Nowhere To Go: Parking and all-inclusives

A Tuesday. I'll be in the office. Not me, someone else. Another little meeting. Another little waste of time. Ho hum. But being a Tuesday, it was worse than it might otherwise be. A Tuesday. Alcúdia old town. Oh, oh. Market day. I thought that I should park up by the primary school, where you can always park, market or no market. But then I thought. Nah, don't fancy the walk. I'll risk it.

By the side of Eroski, back of the auditorium. Nowhere. The streets are full of cars. Sod it, I'll go to the finca opposite the church, the overflow parking which is more THE parking, given that the proper parking by the church is inadequate. Bump, bump, gravel, gravel. Nowhere. It takes a while to even get out of the scruffy and stony dustbowl. Not just because of the number of cars exiting.

The exit to the parking finca. It has always been like this. No one seems to have ever thought to do something about it. There is an incline and on top of the incline is a ridge. It has never been flattened. It causes problems. To get over the ridge you have to give the accelerator some. The some can sometimes be so much that you shoot out onto the road, unable to stop. Or you manage not to do this but then realise you can't see left because of the parked cars. So you edge out, thus adding to the delays in exiting. Why can't they level the bloody exit? Is it really that difficult? No, it isn't. The answer why they haven't is probably because no one (town hall-wise) has had the sense to sort it out.

Having escaped, there is only one solution. The parking by the primary school. Where I should have gone in the first place. The walk was, despite everything, quite pleasant. But the office. Ah yes, the office. The door was shut. What a surprise. How does anyone get done in this damn place?

Oh, and remember what I was saying yesterday about people not phoning. I drop by somewhere else. All I need to know is whether or not I can include one line in a design. Chap's not there. What a surprise. So I leave the design with the mother. Maybe he can give me a ring and let me know. "Oh, don't count on that," she says (in Spanish). "He doesn't ring anyone." Didn't believe me yesterday? Well maybe you now do.

My head is exploding. What the hell is it with people here?


More evidence of the coming end of tourism life. Down The Mile way. Talk of a petition. Against what? What do you think? Yep, all-inclusives. Why? Because it's getting worse, it's being said. Now you're getting folk coming into bars - well lagered-up already - and watching the footy while taking on just a Coke during the match before returning for more lager, courtesy of the wristband. But more than this, there are complaints about behaviour, and remember we're talking The Mile here. The lagered-up ones coming to bars, falling over pissed, being abusive. And not, of course, spending much.

Away from the north, I hear that Santa Ponsa is a ghost town. It's going to be interesting to hear how the authorities talk their statistical way out of the miseries of May.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Not Televised: The end of tourism life

I don't like the word "rant". It suggests a rather unthinking outpouring of unbalanced sounding-off. I don't think I rant. Not knowingly anyway.

But I feel like a rant. I think. I feel like something more than a rant. I feel like standing in streets and shouting. I want to be a Manic Street Ranter. Even more than this, I have been considering the introduction of dog and animal noises into my everyday communication. I want to bark, growl, bare teeth, salivate, look rabid. Why? Because I am terminally hacked off with the apparent breakdown of what were once the niceties of picking up a phone, of giving an answer, of merely acknowledging the existence of an interlocutor who had previously been in contact.

I had been inclined to believe that this current-day malaise was a purely Mallorcan/Spanish disease. But it isn't. It appears to have crossed national boundaries. It matters not, it would seem, whether someone might owe you money or not. No, this isn't a reason for pretending to have disappeared. I don't actually know what the reason is. And it's not as if the new "alternatives" offer a solution to my wish to howl. One can just as easily ignore someone on Facebook as anywhere else.

Maybe it just comes down to some old-fashioned notions. Call me old-fashioned if you will, see if I care. Courtesy. I like this word, unlike rant, which I don't. A curtsy and a courtesy, madam?


Right. I don't really know what all the above was about, but there you go. Let's move on, shall we.

End of tourism life in Mallorca does of course come ever nearer. I'm running a book. The 24th of July is the favourite to be the actual end of tourism life. Some have somewhat stupidly suggested the 24th of September. Are they mad? No, no, it'll all be over before the autumn equinox. Trust me. I have seen the near future and it finishes the day before the Sant Jaume fiesta. Why am I so confident of this? Because when I enter a tourism-related establishment hereabouts, I am confronted with a "muy mal" and a conviction that the end is nigh. "Eat less meat." Remember him? The nutter who used to walk up and down Oxford Street. I'm wondering if I might take up the sandwich-boarding of new Day Zero along the paseos of old Puertos Alcúdia and Pollensa and all points Can Picafort. What a hoot.

There is though some justification for the end of the world occurring in late July, and at least part of it has to do with understanding the market. In Puerto Pollensa, things are, it would seem, worse than "muy mal"; they are muy, muy, mal, mal. I was told yesterday that the restaurants of the wrongly-monikered pinewalk, i.e. the promenade, which isn't the pinewalk, as opposed to the pinewalk, which is, were stripped of all human life a couple of nights ago. With one exception. Can you guess? Go on. Choke on your tex-mex. The Dakota.

It's not as if the Dakotas are that cheap. They're not. But what they are, is bright and suggest that human life does exist. It is, I'm sorry to have to tell you, a question of marketing.

And then there is Puerto Alcúdia. I wandered into a restaurant in the port where a German boy who had ended up working there because he had missed his flight told me that things were, erm, a little slow. I engaged him and the chap behind the bar in meaningful conversation. Some places, said I, weren't empty. Ah, but they're famous restaurants, it was suggested. Well no, not really, I replied. En route to the port of Alcúdia, I had passed a steak house, let's call it Dallas, shall we. It looked pretty full to me. Hardly famous. But it's in a good place, it doesn't make out that it is a work of art, its prices seem reasonable, the food looks presentable. And what do you know?

The problem is that, in these straitened times, too many businesses are working from the wrong perspective, their own. Who wants boutique-style eateries, serving up boutique-style dishes or "typical" cuisine? Well, some do, but many do not. It's hard for many to stomach, but business is business. The end of tourism life will be the 24th of July. But not for all.

Don't know. As I was writing this, something I hadn't heard for years - but did on Spanish radio the other day - came to mind. Collapse of tourism, collapse of financial systems, collapse of governments and old truisms regarding electoral systems. Gil Scott-Heron, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised:




Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.