Much Too Much ...

Several years ago now, I can recall a report which identified Mallorca as having one of the highest levels of car ownership - if not the highest level - anywhere in Spain. All things are relative of course, and this level was relative - to the population. This ownership, and not only cars but also vans and other vehicles, dipped during the years of recession. Or at least the number of vehicles on the road declined. The Council of Mallorca, keepers of the island's main roads, have let us know that roads in and out of Palma now have traffic levels on a scale that they were pre-crisis; higher in fact. For some years, the levels were lower.

Perceptions get us only so far, but for what it's worth, my perception is of a significant increase in traffic during the early tourism season. I am not alone in having observed just how busy Alcudia has been. This perception of busyness is primarily a function of road traffic. Throw in all the cyclists, of which there are great numbers, plus delivery trucks, coaches and buses, and the April roads have been in the bedlam category.

Lining the main road on most days are rows of hire cars. One presumes there is now some arrangement with the town hall and/or the Council of Mallorca. Cars can be parked wherever an owner fancies, so long as the parking places are permitted, but there is such a thing as commercial use of the roads. Not so long ago, the town hall made it clear that anyone parking a car with a for-sale sign on it was liable for a fine. The roads, those which aren't the Council's responsibility, are town hall property. If they're to be used for commercial reasons, then there has to be permission - and payment.

The volume of traffic owes a great deal to the number of hire cars. While there is rental all year, in the early season it is particularly attractive. The nature of early-season tourism determines this. Increasingly, so do the preferences of tourists and the supply to meet these preferences. Holiday rental accommodation does not equate exactly to the number of hire cars, but there is unquestionably an equation. It is little wonder that the car-rental business association has thrown its lot in with the Aptur holiday rentals' association in seeking a liberal deal under the new legislation.

Already there is news of the enormous influx of hire cars. Barcelona and Valencia ports have been chock-full of vehicles being shipped to Mallorca and the Balearics. This was the same last year. Cars which had been destined for Turkey ended up here. Ships were apparently performing mid-Mediterranean U-turns and heading for the safe haven of Palma. The roads thus became saturated, along with everything else - beaches, for instance.

But that was more a story about summer. In the early and late seasons, visitors set off for the island's attractions. Included among these are the likes of Sa Calobra and Formentor. The roads to both fall into the somewhat scary category, a scariness made scarier by negotiating a bend only to be confronted by a mass of cyclists, shortly followed by a bus. Undeterred, the visitors keep going (it is pretty difficult to turn round after all), and arrive at, for instance, the lighthouse at Formentor. Which is when they find that they have little alternative but to turn round. There's nowhere to park.

Limits are to be introduced to the number of cars going to Formentor, and not only the lighthouse. How this will be policed, I am unsure, but limits are an inevitable consequence of the success of places like Formentor. People want to go there because they've heard so much about it: or seen it, if only Roper's La Fortaleza. It's a similar story with Sa Calobra, with Lluc, with certain unspoiled beaches. Environmentalists Terraferida are aghast at the tribes of young tourists pitching up on isolated coves and enjoying themselves. And it's still only April.

The Council of Mallorca, we learn, is considering prohibiting car access to Sa Calobra and to the Port of Valldemossa. Escorca town hall has already decided to start charging for street parking in Sa Calobra (and elsewhere). Valldemossa town hall has introduced charges for parking coaches. In Santanyi, there is to be access-denied to cars going to certain coves. In various parts of the island, the shuttle bus has become the mode du jour for transport. Es Trenc has its shuttle. Cala Varques in Manacor is likely to get its. Formentor will probably be served by one from Puerto Pollensa.

All of these places are victims of their own success and of readily available information that recommends them. But they are unable to cope. The infrastructure doesn't exist and for the most part can't exist. There's much too much. Limits are the only solution.

A Traffic System That's Taken Fifty Years

As Puerto Pollensa's first phase of semi-pedestrianisation heads towards completion - hopefully by 4 May, and yes, there is another phase to come, so be warned - thoughts naturally turn to the traffic system. Well, you would think that the two would be considered together, which they probably have been, but only now has the master plan been unveiled, insofar as it represents anything that hadn't already been said.

They've been talking about the traffic system for as long as they have pedestrianisation, so the two have formed part of the same package and have done so ever since the late 1960s: things move slowly here, we know that. Rather more recently - late 2008 - there was to have been a grand "mobility" plan (i.e. traffic plan) for Puerto Pollensa. The then mayor, Joan Cerdà, said so. And it was to be agreed through "general consensus", something that was seemingly absent when Joan had gone full steam ahead with the original pedestrianisation plan and its lamentable pilot scheme (abandoned after a few weeks).

The mobility plan, the impression was given, was to have been one for the whole of Puerto Pollensa, which sounded reasonable enough. Some time later, still during Joan's reign, a plan was being cobbled together. If I remember rightly, it was the work of a relative (son, nephew or someone or other) of the then town hall delegate for Puerto Pollensa. Questions were asked, as you might have expected. We heard very little more.

And so now to the consultancy company which has apparently been working on mobility since April 2013. Its plan is? Well, basically what we knew. Two-way traffic as far the Llenaire avenue coming from Alcudia and then one-way into the port and up to the yacht club roundabout. (The plan refers to the Plaça Enginyer Gabriel Roca, of which no one has heard but which may or may not be in front of 1919. Who can say for sure? So-called squares with names pop up in every town without anyone having the slightest idea where they are.)

What more do we learn? There will be a speed limit of 40kph coming into Puerto Pollensa as far as the Llenaire avenue, then it'll become 30kph as far as the Paris avenue and then it'll be 20kph up to the Plaça Enginyer Gabriel Roca (let's stick to the yacht club roundabout).

And that is pretty much it. A fine recipe for speeding tickets quite possibly, but within the plan there is very little about parking. It will be on one side of the coast semi-pedestrianised road up to the Paris avenue (which we also knew). But where else will cars park? It still sounds like a flaw in the whole scheme, if parking is pushed further and further from the beach.

MALLORCA TODAY - Complaints about lack of parking at Alcúdia's commercial port

As happened last year, parking is to be made available by the commercial port in Alcúdia for people travelling to Menorca for the Sant Joan fiestas. Normally, such parking is prohibited, but local businesses want there to be more parking, saying that before the new terminal was built, there was a good deal of parking available.

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Puerto Pollensa's paid parking starts in June

Slightly delayed from the previously announced mid-May starting-point, paid parking will return to Puerto Pollensa from the start of June, the delay having been as a result of negotiations with the ports authority over the parking spaces near to the nautical club. These will be ceded to the town hall and its contractor in return for a percentage of the tariffs. Some 40% of street parking spaces will be included in the paid-parking scheme - from La Gola to the Bocchoris area and including the front and roads such as Joan XXIII. The green zone for residents' parking will, as previously announced, not come in until next year. For the regular blue zone, coming back in June, the rate will be a minimum of 50 cents up to a maximum of two euros, which will also determine a maximum length of parking time.

Meanwhile, the plan to partially pedestrianise the front is likely to be implemented in 2013, following an agreement struck between the town hall and the Council of Mallorca, assuming there is money to facilitate the scheme, which would result in the creation of a one-way traffic system.

MALLORCA TODAY - Paid parking in Puerto Pollensa from 15 May

Pollensa town hall is putting out to tender the management of parking in Puerto Pollensa, the so-called ORA ("ordenanza reguladora de aparcamiento"), by which there will be two categories of parking covering around 40% of available street-parking spaces in the centre of the resort - a blue zone for general parking and a green zone for local residents who will have to pay (20 euros) to obtain an annual permit. The green zone will cost more, so as to give residents more opportunity of being able to park. For both zones, there will be a maximum parking time of two hours, which seems a bit weird certainly where residents are concerned, though the application of parking times has normally only been during the working day, while will the fact that the green zone is to cost 25 cents more for half an hour really result in there being more places available to residents? Maybe it will. The new system is due to come into effect from 15 May and will remain in effect until October, though it appears that the green zone will not in fact become a reality until next year, criticisms of this delay and indeed criticisms over a lack of consultation emanating from various opposition parties. Furthermore, there is a suggestion within these criticisms that in fact the payment system will operate during the siesta or, as it has been put, during the lunch break when people will have to go and move their cars every two hours. Nothing is ever straightforward in Pollensa.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

It Means Nothing

There have been a number of large figures knocking around these past few days; figures in numerical terms that is. For once, they are not related to the numbers of unemployed or the size of the town halls' debts. They are figures for internet usage - those for websites of the town halls and centrally.

To take the town halls first. The other day, the "Diario" ran an article in which it explained that Alcúdia's site was the most popular on the island (I presume Palma is excluded from these). It has registered an annual number of just shy of 275,000 "entradas". I'm afraid at this point I get confused. What do they mean by an "entrada"? (From what I know, an "entrada", in computing terms, refers only to what I'm doing at the moment - making an entry.) Almost certainly it does not mean "hits", so probably page views. Assuming it is, it's not such a bad number; not brilliant, but not bad. Alcúdia tops the list with Manacor not far behind but Sa Pobla a fairly distant third, and Pollensa back in ninth spot. The article doesn't give a number for Pollensa, but Sa Pobla is some 110,000 behind Alcúdia and is six places above Pollensa.

Quite why Alcúdia should head this list and why Pollensa should lag behind, I am at a loss to explain. It's not as if the towns' populations are that markedly different, and if one takes population into account, then Manacor should come ahead of Alcúdia. Nor is there any clue in these websites being international. Alcúdia's site is in Catalan by default. There is a Castilian link, but it only gives menu items and not text. Pollensa's does not have a Castilian link, though both - eventually - get to their "sister" websites in different languages for tourists (in Pollensa's case, a complete waste of cyberspace). No, can't explain this.

But as in Spanish, so in English, there is the issue of terminology. Maybe someone can enlighten me more as to the application of "entrada", but whatever is used, there is so much confusion when it comes to terms and to statistics. And that brings me to ...

The figures for the town halls pale into cyberspace insignificance against those for the Balearic Government's tourism website - illesbalears.es. According to "The Bulletin", it received - get this - 85,168, 261 enquiries during the first nine months of this year. 85 million? What on earth does that mean? In fact, what are "enquiries"? If it is an accurately-reported figure, it is colossal, but as ever with these statistics it is not what it seems. Hits, and I have to assume that this is what enquiries means, are about the most useless statistic that can be dragged out for website traffic. Though useless, the number does give an indication. The site is obviously popular, and is evidence of how important the internet is, especially for the holidaymaker, though in the case of this site the overwhelming majority of visitors are Spanish - and you can see this for yourselves on Alexa.


GOBBY AGAIN
I thought our friends GOB, the environmental pressure group, had been keeping a low profile in matters Puerto Pollensa. Unusually for them, they seemed to have had little or nothing to say about the pedestrianisation. Maybe because there are enough voices doing it for them, or maybe they're in favour of it and know they'll be on a loser as they'd be placed in the mayoral circle of waggons and find themselves being similarly surrounded. And it would never do to act as the posse for the mayor and the Pollensa administration when there are other enviro controversies with which they can shoot arrows at him. Big-time controversies. Ho-hum. Like the parking area next to La Gola. Does anyone really give a damn, other than GOB? "Unsuitable", they say about the parking, without of course offering any solutions as to where there might be some alternative. I'm afraid I lose my patience with GOB who do, sometimes, make some valuable interventions, such as when they have, in the past, criticised the management of Albufera. It's enough to make you want to drain La Gola and pave it over, just to get up GOB's noses, which are of course immediately above their gobs.

Anyway, there was political support for GOB from the United Left and the Mallorcan socialists at the town hall, but their opposition to the parking was not sufficient to prevent support for it to proceed. Mayor Cerdà, rightly pointing to the need for parking in the area of La Gola, reckons that the "general" plan for the town keeps in mind the other need - that of "natural space" - which GOB claims would be eliminated were the parking area to be constructed. Some might say - what general plan?


A LITTLE BRITAIN CHRISTMAS
No, not that Little Britain, this Little Britain. Our own. Steve and Urbano. And as they're such nice chaps, on the WHAT'S ON BLOG (http://wotzupnorth.blogspot.com) are the Little Britain Christmas specials. The goose may be getting fat, but work your way through that list and it won't be the only one. Chops are being licked even as one reads it.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Adam Adamant. Today's title - Welsh band; not the Manics, the other ones.

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We Don't Want To Have No Fuss

Our old friends, the United Left and Greens "alternative" (EU/EV) in Pollensa, have been kicking up more fuss. Hot on the heels of their failed motion to overturn the pedestrianisation scheme in Puerto Pollensa, they have now turned their attention to the parking area next to the sports centre. Nothing like a bit of constant agitation to keep the wind up the under-fire mayor.

The parking area, which came into being with an underwhelming fanfare of announcing also some trees and a little play zone for kiddies, is the tarmacked-over old bit of wasteland that used to be able to accommodate more than the numbers that the new area can. It's ok, at least so I thought. Yes, it could have done with there being more parking spaces - they could have left out the play zone for example - but it is better than scraping across dust and stones than once was the case. However, not everything is ok. Apparently when it rains, there is a problem, that of flooding, while, so say the agitators, there is a difficulty in respect of access to the parking, which is, I think, rather overstating the case. They go on to say that there is a danger for kids crossing the road to the sports centre, saying that there had been a plan for a bridge. Again, I think this is overplaying things. The road isn't particularly unsafe, and it has road calmers, so whether this bridge is really necessary is a moot point. The EU/EV imply that this all should be done rather than messing around with the pedestrianisation. Well, if there is an issue with flooding, that's one thing, but the objections they are putting up seem pretty thin. The mayor may deserve criticism for various things, but this all sounds like a vain attempt at picking up on any old thing for the sake of having a dig.


Pollensa town hall is not the only local authority in which there is opposition agitation. In Santa Margalida, there is a bit of storm about the cost of fiestas. Some of you may recall my raising this back on 17 August (Duck Soup), specifically in respect of the Santa Margalida jollies. I asked then what do the fiestas actually cost and queried whether the ever more extravagant fireworks displays could really be justified when other things in the municipality are being overlooked. Well, there is an answer to how much it all costs. This year the town hall spent 512,000 euros, most of it for the Can Picafort August fiesta and La Beata in Santa Margalida itself in September. Now, apparently, they want to add a further 300,000 for next year. On what exactly? Coincidentally, 300,000 is the difference between tenders for a rehabilitation scheme for Son Bauló. The ruling group (Partido Popular and its allies) has gone for the higher priced scheme; the combined opposition say a lower one, which they claim offers more improvements, should be adopted. The opposition says that "a government team in complete crisis" that wants to increase the amount spent on the fiestas "has clearly taken leave of its senses" (quotes in translation from a report in "The Diario"). If the opposition is to be taken at its word, for two aspects of the town hall's responsibilities 600 grands worth of public money more than some might deem necessary is due to be lifted from the municipal piggy-bank.

Now, though I query the spend, what I don't know is if there is a return, by which I mean do they undertake some form of cost-benefit analysis to ascertain whether revenues generated by local businesses come close to or exceed the amount spent? If it were clearly demonstrated that this was the case, then fine, I suppose. There again, I don't know how it could actually be proved. But the fiestas are important to the local businesses. A good example of this was the stink over food sampling at the small Playa de Muro fiesta this summer. The restaurant owners in the playa objected, especially as the restaurants providing the samples were from Muro town, and one was owned by the councillor responsible for fiestas. In Santa Margalida, there is presumably extra trade generated by La Beata; not by tourists, as not many tourists attend, but by people from across the island, given that this is one of the most traditional of the island's fiestas. In Can Picafort, however, it is more debatable. The tourists are already there, and one fancies they go along and have a look at the fireworks and the fire-run and then go back to their all-inclusives. Otherwise, does the Can Pic fiesta drag in a load of additional people from elsewhere on the island and in numbers that might justify the expenditure?

My guess is that they just come up with a figure, spend the money, and that's it. This being the case, one has to start to ask about priorities and precisely the role of local town halls and indeed the people who administer them. As someone instinctively drawn to local democracy and to the closeness of local people to their administrations, I am loathe to bring this into question, but increasingly I am beginning to have my doubts as to the structure of government here - the levels and indeed the sheer number of authorities. It is a theme for another day.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Huey Lewis and the News (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4fdkkBt8VE). Today's title - well, we will get fuss and we have got it, but where does this line famously come from? Musical.

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(Car) Parklife

Further to yesterday's note about the plan to get rid of the front line parking area in Puerto Pollensa, there is more to be said about the whole scheme which would envisage the moving of the boat maintenance area and also an upgrading of the tourist office. On this latter point, it is said that the office is "obsolete" and requires modernising. This is one way of saying that it was inadequate from the moment it was conceived, and its construction was not that long ago; three years maybe. Obsolescence occurs swiftly in the Pollensa tourist office world. Modernising should mean making bigger. The office is supremely well located, but it is far too small and has insufficient storage space, so improvements should be welcome. The only problem is likely to be how long they take to effect them. When the old tourist office was closed, a temporary one was set up in the municipal building, and the whole process seemed to drag on interminably before the now office was finally completed. Yet it was hardly a major job of construction; the office is little more than a shack.

In respect of the mooted planning closure, it is said that this parking was theoretically intended for boat users. This, of course, is far from the case, but if it was the theory before, what is the theory and indeed practice meant to be now. Where would boat users park?

The report from the "Diario" yesterday does rather give the game away in terms of the thinking behind the elimination of the parking. It says that the pedestrianisation has the objective of progressively removing cars from the front line. Of course it does.

However, things are never quite as obvious as they might seem in the wonderful world of Pollensa town hall. The proposal for the elimination of the parking, and all the rest, comes from a councillor with one of the political groupings in the administration, namely the PSM (the socialist party of Mallorca). The mayor, who represents the nationalists, says that there is no such plan, and goes on to say that the town hall is going to create more parking in the La Gola area.

So let's be clear. Here we have a councillor, one responsible for culture, which does suggest that issues pertaining to infrastructure may actually be outside his brief, making an announcement to the Mallorcan press about something that the rest of the town hall have no intention of doing, or that is how it is now being presented. What exactly is going on? Is it simply some maverick going off on a complete and unofficial tangent, or might there be some substance to the plan? The mayor suggests that there isn't. It all seems very odd.


AND OVER IN ALCUDIA...
Various worthies gathered yesterday in Alcúdia's auditorium to present the project for the conversion of the old power station by the commercial port: it is meant to become a museum of science and technology and a "great icon in the north of the island" (I quote in translation from the report in the "Diario"). The only problem is that they haven't got the money in place, or rather they haven't, as yet, established exactly how the 23 million euros project is to be financed. Which does also seem a bit odd, that is that they would present the project without actually knowing when it's likely to start.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Here are some Germans singing after drinking - fabulous, I'm sure you'll agree (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7hg9ZtwaLM). Today's title - no word in brackets and who do you have? The video did of course strongly feature a car.

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Trink, Trink, Brüderlein, Trink

Why are there so few German bars in Alcúdia? I say few, I'm struggling to think of any other than Epcot. But that's not a German bar; it flies a flag of British convenience. Historically, there were, but since Freddy's Kleine Mühle was pulled down to make way for the perimeter of the Coral de Mar, it's hard to point to one; Cockpit isn't there any longer, is it? Whatever, the non-Spanish or non-Spanish-speaking bar is dominated by the Brits; a last vestige of empire in the sun.

It's not as though you don't get German bars in other places which are almost exclusively German by tourism; Cala Ratjada for instance. And it's not as if there is neither a healthy German population in Alcúdia nor a healthy German tourism market. Take away the faux biergartens, and there are no obvious German kneipes that assault you with the sight of lederhosen, the smell of a bratwurst or a "maß" of pilsner. The Brits may have come, probably, to be the largest tourist group in the highly-diverse Alcudia, but the town is not like the shires of England and the glens of Scotland that is Puerto Pollensa. There you can understand the absence of German bars, as the German tourist numbers are significantly lower, and of course have been advised never to set foot in the place again - if you can recall that German newspaper thing of a few months back. In Puerto Pollensa, you can even find, no doubt for the legions of Neighbours-watching Brits, an alleged Australian hostelry; whatever that is. (By the way, if Dick from Australia is reading this, maybe he can enlighten me; he may even have been in it.)

Even among Spanish-owned bars in Alcúdia, the default foreign style is British (or Irish); the so-called biergartens are really restaurants with the name added. Cut along to Playa de Muro, and it's the same. And yet here, the German tourism market is every bit as strong as the British, if not stronger. What do you find? More than half-a-dozen bars that are or profess to be British/Irish. German bars? Zippo; at least as far I'm aware. Only when you get to Can Picafort, which the Germans more or less colonised, and which they still dominate in terms of tourist numbers, do you begin to find something that smacks vaguely of being German. Yet even so, the more obvious bar display is the British pub.

I find this all quite curious. The Germans are, after all, a prolific beer-drinking nation. One might have expected every corner to house a kneipe or a Hansi's Wurst and Weissbier imbiss stand (now I think of it, there is something like that just before the beach at the top of The Mile, or at least there used to be). But the impression is that the Germans have been deserted in terms of readily-identifiable bars. For other nations, notably the Dutch and the Scandinavians, a British bar is often an attraction, assuming those Dutch or Scandinavians are among the drinking classes; they can consume a prodigious volume of cold drink. The Dutch, it might be added, would probably only enter a German bar, were there one, with a gun to their head. The British bar, though, is quite acceptable to other nationalities (even some Germans); perhaps the default foreign style is right, after all, while the Irish bar is a multinational marketing phenomenon, understood by Germans, Dutch and others.

One might be tempted to say that the Germans more easily accept "Spanishness" than do the British and are less interested in having their own bars. One might be tempted, but I personally wouldn't believe it. Out of season, the situation is even more transparent. There are several British/Irish/British-style bars in the port of Alcúdia, all of which are likely to be open for most if not all the winter. German bars for a similar sort of population? Maybe it's just that Germans don't have much interest in running bars; again I find that hard to believe. Nope, I really don't know the answer; it will remain a mystery unless someone can come up with a good reason as to why there is this absence.

It is doubly mysterious when one considers the hold that Mallorca has over the Germans. Someone here, a politician or tourist authority type, said not so long ago that the British have Mallorca in their genes. If that's the case, the Germans were involved in the Mallorcan big bang that came to form those genes. The island is virtually an annexed state of the Bundesrepublik. In Germany, Mallorca features as a specific item in weather reports; German TV even broadcasts some of its truly appalling schlager-musik shows from Mallorca. But something that also occurs to me is that, unlike for the British, there is no daily newspaper for the Germans on the island. Yet the German population, in Mallorca as a whole, is larger than the British. Another curiosity. Oh well, I shall mull this all over while surveying the products in Puerto Alcúdia's Eroski. There I will see various German sausages. How many British sausages will I see? Precisely none. British bars, but German sausages. Don't understand.

And as a sort of footnote to this, and for all of you from all sorts of countries, there is the altogether more amorphous bar state that is the international bar. To that end, Les tells me that the Vamps karaoke system now has all manner of stuff in all manner of languages and it is going down a storm with the league of nations beating a path to the Calle Astoria. Not sure how many German drinking songs are on the system. When our house proudly got a mono record-player, one of the first records we had was one of such songs; there was also an EP of Swedish folk songs. Strange days.


PUERTO POLLENSA - NOW IT'S THE PARKING
Oh, lordy, lordy, here we go. No sooner pedestrianised, than now it's time to get rid of the parking area on Puerto Pollensa's front line. "It's absurd," says the chap responsible for culture at Pollensa town hall (as quoted in the "Diario"), commenting on the parking's existence. I don't quite know what it's got to do with him, but there you go. The impetus for scrapping all or most of the parking area would be to make way for an increase in the number of moorings. Well maybe these are needed, but one cannot escape the impression that little by little the pedestrianisation scheme is unravelling in terms of all that was planned in support of it. How long has the closure of the parking area been on the publicly unstated agenda I wonder? It may be absurd to have this space devoted to parking, but then one has to ask, given the problems of parking in Puerto Pollensa, where are those cars going to park. And if the original extent of the pedestrianisation does indeed come to pass, that will merely exacerbate the problem of parking in the town. Oh well, cue, no doubt, all manner of debate and angst among the good people of the port.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Steve Miller Band (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIHP9o6X6D8). Today's title - not a quiz question but be prepared for tomorrow's youtube, which will show probably why it's just as well there aren't any German bars.

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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.

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Put Up A Parking Lot

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

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

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


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


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

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Bang, Bang

Bang, bang. Head against wall.
Bang, bang. Head against wall.
Can't park. Anywhere near.
Bang, bang. Head against wall.
Puert-oh Pollen-sah.
Bang, bang. Head against wall.
Disaster year as every year.
Bang, bang. Head against wall.
Ripping up roads. Ripping up bars.
Bang, bang. Head against wall.
Pollen-sah town.
Bang, bang. Head against wall.
Can't park. Anywhere near.
Bang, bang. Head against wall.
Carreter-ah Can Pic.
Bang, bang. Head against wall.
Laying roads. Closing roads.
Bang, bang. Head against wall.
Cyclists f****** everywhere.
Bang, bang. Head against wall.

CRASH.


QUIZ
Yesterday - Sir Harry Webb of Cliffrichard. Today's title - "shot me down". Who?

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Second-Hand Car Spiv

Looking to sell a car? Well if you are and you live in Alcúdia, you won’t be able to try and flog it by means of a “for-sale” sign stuck in the window and with the car parked in the street. Thus reports “Euro Weekly” in its latest issue.

Apparently this is not legal. I wouldn’t know. But the town hall says not legal, so not legal it is – I’ll take their word for it. One of the other lines of thinking is that, by stopping people parking cars in streets with for-sale signs on, this will alleviate the parking problem. This is nonsense. Were it the case that whole fleets of cars were being left with their “se vende” notices, then there might be an argument. But there are not. The parking problem is a problem of a lack of parking not the odd car for sale.

Two of my neighbours in the recent past have had such signs in their cars. They have parked their cars outside their houses. Where else should they park them? When they drive off and park elsewhere, they are perfectly entitled to do so. What difference does it make if there happens to be a for-sale sign? A car has to be parked somewhere whether it’s for sale or not.

There is another argument; that by displaying a sign in public the attempt at transaction becomes subject to control by the local authority. In other words, one would need a licence to offer for sale. That’s more like it. The town hall would want a piece of the action, which they will not get because they’re banning the practice. One can understand the town hall’s thinking here though, even if it is stretching a point. If one looks to sell a car via a magazine for instance, one contracts with the publisher to do so. The town hall, it can justifiably argue I suppose, is acting as a means of promotion and distribution in the same way as a magazine is; it should therefore be contracted with as the sales channel or deny that channel if it so chooses.

There are other vehicles that are left parked in streets; vehicles that publicise this and that. They occupy parking spaces and are often left for lengthy periods. Maybe they have a licence to do so. It had never occurred to me that they might have to before this business with cars for sale came up. But if not, do not the same rules apply? A restaurant wishing to advertise itself through a magazine contracts with that magazine. The town hall already imposes a system of licensing if a restaurant (or other) wishes to hand out promotional material on the street (albeit this is often flouted and not just on the streets, it also happens on the beach). It is the same principle of contract one would guess.

Maybe there is a simple solution for the person looking to sell a car. Drive into neighbouring Muro and park there. There has been a for-sale 4x4 parked in the road by Smiths and Posh Paddy for a while now. It is situated on the Posh Paddy side of the road going away from Alcúdia. The boundary between Alcúdia and Muro divides that road, so Muro would be where it was parked. Possibly. So if anyone’s interested … There you go, I act as a sales channel, and it doesn’t cost a cent.


And a brief weather note. Apart from a sudden downpour three days ago, the weather has been amazing. January, and it really is beach weather. No kidding.


QUIZ
Yesterday – Herb Alpert or The Beatles. Today’s title – this is a song by which major English group of the ‘60s and ‘70s? The whole lyric for this song is one of the most hard-hitting the group’s singer ever penned.

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