Pep Talk: Intellectual property

It is a case from the mid-1980s I remember well. It was concerned with the notion of passing off, in this instance the use of a trademark considered to be similar to that of another business. The two protagonists were Laura Ashley and the wallpaper/home furnishings company Coloroll. The latter had developed a range of wallpapers that had a similar look to Laura Ashley's. This wasn't really the problem; the logo was. Coloroll's logo looked not unlike Laura Ashley's. It was an oval and had a sort of flowery arrangement inside it. So did Laura Ashley's. Whether consumers were inclined to think that there was some association between the two businesses is doubtful, but this wasn't of course the point; Laura Ashley's intellectual property and the goodwill and attributes of its brand were.

There is a very well-known global restaurant brand which has an establishment in Palma. Away from the capital, there is - or was - a restaurant that isn't globally known. Its name was very similar. Its logo was pretty much identical to the globally known brand. There was an application to register this as a trademark, which was seemingly and probably unsurprisingly opposed. Nevertheless, the restaurant with the similar name and logo operated for a season before changing the name the following season. The logo also changed, but not to the extent that this prevented a reviewer on Trip Advisor from still being able to comment on the similarity with a famous chain of restaurants.

The restaurant with the similar name and logo appears to be no more. At any rate, when I passed by the other day the sign was down and the "local" appeared to have been cleared. If it is no more, then it is a bit of a shame. It wasn't bad, and for the most part reviews on Trip Advisor agreed that it wasn't bad. But one does have to ask why it was felt necessary to apparently wish to imitate a very well-known restaurant. Surely some form of challenge had to be expected, which at best might mean having to go the trouble and cost of changing signs, menus etc. At worst, it might mean far more. Were the punters likely to have thought that there was a genuine association with the well-known brand? Probably not. In which case, why bother?

In Tenerife, lawyers acting for Gordon Ramsay are trying to find ways of dealing with a restaurant in Puerto Colon which has been trading by the name "Gordon Ransay's" for the past four years or so. You would think that, despite the alteration of one letter in the name, this is a clear infringement of intellectual property. Even with this one letter change, the script style of the restaurant's name could lead one to read it as "Ramsay", while the "R" is not a million miles away from the "R" that is in Ramsay's signature trademark. To make matters worse, this particular restaurant gets some rotten reviews. Ramsay has every right to be furious and to be frustrated by the difficulties encountered in tackling this apparent passing off.

Andema is the national association for the defence of trademarks and brands. Its director-general said recently that Mallorca and the Canaries were "black spots" for trademark falsification. He was speaking in the context of a product counterfeiting case involving a Chinese retailer who had been fined a mere 240 euros for selling a bag with the Louis Vuitton name. The reason for the low fine was that, though the retailer had acquired 1,075 pirated Vuitton bags, 1,074 of them were in a warehouse. Only one had been in the store.

Whether counterfeiting or passing off, the principle is the same; there is an attack on intellectual property, and I imagine most of us will be fully aware of the  counterfeiting that exists in Mallorca. No one is really duped into believing they're buying the genuine item (or at least you would hope they aren't), and while it might seem fairly innocuous to buy some fake sunglasses or what have you, the scale of the counterfeiting is anything but innocuous.

A national law of 2001 was designed to help protect large and well-known brands from infringements. How well it is being applied is perhaps a question that Gordon Ramsay might like an answer to, but there may nevertheless be a danger that it goes too far in undermining efforts of local entrepreneurs, such as those behind the successful Lemon Factory, makers of Pep Lemon. While the process of a challenge by Pepsi to its Pep Cola is ongoing, the company is marketing it simply as "Pep". There may be some similarity, but as everyone knows, Pep is a common name in Mallorca. Would anyone seriously mistake a Pep Cola for a Pepsi? No, but then such is the way with intellectual property.

The HOTguide for Alcúdia and Pollensa 2014

Already posted on The Hotguide blog (http://thehotguide.blogspot.com.es/), for double coverage, a note here as well that the summer 2014 HOTguide for the north of Mallorca is available as a PDF for free download. The online version is compressed, so the quality is not the same as with the original, but is still, hopefully, good. Go to: http://www.scribd.com/doc/225093704/The-HOTguide-Alcudia-and-Pollensa-2014

An Advertising Four-Letter Word

There was this thing in a paper about a tourist guide in Seville. The particular paper isn't important and nor is the tourist guide. What is, for my purposes, is what this paper said this guide offers - a guide to the "coolest" places to go.

Anyone who uses the word "cool" or its superlative should be made to sit inside an extremely hot sauna, the hottest that can be found, clad in thermals and a heavy overcoat. And if this purgatory of heat, as opposed to coolness, isn't sufficient to drive away the use of cool forever, then the cool miscreant should also be forced to write out one thousand times, "I will never again use a stupid, hackneyed and utterly meaningless word that is designed to somehow make me (or the thing I'm describing) appear to be hip (whatever this means), down with the kids or down with much older people than kids who appear to labour under a misapprehension that they are still kids".

I have a serious problem with a great deal of what passes for advertising-speak; a problem that confronts me during every waking moment in Mallorca. There really is some nonsense out there, and some of it is cool or coolest nonsense. But I am not about to pretend that I am holier than thou. Father, forgive me, for I have sinned and used or sanctioned some of this rubbish myself.

The local Mallorcan/Spanish restaurant insists on perpetrating a promotional crime that it is pretty much unique to it (oops, unique is a bad word and it can't be pretty much unique anyway), and this is the boast that it is a "specialist in meat". The only good thing to say about this is that it does at least achieve some hint of niching the product offer. I mean, you wouldn't say "specialist in food". Or maybe you would.

This idiosyncratic meat specialism isn't the only oddity of the "authentic" or "typical" Mallorcan restaurant (both of these words also being crimes of overuse against advertising humanity). There is the "artesana" typical authenticity which infiltrates advertising as well. The British, some of them, will be up to speed with the concept of artisan cooking, but local "cocina artesana" often ends up being translated in a more readily understood way, i.e. "handmade". I'm sorry, but unless the kitchens of Mallorca have been invaded by robots, is not all cooking handmade, as in the hands can come in quite useful for the making thereof? Alternatives to this artisan culinary craft are "rustic" and "cocina casera". Rustic? What the hell is rustic? I don't want to eat something that sounds as though it is some bits of old wood that have been marinaded in oxidised iron filings for several years. And as for "cocina casera" - home cooking, in other words - how many restaurants are actually homes? Not that many, I think you'll find.

While the local restaurant can fall prey to the typically authentic, artisanal, rustic, homemade, handmade, specialised-in-meat cliché, it can also, along with many other types of business, commit sins of meaninglessness, hyperbole and the just plain wrong. So, to avoid the fires of hell that should burn under anyone who has dared to use the c-word or the c-ist-word, here are the ten words (or phrase) that, under no circumstances, should you ever use, ever again anywhere near a piece of publicity.

Team, Service, Quality, Friendly, Finest, Caring, Catering to your needs, Value, Experience and of course Unique. There are others, but these are at the top of the list. And why? Well, with some of them, think for a moment. What are the opposites? Lack of service, lack of quality, unfriendly. They are attributes that are givens, or should be. But they are also tossed around with such predictability that they have come to mean precisely nothing.

Of these, the greatest sinner of all is "team". No, no, no. Except for the very rare examples of when a team might really be a team, there is no such thing. As with the garbage that is the "team-player" of recruitment ads (meaning what exactly?), a team can only be a team under very specific conditions. I shan't bore you with the explanation as to what these conditions are, but if team has been used just because it is thought to sound good, then the team almost certainly doesn't exist.  

But if there are words that should not be used, there are a few which could be. And we all know what the most important one is, don't we? It isn't cool, that's for sure. Begins with "f", four letters.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Puerto Alcúdia restaurant owners face steeper terrace tax

The value of public land on the Paseo Marítimo in Puerto Alcúdia has increased by over 300%, this revision of its value having been undertaken by the ports authority (it has dominion over the land, not the town hall). This means that the tax for terraces on this public land will jump to an average of up to 12 euros per square metre. There has not been a revision of the value for over 20 years, and restaurant owners had been warned of an increase.

See more: Ultima Hora

Sharing Your Dinner: Food and social media

Some New York restaurants are banning diners from taking photos of plates of food and from using flash photography. Among the reasons for instituting this ban are the distractions caused to other diners from flashes and the fact that the photos may not do justice to the chef's grand creations. The assumption with the latter is that the photos will, within a flash of flash, be plastered over social media: "foodstagramming" with Instagram.

There are other reasons why a diner should be less than rapid in whipping out the phone and snapping away. The diner who, for example, insists on getting up from the table and framing the shot is likely to look like a complete berk, but is there a wider issue we need to consider? That berkdom has taken hold on a universal scale. Why is there such a need to take photos of every damn thing we encounter?

In social media land, photomania is all part of a newly discovered human trait of sharing. It is sharing of the remote variety, not just because of the mode of communication but also because it doesn't involve sharing anything of any value. Sharing, caring social networkers will happily share a photo of a plate of steak and chips, but what else would they share? How about their home? Their wife? Their oxen? Or their neighbour's oxen? Or their well-endowed bank account? Social networking is sharing-lite, sharing that assuages conscience for otherwise not sharing, sharing for the typically and normally selfish, which is quite understandable. I mean, I'm not about to share my bank account with anyone else, even if it were well-endowed.

Social media have tapped into the latent, dormant human characteristic of displaying sociability via sharing. They are a get-out clause for the hoggish and offer a hands-off amelioration for selfishness, but by the same token they are equatable to other definitions of selfishness - egotism and narcissism. Or just plain and simple showing-off and braggadocio. Which brings us to food.

"Oh look, here I am in a Michelin-starred restaurant and this is the plate of minimalist, vastly overpriced, nouveau nosh that has set me back 70 quid." Even such self-deprecation cannot disguise the fact of the Michelin-starred restaurant. I'm here; you're not. Lol. Of course, it would be unlikely that the caring, sharing foodstagrammer would stoop to self-deprecation, because this would undermine one of the principal reasons for foodstagramming. The showing-off.

Not all of it is. Some of it is even justifiable, though to be honest, I can't think of a terribly good justification, other, I suppose, than it possibly being good publicity for the restaurant. But if it is good publicity, and not all restaurant owners are as against photography as some in New York, then how about they give a discount on the bill? Why should I, you or anyone potentially increase a restaurant's custom without getting something by way of return?

There is, though, the other side of all this foodstagramming. The downside side. "Oh look, here I am in Restaurant X with this pile of shit that they reckon is going to cost me 20 quid. They can reckon it, but I ain't paying. Would you?" Cue comments such as "no bloody fear" plus several recommendations and curious likes of the unliked. Oh, and some sharing.

And what of the potential for malevolence? The strategically placed dog turd next to the sausage, for instance. "If you don't give me a free meal, this goes straight to Trip Advisor, sucker." This would be an extreme case, I'd grant you, but there are those who might well contemplate scraping up the remains of Fido's dinner from the street and placing it by the rasher of bacon.

Scams that tourists try on in Mallorca's restaurants and bars are legendary. There really ought to be a manual that the tourism ministry compiles and hands out to all owners, just in case they haven't fallen foul of one of the many. And now, foodstagramming can be added to the manual. For every genuinely altruistic sharer of pork wrapped in cabbage, for every egotistical, five-starrer sharer with a serving of gold-encrusted lobster with hoopoe vomit sauce infused with nitroglycerin, there will be the snidey, pikey bill-non-payer who comes into an establishment with a bag of tricks with which to pull a trick and impregnate a potato with it.

Sharing? Don't just ban photos in bars and restaurants. Ban the phones.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Jerry-Built Front Line: Can Picafort

If you were to run a book on the flimsiest front line in Mallorca, then Can Picafort's would be among the short-odds favourites. In summer, the resort just about gets away with its front line. People give it the impression of substance when in reality the physical geography of its row of edifices betrays an unimposing impermanence of the jerry-built. It is flat-pack front line, a resort bought from MFI and put together with the use of a set of Allen keys.

Not all of the front line is uniformly in kit form, some of it is even quite attractive (all things being relative of course), but many of the bars and restaurants have been constructed (a word used in its widest and most liberal sense) from a design that does disservice to the word design. There isn't any in other words, other than the build-by-numbers approach of large floor space with usually brownish tiles (to disguise sand no doubt) enclosed by aluminium-framed glass windows. There is some disruption to this monotony - the use of wood for example - but otherwise Can Picafort's front line pays homage to a kind of Henry Fordist principle. Rather than any colour so long as it's black, it's a case of any type of restaurant so long as it imitates a barn with all the character of unicolorific mono-dimensionality.

I once read a short review of Can Picafort in which the reviewer referred to its "Spanishness". So surprised was I by this that I was prompted into writing an entire series of articles that attempted to define Spanishness. If Can Pic's front line is indeed representative of Spanishness, it is one that has been imported and moulded according to a cultural imperialism that re-draws whole landscapes and architectures. There is a feel of the English seaside, a chav traccie-bottomness, an understated presence of lowlife, a Jack-the-lad fairground dodgemness and  Hyacinth Bucket B&B landlady pretensions of social class way above actual status.

Such Spanishness is there that the names of the restaurants are internationalised. Niagara, Jamaica, Hawaii, Chocolate. It is the anytown, anyresort approach. Front line like an industrial estate of unit homogeneity.

However, I have a penchant for industrial sites as I also have a penchant for the kitsch, the camp, the kiss-me-quick, the post-modernist naffness of much seaside. It's why I defend Alcúdia's Mile. Yes, it is pretty abominable, but this is why I like it. The irony is that from the apparent veneer of a lack of character, character comes tumbling out. It is an example of making something out of nothing. The nothingness of architecture creates a vacuum. And as vacuums are abhorred, something has to fill them.

Can Pic's front line is similar. A lack of ostentatiousness breeds an honesty and a seaside integrity. It is seaside for purpose, not for show. Front lines adorned with the chic have an untouchable aloofness. They are to be admired rather than enjoyed. They are like the show houses that some choose to live in, those which demand you remove your shoes before even crossing the threshold. They are not built for comfort but for esteem.

In the agenda of the regional government's desire for resorts to be modernised, you would have to place Can Pic's front line very near the top of the list. But there is a reason why it conveys the impression of much of it having been jerry-built. This is because it has been. The beach is not deep in Can Picafort, so the sea is close. And in this part of the bay of Alcúdia, the beach and the front line are totally exposed. Buildings themselves are exposed to inherent design faults, not just of a lack of design but of having been plonked on what used to be there to protect the coast from the full force of nature - the dunes.

Though efforts have been made to stop or to reduce the flooding and the sand being hurled inland in winter, the proximity of the front line to the sea determines the nature of its constructed inhabitants. It is front line therefore with an additional purpose - one of not being so daft as to put something up of sophisticated opulence that is going to be given a thorough beating by the weather and by nature.

Of course, they should never have put the front line where it is. Even the maddest of urban planners must now concede this point. But it is where it is and it's not going away.

In winter, Can Pic's front line is stripped of any hint of grandeur. Yet it isn't without a splendid fascination that comes from being unremarkable. Yesterday morning it was all but empty. But it is emptiness which allows you to see somewhere as it really is.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Hostelry workers' strike of 20 July is off

Some good news on the industrial disputes' front. The planned strike by workers in the hostelry sector that had been due to take place on 20 July has been called off after an agreement was reached through the arbitration service with regard to wage levels. This agreement does not affect the planned strike by coach drivers on 21 and 22 July, but it may influence things if the coach drivers' unions were prepared to also submit to arbitration.

Discrimination?: Puerto Alcúdia's restaurants

Discrimination comes in various forms. Restaurants being discriminated against is not the first form of discrimination that might immediately come to mind when the D-word is being bandied about, but discriminated against is what the poor restaurant owners of Puerto Alcúdia's Paseo Marítimo believe they are being.

The reason for this lies with the marina, within the marina and with the entrance towards the marina. According to the restaurant owners of the paseo, Alcudiamar (to give the marina its actual name) has benefited this season from its evening market having started a month earlier than that along the paseo and does benefit from the way in which the paseo is designed (or not, if you consider the bridge that goes nowhere to be a total nonsense of design).

The evening market is one thing, though it must be said that the marina's market has not escaped criticism of a different sort in the past, i.e. that it is tacky, so it may not be the great draw some might believe, the paseo's layout is another. The restaurant owners seem to believe that the presence of the bridge somehow shuffles people into the marina. It is frankly a strange conclusion, and it is one that has taken years to arrive at, all the years since the damn thing was erected.

In restaurants along the paseo, you can order drinks that come replete with straws, and in the restaurant owners' arguments there are an awful lot of straws being clutched at. They may have a point where the different starting times for the markets are concerned (the marina's from the beginning of May, the paseo's from June), but not when they say that the bridge and the tourist office create a sort of visual impediment that add to a sense of discrimination. To be honest, I haven't a clue what they're going on about.

Well actually, I think I do have a clue. And the clue may lie with the recently formed restaurant association (it is one for the bay of Alcúdia, but its power base resides partly along the paseo, with one restaurant in particular). Though restaurants in the marina are a part of the association, as evidenced by the current restaurant association-organised gastronomy event which is going on, one has to appreciate that Alcúdia has its rivalries, and they are at their strongest in the port area.

Alcudiamar is essentially under the control of two people/families. I am not going to identify anyone or any companies, so you'll just have to take my word for it, but this is the situation. Along the paseo, there is certainly one family, two perhaps, who are the big cheeses. The restaurant association is very closely linked with one of these families.

I don't accept the claims of discrimination in favour of Alcudiamar. Not for one moment do I. Yes, it has benefited from a great deal of investment and yes, it does attract a great deal of attention, but the discrimination charge is one that stems from a power battle, and the battle is one of looking to influence the town hall. Which is fair enough, but the specious argument about the paseo's layout and the presence of the bridge reveals the lengths to which one side (the paseo's restaurant owners) will go in attempting to create a case for more town hall action in their favour and against the marina.

The argument is not just specious, it is also ridiculous. Of course people will walk into the marina. This has nothing to do with the paseo's layout, it has everything to do with the fact that there are boats to look at and that it seems like a nice place to walk. That restaurants in the marina might then benefit, well good luck to them, but I'm not convinced that they always have. The level of turnover among the relatively few restaurants in the marina has been much higher than that along the paseo, which suggests that they either pay rents that are too excessive or they haven't attracted sufficient business or both.

More can always be done to make the paseo more "dynamic", and the association is insisting that the town hall add some dynamism, but when you learn of some of the criticisms of a lack of dynamism, you have to ask why aren't the restaurants doing more themselves and not simply expecting the town hall to do it all for them.

A case in point. There are restaurants at the far end of the paseo, heading towards the commercial port and Alcanada, to which comparatively few tourists go. The reason why they don't is because it looks as though there isn't a great deal there. So what do you? You try and ensure that people keep walking, yet I once spoke to a restaurant owner in this part of the paseo who said that he didn't need to advertise because his "table" was his publicity. And so good was it, he is no longer there.

Discrimination does not exist. Power battles do, as does a need to shift blame, as in onto the town hall, and as does an inability on behalf of restaurants to assume the initiative. But if you really want to talk about discrimination when it comes to restaurants in Puerto Alcúdia, then let's talk about those which are located in the main tourist centre around Magic and Bellevue. What do they ever get?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Hotel strike due for 20 July in the Balearics

The two main unions representing workers in the hostelry sector in the Balearics have announced that there will be 24-hour strike on 20 July. This is a consequence of the unions not being able to reach an agreement with employers regarding salaries and other employment conditions. The unions say that there may be a further strike in August if agreements still cannot be reached. The hostelry sector covers hotels and also restaurants.

Don't Fry For Me, Argentina

You wouldn't want to be an Argentinian at the moment, unless you were in Argentina. When I asked a good Argentinian, restaurant-owning friend of mine what he thought of the señora del hierro in Buenos Aires, his response was to the point - "puta". The hierro lady is a tramp. She's going to make life difficult for Argentinians in Mallorca and in Spain.

There is a not unnatural smugness among the Brits in indulging in a touch of schadenfreude. All those Mallorcans and Spaniards going around proclaiming the rights of the Malvinas and condemning the imperialism of a former iron lady now find, as an Argentinian boot is placed firmly up the jacksy of Spanish interests, that the British may have had a point.

But with any conflict, and even when there isn't a conflict, come the xenophobia and the irrational. During the Falklands crisis, I was in Amsterdam. There were demonstrations against the British. What had the Falklands to do with the normally sensible Dutch? Nothing, but irrationality can consume even the most level-headed of people. Britain, nasty imperial power; Argentina, poor underdog being doormatted under the weight of handbag tonnage. Or something like this.

So it is, or is likely to be, that the Mallorcan Argentinians, of whom there are many, will find themselves copping for some xenophobia over and above that which they normally cop. Mallorcans, Spaniards don't all much care for the Argentinians. Indeed, they don't much care for most South Americans; they're idle and loud. Pot, kettle, black.

President Fernández, President Kirchner (whichever you prefer) has of course learnt the lessons of history, and learnt them well from the iron handbagger. Bit of local, domestic difficulty - and she has it in the form of austerity, among other things - and some sabre-rattling can work wonders in the opinion polls. Some Falklandising has been followed up by the nationalisation of Repsol's stake in YPF.

Talk about kicking a country when it's down. Fernández de Kirchner would doubtless have been taking a keen interest in Spain's implosion. The time to strike was right. All publicity might be considered good publicity, but at present Spain is in desperate need of a Max Clifford of international relations. With quite staggeringly poor timing, the royals have become the elephant in the room where a hunt in Botswana was concerned (for which the King is now apologising) and literally have managed to shoot themselves in the foot, thanks to the boy Felipe and the gun he shouldn't have been handling.

Spain's foreign minister has taken a metaphorical leaf out of the royal literal book and suggested that it is in fact Argentina that has shot itself in the foot. All these feet being shot and no one's going to have a leg to stand on, which includes he who grows greyer by the day, Mr. Grey, Prime Minister Rajoy, who is actually proving to be as useless as it was suspected he would be (apart from all those in his party who hadn't purged him years ago). Faced with the YPF nationalisation, what will Rajoy do? Arrange for the armada to gather in Cadiz? If so, best he leaves it until after the 29th of April, the date on which Drake sank the armada in 1587. Given the way things are going, though, a Spanish fleet heading off across the Atlantic would probably manage to capsize off the Canaries.

Frantic efforts to bail out the naval rowing-boat are matched only by the frantic efforts to find a way of preventing a need for Europe to come with a large wedge of financial bail out. It's as well that Europe is around when you most need a friend. It's coming to Rajoy's aid and telling the Argentinian president to stop behaving like an Argentinian.

Still, with all Spanish pride sinking faster than its armada might, there is always football to keep the spirits up, though quite what Lionel Messi makes of his president, who knows. Presumably, he won't, on scoring a goal, be lifting his shirt to reveal a t-shirt with "Repsol out" scrawled on it. He probably thinks much the same as my restaurant-owning friend, if he thinks at all, that is.

And back at the local Argentinian restaurants, they'll be hurriedly pulling down the Argentinian grill signs and hastily erecting ones saying typical Mallorcan cuisine, while insisting that workers boycott the nearest Repsol petrol station. When the steak gets near the plancha, they'll be denying everything by singing "don't fry for me, Argentina". Do you suppose Madonna's being lined up to play Kirchner?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Agreement on sepia for Alcúdia's gastronomy fair

Following all the fuss last year when restaurant owners refused to pay the rates for locally caught sepia (cuttlefish) for Puerto Alcúdia's sepia gastronomy fair and when the fishermen in turn opted not to take part in the fair, an agreement has been brokered by the town hall that will see the local restaurant association commit to buying 20 kilos of sepia from the town's fishermen. The fair takes place over the weekend of 21 and 22 April.

Since When?

I shall not identify the establishment in question, but let's just say that it is somewhere in Alcúdia. It hasn't opened yet and I fear that once it has opened it won't be open all that long. I hope I'm wrong, as no doubt some no small expense has been gone to in preparing the place.

Why might it not be open all that long? Well, its location isn't that good for starters. What it claims it will be offering also doesn't set the pulse racing. One element is a type of fritter commonly associated with parts of the Spanish mainland.

The location and the offering aside, the establishment does have a big marketing message. It is the "since" message. Since 1912 in this particular case. Having mentioned the place in conversation, it was suggested that this was the year a brewery was founded, thus implying that the brewery in question had perhaps helped with getting the place going. This could be right, but the brewery was in fact founded in 1904, even if it established itself in Madrid in 1912.

Whatever the link to 1912, however tenuous it might be, is there any value in making a thing of the "since" message? Plenty of bars, restaurants and other businesses do this, especially locally. Sometimes the "since" is genuine; other times it appears to have been either made up or be based on a year only partly related to the business.

There is a mentality among Mallorcans and the Spanish which lends apparent longevity and history copious amounts of credibility. Whether the same "since" message has much or any impact with tourists from different countries is probably doubtful. Do visitors go through a process by which they think, oh, look, this restaurant has been around since (add as applicable), it must be good, therefore we must patronise it? Some might, but most, I would suggest, do not.

Being able to say that a restaurant or whatever has been going for 50, 60, 100 or however many years, so long as it genuinely has, does establish it as not being fly-by-night, but the message can be one that targets the owners themselves; it is for their esteem. It is also a message that is inherently passive. Saying you've been in business for however long equals you (the punter) should buy our product or meals simply because we have been here for so long. Not always. There are restaurants which merit their boasting their longevity; it does all rather depend on the restaurant.

The Mallorcans do love their history or at least being able to draw upon history as a means of justification. As mentioned yesterday, the Fomento del Turismo appears to still be in existence partly because its history suggests that it should be. There are times, however, when longevity should demand a re-think, even to the point of consigning something to the history books.

A re-think is precisely what opposition groups of the uppity, leftist, nationalist tendency at Pollensa town hall are calling for with regard to Puerto Pollensa's military base. 75 years old on Monday, what better time than to declare it open to civilian access, as has been demanded for some years? And these some years are now probably sufficient to require their own celebration.

Why 75 years should be a reason for changing the base's status is anyone's guess. It is a convenient hook, but national defence ministries, as in Spain's Ministry of Defence, tend not to think along such lines, except when celebrating something military, though given the base's history (Condor Legion, Guernica bombing, Francoist associations), you might think they would prefer to keep it quiet.

At least with the base, however, it does have the advantage of being unique, as in there aren't any others in the immediate vicinity. If the "since" message is to be relayed, then it's best if it really stands for something significant. Which brings me to "The Bulletin". It is fifty years old this year. I happen to think this is a decent achievement; it's older than "The Sun" - by two years.

With the military base and with the paper, there is no disputing the "since" message, nor is there any disputing the significance of both. There is genuine history, as there is for some restaurants. There is one in Puerto Pollensa, Celler La Parra, which plays the "since" card. Since 1962, the same year as "The Bulletin". And the fact is that it looks as though it has been there since 1962. Not because it's falling to pieces, but because it has the feel and appearance of a certain and real antiquity and a reputation that has been forged over fifty years.

The since 1912 place doesn't have this. It is located in a modern "local". Since roughly the turn of the century. If history is to be aspired to, it has to be history in context. Otherwise it looks out of place.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Burying The Hatchet: Tourism law

Idioms and colloquialisms cross cultures and languages. "To bury the hatchet" originates from America, and it found its way into common usage thanks to the tomahawk of the Iroquois Indians being literally buried as a gesture of the ending of hostilities.

The Spanish also bury the hatchet, though being Spanish, they do it in a different language: "enterrar el hacha". The hacha has been buried by the tourism sector, which had been at war over proposals contained in the regional government's draft tourism law. The war had been waged between the hotels and the so-called complementary offer sector, most notably the restaurants and entertainment/nightclub providers, and the burying of the hatchet is intended to demonstrate a united front in the tourism sector, albeit that the complementary offer is still decidedly hacked off with the tourism minister Carlos Delgado. Hacked off it may be, but hacking him to pieces is no longer an option, if it ever was.

What had agitated the complementary offer in particular was the fact that hotels might, under the new law, have ended up becoming "total" hotels, offering pretty much everything that is available outside their walls or grounds, to the competitive disadvantage of the wider tourism sector, be it restaurant, disco or whatever.

The hatchet buried, the peace pipe is due to be passed around at future pow-wows between the hotels and the complementary offer as they form their alliance against (or is it with?) the Great White Chief, namely Delgado. Against or with is a good question to pose, as the the fact is that the hotels will probably still end up being "total" hotels, if they so wish. There seems to be have some acceptance by the hotels that the "secondary activities" that the law would permit have to be limited so as not to cause unfair competition. But how limited might limited be? For how long will this ending of hostilities last? You wouldn't bank on the ceasefire being broken, and broken quite quickly, by the hotels.

It is not as if the hotels have previously shown that they are that well-disposed to accommodating the complementary sector by limiting what could be described as unfair competition. There have certainly been noises from the hoteliers that are far more conciliatory, but the history of the all-inclusive does not act as a great example for a future, more co-operative approach.

The complementary offer has been keen to press for standards of quality when it comes to all-inclusives. This may sound like the restaurants and the other components of the complementary offer are like turkeys in North American forests voting for Christmases of the Iroquois hoteliers with their axes, but the acceptance of the need for greater standards is about all the complementary offer has in its defences. By pressing for greater quality, it hopes that some hotels will be unable to comply with standards and so have to abandon all-inclusive.

The hotels are said to be broadly in agreement with this, but for it to stick would require more than just a broad agreement. It would need to be in black and white with many an i dotted and t crossed and enshrined in law. The draft tourism law is currently mute on the subject. Redrafting in order to embrace this quality standard would take forever. It is hugely doubtful whether it could even be drafted as law. But if it weren't, then how could it ever be made to stick? Moreover, standards that are currently meant to be met seem to have typically been given the ok by tourism ministry inspectors when it is highly questionable as to whether they have been met.

It may be in the hotels' best interests for there to be high quality standards, but there are the interests of others, i.e. different classes of tourists and of course the tour operators. The latter also want the highest of standards, but tourism comes in all shapes and sizes with all sorts of sizes of wallet. To insist on standards of quality that would be beyond some hotels runs the risk of putting these hotels out of business.

The government is determined to raise quality as a means of raising tourism competitiveness. This is laudable, but the practicality is another issue. I can think of hotels that would seriously struggle to be able to meet standards of service that might be contemplated. Ultimately, the hoteliers, as a group, will defend its members, regardless of what peace accords are arrived at with the complementary offer. The hatchet may have been buried, but it can just as easily be dug up again.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

In The Middle Of Nowhere

It used to be a restaurant, a different type of restaurant, one that had struggled. The lady owner was pleasant to the point of being jolly, but she couldn't disguise the problems the restaurant experienced. They decided, four years ago, to call it quits.

The restaurant remained closed. A small garden in front of its entrance, hemmed in by a low wall, gathered discarded Coke cans and beer bottles. The alcove of the entrance porch filled with detritus, and the council's street blowers would add to it by scattering leaves into its accommodating enclosure.

Then one day there was activity. For a year, the work involved not just the old restaurant but a unit next to it, a former supermarket which, like the old restaurant, had suffered from little trade.

It hadn't been clear what was being created, until finally the name appeared, the glass frontage became evident and the terrace was laid. It was a new restaurant. A large restaurant, one made from two previously sizeable units. It was classy. From the outside you couldn't have known how big the kitchen was, how well-equipped and modern it was, or that the restaurant bent in an L-shape, so that there was as much again as that which was apparent if you stood in front of it.

The new owners were pleasant as well. It was unfortunate that the work had dragged on so that it hadn't opened until half way through the summer season, but there was optimism. There was, after all, no other restaurant immediately nearby. The parking was easy. There were hotels not far away. There were plenty of holiday homes and permanent residents.

The optimism didn't last long. By the following season pessimism had taken root. The causes were not unfamiliar: all-inclusives; the amounts folks spent nowadays; economic crisis. The redevelopment work had begun to be undertaken before the impact of crisis was apparent. Bad luck?

Not totally. The reasons for the initial optimism were also reasons for wondering as to the wisdom of the restaurant. Having no competitor nearby isn't necessarily an advantage. Being grouped with other restaurants creates an attraction as well as an atmosphere. Isolation can mean neither. A solitary restaurant, let's say, for sake of argument, Can Cuarassa on the bay of Pollensa between Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa, can benefit. It does so through the drama of its location. But the restaurant of our story, though in a pleasant enough location, does not have the same power of landscape or place.

Of the hotels not far away, some are far away enough to be far away, and they are also strongly all-inclusive. The other hotels, which are closer by, are more chic, five-star chic. A strong market you would think. Yes, but this is a strong market which can afford to take taxis to restaurants with more dramatic locations, a clientele that prefers to venture further afield, a clientele not just with money but also with a sense of its own worth, one better catered for by the ambience and gastronomic reputations of the area's old towns or by splendid beachside establishments or by fine finca restaurants in the island's hinterland.

This was intelligence that was known or that could have been sought before the new restaurant was born. There was other intelligence that was known, such as the growing influence of the all-inclusive and the trend towards lower tourist spend that pre-dated the economic crisis. Some of the factors which might have been grounds for optimism were the same ones that had led to the old restaurant closing.

Yet the new one came along. And it replaced not only the old one but grafted on the adjoining unit. How much had it cost? The time alone that was taken on conversion must have meant a significant outlay.

The pessimism grew. And finally, just recently, the restaurant gave up. It is sad to see it go, but it is not a surprise. The model for its business was never there. Its market existed more in the hope than in the reality. Its size was one thing, its location another. It wasn't in the middle of nowhere as such, but it might as well have been. Indeed had it been, it might, blessed by a more remote and more dramatic location, have been more viable.

But even with the knowledge and the market intelligence, would the mistake have been avoided and will the mistake be avoided in the future? Optimism, egotism, blind faith; they can all contribute to the heart ruling the head and making opaque what should be transparently obvious. Similar stories are yet to be told and similar mistakes will keep on being made.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Square, Practical, Good: Germans and food

The Germans are a people of routine and convention, not least when it comes to food and drink. They are also a people who believe, not always wrongly, that if it's made in Germany (it referring to anything), it's better than from somewhere else. When it comes to cars, they are right. Food, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter.

The German attitude to food has been no better encapsulated than in the ultra-snappy slogan for Ritter Sport chocolate. "Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut." Square, practical, good. It's less a slogan and more a series of words that, in translation, form a lesson for German engineers to explain in English the shape and benefits of whatever they happen to be engineering. Even something as ostensibly pleasurable as eating chocolate needs to be explained according to a manual.

And so it is with other German food. Its functionality dominates over its genuine appeal. It is practical, square in the sense of providing a square (and usually large square) meal, but not necessarily any good.

The Germans engineer everything. And food and drink are no different. Mealtimes are precisely determined as though by real-time systems engineering. Twelve on the dot is lunch. Four on the dot is coffee and cake. Seven on the dot is the evening meal.

The routine and convention are such and the made-in-Germany tag so prevalent that it is hard to imagine any un-Germanic influences disturbing the pre-set equilibrium of German mealtimes and the German propensity to hoover up an entire beef herd in one sitting. However, this convention does skip cultures.

It must be all that engineering, but Germans approach the culture of Mallorcan food with a process of both scientific conformity and enquiry. Unlike the British, who are both predominantly an uncurious breed and one not inclined to be told how they should conduct themselves, the Germans take their convention of process control with them when they travel, along with their manuals. A guide book of some description is always to hand in informing them as to the convention as to what they should eat. They try tapas, for example, because the guide book says so. If it's in the manual, it must be correct.

All this brings us to the impact of a substantial increase in the number of German tourists in Mallorca's main resorts this summer. In Alcúdia, for example, there is a 20% increase in German tourism, one that has not been anything like matched by an increase in British tourism. This increase has had an effect on one area of the local restaurant business. The Indians.

Curry would not be something to be found in the German tourist's manual for eating in Mallorca, but the Germans, as with the British, are still very much creatures of habit; witness, for example, all that coffee and cake being wolfed down at four on the dot every afternoon. And curry has a peculiarly German flavour and a peculiarly German application. The sausage.

Curry wurst is a German institution. While it is thought that the Germans don't have the same taste for tandoori or balti as the Brits, they do like smothering their sausages with curry sauce. It might seem odd that one restaurant has suddenly re-branded itself as a German curry house, but not when you consider this tradition.

Checkpoint Charlie, for this is the new name, boasts that it offers "Berlin curry". When I went past and saw this, I thought it was completely mad. I know I shouldn't have, but it conjured up the thought of waiters from the sub-continent sporting lederhosen and their lady wives swapping their saris for a dirndl. There again, they don't generally wear lederhosen in Berlin.

But it isn't quite as mad as it first seemed. There's something of a moral here. It is one of reacting swiftly to what is happening in the tourist market. If there are that many more Germans around, then adapt to try and attract the business. Berlin curry may not conform to the conformity of how the Germans approach their Mallorcan eating experiences, but it is at least in line with a German market that is nothing if not conventional. Whether there should be a slogan though, I'm not sure. Practical? Possibly. Good? With any luck. But how do you describe the shape of a sausage?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Keep It Simple: Design

"The Bulletin" has been re-designed. As part of a stable that boasts the Catalan daily "dBalears", which won an award for its makeover, the result of this re-design should be positive.

The "dBalears" revamp was contemporary in one very strong regard. Its look owed and owes much to internet presentation. It is perhaps an irony of digital competition that the print media should ape this competition, though it is not a surprise. Good layout on a screen demands clean lines and appearance; the same principle applies to whatever format.

There is, however, design and there is design. No, make that that there is design, design and design. Design that is simply no good, that which is good, and that which is good but completely misses the point.

I was in a bar the other day (the Jolly Roger). There was a poster on one of the wooden posts. I looked at it and I continued to look at it. I had to go back and look again. Finally, someone (Grizz) came in and without asking pointed at something on the poster and announced that a complaint should be made. There it was. What I had been unable to see. The date.

If you are going to have a poster for an event, in this case a horse spectacular in Alcúdia, one fairly basic requirement is that you clearly communicate when it's taking place. This poster does nothing of the sort. The reason for my being unable to locate the date was how it had been designed.

The problem with the design was that the date was not only to the left, it was also vertical. Its positioning and style broke two fundamental rules. One is that the eye tracks to the right, unless you're an Arabic reader and the eye goes the other way, in which case you will have just read "daer tsuj evah ...". While the main visual look of the poster, that of a horse, strangely enough, grabs the attention, it is the information that needs to be communicated which is as important, and being informed as to when the show is happening is far from unimportant.

Just as the eye tracks to the right and not to the left, so it also, or rather the brain, needs to adjust to a vertical visual and more specifically text that runs vertically. It's why I couldn't see it, even though it was literally staring me in the face.

There is nothing wrong with breaking rules, but design which may be good (and to be honest the overall poster design isn't that good) has to keep to the point. Which is to communicate.

In Mallorca, there are an awful lot of designers. It seems, at times, as though whole school years leave education armed with a design qualification. There are hordes of them, armed with Photoshop and Illustrator and with innovation firmly in mind. This has spawned some remarkably good graphic work. The standards of Mallorcan design are high, owing at least something to an artistic heritage on the island.

However, the craving for innovativeness can get in the way of the message. Similarly, a lack of appreciation as to audience can also obscure what it is that is meant to be conveyed. I'll give you an example.

A few years ago, the Pollensa autumn fair had a visual that was meant to be some sort of agricultural tool. You could have fooled me. It looked more like a sex aid. I was completely baffled by it. While it may have meant something to the local Mallorcan population, it meant nothing to anyone else. Too much promotional material suffers from a failure to communicate in different languages, but when the visual imagery misses the point of its audience, or potential audience, then any innovation becomes pointless.

Simple really is often the best. Take design for restaurant adverts. Tedious may be the almost default style of advert which shows a terrace or an interior, but it is actually important. It was a message that came over when someone was analysing different designs as a tourist. Those with shots of what the place looked like were more meaningful than something more arty that didn't. The message was very powerful, because the very audience the adverts were being intended for was being influenced by one of the most powerful things a restaurant has to sell - its look.

And look is everything. Adverts, brochures, newspapers. And simple is also very often everything.


N.B. The re-design of "The Bulletin" is from Saturday, 30 April. This article, forwarded as usual for reproduction in the paper, would appear to have been vetoed on the grounds that the design team responsible for the re-design might be a bit "touchy". Can anyone explain why? Given that this article had been knocked out earlier than would normally be the case, as with a now alternative, in order to help them out for their grand re-launch (at a time when I don't have a lot of spare time), I feel I have every right to be a tad pissed off. Perhaps sensibilities towards contributors and remuneration might be as strong as that afforded to a bunch of designers.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

We'll Fight Them On The Beach Restaurants

So, here was an interesting little thing that caught my eye. In "The Bulletin" on Sunday. The headline was "Menorca fights all-inclusive tourist offer". The short news item said that the "Council of Menorca" (was) fighting back against the all-inclusive offer by setting up an online scheme where(by) visitors planning to come to the island can survey local restaurants giving meals at a special price, and calculate their expenses in advance."

What a very good idea, thought I. Visitors would also be able, the piece continued, to compare costs against that of an all-inclusive offer. Intrigued, I went in search of the website. I was intrigued not just by what seemed a good idea but also by the surprise of it. Why was I surprised? Well, would an island council, Menorca's or any other, actually be presenting something that might be seen to undermine its hotels? Yes, it wants to boost its restaurants and other businesses, and no, the councils aren't necessarily in cahoots with the hotels as such, but "fighting back" against AI? Was it really doing this?

Disappointingly, it isn't doing this. On the "Menorca Full Experience" site, the introduction says that we (tourists) want to know in advance costs of various things and that we have a problem with budgeting for lunches and dinners. Nowhere is there any mention of all-inclusives. Might this be for a reason other than letting tourists make some cost comparison, as in all-inclusives will soon be a thing of the past?

The island's tourism minister, Lázaro Criado, said, when the site was launched at the start of March, that "we understand that all-inclusive is not the agreed strategy for the long term in Menorca, although it can prove useful in the short term". Just like Mallorca, then. If anyone can decipher what the minister means (and it is hard to believe what he appears to mean), answers on a postcard with a picture of one of the participating restaurants, assuming you can find one of them.

The idea behind the site is that restaurants are listed, along with their menus, and a discount price is offered on production of a voucher that can be printed out. Fair enough. But hardly new. A slight problem with what there is on the website at present is that there are very few restaurants participating. How many? Three. Yes, three. In the whole of Menorca. In certain sections of cuisine and in certain "urbanisations", there are none listed. One presumes it's all early days.

This website has nothing to do with all-inclusives, but everything to do with promoting local gastronomy, all three restaurants' worth of it. There's nothing wrong with such promotion, while it would indeed have been a surprise had there been some sort of cost-comparison measures being presented, which there aren't. One can of course do one's own cost comparison, by schlepping through all manner of websites to get to the comparison, but you won't get it by "falling in love" with Menorca, the claim of the tourism board's site.

Giving some advance information about what it might cost to eat out is not, in itself, a completely bad idea. It is one of the questions holidaymakers ask all the time, along with how much does a pint cost and what's the weather like. The trouble is that the answers to them are of the string variety. How long is a piece of it? The weather you can be reasonably sure of, in July for example, but not in September. As for the costs of eating out, one man's meat is another man's pizza, as indeed one man's Burger King is another man's typical Mallorcan (or Menorcan) cuisine in a romantic, beach-side setting. It's not comparing eggs with eggs, or a fried egg with a rasher of bacon with quail's eggs and smoked salmon.

Calculating the holiday budget in advance, by sizing up less than a handful of restaurants' menus, with or without discounts, does rather overlook the increasing trend for the holidaymaker to have pretty much a set budget to spend, regardless of advance price information or discounts. And while a discount here or there might be tempting, it won't be if it means trekking across an entire island in search of it. To be of any real value, discounts have to be clustered in an area close to the holidaymaker, but if enough establishments offer them then the offer itself becomes standard and thus loses its capacity to incentivise.

As for a cost comparison between all-inclusives and a mix of accommodation and eating-out, it could well be that one can make a case for the latter working out cheaper. Again, it does all rather depend. But even this overlooks a crucial ingredient in the all-inclusive's favour, which is its sheer convenience. Holidaymakers should be more adventurous, but many have lost the capacity for adventure-seeking because they are handed everything on a paper plate, together with the poolside, plastic knife and fork.

Menorca is not fighting back. It is not fighting the all-inclusive on the beaches, as only one of the three restaurants is indeed a beach restaurant. Criado also reckoned that "with this formula (that of the website, whatever this formula actually is) we wish to respond specifically to the demand for all-inclusive in Menorca". If so, when why not say so. On the website. There again, all-inclusive is not for the long term, says Sr. Criado. Who's he trying to kid?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Through Sepia-Tinted Spectacles: Alcúdia's cuttlefish fair

Sepia, in English, is the fluid secreted by cuttlefish. The word is more commonly associated with sepia tint, the brownish colour utilised by designers, film-makers and others to provide a nostalgic, clichéd effect that represents "old". Though the inky fluid itself might not be used any longer, it was this that first gave us sepia tint.

In Puerto Alcúdia, the Confraria de Pescadors (literally, the fishermen's brotherhood) has its own building. It is on the old pier in the port. In it, there are ancient photos, some of them with sepia tint. These photos have, on the occasion of past spring fairs in Puerto Alcúdia, formed exhibitions of the local fishing history. This year, the building and the Confraria will not be taking part in the spring fair.

Sepia, or sipia, depending on your linguistic preference, is Spanish and Catalan not only for the tint but also the cuttlefish itself. The sepia fair, combined with a nautical fair, has become an established, early-spring event in the port. The boat bit was spun out from the autumn fair in the old town as a way of addressing the fact that the port was missing out in not having its own fair. Locating it in the port also made greater sense. And so it was that when the idea for the boat fair was hit upon, they decided to invent another one to celebrate the local fishing industry, its heritage, its skills and its different major catches, of which sepia is one.

Devoting an entire fair to what for most Brits is something to do with keeping budgerigars happy and to what is like stuffing an inner tube into your mouth seemed, to this Brit anyway, a weird pretext for a celebration. Unless it is cut into small pieces, fried with herb and spice and served with rice and some mayo, cuttlefish is rotten, to the point of being inedible. But then who am I to deny a culinary tradition, even if it is no good?

The first sepia and boat fair in 2006 was a huge success. Blessed by perfect April weather, warm, blue skies brought out vast numbers of visitors in giving the port a pre-season boost. Terraces were jammed, so much so that some restaurants could barely cope with the demand.

Since 2006, the fair has hit some difficulties. The crowds still come, but there have been rumblings from some restaurants that they have been overlooked when it comes to participation, while others have moaned about demands placed upon them for paying for town hall promotion.

The boat fair has also not escaped some backlash. Though it is the island's largest outside of Palma, it is small by comparison. Some nautical-related businesses in Alcúdia itself, those situated close by in the Alcudiamar marina, have ceased to have their own stands, either on the grounds of cost or because they can't afford to have personnel at both a stand and at their units in the marina. The most popular stands during the weekend event are not those with boats, jet-skis and the like, but the craft stalls of the market that was a later addition to the fair's mix.

There is now a further difficulty. The Confraria, the fishermen themselves, are going to withdraw their support and participation. While the sepia fair was partly intended to be a celebration of the fishermen's work and of their cuttlefish catch, this hasn't proven to be the case. Restaurants, rather than buying their sepia from the local fishermen, get it from wholesalers at prices half or more than those that they have to pay the fishermen. It is for this reason that the fishermen are planning to down nets and take them home over the weekend of 9-10 April.

Alcúdia's mayor, Miguel Llompart, has been attempting to arbitrate in what has become a real old spat between the restaurant owners and the fishermen. He concedes that the negative responses from the fishermen in respect of, for example, lowering their prices a tad will mean that neither the Confraria building nor the old pier will be part of this year's fair. The pier is in fact loaned out for the event, and on it, were it once more to be made available, would be a marquee in which restaurants would sell tasters of sepia that has not been bought locally.

Though it seems perverse that the fair should not feature the local catch, one can have sympathy for the restaurant owners. Why should they pay up to 12 euros a kilo when they can get away with paying as little as four euros? An answer might be that they should be prepared to pay the higher rate; they do, after all, reap some benefit from the event and they are part of the same local economy as the fishermen. But needs and economic times must, you have to suppose.

Without the local catch, however, the whole event becomes a bit of a charade. The sepia angle becomes a commercial excuse rather than a cultural justification. The fair, when it started, was a very good idea, but the best of ideas can become mired in local battles. And so, in years to come, there will be photos of the first, glorious spectacle, a reminder of what it once was, tinted with sepia.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Alcúdia's fishermen snub annual cuttlefish fair

The annual sepia (cuttlefish) fair that takes place alongside the boat fair in Puerto Alcúdia, and which is scheduled for the weekend of 9 to 10 April, looks as though it will not involve the local fishermen who capture the sepia, or indeed their sepia. The fishermen's association has said that it will not participate or assist in any fashion as it gets no support from local restaurants which, rather than buying sepia from the Alcúdia fishermen, acquire it from wholesalers. The restaurants argue that they can get high-quality sepia at around half the price than that which it costs from the local fishermen.

China In Your Hand

Here's an illuminating fact. In just one month, October of last year, the volume of Chinese products that were bought in Mallorca was double that for the whole of the year 2000. The Chinese invasion, that can be seen in the growth of the number of shops selling cheap products, shows no sign of slowing down. While crisis forces others out of business, Chinese businesspeople step in and snap up premises. The Chinese population in Mallorca, now just over 4,000, is only around a quarter the size of the British, but it is also growing and is different in one respect - the Chinese do not come to Mallorca to retire; they come to work and to run businesses. Period.

What has brought the Chinese invasion about? There is a commonly held belief that Chinese businesses enjoy tax breaks. Though you will find many a reference to tax holidays for five or seven years, there is also ample evidence to suggest that these are something of an urban myth. The director of the Spanish confederation of small to medium-sized business organisations is one who disputes the idea. The tax office has also denied that such assistance exists. Where help, of a governmental nature, is available, it is more likely to come from the Chinese Government in the form of a grant.

Why would the Chinese offer financial assistance? One reason lies with the need for a sort of economic "lebensraum", an acknowledgement of China's domestic inability to satisfy employment and business opportunities. Another is that it is a form of economic imperialism, which may not be far from the truth.

It is the fear, real or not, of an economic army marching on Mallorca and Spain, allied to the tax-break story, that helps to fuel some of the xenophobia directed towards Chinese businesses. Business organisations maintain that there is no "war" against the Chinese entrepreneurs, but complaints about their practices are rising as quickly as new shops open: complaints as to the legality of premises, as to proper licences, as to the quality of products and as to the hours that are worked.

Anxiety as to what is perceived as favourable treatment of Chinese businesses has been heightened by what might otherwise be seen as good news for Spain: ever closer economic ties between Spain and China, as evidenced by trade agreements signed last week. There is also the matter of the Chinese Government holding, via the Bank of China, some 10% of Spanish debt.

What should be seen as generally positive is not. Rather, it is looked upon in some quarters as Chinese expansionism, with Spain as its main foothold in Europe. It's the idea of economic imperialism again, and the Chinese bazaar or restaurant on the high streets of Mallorca's towns is the foot soldier for Beijing's imperial palace.

These fears and anxieties, the "denuncias" for alleged infractions and the rest can themselves be seen as disguising the fact that local businesspeople simply can't get their heads around how the Chinese operate. The suggestions of financial favouritism ignore systems of family support for arranging funding for businesses and for sharing debts and also what in certain instances can be a pyramidal system of investment. The charges as to low prices and therefore - perish the thought - aggressive competition overlook the presence of vast warehouses on the mainland that supply Chinese businesses and also the existence of some local networks of businesses co-operating in purchasing in bulk. The complaints as to long hours being worked, despite working-hours agreements in employment law and orders as to opening hours, are symptomatic of the unpalatable truth that the Chinese function according to a work ethic which is alien to many a Mallorcan.

There is more bad news for Mallorcan businesses which have laboured for too long not labouring long enough and being largely immune to real competition. This is the emergence of Chinese brands, especially in the clothing and footwear sectors. Mulaya is one such and it, along with others, is growing in terms of its outlets and taking on the likes of Zara.

For all the angst about high prices in Mallorca, the Chinese businesses are doing their part to dispel it. They should be welcomed, and increasing numbers of consumers are welcoming them, but xenophobia and lack of local competitiveness combine to try and put obstacles in their way. Not to me, and not, I imagine, to many of you, as we walk home with some China in our hands.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.