Royal Week In Mallorca

Spain's royals are no different to other royals - those who are of some significance, that is - when it comes to being obliged to do the press photo shoot. And there's no better time to shoot them, so to speak, than when they're enjoying their annual hols by the seaside. This is all pretty normal, but what wasn't last week was the apparent sponsoring by a fashion store. Which one was it, do you suppose? Zara, Armani, Marks and Sparks? Primark perhaps. Probably not.

You might determine that fashion is not one of my strong suits (sic), but even I couldn't fail to notice that there was something of the catalogue about their highnesses and the two nippers as they strolled around the Marivent gardens (minus any citizens getting in the way). Summer casuals with style: it would be something like that I would imagine, were I to pay any attention to the frivolity of fashion sloganising.

The King, being the solitary male in the family group, was rather more bold in the choice of shirt colour than the hoopy, stripy, light estival blues and whites of the royal females, yet even he had succumbed to the subdued subtleties of the fashion parade. So much so that the shirt and trouser combination appeared to have been borrowed from Iglesias (Pablo, that is, and not either of Julio or Enrique). Was this a sign, did one suppose? His Majesty has, after all, had to endure a less than totally relaxing vacation, what with attempting the seemingly impossible, that of finding anyone to run the country. But Iglesias? Hard to believe, given that Podemos turned down the chance of some decent nosebag at yesterday evening's shindig at the Almudaina.

The King will have been able to reacquaint himself with the one Podemista who deigns to show up on these occasions and then only because she's obliged to as the speaker (president) of the Balearic parliament. Xe-Lo, for it is she, does of course have her own fashion line. It's a sort of Mama Cass circa 1967 minus the chemicals. It most certainly won't be a brand that Tizzy will be recommending for the next royal photo opp.

I'm still interested to know, and I've been waiting a year, if Xe-Lo actually took along a doggy bag to the previous Almudaina thrash and filled it with some canapes and the odd bottle of cava and then thumbed a lift to the nearest soup kitchen. She had, it should be recalled, let the King know that money for the reception could have been more wisely spent on the deprived citizens of the city, i.e. those at the soup kitchen(s). In the absence of any official communique from Podemos, I would have to assume that she contented herself with tucking into things on sticks and forgot.

Other royals have also been in circulation. The former king put in what is now a rare appearance in Mallorca because of his sister's eightieth do, and the following evening the various generations headed off to the Land of the Beautiful People for dinner. What is it with reporting on these occasions? The royals were at a "well-known restaurant". Why not just say that it's Flanigan, especially as the name is clearly to be seen in the bloody photo. There again, the hoi-polloi would be unfamiliar with restaurants down Portals way. The place is a bit like Jersey. They put barriers across the road to keep the riff-raff out and demand to see evidence of wealth from a bank statement. Not that there is a great deal of wealth actually kept in banks down Portals way one would imagine.

Then there were the Urdangarin minors, taken off to the regatta by the Queen Mum. Nowhere to be seen were the parents. The Queen Mum was beaming as she always does beam. God bless her, given what she has to put up with. We were informed that the nippers - Sofia and Leonor - would not be at the regatta as they "do not practise sailing". They may well not do, though being seen with the cousins might constitute some awkwardness, what with the business with the parents.

Of all the royals on show, it is possible that Podemos would have taken greatest exception to the King's other sister, Elena, the one who isn't waiting to hear what fate the judges have for her. Elena went to the bullfight. So did her two children. Isn't there something about under-16s not being allowed into bullfights? According to Wikipedia, the daughter, Victoria, isn't 16 until 9 September. If so, then Podemos (and others) might want their say on the matter. Sounds like a case of shooting one's royal self in the foot. Which of course is precisely what Elena's son did, when he was under 14 and not meant to have been using a firearm because of his age. But then, as they say, age is just a number.

The Stigma Of The M-place

Well, it isn't all bad news, you know. There was a headline in one Spanish paper this week which read "Bookings to Magalluf soar". Yep, you could have put money on it, though one can guess which niche of the British tourist market will be doing the soaring. One somewhat larger niche, the great family market, will surely be doing all it can to avoid having to fess up to relatives, friends, neighbours and hairdressers that it is off to the M-place in sunny Spain. "Going anywhere nice on your holidays?" "Erm, yes, erm, Mag ..." "Sorry, where did you say?" God, the stigma of it all. It's like admitting going on holiday to a nudist resort. Or Skegness. 

There is one family, though, which appeared to have been having second thoughts. Letizia was browsing the net for likely holiday destinations when suddenly up popped a short video she hadn't been expecting. "Right, that's it. We're not going to THAT place." Anyway, a sort of bidding war then broke out between Mallorca and Almeria to see which one could ensure the summer holidaying patronage of Felipe, Tizzy and the kids. And if the Costa Almeria (the original Costa del Sol, if you didn't know) were to have won out, what then of the Marivent? It's not as if you can have a damn great palace sitting idle all summer. Perhaps they'd thought of offering it to Carnage and suggesting they added it to the bar crawl itinerary. But it did of course all turn out all right in the end for Mallorca. Put to a family vote, the kids sided with dad. Never mind, Tizzy, there's always next year.

It's not just the royals who have been anxious about being stigmatised with being within several kilometres of the M-place. Mallorca's own royalty, the boy Nadal, has turned his back on the island, too. What an ingrate. No sooner had the Council of Mallorca said that it was putting him up for an "illustrious son" award for being such a splendid ambassador for Mallorca than the illustrious son cleared off to Ibiza on his jollies. Who next? Who else can we expect to say no to Majorca rather than face the stigma-by-association of the M-place? If White Dee says no, then we really know we're in trouble. Mind you, there is always Jeremy Kyle. As they say in short-message social media land: ffs.

But Friday Never Hesitate

Despite my scepticism, word coming from the World Travel Market suggests that Mallorca can expect a “spectacular” increase in the number of British tourists in 2008 especially those coming all year round for city breaks - for which, read Palma. I shall bow to this word. Undoubtedly the availability of low-cost air travel and the wide use of the internet for travel booking in the UK are helping to promote this form of tourism, though I remain to be convinced that Palma holds greater attractions than many other destinations. But even allowing for the fact that it does, tourism coming into Palma for a long weekend does virtually nothing for places like Alcúdia and Pollensa.

There is to be a major promotional campaign in collaboration with tour operators and airlines to bring more people to all the Balearic Islands in the low seasons of September to November and March to May, the promotional emphasis seemingly being the cheapness of travel.


Back on the autumn fairs. There was this sound-off thing in “Ultima Hora”. While bemoaning the chaos of parking in Pollensa for its recent fair, the commentator was otherwise full of praise (parking in Pollensa is chaotic at the best of times). He found though that there was a lack of knowledge among craft exhibitors in Pollensa as to the upcoming fair in Sa Pobla, decrying the lack of publicity and lack of dynamism and implicating Muro (which had its fair last weekend - at the same time as Pollensa) as well.

He may well have a point. Living closer to both Sa Pobla and Muro than to Pollensa, I am always fully aware of the Pollensa event as I am of Alcúdia’s fair. It is easy to get information for things going on in Pollensa and Alcúdia, but for Muro and Sa Pobla ... .


For the British, with a tradition of satire from Jonathan Swift (albeit he was half-Irish) to “Punch” and “Private Eye” and, moreover, a tradition of debunking its institutions and their representatives, the case of the “El Jueves” cartoon might seem somewhat odd. To remind you: the magazine was charged for publishing a cartoon which ridiculed the Crown in the form of Crown-Prince Felipe and his wife. This is an offence in Spain. The editor and cartoonist have now been fined.

Inevitably, the prosecution of the magazine’s personnel has led to accusations that the case has been pursued as a means of limiting press freedom and freedom of expression. This is not so. The judgement makes it clear that there are limits, and the magazine crossed these. It is the law and not the specific case that places limits on freedom of expression. Spain is hardly unique in having such limits. Whether these limits need to be stretched by a change to the law is another matter; the publicity surrounding the case might be said to have caused the Royal Family more harm than the original cartoon.


QUIZ
Yesterday - The Strawbs. And for those currently on a roll ... Today’s title - one for weekend-breakers, a line from what song, together with “Saturday wait, And Sunday always comes too late”.

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

One Nation Under A Groove

This Spanishness thing of yesterday.

What is Spanishness? There is a curiosity in celebrating an abstract nationalism. It can be variously interpreted as a statement of a confident state, as a statement of a lack of confidence or as a statement of nostalgia. It is perhaps all these things, though currently one senses it is less a statement of confidence. There are frictions in the nation of Spain, as I have noted before: the ETA-Basque issue has flared up badly again; the monarchy is under attack; the Catalonians are constantly seeking greater autonomy.

In historical terms, Spanishness, represented by the unified entity that is Spain, is centuries old, a creation of the Catholic Kings in the fifteenth century. It was the various disruptions of the mid to late nineteenth century and then on into the Franco period that saw the erosion of Spanishness, or at least a unifying totem of Spain. The unravelling of the empire in the late nineteenth century also saw the if not elimination of Spanishness internationally then certainly its diminution.

The face of Spanishness that yesterday’s celebrations would have been designed to show would be a democratic, economically and politically stable state with a greater voice in the international arena. That would be the statement of confidence. But it is also the statement of lack of confidence. Spanishness, in a democratic guise, is still a child. The hundred years or so prior to the restoration of the monarchy (Juan-Carlos) and the establishment of democracy after Franco’s death were years of turmoil. Twice the monarchy was replaced by short-lived republics, the second of which was a response to the monarch of the time (Alfonso XIII) and his accommodation of the dictator Primo de Rivera and which ended with Franco. The voice in the international arena has been dumb for many, many years, or rather had been. The Spanishness of empire was replaced by isolationism - two world wars of non-participation - and economic basket-case-ness that was relieved by becoming a European player. The rare occasion that Spanishness spoke on the international arena was when Aznar held the coat-tails of George Bush and Tony Blair; a Spanishness that did not play well in Madrid, Barcelona or the Balearics, even less so after the bombings.

One senses an unease. The monarchy, and specifically King Juan-Carlos, is totemic in current-day Spanishness. Yet this also raises that idea of lack of confidence as well as the nostalgia. The lack of confidence stems from the possibility - remote perhaps - that there could be another collapse of this totem and another period of factionalism that might be described as the Spanishness of much of the hundred years before 1975. The nostalgia is that of the Golden Age and empire; a nostalgia and a struggle for confidence that is the burden shared with those who cannot yet define Britishness in anything other than pre-1939 terms.

Spanishness. One nation under a groove? Smoothly performing or spinning off? Basque-ness, Catalonian-ness. Separation? Whither Spanishness?


QUIZ
Yesterday - Madonna, “Holiday”. Today’s title ...?

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

All Together Now

National anthems. Musical patriotism, eyes-bulging rugby players belting them out and pumping themselves up or footballers mumbling embarrassedly, searching for words they don’t know. In the case of Spanish footballers, there is good reason. There are no official words to the national anthem, so Torres and the rest just hum the tune. They were talking about all this on Five Live yesterday. Seemingly, there is a drive to get some official words, but that’s where the problem starts. The Spanish anthem is known as the “marcha real” - royal march. As a result, this doesn’t sit that well with certain areas of Spain and certain groups, notably the Catalonians and the Basques. So try getting an anthem that satisfies all these disparate factions and tie it up with the royal tag. Not easy. This all comes at a difficult time for the Spanish royal family. The Catalonians are getting uppity again, a certain ire being directed at the royals, the Basques want independence, there is a case involving a cartoonist who poked fun at Felipe and Letizia (for which there could be a jail sentence; you cannot take the rip out of the Spanish royals). Juan-Carlos retains a lot of support; he is still remembered for his role in quelling the 1981 coup attempt, but the rest of the family - tricky. A bit like the Windsors, I guess.

To compound the problem, most of the regions of Spain have their own anthems, with certain exceptions, e.g. the Balearics. The semi-federalism of Spain does not lend itself easily to unified symbols of nationhood. The Germans manage it well enough, but the history of “Über Alles” is strong. Imposing an anthem seems artificial. Anthems need some substance, which only history truly lends them. And in an era of localisation and regional autonomy, as one has in Spain, it seems an almost impossible task. Maybe they should just let the footballers carry on humming; they’ll never remember the words anyway.


The localisation of politics in Spain does have one big thing going for it, in that it brings politics that much closer to the people. Simon Jenkins in “The Sunday Times” at the weekend observed that the smallest unit of democratic administration in Britain covers an average 118,000 people. He contrasted this with similar units in France, Germany and the USA. Here in Mallorca, Alcúdia, for instance, has a registered population of just over 16,000, Pollensa similar, Muro nearly 7,000, Santa Margalida a bit more than 10,000. Even these are quite large compared to, say, the smallest French communes, but they are manageable. Each municipality has its own mayor, and these mayors are highly visible. Go to Café La Sala in Alcúdia and it is quite possible that Miquel Ferrer will be having a coffee.

Whether one supports or not these mayors or other politicians or indeed whether one even likes them or not is not the point. Localisation of politics aids sense of community, something that Mallorca has in spades. And one hears all too often that, in Britain, community is dead, but, there again, Britain is a centralised political entity.


QUIZ
Top of the class for Anne Marie who got both Right Said Fred and Massive Attack. Today’s title - it is a kind of an anthem anyway (with strong football links). Who? And don’t say The Beatles.

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

It’s All About The Price

How much does it cost for a tourist in Mallorca? I’ve spoken about this before, and we get a lot about tourist spend. In a piece on 5 July (Money, Money, Money!), I noted that average tourist spend was 809 euros. I was sceptical as to what this actually represented, but in today’s “Ultima Hora” there is a feature that seeks to break this spend down. The caveat for this is that the feature is biased towards Palma and its environs and probably to the Spanish tourist, but it concludes that the average weekly spend ranges from 600 to 800 euros, the difference largely depending on the type of accommodation. The upper limit of the spend on hotels is given as 525 euros for a week (for a four-star), with three-stars given as 392. So obviously the cost of accommodation is the single biggest item, but the article also included the cost of excursions and of food and drink.

Extrapolating from this to the situation for your average Brit, German or other tourist in Alcúdia, Pollensa or Can Picafort is not easy, but I’m inclined to think that the Ultima Hora figure is a bit on the low side. I say this as there is a greater cost for transport to and from the airport and also a greater spend on food and drink than the Spanish tourist more minded to do with a menu of the day and more minded not to guzzle his or her way through several large cold drinks. There is also one vital element the article does not consider - tobacco.

So, interesting, but by no means definitive.


I do not want to bang on about Diana, and thought I would not have reason to mention her again, but there is something rather odd about the Spanish reporting; odd, in that members of the Royal Family are no longer Charles, William and Harry, but Carlos, Guillermo and Enrique. Enrique! It’s not even that Henry is his name. But why does the press change the names? In Britain, does Juan-Carlos become John-Charles? For others, the press cannot make any “translation”. Gordon Brown, for instance, remains Gordon, there being no equivalent unless you take the Spanish “gordo” (for fat). But Tony Blair was never Antonio Blair, so why change the royals’ names? Strange stuff.

QUIZ
Yesterday - “Land of Confusion”, Genesis. Sorry, I said there would be no more Genesis. But there was. Today’s title - this is an incomplete line (missing two words) from a British folk (sort of) singer, whose one-time roadie has broken a restraining order. Who?

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