Spain.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Remember My Name
If you cross the main road from the Soller station to the Plaça Espanyol in Palma, you are walking on a symbol of Franco. The road is the Avenida Joan March. The association for historic memory is demanding that Palma town hall changes the name of the road, together with seven others. Why?
March is sometimes referred to as having been Franco's banker. The Banca March of current day takes its name from him. I once suggested, partly in jest, that they would have to change the name of the bank. Maybe it should have been in seriousness. If they can call for a change to the name of a road, then the bank should, logically, also be re-named; it is surely more symbolic than a stretch of tarmac, especially given March's banking association with the dictator. Indeed it would be hypocritical to not do so; hypocritical, that is, if the intentions to rid Spain and therefore Mallorca of symbols of Francoism are to be pursued fully.
Of the other seven roads deemed symbolic, three have names of countries - Alemania, Portugal and Argentina, each of which supported Franco in some form or another. This is ridiculous. That the names may have been granted during the dictator's regime and that Germany in particular was highly important to Franco during the Civil War does not mean they should now be changed. How many would have been aware of this connection had the historic memory association not chosen to cite them? It is not as if Germany is not now unimportant to Mallorca for entirely different reasons. There are many Argentinians now living in Mallorca. Portugal is a neighbour. There are other towns that have streets which bear the names of these countries, Alcúdia for example. And you can chuck in Italy as well; the Italians were hardly neutral when it came to matters nationalist during the Civil War.
Ok, change Avenida Joan March, but then make the bank change its name as well, or the demand to change the road name will smack of choosing an easy target. As for the countries, just leave them alone.
Smashing pumpkins
Do you like pumpkin? Pretty good I reckon. Normally you expect the pumpkin to be of the circular variety with eyes and mouth gouged into the skin and the fruit scooped out to allow for Hallowe'en lanterns. They can grow in a different way, such as ... Well, you should see for yourselves. My mate Diego Qüerio has taken a photo of a pumpkin that is over a metre long. It has been cultivated by a chap in Pollensa. You can see him in the photo as well. I leave you to offer your own captions. There are, I fancy, some rather obvious ones. Go here:
http://www.diariodemallorca.es/secciones/noticia.jsp?pRef=2009071800_3_485513__Part-Forana-calabaza-mide-metros
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Cardigans, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8paAUN6lC3I. Today's title - from one of their first hits; the title is about changing.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
March is sometimes referred to as having been Franco's banker. The Banca March of current day takes its name from him. I once suggested, partly in jest, that they would have to change the name of the bank. Maybe it should have been in seriousness. If they can call for a change to the name of a road, then the bank should, logically, also be re-named; it is surely more symbolic than a stretch of tarmac, especially given March's banking association with the dictator. Indeed it would be hypocritical to not do so; hypocritical, that is, if the intentions to rid Spain and therefore Mallorca of symbols of Francoism are to be pursued fully.
Of the other seven roads deemed symbolic, three have names of countries - Alemania, Portugal and Argentina, each of which supported Franco in some form or another. This is ridiculous. That the names may have been granted during the dictator's regime and that Germany in particular was highly important to Franco during the Civil War does not mean they should now be changed. How many would have been aware of this connection had the historic memory association not chosen to cite them? It is not as if Germany is not now unimportant to Mallorca for entirely different reasons. There are many Argentinians now living in Mallorca. Portugal is a neighbour. There are other towns that have streets which bear the names of these countries, Alcúdia for example. And you can chuck in Italy as well; the Italians were hardly neutral when it came to matters nationalist during the Civil War.
Ok, change Avenida Joan March, but then make the bank change its name as well, or the demand to change the road name will smack of choosing an easy target. As for the countries, just leave them alone.
Smashing pumpkins
Do you like pumpkin? Pretty good I reckon. Normally you expect the pumpkin to be of the circular variety with eyes and mouth gouged into the skin and the fruit scooped out to allow for Hallowe'en lanterns. They can grow in a different way, such as ... Well, you should see for yourselves. My mate Diego Qüerio has taken a photo of a pumpkin that is over a metre long. It has been cultivated by a chap in Pollensa. You can see him in the photo as well. I leave you to offer your own captions. There are, I fancy, some rather obvious ones. Go here:
http://www.diariodemallorca.es/secciones/noticia.jsp?pRef=2009071800_3_485513__Part-Forana-calabaza-mide-metros
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Cardigans, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8paAUN6lC3I. Today's title - from one of their first hits; the title is about changing.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Friday, October 17, 2008
Completely Automatic
One of the blog's early-days regulars was that of driving; the rubbish state of it here. It's been a while, but it's back, along with that associated old regular, the mobile phone.
It is now, what, two years since they introduced tougher penalties for driving infractions; I could look it up, but the length of time is not important. What is, or should be, are the points on the licence, the possible suspensions and so on. Yet the mobile phone is still very much the driver accessory-of-potential-accident choice. But it has occurred to me that, though illegal phone use goes on elsewhere, here there is an added dimension. I had stopped at some lights the other day. In the rear-view mirror I could see the female driver behind. She was gabbing on her phone. She looked quite nice, I'll be honest. Lots of smiles, a bit of a laugh, some very expressive hand gestures ... And that was it. Hand gestures. The Mallorcan/Spaniard cannot open his or her mouth without a full set of body language extravagance, whether talking on a mobile or in his or her sleep. Herein, therefore, lies the greater danger posed by mobile-phone use when driving in Mallorca. Hands free. Hands free from the wheel, that is. One hand for the phone, one hand for the gestures. You don't get too many cars with automatic transmission here, but they should be mandatory; automatic gear box and automatic steering, allowing the Mallorcan to pursue his or her normal, everyday conversations without the worry of actually handling a vehicle. The only problem then would be whether they were watching the road or looking at some passing totty, and the chances are that it would be the latter.
Where would we be, when it comes to roads, without our good friends on two wheels. Before you say that this is a dig at female drivers and cyclists, it is just coincidence that it was a female cyclist. For those of you who know the main road in Playa de Muro, you will be aware that, at lights, you are meant to turn right in order to turn left. I say meant to, as this does seem something of an option, but be that as it may. So, I'm duly following this rule, the lights flash orange and I start to cross the main road. And then I stop. A lady cyclist has decided to ride straight across in front of me through the red light. She sort of gestures (more gestures) to indicate that I should stop and let her go past. Well, I could have driven into her, but it wouldn't have got me very far. Instead, setting aside my normally cool nature, I shouted out the window "idiota". Made me feel a bit better. But the point of this is, of course, that I could have driven into her, and it would almost certainly have been deemed my fault, as cyclists are the sacred cows of the Mallorcan and Spanish road. It is, I would suggest, the thing that antagonises most where cyclists are concerned; that some appear to be unable or unwilling to obey some basic rules. And they know they can get away with it, generally. Only once have I seen someone pulled up, and she went through a red right under the noses of a Trafico 4x4. It would have been difficult even for them to have ignored it.
And finally on matters vehicular. At journey's end there is the parking, another not totally unfamiliar subject for this blog. I should like to thank John who has regaled me with a tale of the nature of fines in a car park in Datchet, in which he says:
"And then one that reminded me of Mallorca. If your wheels were outside the painted lines - £10 fine. I can remember how many people (locals I think) used to take up two bays when they parked. I found this very annoying, especially in the season when parking is at a premium. The local authorities could clean up at the parking area at the port in Alcudia."
Now, you know, the size of the fine is one thing, but the lack of, how can one call it, parking discipline, is another, and a very Mallorcan another at that. I once said that for the Mallorcan driver, why use one parking space when two will do just as well, because that's how it tends to be. I really must get a copy of the local equivalent of the "Highway Code" as I recall reading somewhere some gems that exist within its covers (assuming someone wasn't just being funny), One of these was the "rule" regarding double parking. Basically, ten minutes was considered the right sort of length, even, I guess, if you had only intended to park for a minute or two. Why double park and clog up the road for just one minute when ten minutes will do just as well; time enough to pop in for a quick coffee or into a tabacos to top up your mobile.
THE SPANISH GENERALS WAR BRIBES STORY
Churchill apparently bribed some Spanish generals in order to deter Spain from entering the Second World War. Big deal. Lining the pockets of another's military to keep them quiet is old-hat tactical stuff. Viking chieftains often received inducements to go and pillage somewhere else. They used to take the ancient moolah and then pillage those who'd paid them anyway. No honour in those days. The bribes are said to have been arranged through the banking intermediary Joan March, the founder of the present-day Banca March in Mallorca, and the suggestion is that they kept the generals sweet and therefore Spain sweet and out of the war.
It's a fascinating old parlour game to speculate what might have happened had Spain entered the war, but the fact is that it didn't. Whether the bribes made any difference is debatable. It's not as though figures in authority in Spain have been immune to the temptations of backhanders - then or since, or indeed at present. Unlike the Vikings they were probably quite content to have taken the money and run - away from the action to which they had little intention of seeing anyway. Maybe the bribes did make a difference, but it shouldn't be forgotten that Spain's military was in no fit state following the Civil War and that Franco didn't care much for Hitler, and the feeling was mutual. Maybe they just didn't like each other's stupid moustaches.
However, the story is not as new as it's being portrayed. If you do just a little bit of searching, you will find a reference to the claim and to the historian making it that dates back to 2004. And some of the reporting of it has barely touched on the key role of Joan March. The book in which the claim is made is in fact about March, who was born in Santa Margalida. Banca March was founded in 1926. March was a supporter of Franco, and was referred to as Franco's banker. Hang on a moment. What was all that stuff about things associated with Franco?
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Smashing Pumpkins (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV_XMQ7uXHA). Today's title - American female trio, biggest in the '80s.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
It is now, what, two years since they introduced tougher penalties for driving infractions; I could look it up, but the length of time is not important. What is, or should be, are the points on the licence, the possible suspensions and so on. Yet the mobile phone is still very much the driver accessory-of-potential-accident choice. But it has occurred to me that, though illegal phone use goes on elsewhere, here there is an added dimension. I had stopped at some lights the other day. In the rear-view mirror I could see the female driver behind. She was gabbing on her phone. She looked quite nice, I'll be honest. Lots of smiles, a bit of a laugh, some very expressive hand gestures ... And that was it. Hand gestures. The Mallorcan/Spaniard cannot open his or her mouth without a full set of body language extravagance, whether talking on a mobile or in his or her sleep. Herein, therefore, lies the greater danger posed by mobile-phone use when driving in Mallorca. Hands free. Hands free from the wheel, that is. One hand for the phone, one hand for the gestures. You don't get too many cars with automatic transmission here, but they should be mandatory; automatic gear box and automatic steering, allowing the Mallorcan to pursue his or her normal, everyday conversations without the worry of actually handling a vehicle. The only problem then would be whether they were watching the road or looking at some passing totty, and the chances are that it would be the latter.
Where would we be, when it comes to roads, without our good friends on two wheels. Before you say that this is a dig at female drivers and cyclists, it is just coincidence that it was a female cyclist. For those of you who know the main road in Playa de Muro, you will be aware that, at lights, you are meant to turn right in order to turn left. I say meant to, as this does seem something of an option, but be that as it may. So, I'm duly following this rule, the lights flash orange and I start to cross the main road. And then I stop. A lady cyclist has decided to ride straight across in front of me through the red light. She sort of gestures (more gestures) to indicate that I should stop and let her go past. Well, I could have driven into her, but it wouldn't have got me very far. Instead, setting aside my normally cool nature, I shouted out the window "idiota". Made me feel a bit better. But the point of this is, of course, that I could have driven into her, and it would almost certainly have been deemed my fault, as cyclists are the sacred cows of the Mallorcan and Spanish road. It is, I would suggest, the thing that antagonises most where cyclists are concerned; that some appear to be unable or unwilling to obey some basic rules. And they know they can get away with it, generally. Only once have I seen someone pulled up, and she went through a red right under the noses of a Trafico 4x4. It would have been difficult even for them to have ignored it.
And finally on matters vehicular. At journey's end there is the parking, another not totally unfamiliar subject for this blog. I should like to thank John who has regaled me with a tale of the nature of fines in a car park in Datchet, in which he says:
"And then one that reminded me of Mallorca. If your wheels were outside the painted lines - £10 fine. I can remember how many people (locals I think) used to take up two bays when they parked. I found this very annoying, especially in the season when parking is at a premium. The local authorities could clean up at the parking area at the port in Alcudia."
Now, you know, the size of the fine is one thing, but the lack of, how can one call it, parking discipline, is another, and a very Mallorcan another at that. I once said that for the Mallorcan driver, why use one parking space when two will do just as well, because that's how it tends to be. I really must get a copy of the local equivalent of the "Highway Code" as I recall reading somewhere some gems that exist within its covers (assuming someone wasn't just being funny), One of these was the "rule" regarding double parking. Basically, ten minutes was considered the right sort of length, even, I guess, if you had only intended to park for a minute or two. Why double park and clog up the road for just one minute when ten minutes will do just as well; time enough to pop in for a quick coffee or into a tabacos to top up your mobile.
THE SPANISH GENERALS WAR BRIBES STORY
Churchill apparently bribed some Spanish generals in order to deter Spain from entering the Second World War. Big deal. Lining the pockets of another's military to keep them quiet is old-hat tactical stuff. Viking chieftains often received inducements to go and pillage somewhere else. They used to take the ancient moolah and then pillage those who'd paid them anyway. No honour in those days. The bribes are said to have been arranged through the banking intermediary Joan March, the founder of the present-day Banca March in Mallorca, and the suggestion is that they kept the generals sweet and therefore Spain sweet and out of the war.
It's a fascinating old parlour game to speculate what might have happened had Spain entered the war, but the fact is that it didn't. Whether the bribes made any difference is debatable. It's not as though figures in authority in Spain have been immune to the temptations of backhanders - then or since, or indeed at present. Unlike the Vikings they were probably quite content to have taken the money and run - away from the action to which they had little intention of seeing anyway. Maybe the bribes did make a difference, but it shouldn't be forgotten that Spain's military was in no fit state following the Civil War and that Franco didn't care much for Hitler, and the feeling was mutual. Maybe they just didn't like each other's stupid moustaches.
However, the story is not as new as it's being portrayed. If you do just a little bit of searching, you will find a reference to the claim and to the historian making it that dates back to 2004. And some of the reporting of it has barely touched on the key role of Joan March. The book in which the claim is made is in fact about March, who was born in Santa Margalida. Banca March was founded in 1926. March was a supporter of Franco, and was referred to as Franco's banker. Hang on a moment. What was all that stuff about things associated with Franco?
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Smashing Pumpkins (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV_XMQ7uXHA). Today's title - American female trio, biggest in the '80s.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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