Candida Of Llucmajor

In terms of land area Llucmajor is Mallorca's largest municipality. Given its size, you might think it would be responsible for one of the island's grander fiestas. But Santa Candida tends to get a bit lost amidst Moors and Christians roaring around the north of Mallorca and the mid-August bangs and wallops for Sant Roc and the Mare de Déu d'Agost. In fact, it is said that Santa Candida is a somewhat solemn affair, which isn't entirely accurate. It has its night parties like other fiestas, but it is true that the religious aspect does carry rather greater weight than others.

This is due to Santa Candida herself, about whom there is - not untypically for saints - a spot of confusion. Being an August fiesta, this isn't one for Santa Candida María de Jesús, whose feast day is tomorrow. That Candida is a modern saint, who died on 9 August 1912 and was canonised in 2010. The Llucmajor Candida is very much older and her story is, in some ways, similar to that of the patron of neighbouring Palma, for whom there are altogether more riotous fiestas in January.

Palma's Sant Sebastià was, like many other saints, a victim of the Emperor Diocletian, whose contribution to Christian genocide outstripped more or less all the other pre-Christian emperors. Candida similarly fell foul of Diocletian. Also like Sebastian, there is a saintly relic, more than the one in fact. While Sebastian's bone supposedly brought about an end to the plague in Palma, Candida's relics are not known for having had any notably miraculous powers.

Three hundred years ago, on the day of Sant Bartomeu (Bartholomew), i.e. 24 August in 1717, the succentor of Palma Cathedral, one Josep Cardell, brought from Rome what were apparently relics of Candida. Well, there were those around who were prepared to authenticate them. Two days later, they were donated to the parish of Llucmajor, Sant Miquel (after the the archangel Saint Michael). Candida was thus installed, along with her relics, as the town's co-patron; Miquel is the other, and the original primitive church named after him dates back to 1235.

So the story goes, Candida was married to Arteme (or Artemis). He was a jailer in Rome. The couple had a daughter, Paulina, who was apparently possessed by demons. An exorcist, called Peter, was called in. His main advice to Artemis was to worship Christ as God. This would help to drive out the devil in Paulina. And this, more or less, is what is meant to have happened. Paulina, no longer possessed, joined her parents in converting to Christianity, an act that was to seal their fate.

A magistrate, acting under persecutory imperial orders, demanded that Artemis hand over a whole load of prisoners who had converted to Christianity and had been allowed to escape. Artemis didn't. Which was just one mistake, where the magistrate was concerned. And he, the magistrate, was doubly infuriated by the fact that Peter avoided an awful fate thanks to an angel who freed him. Artemis was beheaded. Candida and Paulina were thrown into a dry well and buried alive because of heavy stones placed over the well.

This jolly tale is therefore the background to Candida's relics, to her having attained co-patronage status in Llucmajor and to the fiestas. And the fiestas shouldn't actually take place in August. Candida's day is in fact 6 June. So, what prompted the fiestas to be allocated to around the second Sunday of August? Farming is the answer, and Llucmajor even now, courtesy of its grand land area, is highly agricultural, even if it is more known for accommodating part of the resort of Arenal and the headquarters of Air Europa.

The second Sunday of August was (is) between some crucial harvests, e.g. apricots and almonds. It is not the only fiesta for which the date was governed by agricultural activity. For example, Santa Margalida's La Beata (Santa Catalina Thomàs) being on the first Sunday of September owes a great deal to historical local farming activity.

Tomorrow, Sunday (13 August), is therefore the big day for Candida. But it won't be riotous. There will be giants, there will be pipers, there will be ball de bot. And there will also be the dances of the cavallets cotoners. As a tradition, these dancers faded away before being revived in 2000. They are in fact one of the very oldest of Mallorca's folk-dance traditions: Llucmajor's cavallets rival Arta's and Palma's in this regard. They were a Franciscan import from Barcelona in the mid-fifteenth century, and their name is derived from the Guild of Cottonmakers in Barcelona, to which ownership of that city's cavallets was ceded in 1437.

Santa Candida - fairly solemn but not overly, and certainly highly traditional.

* Photo of the cavallets cotoners from Viquipèdia.

Showing The Black Flag: End-of course holidays

The people of Arenal are fed up. In demonstrating how fed up they are, they have taken to hanging black flags from balconies. It is a black flag against "the tourist who doesn't respect Arenal".

One needs to explain that this is the Arenal which is part of Llucmajor. Arenal falls into two municipalities, Palma being the other, and in Palma they have an ordinance under which "special intervention zones" have been established. The Palma Arenal is one of them. The zones mean that there is to be "zero tolerance" of anti-social behaviour and especially street/beach drinking in groups. It is debatable as to how well the Palma police are capable of keeping on top of this, but at least they have this bylaw. Cross the municipal border and there isn't one.

The legal niceties of all this are frankly lost on many of us. There are all manner of bylaws that all manner of town halls have to deal with behaviour. Why they need to have specific ordinance is anyone's guess, but it appears that they do. But when it comes to getting round to instituting ordinance, they run up against technicalities of legislation. This is what has happened in Llucmajor, and one should bear in mind that Palma had a whole raft of measures to control behaviour and what have you under a wide-ranging civic ordinance. This was deemed unacceptable by the courts. There are the technicalities for you.

Control via local bylaw is thus forever pitted against some grander law. Palma had exceeded the scope of its powers, it was said. Therefore, it dropped this all-embracing ordinance and fell back on what already existed but which seemingly hadn't been implemented. How daft is that?

To come back to Arenal, the Llucmajor bit, the reason for the black flags is the noise, mess and general misbehaviour caused by end-of-course holiday parties. These are for students - school or university - though one wonders how liberally the term student is used. They come from Spain and elsewhere, and in Arenal this year things are apparently worse than ever. The town hall has been unable to stop the "uncontrolled parties", which take place mainly on the beach. Its ordinance won't be in place until August - too late for this year, so the locals will have to see how effective it is on 2017.

Llucmajor cannot prevent there being such vacations. The same applies to other parts of the island: Alcudia, Cala Ratjada and Magalluf. In Alcudia, and specifically in Bellevue, the mayor said last year that he couldn't tell the hotel which clients it should have or not have. Which is absolutely true. Of course he can't.

Despite Alcudia saying that there was to be "maximum control" this year and despite some logistical alterations with what goes under the title Mallorca Island Festival, things are as bad as ever. Worse in some respects, given that one whole part of Bellevue has been devoted to it: all of the blocks to the right-hand side of the entrance road.

The difference between Alcudia and Arenal is that the "party" is for the most part confined to Bellevue. But not at night. The coming and going of coaches to take these "students" to a club means noise not just from the coaches but also the hundreds who make their way to the coaches. And that's just the going-out. Then there's the coming-back.

One could give chapter and verse about what is occurring in Bellevue, but you probably don't need telling. You can well imagine. At times it is total chaos. But again, because this is chiefly within hotel grounds, it is a case - in part - of out of sight, out of mind. This is not like Arenal. But there are residents affected nonetheless: those who live on the same open campus of the one-time Bellavista urbanisation. There are also the residents who live nearby, who are exposed to the noise of those who haven't got a club pass as part of their package. They instead hit the clubs of Alcudia, taking noise, mess, incivility to much of the tourism centre.

Saturation is a popular word with Balearic politicians at present. It's a word to describe, in essence, too many tourists: too many in specific places, be it Palma city centre or certain beaches. This saturation has a highly negative impact on the psyche of the locals. Used though they are to summer tourists in high numbers, when they are high numbers and are out of control, the impact is compounded many times.

The black flags of Arenal should be flown in Alcudia too. But of the apartments principally affected, there would doubtless be some idiot of a community committee member reminding people that things cannot be hung from balconies, normally towels. And herein lies part of the problem: too many stupid people worrying about stupid trivial matters like how long it might take the maintenance guys to fix something and doing absolutely nothing about wider matters. They get the problems they deserve.


Index for June 2016
Accountability and Facebook - 10 June 2016
Alcudia: tourism issues - 29 June 2016
Brexit - 26 June 2016, 27 June 2016
Car parking and overcrowding - 9 June 2016
Colonia Sant Pere - 25 June 2016
Control in Mallorca - 21 June 2016
Corruption route in Palma - 14 June 2016
Cruise ships and overcrowding - 11 June 2016
End-of-course holiday parties - 30 June 2016
Following Magalluf's lead - 17 June 2016
Foreign property purchasing - 16 June 2016
Holiday rentals - 24 June 2016
Mallorca promotion - 22 June 2016
Mallorca rich and poor - 1 June 2016
Muhammad Ali in Mallorca - 19 June 2016
Pablo Iglesias and Marxism - 8 June 2016
Podemos and Ikea - 13 June 2016
Pueblo Español - 12 June 2016
Ryanair and holiday rentals - 18 June 2016
Sa Pobla's old beach - 5 June 2016
Spain's election - 6 June 2016, 20 June 2016, 23 June 2016, 28 June 2016
Tourist saturation and hotel places - 7 June 2016
Tourist tax - 4 June 2016
Town halls and other authorities - 2 June 2016
Tramuntana appreciation in Mallorca - 15 June 2016
War graves in Mallorca - 3 June 2016

The Rival Fairs Of Autumn: Llucmajor

The legend of the Black Madonna at Lluc monastery involves the shepherd boy Lluc (aka Luke). It's a legend and story well enough known that a conclusion - a wrong one - might be drawn. Lluc, as in the place, has nothing to do with the name of the shepherd boy. "Lluc" is derived from the Latin "lucu" to mean sacred forest. The name Lluc (or Luke) supposedly comes from the Latin name Lucas or the Greek Loukas to mean a man from the area of Lucania, with an alternative explanation being that it was from the Greek for giving light.

As with Lluc, the place, so also with Llucmajor, the difference being the "major" part. It means the largest sacred forest or simply the largest forest. As with many place names, there are all sorts of competing explanations, one other being that it comes from the Arabic for "over or near a place of refuge": in Catalan "lloc" means place and is the translation of the Arabic "ludjdj" (and no, I don't know how you pronounce this either).

Suffice to say, though, that in naming terms and so as with Lluc, Llucmajor has nothing to do with Luke. But just as Lluc has its legend of the shepherd boy, so Llucmajor has a person dear to its cultural and traditional heart: in this instance, Saint Luke. In case one needed any more confusion regarding place names, however, it might be noted that the legends of various Black Madonnas, of which the one at Lluc monastery is an example, have it that they were carved by Saint Luke: this is certainly the case with the Black Virgin of Montserrat.  

Anyway, that's probably enough for origins of names. Today is the feast day of Sant Lluc, or Saint Luke if you prefer. One of the four Evangelists along with Matthew, Mark and John, Luke plays a vital role in Llucmajor's history as it was his feast day that came to determine when the town's fairs would be held. The first was to be on the day of Sant Miquel and the final one on the day of Sant Lluc, an arrangement which, much to the disgust of fifteenth-century fair organisers in Inca, meant that that town's autumn fairs had to be moved.

They make a great deal in Llucmajor about the longevity, the history and so the tradition of its fairs. Today brings to a close its 469th edition of the twenty-one days of fairs from Miquel to Lluc plus tomorrow's "Firó". There's a story that once upon a time they extended these by a further day and had a "Refiró" though this might just be a tall tale and a reflection of the fact that the fairs went on so long, they didn't actually know when to draw them to a close.

It is fair (sic) to say that in Llucmajor tradition, they have always spoken of fairs in the plural. There has not been "the fair" but there have been "the fairs", which is the case also in Inca. The rivalry between the two towns, dating back to the 1540s, is such that the Llucmajor versions are spoken of in the same breath as Inca's (if only by people from Llucmajor). Together they were the grandest and the largest of Mallorca's fairs, though it is reasonable (as a neutral) to suggest that Inca has now assumed number one spot in this regard.

But the final Llucmajor fair, falling as it does while summer still lingers, has a feeling of summer that the final Inca fair - Dijous Bo - does not. Hence, as it has been written of the fairs, "we leave the freshness of Arenal and return to the town to have almonds and carobs". And to also dress up. There is a whole story to be told of the association between a town's tailoring trade and its fiestas or fairs and of how the key events of the year would require a new suit, a new outfit, a new dress. It is a tradition that is long out of fashion, so to speak, but the final fair, the Saint Luke fair, was the day when the new clothes would be shown off and paraded next to the animal pens.

In Llucmajor its final fair keeps with tradition. It's not a themed fair but one very much of rural life. Along with the farm animals, there are also donkeys and the Mallorcan bulldog - the "ca de bou". And for its celebration, you have to thank old Saint Luke and the compromise reached with Inca all those years ago.

Next Sunday, never forgetting the fact that its fairs were shunted, Inca will go bigger than ever with its first fair. And, just to make a point, Inca has more than 21 days of fairs.

The Dancing Horses Of Llucmajor

They like wearing things around the waist in Mallorca, such as inanimate objects depicting animals. In Pollensa they wear eagles, but they also wear horses. There are other towns where they do likewise when it comes to the horse, and once they've strapped the horse on, they do their dances. Strictly speaking it's the horse which is the "cavallet", but the groups which do the horse-wearing and dancing are also cavallets.

The traditional players of a Mallorcan fiesta or fair are common to most towns and villages. The pipers - the xeremiers - are probably the most common, as nowhere seems not to have pipers. Giants, big heads (the "caparrots") are likewise familiar, as are the demons and the bands of music, though by no means everywhere has these: there are fiestas where they have to be shipped in from other towns or villages. And then there are the traditional players who are more obscure, who are remnants from many years past or who have been revived, but who are traditional to very few places. The cavallets, rather like the cossier dancers, are one such tradition. Arta, Felanitx, Palma, Pollensa, Santa Ponsa, here are where the cavallets have been maintained or recently invented.

These horse figures come from Catalan culture. The first reference to them was in 1424. In Barcelona there was a document entitled the Book of Solemnities, of religious rituals, if you like, in solemn honour of saints. The Barcelona horses, though, were not things of the church. They belonged to the Council of Barcelona, which deemed, six years later, that there should be eight of them in all and never more than twelve. Seven more years went by, and in 1437 the council ceded ownership to the Guild of Cottonmakers - the Gremi de Cotoners.

The cottonmakers are important to the contemporary story of the cavallets in Mallorca and none more so in a town not listed above - Llucmajor. Fifteen years ago, the tradition having been dormant in the town for decades, the cavallets reappeared and they were and are specifically referred to as the "cavallets cotoners".

It wasn't so long after Barcelona's horse figures first appeared that the tradition was exported to Mallorca, and this export, so it is believed, was to Arta and to Llucmajor. There was a link between the two towns in as much as both had Franciscan communities. In Mallorca the cavallets were essentially religious, as opposed to having been more secular in Barcelona, and in Llucmajor it was the convent of Sant Bonaventura where they became established. Documentary evidence of this was provided by a drawing made by the local notary and a reference to the dance of the cavallets in 1458. It is said that Palma introduced its cavallets in the same year.

But what did they represent? Though owned by the council in Barcelona, those first cavallets apparently took part in the ceremony to celebrate the martyrdom of Sant Sebastià (Saint Sebastian) and, so one version has it, they portrayed knights fighting against Turkish troops. This seems plausible, even if the enemy may be wrongly explained. The Ottomans weren't to be a factor for some years. More likely is that they were representative of the battles of the re-conquest of Spain from the Muslim occupiers: in Palma, the confrontation with the Muslims does pretty much explain the city's cavallets.

There again, why during the ceremony for Sant Sebastià, as he had been the victim of the Roman emperor Diocletian? There was perhaps some blurring of history or an invoking of Sebastian for his deliverance. In Palma he became the city's saint because of the miracle that ended the plague. Likewise, he could have been instrumental in deliverance from the occupiers.

In Llucmajor, though, there was a further blurring, as it is reckoned that the dances of the cavallets owed less to Catalan tradition and more to Italian. Whatever the precise origins though, the cavallets of the town became an embedded tradition which was certainly still very much evident some eighty or so years ago. There is a photo which shows them at a celebration in 1930. But as with other traditions the cavallets faded away, before being revived for the fiestas of Santa Candida in August, 2000.

The cavallets cotoners now dance on two occasions each year, and so on Tuesday they will be the focal point of the Llucmajor celebrations for Sant Miquel. Not all cavallets are children or adolescents. In Llucmajor they are, and the dances they perform have a feel of the fairground in the way in which the dancers dance round each other. It's appropriate. A cavallet is also a carousel, the fairground attraction of horses on a merry-go-round.

Photo: Wikipedia; there are other larger images available from the likes of Ultima Hora and Diario de Mallorca.

Photographer And Priest: Catany Foundation

It was said of Toni Catany that he drew inspiration from a priest, Father Tomas Monserrat, in his home town of Llucmajor. The priest was also a photographer, one who recorded rural and pre-industrial life as it was in Llucmajor and Mallorca from the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Toni Catany rescued some of this historical photographic evidence. He was to publish a tribute to the priest in 1983, "Portrait of a Village (1933-1944)".

Catany would have struggled to really have known the priest, but Monserrat would almost certainly have known him. Catany was born in 1942; the priest died in 1944. They were, to all intents and purposes, neighbours. The priest's house was in a different street (Convent) to that of the Catany family (Cardenal Rossell), but it was on the corner of the Cardenal Rossell. The Catany home was on the corner of Convent.

This proximity was doubtless an important factor in Catany having been influenced by Monserrat. It was an influence that was to take him to Barcelona, to Israel, to Egypt, to the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. He was based in Barcelona from 1960, but he never forgot his home town and home island. Before he died in 2013, he had made provision for his legacy and that of Tomas Monserrat to be preserved: in Llucmajor, in the old houses where one had died and the other had been born. The project for this preservation has yet to be realised.

The American "Life" magazine once named Catany among its 100 greatest photographers in the world, and he was honoured by the governments of both the Balearics and Catalonia. His was a photography that was as diverse as it was original - portraits, landscapes, the surreal, nudes, still life (as in vases of flowers for example), journalistic. It was a photography that he wished to bequeath to Mallorca, and in October 2013, he had been due to fly from Barcelona to the island with plans for the photographic centre project. These plans had been packed into his suitcase. He never made the journey. He died of a heart attack.

These plans were, however, only the latest for a project that had been conceived some years earlier. In 2007, with the backing of the town hall in Llucmajor and of the Council of Mallorca, the process was set in motion for the creation of the Toni Catany Foundation. Three years later, the legal framework for this had been agreed to by the two authorities, the Council, in the meantime, having acquired both the house of Tomas Monserrat and the Catany family home. Catany himself would supply all his photographic legacy, which was to include cameras as well as photographs, negatives, you name it, plus work by other photographers.

The Council had been in receipt of 4.3 million euros, funds that had been supplied by Turespaña, the national agency for tourism, and channelled through the regional government. This was in 2009. By June 2013, not long before he died, Catany wrote to the Council. To say that he was disappointed was probably an understatement. Nothing had happened, yet the project had been officially announced and architects' plans (which can be viewed on the internet) had been drawn up.

In April of this year, executors of his will and therefore members of the foundation were baffled when they learned of a decision of the Council's to release a million euros for the redevelopment of Monserrat's house. They were baffled because no one at the Council had apparently been in contact with them. The trustees were not objecting to work being done, they were just alarmed by the fact that they were not being informed. The Council's view was that, as it was now the owner of the house, it would go ahead with the bidding process for the redevelopment.

At least, however, something finally seemed to be moving, but the tardiness that the Council of Mallorca has shown over something that is a statutory investment (backed by the money that had been forthcoming in 2009) is something that the left-wing parties which seem poised to take over at the Council will address: they have said that such investments in the island's culture, like the Catany foundation, will be fulfilled.

The point is that one of the key reasons for the existence of the Council is a responsibility for the island's culture. Economic crisis will of course be cited in mitigation, and Maria Salom, on becoming president in 2011, was faced with a Council with huge debts. But the funding was expressly made available. With any luck the vision of Toni Catany will now be realised in the not-too-distant future and his legacy will be there for all to see.

* As part of the PalmaPhoto season, there will be a documentary film about Catany at the Cineciutat, 25 June at 10pm.

Saint Luke And The Fairs Of Inca

Inca, the administrative and legal centre for the north of Mallorca, stages the first of its four autumn fairs this weekend. But how was it that Inca came to have these fairs?

The town, along with Sineu, were granted royal privileges in the fourteenth century to stage fairs in the "part forana", i.e. outside of Palma. Historians say it is not possible to determine exactly when these fairs started, but as Sineu can place a date on its May Sa Fira to 1318, they would date from more or less the same time. Indeed, Inca did apparently at one time have a spring May fair but, because the two towns operated a form of duopoly, the decision was made to switch Inca's fairs to the autumn. Inca's importance as a commercial centre, which was the case in the years after the Catalan conquest, partly explains why there are four fairs, but that's not the whole story.

The first fair was, in mediaeval times, held on the feast day of Saint Luke, which is today, 18 October. The second and third fairs took place on the two following Sundays, while the fourth, which was to come to be known as Dijous Bo, was not permitted to be held on a Sunday. That was because it was the day to celebrate Santa Maria la Major. It was moved to the Thursday and in the process created additional excitement, greater participation and what was eventually to lead to its name. There is an old expression - "quin dijous més bò - what better Thursday. The name Dijous Bo may well have been around for much longer, but a documented record of the name appeared for the first time in 1807.

The fairs still follow this pattern but not quite. In 1542 the town of Llucmajor petitioned Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, to be allowed to hold a fair. Inca and Sineu were having none of it and so they took the matter to court. They lost. In 1545 Llucmajor held its first fair. The problem was that, in addition to a breaking of the duopoly, its fair was going to clash with Inca's first fair. It would in fact be a series of markets from the feast day of Saint Michael (29 September) up to and including Saint Luke (incidentally the Catalan name Sant Lluc plays no part in Llucmajor's name, that has to do with an ancient word for forest). Inca, therefore, compromised and moved its first fair to the first Sunday after Saint Luke, which is still the case. Though there are events for the fair in Inca today, the main day is most certainly tomorrow - the first Sunday after Saint Luke.

Riding Around In Circles: Mallorca's velodromes

One hundred years ago, on 18 October, 1914, a velodrome was opened in Llucmajor; not just opened, it was also blessed. It was a track from another forgotten part of the island's history. Like bullrings which long ago disappeared, so there were also cycling circuits and they reflected a wider history, that of cycling itself.

1869 is the year when, it might be said, cycling started in Mallorca. A banker named Ernesto Canut bought a bike in France, brought it over to the island and from that year on the sight of bikes on the roads of Palma became increasingly common. As far as sport was concerned, associations were being formed from the end of the 1880s. In 1892 the first race took place in Felanitx. The following year, the first Balearics cycling championship took place, but it is 1903 which stands out as a year of major importance in the history of Mallorcan cycling, for it was in that year that the El Tirador velodrome was opened. It had been the ambition of a cycling club called Veloç Sport Balear. The first stone had been laid at the end of 1898 and on 10 August, 1903, it was finally inaugurated during Palma's annual fiestas.

El Tirador is, or rather was, the most celebrated velodrome in Mallorca, but it wasn't the first. Veloç Sport Balear had considered sharing a velodrome operated by the appropriately named Cercle Ciclista. This was Son Espanyolet, and it had been inaugurated in 1893, though Felanitx, where that 1892 race had taken place, was the first of all. The year after El Tirador opened it staged the Spanish championship, and there was talk of trying to attract the world championship, but that failed to materialise. Out on the roads cycling was becoming ever more popular, and 1913 was to be another landmark year for cycling as a sport; the first Volta a Mallorca (Tour of Mallorca) was held.

El Tirador is considered to be Spain's oldest velodrome still in existence. One says in existence, but it actually closed in 1973. It's difficult to identify quite how many velodromes there ever were on Mallorca. In 1975 a new one opened in Algaida. Reporting this inauguration, "El Mundo Deportivo" noted the famous velodromes which had gone - Felanitx, Son Espanyolet and El Tirador - but it also referred to former tracks in Arta and Manacor. In addition to the new velodrome in Algaida, the report went on, were tracks in "Pollensa, Sineu, Vilafranca, Santa Maria, etc.".

Cycling and velodromes have of course moved on since then. Veloç Sport Balear, a club which is still going, harbours ambitions of reviving El Tirador. Or did. In 2007 along came the Palma Arena velodrome, the grandest of them all. As for Llucmajor's velodrome, it had only a relatively short life. In the 1930s the land was sold off.

Photo: El Tirador on the day it opened. From http://www.arabalears.cat/opinio/blogs/

Out Of The Pit Lane?: Mallorca Formula One

Just when you thought that a project had been discarded and totally forgotten, the idea for it is suddenly re-ignited. The re-ignition key I am referring to is that which would propel motor racing cars at high velocity around the Llucmajor countryside. The one with his foot on the throttle, albeit tentatively, is Llucmajor's mayor, Joan Jaume Mulet. Yep, the idea for the Formula One racing track has made a comeback.

This is an idea which has been doing the circuit for years and was one which, four years ago, began to look as though it might just be a goer, albeit that the might was a fairly large might. It was at least 90 million euros' worth of might plus all manner of planning permission mights and the not insignificant might of Bernie Ecclestone pressing the green lights. But, might or no might, the Council of Mallorca, then under the control of PSOE, turned the red light on. The idea for the track was stopped in its tracks and limped into the pit lane of rejected projects. The Council deemed a proposal for what would have been more or less a totally new circuit (the current one being inadequate for Formula One or Moto GP) as not having been "in the general interest". Despite funding that would have been 100% private, the plan was turned down because development would have been on rustic land.

However, it is a project that hasn't entirely been abandoned. It would appear that the process was paralysed as opposed to having been scrapped. It is for this reason, plus ongoing interest from developers (according to the mayor), that Llucmajor town hall has once more raised the possibility of Mallorca getting an F1 circuit.

Since this project paralysis in 2011, things have changed. On the positive side, there is the fact that the Council is now run by the Partido Popular, and Jaume is a good PP boy who may well be eyeing up a nice popular initiative a few months in advance of the next elections. Less positive is the fact that he may have left things a bit late; the Council could easily pass to a non-PP administration next spring. Also less positive is the future of the European Grand Prix. There had been ambitions for Llucmajor taking this away from Valencia. As things have turned out, Valencia no longer has the grand prix, which itself is in abeyance until its planned revival in Azerbaijan in 2016.

Jaume has reminded us that he once had a meeting with Ecclestone at which his Bernieness said that he was really interested in staging a grand prix in Mallorca. Which may well have been what Bernie had to say for himself, but then he has had a habit of saying things which shouldn't entirely be taken as gospel. Like another sporting supremo, Sepp Blatter, he can say one thing but think or do totally the opposite. He has also said in the past that he was against there being more than one grand prix per country. This didn't stop Valencia having the European GP, but such an attitude put the kibosh on Rome pressing for a street grand prix. (Italy already has Monza, just as Spain already has Barcelona.)

A further change since 2011 has been the approval of the Balearics' "Ley del Suelo", the first true land law that the islands have had. Its provisions are enormous, as you would expect with any legislation, but they are relatively permissive. Jaume may well feel that the legislation may clear the way for the project to be unparalysed and to be declared as being "in the general interest". This said, a project such as an F1 circuit would have its opponents, and heading the opposition would be the environmental lobby. Even with greater legislative clout, one could foresee any approval ending up going through interminable court appeals. That is how it is in Mallorca, and Bernie, getting on now, might not be around to learn how those appeals go.

A Formula One Grand Prix would be a fabulous event for Mallorca to stage. I say this not as any great fan of F1 (because I'm not) but because It would be an excellent advertisement for the island. The chances of it ever becoming a reality, though, are extremely remote. Environmental objections are only one reason why. Another, perhaps more important one, is why would F1 want a grand prix in Mallorca? Bernie may have said kind words, but Bernie is attracted to places like Azerbaijan because it represents expansion and because it has mega-moolah. Despite some people believing that Mallorca is on the cusp of being transformed into the Dubai of the Mediterranean (which it isn't), and grand though it would be if there were a grand prix, it fails the Bernie test in most ways.

MALLORCA TODAY - Protest against possible closure of Llucmajor's old people's home

Some five hundred people gathered in Llucmajor yesterday to voice their displeasure at the council's possible closure of the old people's home in the town. This would be the most extreme measure yet to affect old people's homes on Mallorca that have been dogged with problems on account of non-payment to the operators, such as in Pollensa.

See more: Ultima Hora

Promoting Shanty Towns

Arenal, despite its current-day association with German tourism, wasn't always German-dominated. It was the first resort in Mallorca that I had any experience of. This was at the end of the 1960s. I can't say I remember much about the place, other than the sight of what was like a shanty town next to the hotel.

Today's Arenal is one of those resorts that doesn't, you might believe, need much promoting. It is synonymous among many a German visitor with Mallorca, those for whom Peguera and Cala Ratjada aren't synonyms. It's as well if it doesn't need much promoting because the municipality in which Arenal is located - Llucmajor - is scrapping its tourism trust, i.e. tourism board.

The trust was spending around 170,000 euros a year. This went on a few tourism fairs to publicise the different attractions of Llucmajor as a whole and not just Arenal and for a director who took a salary of 34,000 euros. Neither the spend nor the salary was in any way excessive.

The thinking where Llucmajor town hall, boracic like all other town halls, is concerned is that, as it now no longer receives any grants for promotion from the government, there is no point in having a tourism promotion operation. Couldn't the town hall manage without these grants? No. Because, or at least this is what the town hall is saying, the tourism minister Carlos Delgado has told them to stop the local tourism trust and to concentrate efforts on Mallorca and the Balearics that are operated by the ATB (Balearics Tourism Agency).

This is a strange explanation. Strange because other town halls are continuing to arrange their own promotion. Pollensa, for instance, has reserved 300,000 euros for this purpose. It is even stranger as Delgado had appeared to "get it" about promotion. He has said that promotion of a generic Balearics brand wasn't a particularly good idea, and he was absolutely right. In fact, it has always been a lousy idea because there is no recognisable Balearics brand as such. Indeed, Delgado had gone so far as to suggest that rather than just promotion of the individual islands, which do carry brand recognition, it was sensible for there to be promotion of specific parts of the islands, as in resorts for instance.

So has Delgado performed a U-turn or is Llucmajor inventing Delgado's instruction? Hard to say. Whatever the situation, there is no questioning the fact that money for tourism promotion is in desperately short supply whether it be for the islands or for the resorts, but there is also little doubt that Delgado's apparent enlightenment was correct; individual towns and resorts should benefit from their own promotion because there is no such thing as a "Mallorca" which embraces the whole island. Arenal, for example, is most certainly not Puerto Pollensa.

To make matters worse, Llucmajor's internet activities appear to have ground to a complete halt; even a Facebook page is not being updated. But Facebook, apart from being a powerful tool, is also extremely cheap. Indeed, it doesn't cost anything, apart from, in the case of a commercial operation, which Llucmajor is in a tourist sense, the cost of paying someone to maintain the page. Surely to goodness they can find a couple of grand a year for this if nothing else.

Abandoning even a basic internet presence such as Facebook is incredibly short-sighted, but so is abandoning promotion full stop. Let's be clear once again. Tourism is what Mallorca does. It is what many of its towns do. The expectation that Germans will just turn up in Arenal is similar to what I spoke about the other day with regard to British tourists being taken for granted. Yes, they probably will just turn up, but acting as though these tourists don't really exist in curbing communications so much that they are curbed out of existence is a sure way in the long term, or even the short to medium term, of making tourists wonder if they are wanted.

Llucmajor is Mallorcan tourism promotion in microcosm. It has all but given up, especially where the major markets are concerned. But as there aren't the funds for grand advertising campaigns, then at least some should be found for the social networks. Delgado has, after all, alluded to finding more flexible and creative ways of stretching limited budgets. So have I. Repeatedly. Returns on Facebook and other social media are likely to be good. But they won't be if no one can be bothered.

At the end of the sixties, Arenal could have been anywhere. It meant nothing. We were going to Madge-orca. That was all that mattered. We are no longer in the sixties. But you wonder sometimes. Are things so bad? Maybe there are shanties again.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Legal moves to approve Formula One circuit

Llucmajor town hall is set to challenge the blocking of the construction of a new race track, one that would be up to Formula One standard. Any work on the new circuit had been stopped by the Council of Mallorca.

MALLORCA TODAY - Four more suspicious forest fires in Mallorca

In all yesterday there were five forest fires for the emergency services to contend with, four of them suspected of having been started deliberately and in an apparently coordinated fashion given their timing and locations. The fires were in Alaró, Palma and Llucmajor, the worst of them being in the latter town in the area of Las Palmeras where 3.25 hectares were affected.