And Cancel Christmas

By the roundabout at the top of Puerto Alcúdia's "Mile", a single festive "Bones Festes" sign swings forlornly in the autumn wind. Alcúdia town hall will have to decide whether the rest of the usual lights will go up this Christmas. They might put them up, but whether they switch them on or have them on for only limited periods will also need to be decided. The town hall's electricity bill has increased by a massive 40% in a year. "A barbarity," has said mayor Llompart of the rise, one caused partly by new infrastructure in the town but also by - the target of Sr. Llompart's upset - GESA's prices.

Alcúdia has already taken the decision to switch off much of the town's street lighting at midnight, including that by the old town's walls. Alcúdia like a Christmas tree? Tonight or any other night over the festivities, the city won't belong to me or to you. We won't be able to find our way round. Angels of half-light. If that. Not that it probably matters. No one much will be around. They'll be holed up at home, huddled over the radiators, reduced in the number switched on, the result also of higher electricity prices, or crouched by a gas heater, breathing in butane that has also gone up.

Christmas is coming. The goose is getting thin.

You can get goose for your Christmas lunch in Mallorca, just as you can get turkey. But what has been a meat-buying trend to downscale for some time will carry over into Christmas. Rabbit is going to be popular. And some of it may well be wild. The fincas are alive with the sound of guns, not all of them necessarily those of the licensed hunters.

FACUA, the consumers association, reckons that household spending in the Balearics as a whole will be down by some six per cent this Christmas. While the purchase of gifts is likely to remain at the same sort of level as last year, there is one element of Christmas cheer that has taken a nosedive, and not only at Christmas. Alcohol. Since 2007 sales of beer have slumped by 35%; those of higher alcohol content, spirits etc., by 27%. You can see the evidence of this in the supermarkets. Prominent, so as to grab the attention of shop traffic, are low offers on the likes of cava. Even checkout girls, unused to the role of playing salespeople, are drawing attention to the cheap booze.

It isn't of course just the supermarkets which have been hit and which have had to introduce more basic lines. There are the bars and liquor stores as well. 30,000 of them across Spain have closed since the crisis took a hold. The "El Gordo" Christmas lottery will still attract its syndicates willing to fork out for what are expensive tickets, but lotteries in general, games of bingo and slot machines are also victims of lower spend on things other than necessities.

And with the slump in sales comes also a slump in revenue - that to the government, one only partially addressed by the increase in IVA. There is a further non-necessity that has seen the treasury's coffers emptied: the sale of cigarettes. In 2008 this fell by a massive 37% in Mallorca. So maybe tourists don't spend all their money on fags after all. The upward adjustment in prices on tobacco last year, primarily duty, has enabled the government to recoup some of the loss, but as with more or less everything, the curve heads downwards.

This will be an austerity Christmas, implies FACUA. Appropriately enough amidst the austerity of governmental measures which show no sign of bringing confidence back to consumers or to business. And the fear is that the new year might even herald something worse. The markets have sunk their teeth into Greece and spat it out, just as they are doing to Ireland, despite its regular austerity revisions. Portugal could be on its way out of the euro anyway. So then there's Spain.

The new year will also see the introduction of the smoking ban. Predictions of a 15% fall in bar sales as a result would come on top of the decline in alcohol consumption that has already been experienced. The bars and restaurants have started a campaign to stop the ban or to at least delay its introduction. It's a bit late, one would think. But maybe they have a point in that now is probably not the best time to bring it in.

For now is the time of less, less, ever less. Except when it's more, more, ever more. Like the cost of electricity. Town halls in penury, the lights going out all over Alcúdia and elsewhere in Mallorca. Little to celebrate during the festive season, with less-extravagant feasts and fewer cups that cheer. It would be nice to say "merry Christmas", but it would be said through gritted teeth. As for a happy new year, the bars will be the first ones to assess the accuracy of that, come 2 January. And after that ...?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Bend It

Flexibility. This might be a good word; a good word to describe how things are here. Not flexibility in the positive sense so much - as in he/she demonstrated flexibility in his/her thinking - but flexibility in the maybe we'll do what we're told to or maybe we won't sense. And often one fancies it is the latter. Let's take smoking in cafés shall we. Without wishing to puff on an old pipe once more and blow some smoke rings of explanation as to how the law is meant to apply (with the emphasis on the "meant to"), suffice it to say that, in some establishments, there is a no-smoking area and a smoking area. Theoretically, there is meant to be some physical division between the two, but let's not get bogged down in theory, for in practice what you have is a theoretical no-smoking area which is right next to a practical smoking area. In other words, it doesn't make any real difference whether one part of the café is dubbed "no smoking" because the smoke is available to all. How charitable these regulations are. And even in the no-smoking area, the rigidity of that no-smoking command is, yes, flexible. Or to use another word - ignored.

Now, without wishing to finger anywhere or anyone in particular, and given that I happen to like the place and am familiar with its coffees, pastries and baguettes, there is a café in Puerto Alcúdia that is mightily popular with locals and expats alike. It has - or had the other day when I was there - a particularly flexible approach to smoking (or no smoking, as it may be). Right by my head and therefore next to my table was a sign that read "zona no fumadors". I don't think I need to translate. I hadn't appreciated that the zona no fumadors appears to extend to one table alone, as - at the next table - were a trio, two of whom I recognised from a bar which, without wishing to finger anywhere or anyone, is by the grand canal in Puerto Alcúdia, and one of the two was puffing away heartily. At the adjoining table were two "girls", who I didn't recognise, and who were both happily making some serious inroads into a packet of Marlboro.

Flexible. It's not far from bendy, is it. And bendy is not far from bent. And bent is not far from rules. Flexible, that'll be it.


Meantime, rare old sport in the Junior Common Rooms, sometimes known as the local town halls. The only thing that appears to be missing from meetings of the town hall politicos is vast quantities of alcohol, which were deemed a pre-requisite in my day of student politics in the JCRs. Alcohol, though, was not the only requirement. I once chaired a special meeting that was a vote of no confidence in the editors of the college rag. It was packed out, but it didn't stop me having my apple crumble and custard while it was going on. But anyway, where was I? Ah yes, only slightly more relevant than JCR politics is what goes on in the town halls. Always good for a spat is Santa Margalida where the spokesman for the Unió Mallorquina was expelled from a meeting for having the audacity to accuse the mayor (Partido Popular) of high-handedness and something called "indocumentado", which, though it is pretty clear, I'm unsure as to the precise sense in which it is being used, and one needs to be a bit cautious as this all revolves around some 800 grands worth of invoices. Anyway, it all sounds like jolly good fun with accusations being hurled about to do with curbing freedom of expression and all that sort of stuff. There again, 800 grand is on rather a grander scale than debates we used to have about donating 20 quid to the Shrewsbury Three or the Iranian Ninety-One or the M Twenty-Five or the Temperance Seven - whatever cause it happened to be, and it was invariably of a right-on far-left nature and involved endless discussion as to whether payments were "ultra vires". If there is one or rather are two words that describe my university life, they would be ultra and vires, and I still don't know what they mean.

But the Junior Common Room to beat them all is of course that in Pollensa, where mayor Cerdà is under fire for the town's cleaning arrangements. When isn't he under fire? The United Left/Greens, the one-man mayoral destruction unit that is Pepe García, is having a go about the fact that the company that does the cleaning - sort of - has not had a contract for several months. Ah look, just don't worry about it. It'll be an oversight. You know how flexible things can be here.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Beverley Knight (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vobWLTdCzvo). Today's title - the lead singer sadly died recently.

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Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors

Smoke gets in your eyes? Still does and is still likely to. One of the more meaningless pieces of legislation here has been that regarding the restrictions on smoking in restaurants, bars and public places. What legislation, you might well ask. In restaurants, if the place is of a certain size, there has to be a no-smoking zone. Under this size (100 square metres), anything goes, and the bar and restaurant owners nearly all have opted for no change. It's a crazy law. It has made virtually no difference. The sale of tobacco is another thing. The change in the law covering this means that no shop, other than the licensed tobacconists (who therefore operate something approaching a cartel), can sell cigarettes - in bulk at any rate. There can still be some machines, but these are just for single packs. The inconsistency in these strands of the tobacco law is glaring. The justification for the change was public health, yet smoking has been largely unaffected in bars and restaurants, while the sale of tobacco has been handed to a few operators who are taking all the benefit. There has been renewed pressure to allow tourist shops to go back to selling tobacco, but it has been unsuccessful.

Tobacco prices are controlled. Go to different "tabacos" and the prices will all be "official prices". Talk about a free market. Price control and control of the means of distribution. It's not wholly unusual; alcohol is sold in some countries under a similar system. But if the prices remained controlled, i.e. there could be no under-cutting, why shouldn't other shops be allowed to derive some benefit? There is, after all, plenty of demand. One only has to look at web forums and the questions about where to get cigarettes, what they cost etc, to know that this is one sale that has been largely left intact while other tourist spend has gone down. The public health argument is totally spurious. Were it not, then the restrictions in bars etc. would be that much stiffer. They are not. And in all this, there is the lead that one might think would be forthcoming from those in the health professions. Look outside a hospital some time, or a clinic, or a chemist. The song goes, more or less, "there is nothing sadder than smokers outside hospital doors". I once had an appointment with a consultant at the Hospital d'Alcúdia. Afterwards I had a coffee at a nearby café. Who should walk past, puffing on a cigarette?

Playing with the market is one thing, and it has been half-hearted and even unfair. Education is the other thing, and that is not working either. Keep on coughing.


QUIZ: Back to normal after yesterday. Today's title - who did it?

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Cough, Cough

A few days ago I got an email from Ben, he of the Piccadilly site that is linked here. The gist of this was, what’s the deal with smoking nowadays since the introduction of smoking restrictions some 18 months or so back.

Anyone in England, coming to terms with the rigorous anti-smoking laws in public places, might well ask what restrictions. Setting aside the confusion of the Balearics applying a different interpretation to the mainland, the basics of the law are these:

Any bar/restaurant over 100 square metres must have separate smoking and no-smoking areas.
Any bar/restaurant of less than 100 square metres can opt to be smoking or non-smoking.

Overwhelmingly the smaller establishments have opted to remain smoking zones. In larger establishments, the separate areas are a joke as physical barriers are barely in evidence. But moreover, the policing of all this has been pretty woolly. “The Bulletin” today has a good article about this (you see, I can praise it sometimes!). It quotes findings from the Spanish consumers’ association which reveal that a “blind eye” is often turned towards the issue, while a request for information on fines from the country’s autonomous regions drew only four (out of 17) fully completed answers.

The fact is that the anti-smoking laws here are totally inadequate. England’s (and Ireland’s and Scotland’s) may seem draconian, but perhaps they are necessary. That said, there’s something to applaud in the fact that Spain doesn’t go too far in proscribing what people can or cannot do, and where. Though the other side of this coin is that I still feel the tobacco sale law verges on the iniquitous (in the sense of a functioning free market) in creating a form of monopoly whereby bulk purchases of tobacco are only possible through the limited number of licensed tobacconists.


The season had a stuttering start in April. But now hotel occupations have grown, and the prediction of an even better year than 2006 may yet prove to be accurate. Again quoting from “The Bulletin”, the MD of one tourist group is praising the efforts of the Balearic Government and Tourism Ministry for the promotional strategy which is bearing fruit. Well, good for them. And I suppose this praise has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact the elections take place on Sunday.

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