Tolls By Another Name

It has occurred to me that it is somewhat ironic that the Council of Mallorca can insist on "rescuing" the Sóller Tunnel (at a cost of fifteen million euros, if it's lucky) while at the same time it can sanction an event like Mallorca 312 and also be marching forward in wishing to limit traffic in parts of the island.

The "rescue" - it is always referred to as "rescate", albeit this could also mean recovery - is on behalf of the citizens, and not only those in Sóller. The citizens and their cars will be rescued from having to pay a toll that doesn't apply anywhere else and will thus be able to use all roads in Mallorca in a free and unfettered fashion. In the process, if some anxieties are confirmed, the elimination of the toll will mean that Sóller will "collapse" because of the volume of cars.

While the Council doesn't itself appear to be unduly alarmed at the prospect of Sóller collapsing, it shares concerns about collapse elsewhere. Which will be why it enabled 312 to go ahead and generate collapse - in the form of being cut-off - for several hours in places like Deià. Still, only for one day as they say: until the next time.

Fortunately, it doesn't appear that anyone in Deià was needing to be rescued while the roads were closed. Just as well really, as the fire service (Council-run) would have sent its tenders roaring along the narrow roads and eliminated good numbers of 312 participants.

Meanwhile, the other great controversy of the moment (apart from various other ones, such as the Més contracts, holiday rentals and what have you) has risen to the top of the debating agenda. Yes, it's those roads again, and specifically the ones for accessing quiet, unspoiled coves or promontories with fine views. It may not be the Council doing the closing, but denying access to non-residents in a part of Santanyi sounds very much like a reverse principle of the tunnel's rescue. The citizens will not be able to use all roads in a free and unfettered fashion, because the town hall won't let them.

If the citizens wish to get to the coves - s'Almonia and Moro - they will instead, once they get the bus operating, have to park in Santanyi's industrial estate and then pay for the shuttle. Then pay for the return trip. Hmm, it almost sounds like they'll be having to pay a toll, just as they may well have to in order to access other parts of the island in the future in addition to Es Trenc, for which they already have to pay.

While the situation with the shuttle buses in Santanyi seems to have caused little institutional fuss (apart from the slight issue of there not yet being a bus), this cannot be said for Escorca, Manacor or Valldemossa. None of the town halls have been properly consulted or informed by the Council. The mayor of Escorca, speaking about the Council's announcement that it is thinking of stopping vehicles entering Sa Calobra (and having a shuttle bus from somewhere - and "where" would be a good question), says that the Council has demonstrated "irresponsibility". It has made its announcement without any consensual agreement.

It's the same story in Valldemossa regarding access to the port, while in Manacor (for Cala Varques), the mayor says there's been no dialogue. He doesn't know where the shuttle bus would leave from or where it would drop people off.

The Council, and specifically its councillor for land, Mercedes Garrido, was going on about shuttle buses last year. Another one she was eyeing up was for the Es Comú part of the beach in Playa de Muro. At the time she mentioned this, Muro's mayor said that it was an idea worth looking into but had received no information. He's still waiting. As will be the mayor of Santa Margalida, given that Can Picafort would be a more likely location for a park and ride scheme to service the beach.

So, the Council is merrily going around, coming up with ideas for shuttle buses that town halls have no idea of and which will imply charges to citizens. At the same time, they're rescuing the tunnel. There may well be a very good need for restricting traffic in certain parts of the island, but I'm afraid the Council's logic is contrary.

Instead of announcing shuttle bus plans in a piecemeal manner, there is clearly the need for a coherent debate that involves town halls, regional government and others. There are parts of the island that cannot cope with the traffic and the numbers of people. This is becoming abundantly clear, and it isn't just because of tourists. Residents, the citizens, go to these beaches just as much if not more than tourists. Tolls by the backdoor may be the only solution, but a proper debate needs to be had.

Built For Tourism: Mallorca's roads

They like their anniversaries in Sa Pobla, even if the anniversary isn't what typically might be thought to have special significance. One hundred years of electricity in 2012 were significant, 135 years of the train in 2013 were less so, as also are 90 years of the first bus this year. But, significant or not, centenary or not, they're all an excuse to look back to times when infrastructure was shaky and partial.

The first bus rolled into Sa Pobla from Palma ninety years ago. It was a further step, one separated by 46 years, in connecting the town and capital, the north and the south. The arrival of the bus was a welcome addition to a public passenger transport system that otherwise relied on the train. Yet, for all that 1924 marked an important development in public transport and 2014 marks ninety years of the Sa Pobla service, buses don't carry the same weight of history as the stories of Mallorca's trains, trams and indeed ships. Buses are less romantic. They are the neglected part of the island's transport history.

There was, however, an "omnibus" service in late nineteenth-century Palma some years before motor buses, those powered by an internal combustion engine, might have been available. The omnibus was a mule-drawn tram, and the service connected city with port. It wasn't until 1958 that Palma actually got a bus service; this was the year when trams were withdrawn.

But to go back further - to the 1830s - it was then that Mallorca began to have anything like regular road-based public transport; the first stagecoach service between Palma and Inca was established in 1837. In order to get anywhere by stagecoach, though, there had to be roads, and in the first half of the nineteenth century, those visitors which Mallorca used to get then were particularly critical of its transport network; roads were poor, very poor or non-existent. New roads did start to appear from 1845, but the road system was never more than rudimentary. It was the realisation at the turn of the twentieth century that tourism offered Mallorca an economic future which helped to bring about some improvement, the Fomento del Turismo (Mallorca Tourist Board), founded in 1905, being instrumental in persuading whoever it could of the need for such improvement.

It was, in no small part, the "excursion" which was the impulse behind the development of new or better roads. The tourist board invested in this infrastructure, as did town halls and private individuals, and they all augmented funds made available by the provincial administration. As an example, the road between Andratx and Estellencs was built with the help of one thousand pesetas from the tourist board and 1350 pesetas from the town halls of Andratx, Estellencs, Esporles and Banyalbufar.

Getting public money for infrastructure projects was far from straightforward. The state generally didn't pay for railways, other than through discretional grants, such as one which helped with the construction of the otherwise privately-funded Sóller train. The state did pay for roads, but getting authorisation could be a tortuous process and was not made any easier by constant political upheaval. One such upheaval led to the first dictatorship, that of Primo de Rivera, but this government proved to be heavy investors in infrastructure. In the year that the Sa Pobla bus service started, the government, noting the representations made to it by the tourist board, gave the go-ahead for a number of road-building projects on Mallorca. They were all projects with tourism in mind and so with tourist excursions in mind. Public transport was secondary. Or at least this is the impression one has.

There doubtless is information about early bus services out there, but if so it's not immediately apparent. What is clear is that by the 1930s bus services and road transport in general were genuine rivals to rail services. But where the bus services went and when they commenced operations is hard to say. 1924, therefore, may have been more significant than simply being ninety years ago. The service to Sa Pobla may well have been, at that time, the furthest by distance.

The projects that Primo de Rivera's government authorised certainly gave Mallorca a more coherent road network than had been the case. One road was that between Fornalutx and Lluc, which was the final part of the mountain road that started in Andratx and ended in Alcúdia. The road from Palma to Manacor and then to Portocristo received special funding for being a "national tourism circuit". And by the end of the 1920s, with the road system in some sort of usable state, the tourist board offered financial support to operators so that they could acquire large-capacity buses. The day of the "excursionista" had truly arrived. On roads built, not for public transport, but for tourists.

Albion Classic Motorcycle Tours

(This is an article which appeared in "Majorca Daily Bulletin", 28 October.)

There are all sorts of passions that we all develop when we are young and which we never lose. For Hugh Birley, one of these passions was motorcycling. From the roads of rural Essex on a BSA in the 1970s to the roads of rural Majorca on a BSA in 2012, the passion still burns, and strongly enough for a new business to emerge - one that combines classic motor bikes with classic Majorca.

Some years ago, Hugh Birley had the idea for a fantasy business. It went under the name of "Hughie's Bike Barn And Fishing". The fishing doesn't feature, but the bike barn does - a unit on Calvià's Son Bugadelles industrial estate. This is The Albion Works, the workshop and operational centre for Albion Classic Motorcycle Tours. Note the word "classic". The bikes in the Albion collection are classic British iron (BSA, Norton, Triumph, Vincent) and classic European style (BMW, Ducati, Guzzi): classic bikes from a classic era of motorcycling - the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s.

"I understand bikes from that era," says Hugh. This is an understanding which is important, as it is essential to what Hugh is seeking to achieve: the building of a business that brings together a deep appreciation of classic bikes and their engineering, the popularity of motor biking culture and history, and a classic Majorca of its natural world, its traditions and its own culture.

Building businesses is something else that Hugh Birley understands. From an early  career in the music industry, he went on to make the Lexis PR consultancy one of the leading names in the world of marketing, developing the company to the extent that it employed well over a hundred people. "It was a lot of fun and I loved it. It was also hard work."

Fun and love are now going into Albion. Having sold his interest in Lexis, it might have seemed as though it was time to put his feet up, but no. Well acquainted with Majorca for some 30 years, Hugh and his wife found that they were spending more and more time on the island - they now live in Palma - but Hugh was looking for something to do. It was time, therefore, to live that old fantasy business of the bike barn. Time for Albion Classic Motorcycle Tours.

Albion is for anyone qualified to ride a motorcycle but especially for the biking enthusiast and connoisseur with knowledge of older bikes or a biker who is familiar with contemporary machines and their technology but not with bikes from a previous era that will mean learning some new techniques. Hugh takes great satisfaction, for example, in teaching the skills of kick-starting a bike.

Albion is very much a hands-on and personal business. Hugh conducts tours with his guests and passes on not just strong and intimate knowledge of the bikes but also of Majorca. "There is a chance for people to see parts of the island that they never normally see." Hugh's interests in the natural history of Majorca as well as its culture are as important as his interest in bikes. He is working on developing a programme that will unite biking with specific events during the year, be they natural events, such as the blossom, or traditional, e.g. fiestas, and with local gastronomy and produce. There is an association, for instance, with an olive-oil producer who provides tastings, while food and wine are very much a part of an Albion package - "excursions and epicurea".

Fundamentally though, Albion is about the biking experience and the setting for this experience. "There couldn't be anywhere better for motorcycling than Majorca. There are wonderful roads, such as from Valldemossa to Andratx or Pollensa to Sóller." Wonderful, I ask, bearing in mind the slightly hairy nature of some of Majorca's roads. "Challenging," Hugh replies. "The roads offer a mix of camber, gradient, different curves."

It is the relationship between rider, road and machine that intrigues me, as I confess it is not something which had occurred to me. "You can get a completely different experience from using a different bike. I have had clients who want to do the same roads but with different bikes, so as to see how they handle and how efficient, for instance, the brakes are in determining how to approach and take a corner. It's all about working and acting in a positive relationship with the machine. Mind you, it couldn't be anything else or you would fall off."

If the roads provide challenges, they also provide amazing views. "People are stunned by the scenery." In this regard, no, there is nowhere better for motorcycling than Majorca.

What, though, of other challenges? Had establishing Albion been plain sailing? What about insurance, for example? "It was incredibly hard to get responses from Spanish insurance companies. Finally I got one, and it was then that I put the collection together and shipped the bikes over. Unfortunately, the contact had by then moved to another office, and the company said they could no longer insure the bikes." Back to square one and without an insurer, Hugh was rescued thanks to personal contacts of his lawyer.

One other stumbling block had to do with the application for historic number plates for the bikes. Without going into too much detail, one aspect of this application requires a certified engineer to inspect the bikes and verify age and authenticity. This happened. However, Hugh found himself caught up in a fraud case which had nothing whatsoever to do with him but which had everything to do with the engineer. Thanks to the tenacity of Rebecca Evans at Mallorca Solutions, the situation was resolved, another engineer was brought in, but the business had been set back by six months. Albion finally opened for business in June this year.

The heat in July and August, Hugh accepts, means that Albion is unlikely to be a high-summer business, but it will otherwise be an all-year business. January, for example, is typically dry and sunny. It is a month which, in accordance with an Albion philosophy of combining motorcycling with local culture and landscapes, has fiestas and the first blossom to attract a winter tourist. Despite criticisms of air connections in winter, Majorca still has a good network of air routes, and Hugh sees Albion's key markets as being Germany, Holland and Scandinavia as well as the UK. For northern Europeans with months of dark winter, Majorca offers a perfect opportunity for motorcyclists from countries with strong biking cultures to take to the roads during those long northern European winter months. 

While Hugh wonders whether Majorca truly wants a load of tourists in winter - and he has some sympathy with this - he believes more could be done to attract off-season tourists. "There are opportunities to promote cultural tourism much harder in the low season, but without destroying the wonderful local continuity." Albion, in its own way, is doing just this, given Hugh's respect for Majorcan culture.

The summer months, July and August excepted perhaps, also offer opportunities. Already this year, Hugh has forged relationships with the yachting community. "There are captains and crew who have bikes back home but not classic bikes. They know very little about them." So, the chance beckons for motorcyclists based in Majorca in summer to try something different. And not of course just those within the yachting community.

Doing something different is very often a good starting-point for a business. Albion is different. There really isn't anything like it, and not just on Majorca. A good business, though, requires a good business brain. Hugh has a clear business model to follow and a clear idea of the building of the Albion brand, and he is undeterred by the economic situation. "Lexis was started during a recession. It helps you to focus on what matters. If it succeeds, a business founded in a harsh economic climate is in great shape to take advantage of growth when it comes." 

Focusing on what matters means different things. For Albion, it is the classic bikes, classic Majorcan landscape, gastronomy and culture, an intimate understanding of local roads and routes and of motorcycling and motorcyclists. It is also about, as Hugh says, "treating people properly" in creating an experience at the end of which "you would go away and say that was fantastic".

For more about Albion Classic Motorcycle Tours, visit www.albionmotorcycles.com.

MALLORCA TODAY - Council looks to save on road lighting

The Council of Mallorca intends to cut the number of lampposts on roads in an effort to save some 300,000 euros. The move has been criticised as it could be dangerous for drivers.

The Train Not Now Standing ...

Amongst the various measures announced by the Spanish Government to save energy and oil in light of the little local difficulty in north Africa is one to incentivise the use of public transport. An incentive, that of a 5% discount on local train journeys, does not, unless I'm very much mistaken, apply in Mallorca, as this reduction applies to services operated by Renfe, and Renfe doesn't run services in Mallorca.

Whatever incentive may or may not be flying around, therefore, would have to be one through SFM (Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca), the local operator. The problem is that SFM doesn't always do the greatest of jobs in incentivising travellers, because of its proneness to breaks in service. For ten months, following an accident near to Sineu station, the line between Sineu and Manacor had been closed. It re-opened on Monday of this week. Up and running once more, there have, however, been delays in the service.

The unfortunate accident at Sineu just added to the woes that SFM has had to contend with, such as a train catching fire and an attempt at sabotage on the line near Inca. There have also been other delays to services, the consequence of the process of electrification, which is due to be mostly finished by the end of this month. This upgrading of the network, welcome though it may be, disguises, though, the dashed ambitions of the current regional government.

When Francesc Antich re-assumed the presidency in 2007, one of his Big Things was that his new administration would usher in "the age of the train". With the words of Jimmy Savile not quite ringing in our ears, we waited on the platform of political promises for the arrival of trains to take us to Alcúdia and Cala Ratjada. And we're still waiting.

The two main rail projects were to have been the extension of the line from Sa Pobla to Alcúdia and the re-creation of the old line from Manacor to Artà and on to Cala Ratjada. Both have been controversial; one (the Alcúdia extension) has failed to emerge, the other has been dogged by problems, so much so that the Balearic parliament has now censured the transport minister, Gabriel Vicens (PSM - Mallorcan socialists), and called for a legal and technical audit of works.

Yet the Artà line had benefited from having additional funding, money that was finally diverted from the Alcúdia line, after months of bickering between Vicens's department and Alcúdia town hall as to the siting of the rail track and terminal had threatened a complete withdrawal of central government finance. The stand-off between the town hall and the department, regardless of any differing and legitimate logistical and environmental issues, was a nonsense of rivalry between Mallorca's two nationalist parties - the now defunct UM of the town hall and the PSM of the transport ministry. The result? No railway.

In spite of the odd accident, fire, delays, undelivered new lines and political handbags, the rail service in Mallorca is not bad. Like buses, the service is inexpensive. But, also like buses, it only does so much. Governments, such as the Spanish one, may talk blithely of incentives to change transport habits, but behaviour will not change when the infrastructure, in terms of network coverage, is lacking. And in Mallorca, there is a real issue in respect of where you put this infrastructure, as evidenced by the farce over the siting of the Alcúdia extension.

Another hope of government is that the public will eschew King Car in favour of cycling. Fine, but as pointed out the other day, there are issues of safety as well as facility where biking is concerned. The wish to create a new cycle lane across the northern tourism zone is fair enough, but how can it be done? In parts of the road that would accommodate this new lane, which would need to be much wider than is currently the case in order to confer genuine safety, there simply isn't the space.

Along one stretch, that from Puerto Alcúdia to Can Picafort, there has also been ambition for a tram service. And to one side of part of this stretch is a damn great, legally protected nature reserve. How could all the competing transport needs - cars, lorries, taxis, buses, bikes, trams, to say nothing of nutters on roller blades and tourist trikes - all be comfortably fitted in? They couldn't be, unless there was a complete change in attitude among the main road users - drivers of cars and commercial vehicles.

Mallorca has one of the highest levels of car ownership per head of population anywhere in Europe. The car is king. For a very good reason. Public transport services only run, or run with anything like reasonable frequency, where demand makes economic sense, which excludes a great deal of the island.

In urban areas, such as that of the northern conurbation on the bay of Alcúdia, roads devoted to multi-use, as envisaged with the addition of trams and new cycle lanes, could only hope to work were there a system under which priority was given to everything - and everyone (pedestrians, therefore) - other than cars and lorries; a system akin to that which exists in parts of the Netherlands. But in a land in which patience is not the greatest of virtues, you would have to wonder if such a system could ever function. And the same mentality would be unlikely to result in a major uptake in public transport services, incentives or no incentives.

Whatever central government might think, whatever the regional government might think (or have thought), Mallorca is not about to experience the age of the train anytime soon. Or the age of the bicycle.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Unsustainable: Transport infrastructure in Puerto Pollensa

The company that had been contracted to draw up a plan for so-called "sustainable transport" in Puerto Pollensa has had its contract rescinded. The town hall's decision to take the contract away will doubtless have been greeted by some cheering and the raising of glasses in the "moll", in particular by those who had raised concerns as to how appropriate the awarding of the contract had been in the first place.

The context of the contract and now its withdrawal was the abandonment in autumn 2008 of the botched project to pedestrianize a length of Puerto Pollensa's coast road and the town hall's subsequent desire to conduct a more all-embracing study of transport infrastructure in the resort.

In Pollensa there is a party, the Alternativa, which makes a thorough nuisance of itself in challenging the town hall, especially with regard to developments in the port. Quite rightly so. In April it was the Alternativa, aka Pepe Garcia, that questioned the process of the award of the contract.

Three companies were invited to pitch, none of them, according to Garcia, with seemingly any previous experience in the particular area of transport. The company which got the contract, but has now lost it, was Podarcis. The Alternativa was quick to point to the links between this company and the nephew of Francisca Ramón. Who she? The town hall's delegate in Puerto Pollensa.

Podarcis, to be fair to it, was looking to do the right things. One of the main reasons for the collapse of the 2008 pedestrianization was an absence of consultation. On its blog, Podarcis, referring to the final signing of the contract at the end of June, said that it would create a website which would inform residents about the plan and invite exchange of opinions related to it.

Though it may not have conducted a previous study of the exact type required for Puerto Pollensa, Podarcis can boast a fairly impressive list of infrastructure projects. It would be wrong to suggest that it didn't have credibility; it did. But the association with Ramón was always likely to make life difficult. It is perhaps convenient for all concerned, other than Podarcis, that the contract has been removed on account of what are considered to be "deficiencies" as highlighted by a technical review of the plan.

The very need for a plan, however, seemed slightly strange. Though it clearly had the pedestrianization in mind, and this will now once more be placed on the back-burner, the question arises as to why such a plan was not conducted a few years ago before the new by-pass road that cuts through the Ullal, Gotmar and Pinaret urbanizations was built.

The by-pass and the pedestrianization are one of the same thing in terms of the original plan for both that was drawn up as long ago as 1967. So long as pedestrianization is not effected, the by-pass remains if not a white elephant then under-used. Forward thinking, that the new plan for sustainable transport now envisages, was previously lacking at a time when it should have been performed. A justification for the by-pass and pedestrianization that the mayor offered was that these were planned for - 40 years before. Plans can be altered. It was no justification at all, especially as a different plan - to potentially close the entire coast road between Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa (one being eyed up by the environmentalists and the Costas) - would put the whole scheme for transport in the resort up in the air.

The one thing in the latest plan's favour is that, one would hope at any rate, it would represent rather more joined-up thinking than the piecemeal style of infrastructure development of the ill-conceived pedestrianization project of 2008 and yet another plan - that of linking pedestrianization to further construction in Ullal (the latter pretty much approved by the Council of Mallorca under its land reclassification remit).

That the technical review has pointed to a lack of clearly defined solutions that the sustainable transport plan would have produced probably scuppers any developments until at least after the coming local elections, though there is, lurking in the background, the possibility for drawing on central government finance under the Plan E scheme for projects as yet undefined.

But more than anything, the story of Puerto Pollensa and its transport, over and above local political rivalries and suggestions of nepotism, is one of multi-agency lack of co-ordination. The town hall, the Council of Mallorca, the Costas, to say nothing, in all likelihood, of the transport ministry at regional government level as well as central government's development ministry should all be involved in homing in on a definitive plan together, through proper consultation, with local businesses and residents. This, though, is the problem. There are just too many agencies, too many agendas. Sustainable? It can't hope to be.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Slow Down, You Move Too Fast

You know how it is. You'll be steadfastly and righteously observing the speed limit, and some twat appears in your rear mirror expressing paroxysms and gesticulating ferociously with an aggravated hand, or even both hands where the less diligent are concerned. Ever since they made the gloriously difficult-to-overtake-on new road layout through Puerto Alcúdia and Playa de Muro, the motoring psychotic and impatient have had to improvise methods of speeding themselves along without demolishing their cars and themselves on the inconveniently close-together central concrete islands. The favourite is to nip onto the parallel side road and race at great velocity to the next exit, cornering back onto the main road with a manoeuvre of which Jenson Button (aka Chris Martin of Coldplay) would be proud. And this in order to steal one place as part of qualifying for the grid. 50 kilometres per hour, an affront to motoring civil liberties, but a limit designed to protect erring tourists from being launched into the air and then making a wheel-on appearance in Muro hospital as part of an episode of "Sun, Sea and A&E", attached to a life-support machine and with a weeping spouse clawing at the lilo they had intended for the beach.

Apparently, things have got so good in Spain that annually fewer than 2000 people now lose their lives in accidents on main roads. The news is less good when it comes to towns and those side roads. An encounter with a bus or a souped-up mobility scooter can be fatal, so the traffic authorities are contemplating introducing a thirty kilometre speed limit in towns. Tee-hee, that should cause some fine sport. You know that place in Holland where they've done away with all restrictions, and motorists, pedestrians and cyclists just get on with it. They should do that here - in Alcúdia, for example. What fun that would be. Though my Dutch moles tell me that the Dutch driver can be a bit of an animal, there is aggression and then there is sheer lunacy. The Dutch are not known for their lunacy. Pragmatic, one can see them adhering politely to the non-restriction principle. "After you, Arje." "No, after you, Joost." And the traffic just grinds to a halt as caravans of schoolchildren on bikes collide with some old folk crossing the road.

No, such a civilised solution wouldn't have a chance where the mad of Mallorca are concerned. So, they have to try and impose ever-decreasing speed limits. They, the authorities, should come and hang around those side roads for a day or two. What with the irate overtakers (or should that be under-takers) opting for the side roads as a means of getting ahead of plodders such as myself with the cruise control on the limit and with coaches hammering past houses and divesting parked cars of their wing mirrors, those authorities would soon realise the forlorn nature of their plan. Which is probably why they'll introduce it.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Roberta Flack, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpNdMIAnKko. Today's title - first line from ... ah, but what was its main title?

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

We Are The Robots

The Calle Bot in Puerto Pollensa. So bad they named it after someone's arse. But that was then. Back then when a local road was still an ankle- and axel-breaking adventure, when it was pitted and potted, cratered and crumbling, not so much a road as the aftermath of a cluster-bomb attack, a lunar landscape to be tackled preferably by amphibious landing craft, especially when it had rained and the craters would become sealets of untranquillity dived into by several tons of truck and engulfing the unwary passer-by in a tsunami of water, sand and shit. Oh my Bot of long ago.

Here was the finest example of non-road, a thorough thoroughfare misrepresentation, a whole collection of holes. Magnificently decrepit, it was perfect in its symbolism of an imperfectly functioning system that was once what we knew to be Mallorca. Not anymore. Firstly they tarmacked it over, took away the traps, the obstacles, made it smooth, a soulless short cut-through past the Pollensa Park where previously had been the joy ride of joyous swerving past collapsed whatever passed for the surface. Yet they still maintained a two-way street where barely one street could be accommodated. All those failed manoeuvres past the parked delivery lorries in the hope of a pull-in point, only to find none and to be confronted by the leviathan of a coach and a terminally impatient driver waving with the back of his hand as though he was swatting away a fly. And to your rear an hombre de furgoneta blanca, himself backed up by a growing jam of vehicles. Oh my Bot of less long ago, a van driver hooting up the backside.

But now they have made it one way. The bottom has fallen out of Calle Bot. When two-way at least it was still a case of number two's. Now but one in Bot. They should re-name it.


Nadal's chest
The muscle is back, and is displaying more muscle than normal. Rafael Nadal is to appear in a new promotional campaign aboard a yacht, the wind blowing his hair and his "torso desnudo", it says provocatively in a "Diario" report. That doesn't mean he's got his kit off, but has forgotten to button up his shirt. To coincide with the World Travel Market in November, the new, windswept Rafa will further be the face and now also the chest of Balearics promotion. By the time they get to the third promotional campaign (this new one will be the second), perhaps he'll be in speedos. Something for somebody to enjoy no doubt. What effect all this Nadal-ing has on the masses coming to the islands one doesn't really know. It would still surely make more sense to have promotions for the individual islands. The Balearics just do not hack it as a "brand". Any brand should be supported by the right advertising. Get him to advertise Mallorca and leave it at that, kit diminuto or otherwise.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Barbra Streisand, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-KPGh3wysw. Today's title - well a bot is also of course short for robot, and as I couldn't think of something to do with ...

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

All Summer Long

The Balearic Government's environment minister has reversed the previous decision that permitted, for this season only, building works during part of the tourist season, namely up till the middle of June and throughout October. This reconsideration comes after concerns expressed by hoteliers and by tour operators, and indeed a hint as to legal action. These concerns centred, unsurprisingly, on the likelihood of tourists going elsewhere; there will have presumably been tourists who have already been affected, and the chances are that some might even have pursued the tour operators for some compensation if they had a disturbed stay.

The normal situation is that all building works in tourism areas are suspended during the official season - 1 May till end October - but this year, in recognition of difficulties faced by the construction industry, it had been agreed to relax this suspension. It was a relaxation that was always likely to cause a problem, and I would guess that the works in the heart of Puerto Pollensa and slap bang next to Hotel Daina might have been one of those that had been brought to the minister's attention. The reports on this from "The Diario" actually refer to work "durante el verano", which could be construed as meaning the whole summer. I'm not sure that this was ever envisaged, but perhaps it was, and so therefore not just into June and in October. Whatever the period of "relaxation", the unrest that it has caused could have been predicted, which does make one wonder why the decision was taken in the first place. The now new problem may be what builders do with workers they had employed.


Back to the roads. All the new crossing-points and the new roundabout along the carretera in Playa de Muro make driving very stop-start, and you can not only sense but also witness the impatience rising among drivers, especially as the heat of the afternoon takes its toll; another crossing, another load of tourists with lilos and baby buggies to allow across. It's hardly the tourists' fault. Except. So I stopped and waited while this lady made up her mind to cross or not, and when she did, she did so very slowly because she was in the middle of texting. There you have it, let me just hold this traffic up a bit while I compose "c u later". If it's an offence for drivers to text while driving, maybe the same should apply to pedestrians when crossing a road. Indeed, I was thinking, while going along the now not-pedestrianised coast road in Puerto Pollensa, that perhaps they got that all wrong, and maybe they should have made it a non-pedestrianised zone. No pedestrians. None of them. Verboten. That'd learn 'em. Go do your texting somewhere else.


Oh, and the great frozen haddock mystery. A cool bag, well wrapped and put in the suitcase. Just hope it doesn't un-freeze. The great smell of fish all holiday if not all summer long.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Elton John: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTJCnidpgfM. Today's title - well it won't be all summer long; this has been a title before but previously it was that lousy Kid Rock thing. From 1964, the far better song.

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I Am The Magnificent

There was a sort of official opening a couple of days ago. The mayor of Muro and some worthies from the Mallorca Council stood on the bridge over the untroubled water of the canal in Playa de Muro and posed for the camera, announcing - in the words of the Council's president - that the works that have created the newly laid-out stretch of road that runs the five kilometres between Can Picafort and the fish-hook, some say pointed thing, roundabout are "magnificent and emblematic" (taken in translation from "The Diario"). Fine words indeed - for a bit of road. The crowning glory of the five kilometres of Muro tarmac is the bridge itself, now with pavements to both sides and a not unattractive metal barrier on one side. It's all been done, so says the report, with the safety of different users in mind, be they on foot, in car and probably also on trike, in road-going train, on roller blades or in baby buggies as a roller-blading mother pushes them across the bridge and down the road. I'd like to believe that there will indeed be an avoidance of accidents, an aim of the road and bridge.

The problems with the new bridge are that the road has effectively been narrowed, that people cross over it, not at a crossing-point, but from the path from the sea to the entrance to Albufera, and that the not unattractive metal barrier has a gap in it where a tree remains - what chance some likely drunk lad fancying a bit of a dive into the canal on his staggering walk back to the hotel one night? The concrete barrier on the other side of the road is really something of a hazard; it requires not a great deal of imagination to foresee a vehicle coming into heavy contact with it. Of course, the design of the road and of the bridge is such that, so long as drivers and others use it sensibly and so long as drivers do not speed, there should be no accidents. "Sensibly." Not a word one hears too often in connection with road use of any form. I wonder if the starting-point for such design should be irrational behaviour rather than rational. Take for example the cyclist who suddenly emerged onto the bridge and made a car swerve and almost go head-on the other day. Where was the rationality with that cyclist? I have previously mentioned the fact that pedestrians are obscured by hedges, cars and trees at some of the crossing-points.

I once referred to the bridge road as being "nuts". At least there is now a pavement where there used not to be one; it is less nuts than it was. But it is still nuts in that it doesn't take full account of the nutcases. I hope I'm wrong.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Arctic Monkeys (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLS_CAzJCwQ). Today's title - well no, not me, but the road. This is from ... ?

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Take It Easy

More road sense or lack of sense. The otherwise wise creation of crossing-points and islands now along the whole stretch of the carretera (main road) into Playa de Muro has nevertheless thrown up the potential hazard that comes from drivers having their views obscured. Always assuming people choose to use the crossing-points, as opposed to wandering across wherever the fancy takes them, the pedestrian access to several of these points is through gaps in the hedges along the sides of the road. Moreover, the parking that is available to either side of the road goes right up to the crossing-points. So what, you might think. Well, the so what is that the combination of parked vehicles and hedges means that pedestrians emerging to use the crossings can and do take you by surprise. It's bad if they are wearing dark clothes and at night; it's not so clever in daylight. The reaction of drivers, on getting a pedestrian suddenly appearing, can be to slam on the brakes; thanks very much, mate, you've smacked me up the back. Or maybe they don't react all. Of course, most pedestrians will not just simply walk across without stopping and looking. At least, you hope that would be the case. It just goes to emphasise that the speed limit of 50 is important to stick to; in summer it is, in truth, too high.


Manners. At the risk of falling into the trap of more cultural stereotyping, let it never be said that the Brits do not have an awful lot of courtesy, the like of which others tend not to. It's remarkable that the Brits ever get anywhere, the time they spend holding doors open, allowing others through or past and saying thank you or excuse me. I have been into a Brit-dominated hotel a couple of times over the past days - the Alcúdia Beach. This is not a hotel with doors that open at the command of a sensor or your weight on a trigger mechanism; it is a hotel with doors, as in those that have to be manually opened and closed. It is a hotel with doors designed with the British in mind. Used as one becomes to there not being a whole bunch of doors-being-held-open, to be plunged into a small part of Britain in Alcúdia comes as something of a surprise. "After you." "No, after you." It can take hours to get in and out of the place.

And with the Alcúdia Beach in mind, the image today shows someone not unassociated with the hotel. It's an image that you will have to get used to as it is part of the front cover of a well-known tourist guide in Alcúdia; in fact, the best known. Though no-one is recommending sitting on deckchairs on roundabouts, the Las Gaviotas sculpture does cry out for some special tourism promotion - and so here it is, with a fat bloke sitting on it, well sort of. It's a visual gag, if you like. And crisis, what crisis is what Jim Callaghan never actually said; it was "The Sun" what did it. The deckchair motif comes from Supertramp and their album with that title. And, as mentioned recently, "The Sun" surpassed itself with its front-page "at least it's sunny" and people sitting on deckchairs - that was what put this image firmly into my mind. The original photo with Minty had "The Sun", but I thought, ah no, let's play around; the "enjoy yourselves" thing is unashamedly borrowed from the excellent Tiberi restaurant in Puerto Pollensa. So there you are. You now know the references when some Mallorcan asks what the hell it's all about and reckons that covers of tourist guides should only ever have the same old boring photos of the Roman town, the walls and all the rest. Roundabout sculptures are far more interesting. And taking it easy, relaxing on your deckchair, reading your paper - oh, come on, that's what holiday's about; not all the rest.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Neil Diamond, and here he is with Barbra Streisand (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cG7_jheC8A). Today's title - American one-time longhairs.

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I've Been Driving In My Car

I was driving along the Carretera Artà through Puerto Alcúdia yesterday. As I do most days. Unlike the summer when there is much traffic and tourists wandering all over the road, it is quite a pleasant drive in winter. I don't mind speed restrictions. They let you drive with less stress. The restriction along the carretera is 50. It is probably unnecessary during winter; in summer it is essential. But yesterday, enjoying the quietness of the road, I was sticking to the limit, just about. Not everyone was. There was someone wanting to go a good deal faster. The car behind came right up my rear and then overtook. There is meant to be no overtaking along this road and because of the regular crossing islands it is a hazardous manoeuvre. So what, you may be thinking. Happens all the time. Well, sometimes. Much as I panned the layout of the road when it was re-done, it has at least cut speed and more reckless driving. Praise where it is due. The point about yesterday, though, was not the car behind but the one behind it - the Guardia. They would have been aware of his speed, of his overtaking and of the fact that he had been tailgating. Exceeding the speed limit is one thing that can get you points on your licence, tailgating is another. But nothing. Happens all the time.

I have, on numerous occasions, witnessed cars overtaking a Guardia vehicle and sometimes it has been a Trafico vehicle; Trafico that polices the main roads and motorways. They have overtaken at speeds clearly in excess of the limit. Nothing. Happens all the time.

Someone who was new to the island told me, with some astonishment, of having been in a bar in Can Picafort where two members of the Guardia, having had a couple of beers, then got into their Trafico vehicle.

These anecdotes are all symptomatic of what can often be a laissez-faire attitude to driving misdemeanours and also of setting the wrong example. Those cops having their beers. They may not have been over the drink limit, but if you are going to have a couple of drinks and then get in your car, what message does it send out?

Mallorca has a shocking record of road accidents, but my impression is that things have got a lot better. There was once a time when you went out on the road fearful of being involved in an accident, because any journey would seem to involve passing one that had happened, was in the process of happening or about to happen. Not now. It does seem to have improved. But it could be better still. And a touch more intervention when there is an obvious infraction occurring under the noses of the police might help to make it so.

And moving along the carretera, into Playa de Muro, there is a fair amount of work being done to the road. Not before time. They have laid new tarmac on those parts of the road which had basically fallen to pieces. It's something. They should re-lay the whole thing, as was done on the stretch between the Albufera reception and Can Picafort. They are also in the process of constructing pedestrian crossing-points and small roundabouts to replace the currently non-functioning system of the traffic lights at which drivers are supposed to turn right in order to turn left. Most do, but many do not, and that many do not because they don't see the sign or understand how they are meant to proceed. So the roundabouts should be a blessing. I say should be, but, as we all know here, roundabout etiquette is something that doesn't seem to be taught at driving school, and if it is it gets immediately forgotten.

If you go further along the carretera, as far as the roundabout coming into Can Picafort, you can head off towards Muro town. To your right is the Son Bosc finca, about which so much has been said in respect of the projected golf course. Its realisation edges ever closer. One of the environmental objections was the existence of a species of orchid to be found on the finca. The Balearic Government's environment department has pronounced. An area of some 6,000 square metres will remain protected in order to safeguard the orchid. This will mean that the hole, which would have swallowed up the orchid, will have to re-sited. Not a problem it would seem, as the whole project covers an area of 540,000 square meters. This intervention by the government does, however, means that the project cannot actually get under way. It has to be re-submitted in order to take account of the required change. So, on and on we go to the day when finally the diggers will move in, which they probably will, despite so many voices opposing it and also questioning its necessity. I guess I'll keep saying it. Forget the golf. Stick up a theme park or an all-year tourist development. Anyone for a Nadal centre?


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Fontella Bass, not Aretha Franklin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXSocE_M1G4). Today's title - "it's not quite a Jaguar".

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The End Is The Beginning ...

And once more with feeling ... the pedestrianisation in Puerto Pollensa. Perhaps there is one political group that the Gotmar radicals could seek ballot-box redemption from - Esquerra Unida-Els Verds (a Catalan socialist-greens amalgam; "esquerra" is Catalan for "left"). Sounds a bit unlikely for the villa folk of the urbanisation, but needs and interests must - maybe. Anyway, the EU-EV agitators have called for an "immediate paralysation" of the pedestrianisation scheme, as reported in the "Diario". Am I alone in thinking that any political group with the word "green" anywhere near it would rather the road was closed? Whatever, they point, among other things, to the loss of business for traders affected by the road closure, one of these being the chemists which faces the possibility of having to lay off staff. That would be understandable. It was the case that one could just pull up outside the chemists; it was very convenient, but not now it isn't.

What seems to have been lacking in this whole saga is an unequivocal statement as to precisely the objective of the pedestrianisation. It has been couched in terms of ridding the front line of noise and of promoting a better image and so on, but who is it really intended for? Are tourism concerns the priority - that image thing?

It's impossible to get away from the conclusion that the prime reason is the justification of the new bypass road. That the pedestrianisation was mooted ages ago does not pacify those who, now that it has come to pass (or not, as it were), object to it. The tourism-image angle is really just spin. It's also impossible to escape the conclusion that the town hall has handled the whole affair in a hopeless fashion. Seemingly it failed to consult, and then when it did, did not consult widely enough. It has successfully managed to ostracise the already disaffected communities of Gotmar and Pinaret and to antagonise some business interests. And for what? Were tourists demanding pedestrianisation? I somewhat doubt it. And even now I suspect tourists are more concerned with dog shit on the pavements and the price of a pint of Mahou. That the issue has created so much controversy, that it has led to so many column inches, not least here on this blog, that it has brought the threat of legal action all merely emphasise the fact that it has divided opinion and that the town hall has made a pig's ear of it. At heart, it is a rather silly, small local matter, but silly, small, local matters matter to many people.

The town hall is being criticised from all sides at present. The opposition Partido Popular recently demanded some answers in respect of what is happening about the La Gola park and the public swimming-pool, the latter which has been open and then not, has had its roof on the wrong way round and has generally been another cause célèbre of apparent incompetence. Yet amidst this non-resolution, the town hall goes and picks a fight with residents and business over something of questionable importance and which will cost money, that the town hall doesn't have, to make permanent. One does begin to understand why a local residents association might make an election pact with a party that might give the ruling body a bloody nose.


REAL MALLORCA - THE END
Another story that has been followed here for what seems an age does, finally, seem to have drawn to a close. The judge presiding over the affairs of Real Mallorca's owner, Vicente Grande, has given the green light to the takeover by Paul Davidson. It's not totally the end in that Davidson has now to pay, but after all the haggling and the possibilities of other buyers, the club is now British-owned. So we can all feel very proud of that I suppose. And yet, do we?

"The Bulletin" celebrated the judge's decision with an eight-page special; it is doubtful that it would have done so had the new owner been anything other than British. Is the local expat really that bothered? For the most part, I would question it. Which is not to say that the story shouldn't have been covered; it has been and will be interesting, and the profile of the team will have been raised in the eyes of the expat. It has been a godsend to an English newspaper. But this English/British angle has made its coverage rather one-dimensional; the nationality thing has been THE story, the rest largely by the by. Yet the rest is far from inconsequential. That rest includes, apart from the obvious of the team's development and performance, the extent to which Paul Davidson can win over the local fans and opinion against a foreign owner and the strategy surrounding the club's purchase, which I went into the other day (7 October: Match Of The Day). For example, Mr. Davidson wants to increase the numbers of British and German fans coming to matches. All well and good, but how does that play with the Mallorcans?

While opposition to the takeover has been referred to and the strategy mentioned in passing, the essential Anglo-centricity of the story has glossed over these aspects. The paper itself featured a letter expressing concern as to the planned plastics recycling plant, but this has not been followed up. The strategy has not been scrutinised, simply mentioned as a mark of Mallorca's attraction to a British investor. It is one thing to hear and present Paul Davidson's own views, and in this regard the paper has acted in a sort of unofficial PR capacity. But it is quite another to analyse what he's about. The story hasn't really begun.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Ball Of Confusion", The Temptations (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BJOXopGW8g). Today's title - "... Is The End"; American rock outfit; Halloween's on its way.

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My Secret Garden

One of those scandals to which I referred the other day (3 October) has taken an hilarious turn; hilarious and scarcely believable. The scandal centres on payments allegedly received by various individuals in the previous Balearic Government administration in return for contracts. So get this. Buried in the garden of Antonia Ordinas, the ex-director general for economic development and one of those implicated, was the small matter of 200 grands' worth of euros. Now I wonder how that got there. Maybe the dog buried it; that'll be it. Or was this all an innovative approach to economic development? Plant the dosh and watch it grow.

I'm thinking of digging up my garden and looking to see if someone, or some dog, might have been kind enough to have secreted a similar stash. I doubt it; more likely it would reveal a decayed Trevor's body and the resultant swift dash for the first EasyJet out of Palma by a Mandy and a Beth. Just my rotten luck. Though that was the patio; and no, I'm not digging that up. A word to those who may misappropriate funds in the future - could there be a tad more democracy about it, and spread the burying around.

Democracy suffers as a consequence of such scandals, or rather the impulse to effect what becomes a scandal undermines democracy. If people in high places act in such a way, then democracy is shot; trust is a fundamental of the system. The problem is that politics here (and elsewhere, let's not get sanctimonious) is, or has been, like the Tour de France or the Olympics sprint finals; you suspect some of them are doping, but you don't know which ones. So it is, or let's hope was, in public life when it comes to illicitly gained wedges. However, this latest scandal, following on from others both at local and regional governmental levels, is not necessarily an indication of an endemically corrupt system. As I said on 3 October, the greater teeth given to the police and the greater rigour with which they are willing to root out corruption is likely to produce results - and the resultant publicity - that might at one time have been swept under the carpet or buried in the garden.

Nevertheless, the impression is that there was something rotten in the state of the Balearics during the last administration; a former minister is now alleged to have known all about the currently unfolding scandal. Invariably, this makes it a party political matter as the previous administration was controlled by the Partido Popular, while the current one is that of PSOE socialists. The PSOE might though be cautious in claiming the moral high ground when it comes to the schadenfreude of sleaze; just ask New Labour.


And so to today's adventures with the pedestrianising folk of Puerto Pollensa. Firstly, the closure between Elcano and Bot applies to both directions. Previously it was said that the route from Avenida Paris to Alcúdia would remain open. Seemingly, it isn't. Secondly, the "Diario" has unearthed some who actually think it's a good idea, quoting one lady who suggests that tourists in hotels and apartments are delighted. They may well be, but, with the exception of the Hotel Romantic and the odd apartments, the road remains open in front of all the other hotels - Uyal and Pollentia, for example. And are those in the Uyal and Pollentia not delighted? Are they clamouring for a bit of their own front-hotel pedestrianisation? No, I don't suppose they are.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Genesis (again). Today's title - Brit electro pop band; song from the early '80s, but they're still going.

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Relax? Won't Do It

Credit needed. Fat chance, you might think. The organisation for small to medium-sized businesses is asking for a relaxation of the rules to allow banks to extend credit to small businesses which are, or will be, struggling. I doubt that there will be any relaxation.

One of the reasons why Spain is in a relatively good position to withstand the worst of the financial and banking crisis is the regulation of banks. While some of the smaller savings banks may be vulnerable, the larger ones should be safe enough. At the heart of this is an old stipulation put into place by the Bank of Spain which forced banks to build up reserves to combat precisely the kind of crisis that has engulfed institutions elsewhere. The banks had to create reserves to meet bad loans. Santander, the saviour of Bradford & Bingley, benefited from such sound management as well as an acquisition policy that has made it one of Europe's leading banks. Moreover, the national bank's rules prevented much of the bundling of mortgage risk into financial products, the type of which led to the toxic debt of the sub-prime crisis in the USA.

Nevertheless, there has been an almighty amount of lending, and therefore debt, in the form of mortgages, and now there is the problem of people who have taken on large mortgages for overpriced properties being unable to meet higher mortgage repayments but unable to lower prices of these properties. The banks are trying to be accommodating, but there is also so little mortgage lending occurring at present that those facing negative equity are unlikely to attract buyers even if those buyers were persuaded to pay the prices being sought to cover the high mortgages. In this climate, therefore, it is difficult to see how the banks can be persuaded to take a more relaxed attitude towards their business lending. This could have quite significant repercussions. Businesses, such as bars or restaurants, that are available for purchase might normally be snapped up, but unless a buyer has the cash or certainly the bulk of it, a loan is far less likely to be offered as part of the purchase package. One can anticipate, perhaps, that more businesses may stay closed with no purchaser and the owner unable to trade. Another aspect of the credit crunch is likely to be felt as the new season next year approaches. It is not uncommon, certainly at the start of the season, for businesses to get credit from suppliers. Yet these suppliers may well be seeking credit from their suppliers, and so the cycle goes. If the banks won't assist and if suppliers are reluctant to either, then one does wonder how easy some businesses are going to find even getting going next year.


EVER MORE PEDESTRIANISATION AND ROAD SIGNS
And once more into the breach, dear friends, the breech position of the Puerto Pollensa pedestrianisation, now with added Bot dimension. Where would we be without it? The press had it that the trial closure of the front line was to be between the Calle Elcano and the Avenida Paris. It isn't. Apologies, because I said before that it was, because that was how it was being reported. Yesterday morning, I happened to spy a notice in the El Pozo bar in the port. It said that the closure was to be between Elcano and Calle Bot. For those who do not know, Calle Bot is the road that goes past the Pollensa Park hotel; it is further down the road than Avenida Paris going towards Alcúdia. So I went and checked, and the diversion sign does indeed send traffic along Calle Bot. Thanks for the misinformation.

As far as the Gotmar residents challenge is concerned, this doesn't change things that much, albeit that the Calle Bot and then the Calle Cadernera meet up with the roundabout on the new road for Gotmar. More of an issue perhaps, were this to become a permanentish state, is that the Calle Bot is not a road designed to take great volumes of traffic. It may no longer be the pitted and potted horror it once was, but it is narrow, and when there are delivery trucks parked up by the bars, Bot is also a pain in the arse. However, I sense in all this a cunning plan by Mayor Cerdà. He and his town hall chums will already know that Bot is a botch of impracticality. So at some point they will sit in session and say that it's not quite working, this Bot-ty passage. And some bright spark, who has been rehearsing the lines handed to him, will receive the end of the metaphorical mayoral pointed stick, spring to attention and declare that there is a road that is suitable for traffic, the Avenida Llenaire. And they will all nod their heads and say, "why didn't we think of that?". Though of course they did and had, as this was the plan all along - to pedestrianise the whole of the road from Llenaire. And so it will happen because the alternative has been designed to fail. Cue ever more angst in the ranks of the Gotmar radicals.

Now that the pedestrianisation trial has been started, there is still the question of the road signs. As one comes to the junction of Juan XXIII, the road down to the roundabout by the entrance to the nautical club, and the Calle Vicente Buades, the road signs show right for Palma and Pollensa and left for Alcúdia. Ever since the new road opened, this has been a nonsense; it is now even more of a nonsense, as you can of course no longer get to Alcúdia if you happen to go left, which of course many a tourist in a hire car will attempt. Go left, go right, who knows?


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Paul Young (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l8D0aFVjvg). Today's title - no prizes except for knowing which DJ saw to its banning by Radio One.

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The Long And Whining Road

Is there a campaign of sending a barrage of letters to "The Bulletin" in protest at the pedestrianisation in Puerto Pollensa? If so, one wonders whether it will do much good, unless, that is, "The Bulletin" were to join with the good people of Gotmar and Pinaret in storming the Calvari steps and the town hall's defences and proclaiming a people's revolution of the non-pedestrian. Perhaps Gotmar should declare independence. What a splendid wheeze that would be.

Following a lengthy epistle from Garry Bonsall to the editorial in-tray, yesterday there was a further expression of objection to the pedestrianisation scheme. Among other things, it invokes European law in respect of both consultation and the environment in arguing against. Ah yes, consultation and the environment. Gone are the good old days when a road could be laid with nary a word in the ear of the local peasant as he saw his small holding flattened; gone are the days when a more wealthy inhabitant with a peseta or two to his name could go out to work one day and come home to find a demolition ball hammering into his living room. Gone also are the days when a whole ocean of tarmac and concrete could be deposited on virgin land, burying endangered flora and fauna in the process. It didn't matter because there were always some more somewhere else until they too were bulldozed into oblivion.

You might think that citing the law, albeit European law, was a reasonable line of defence, but law here is a matter of some considerable alternative interpretation, be it European or Spanish. Just to refer back to the driving-licence malarkey. Not only did I speak to my gestor, I also spoke to my lawyer. He told me his Hungarian girlfriend is still driving around with a Hungarian licence; first he'd heard of the need to change it to a Spanish one. What chance is there for the rest of us or for the protesting cadre of Gotmar?

The pedestrianisation fiasco is now a cause célèbre in Puerto Pollensa. Little though I understand the point of it, the new road's very existence has to be the main impetus behind it. But the Elcano-Paris compromise, as I referred to before, nullifies this to a large extent. I'm now no longer sure what the objection is, other than a still-simmering objection to the new road having carved its way through the quiet enclaves of Gotmar and Pinaret and an increase in traffic along the Avenida Paris. And as for that new road, don't let's forget that a plan for it was first set out as long ago as 1967; it's not as if there was no forewarning.

Maybe though a once-and-for-all physical pedestrianisation would form part of the town hall's annual job-creation scheme in winter, whereby roads are ripped up, huge holes are made and eventually get filled in. If so, it's not as if there aren't other such schemes that could be contemplated, such as tackling the state of those roads that are not - yet - subject to pedestrianisation; like, well, all of them in Puerto Pollensa. However, one should not lose sight of the fact that the compromise is itself still only a trial.

I am sympathetic to those living in Pinaret (and the compromise appears to affect them and not Gotmar residents) and to anyone else who fails to see the sense of the pedestrianisation. But there is one point, and that is that this has been on the cards for a number of years. That it may have finally come about with a lack of full consultation is one thing, but one wonders whether some proactive lobbying against the idea might not have been adopted in the past to prevent it ever having come about. The protests, however, can be seen in a wider context of concerns at the way the town hall appears to ride roughshod over people's wishes and their neighbourhoods. Nevertheless, I would challenge anyone to say that the status quo of the road infrastructure in the town could have been allowed to, and be allowed to remain. The resort simply can't cope, and it hasn't been able to for years.


And so to different roads, the side roads that are to be found the length of the Carretera Artà from Puerto Alcúdia to Can Picafort. Note the word "roads"; it is not unimportant. When the weather is as rubbish as it is at the moment, the poor old tourist is left with little else to do than wander along these side roads in a daze of disappointment as another shower breaks out. They are also prone to a drenching as some mobile dance club throbs by at great speed and splashes them with a tsunami of disturbed puddle. But bear in mind again that word "roads". These side roads are, surprising it may be to those of a pedestrian inclination, not pavements. Unlike some, I do not take these roads as though I were hacking along the Mulsanne Straight. I take them sedately, I don't even hit the horn as I know I am likely to be accused of manslaughter because of the heart attack it will cause. I just wait for the pedestrians of these non-pedestrianised "roads" to become aware that there's a whacking great bit of steel in motion nearly touching their rear ends. Yesterday, going along the side road past the Eden Alcúdia, there was a youth in the middle of the road with his back to me. His t-shirt bore the legend "The Miracle Boy". What if I were to put my foot down? I was sorely tempted, believe me. Thus, we would both have discovered if he truly was a miracle boy or indeed the miracle boy.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Creep", Radiohead (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxpblnsJEWM). Today's title - "whining" is harsh, but it fits as a variant on this.

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Into The Gap

Following up on yesterday's reference to the mad plan to close the coast road between Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa, there are some other factors to be taken into account. While Pollensa town hall might have got it into their collective heads that this is more than just some whim, there is the not insignificant matter of what Alcúdia thinks about it all. I drove along the road yesterday, and checked the boundary signs. That for Puerto Pollensa, the you-have-now-left Puerto Pollensa one, that is, is just past the new roundabout for the new bypass road. The welcome-to-Alcúdia one is right next to the old road to Pollensa, quite some way further along the coast road. Maybe the gap in between is Pollensa's (as opposed to just Puerto Pollensa's); whatever, the road itself "belongs" as much to Alcúdia as it does to Pollensa.

I cannot imagine that such a scheme - to close the main link road connecting Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa - can be within the gift of a local town hall; it is too strategically important in terms of transport infrastructure. I had always assumed that decisions regarding the "carreteras" were at least rubber-stamped centrally, if not made. There is then the issue of necessity. The closure would require another road. If not, the detour would be so inconvenient that Puerto Pollensa would be partially cut off. Besides, there is simply no need for another road; the one we have at present, i.e. the coast road, is perfectly adequate, if sometimes dangerous. That the beach may be expanded, as a consequence of getting rid of the road, and that the beach that is currently there might be "beautified" with imported sand, may be the desire of some environmental fanaticism, but who would actually use that beach? If there were no road, then how would beach users get there?

Finally, there is another strategic transport matter. It concerns the idea that there might be a tram that goes to Puerto Pollensa if there can ever be any agreement on the siting of the train terminal in Alcúdia. One hears less of this part of the mooted tramline than of the one that might go to Can Picafort, but it remains a possibility. And if so, well where would that go?

I don't believe this scheme will ever see the light of day. It's unnecessary, it's impractical, it serves an ill-defined environmental fancy, it would be hugely expensive (and the tab would be picked up centrally, not by the town halls), it would be unpopular ... Erm, is there any reason for it?

It was against this background that I had a conversation with someone in Puerto Pollensa yesterday. This chat also touched on Garry Bonsall's complaint which I also mentioned in yesterday's piece. The nub of the conversation was that Pollensa town hall, unlike Alcúdia's, seems to make secondary the needs of its port area. In other words, the town of Pollensa takes preference. I'm not sure this is right (Pollensa's roads, for example, are just as appalling as those in the port), but it is right in that this is a perception, and perceptions matter just as much as realities. Pollensa town hall has an image and a PR problem, if you like. It's not the only one. People in Playa de Muro and Can Picafort make the same sorts of complaints about their town halls, those of Muro and Santa Margalida. The great difference between Alcúdia and the other three is that the town and the port (or resort) is geographically linked. Pollensa, Muro and Santa Margalida are all several kilometres away from their resorts; Alcúdia is right on top of its. One does not hear the same level of complaint. Ok, Alcúdia town hall does its share of daft things, too, but there is not the same perceptual gap; one that distance only helps to accentuate. It is as if there is an elitism in the towns that affords the resorts secondary status. And people get upset, especially upset, as it is they in the resorts who generate such a high proportion of the town halls' revenues. There is something of the town halls acting as kingdoms of mediaeval England, dispatching their reeves or sheriffs to extract taxes from the thanes and peasantry, whilst lording it (as it were) in their castles of antiquity - which is about right in terms of the ages of the towns. And now I think of it, history says that Spain retained an essentially feudal system well into the last century, one that the Second Republic (which Franco crushed) sought to dismantle. That wasn't so long ago, and some seem to have good memories of feudalism.

Local democracy is a fine idea. I have no problem with it. It should be far more widespread in the UK. But if it results in perceptual faultlines and accusations that great parts of the municipalities are not listened to, then it is democracy by sham and autocracy by fiefdom. There again, isn't that the nature of democracy?


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - she's an old favourite of the blog, and thanks to a first-time quiz respondent Terence who got Dusty Springfield and Dionne Warwick (who did it first) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxl7YbVi4Cs. Today's title - big-selling album from one of the most intriguing British "pop" bands of the '80s. Think Hergé's Adventures of Tintin.

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Wishin' and Hopin'

And so the Puerto Pollensa road-closure fiasco continues to make itself felt. "The Bulletin" reports on the concerns of my old friend Garry Bonsall, dentist of Alcúdia and head of the Gotmar Residents' Association. In brief, these are a lack of consultation regarding the pedestrianisation and the potential to send more traffic and parking into the leafier areas of, for example, Gotmar, and the plan to in fact close the road between Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa in order to expand the beach. There is quite a bit more besides, including a threat of legal action against the town hall.

While I sympathise, my understanding was that there had been, finally, some consultation, though quite with whom I'm not exactly sure, presumably not the good people of Gotmar. Moreover, the pedestrianisation compromise, as I referred to on 14 September, doesn't restrict vehicle access nearly as much as the original plan. Consequently, I'm not sure quite how the Gotmar residents will be affected. Perhaps they will be. As for this closure of the coast road idea, it frankly beggars belief that this might be done. What was the point of building the new road if now it won't be accessible except by another road from somewhere? I've gone over this reclaimed ground before (9 May: Road To Nowhere). It had seemed as though it were some fantasy idea, but apparently not. The point though is that this would not be a Pollensa town hall matter. It might fancy closing the road, for whatever reason, but it would surely be one for higher authorities than the gaffe-prone council. There may be some sound environmental thinking here, but not if it means cutting a huge swathe through land at the back of Albufereta in order to create a link road to the one that's just been completed.

But amongst those higher authorities, one wonders at times. Here we now have a Balearic Government minister, who's leaving the sinking ship to head up the Playa de Palma project, saying that the same number of people are employed in the Balearics as there were last year. Excuse me. Have I been misreading those reports of increased unemployment? Have the tourist and construction industries not been laying off workers after all? It's all been a dream, and here's Bobby coming out of the shower. One fears that there is a sizeable dose of wishful thinking knocking around. The minister goes on to say that the government is looking at ways of working through the current economic crisis and at remodelling the economy (which appears to mean throwing a whole load of money at public construction, which hardly sounds like a remodelling) and at "policies to boost tourism and commerce", whatever they might be.

What part of the planet is the minister on? It doesn't appear to be that part formed by an archipelago in the Mediterranean. The unpalatable truth for Balearic politicians is that the "crisis" reveals just how impotent and irrelevant they are when the world's economy is in such strife. They can affect little, other than dabble at the edges. They might like to think so, and to blame previous administrations, but they are neutered, emasculated, up the "mierda" creek minus an implement of manoeuvre. The good times let the regional governments, such at that in the Balearics, to follow the same policy of unchecked boom as the national government. But with the arrival of the bad times, they are left wallowing with nowhere to turn, except to Madrid for assistance.

Mallorca is caught in a vice of factors almost completely beyond anyone's control. It, as part of Spain, is one, along with the UK, of the big victims of the economic slump. Were there not so much debt already sloshing around (and there was a great ocean of it before anyone had even heard of sub-prime), it might not be so bad, but there is - business and personal. The level of Spain's consumer debt exceeds even that of the reckless UK. The island's main industries - tourism and construction - are utterly at the mercy of economic circumstances. The local government may want to splash more cash in the direction of the construction industry, but it will be public spending that merely papers over the cracks of an unbalanced economic model, assuming the cash is actually forthcoming. This all said, the good news coming out of Alcúdia at any rate is that certain hotels are showing healthy bookings for next year and even taking them for 2010. Among all the turmoil, let us hope.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Geoff rightly points out that it was a traditional folk song, but fair to say I think that The Beach Boys popularised "Sloop John B" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_KY_d9MQv8). Today's title - who made this a hit?

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Happens All The Time

"Vuelta al cole". Back to school. It's that time of year, and tomorrow will see the mass return to the reality of education after the months of beach and play. As every year, the newspapers will doubtless be full of photos of the munchkins returning after having spent a quarter of the year on holiday. Last year when I reported on the "vuelta", I mentioned that the press had reported that the return had gone off "with normality". I'd love to know what abnormality would be, and, as chance would have it, there will be some served up in Puerto Alcúdia. Nothing like a bit of parental direct action, as school will still be out tomorrow if they have their way. There is a touch of local difficulty regarding the temporary classrooms at the new secondary school and their safety. The governmental body for education and culture is getting it in the neck for failing to meet promises. Back to school and back to the beach, it would seem.


The length of the holiday as much as the act of the return adds power to the news that is the "vuelta", and so it will, as always, make the news. A summer holiday double in length of that in England might suggest a pretty relaxed educational regime. It would be an incorrect perception. The total number of hours spent per annum in Spanish schools is not that far behind that of England which not only has some of the longest hours it also has the shortest summer holidays (along with Wales and Germany); the difference is in the region of 450 hours per year. This may seem a lot until one appreciates that, for example, the number of hours in Finland is 1700 less than England; and Finland is a country with a higher level of educational achievement than in England or Spain. The Finns, by the way, have 11 weeks of summer holiday. Spanish kids spend more time in school than do their German counterparts by a factor of 600 hours, despite the twelve-week summer holiday.

The new school term will also see the introduction of English (or French or German) as the language of teaching for certain subjects, the choice and discretion of individual schools participating in the scheme. English, for instance, could be used for maths, art or biology. Hmm. I remember biology. We started with the amoeba, if memory serves, and then the memory fades. I never really graduated much beyond the simple single cell. To have been instructed in Spanish would have made it even less comprehensible. I don't know quite how this English or other foreign language teaching is meant to help. Perhaps simple English lessons might be the answer. To explain relatively complex subjects in an alien language will depend enormously on the skill of the teacher as well, and some crash courses in English for teachers do not necessarily arm them with all those skills.


FLOODS AND ROADS - EVERY TIME
The early arrival of autumn in the form of the storm that struck on Friday left, no surprise, the coast road into Puerto Pollensa awash with flood water. Happens all the time. There was me thinking that they were meant to have done something to have alleviated the flooding problem. Come the rains, and it's going to happen. Mind you, this is a useful way around the road closure-or-not conundrum. Just summon up a few storms and nature takes the decision out of the hands of the town hall.

As the debate about the road rumbles on, I am less and less clear as to quite why there is a desire to pedestrianise it. Or at least pedestrianise the whole length up to Llenaire. There is a perfectly adequate form of pedestrian mobility as it is: the pavement. If the plan were to ban vehicles as far as, for instance, Sail and Surf and La Gola, I could see some sense. This would mean that the areas of Puerto Pollensa's frontline with the main concentration of pedestrians would become more easily negotiated by those pedestrians. But up as far as Llenaire? Why? It can only be as a justification for the new road, which is fair enough - up to a point. The new road is, or should be, to alleviate some of the congestion in the centre of the port, so a partial increase in pedestrianisation would achieve this. To close the road for the whole length, however, would merely create a problem that does not exist.

AND MORE ...
Teach me to put together features a day in advance. So this is by way of an almost immediate update. It now seems that the road will be closed between the Calle Elcano, which is the road opposite the entrance to the wharf (Moll Sur), and the Avenida Paris, which is just a bit past where I had suggested. This means that there will be no pedestrianisation as far as Llenaire and that the bit between the nautical club roundabout and the wharf will remain open. That indeed had been another thing I couldn't quite understand - access to the wharf and nautical club and also to the parking area. Now, it would seem, it is to remain open, though it will also mean entering from Calle Juan XXIII. The compromise closure is to be effected over this coming week. That's it then. For now.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Yardbirds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUZg6VHfcLM). Today's title - Northern Irish.

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I Saw The Sign

The will it close, will it not close confusion continues regarding the frontline road from Llenaire into Puerto Pollensa. There was a letter to the "Ultima Hora" newspaper the other day about the projected closure and also about the new bypass. Unfortunately, it was in Catalan, but I get the gist. Lack of information as to the exact plans of the town hall, was the bypass really necessary; that sort of thing. It also mentions, as I pointed out a while back, that there is a sign at the roundabout as one comes from Alcúdia that directs traffic into the centre along the very road that is meant to be closed at some point. In other words, it doesn't direct traffic along the bypass, unless, that is, you want to go to Palma perhaps.

I have been along the bypass a few times now. It's a joy. There's hardly any other traffic. Of course there will be if the coast road is closed, but if it isn't, then the letter-writer's complaint as to the destruction of the area around Llenaire, brought about by the hugely expensive bypass, has some substance. As for that sign, a few days ago there was a sort of blue bin-liner affair attached to it with an arrow pointing towards the bypass. I presume that it wasn't official, and that some wag had put it there as a way of making a point to the town hall (or whoever is responsible for road signs). Even if the frontline remains open, why not send traffic along the bypass? You can get to the centre just as easily; more easily in fact. Anyway, this temporary bin-liner sign is no longer there, and just to emphasise how much the town hall recognises that everyone is still of course using the coast road, there is another sign, a damn great big one across the road that announces this weekend's fisherman's fair in Puerto Pollensa (see the WHAT'S ON BLOG - http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com - for information).

They seem to have a bit of a problem with road signs here. The classic road sign that isn't a road sign by the Hiper supermarket in Puerto Pollensa is one of the finest examples. What it is, is a warning road sign, intended to tell you to get into lane for the real road sign at the lights some 100 metres further along - around a slight bend, so conveniently you can't actually see that there are other signs and a junction. What happens therefore is that the uninitiated slow down or stop, get confused, cause the driver behind to get mad, and then maybe proceed or go left or right, which is not what you should do.

Then there is another bypass. The one that goes at the back of Bellevue in Puerto Alcúdia. This road is similarly lightly used. It may take you out of your way, but in summer it is much quicker to use it than crawl along the carretera in order to get into the centre of the port or to go to Alcanada or the old town. The only problem is that the sign at the roundabout directs traffic to Palma and Sa Pobla, which is fair enough, but it neglects the bypass possibility. Moreover, at the next roundabout the sign for Palma directs you along the road to Sa Pobla, the old one by Albufera; the old one with that bridge where it is one-way traffic. What it does not do is direct you along the bypass to Palma, which is by far the simpler route. As one enters Alcúdia from the motorway, the bypass is similarly poorly signed. It says Can Picafort and Arta. Again, this is fair enough, but it fails to therefore inform the driver that this is the road for, for example, Hidropark and Bellevue, to say nothing of Playa de Muro. For the tourist especially, these signs are, shall we say, less than useful.


WHAT WAS YESTERDAY?
The day England became World Cup favourites? Bloody hot, the consequence of all that air being sucked in from Africa? Well, one of these. It was also the "day of the tourist". If you are a tourist, congratulations, you have a day named after you. It was Puerto Alcúdia's day of the tourist. Did anyone know? Anyway, there were sports, arroz brut (bet that went down well with the Bellevue crowd), and musical "spectaculars", among which was a performance by the omnipotent Beatles tribute - Beatlejuice. And they are omnipotent. Everywhere you go, these non-lookalikes are to be found. With the greatest respect to some friends with whom I spent an evening being serenaded over a meal by said Beatlejuice, I found them singularly underwhelming. They liked them. There again, I'm none too taken with most, if any, tributes. What do I know. There again, I'm not a tourist. Wasn't my day.


AND WHAT IS TODAY?
The day for a hangover after England's glorious victory? The anniversary of you know what? Both. It also marks a 600.

Mention of those signs by Hiper brings me to the fact that this entry is the 600th on the blog. One of the earliest entries spoke about these very signs. You won't find that entry any longer as I've started a process of deleting old archives. The blog's just got too big. Accordingly, the stuff for 2006 now starts in July of that year. Some of the old stuff may well be worth revisiting at some point and re-doing. Anyway, as this is number 600, I'd just like to say thanks to all of you who come here. I had never anticipated that making entries daily back in October last year would have had so much impact. I have had those who tell me they are "too addicted" to the blog or who look at the blog as the first thing once the computer has been powered up. It is quite nice to know that. It's also nice to get comments that the blog is "refreshing", "very good incisive stuff" and an "antidote to some other sites where the sun always shines on the sangria". So to all of you, once again, thanks a lot. I very much appreciate your time in both reading the blog and contacting me. Do keep sending your emails, comments, observations, disagreements, and answering the odd quiz question. Which brings me to ...


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Racing Cars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7xEfNrXOLg). The vocals on the video are not very clear. Today's title - Swedish.

Oh, and today is also someone's birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KAREN!

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