Protests by anti-bullfight groups in Mallorca are normally confined to demonstrations at the few bullfights which take place on the island, but in Palma there has been an escalation in the type of protest against the bullfight to be held on Thursday, a ticket office having been set fire to and the front of a restaurant that was selling tickets having been vandalised.
See more: El Mundo
Showing posts with label Vandalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vandalism. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 06, 2013
Tuesday, January 01, 2013
Ozzy Osborne And The Missing Horns
Start the year as you mean to go on. Or finish the year as you have been doing during the year. And the year before. I feel really sorry for the Osborne bull. What's it ever done to anyone? It stands in a field, minding its own business, and what does it get for its trouble? Some berk goes and paints it or commits other atrocities on its noble presence. Now the statue has had its horns lopped off. A kind soul will probably make sure it gets the horns back, just like someone made sure it got its tackle back when it went AWOL, but restoration can't compensate for the distress. Leave it alone.
Whenever some group or other has a political, cultural or gender beef, it heads off in the middle of the night and gives the bull a good dose of Dulux, drapes flags over it, cuts bits off and then glories in the publicity for about as long as it takes for everyone to forget (about a day, if that) or for some other group to come along and subject the bull to further propagandist indignity. The latest lot is a bunch called Arran, the name given to the youth organisation that has succeeded the Maulets. Arran, Maulets, it's the same and it's bloody angry that Catalonia and the Catalan Lands don't have independence. So angry, it has gone and de-horned the Osborne bull.
Arran timed its attack on Ozzy to coincide with the annual demo in Palma that doesn't celebrate Mallorca day. Arran, and others, would prefer that it did celebrate Mallorca day, but as it was decided some years ago that Mallorca day would be the anniversary of the creation of the Kingdom of Mallorca and not when Jaume I invaded, 31 December isn't Mallorca day. I hope that's cleared that up. Nevertheless, or probably because, there is, every year, this demo, which occasionally gets out of hand. It seems to have passed off without too much incident this year, but probably only because more radical elements were off in the Mallorcan countryside vandalising the statue of a bull.
Arran had staged a grand demo as part of a "platform" that comprised most of the usual Catalanist suspects. Its poster for the demo made it clear that it wasn't only about independence. It was also about socialism and feminism and possibly some other isms that there wasn't space for on the poster. I'm sorry but what has feminism got to do with independence? Indeed, what has socialism got to do with it? It's not as though Artur Mas is a card-carrying Trot or even vaguely red.
Anyway, everyone might well simply forget about the business with the bull were it not for our good friends, the Círculo Balear. For a load of Catalan independentists, be they Arran or Maulet or whoever, to mess around with the bull, protected for its artistic and heritage status (Spanish, that is), is like a red rag to a bull where the Círculo are concerned, and they, or at least their founder and restored president Jorge Campos, have had many a run-in with the Maulets in the past. And these run-ins typically end up with a "denuncia", something in which the Círculo specialises where the Maulets are concerned. The bull is no different. The Círculo has fired off a denuncia to the Guardia. It is all, I'm sorry to have to say, rather predictable. Naughty independentist boys get up to some mischief and no good, and outraged defender of all things Castellano and Spanish, Sr. Campos, drags the law in, and they, the law, must be getting pretty brassed off with being dragged into such puerility - by both sides. I don't know about the Guardia, but personally I wish a plague on both houses; they are as bad as each other.
One does wonder, given the regularity of the vandalism that the bull has to endure, whether it might not get some form of protection. It is pretty vulnerable, stuck in a field on its own, but the field might give a clue as to the security the bull could get. How about half a dozen proper bulls? All of them extremely bloody angry themselves, so that when some angry Arrans or Maulets or whoever other lunatic decides to go on a spot of nocturnal decorating, the miscreants might get rather more than they bargained for. Not a docile, inanimate animal, but some distinctly animate animals with horns that are definitely not for tampering with. Olé.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Whenever some group or other has a political, cultural or gender beef, it heads off in the middle of the night and gives the bull a good dose of Dulux, drapes flags over it, cuts bits off and then glories in the publicity for about as long as it takes for everyone to forget (about a day, if that) or for some other group to come along and subject the bull to further propagandist indignity. The latest lot is a bunch called Arran, the name given to the youth organisation that has succeeded the Maulets. Arran, Maulets, it's the same and it's bloody angry that Catalonia and the Catalan Lands don't have independence. So angry, it has gone and de-horned the Osborne bull.
Arran timed its attack on Ozzy to coincide with the annual demo in Palma that doesn't celebrate Mallorca day. Arran, and others, would prefer that it did celebrate Mallorca day, but as it was decided some years ago that Mallorca day would be the anniversary of the creation of the Kingdom of Mallorca and not when Jaume I invaded, 31 December isn't Mallorca day. I hope that's cleared that up. Nevertheless, or probably because, there is, every year, this demo, which occasionally gets out of hand. It seems to have passed off without too much incident this year, but probably only because more radical elements were off in the Mallorcan countryside vandalising the statue of a bull.
Arran had staged a grand demo as part of a "platform" that comprised most of the usual Catalanist suspects. Its poster for the demo made it clear that it wasn't only about independence. It was also about socialism and feminism and possibly some other isms that there wasn't space for on the poster. I'm sorry but what has feminism got to do with independence? Indeed, what has socialism got to do with it? It's not as though Artur Mas is a card-carrying Trot or even vaguely red.
Anyway, everyone might well simply forget about the business with the bull were it not for our good friends, the Círculo Balear. For a load of Catalan independentists, be they Arran or Maulet or whoever, to mess around with the bull, protected for its artistic and heritage status (Spanish, that is), is like a red rag to a bull where the Círculo are concerned, and they, or at least their founder and restored president Jorge Campos, have had many a run-in with the Maulets in the past. And these run-ins typically end up with a "denuncia", something in which the Círculo specialises where the Maulets are concerned. The bull is no different. The Círculo has fired off a denuncia to the Guardia. It is all, I'm sorry to have to say, rather predictable. Naughty independentist boys get up to some mischief and no good, and outraged defender of all things Castellano and Spanish, Sr. Campos, drags the law in, and they, the law, must be getting pretty brassed off with being dragged into such puerility - by both sides. I don't know about the Guardia, but personally I wish a plague on both houses; they are as bad as each other.
One does wonder, given the regularity of the vandalism that the bull has to endure, whether it might not get some form of protection. It is pretty vulnerable, stuck in a field on its own, but the field might give a clue as to the security the bull could get. How about half a dozen proper bulls? All of them extremely bloody angry themselves, so that when some angry Arrans or Maulets or whoever other lunatic decides to go on a spot of nocturnal decorating, the miscreants might get rather more than they bargained for. Not a docile, inanimate animal, but some distinctly animate animals with horns that are definitely not for tampering with. Olé.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, December 01, 2012
Fighting Them On The Beaches
Some years ago, I was given an insight into how the tendering process for awarding beach-management contracts went. It is probably best that I don't go into any detail or to identify the beach in question, but suffice it to say that it was an eye-opener, though one which only really served to confirm what one knows - that there is far more to such contracts than meets the eye.
Since gaining that insight, I have been something of a keen student of beach-management affairs, though there would be little to actually study if it weren't for the fact that three of the four main resorts in the north of the island are constantly subject to some form of shenanigans. Of the four - Can Picafort, Playa de Muro, Puerto Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa - only Alcúdia operates without any odd carryings-on. The other three do, and they are sometimes related.
Which brings me to the quite extraordinary state of affairs surrounding Playa de Muro's beach and, by incrimination, Puerto Pollensa's. A concessionaire on Muro's beach, Gabriel Moranta, has set out "denuncias" with the Guardia Civil with regard to vandalism of sunbeds during the summer and expressed his suspicion that the vandalism, which has cost him, he says, 50,000 euros, has to do with the neighbourhood association (AAVV) that manages Puerto Pollensa's beach.
To be so public in expressing this suspicion is astonishing, but the vandalism had aroused police suspicions that it was the work of a competitor and not just some act of random destruction. The grounds for the suspicion are tied up with the awarding of the Puerto Pollensa contract in 2011 to Moranta's company, F&A Beach. The AAVV had traditionally always managed the beach - for some 30 years at any rate. F&A then lost the contract for this year, and the AAVV regained it. The ill-feeling between these two concerns gave rise to and continues to cause a real old slanging match, F&A implicating Pollensa town hall by suggesting that it colluded with the AAVV in renewing its concession to manage the beach.
F&A is not the only party to express concern. Political groups in Pollensa have also done so. The award to the AAVV this year was met with questions regarding money that it previously owed the town hall and its ability to meet conditions of the renewed contract. This concern has been such that there has been a call for the public prosecutor to investigate what has been happening with the beach-management contracts in Puerto Pollensa.
These contracts are pretty lucrative. If they weren't, then there wouldn't be all the shenanigans. It probably is time for the prosecutor to take a good look, and not only in Puerto Pollensa.
Returning to the vandalism though, F&A is exploring the possibility of security cameras being mounted on lifeguard towers on Playa de Muro's beach. Muro town hall is said to be considering the request. While I can understand a desire for such cameras, they would have to be used under very strict conditions. Specifically, they would surely have to be switched on only at night-time. But their very presence, as they presumably would be visible and as there would have to be notices stating that there are cameras, would not be welcome.
Permissions for surveillance cameras that are trained on the "public way" (and beaches are the public way) have to be sought, owing to the strictness of privacy laws, and there is a precedent for Muro to consider. This concerned the installation of webcams at hotel sites that were trained onto beaches in response to the ETA threat in 2009. One of these cameras was at the Sunwing Resort in Alcúdia, and their presence really only came to light as part of investigations into the former tourism minister, Miguel Nadal. Among issues that were raised were who actually controlled the cameras, who was looking at their images and what happened with any images that were stored.
Much as I sympathise with F&A, I, as a user of Playa de Muro beach, would be dead against cameras, strict conditions or not. They send out entirely the wrong message.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Since gaining that insight, I have been something of a keen student of beach-management affairs, though there would be little to actually study if it weren't for the fact that three of the four main resorts in the north of the island are constantly subject to some form of shenanigans. Of the four - Can Picafort, Playa de Muro, Puerto Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa - only Alcúdia operates without any odd carryings-on. The other three do, and they are sometimes related.
Which brings me to the quite extraordinary state of affairs surrounding Playa de Muro's beach and, by incrimination, Puerto Pollensa's. A concessionaire on Muro's beach, Gabriel Moranta, has set out "denuncias" with the Guardia Civil with regard to vandalism of sunbeds during the summer and expressed his suspicion that the vandalism, which has cost him, he says, 50,000 euros, has to do with the neighbourhood association (AAVV) that manages Puerto Pollensa's beach.
To be so public in expressing this suspicion is astonishing, but the vandalism had aroused police suspicions that it was the work of a competitor and not just some act of random destruction. The grounds for the suspicion are tied up with the awarding of the Puerto Pollensa contract in 2011 to Moranta's company, F&A Beach. The AAVV had traditionally always managed the beach - for some 30 years at any rate. F&A then lost the contract for this year, and the AAVV regained it. The ill-feeling between these two concerns gave rise to and continues to cause a real old slanging match, F&A implicating Pollensa town hall by suggesting that it colluded with the AAVV in renewing its concession to manage the beach.
F&A is not the only party to express concern. Political groups in Pollensa have also done so. The award to the AAVV this year was met with questions regarding money that it previously owed the town hall and its ability to meet conditions of the renewed contract. This concern has been such that there has been a call for the public prosecutor to investigate what has been happening with the beach-management contracts in Puerto Pollensa.
These contracts are pretty lucrative. If they weren't, then there wouldn't be all the shenanigans. It probably is time for the prosecutor to take a good look, and not only in Puerto Pollensa.
Returning to the vandalism though, F&A is exploring the possibility of security cameras being mounted on lifeguard towers on Playa de Muro's beach. Muro town hall is said to be considering the request. While I can understand a desire for such cameras, they would have to be used under very strict conditions. Specifically, they would surely have to be switched on only at night-time. But their very presence, as they presumably would be visible and as there would have to be notices stating that there are cameras, would not be welcome.
Permissions for surveillance cameras that are trained on the "public way" (and beaches are the public way) have to be sought, owing to the strictness of privacy laws, and there is a precedent for Muro to consider. This concerned the installation of webcams at hotel sites that were trained onto beaches in response to the ETA threat in 2009. One of these cameras was at the Sunwing Resort in Alcúdia, and their presence really only came to light as part of investigations into the former tourism minister, Miguel Nadal. Among issues that were raised were who actually controlled the cameras, who was looking at their images and what happened with any images that were stored.
Much as I sympathise with F&A, I, as a user of Playa de Muro beach, would be dead against cameras, strict conditions or not. They send out entirely the wrong message.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Beach "war" intensifies: Pollensa's operator accused
The extraordinary war that exists between contractors that operate local beaches in summer has taken a further twist, the concessionaire in Playa de Muro, who says he has suffered 50,000 euros worth of damage to vandalised sunbeds, effectively accusing the neighbourhood association in Puerto Pollensa of being the perpetrators of the vandalism. This all relates to the fact that the Muro operator had the concession in Puerto Pollensa in 2011 and lost it this year to the neighbourhood association, something which itself led to all manner of accusations, such as collusion between the association and Pollensa town hall.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Sun loungers are vandalised again
Beach management concessionaire Bernat Riutort, who operates parts of Playa de Muro beach and Can Picafort's beach, has suffered another outbreak of sun lounger vandalism, around 150 beds having been slashed early yesterday morning.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa fiesta ribbons set fire to
The ribbons that flutter over Pollensa's Plaça Major for the Patrona fiesta are no longer fluttering. They were set fire to early yesterday morning, causing damage to terrace furniture of bars in the square. This vandalism appears to be linked to an outbreak of graffiti that occurred the night before.
Monday, April 25, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Bicipalma vandalism
Bikes that are available for public use through the new Bicipalma scheme in Palma are being stolen and vandalised. In one incident, linked to a botellón street-drinking party, five bikes were damaged.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Acts Of Mindless Vandalism
So you arrive at your bar in the morning. Seems normal enough. Until, that is, you notice that something is not quite right.
Mindless vandalism does not always require grand gestures, those of highly visible destruction or defacement. Sometimes its nature catches you out. Like break-ins, and don't I know, initially you don't latch on, until it becomes apparent. Some time on Saturday morning, someone decided to try and pull the barrier out of the ground between the doctor's clinic and the Foxes Arms in Puerto Alcúdia. Decided to do this and also try and break in half a strut holding up the "toldo" (terrace sun shade). This someone didn't succeed in either. The barrier didn't look worse for wear, until you touched it; the strut was bent rather than broken. But the extent of the damage didn't matter. There was, as always with these things, a sense of invasion. The visible signs may not have been that obvious, but a broken this or a broken that is dangerous - for the customer. It means a day closed, a day's loss of earnings and a day spent spending money on some repairs.
A different matter. There are new neighbours. Hotel workers. Polish, it would seem. Let's not go down the Poles-on-the-rampage routine of the Don Pedro hotel in Cala San Vicente last summer, as in let's not start castigating an entire nation. But. But, when the noise on the terrace is sufficient to require two visits - from myself - to let them know that there is noise on the terrace, then I get - how do I put it - a tad hacked off. The noise is most uncommon in a quiet urbanisation. It is most out of place. Two warnings, I was at pains to point out, despite three chaps seemingly prepared to confront me. Two warnings. Number three, and I hate the idea, and it's the "denuncia". They got my drift. They might also know that I can find out which hotel they are working at. Hotels do not take kindly to being told by stroppy neighbours that their shipped-in workforce is keeping these stroppy neighbours from their shut eye. Especially as they are usually handing over the ackers for the workforce to keep stroppy neighbours awake.
Unlike residencies close to hotels and the commercial centres, you do expect peace and quiet. It's why people don't live near to hotels and commercial centres. If you do, then you have to expect rather less peace and quiet. There is also the business about the definition of "evening" and "night". This may seem bizarre, but it is a facet of the law. Noise on a domestic terrace, after midnight, is equal - in law - to noise on a bar terrace.
Yet, these two incidents are curiously instructive. In my discussions with those with several decades of living in Alcúdia, Pollensa and elsewhere, it is clear that there is a certain nostalgia for the old days of the "generalisimo". Heaven forbid, you might think. But crime was almost non-existent. No one would think of smashing a toldo support for fear of getting a thrashing from the Guardia and a lengthy stretch in the slammer. On the other hand, back in the days before Franco died, no one did much about noise. You could be on terraces till the wee smalls, playing music, dancing, drinking. It didn't matter. Now it does. The perpetrator of the Foxes vandalism will not be found, he will not get a police kicking or a sentence, but the hotel workers, high-spirited but not malicious, can get a police visit or can get a hotel-issued one-way ticket back to Poland. It doesn't, somehow, make much sense.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Mindless vandalism does not always require grand gestures, those of highly visible destruction or defacement. Sometimes its nature catches you out. Like break-ins, and don't I know, initially you don't latch on, until it becomes apparent. Some time on Saturday morning, someone decided to try and pull the barrier out of the ground between the doctor's clinic and the Foxes Arms in Puerto Alcúdia. Decided to do this and also try and break in half a strut holding up the "toldo" (terrace sun shade). This someone didn't succeed in either. The barrier didn't look worse for wear, until you touched it; the strut was bent rather than broken. But the extent of the damage didn't matter. There was, as always with these things, a sense of invasion. The visible signs may not have been that obvious, but a broken this or a broken that is dangerous - for the customer. It means a day closed, a day's loss of earnings and a day spent spending money on some repairs.
A different matter. There are new neighbours. Hotel workers. Polish, it would seem. Let's not go down the Poles-on-the-rampage routine of the Don Pedro hotel in Cala San Vicente last summer, as in let's not start castigating an entire nation. But. But, when the noise on the terrace is sufficient to require two visits - from myself - to let them know that there is noise on the terrace, then I get - how do I put it - a tad hacked off. The noise is most uncommon in a quiet urbanisation. It is most out of place. Two warnings, I was at pains to point out, despite three chaps seemingly prepared to confront me. Two warnings. Number three, and I hate the idea, and it's the "denuncia". They got my drift. They might also know that I can find out which hotel they are working at. Hotels do not take kindly to being told by stroppy neighbours that their shipped-in workforce is keeping these stroppy neighbours from their shut eye. Especially as they are usually handing over the ackers for the workforce to keep stroppy neighbours awake.
Unlike residencies close to hotels and the commercial centres, you do expect peace and quiet. It's why people don't live near to hotels and commercial centres. If you do, then you have to expect rather less peace and quiet. There is also the business about the definition of "evening" and "night". This may seem bizarre, but it is a facet of the law. Noise on a domestic terrace, after midnight, is equal - in law - to noise on a bar terrace.
Yet, these two incidents are curiously instructive. In my discussions with those with several decades of living in Alcúdia, Pollensa and elsewhere, it is clear that there is a certain nostalgia for the old days of the "generalisimo". Heaven forbid, you might think. But crime was almost non-existent. No one would think of smashing a toldo support for fear of getting a thrashing from the Guardia and a lengthy stretch in the slammer. On the other hand, back in the days before Franco died, no one did much about noise. You could be on terraces till the wee smalls, playing music, dancing, drinking. It didn't matter. Now it does. The perpetrator of the Foxes vandalism will not be found, he will not get a police kicking or a sentence, but the hotel workers, high-spirited but not malicious, can get a police visit or can get a hotel-issued one-way ticket back to Poland. It doesn't, somehow, make much sense.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, February 27, 2009
You Can't Push Willy Around
Vandalism directed at bars in Magaluf - mainly British-owned bars at that - comes at the same time as acts of vandalism committed against one of Alcúdia's most historic sites - the cave of Sant Marti; specifically, against the altars in the cave. If you don't know, the altars date back to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the cave plays a key part in the triennial Sant Crist ceremony (the one to do with famines and blood coming from images and that sort of caper). The cave is at the foot of the Sant Marti mountain (or hill, if you prefer) that dominates the landscape at the back of Bellevue. One has to thank "The Diario" for its lack of censoriousness in showing a photo of how the vandalism has been applied. It is in the form of a horse having been gifted an erect penis. My guess is that you wouldn't get such a photo in a British newspaper. And it says something about British and Spanish cultures that the latter would and the former wouldn't show such a thing. I'm not sure what it says, other than attitudes to stiffies, but there's probably a doctoral thesis on cultures lurking in all this.
As the paper points out, the cave is one of the sites in Alcúdia of which much is made when it comes to cultural visits to the town. Yet, in addition to the newly added visual element, there is also rubbish at the grotto which has an air of being neglected. It is, I guess, a place that is out of sight and out of mind. Were it in the middle of the town, rather than down a track off the bypass that goes behind Bellevue, then it would probably be looked after rather better. One thing one can assume, though, is that when they next do the Sant Crist gig (in 2010), they'll have got round to scrubbing the willy off.
Accidental or perhaps incidental vandalism is that caused to the local dunes. Overt vandalism, in the form of getting rid of the dunes completely, has of course occurred, and no more so than in Can Picafort, but they are trying to make up for it with the wooden walkways that have been installed for a year or so now (and in parts of Playa de Muro, too). The hope is that if people use the walkways rather than trample all over the dunes then there will be less erosion and greater preservation of the flora. Yet, a few weeks ago, there were these whacking great sacks on Playa de Muro beach that were full of ... flora, especially that rubbery crawling type thing that you get. (Sorry, I'm not very good when it comes to botany; I need Klaus and his daily photo blog to help out.) Anyway, I grabbed a bit of it and put it in a plant pot to see if it would grow. It has been singularly unsuccessful, and I suspect it is an ex-piece of dunes flora by now. But if the preservation is so important, what were they doing getting rid of whole plantations of it?
I forgot yesterday to follow up the tweeting thing about football debt. I'm sure you were disappointed, so apologies. All the clubs in La Liga seem to be in debt to some extent, Valencia being the most indebted at some 550 million euros; a mere bagatelle. There is, of course, debt and debt. If it's serviceable, it isn't necessarily an evil. Real Mallorca, for all the club's problems, only ranks at number nine, though it, with its debt, was described as being "unviable" by Freddy Shepherd. Since then, the former chairman, Mateu Alemany, has returned like a knight in shining armour to rescue the poor damsel that it is Real Mallorca weeping from the top of the wicked king's tower and letting her hair down for him to clamber aboard, sorry up. He says the club is no longer for sale. Probably as well. Would anyone really want to buy it, though two recent victories could yet help the team stay in La Liga and would make it more attractive were there indeed to be a potential purchaser.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - John Lee Hooker (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOyj4ciJk34). Today's title - well obviously you can in that you can draw one: not you personally, but you in general. Beg your pardon, it's a bit juvenile I know. Who was this though?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
As the paper points out, the cave is one of the sites in Alcúdia of which much is made when it comes to cultural visits to the town. Yet, in addition to the newly added visual element, there is also rubbish at the grotto which has an air of being neglected. It is, I guess, a place that is out of sight and out of mind. Were it in the middle of the town, rather than down a track off the bypass that goes behind Bellevue, then it would probably be looked after rather better. One thing one can assume, though, is that when they next do the Sant Crist gig (in 2010), they'll have got round to scrubbing the willy off.
Accidental or perhaps incidental vandalism is that caused to the local dunes. Overt vandalism, in the form of getting rid of the dunes completely, has of course occurred, and no more so than in Can Picafort, but they are trying to make up for it with the wooden walkways that have been installed for a year or so now (and in parts of Playa de Muro, too). The hope is that if people use the walkways rather than trample all over the dunes then there will be less erosion and greater preservation of the flora. Yet, a few weeks ago, there were these whacking great sacks on Playa de Muro beach that were full of ... flora, especially that rubbery crawling type thing that you get. (Sorry, I'm not very good when it comes to botany; I need Klaus and his daily photo blog to help out.) Anyway, I grabbed a bit of it and put it in a plant pot to see if it would grow. It has been singularly unsuccessful, and I suspect it is an ex-piece of dunes flora by now. But if the preservation is so important, what were they doing getting rid of whole plantations of it?
I forgot yesterday to follow up the tweeting thing about football debt. I'm sure you were disappointed, so apologies. All the clubs in La Liga seem to be in debt to some extent, Valencia being the most indebted at some 550 million euros; a mere bagatelle. There is, of course, debt and debt. If it's serviceable, it isn't necessarily an evil. Real Mallorca, for all the club's problems, only ranks at number nine, though it, with its debt, was described as being "unviable" by Freddy Shepherd. Since then, the former chairman, Mateu Alemany, has returned like a knight in shining armour to rescue the poor damsel that it is Real Mallorca weeping from the top of the wicked king's tower and letting her hair down for him to clamber aboard, sorry up. He says the club is no longer for sale. Probably as well. Would anyone really want to buy it, though two recent victories could yet help the team stay in La Liga and would make it more attractive were there indeed to be a potential purchaser.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - John Lee Hooker (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOyj4ciJk34). Today's title - well obviously you can in that you can draw one: not you personally, but you in general. Beg your pardon, it's a bit juvenile I know. Who was this though?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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