Nothing In Particular: November

If I had a euro for every time someone had said to me how do you manage to write so often and so much, I would have sufficient to buy a pretty cheap lawnmower. People don't really ask me the question that often; it just seems as though they do. The amount that it would come to, possibly in the region of around 80 euros, would get me a lawnmower. Another one. I've got two broken ones sitting in the utility room. If I bought a proper one, an expensive one, they probably wouldn't be broken, but I have better things to waste money on.

Having therefore borrowed a lawnmower and tackled - finally - an overgrown, autumn lawn, I was attacking the grass with a degree of relish, as there is something satisfying about cutting a lot of grass, mixed with resentment at having to spend my time doing so when I should be somewhere else writing whatever it is I am writing today. But what was I going to write today? This was the question I was asking myself, as I deposited some cut grass into the brown container for the umpteenth time.

Was there a clue to hand? As in on my hand. And on my arm. And on my face. And in my ear. It's a title, I thought. Mosquito Coast. Nicked from Harrison Ford, it seemed a good title as here, by the coast and by Albufera, there are mosquitoes. Thousands of them. Millions, for all I know. And during the day.

Mosquitoes are a fact of life because of Albufera, but the autumn dampness makes them an all but intolerable fact of life. They get everywhere. In my car, for example. November is a miserable, horrible enough month as it is without mosquitoes making it even more unbearable. And November was something else that I thought I might be writing about. Its deadness and its sadness. There is barely a soul to be seen. The whole of Playa de Muro has been wrapped in black bin-liners and brown paper and packed away for a few months. You feel as though you are the last person left alive. God knows how people who have fincas in the back of beyond get on. It would drive me nuts.

And at the airport on Sunday, there was hardly anyone left alive there either. The last easyJet flight out of Luton had three people on it. Little wonder really when there isn't much open for anyone arriving and no chance of returning with the same airline to the same airport.

Then I thought about writing about the unemployment queues. But if I had a euro for every time I've written about these in November, I would be able to dine out reasonably well. Not that you could so in Playa de Muro of course, except at the little cafeteria that keeps going with its menu del día through the winter. Oh, and maybe the burger place, but that's normally only open at the weekend. The queues, though, aren't like the queues used to be. There must be a different system for processing all the poor sods hoping for their measly benefits.

Ah but, there are always the autumn fairs to write about. Yep, done them before now as well. The line about the how-big-is-your-pumpkin competition at Muro's autumn fair is wearing a tad thin. Not that it isn't legitimate, as it has been every year since the pumpkin contest was introduced. Nothing ever changes. November comes round, the fairs are as fairs have long been, albeit that Pollensa is having some sort of Wild West competition at its fair for the first time.

Maybe I could write about November being a time for people to relax, start to re-charge, maybe even begin to think about next season. Maybe I could, but I don't want relaxation. I don't want nothingness. Putting it bluntly, I don't want November. I want people not relaxing. I want them working. I want life. Not an empty airport that is so empty it closes part of itself down for the winter. Not the sight of empty houses - so many of them in the neighbourhood going to shameful, obscene waste - and empty hotels, shells of unconscionable non-productivity.

I could write about this, and there would be a few euros knocking around for the number of times I've expressed my disgust at the volume of unused real estate. So I won't. I'll just flick the mosquitoes away, listen to the silence and wonder what I'm going to write about. I know. I'll write about nothing in particular.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Two Princes

In the current "Talk Of The North", there is mention of the death of Reinhard Mohn. Who he? Mohn was the former president of the German Bertelsmann media group. He was also fabulously wealthy. He owned a home in Alcúdia and had close links with the town, founding the library of Can Torró and being honoured by being named an "adoptive son" of the town. Rather more grandly - at national level - he was awarded a Principe de Asturias prize (for communications and humanities).

By coincidence, the 2009 event is currently taking place, as always in the city of Oviedo in the principality of Asturias in north-west Spain. The actual awards are to be handed out tomorrow evening.

Principe de Asturias is the title bestowed on the first-in-line male heir to the Spanish throne. The title dates back to the fourteenth century. Currently, this is Crown-Prince Felipe. His father, the current king, Juan-Carlos, was previously the Principe. It is akin to Charles being Prince of Wales. Rather like Charles, and his Prince's Trust, the Principe de Asturias awards have a charitable status - there is a foundation that oversees them. It also gives the heir to the throne something of importance to do, and the awards have become not insignificant in terms of international recognition and prestige.

One might have the impression that the Spanish, all sun, beach and sangria, don't stand too much on ceremony. Well they do when it comes to many aspects of life, including awards ceremonies. The Principe de Asturias prize-giving is, ostensibly, quite a serious do, but the Spanish royals have the knack of introducing light-heartedness into even more solemn occasions. I recall the time when the king and queen embraced and kissed Spanish gold-medal winners at an Olympics event. You wouldn't catch Elizabeth and Philip getting up to that sort of carry-on. But it is this that does make the Spanish royals rather endearing. and the Principe de Asturias ceremony, though formal, does manage to introduce moments of humour. It is all rather splendid.

There are various categories of award, and past winners, an eclectic bunch to say the least, have included the likes of Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, Google, Yasser Arafat, Mary Robinson, Sebastian Coe, Stephen Hawking and J.K. Rowling. This year, there are prizes for, among others, the architect Norman Foster, David Attenborough and two men who, it might be said, have shaped our modern lives more than most - Martin Cooper and Raymond Tomlinson. And they are? Respectively, it was they who - more or less - gave us mobile phones and email. So, it's they - these two princes of technology and the Principe award - who we have to blame.


More climate change and mosquitoes
Following the interview with the chap from IMEDEA (17 October: High In The Sky), the "Diario" has also been talking with the professor of zoology at the university in Palma. In answer to a question as to whether climate change may bring disease-imparting insects, he says that it could well do. The main immediate threat might be the appearance of the tiger mosquito - it has yet to be encountered in the Balearics - which is more aggressive than the current lot and can even bring with it the transmission of diseases such as dengue, which isn't a particularly reassuring prospect. Perhaps some scientists could turn their attention to the matter and get themselves a Principe de Asturias award in the process.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Pete Seeger, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN3rN59GlWw. Today's title - the band with the lead singer who looked like Alexei Lalas, circa the World Cup 1994 (or maybe it was the other way round).

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High In The Sky

Might malaria make a return to Mallorca? There used to be malarial mosquitoes. Workers engaged in cultivation of and by Albufera in the later nineteenth century were not immune from it. In current-day Mallorca, victims of malaria have contracted it in countries where it remains a reality. The disease was all but eradicated in European countries where it had been indigenous by the 1960s. Nevertheless, it is still the single greatest health threat that humans have to contend with, and climate change might lead to its return in parts of the world where it was thought they had seen the back of it - and that includes Mallorca.

This possibility has been raised by a professor at IMEDEA (Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies). Interviewed in "The Diario", Carlos Duarte hypotheses that intense rains, the consequence of climate change, could see plagues of mosquitoes, a return of malaria or the creation of new diseases. Part of the background to this is that the storms in September did indeed bring a "plague" around Palma, and special dispensation for spraying had to be obtained in order to contend with the number of mosquitoes.

Duarte has much to say about the impact of climate change. Apart from mosquitoes, he comments on the effects on tourism of rising temperatures. He doesn't envisage tourists deserting Mallorca but preferring to holiday in the spring and autumn when the temperatures would be benign but higher than at present.

Interesting stuff, but nothing particularly new. It's a while since I did anything on climate change, but there was a period when it was a regular feature on the blog. The tourism impact was just one aspect. The effect of rising sea levels another. Some of the forecasts for both temperature and sea-level rises have been truly scary, but coincidental with what Duarte says comes a book that may go a long way to disputing much of the thinking behind climate change. In an extract from "Superfreakonomics" in the last "Sunday Times", Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner reported on the work of some extraordinary men from Intellectual Ventures (IV) in Seattle. And they are extraordinary - a close associate of Bill Gates (an investor in IV), an astrophysicist and a climate scientist who has challenged his own assumptions about climate change, ones that had led him to share a Nobel prize with Al Gore, but which now contradict much of the Gore-ist propaganda.

The nub of what these extraordinary men have been working on is that, while accepting the Earth's warming, they dispute many of the crude models upon which predictions have been based and also one of the central tenets of the climate change debate - the role of carbon. Their argument is that carbon dioxide is not, in itself, a bad thing, just that it is increasing too fast. There are numerous sacred cows that the article tackles, but the "big thing" that they have hit upon is to take the experience of a volcanic explosion in 1991 in the Philippines to conclude that small increases of sulphur dioxide, artificially pumped into the stratosphere, would be sufficient to cool the planet. Moreover, they propose how to do it, at very low cost. It would entail a system of very long, very thin hosepipes. It may sound bizarre, but the argument is compelling.

And there is one particular other thing they believe - and that is that the threat of sea levels rising has been blown out of proportion. The most authoritative estimate would have these levels, by the start of the next century, being no greater than many normal tidal variations that occur every day. The people of the Mallorcan coasts can rest easy in their beds.

The IV scientists have proposed something disarmingly simple and cheap. And cheapness can often be best, as it was with DDT to eliminate malaria before the mosquitoes started to fight back. It may be necessary that insecticides have to be used again in Mallorca - on a far more widespread basis than the special spraying last month - but were they to be it would not be costly. But even less costly, in the total scheme of things, would be the hosepipes in the sky. Extraordinary men and extraordinary thinking.

* I would give you a link to the article, but I'm damned if I can find it. Maybe not included on "The Times" site as it is a book extract and therefore copyrighted. Sorry about that. The book, published by Allen Lane, is released in the UK on 20 October. Its full title is "Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance".


QUIZ
Today's title - line from something, the title of which is the first word above; the group used to have its name changed by Steve Wright - weight was the substitute word.

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Under My Skin

The hell of the mosquito. They are still around, and some will linger; you can encounter a rogue mosquito at more or less any time during the winter, but for the moment the flies are the more annoying flying thing. For some people though, for some tourists, mosquitoes are the ruination of holiday. One can see some visitors who have been attacked in the most aggressive fashion, bites along the arms and around the neck, by the ankles or the backs of knees, inflamed and scratched. It is small comfort to those who are badly affected, but it is the case that far from everyone suffers in such a way. I am one of the latter. This year I have had hardly any mosquitoes bites, and when I have got them they have been no more than a temporary nuisance, as is the norm where I'm concerned at any rate. One thing that does sometimes intrigue me is the extent to which people who live here are badly affected. You hear the odd moan about a bite being irritating, but I never seem to see anyone, other than tourists, who is covered in bites.

To see some of the stuff on the internet, you would think that Alcúdia (by which one must be clear in saying that part of Puerto Alcúdia that houses the majority of tourists, i.e. Bellevue and its environs) was the only place on the island where mosquitoes were a problem. This is far from the case. Puerto Pollensa is similarly blighted as are other parts. Anywhere with water with slow circulation gives rise to mosquitoes. And Mallorca is of course unexceptional in having mosquitoes.

But it is probably fair to say that Puerto Alcúdia, and also Playa de Muro, have more of a mosquito reputation than mostly anywhere else in Mallorca. It's the fault of all that water. Once upon a time, it was far worse. Albufera used to stretch as far as the boundaries of what is the port area which, if you refer to some maps, is known as Mar i Estany (sea and lake). The lakes of Las Gaviotas, Esperanza and Menor were the results of the reclaiming of Albufera, as are of course the tourist centre around Bellevue and all the residential area surrounding it. The problem is, small comfort again, not nearly as bad as was once the case.

The reports of holiday-hell time, as a consequence of the "Alcúdia" mosquito are numerous. One I saw just recently complained of the need for treatment two months on from a holiday (by the Lago Menor); there was also a recommendation for people not to come to "Alcúdia". I use the quotation marks because of the degree of misrepresentation. There is little or no mosquito problem away from the Bellevue area and the lakes and canals of Puerto Alcúdia and from the lake and wetlands of Playa de Muro. Treatment for two months means infection, and, hard though it is to stop, scratching the bite is the best way of creating an infection. One is tempted to say that it's just bad luck, but don't underestimate the power of just one example of an unhappy tourist covered in unsightly lumps. I have read exchanges which result in someone concluding that they will go elsewhere, because someone else has been similarly badly affected.

This should be a matter of concern. It is hardly a new one, but the widespread use of the internet, the exchange of opinion and the recommendation or condemnation are peculiarly powerful in determining choice and selection. The presence of mosquitoes was something you used to find about only when you arrived. Not now. A bad-mosquito week in Alcúdia can mean a booking for Palmanova, even if mosquitoes are not unknown in the latter. The person I referred to above said that until the "problem" (of mosquitoes) is solved, people should avoid "Alcúdia". They're going to have a long wait. The only real solution lies in getting rid of all that solution - the water of the lakes, canals and Albufera. That is not going to happen. Another is to intervene, by which one means increasing the number of natural predators and by using chemicals.

One fears that the mosquito problem has been looked upon with a degree of complacency. Tourists have always come in abundance, and they're not about to stop coming. That's true, and one can certainly overplay the extent to which the presence of mosquitoes do influence the holiday decision. But there is evidence that it does, and the more that people use the internet in guiding that decision, the more it is possible that tourists will opt for somewhere else. It should be a matter of concern, but - as I've remarked before - I wonder to what extent, if any, the local tourist authorities take any notice. I can sense another little meeting about to take place.


LITTLE AUSTRALIA IN PUERTO POLLENSA
Further to the entry for 22 October, my thanks to Dick who did indeed go and sample Australian Boulevard, the somewhat bizarre bar in Puerto Pollensa; bizarre given the lack of huge numbers of Australians. Anyway, Dick says that, appropriate decorations and beers notwithstanding, there wasn't a great deal of information, Australia-wise on tap, such as the result of the Aussie Rules grand final. No, there probably wouldn't be. Australian by name; Spanish by nature; Grupo Boulevard by design.

Coming next - Moscow Boulevard for the five-star pretend-oligarch folk of Playa de Muro. Vodka, borsch and careful on the polonium in the teapot.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Yes, "Yours Is No Disgrace" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB_Hmcv3Flg). Today's title - part of a title of something done by many, e.g. those of the parts of the year.

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Antony and … / … and Sebastian

The revelries are over for another January. Sant Antoni and Sant Sebastia tend to merge into one. There was a bonfire do outside the Bodega Balear in Puerto Alcúdia on Saturday night (till 6 in the morning), though the bonfires are more Antony than Sebastian.

The Palma celebrations for Sebastian were something of a benefit for ageing British rock musicians. Friday night was music night – the synthetic screeches of the violins of the Electric Light Orchestra and the nearest you are likely to get to “cred” British rock music in the form of Echo And The Bunnymen, even if it is 25 years too late. At least with the Bunnymen there was a degree of authenticity. Ian McCulloch for example. This ELO was a Part II, Lynne-less version. They though came late on the Sebastian scene after some confusion, well a fair bit it would seem, as to the headline act that had been set up – Earth Wind & Fire, or was it an Earth Wind & Fire tribute. Neither as it turned out.

But credit where it is due. Nine different locations around the city and nine different stages. A sort of mini-Glastonbury without the mud and for one night only: flamenco, hip hop, Mallorcan, rock, dance. It was all there. And on the Saturday was the correfoc, not just a fire-run but a fire display (as opposed to fireworks) that seems to have got rave reviews. The whole thing is quite an achievement. Why don’t they promote it more to a foreign market?


MOSQUITOES
Five in the morning. The last thing you need over a weekend of fiesta. Those are not the zeds of a snooze, those are the zeds of a mozzy on its approach run. There may not be all-year tourists, but there are all-year mosquitoes. The merest hint of sun and winter humidity, time for them to don their shorts and go out for dinner on the terrace – or in the bedroom.

What is it with mosquitoes? Not satisfied with being the summer’s bully-boys, they have to be winter yobs as well. Not for your mosquito the fair-weather, southern-Jessie effeteness of the bee; no, your mosquito is an all-weather and all-year well-hard delinquent ASBO case, bare-chested even as the temperature falls.

Someone once explained the life cycle of the mosquito to me – at length, at very great length. There is something about in-depth biological explanations that make me lose the will to live, so I’ve forgotten it. They are all too reminiscent of the dullest of school moments – all that stuff about amoebas and rhizomes, which I have also completely forgotten. (Do I mean rhizomes? Whatever. See, I wasn’t paying attention.) The mosquito, on the other hand, appears not to have any death wish; it just keeps on living and seeking out lunch.

Before someone decided that humans were secondary to fauna, a good spray job could get rid of them. There must be some other concoction that could be used to napalm them into oblivion. Given that quinine and lemon are supposed to deter mosquitoes, why not bombard Albufera with gin and tonic with a slice. If the smell doesn’t get them, they would die of alcohol poisoning – with Mallorcan spirit measures they would be bound to. Either that or attack them with Marmite. The stink couldn’t be any worse than the marsh gas; in fact it might be rather more agreeable. That’s it. Put up a load of bar tables in Albufera with a Gordon’s and mixer and bowls of Twiglets. Soon finish them off. Alternatively, a three-way fight to the death, with no winner, with the processionary caterpillar and the beetle that consumes palm trees and which is currently on a munching tour of Mallorca, appearing in Pollensa and dining out on all those unattended palms in second homes.

Five in the morning. Certainly couldn’t be bothered to check if there was a clear sky whilst searching for the nearest Scud missile with which to terminate the mosquito. Had there been, what sort of moon would it have been?

QUIZ
Yesterday – “Mustang Sally”. Today’s title – would have made for an altogether better line-up. Fill in the missing names. The other question today is in the last line above. Think Echo.

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There’s A Rat In The Kitchen

Little things. These little things, these little bits of animal and insect life. The mosquitoes have not really made the comeback I had anticipated. You keep the plug-ins plugged in and the spray sprayed on, but they have been only a minor nuisance since June. With so much rain around (and it poured again this morning), snails are crawling and silvering their way across the terrace, climbing into the shutter doors, attaching themselves to the legs of the terrace furniture or the garden gates. There is a particular snail-like thing that I don’t quite understand. Just an elliptical shell with barely anything else. It lies around and gets crunched underfoot.

And then there are frogs or probably they are toads. Just small mites, they hop in for a bit, get some tangle dust caught on their legs and then hop out again. They are also, I suppose, a thing of the wetness, a friendly amphibian to replace the friendly reptilian lizard. Today it became actually quite cool, cool enough for a touch of heating. And when the weather turns, the most ominous thing to look out for is the rat. There was once one in the kitchen. Stood in the middle of the floor. I managed to get into the back utility room, where it hid behind the washing machine. There was me, hitting the machine with a broom, trying to shift the damn thing, which I did. It lunged at me. I’d never had a rat lunge before. But eventually I chased it out, Nora-Batty style with the broom, and it scurried off into the undergrowth and ivy.

The problem with these little things though, these toads, these snails, is that they get destroyed. Crushed, or maybe even, in the case of toads get caught by a cat (I don’t know, do cats chase toads?). And once crushed, they become a meal. Ants. Ants are the real little sods. You never know where they are going to appear, so you are chasing around with a large can of Zum exoceting them into oblivion, and then some other battalion of the ant army pitches up because a small toad’s been left dead outside the front door.

These little things. These little bits of wildlife. These little bits of Mallorca.


QUIZ
Yesterday - Prefab Sprout. Today’s title?

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Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

One of the satisfactions of doing this blog is when folk email me. Very often this is with quiz answers, but not always. I prefer that people email, rather than put comments on the individual posts for two reasons: a) these comments can be anonymous, which can also mean someone with an agenda, and b) if the email contains something of note I can then use this in the post itself, thus giving it more prominence. And it so happens I have received such an email. It comes from James who picks me up on yesterday’s reference to the Carabela Apartments. I quote:

“To put someone off the Carabelas due to the reasons you stated are fairly short-sighted. Firstly the rubbish area is three bins with some recycling banks, limited if ANY pungent smells come from this area and you will know that they are emptied regularly. Secondly "refurb" - yes I agree the outside of the buildings are in need of a re-paint, although these where professionally re-painted three years ago they are again due to be done. But surely the inside of the apartments which by and large are of a VERY high standard and the location should count more as to whether or not the exterior needs refreshing or there are a few bins outside on the main road.

Anyhow keep up the good work with the blog - I do enjoy reading it.”

As I said to James in reply to his email, I am delighted to be corrected. And I happen to agree with everything he says. The location of the Carabelas is excellent and the overall standard of the apartments themselves is very high. I know for a fact that they are in high demand, both from visitors and potential purchasers. So, yep, it’s a fair cop, and thanks to James for his helpful comments.


Summer would not be the same here without malevolent little creatures whose main purpose for their existence seems to be to cause harm to humans. Jellyfish and mosquitoes. “The Bulletin” goes with a front cover headline today “Jellyfish Alert”. Except, there isn’t really an alert. Any plague has yet to materialise, partly perhaps because of attempts to scoop the jellyfish up before they get too close to the shores. So, I’m not quite sure what the fuss is about, although the piece does say that chemists have run out of the jellyfish protective creams, which I think I had already alluded to on 14 July (“The Bitter Sting Of Tears”). As for the mosquitoes; it’s hard to fathom them out. Back in May and much of June, they were a damn nuisance. But for some three weeks or so, there’s been hardly sight nor buzz of them. What is more of a problem this summer is flies. Their peak period has always been from September till December. Not this year.

And your starter for ten ... What is, or was, a carabela? In view of the Carabela exchange, today’s title. Who sang it? Yesterday - The Greaseband.

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Wot We ‘Ate Abaht Our ‘Olidays

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

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

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

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


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

So, here is the first in another irregular series.

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

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

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


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


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


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

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