The Three Miquels Of Pollensa

The La Patrona fiestas start in Pollensa tomorrow. The first concert for this season's Pollensa Festival is staged on Sunday. The fiestas and festival commencement have coincided for many years, while they have also been events to cause the happy coincidence of the involvement of great names from Mallorca's literary and arts worlds and specifically Pollensa's literary and arts worlds. (I should point out that coincidence does not only imply chance occurrences. It can simply mean to happen at the same time or a drawing together of two things. Put an imaginary hyphen after the "co" and the stress and therefore meaning is quite different: co-incidence.)

Of those who have been party to this co-incidence, there is, as one example, Miquel Capllonch. For the generally uninitiated, he is the giver of his name to Puerto Pollensa's square, albeit no one really refers to the Plaça Miquel Capllonch, preferring the more mundane church or market square. Capllonch, a native of Pollensa, is and has been celebrated by both the festival and Patrona. His music has been performed at the festival, while he holds a very special place in the traditions of Patrona; one tradition in particular, the dawn chorus awakening of the "alborada" on the day of Mare de Déu dels Àngels, the day of La Patrona, the day of the Moors and Christians.

At 5am on the morning of 2 August, a silence is meant to descend on Pollensa. It is a silence to emphasise the reverence given to the playing of the alborada. Capllonch is typically associated with the alborada, and rightly so, but he was not the original composer. He was 21 in 1882 when it was performed for the first time; at the start, therefore, of his career as one of Mallorca's foremost musicians - composer, organist, pianist. He reinterpreted the original that had been the work of a Galician, Nicolas de Castro.

If the co-incidence of Capllonch with both festival and Patrona might be somewhat incidental, the same cannot be said of Miquel Bota Totxo. If at some point prior to his death at the age of 84 in 2005 the question had been asked who was the greatest living "pollencin", the answer almost certainly would have been Bota. He was a figure from the literary world who bears very great comparison with Alexandre Ballester in neighbouring Sa Pobla. Like Ballester, he became the town's chronicler, while he was also a poet, writer, journalist and dramatist.

When the festival was founded in 1962, Bota was made its vice-president. In 1971, the pregón oration was introduced to the Patrona fiestas for the first time. It was Bota who delivered it. The title was "the angels smile on our peace". Bota's extraordinary contribution to Pollensa life, society and culture touched so many aspects of the town (and also of Mallorca) that it is hard to do them justice. He ranks alongside Miquel Costa i Llobera in terms of his importance to Pollensa's literary tradition.

Costa i Llobera and Miquel Capllonch were the two figures who bequeathed to Pollensa its cultural tradition. Though this tradition was to be firmly established by non-Mallorcans, such as the artists of the "Pollensa school" and the violinist Philip Newman, these two pollencins were the ones who laid the foundations of what eventually became the festival, while Costa i Llobera is intimately associated with Patrona. At the closing of the fiestas, his "song of joys" features along with a further interpretation of the alborada and the singing of "Visca Pollença". It is fitting that this year's Patrona celebrations will include an open evening at the family home - Can Llobera - now restored and due to house the town's library, and among its documents and books will be works by Bota Totxo.

The three Miquels of Pollensa. Someone ought to write a book.

MALLORCA TODAY - Protection sought for Moors and Christians

The PSM socialists in Pollensa are asking that the Moors and Christians celebration during the town's Patrona fiestas is declared as being of cultural interest in order to protect it from any potential diminution or change.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - No fireworks for Pollensa's Patrona

Despite residents having raised money for a fireworks display, there will not be one at the end of Pollensa's Patrona festivities this evening as it was too late to obtain the necessary permissions. The display, cancelled last year and this on financial grounds, has been replaced by a "traca", which is a string of fire crackers.

See more: Ultima Hora

The Dying Art Of The Fiesta Poster

The fiesta poster has a status akin to the posters of the 1960s that burst out of the psychedelia movement. They are, to use a dreadfully over-used word, "iconic" and can often seem to be as if not more important than the fiestas they are publicising.

One says, "has a status", but the past tense is now more appropriate. The posters had this status until crisis came along. Even this has taken a time to have an effect, but fiesta posters and their accompanying programmes are noticeably less elaborate. It has really only been this year, though, that there has been a marked austerity that has crept into fiesta publicity, while town halls might also be more aware of what they are commissioning, ever since Palma was caught out by a poster design for Sant Sebastià that had been nicked.

Sant Sebastià is some way off, but Palma has already announced a massive cut to the budget, which includes a saving of 100,000 euros on the fireworks. As one councillor sort of put it, it is difficult to justify spending 100,000 euros for half-an-hour's worth of going up in smoke. One might well ask if such spend had ever been justifiable. But with such a knife having been taken to the total budget, one can anticipate far less grand a publicity effort as well.

Palma might well take a lead from northern fiestas. Puerto Alcúdia's Sant Pere fiesta had a perfectly decent poster and programme this year, one that used images from the past and that were representative of tourism, fishing and the port's patron. What the town hall hadn't commissioned (or quite probably hadn't been encouraged to commission) was what had been the publicity for the two previous fiestas - one, a programme that was in the shape of a fish, the other, one that could be folded and made into a hat.

Both were all well and innovative, but as anyone who has ever had anything to do with printing in Mallorca can tell you, print costs are excessive (and unreasonable) enough as they are, without having to then factor in costs for complicated cutting and folding.

Pollensa's Patrona this year has made do with a very much simpler design approach. The poster shows the symbol of the town's "gall" (cock to you and me) with crossed swords to denote the Moors and Christians. Otherwise, the programme is largely stripped of colour, which compares with last year's reliance on colour photography. The saving won't necessarily be huge, but the design and the programme send out a message of austerity being applied.

Then there is the publicity for Can Picafort's Mare de Déu d'Agost fiestas. This year's efforts have taken on such an appearance of austerity that the poster looks as though it has been scanned from some old design, which it may well have been. The result, though, is shoddy, while the programme's use of colour is minimal to say the least.

Can Picafort, or rather Santa Margalida, spends a fair old wedge on fiestas, with a sizable chunk going on what is the most spectacular of all the northern fireworks displays. This seems to have escaped drastic cuts, but the publicity most definitely hasn't. It is a shame, because Can Picafort, rare for a Mallorcan fiesta, has in the past been able to graphically convey a sense of humour. The year after the naughty boys first released live ducks during the duck-tossing race and wore Power Rangers masks to disguise themselves, the fiesta poster showed two children with the same type of mask and a real duck. It was arguably the best poster that any fiesta had ever produced, probably helped by a town hall that had to be threatened with legal action if it didn't comply with the banning of live ducks, which it eventually did.

Both the posters and the programmes are pieces of publicity for imparting information. In this respect, elaborate productions are unnecessary, while printing either of them is questionable when the information is easily disseminated via the internet. But such a pragmatic approach misses the point. The programmes can be more minimalist, but the posters should still be of high impact. Apart from encouraging creative design, they serve as expressions for local communities, and in Mallorca, great emphasis is placed on artistic endeavour as an aspect of these communities, not least in Pollensa with its long association with art.

Posters are more than just a means of communicating, they have their own intrinsic worth not just as pieces of art but as a reminder of how communication once was, of a time when the poster was fundamental and very often was "iconic".


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa fiesta ribbons set fire to

The ribbons that flutter over Pollensa's Plaça Major for the Patrona fiesta are no longer fluttering. They were set fire to early yesterday morning, causing damage to terrace furniture of bars in the square. This vandalism appears to be linked to an outbreak of graffiti that occurred the night before.

All Night Long: Fiesta parties

So there will, after all, be a party on the final night of Pollensa's Patrona festivities. Public pressure helped to ensure this, the last town hall meeting having been packed by those in favour of it. The mayor had been criticised for not having consulted in seeking to ditch the event.

Here we go again. If it's Pollensa, it must be a case of the town hall not consulting. There are some things it should consult about, such as the pedestrianisation plan for Puerto Pollensa that was scrapped primarily because it had failed to consult, but there is surely a limit to what it is obliged to consult about. Or perhaps, in the case of fiestas, the people's parties if you like, there should be an obligation. There again, they didn't consult the people of Puerto Pollensa about what has turned out to be a programme for Virgen del Carmen that is like little more than a village fete.

The night party is going ahead, but economic constraints will mean that it will finish earlier than previously, at 2.30 in the morning of 2 August. Economic constraints or something else? The deputy mayor, Malena Estrany, hopes that by ending the party a couple of hours earlier there will not be a repeat of the botellón street party and unseemliness that has been associated with the event. There remains the suspicion that cost was a secondary factor in the town hall's wish to call the event off, and that the botellón was the primary factor.

But now, having backtracked, the town hall would wish us to believe that lopping two hours off the party will help to stop a grand old booze-up. Are they serious? The strangeness of this logic is made even stranger by the town hall's intention to ask neighbouring towns to check that people being bussed in to the event from the likes of Sa Pobla or Alcúdia aren't carrying drink.

This presumably means the local police in these towns being called on to search and confiscate. A question arises whether they have any right to do so. Drinking alcohol in the street may be against local laws, drinking on a bus may also be, but carrying drink? Moreover, drink can be obtained in other ways. The botellón isn't always just a bunch of people turning up at random with a carrier-bag with a couple of cheap bottles of vino.

Elsewhere in Mallorca, one party has been scrapped precisely because of the problems that a botellón can create. In Pòrtol, following incidents last weekend, a DJ party for this coming Saturday is to be dropped and probably replaced by a dance orchestra.

But also this coming Saturday, a party which had been dropped last year and which had acquired greater notoriety than the Patrona party is to make a re-appearance. Sa Pobla is organising the Districte 54 event as part of its Santa Margalida festivities. This was banned last year on safety grounds and because of complaints about noise and the state that the town got into thanks to its accompanying botellón.

Districte 54 has been one of the biggest of the fiesta night parties. It was first launched in 2003 by the then Partido Popular administration in the town. Who is now the new mayor of Sa Pobla? Biel Serra of the Partido Popular. Last year he criticised the decision to scrap the event, pointing to its economic benefits and to the fact that it brought the whole island to Sa Pobla.

There is more than just a hint of the populist behind the decision to resurrect Districte 54, and Pollensa's mayor may also have begun to have had second thoughts about how a decision to ban the night party might impact on his popularity, a mere month into his new term of office.

Serra's belief that Districte 54 has economic benefits contrasts with the economic constraints said to have been influencing the Pollensa decision. Which brings you back to the question as to how well these economic benefits are measured, if at all, and to a further question therefore, which is, despite the costs of staging events, do they actually generate a sufficiently greater revenue?

Local businesses would argue that they do. And this is the nub of the issue with the botellón parties which occur at Patrona or Districte 54. Yes, they can cause unpleasantness but they are really about potentially depriving businesses of revenue; hence the measures that are being introduced to try and limit their impact. People can put up with noise and mess if the tills are turning. And you can bet that those who packed the Pollensa town hall meeting weren't just revellers.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Patrona party to go ahead

The threat to the night party of the first into the second of August during Pollensa's Patrona festivities has been lifted, but the party will be shortened and will end at 2.30am. The hope is that this will reduce costs and also limit any "botellón" street drinking party. Local town halls are to be asked to help in checking buses which leave for the party and to stop the bringing of alcohol.

The Party's Over: Fiestas

The threat of cuts to fiesta programmes is becoming a reality. Pollensa town hall is considering scrapping the street party of the night of 1 August that runs on into the early hours of 2 August, the day of the Moors and Christians battle that is the climax to the town's Patrona festivities.

Mayor Tomeu Cifre has said that something has to give. If not the street party, then other things would have to go, one possibility being the "marxa fresca" (the white party) that is normally held on the night before the street party.

You might ask what the difference is between these two parties. Both are, after all, held in the streets and squares of Pollensa. The marxa fresca is more an open-air disco in the Plaça Major, whereas the street party of 1 August involves three squares holding rock and dance music concerts. The cost alone of staging this street party, according to the mayor, is 40,000 euros; 40,000 euros the town hall simply hasn't got.

The funding crisis for cultural events in Pollensa nearly claimed this year's music festival. While the previous town hall administration was tardy, to blame it entirely for the disorganisation is unfair. The new tourism ministry has ridden to the music festival's rescue in providing emergency funds, the ministry of the last government having blocked funding.

The town hall was short of nearly two hundred thousand euros for the music festival, money that had traditionally been forthcoming from the government. Though the new tourism minister, Carlos Delgado, has assured his support for the music festival, he has also made it perfectly clear that an examination of grants to events from the government is going to be undertaken - in an as objective fashion as possible. In other words, there can be no guarantee that the music festival, along with any other recipient of government cash, will be helped out so generously in future, if at all.

In the case of the music festival, why has the tourism ministry been helping to fund it? I raised the question before. What does it really do for tourism? Well, come on, what does it do? Anyone able to give a firm answer? I would very much doubt it. If any ministry should be putting its hands into its pockets, then it should be that for culture.

In terms of the economic resources directed towards fiestas or festivals and of the direct economic benefits from tourism, to justify funding in the name of tourism is sophistry.

In Pollensa the mayor has also said that the budget for this year's fiestas, well down in any event on what is needed, will see 30,000 euros directed towards the fiestas in Puerto Pollensa, both the recent "feria del mar" and the upcoming Virgen del Carmen.

The town hall has 130,000 euros in all at its disposal. Patrona in the old town gets the lion's share of the budget (100,000 euros), yet, with the exception of the Moors and Christians battle, Patrona doesn't necessarily attract huge numbers of tourists. The events in the port, on the other hand, do, for the very good reason that this is where most of the tourists are to be found.

This underlines the fact that, for all the talk of fiestas as traditional events which appeal to tourists, tourists are not the primary target. They are events for the local population; as is the case with the music festival as well. There is nothing at all wrong with this, but, and despite the music festival being a different category of event to fiestas, Delgado is absolutely right to be taking a hard look at grants. If by doing so, he sends out a message to town halls that they need to apply greater realism, then he will have done a great service.

To come back to the street party, there is a further reason for its possibly being scrapped, and that is the problems it causes. Increasingly, it has become an excuse for an almighty great piss-up - a botellón - and the ambience is less than pleasant. Calls have been made, for instance, for people to desist from using the streets as toilets.

In Sa Pobla they dropped their own street party last year. Similar reasons were cited to those in Pollensa where there has been disquiet expressed as to the fact that the fiestas have lost their sense of tradition among young people and simply become the launch pad for drunkenness and misbehaviour. So, Pollensa town hall has more than one agenda when it comes to abandoning the street party, but overriding this is the fact that the fiestas have needed to be scrutinised more intensely. It's a great shame that economic crisis has necessitated this, but it is long overdue.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa Patrona party under threat

The night party of 1 August into 2 August during the Patrona fiestas in Pollensa may not happen. The town hall is considering dropping the party on account of its cost and the problems it brings (excessive drinking, for instance). The party usually comprises rock and other bands playing on stages in different squares in the town.

Always Take The Weather With You

A mother and father of a downpour this morning, following a drab yesterday. Maybe the late-summer storms are here already. Whatever.

Weather. If there is one thing that people want to know about, it is the weather. “What’s the weather like in (choose your month)...?” I get it all the time, and all I can do is say what it was like last year. Go to various sites, and you’ll find all manner of pretty useless information. “I was in Alcúdia/Pollensa/Can Picafort (choose as applicable) 15 years ago, and it ...”. But even last year means little. There is no certainty with the weather, and the forecasts can be misleading. True, the storm today was on the cards, but you would have thought - from the forecast - that it would be like that all day. It’s been great.

I understand all the fretting about the weather. However stoic one might be, however much one might say, “oh well we can always go to the bar”, if the sun don’t shine, one is mightily hacked off. It’s what people come for after all. And then when the weather is lousy, as it was yesterday, the car-hire offices are packed and the bus stops as busy as Arab bazaars. But you can bet that all those people trying to get a Scenic for the day would rather have had a view from the beach than that of scenic countryside.


PATRONA REVISITED
Among those who have come through on the email is Ren Powell, who contacted me about the Patrona fiesta in Pollensa. Anyway, upshot of all this is that she has sent me some photos of the event, and very good they are, too. So, here are a couple. Thanks very much, Ren.



QUIZ
Yesterday - Blur. Today’s title? Easy.

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)

Let’s Go Fly A Kite

So much for what I was saying about the flat sea yesterday. Really whipping in today and windy. But this is not a weather report. Remember what I was saying about beach umbrellas and accidents. Well, add to beach umbrellas, beach kites.

Now we’re not talking kites as we knew them. Flimsy bits of paper or plastic glued to a shaky frame of balsa-wood. These kites are industrial. They are the beach-bound bastard cousins of the kites that kitesurfers use. Smaller than those but built with frames to withstand a nuclear attack, or certainly to withstand smacking into some hard beach at the speed of a VW cabriolet from a local car-rental firm hammering along a side road and into a passing drunk. And they smack into the beach with a heck of a thud. Missed me by a whisker. Really startled me though. Lying there knees up, eyes closed. It could have been between the knees. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

Last year, I waxed if not lyrically but slightly nostalgically about beach life as it was. In the days before the entire contents of Toys ‘R’ Us and Milletts got dragged onto the beach and deposited or erected thereon. When you could lounge in a stupor and be under attack only from a passing gull dropping its payload. Not now. Now you need body armour and headgear. In fact, a cricketer’s protective equipment - from box to helmet via chest and arm protectors would not go amiss for the contemporary beach.

The German girl who nearly neutered me was very sorry. And if I’m honest, had I fancied her a bit more I might have forgiven her completely and got up to give her a lesson - in kite-flying, that is. But I didn’t. So I didn’t.


PATRONA
Starting on the 26th of July is the jolly shindig that is the Pollensa Patrona festival. I’m not sure if an English version of the programme is available, but the tourist office very kindly sent me an elaborate PDF document. As usual it was in Mallorquín. But, as usual, I’ve translated it, and it’s on the website and the What’s On Blog. The big event is on the 2nd August, the simulation of the battle between the Moors and the Christians. Catch it while you can before political sensitivities put a stop to it. (The Moors got their bottoms slapped, and Moors are/were Muslims. That’s why.)


Quiz: It was Peter Cook and Dudley Moore as Derek and Clive. Today’s title: The film should be easy enough. But who, effectively, was the lead singer?