The British are obsessed with the weather. The Spanish are obsessed with the weather. Which statement is true and which statement is false? Answer: both are true, as would be the case for the Germans, the French, or the Maasai of the Serengeti. As far as the latter are concerned, their obsession probably doesn't manifest itself in quite the same way. They aren't umbilically connected to digital technology and obsessed to such an extent that the merest hint of weather demands that they attempt to break the internet.
There has been some weather in Mallorca in the past few days. There always is weather of course - you can't really avoid it, and that has nothing to do with obsessing over it - but there is weather and there is weather. Or perhaps one should say that there is the consequence of weather as much as there is the force or action of weather. Hence and for example, we have been regaled with images of submerged cars. One uses the word "regaled" advisedly. It means to provide entertainment or simply to entertain. Are cars submerged on a flooded road entertaining? Seemingly so.
To return to nationalities' relative meteorological obsessions, this recent burst of weather has been notable for its cross-cultural consensus. Spanish (Mallorcan) media outlets have posted their images and videos of cars in water and have been greeted with rapturous volumes of likes, wows, loves, sad faces, and angries. The full range of emoticon emotions has been shared by a nationality which is supposedly less obsessed with weather than the British. We can most definitely put that notion to bed: an obsession is for cultural sharing, especially if it can be done digitally and involve the result of 100 plus litres per square metre of rainfall.
The dramatic evidence of heavy weather is in contrast with the consequence of prolonged, unchanging weather. This can be and is equally dramatic and a great deal more concerning, but it is not as requiring of immediate hits on the share button. The drought, which the environment ministry will doubtless insist is still at pre-alert levels despite the cars up to their bonnets in wet stuff, has produced endless images of barren stretches of former reservoir and levels so low that a car would struggle to get water to cover its wheels.
What of course is missing is the drama and so therefore all the mobile phones frantically capturing still and moving images of weather and uploading them for an enthralled internet community to respond with "OMG" and an accompanying like, wow (choose as applicable, or not).
Weather in Mallorca, where most are concerned, would be 30-plus celsius, a blue sky and a gentle turquoise sea lapping onto velvety white sand. It's the difference which counts and what might seem unusual or unexpected. Take snow. There's snow in Mallorca? Oddly enough, there is. It may still be waiting to produce a repeat of 1956, but if and when it does, the internet will be broken for certain.
The interest (obsession) with weather has grown exponentially in line with digital technology. This didn't exist in 1956, was most certainly not universally available in 1990 when there was that much weather that Alcudia's City of Lakes became the City of THE Lake, or sufficiently diffused when the hurricane of 2001 occurred and flattened whole pine woods. Even the tornado of 2007 predated the mass adoption of social networks.
Weather is thus a product of technology that fascinates even if the weather event is of no consequence, such as when the Puig Major gets a covering of snow. So technologically-driven is it that it produces an incessant bombardment of non-weather images, such as the here is a photo of some sea and some sun, followed by another photo of similar sea and similar sun. Wow, like, love, share. Non-weather is the typical dish served up by the webcam for its devotees. Here is a not terribly clear image of a cloud in the sky. Goodness, look at that. A cloud. There can be few more pointless exercises known to mankind than to stare at what a webcam is looking at for more than five seconds (if that, or indeed at all). But mankind deals in pointless exercises. If not, there wouldn't be any "X Factor" or the current England cricket team.
An obsession? Totally. Come rain, come shine, come hail, come snow, come wind, it is all there courtesy of technology. Once captured, it whizzes around the world in a frenzy of sharing. We are all Meteo men, women and children, assisted by Meteo cats and dogs (assuming they themselves aren't raining) and other members of the animal community to be digitally found experiencing weather. We can always take the weather with us. It's on our mobiles. Wow, like, sad face. Share.
Showing posts with label Weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Weather. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
When It Rains, It's Colapso
The weather was a bit iffy last Thursday. Highs only around 23 degrees, some rain about, mostly cloudy all day. What to do, if you're a tourist? Head to the nearest hire-car agency. Look at all those cars that have been brought over from the mainland. Look at them all, many of them from agencies paying nothing in taxes. That's a story in itself. Part of the story means that these immigrant vehicles add to the "colapso", taking advantage of roads and car parks for which there are no contributions.
They love a good colapso in Mallorca. Love talking about it anyway. It has nothing to do with vino, and thank God it doesn't. All those hire cars with all those tourist drivers with little clue where they're going and their task is made more difficult by having had a glass or several. Mind you, it's enough to drive you to drink: driving when everything's colapso, as in the traffic. Logjam, standstill, collapsed: there's your colapso.
It happens all the time when there's dodgy weather. This is what you get from alternatives to sun and beach. When the sun doesn't shine, when the beaches are empty, when the poolsides have not been attacked from the earliest hour by the race to lay the towels, what is there to do? Yep, let's all go to Palma. All those with a hire car, that is; those who are prepared to splash out for one. Pity the poor economy-class all-inclusive vacationer, wandering lonely as a cloud, several clouds, thick clouds and wondering what on Earth to do. Or maybe you shouldn't pity them. That's up to you.
Of course it isn't only the all-inclusive guest who does the in-resort wandering. There are the other hotel occupants. The hire-car drivers are all in holiday rentals, the thousands upon thousands of those. That's what the regional government seems to think at any rate. Whatever accommodation the drivers have, it's always the same: head for Palma.
Someone has suggested - Javier Mato, writing in "Preferente" - that there should be information available for tourists, advising them what to do on an iffy day, warning them that if they go to Palma, they'd wish they hadn't bothered. Jam after jam, nowhere to park. It sounds a good idea, until Javier mentions that this would be information in hotels. Eh? In hotels? It would need to be in holiday rentals - legal or not - because the government says that colapso occurs because of the rentals.
Why aren't there park and ride schemes? Like with the car park that was created for just this purpose but which has since become unused, unloved and unmanaged. Why not? Because local authorities, let's them call them Palma's town hall, are useless. Too busy mucking around with closing roads in the city centre than doing something sensible like providing park and ride. There again, the turning into Antoni Maura off the Paseo Marítimo was bad enough as it was, what with being one lane, there being pedestrian crossings, buses (public and excursion) blocking the way and traffic lights that gave no more than thirty seconds of green.
What would make things really ducky would be for an iffy day to coincide with twenty odd thousand cruise passengers traipsing around the city. Colapso? You bet it would and would include the loos. The system couldn't take all the bar bogs being flushed at one go by the cruise passengers and the hire-car occupants, stuck in jams for hours, haring to the nearest bar to relieve themselves.
Why not take a bus instead? Or the train? Are you kidding? Ever tried getting on a bus to Palma on a good day let alone a bad one? You might succeed, but then there's the getting back as well. The train? What train, if you are in Pollensa, Alcudia, Cala Ratjada, Cala Millor, Cala d'Or, Colonia Sant Jordi, Magalluf, Andratx?
Why go to Palma at all? What about other parts of the paradise island? Fancy Soller? Not by car you shouldn't. The train? A good alternative, if there were space. Large (largish) towns like Inca? Why would anyone want to go to Inca? Actually, there are some interesting parts and it has what seems to be the main reason to want to go to Palma - shopping, though not on anything like the same scale admittedly.
How about mooching around the small towns and villages? Petra, Sant Joan, Lloret and many others? Well, how about it? Does it cross anyone's mind to do this? It should do. You never know, you might be surprised by what you find. Mallorca.
Overwhelmingly though, the choice will be Palma, which will be overwhelmed to a greater degree than it constantly appears to be. Mallorca is geared to two things - sun and beach. Take them away, if only temporarily, and there's colapso.
They love a good colapso in Mallorca. Love talking about it anyway. It has nothing to do with vino, and thank God it doesn't. All those hire cars with all those tourist drivers with little clue where they're going and their task is made more difficult by having had a glass or several. Mind you, it's enough to drive you to drink: driving when everything's colapso, as in the traffic. Logjam, standstill, collapsed: there's your colapso.
It happens all the time when there's dodgy weather. This is what you get from alternatives to sun and beach. When the sun doesn't shine, when the beaches are empty, when the poolsides have not been attacked from the earliest hour by the race to lay the towels, what is there to do? Yep, let's all go to Palma. All those with a hire car, that is; those who are prepared to splash out for one. Pity the poor economy-class all-inclusive vacationer, wandering lonely as a cloud, several clouds, thick clouds and wondering what on Earth to do. Or maybe you shouldn't pity them. That's up to you.
Of course it isn't only the all-inclusive guest who does the in-resort wandering. There are the other hotel occupants. The hire-car drivers are all in holiday rentals, the thousands upon thousands of those. That's what the regional government seems to think at any rate. Whatever accommodation the drivers have, it's always the same: head for Palma.
Someone has suggested - Javier Mato, writing in "Preferente" - that there should be information available for tourists, advising them what to do on an iffy day, warning them that if they go to Palma, they'd wish they hadn't bothered. Jam after jam, nowhere to park. It sounds a good idea, until Javier mentions that this would be information in hotels. Eh? In hotels? It would need to be in holiday rentals - legal or not - because the government says that colapso occurs because of the rentals.
Why aren't there park and ride schemes? Like with the car park that was created for just this purpose but which has since become unused, unloved and unmanaged. Why not? Because local authorities, let's them call them Palma's town hall, are useless. Too busy mucking around with closing roads in the city centre than doing something sensible like providing park and ride. There again, the turning into Antoni Maura off the Paseo Marítimo was bad enough as it was, what with being one lane, there being pedestrian crossings, buses (public and excursion) blocking the way and traffic lights that gave no more than thirty seconds of green.
What would make things really ducky would be for an iffy day to coincide with twenty odd thousand cruise passengers traipsing around the city. Colapso? You bet it would and would include the loos. The system couldn't take all the bar bogs being flushed at one go by the cruise passengers and the hire-car occupants, stuck in jams for hours, haring to the nearest bar to relieve themselves.
Why not take a bus instead? Or the train? Are you kidding? Ever tried getting on a bus to Palma on a good day let alone a bad one? You might succeed, but then there's the getting back as well. The train? What train, if you are in Pollensa, Alcudia, Cala Ratjada, Cala Millor, Cala d'Or, Colonia Sant Jordi, Magalluf, Andratx?
Why go to Palma at all? What about other parts of the paradise island? Fancy Soller? Not by car you shouldn't. The train? A good alternative, if there were space. Large (largish) towns like Inca? Why would anyone want to go to Inca? Actually, there are some interesting parts and it has what seems to be the main reason to want to go to Palma - shopping, though not on anything like the same scale admittedly.
How about mooching around the small towns and villages? Petra, Sant Joan, Lloret and many others? Well, how about it? Does it cross anyone's mind to do this? It should do. You never know, you might be surprised by what you find. Mallorca.
Overwhelmingly though, the choice will be Palma, which will be overwhelmed to a greater degree than it constantly appears to be. Mallorca is geared to two things - sun and beach. Take them away, if only temporarily, and there's colapso.
Thursday, February 04, 2016
Mallorca's Punxsutawney Phil
On balance, it was probably as well that Punxsutawney Phil didn't emerge from his burrow on 2 February on this fair isle. Apart from having run the risk of encountering some creepy-crawly things creeping and crawling from their own dens, Phil would have been scared half witless by the shadow he would have cast. Winter in Mallorca, almost totally absent, would thus have been assured. Winter weather, in Phil prognostication terms, would have started and be due to last for six weeks, which is about when spring is supposed to begin anyway.
The strong shadow cast because of the bright winter sun in Mallorca would have certainly perplexed Phil, but any forecast he may have offered would have had to have been considered in the context of his abilities as a weather animal. Experts say that Phil isn't terribly good at his job; not much better than some seaweed. But Phil would have got it right in one respect. Everyone would have been and was talking about the weather. Again. And about what the weather should mean (but doesn't) for Mallorca. Again.
In these days of online weather forecasting and data archiving, Phil might have been expected to have been stripped of his meteorological role by now. That he retains it - indeed that he has been able to expand it through global recognition - is something for which he owes Bill Murray a large debt. Not only did Phil attain international fame for his forecasting, he gave a whole new meaning to being a groundhog.
Mallorca, lacking a Phil as such, does have its over-and-over Groundhog Day elements. Well, one notable one, the casting of the reflection of the Cathedral's eastern window on to the western wall in making its rosette piece of eight. Every year it's the same at the same time: Bill Murray could set his clock by it and never be able to break the routine. Forever and ever: same time, same day, same place.
In general religious terms, Phil is a product of Candlemas (which bred the groundhog legend), with its own symbolic repetition. Forty days after Christmas, it falls close to the start of another forty days, those of Lent. Everything seems to come in packages of forty, always repeating themselves and including (almost) Phil's six weeks of extended winter.
There is, however, one other significant repetition on Phil's day. A birthday. Strangely, it isn't one that receives a great deal of attention. Strange, given whose birthday it was. For 808 years this birthday has been celebrated. Or should be. Each year, the same as every year on 2 February. If there is one person in Mallorca's history whose birthday might be deemed more significant than anyone else's, if there is one person about whom the island's entire history can appear to revolve, then it is the 2 February birthday boy: King Jaume I, born in Montpellier in 1208.
That Jaume would now be, had he been capable of mortality, 808 should not disguise the fact that despite long, long being no longer of this Earth and this earth - Mallorca's - he can still seem to be alive and kicking. When you are, as he was, as significant an historical figure, then his shadow might be expected to cast a long shadow. It is one, however, that can give the impression of having caused 808 minus 21 years of extended historical winter. A springtime of renewal, a shedding of centuries ago, can constantly seem elusive. The repetition requires never abandoning the winter of the past. Instead, there is a retreat to the den of ancient familiarity.
In some respects, though, it is good. Identity hewn from the relics of the thirteenth century implies continuity, a valuable resource in a highly movable modern society. On the other hand, it can be less good. It breeds an obsessiveness, from which is derived a great deal of the constant repetition for a culture nuancing its existence on the basis of one important moment in time. And this breeds the counter-obsessiveness, that of styling this existence in ways that dispute the legacy.
It would be grossly exaggerating things to imply that Mallorca lives by some form of Jaume cult, but it is really only through an appreciation of Jaume and all that that some of the modern day makes sense (or doesn't, depending on one's view). Perhaps it boils down to the fact that, despite a rich history, Mallorca's history is limited in terms of seismic events. Accordingly, this limit has created giants of the past that are unshakable and in a constant state of repetition.
Anyway, to return to the more mundane. If it's cloudy on 2 February next year, we will be assured of an early Mallorcan spring. But whatever the conditions, there'll be one thing being discussed in addition to the winter weather. It'll be another winter topic. Every year. Same time. Same place.
The strong shadow cast because of the bright winter sun in Mallorca would have certainly perplexed Phil, but any forecast he may have offered would have had to have been considered in the context of his abilities as a weather animal. Experts say that Phil isn't terribly good at his job; not much better than some seaweed. But Phil would have got it right in one respect. Everyone would have been and was talking about the weather. Again. And about what the weather should mean (but doesn't) for Mallorca. Again.
In these days of online weather forecasting and data archiving, Phil might have been expected to have been stripped of his meteorological role by now. That he retains it - indeed that he has been able to expand it through global recognition - is something for which he owes Bill Murray a large debt. Not only did Phil attain international fame for his forecasting, he gave a whole new meaning to being a groundhog.
Mallorca, lacking a Phil as such, does have its over-and-over Groundhog Day elements. Well, one notable one, the casting of the reflection of the Cathedral's eastern window on to the western wall in making its rosette piece of eight. Every year it's the same at the same time: Bill Murray could set his clock by it and never be able to break the routine. Forever and ever: same time, same day, same place.
In general religious terms, Phil is a product of Candlemas (which bred the groundhog legend), with its own symbolic repetition. Forty days after Christmas, it falls close to the start of another forty days, those of Lent. Everything seems to come in packages of forty, always repeating themselves and including (almost) Phil's six weeks of extended winter.
There is, however, one other significant repetition on Phil's day. A birthday. Strangely, it isn't one that receives a great deal of attention. Strange, given whose birthday it was. For 808 years this birthday has been celebrated. Or should be. Each year, the same as every year on 2 February. If there is one person in Mallorca's history whose birthday might be deemed more significant than anyone else's, if there is one person about whom the island's entire history can appear to revolve, then it is the 2 February birthday boy: King Jaume I, born in Montpellier in 1208.
That Jaume would now be, had he been capable of mortality, 808 should not disguise the fact that despite long, long being no longer of this Earth and this earth - Mallorca's - he can still seem to be alive and kicking. When you are, as he was, as significant an historical figure, then his shadow might be expected to cast a long shadow. It is one, however, that can give the impression of having caused 808 minus 21 years of extended historical winter. A springtime of renewal, a shedding of centuries ago, can constantly seem elusive. The repetition requires never abandoning the winter of the past. Instead, there is a retreat to the den of ancient familiarity.
In some respects, though, it is good. Identity hewn from the relics of the thirteenth century implies continuity, a valuable resource in a highly movable modern society. On the other hand, it can be less good. It breeds an obsessiveness, from which is derived a great deal of the constant repetition for a culture nuancing its existence on the basis of one important moment in time. And this breeds the counter-obsessiveness, that of styling this existence in ways that dispute the legacy.
It would be grossly exaggerating things to imply that Mallorca lives by some form of Jaume cult, but it is really only through an appreciation of Jaume and all that that some of the modern day makes sense (or doesn't, depending on one's view). Perhaps it boils down to the fact that, despite a rich history, Mallorca's history is limited in terms of seismic events. Accordingly, this limit has created giants of the past that are unshakable and in a constant state of repetition.
Anyway, to return to the more mundane. If it's cloudy on 2 February next year, we will be assured of an early Mallorcan spring. But whatever the conditions, there'll be one thing being discussed in addition to the winter weather. It'll be another winter topic. Every year. Same time. Same place.
Friday, February 07, 2014
The Strange Month Of February
It isn't of course meant to be 20 degrees in February. Yet it was yesterday. February is meant to be the month when we suffer for all our Mallorcan sins. The month when the gods of the good times either go on strike or take themselves off on their own jollies to Dubai (or somewhere like that) and abandon us to cold, rain and probably snow and to a period of numbing non-activity.
There is an absence of anything to do in February. If Carnival, dictated to by Easter, is shoved out of February and into March, which is the case this year, then, apart from a desperate case being made for Saint Valentine and his day of love, there's nothing. It is the month of the fiesta downtime, a recovery month following the Anthonys and Sebastians of January. It is the month when eyes are turned skyward, though they are not actually looking at the sky and figuring out if there is indeed rain about to descend; they are looking at pine trees and at the growing coconut shy cocoons of the caterpillars and figuring out when they are about to descend, either by plunging to terra firma or by crawling in procession along the branches and down the trunks of their accommodating pines.
It is a month of pretend tourism, one brought about by the cycling teams, about to race around the island in their own peloton procession, all but attached to each other like the caterpillars but moving at considerably greater speed before some detach themselves and hurtle towards a finishing line with a controlled winner (or loser) wobble.
It is the month of drill, saw, grinder, crane and the entire toolkit of renovation and even some new building. The sounds are those of palm fonds (those that have been left since the beetle did its worst) being lashed by the winds, of dry leaves scurrying across neglected terraces and of the constructor's work. Activity there is - for the brickie. The coal heap of builder slag by the Sol Alcudia has gradually reduced and been transformed into the shell of all-inclusive expansion. The struts of the Waikiki have been infused for its reformation. Restaurants, like the Don Vito and Sa Gavina, have evacuated tables and chairs and temporarily introduced cement mixers. What was the amusement arcade opposite the Big Banana has become yet another supermarket. How many supermarkets can be needed in one small area of a resort? Several, it would appear. But all this activity suggests that someone must be doing ok. The economy is not the slag heap it is alleged to be. There seems to be a lot of work. Seems but maybe it is an illusion.
This is February. A strange month that might typically be one of despair. The mild weather - surely we'll suffer, for if we don't, the reservoirs and wells might run dry - suggests otherwise for once, and perhaps it is mild weather that brings with it a renewed optimism. A new spring is about to come.
There is an absence of anything to do in February. If Carnival, dictated to by Easter, is shoved out of February and into March, which is the case this year, then, apart from a desperate case being made for Saint Valentine and his day of love, there's nothing. It is the month of the fiesta downtime, a recovery month following the Anthonys and Sebastians of January. It is the month when eyes are turned skyward, though they are not actually looking at the sky and figuring out if there is indeed rain about to descend; they are looking at pine trees and at the growing coconut shy cocoons of the caterpillars and figuring out when they are about to descend, either by plunging to terra firma or by crawling in procession along the branches and down the trunks of their accommodating pines.
It is a month of pretend tourism, one brought about by the cycling teams, about to race around the island in their own peloton procession, all but attached to each other like the caterpillars but moving at considerably greater speed before some detach themselves and hurtle towards a finishing line with a controlled winner (or loser) wobble.
It is the month of drill, saw, grinder, crane and the entire toolkit of renovation and even some new building. The sounds are those of palm fonds (those that have been left since the beetle did its worst) being lashed by the winds, of dry leaves scurrying across neglected terraces and of the constructor's work. Activity there is - for the brickie. The coal heap of builder slag by the Sol Alcudia has gradually reduced and been transformed into the shell of all-inclusive expansion. The struts of the Waikiki have been infused for its reformation. Restaurants, like the Don Vito and Sa Gavina, have evacuated tables and chairs and temporarily introduced cement mixers. What was the amusement arcade opposite the Big Banana has become yet another supermarket. How many supermarkets can be needed in one small area of a resort? Several, it would appear. But all this activity suggests that someone must be doing ok. The economy is not the slag heap it is alleged to be. There seems to be a lot of work. Seems but maybe it is an illusion.
This is February. A strange month that might typically be one of despair. The mild weather - surely we'll suffer, for if we don't, the reservoirs and wells might run dry - suggests otherwise for once, and perhaps it is mild weather that brings with it a renewed optimism. A new spring is about to come.
Monday, October 08, 2012
One Day, There Really Won't Be Autumn
Autumn is a strange season in Mallorca. Officially it exists but also doesn't exist. Meteorologically it is a reality, but for tourism it isn't. The tourism summer endures until the end of October, and then winter starts. There is nothing in between and nothing in between winter and summer. Mallorca, a land with no autumn and no spring.
Autumn can't be ignored though. Its evidence is all around and in particular in the way that its weather wraps around you. Its heat is discomforting and disorientating, a vaporous clamminess like a giant pink-paraffin heater. It rises from the dampness of the heavy dews, clings to the early-morning mists hanging over the wetlands and is suspended and static unless winds chase it away. This oily radiator warmth mixes with the watery atmosphere and gives birth to seasonal nuisances - the mosquitoes and the flies; always the flies, the scourge of autumn, only seconds away from invading your legs, hands, ears or nose, the moment you settle down on a terrace.
The heat is still sufficient for the beach, yet this is where the disorientation lies, along with a guilt factor. Should one really be going to the beach now that it is October? Isn't the beach something for July and August? How does one cope with autumn's heat as it doesn't feel quite right to cope with it in the same way as in summer?
The tourists don't struggle with this quandary. They carry on with bare flesh intent regardless, beach bound and unaware of a Mallorcan tradition that once the temperature dips below thirty it is time to get the cardy out of the wardrobe (where it will have been going musty over summer and so needs several washes and applications of apple-fragrance conditioner to restore it to wearing order). Otherwise, the most noticeable change in tourist behaviour and demeanour is the proliferation of ageing knobbly knees and backpacks, along with the incessant sound of Nordic Walking poles clunking against tarmac.
The October should-you-go-to-the-beach, shouldn't-you-go-to-the-beach dilemma is going to be resolved over the next few years. Well, it may take more than a few, but some time in the future the Mallorcan summer will encroach into winter. Hotels will not need to close at the end of October, flights will continue long into November, bars will stay open and no one will know how to cope with employment contracts that never normally extend beyond 31 October (if the employee is lucky).
Climate change is going to change the Mallorcan late season, so much so that the number of days that it will be possible, without any sense of disorientation or guilt, for one to be able to enjoy the beach and the sun in autumn will have doubled from around 30 at present to at least 60. I hadn't been aware that an official number of days that one can enjoy sun and beach in autumn had ever been calculated, but thanks to the meteorology department at the Universitat de les Illes Balears, I now do. And it is this department which says the autumn sun and beach days are set to increase by 100%. There won't be an autumn at all, it would seem.
If this is the case, the sooner a doubling occurs the better. If the Mallorcan summer also does a backwards encroachment into a Mallorcan winter, i.e. into March and April, as well as its forwards one at the end of the season, then there will be eight or nine months of season. Brilliant.
Unfortunately, we can't just immediately forget about having to arrange winter in Mallorca programmes and having to complain about lack of flights and lack of hotels being open. The meteorology people say it will be 2094 before 30 days become 60 days.
So, for the time being, we are left with what we have. Hotels starting to close, restaurants starting to close, newspaper and whitewash being gathered to cover windows and terrace glass doors, seasonal employees waving their goodbyes and bidding tearful farewells, the summer's workforce putting their documents together and trooping off to the dole office in the probably forlorn pursuit of some benefit, the piling up of wood, the worry that benign autumn weather will suddenly go pear-shaped and rip roofs off, and the dilemmas - beach or not, duvet or not, long trousers or not.
Autumn is a strange season and a strange time, but one of its least strange aspects is the consequence of the weather, bedding, and clothing dilemmas and of being too slow in responding to chillier evenings and mornings. Colds. And thanks very much, autumn, my sore throat is now coming along nicely.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Autumn can't be ignored though. Its evidence is all around and in particular in the way that its weather wraps around you. Its heat is discomforting and disorientating, a vaporous clamminess like a giant pink-paraffin heater. It rises from the dampness of the heavy dews, clings to the early-morning mists hanging over the wetlands and is suspended and static unless winds chase it away. This oily radiator warmth mixes with the watery atmosphere and gives birth to seasonal nuisances - the mosquitoes and the flies; always the flies, the scourge of autumn, only seconds away from invading your legs, hands, ears or nose, the moment you settle down on a terrace.
The heat is still sufficient for the beach, yet this is where the disorientation lies, along with a guilt factor. Should one really be going to the beach now that it is October? Isn't the beach something for July and August? How does one cope with autumn's heat as it doesn't feel quite right to cope with it in the same way as in summer?
The tourists don't struggle with this quandary. They carry on with bare flesh intent regardless, beach bound and unaware of a Mallorcan tradition that once the temperature dips below thirty it is time to get the cardy out of the wardrobe (where it will have been going musty over summer and so needs several washes and applications of apple-fragrance conditioner to restore it to wearing order). Otherwise, the most noticeable change in tourist behaviour and demeanour is the proliferation of ageing knobbly knees and backpacks, along with the incessant sound of Nordic Walking poles clunking against tarmac.
The October should-you-go-to-the-beach, shouldn't-you-go-to-the-beach dilemma is going to be resolved over the next few years. Well, it may take more than a few, but some time in the future the Mallorcan summer will encroach into winter. Hotels will not need to close at the end of October, flights will continue long into November, bars will stay open and no one will know how to cope with employment contracts that never normally extend beyond 31 October (if the employee is lucky).
Climate change is going to change the Mallorcan late season, so much so that the number of days that it will be possible, without any sense of disorientation or guilt, for one to be able to enjoy the beach and the sun in autumn will have doubled from around 30 at present to at least 60. I hadn't been aware that an official number of days that one can enjoy sun and beach in autumn had ever been calculated, but thanks to the meteorology department at the Universitat de les Illes Balears, I now do. And it is this department which says the autumn sun and beach days are set to increase by 100%. There won't be an autumn at all, it would seem.
If this is the case, the sooner a doubling occurs the better. If the Mallorcan summer also does a backwards encroachment into a Mallorcan winter, i.e. into March and April, as well as its forwards one at the end of the season, then there will be eight or nine months of season. Brilliant.
Unfortunately, we can't just immediately forget about having to arrange winter in Mallorca programmes and having to complain about lack of flights and lack of hotels being open. The meteorology people say it will be 2094 before 30 days become 60 days.
So, for the time being, we are left with what we have. Hotels starting to close, restaurants starting to close, newspaper and whitewash being gathered to cover windows and terrace glass doors, seasonal employees waving their goodbyes and bidding tearful farewells, the summer's workforce putting their documents together and trooping off to the dole office in the probably forlorn pursuit of some benefit, the piling up of wood, the worry that benign autumn weather will suddenly go pear-shaped and rip roofs off, and the dilemmas - beach or not, duvet or not, long trousers or not.
Autumn is a strange season and a strange time, but one of its least strange aspects is the consequence of the weather, bedding, and clothing dilemmas and of being too slow in responding to chillier evenings and mornings. Colds. And thanks very much, autumn, my sore throat is now coming along nicely.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Fatal Attractions: IVA, weather and seasonality
You will know that the British can blame the wrong sort of snow for interruptions to public transport services. Did you also know that the Mallorcans can blame the wrong sort of heat for not getting punters through the turnstiles at attractions? If it's too hot and too sunny, then waterparks win out over other attractions that are indoors or mainly under cover. Well, blow me, I would never have thought this. And nor would I ever have thought that during a Mallorcan summer the weather might be hot and sunny.
The Asociación Mallorquina de Actividades Turísticas (AMAT) was formed in 2001 and it comprises nineteen businesses engaged in different types of attraction, outdoors and indoors, daytime and evening. It is an association whose voice was rarely raised loudly until recently. This raising in volume coincided with the appointment of Palma Aquarium's Antonio González as its president. In April this year, as an example, the association launched an attack on the harm that all-inclusives were having on the island's attractions. It has now met with President Bauzá and has been telling the media about the problems that attractions face, one of which is the weather.
Hot and sunny weather is a lame reason to give for the fact that waterparks might perform better than other attractions. It would be a good reason if hot and sunny weather was not common, but it is. Surely, the association has noticed this, but then among its members there is one business that appears to be absent which might be able to make the point: Aspro Ocio, which, with the exception of Hidropark, runs the island's waterparks as well as Marineland.
There are other reasons why AMAT has wanted to have a word with the president: the small number of hotels open in winter and the reduced number of flights; the rise in IVA (VAT) from September; and promotion towards a youth market, as opposed to a family market, which has lower spending power and is interested only in night-time entertainment.
This last aspect is curious. Firstly, because Mallorca is still considered to be and is promoted as a family destination far more so than as a youth one. Secondly, because one of AMAT's members is Cursach. And what are their attractions? Well, Magalluf's BCM for a kick off.
AMAT's meeting with President Bauzá and the resultant attention in the media comes close on the heels of the announcement by the travel agencies' association, AVIBA, that sales of excursions are down. The two are not coincidental, as both associations represent parts of the tourism industry which are none too impressed by the government's new tourism law or by the IVA increase.
But as I pointed out in a recent article about AVIBA, its travel agencies are only part of the attractions' sales distribution channel, while the main reasons why the sale of excursions is down are very simple - lower tourist spend and economic crisis. The complaints that AMAT has, except the strange one about the weather and the curious one to do with youth promotion, are not unreasonable, but they ignore the underlying reasons why some attractions, in particular the evening ones, are finding that the going has got tough.
One should, though, have sympathy for the attractions. Most of them are open all year and so provide a basis for off-season tourism. An attraction such as the Aquarium can't just shut down in winter. Its sharks, fish, turtles are on fixed, annual contracts; they are not temporary workers that can be laid off when winter comes. Rancho Grande has its resident horses and other animals, the Sóller train chugs away, Costa Nord and La Granja don't shift themselves to different locations in winter. They all require investment and cost, some of it enormous. They cannot get away with being closed in winter, unlike many of the hotel chains. And if the regional government doesn't appreciate this, then it should do. Who owns Costa Nord?
And where IVA is concerned, though the reduced rate that applies to the tourist sector will go up by two points to 10%, categories of business that have benefited from the lower rate have been changed. Consequently, clubs, such as BCM, as well as theatre and other "spectaculars" will be liable to the new higher rate of 21%. If the evening excursion hadn't already been affected (which it has been), it now definitely will be.
AMAT making its voice heard is a good thing, but it has been stung into making its voice heard because so many factors are conspiring against some of its members. It should have shouted a lot more loudly a lot earlier.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The Asociación Mallorquina de Actividades Turísticas (AMAT) was formed in 2001 and it comprises nineteen businesses engaged in different types of attraction, outdoors and indoors, daytime and evening. It is an association whose voice was rarely raised loudly until recently. This raising in volume coincided with the appointment of Palma Aquarium's Antonio González as its president. In April this year, as an example, the association launched an attack on the harm that all-inclusives were having on the island's attractions. It has now met with President Bauzá and has been telling the media about the problems that attractions face, one of which is the weather.
Hot and sunny weather is a lame reason to give for the fact that waterparks might perform better than other attractions. It would be a good reason if hot and sunny weather was not common, but it is. Surely, the association has noticed this, but then among its members there is one business that appears to be absent which might be able to make the point: Aspro Ocio, which, with the exception of Hidropark, runs the island's waterparks as well as Marineland.
There are other reasons why AMAT has wanted to have a word with the president: the small number of hotels open in winter and the reduced number of flights; the rise in IVA (VAT) from September; and promotion towards a youth market, as opposed to a family market, which has lower spending power and is interested only in night-time entertainment.
This last aspect is curious. Firstly, because Mallorca is still considered to be and is promoted as a family destination far more so than as a youth one. Secondly, because one of AMAT's members is Cursach. And what are their attractions? Well, Magalluf's BCM for a kick off.
AMAT's meeting with President Bauzá and the resultant attention in the media comes close on the heels of the announcement by the travel agencies' association, AVIBA, that sales of excursions are down. The two are not coincidental, as both associations represent parts of the tourism industry which are none too impressed by the government's new tourism law or by the IVA increase.
But as I pointed out in a recent article about AVIBA, its travel agencies are only part of the attractions' sales distribution channel, while the main reasons why the sale of excursions is down are very simple - lower tourist spend and economic crisis. The complaints that AMAT has, except the strange one about the weather and the curious one to do with youth promotion, are not unreasonable, but they ignore the underlying reasons why some attractions, in particular the evening ones, are finding that the going has got tough.
One should, though, have sympathy for the attractions. Most of them are open all year and so provide a basis for off-season tourism. An attraction such as the Aquarium can't just shut down in winter. Its sharks, fish, turtles are on fixed, annual contracts; they are not temporary workers that can be laid off when winter comes. Rancho Grande has its resident horses and other animals, the Sóller train chugs away, Costa Nord and La Granja don't shift themselves to different locations in winter. They all require investment and cost, some of it enormous. They cannot get away with being closed in winter, unlike many of the hotel chains. And if the regional government doesn't appreciate this, then it should do. Who owns Costa Nord?
And where IVA is concerned, though the reduced rate that applies to the tourist sector will go up by two points to 10%, categories of business that have benefited from the lower rate have been changed. Consequently, clubs, such as BCM, as well as theatre and other "spectaculars" will be liable to the new higher rate of 21%. If the evening excursion hadn't already been affected (which it has been), it now definitely will be.
AMAT making its voice heard is a good thing, but it has been stung into making its voice heard because so many factors are conspiring against some of its members. It should have shouted a lot more loudly a lot earlier.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Pilgrimages hit by rain
Traditional post-Easter pilgrimages to and picnics at Crestatx in Sa Pobla and La Victoria in Alcúdia were affected yesterday by rain that fell in the morning. Another of the pilgrimages, that to the cave of Sant Martí in Puerto Alcúdia on Sunday, may also be affected as the weather looks unstable through the coming weekend.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Saturday, April 07, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Foreign tourism saves Balearics' Easter
Mainland Spaniards, apparently turned off by an increase in the cost of air travel, have turned their backs on the Balearics this Easter, leaving the British and Germans to come to the islands' rescue. Some 70% of hotels are open with occupancy averaging 72%, down 10% on last year (though the point should again be made that Easter was later last year). The role of the weather, even in April, is highlighted by the fact that one hotel chain, Barceló, points out that in the Canaries good weather is guaranteed, while in the Balearics ... . Locally, there has been some rain and wind; not really beach weather.
See more: El Mundo
See more: El Mundo
Sunday, February 05, 2012
The Senses Of A Mallorcan Winter
Heidi was her name. A German in a suburban ordinariness and unremarkableness. She was the wife of a colleague of my father's. There was a lot of snow in Germany. There still is. If you came from somewhere that had taught you how to smell the imminent arrival of snow, Germany was as good as other countries.
"What does it smell like?" My question was met with silence and a pinching of her nose as she sniffed the air. It smelt no different to me. When the snow didn't arrive, I felt let down.
All I can smell now is wood smoke. The burnt sulphur that rises from the wetland marshes in summer and sometimes in winter has been turned off by the cold tap of the pipe that funnels a Tramuntana or Gregal wind which erupts from its aperture and slaps you across the face with a lash like palm fronds dipped in molten ice. You feel the weals of its cracks. This is the feel of winter in the absence of a feeling for snow.
The tortuous Tramuntana that tumbles in atop the snow-capped foam of cinereous seas, the waves of the "ola de frío", is unfeeling and tormenting. Across the bay, clouds grow from the horizon behind a monochromatic and vaporous veil, indistinguishable from the ashen water. These are the mountains that only some days before had been aflame with a sunset burning into the deep shadows of their scarps sculpted against a rich sky. To the other side of the bay, above Alcúdia, an orange beacon blinks through the veil like a car foglight spotted in the distance on an obliterated motorway.
This is the sight of winter, the eyes moving in and out of focus as they recoil with the spiteful spitting of what might be rain or droplets ripped by the wind from the monstrous sea which, from a distance, roars with the terror of a bodysnatcher or rumbles as though there really were a motorway, one of constant and unrelenting heavy traffic.
The sound of winter bangs shutters and is the clanging street sign that chimes above the rattle and hum of closed doors beaten by draughts and whistled under by the piccolo obbligato counterpoint to the bellicoso orchestral movement of the wind. Sonorous winter, deep with a deep winter dragged in from ice-fields far away, brings the touch like tundra of floors and walls.
All that's absent is the taste of winter, save for stews or hot coffee that chills rapidly in cups around which you wrap hands forever bitten by the refrigeration of surfaces.
xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx
A Mallorcan winter comes as a shock, but it isn't a shock. The strength of the "ola de frío" is stronger than usual, but a wave itself is not unusual. Poor old Chopin was of course one who discovered that a Mallorcan winter can indeed be hibernal and miserable, to boot, especially if it is as damp and cold as it was during his stay in Valldemossa. How he ever kept his hands warm enough to play the piano is a mystery.
The array of vast pantechnicons that have disgorged equipment for numerous cycle teams and which are parked up in Playa de Muro are there because it is hoped the Mallorca Challenge will be staged in reasonable weather. They'll be lucky if they don't have to shift some snow when they head off into the mountains.
Team Sky will be without Mark Cavendish. He must have known something, as he has gone off to Qatar for a different race, leaving some of his team-mates to be lashed by the icy winds as they ride along Mallorcan roads.
And all the time, as Mallorca suffers a freeze, it is 20 degrees in the Canary Islands. Winter tourism? Enough said. For this is February. In 1956 the coldest weather on record was registered in February. Minus 13.5 degrees at Lluc; it was minus ten in Palma that year. It happens. Not as dramatically, but to expect that a winter in Mallorca will pass with consistently fine and mild weather would be a mistake.
There is one reason and one reason alone why there is not a buoyant winter tourism season in Mallorca and that is the weather. End of story. The good weather that there is can lull one into a false belief that the weather is good enough for airlines and tour operators to make more of a commitment, but it is a false belief because the truth can be painful. And it is often spoken in February, whether there is snow or there isn't and whether you can smell snow or not.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
"What does it smell like?" My question was met with silence and a pinching of her nose as she sniffed the air. It smelt no different to me. When the snow didn't arrive, I felt let down.
All I can smell now is wood smoke. The burnt sulphur that rises from the wetland marshes in summer and sometimes in winter has been turned off by the cold tap of the pipe that funnels a Tramuntana or Gregal wind which erupts from its aperture and slaps you across the face with a lash like palm fronds dipped in molten ice. You feel the weals of its cracks. This is the feel of winter in the absence of a feeling for snow.
The tortuous Tramuntana that tumbles in atop the snow-capped foam of cinereous seas, the waves of the "ola de frío", is unfeeling and tormenting. Across the bay, clouds grow from the horizon behind a monochromatic and vaporous veil, indistinguishable from the ashen water. These are the mountains that only some days before had been aflame with a sunset burning into the deep shadows of their scarps sculpted against a rich sky. To the other side of the bay, above Alcúdia, an orange beacon blinks through the veil like a car foglight spotted in the distance on an obliterated motorway.
This is the sight of winter, the eyes moving in and out of focus as they recoil with the spiteful spitting of what might be rain or droplets ripped by the wind from the monstrous sea which, from a distance, roars with the terror of a bodysnatcher or rumbles as though there really were a motorway, one of constant and unrelenting heavy traffic.
The sound of winter bangs shutters and is the clanging street sign that chimes above the rattle and hum of closed doors beaten by draughts and whistled under by the piccolo obbligato counterpoint to the bellicoso orchestral movement of the wind. Sonorous winter, deep with a deep winter dragged in from ice-fields far away, brings the touch like tundra of floors and walls.
All that's absent is the taste of winter, save for stews or hot coffee that chills rapidly in cups around which you wrap hands forever bitten by the refrigeration of surfaces.
xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx
A Mallorcan winter comes as a shock, but it isn't a shock. The strength of the "ola de frío" is stronger than usual, but a wave itself is not unusual. Poor old Chopin was of course one who discovered that a Mallorcan winter can indeed be hibernal and miserable, to boot, especially if it is as damp and cold as it was during his stay in Valldemossa. How he ever kept his hands warm enough to play the piano is a mystery.
The array of vast pantechnicons that have disgorged equipment for numerous cycle teams and which are parked up in Playa de Muro are there because it is hoped the Mallorca Challenge will be staged in reasonable weather. They'll be lucky if they don't have to shift some snow when they head off into the mountains.
Team Sky will be without Mark Cavendish. He must have known something, as he has gone off to Qatar for a different race, leaving some of his team-mates to be lashed by the icy winds as they ride along Mallorcan roads.
And all the time, as Mallorca suffers a freeze, it is 20 degrees in the Canary Islands. Winter tourism? Enough said. For this is February. In 1956 the coldest weather on record was registered in February. Minus 13.5 degrees at Lluc; it was minus ten in Palma that year. It happens. Not as dramatically, but to expect that a winter in Mallorca will pass with consistently fine and mild weather would be a mistake.
There is one reason and one reason alone why there is not a buoyant winter tourism season in Mallorca and that is the weather. End of story. The good weather that there is can lull one into a false belief that the weather is good enough for airlines and tour operators to make more of a commitment, but it is a false belief because the truth can be painful. And it is often spoken in February, whether there is snow or there isn't and whether you can smell snow or not.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, October 14, 2011
The Three Degrees: Mallorca's winter tourism
I was dreaming of a less-than-white Christmas. No rubbish weather for me. Bronzed, golden brown. I was dreaming and then I was told to stop. By the BBC website home page. Make it real. Make what real? Make a holiday in the Canaries real, courtesy of Iberostar. I clicked the link. Dreams can come true.
You're given no false impression as to why you would wish to make it real in the Canaries. Off you go with the family, one of whom is the child with the snorkel kit who greets you as you click from the BBC site. And why is he wearing snorkel kit? Because he wants to go snorkelling of course. In the sea. Departing from a beach. In the sun. Sun and beach. In winter.
This is a promotion by the same Iberostar which grew rich on the back of Mallorcan tourism - Mallorcan summer tourism. Once you have scrolled down the list of the 13 four or five-star hotels on the four main Canary islands - all available with special offers to the end of November, for booking through the winter to the end of April - you come to a footnote. It is under "most popular destinations". Hotels in Majorca. Click.
Well, having clicked, you can probably guess. The red squares on the calendar mean the hotels are closed. All of them. Until April. Mallorca is "most popular", when it is open. But who can blame Iberostar for flogging the Canaries? They're doing what has long been one half of the mainstay of winter tourism promoted by tour operators, travel agents and now hotels. What do they all promote? Either snow or winter sun.
Summer tourism means sun and the movement of millions in its pursuit; winter tourism means snow or sun and the movement of millions more. But you move the millions to where you can pretty much guarantee good coverings of snow or good amounts of sun in temperatures of at least 20 degrees.
Sorry, Mallorca, but you fail the 20-degree test. By three degrees. It may not seem much, but the average temperature for the six months of the off-season is only 17. The psychological barrier is 20 degrees (minimum). Tenerife, by comparison and despite having almost as many days of rain if not as much rain as Mallorca (10 millimetres less on average), comes in at 21.9 degrees (which also happens to break the 70 Fahrenheit barrier). This is why the boy has his snorkel kit on, this is why dreams can be made real - in the Canaries - and this is why Iberostar makes them real there, and not in Mallorca.
Weather does matter. In fact, it is all that matters.
Mallorca's winter tourism. Discuss. Culture, gastronomy, bird-watching, hiking, Nordic walking, cycling, golf, senior tourism. There is much which is available and promoted; it combines to create an under-mass of winter tourism approximately one-tenth the size of that which comes in summer. Unless there were real incentives, such as major, and one means major, attractions, the ratio is unlikely to ever alter fundamentally. And it's all down to those missing three degrees.
There is a great deal of what one might call apologism for Mallorca in winter. And it is apologism that entails preaching to oneself or the converted. It is apologism that can cover all the list above and more that bring about the around one million off-season visitors. But it can only ever get the apologists so far, because something's missing. Three degrees' worth. At least.
This all said, it's a nonsense when you think about it. A nonsense, not that Iberostar or any other hotel chain, airline or tour operator would choose Tenerife over Mallorca, but that Iberostar and all the other hotel chains are sitting on colossal amounts of prime real estate in Mallorca which sit idle for six months of the year. All that asset being unproductive, being wasted; an asset and an investment that have contributed to the cost of land in Mallorca for everyone else, largely deprived of their own productiveness for twelve months of the year.
The tourism industry in Mallorca would probably like to believe that it is efficient. It isn't. It is massively inefficient. Inefficient in terms of asset and resources and inefficient in having been singularly incapable of arriving at solutions to make these resources more efficient, twelve months of the year. But then, what can it do about the weather? Not much. It makes efficient use of one resource - the sun - for six months, and that's it. In the Canaries, on the other hand ... .
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
You're given no false impression as to why you would wish to make it real in the Canaries. Off you go with the family, one of whom is the child with the snorkel kit who greets you as you click from the BBC site. And why is he wearing snorkel kit? Because he wants to go snorkelling of course. In the sea. Departing from a beach. In the sun. Sun and beach. In winter.
This is a promotion by the same Iberostar which grew rich on the back of Mallorcan tourism - Mallorcan summer tourism. Once you have scrolled down the list of the 13 four or five-star hotels on the four main Canary islands - all available with special offers to the end of November, for booking through the winter to the end of April - you come to a footnote. It is under "most popular destinations". Hotels in Majorca. Click.
Well, having clicked, you can probably guess. The red squares on the calendar mean the hotels are closed. All of them. Until April. Mallorca is "most popular", when it is open. But who can blame Iberostar for flogging the Canaries? They're doing what has long been one half of the mainstay of winter tourism promoted by tour operators, travel agents and now hotels. What do they all promote? Either snow or winter sun.
Summer tourism means sun and the movement of millions in its pursuit; winter tourism means snow or sun and the movement of millions more. But you move the millions to where you can pretty much guarantee good coverings of snow or good amounts of sun in temperatures of at least 20 degrees.
Sorry, Mallorca, but you fail the 20-degree test. By three degrees. It may not seem much, but the average temperature for the six months of the off-season is only 17. The psychological barrier is 20 degrees (minimum). Tenerife, by comparison and despite having almost as many days of rain if not as much rain as Mallorca (10 millimetres less on average), comes in at 21.9 degrees (which also happens to break the 70 Fahrenheit barrier). This is why the boy has his snorkel kit on, this is why dreams can be made real - in the Canaries - and this is why Iberostar makes them real there, and not in Mallorca.
Weather does matter. In fact, it is all that matters.
Mallorca's winter tourism. Discuss. Culture, gastronomy, bird-watching, hiking, Nordic walking, cycling, golf, senior tourism. There is much which is available and promoted; it combines to create an under-mass of winter tourism approximately one-tenth the size of that which comes in summer. Unless there were real incentives, such as major, and one means major, attractions, the ratio is unlikely to ever alter fundamentally. And it's all down to those missing three degrees.
There is a great deal of what one might call apologism for Mallorca in winter. And it is apologism that entails preaching to oneself or the converted. It is apologism that can cover all the list above and more that bring about the around one million off-season visitors. But it can only ever get the apologists so far, because something's missing. Three degrees' worth. At least.
This all said, it's a nonsense when you think about it. A nonsense, not that Iberostar or any other hotel chain, airline or tour operator would choose Tenerife over Mallorca, but that Iberostar and all the other hotel chains are sitting on colossal amounts of prime real estate in Mallorca which sit idle for six months of the year. All that asset being unproductive, being wasted; an asset and an investment that have contributed to the cost of land in Mallorca for everyone else, largely deprived of their own productiveness for twelve months of the year.
The tourism industry in Mallorca would probably like to believe that it is efficient. It isn't. It is massively inefficient. Inefficient in terms of asset and resources and inefficient in having been singularly incapable of arriving at solutions to make these resources more efficient, twelve months of the year. But then, what can it do about the weather? Not much. It makes efficient use of one resource - the sun - for six months, and that's it. In the Canaries, on the other hand ... .
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Cry Wolf: Winter in January
Some of you may remember contrasting photos being published in British national newspapers in June 1975; they were those of Buxton cricket ground in Derbyshire. On 2 June there was snow, on 9 June the ground was bathed in hot sunshine as the cold weather gave way to the first of the two successive hot summers of the mid-70s.
Weather in January in Mallorca does not stretch to such extremes in terms of the 1975 heat, but one week on from "Summer in January", winter has indeed, as I had suggested that it would, made its presence felt. Snow has fallen with even some flakes at sea level. The sea has been roaring in spitefulness, but has not deterred the wet-suited extreme sportists of the kite-surfing fraternity. The air being brought in on the waves has cut and torn. It's nothing unusual though.
It snowed at sea level twice last year. On one occasion it was sufficient to leave a good covering. That was unusual. The current cold snap is not. Yet, and proving that you should always take the weather with you, because in Mallorca, as in the UK, weather is the most predictable of talking-points, some cold temperatures, whiteness on the mountains and even on the beaches become a major event.
Weather is never far away in Mallorca. It's not surprising; it is an island after all. During the course of 2010 there was, on average, one weather alert issued by the local met office for every week of the year: too hot, too cold, too windy, too rainy, too stormy. You can't avoid taking the weather with you, you can't avoid being compelled to say in an awe-struck fashion that the island is on a yellow or an orange alert. If it were on red alert, then you really would know something about weather, but the alerts are so common that they are almost like crying wolf, except for the fact that they tend to be accurate.
Weather, therefore, is bigged up. It is over-hyped, over-stated, over-reported, afforded the status of event that over-blows its real importance or rarity. Like cold and snow. Neither is rare and nor is the narrative that accompanies it.
With the same predictability with which the weather becomes the narration in the media or by the bar, so the predictable invades the description - a big freeze or a winter wonderland. With the same predictability, the camera lens is turned towards layers of white on mountains and landscapes to impress upon an audience, that should know better than to be seduced into believing in the rarity of the event, the existence, the verity of this winter wonderland.
The cry-wolf narrative, the reaching out for the cliché and the facile, paints a false picture, one removed from the commonness of Mallorca's weather. It is the same predictability and impoverishment of narrative that strips away a lexicon of presenting Mallorca in anything other than the obvious and the unthinking. There is, as a consequence, a loss of meaning, a loss of context, a loss of perspective. What is a winter wonderland anyway? I really have no idea. I do have an idea as to a "big freeze", having been around when Britain endured one in the early 60s.
Rather than over-stating, the description of weather, such as the current burst of winter, should, in the absence of an original narrative of descriptors, superlatives, metaphors or similes, be proportionate in its understatement. It's a bit on the cold side will do. Because that is the verity. And being a bit on the cold side will soon give way to it not being so much on the cold side. Normal. Usual. Pretty much the same weather as most years, pretty much at the same time as each year (summer in January giving way to winter in January), pretty much always taking the same weather with you.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Weather in January in Mallorca does not stretch to such extremes in terms of the 1975 heat, but one week on from "Summer in January", winter has indeed, as I had suggested that it would, made its presence felt. Snow has fallen with even some flakes at sea level. The sea has been roaring in spitefulness, but has not deterred the wet-suited extreme sportists of the kite-surfing fraternity. The air being brought in on the waves has cut and torn. It's nothing unusual though.
It snowed at sea level twice last year. On one occasion it was sufficient to leave a good covering. That was unusual. The current cold snap is not. Yet, and proving that you should always take the weather with you, because in Mallorca, as in the UK, weather is the most predictable of talking-points, some cold temperatures, whiteness on the mountains and even on the beaches become a major event.
Weather is never far away in Mallorca. It's not surprising; it is an island after all. During the course of 2010 there was, on average, one weather alert issued by the local met office for every week of the year: too hot, too cold, too windy, too rainy, too stormy. You can't avoid taking the weather with you, you can't avoid being compelled to say in an awe-struck fashion that the island is on a yellow or an orange alert. If it were on red alert, then you really would know something about weather, but the alerts are so common that they are almost like crying wolf, except for the fact that they tend to be accurate.
Weather, therefore, is bigged up. It is over-hyped, over-stated, over-reported, afforded the status of event that over-blows its real importance or rarity. Like cold and snow. Neither is rare and nor is the narrative that accompanies it.
With the same predictability with which the weather becomes the narration in the media or by the bar, so the predictable invades the description - a big freeze or a winter wonderland. With the same predictability, the camera lens is turned towards layers of white on mountains and landscapes to impress upon an audience, that should know better than to be seduced into believing in the rarity of the event, the existence, the verity of this winter wonderland.
The cry-wolf narrative, the reaching out for the cliché and the facile, paints a false picture, one removed from the commonness of Mallorca's weather. It is the same predictability and impoverishment of narrative that strips away a lexicon of presenting Mallorca in anything other than the obvious and the unthinking. There is, as a consequence, a loss of meaning, a loss of context, a loss of perspective. What is a winter wonderland anyway? I really have no idea. I do have an idea as to a "big freeze", having been around when Britain endured one in the early 60s.
Rather than over-stating, the description of weather, such as the current burst of winter, should, in the absence of an original narrative of descriptors, superlatives, metaphors or similes, be proportionate in its understatement. It's a bit on the cold side will do. Because that is the verity. And being a bit on the cold side will soon give way to it not being so much on the cold side. Normal. Usual. Pretty much the same weather as most years, pretty much at the same time as each year (summer in January giving way to winter in January), pretty much always taking the same weather with you.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Summer In January
In the days when there was such a thing as summer holidays, I used to have bad dreams prior to them; bad dreams of snow in summer. Winter in July. That was Bomb The Bass; perhaps they read my dreams.
There's a symmetry between this and summer in January. Six months between two months of J. The seasons turned upside down. It doesn't seem right, not least to one of the old men of the neighbourhood who was wandering by the beach. How was he? His reaction was spontaneous. It's never easy to deal with someone crying in the street. He must have been crying for six months now, since his wife passed away. It doesn't seem right. She should have died now. In the winter. Except it isn't.
Parked by the beach is a mobile home, a remnant of summer that shouldn't be there in January. There are anglers with their anorexic cranes strained by bait anchor and taut in the sand. A girl sits by the water's edge, reading and idly tossing posidonia kiwis into the idly lapping wavelets.
It's twenty degrees or so, but the chill water and air from the sea is the reminder that this isn't really summer. Once upon a time you used to be able to head into the dunes and find sand banks that were breaks against the dank air and which created sun traps. You still can, I guess, but they've roped them all off. They only want you to look now, not actually be a part of all this nature.
This is not unusual, this summer in January, this gentleness of the sea that allows one of the fishermen to wade out in search of a catch, this stillness of sky a rhapsodical blue above the tops of pines and palms. From the upper terrace, the one onto which it is impossible to venture in summer because of the ferocity of the heat, the wall obliterates everything apart from the peaks of trees and the sky. The sun burns, even in January.
The sounds are those of distant gunshot during the never-ending hunting season, of the buzzing of winter saws cutting into deadwood or making firewood. For over from where the gunshot comes, fires are being built on the streets of Sa Pobla and Muro, fires that will be lit and which which will light the sight of demons playing with their own fire. It seems incongruous that there should be fires. Not now, not when it is summer in January. But when the sun falls into the horizon of the eel farms of Albufera, the cold descends with the tumbling yellow, as though this were a desert.
The smoke will stay you feel, it will hang in the still air. There will be a kind of smog, because of the night and morning fogs that have crept in with stealth and cloaked the stillness of this eery winter-summer, which have wrapped the crystallised spiders' weaves around car wing mirrors, gates and leaves and which have added a rare sound - that of a fog horn belching across the bay of Alcúdia. The fogs clear but their dampness lingers. The sand, which is never absent from the streets and pavements but may be all but invisible, sticks to shoes, glued there by the wetness that tells you this isn't really summer.
There is other incongruity. It is the rogue mosquito at night, a fly or two whizzing in and out of an open door or window, a brown, decaying cricket that should now be dead but which has survived the suicide dive against a brick wall that it would have performed in October and November, wanting it to all end quickly. There is even the sound of scraping legs, buried in an unattended, holiday-home garden, in this late or is it early summer or spring, for the daffodils are shooting as well.
But in a few days, you imagine, it will be winter in January. It's not so unusual to have summer in January, this reverse of the bad dream of winter in July, just as it's not so unusual for the month to head towards a deathly cold and the reactivation of daytime wood burners and heaters which, for now, need only be fired up once the sun has set. And now, at around half past six, it has just about faded completely, leaving only the streaks of red and orange above Sa Pobla and Muro, the red and orange into which will flame different reds and oranges of the Sant Antoni fires.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
There's a symmetry between this and summer in January. Six months between two months of J. The seasons turned upside down. It doesn't seem right, not least to one of the old men of the neighbourhood who was wandering by the beach. How was he? His reaction was spontaneous. It's never easy to deal with someone crying in the street. He must have been crying for six months now, since his wife passed away. It doesn't seem right. She should have died now. In the winter. Except it isn't.
Parked by the beach is a mobile home, a remnant of summer that shouldn't be there in January. There are anglers with their anorexic cranes strained by bait anchor and taut in the sand. A girl sits by the water's edge, reading and idly tossing posidonia kiwis into the idly lapping wavelets.
It's twenty degrees or so, but the chill water and air from the sea is the reminder that this isn't really summer. Once upon a time you used to be able to head into the dunes and find sand banks that were breaks against the dank air and which created sun traps. You still can, I guess, but they've roped them all off. They only want you to look now, not actually be a part of all this nature.
This is not unusual, this summer in January, this gentleness of the sea that allows one of the fishermen to wade out in search of a catch, this stillness of sky a rhapsodical blue above the tops of pines and palms. From the upper terrace, the one onto which it is impossible to venture in summer because of the ferocity of the heat, the wall obliterates everything apart from the peaks of trees and the sky. The sun burns, even in January.
The sounds are those of distant gunshot during the never-ending hunting season, of the buzzing of winter saws cutting into deadwood or making firewood. For over from where the gunshot comes, fires are being built on the streets of Sa Pobla and Muro, fires that will be lit and which which will light the sight of demons playing with their own fire. It seems incongruous that there should be fires. Not now, not when it is summer in January. But when the sun falls into the horizon of the eel farms of Albufera, the cold descends with the tumbling yellow, as though this were a desert.
The smoke will stay you feel, it will hang in the still air. There will be a kind of smog, because of the night and morning fogs that have crept in with stealth and cloaked the stillness of this eery winter-summer, which have wrapped the crystallised spiders' weaves around car wing mirrors, gates and leaves and which have added a rare sound - that of a fog horn belching across the bay of Alcúdia. The fogs clear but their dampness lingers. The sand, which is never absent from the streets and pavements but may be all but invisible, sticks to shoes, glued there by the wetness that tells you this isn't really summer.
There is other incongruity. It is the rogue mosquito at night, a fly or two whizzing in and out of an open door or window, a brown, decaying cricket that should now be dead but which has survived the suicide dive against a brick wall that it would have performed in October and November, wanting it to all end quickly. There is even the sound of scraping legs, buried in an unattended, holiday-home garden, in this late or is it early summer or spring, for the daffodils are shooting as well.
But in a few days, you imagine, it will be winter in January. It's not so unusual to have summer in January, this reverse of the bad dream of winter in July, just as it's not so unusual for the month to head towards a deathly cold and the reactivation of daytime wood burners and heaters which, for now, need only be fired up once the sun has set. And now, at around half past six, it has just about faded completely, leaving only the streaks of red and orange above Sa Pobla and Muro, the red and orange into which will flame different reds and oranges of the Sant Antoni fires.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Don't Be Cold, Don't Be Angry To Me
The 1970s were responsible for some real horrors perpetrated in the name of music. Pilot were not in the A-list of offenders, but they did bequeath us "January" and memory of a lead singer who looked like a girly Peter Marinello, which was saying something, given that the new George Best appeared to have stepped out of Pan's People.
"Don't be cold, don't be angry to me." I'm all in favour of obscure lyrics, but how does a month display its anger? And why is it angry "to" me? Wrong preposition. But nevertheless, now I think of it, it is - a month being angry - rather poetic. Pilot were the new Wordsworths. Well, maybe not.
January isn't usually angry. But it stores up trouble. It is the month to reconnoitre the tree tops. You wander lonely staring at clouds, but in fact at the pines, their branches crowned with the coconut shies of the caterpillars' furry, testicular wombs. Through the needles, though, you see only blue sky, for this January is like so many - alarmingly warm and bright. Don't be cold with me; not at the moment it isn't.
The warmth, however, is the threat of trouble being stored up for when the weather breaks and for when the caterpillar nests also break and tip their crawling caravans earthwards. In the lonely days of January, the cats can sleak around and scavenge undisturbed, but then they come across the caterpillars. From the litters of moths to the litter of a cat prone on the ground, feigning sleep but in fact stone cold dead.
You make me sad with your eyes. I'm not so sure it does. September is the sad month. January's melancholic, but because of its silence. Until it bursts into flames. The eyes of January look down on the fires of mid-month and on the beasties that roam the villages and towns spitting the sparklers of Sant Antoni. January, the curious month when fiesta has no right to occur but does so in an incendiary fashion that is more pyrotechnic than the summer fireworks; more pyrotechnic because houses, whole streets are in the line of fire.
The month's eyes cast a glance also at how the shorelines shift with the wind. Beaches' edges are moulded and sculpted by the sea's changes in direction and by the harvesting of marine crops that form bulges and mounds which, from a distance, appear as rocky outcrops newly exposed by displaced sand but are the abstract grotesques of packed seaweed and posidonia. The eyes watch as you bounce along the trampolines of the springy and spongy sand topped with its ocean scrap.
You're telling me lies. This is what makes you worry about January. It's what it's telling you about what's to come. It cascades from the skies at the stroke of the new year with the cheer of optimism, but it can be deceitful and deceiving. What's to come? The clear skies of January can just as easily become the dark clouds of gloom, but unlike an English January when you slowly count off the days to the onset of spring, here you might hope for its delay. January doesn't tarry though. It rushes in the spring and thoughts of the season with the swiftness and surprise of a bore racing along an estuary. Maybe it's an illusion, but no; the days are already longer. And then suddenly January's gone. Don't go, don't go.
Why would you not want it to go? January is non-month, it barely exists other than to be set light to. But this is what makes it the month that it is. Because when it's gone, the pretend time of fiesta and holiday from early December goes with it. And things begin to start all over again. The never-ending cycle and repetition of Mallorca's months and seasons.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
"Don't be cold, don't be angry to me." I'm all in favour of obscure lyrics, but how does a month display its anger? And why is it angry "to" me? Wrong preposition. But nevertheless, now I think of it, it is - a month being angry - rather poetic. Pilot were the new Wordsworths. Well, maybe not.
January isn't usually angry. But it stores up trouble. It is the month to reconnoitre the tree tops. You wander lonely staring at clouds, but in fact at the pines, their branches crowned with the coconut shies of the caterpillars' furry, testicular wombs. Through the needles, though, you see only blue sky, for this January is like so many - alarmingly warm and bright. Don't be cold with me; not at the moment it isn't.
The warmth, however, is the threat of trouble being stored up for when the weather breaks and for when the caterpillar nests also break and tip their crawling caravans earthwards. In the lonely days of January, the cats can sleak around and scavenge undisturbed, but then they come across the caterpillars. From the litters of moths to the litter of a cat prone on the ground, feigning sleep but in fact stone cold dead.
You make me sad with your eyes. I'm not so sure it does. September is the sad month. January's melancholic, but because of its silence. Until it bursts into flames. The eyes of January look down on the fires of mid-month and on the beasties that roam the villages and towns spitting the sparklers of Sant Antoni. January, the curious month when fiesta has no right to occur but does so in an incendiary fashion that is more pyrotechnic than the summer fireworks; more pyrotechnic because houses, whole streets are in the line of fire.
The month's eyes cast a glance also at how the shorelines shift with the wind. Beaches' edges are moulded and sculpted by the sea's changes in direction and by the harvesting of marine crops that form bulges and mounds which, from a distance, appear as rocky outcrops newly exposed by displaced sand but are the abstract grotesques of packed seaweed and posidonia. The eyes watch as you bounce along the trampolines of the springy and spongy sand topped with its ocean scrap.
You're telling me lies. This is what makes you worry about January. It's what it's telling you about what's to come. It cascades from the skies at the stroke of the new year with the cheer of optimism, but it can be deceitful and deceiving. What's to come? The clear skies of January can just as easily become the dark clouds of gloom, but unlike an English January when you slowly count off the days to the onset of spring, here you might hope for its delay. January doesn't tarry though. It rushes in the spring and thoughts of the season with the swiftness and surprise of a bore racing along an estuary. Maybe it's an illusion, but no; the days are already longer. And then suddenly January's gone. Don't go, don't go.
Why would you not want it to go? January is non-month, it barely exists other than to be set light to. But this is what makes it the month that it is. Because when it's gone, the pretend time of fiesta and holiday from early December goes with it. And things begin to start all over again. The never-ending cycle and repetition of Mallorca's months and seasons.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Nightswimming: September's Here
What a difference a day makes.
While still in August we feel as though we can look forward to endless summer, and then suddenly September arrives and we look back at a summer disappearing below the sunset horizon of a shortening day. As night arrives earlier, so summer starts to wind down and enters its own twilight. We look forward, but without enthusiasm, to the inevitable storms, the infuriation of the autumn flies, the enclosure of the terraces with their wind-beaten plastic drapes. One day may seem much like the previous one, but we know that it isn't; summer's coming to a close again, and we wonder, as we wonder each year, where on earth it went.
Rarely is September a month of uninterrupted bliss. The mid-month malevolence of the "gota fría" can be forecast without the advice of the meteorologists. We know it's coming, coinciding with the "vuelta al cole" (back to school) of 12 September. The ferocity of the September storms is the evil witch of weather who mocks our desire for a lingering summer and simultaneously kidnaps the vitality and shouts of children which, though we might have cursed them in high summer, become the muted manoeuvres and idleness of beaches, as summer passes into old age. And at times, in September, a sea fret encloses the beach with a chill blanket for the rheumatic, fooled into the fading warmth of summer.
September's coming soon. We announced it as though it were a distant omen. Now September is here. It arrived when we weren't looking. Be damned its apparition. Cock a snook at the ghostly and life-sucking presumptuousness of its shore mists. The sea's still warm. Very warm. The recklessness of water. We assume, if only briefly, the recklessness of childhood. If not now, then not again. Nightswimming.
REM.-.Nightswimming.
Cargado por carlitos117. - Descubre más videos creativos.
QUIZ:
Yesterday - Prince of course: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rTvG2jVteA
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
While still in August we feel as though we can look forward to endless summer, and then suddenly September arrives and we look back at a summer disappearing below the sunset horizon of a shortening day. As night arrives earlier, so summer starts to wind down and enters its own twilight. We look forward, but without enthusiasm, to the inevitable storms, the infuriation of the autumn flies, the enclosure of the terraces with their wind-beaten plastic drapes. One day may seem much like the previous one, but we know that it isn't; summer's coming to a close again, and we wonder, as we wonder each year, where on earth it went.
Rarely is September a month of uninterrupted bliss. The mid-month malevolence of the "gota fría" can be forecast without the advice of the meteorologists. We know it's coming, coinciding with the "vuelta al cole" (back to school) of 12 September. The ferocity of the September storms is the evil witch of weather who mocks our desire for a lingering summer and simultaneously kidnaps the vitality and shouts of children which, though we might have cursed them in high summer, become the muted manoeuvres and idleness of beaches, as summer passes into old age. And at times, in September, a sea fret encloses the beach with a chill blanket for the rheumatic, fooled into the fading warmth of summer.
September's coming soon. We announced it as though it were a distant omen. Now September is here. It arrived when we weren't looking. Be damned its apparition. Cock a snook at the ghostly and life-sucking presumptuousness of its shore mists. The sea's still warm. Very warm. The recklessness of water. We assume, if only briefly, the recklessness of childhood. If not now, then not again. Nightswimming.
REM.-.Nightswimming.
Cargado por carlitos117. - Descubre más videos creativos.
QUIZ:
Yesterday - Prince of course: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rTvG2jVteA
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Hot House: High temperatures (wrongly) and wrong rubbish
Here we go. The weather season is upon us. It never leaves us of course, but it peaks as peak summer arrives along with peak temperatures. The question is, though, what are those peak temperatures and how accurate are they, especially those which get reported from unofficial sources, i.e. anyone other than the local met boys who are, despite met office reputations wherever you may care to mention, the only ones who can be vaguely relied upon.
It has become quite warm, there's no doubt about that. Sweaty, sweaty. No doubt. But the current heat is nothing unusual; indeed it feels pretty normal and not excessive. However, the weather season demands a rather different take. Among figures that have been thrown about, erroneously, we have had anything from mid-30s to mid-40s. Or approximately 95 to 115 in old money. If the temperature were, or had been, in the mid-40s, then one might have expected that people would have started to drop like flies. Indeed, you might not be reading this, as I would have evaporated. Mid-40s is danger territory. You would also have expected there to be issued some serious health warnings and advice.
None of this has happened, because the temperature hasn't been anything like on this scale. Official numbers are barely breaking the 30 degree barrier (86); quite normal and quite hot enough, thank you very much. And where they have, inland, they do not compare with the coast where it is always cooler.
Last year's great weather event in terms of heat saw a maximum of a bit over 42 degrees in Sa Pobla. That was serious heat, yet some reports had it so high (on the coast) that the temperature was equivalent to that which the poor sods fighting in Afghanistan have to endure - nudging the 50 mark.
I suppose it is partly down to the reliability, or not, of one's measuring device. As I write, in the middle of the afternoon, mine is showing 84 in old money, 29 in new. Maybe it's too low. I can't honestly say. But it seems about right and seems the same as it has been for a few days; it is the same figure, as it turns out, coming from the local weather station. The thermometer is, and has been, in the shade, which is of course what is actually measured.
Still, the temperatures are due to rise - 88 by Wednesday is one forecast. So, expect some danger levels to be bandied about, well above 31 Celsius. We should be careful what we wish for where temperatures are concerned. At mid-80s, they are about manageable. Sometime in the not too distant future, those really high temperatures might just start to become the norm. Then you'll really know about serious heat.
A load of rubbish
Look at the photo here. What is wrong with it? Some of you might recall a similar photo some time ago. The issue is getting worse, because what is wrong is that the bin on the left shouldn't have any garden stuff in it; it is for household waste only. This bin was emptied yesterday; by the evening it was full to overflowing. Partly, this is just downright selfishness, but it is also the case that the garden bin gets emptied only irregularly and that the garden rubbish that has gone into the one on the left has mainly come from a house that had not been occupied for some months, i.e. a holiday home. You can, to a point, forgive them if there is nowhere else to put the rubbish.
However, it is not that long ago that there was no separate bin for garden stuff, and that the household bin was emptied every day, which it still is, but only in season, and which isn't the point anyway. Then there is the fact that the rubbish tax has risen considerably. For what, exactly? And then there is another point. Some gardens are large, with all manner of plants, trees, lawns, you name it; other gardens are not large without bloody great trees. Some householders do not fill a bin with their own stuff, knowing that it is somewhat selfish. Like me, who does not have trees, but hedges which keep on not getting cut down because the bloody garden bin gets filled up as soon as it's emptied. There is also the fact that the above photo gives lie to the idea that Mallorca has suddenly become fabulously recycling conscious and also gives lie to the campaign by the town hall to inform residents of the different bins by sending someone round with a leaflet and a form that you had to sign to say that you had been told about it. Fat lot of use when it's done in winter.
I have a solution, and I shall send this photo to Muro town hall, along with my solution. This is - a garden tax. The town hall sends the boys round, checks all gardens for size, number of trees etc., and then sends out the bills. That'll learn 'em.
QUIZ:
Yesterday - The fantastically insane "Rock Lobster", The B52s, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szhJzX0UgDM
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Hole In My Snow Shoe: Snowy weather and potholes
Winter tourism in Mallorca. Come to Mallorca, land of snow and cold. For the second time this winter, it snowed at sea level yesterday, rather heavier than the first time, though it did seem to vary as to how much. Moving between Playa de Muro and parts of Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa, it was evident that there was a great deal more snow that had actually settled in the former two than the latter, so much so that, for instance, there was even a slush trail on the road by the foot of the Sant Marti mountain (at the back of Bellevue). A bit further on, heading towards the town of Alcúdia and then off to Puerto Pollensa, there wasn't any snow covering the grass or trees, as there most certainly was - and a fair bit of it - near to the Muro hospital.
All very exciting of course and all very tempting for the weather exaggerators to get into full out-of-proportion mode. "Five inches in Sa Pobla." Probably not, one feels. Rather like heat in summer brings forth claims of 48 degrees, as was the case last summer but was clearly rubbish, so the oddity of snow inspires drifts, blizzards, entire towns cut off, etc, etc. But snow there was, and our man with a camera, Ben, was out and about photographing it and helpfully Picasa-ing the evidence - http://picasaweb.google.com/mallorcaben/SnowInAlcudia#.
The rotten and cold weather just adds to the ever-present problem of the state of some local roads. Pothole City, i.e. Puerto Pollensa, doesn't really need much assistance from the weather, but some roads do, and tend to get it from heavy rain which has the habit of flaking surfaces and revealing holes, always assuming that the rain is not so heavy that the holes have not been revealed and therefore are not avoided. Thud. There goes another tyre. One does have to have some sympathy with our cyclist friends, confronted not only by barely more than freezing temperatures but also by dirty great trenches in their way, to say nothing of the bay of Pollensa that had been left scattered across the cycle lane on the road between Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa, following the howlin' wolf of a wind three nights ago. Ah yes, winter tourism. What a splendid idea.
But to return to potholes, you may have heard of the town in Germany which is selling pothole sponsorship. What a ripping idea this is. Who says the Germans have no sense of humour? Fifty euros and you get your name badged onto the fixed hole. "We Need Tar" says the website from the town of Niederzimmern - http://www.niederzimmern.de. Usefully, they've done an English version of their "Kaufen Sie Ihr Schlagloch" campaign and there is a daily tally of Schlaglöcher that have been sponsored - 111 as of yesterday. How many are there, for God's sake? Rather fewer than on the fine Calle Pere Melià in Puerto Pollensa alone, I'd venture, the road that has assumed the mantle of pothole king from the sadly-now-smoothed Calle Arse, aka Bot. Pollensa town hall, and indeed others, could take a leaf out of the Niederzimmern book and raise badly needed funds by having their own hole sponsorships, though there is one slight drawback. To be able to see the sponsor's name would require a close examination of the road surface, which may not be such a wise thing to do as some local chico-racer comes haring around the corner. But they could always issue a map showing newly filled-in potholes with the names of local sponsoring bars arrowed to the relevant hole. Definite winner I'd say, but being Pollensa, rather than getting some international support, they'd do it all in Catalan, so no-one would have a clue what was going on.
* The photo shows Hole number 7 available to purchase in Niederzimmern. They might possibly consider using a rather larger truck, though for 50 euros what can you expect? The photo comes from the site named above. You might also be interested to know that the same site promotes a song dedicated to the holes in the ground by one Michael Altmann. Click on where it says "Ur-Version" and you can hear some of it. Truly dreadful it is as well and therefore highly recommended.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Summer Is Over
"I'm off to gather mushrooms." Those wacky French, always truffling around in the undergrowth snouting out fungus. It had never occurred to me that anyone, let alone a French visitor, might trek up to La Victoria and usher away the mountain goats before they could snaffle all the fungal booty. But it's that time of the year. Into the forests they go in search of firewood - not, I guess, that they're meant to - and the they is anyone with a wood-burner. Unused for several months, the burner is now being relieved of old ash and being re-commissioned once more.
The dew hangs thick on the grass that leaps up in a matter of a few days. It is this, the dew, as much as the torrents of September, that brings lawns back to life and to enjoy a spell of rapid re-growth before the sun loses more of its power and the gardens retreat into the winter time. Snails slime out from beneath stones, while the dying cicadas, in their shrouds of browny-grey, slam against walls in their last moments of disorientation before coming to rest and to await the ants. Flies crawl on terrace furniture and erratically buzz into faces; persistent, they land on arms or lobes, seek out spots to rub their legs in kitchens and bathrooms. The spray should kill them as well the autumn-returned mosquitoes, but rarely seems to.
The days shift from clear skies to grey, from calm to wind and from temperateness to chill. The beaches, where in summer the kiters and surfers are barred, now are littered with the colours of sails, boards with graffito go-faster, heavy-metallic blazes, and obsessive, freaky-haired surfies squeezed into wet suits. The wind from the sea is starting to cut. Hands reveal a purpleness unseen since early in the year, and jackets are zipped up to the neck, heads poking out from upraised collars that are caught on gusts and smack against an ear.
The "butaneros" are newly busy. Orange bottles, hidden in utility rooms, are lugged onto the streets to await the parping of the gas truck. Heaters are wheeled out and re-acquainted with the containers that vaporise their spectral, watery toxicity. In the supermarkets, the shelves change their contents, the greengrocery becomes greener as the likes of broccoli come back into fashion as the complement to legume-based stews. Refreshing summer whites begin to disappear as heavy reds regain their dominance in the wine sections.
From wardrobes and drawers come sweaters and sweatshirts, destined for the wash to fragrant-conditioner away the mustiness accumulated in the dead air of summer. Heavier clothing may be needed, but there are still tourists spirited enough to be shirtless and to take the iciness of a beer where a tea is demanded. The glass facades of some hotels are already whitewashed as end-of-summer shutdown signals the sad end of another season.
Winter's coming, and the tramuntana north wind blows south, forcing sand back against the wooden barriers and the flaking paint of shore-side villa walls. The sea rebels against the turquoise of summer. Turbulent, tossed by the tramuntana, it shrieks a green-seaweed greyness - an army colour, that of a tank - splashing up its detritus onto the water's edge, building castles of kiwi-moulded sea grass on the sand. The anger of the bay roars through the night, remonstrating with a forlorn and desperate desire to eke out just a few more hours and days of the season.
Summer's over.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "High", Lighthouse Family (Lightweight Family was how Steve Wright cruelly dubbed them), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59LnsrWkyFM. Today's title - one of her lesser-known songs, but it's terrific and so was she. Think another season.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
The dew hangs thick on the grass that leaps up in a matter of a few days. It is this, the dew, as much as the torrents of September, that brings lawns back to life and to enjoy a spell of rapid re-growth before the sun loses more of its power and the gardens retreat into the winter time. Snails slime out from beneath stones, while the dying cicadas, in their shrouds of browny-grey, slam against walls in their last moments of disorientation before coming to rest and to await the ants. Flies crawl on terrace furniture and erratically buzz into faces; persistent, they land on arms or lobes, seek out spots to rub their legs in kitchens and bathrooms. The spray should kill them as well the autumn-returned mosquitoes, but rarely seems to.
The days shift from clear skies to grey, from calm to wind and from temperateness to chill. The beaches, where in summer the kiters and surfers are barred, now are littered with the colours of sails, boards with graffito go-faster, heavy-metallic blazes, and obsessive, freaky-haired surfies squeezed into wet suits. The wind from the sea is starting to cut. Hands reveal a purpleness unseen since early in the year, and jackets are zipped up to the neck, heads poking out from upraised collars that are caught on gusts and smack against an ear.
The "butaneros" are newly busy. Orange bottles, hidden in utility rooms, are lugged onto the streets to await the parping of the gas truck. Heaters are wheeled out and re-acquainted with the containers that vaporise their spectral, watery toxicity. In the supermarkets, the shelves change their contents, the greengrocery becomes greener as the likes of broccoli come back into fashion as the complement to legume-based stews. Refreshing summer whites begin to disappear as heavy reds regain their dominance in the wine sections.
From wardrobes and drawers come sweaters and sweatshirts, destined for the wash to fragrant-conditioner away the mustiness accumulated in the dead air of summer. Heavier clothing may be needed, but there are still tourists spirited enough to be shirtless and to take the iciness of a beer where a tea is demanded. The glass facades of some hotels are already whitewashed as end-of-summer shutdown signals the sad end of another season.
Winter's coming, and the tramuntana north wind blows south, forcing sand back against the wooden barriers and the flaking paint of shore-side villa walls. The sea rebels against the turquoise of summer. Turbulent, tossed by the tramuntana, it shrieks a green-seaweed greyness - an army colour, that of a tank - splashing up its detritus onto the water's edge, building castles of kiwi-moulded sea grass on the sand. The anger of the bay roars through the night, remonstrating with a forlorn and desperate desire to eke out just a few more hours and days of the season.
Summer's over.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "High", Lighthouse Family (Lightweight Family was how Steve Wright cruelly dubbed them), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59LnsrWkyFM. Today's title - one of her lesser-known songs, but it's terrific and so was she. Think another season.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Always Take The Weather With You
Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-five, forty, forty-five. Take your pick. Choose a number and let it be the temperature. There is a colossal amount of old pony that gets trotted out in the name of the weather. Let's go back, shall we, to the summer. The highest temperature in the north of the island was 42.3 in Sa Pobla. There may have been somewhere else, Muro town for example, that was a fraction hotter, but Sa Pobla is the main weather station. It is not by the coast, as to be by the coast does give a different value; the temperatures are always lower, by a factor of at least three degrees. During the very hot summer, there was never a time when the temperature reached 48. But there were some who would have you believe it did. Had it, not only would it have been massive news locally, it would have registered across the world, so extreme would it have been. The 42 was, in itself, extreme - for Mallorca. And 42 was quite damn hot enough; don't wish for anything higher, for God's sake.
Let's now come to October. Notwithstanding the return of storms on Friday, the temperatures have been unseasonably high. But not that high. Not as high as thirty-four, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, all of which have been reported. The official highest has again been in Sa Pobla, in the interior, away from the coast where it is always cooler. That high was 32. By the coast, it would have been 29 at most, when the highest temperatures were registered midweek. But we still get the exaggerated reports, and, by now, one would have thought that the message might have got through that thermometers in direct sunlight and indeed many little thermometers hanging on the terrace are far from accurate. For those values that are cited are those that are given by either a dodgy thermometer or one in the sun; they are not the ones given out by the meteorologists. We may not always believe weather forecasts, but I, for one, cannot query the actual temperatures the met boys record.
There is, though, the question as to why some people feel moved to report what are exaggerated values. It is a curious psychology, one that varies between boastfulness and one-upmanship and a desire - at all costs - to big somewhere up and make it appear wonderful. It is especially curious as anything much over 27 or 28 degrees becomes less than pleasant for anything other than a trip to the beach. Who needs 36 or 37? No-one is the answer, so why exaggerate the temperature to make it so, when it isn't? It is doubly especially curious that one might take the weather with one as a means of some sort of self-aggrandizement, parading around with an imaginary t-shirt saying "I am 38 degrees" and then when back in freezing England, getting the same t-shirt out and sitting down in the centrally-heated warmth of the neighbour's house, showing the inevitable photos of when it was 38 or even 48. "It was 48 degrees when we were there." "Was it really?" "Ooh, yes, ever so hot."
The bigging-it-up psychology is part of the same "beautiful" motif. It (wherever it is) is "beautiful" because the temperature says so, even if the temperature is not as is reported. And one still has the question as to why a 33 should be more beautiful than 25. Much of this comes down to a sort of justification of existence, itself a facet of the self-aggrandizement-through-weather mentality. We live by the weather, we always takes the weather with us, and much as we may be prone to exaggerate almost anything, there is nothing more exaggerated than what is truly registered on a thermometer - one that works properly and in the right conditions.
QUIZ
Today's title - "Everywhere you go, ..."
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Let's now come to October. Notwithstanding the return of storms on Friday, the temperatures have been unseasonably high. But not that high. Not as high as thirty-four, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, all of which have been reported. The official highest has again been in Sa Pobla, in the interior, away from the coast where it is always cooler. That high was 32. By the coast, it would have been 29 at most, when the highest temperatures were registered midweek. But we still get the exaggerated reports, and, by now, one would have thought that the message might have got through that thermometers in direct sunlight and indeed many little thermometers hanging on the terrace are far from accurate. For those values that are cited are those that are given by either a dodgy thermometer or one in the sun; they are not the ones given out by the meteorologists. We may not always believe weather forecasts, but I, for one, cannot query the actual temperatures the met boys record.
There is, though, the question as to why some people feel moved to report what are exaggerated values. It is a curious psychology, one that varies between boastfulness and one-upmanship and a desire - at all costs - to big somewhere up and make it appear wonderful. It is especially curious as anything much over 27 or 28 degrees becomes less than pleasant for anything other than a trip to the beach. Who needs 36 or 37? No-one is the answer, so why exaggerate the temperature to make it so, when it isn't? It is doubly especially curious that one might take the weather with one as a means of some sort of self-aggrandizement, parading around with an imaginary t-shirt saying "I am 38 degrees" and then when back in freezing England, getting the same t-shirt out and sitting down in the centrally-heated warmth of the neighbour's house, showing the inevitable photos of when it was 38 or even 48. "It was 48 degrees when we were there." "Was it really?" "Ooh, yes, ever so hot."
The bigging-it-up psychology is part of the same "beautiful" motif. It (wherever it is) is "beautiful" because the temperature says so, even if the temperature is not as is reported. And one still has the question as to why a 33 should be more beautiful than 25. Much of this comes down to a sort of justification of existence, itself a facet of the self-aggrandizement-through-weather mentality. We live by the weather, we always takes the weather with us, and much as we may be prone to exaggerate almost anything, there is nothing more exaggerated than what is truly registered on a thermometer - one that works properly and in the right conditions.
QUIZ
Today's title - "Everywhere you go, ..."
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Rain Until September
Are we seeing a change? The weather, that is. The stifling humidity of yesterday suggested that the almost unbroken sun and fine weather could come to a crashing halt; crashing as in the crash, bang and wallop of storms. Since early May there has been barely any appreciable rain. There have been some spots and some cloudy spells, but apart from a cloudburst that deluged Puerto Pollensa some weeks ago, there has been nothing ... no rain, only heat upon unrelenting heat, dry upon unrelenting scorched earth.
This has been a summer similar in some ways to the fierce one of 2003, the one that claimed lives across western Europe. In that year interior temperatures nudged the 40 mark in June and hardly fell below 30 for the next two months. And then right on cue, almost at the stroke of midnight on 1 September, came the storms. And they lasted for several days. The end of August and into September is the stormy season. Indeed it is far from unusual for there to be fierce storms and heavy rains in August. It was one such August storm that led to the closure of the farcically ill-prepared new metro system in Palma that was flooded. When was that? Three years ago?
This year has seen some record temperatures. The 42 of July in Sa Pobla was the highest for some fifteen years. The heat of this summer, say some, was nature's correction following what had been a generally wet winter. Nature's correction could be about to be experienced in a different way - deluges. It would not be altogether surprising. The heat and the dry weather may have turned some gardens shades of brown or even grey, but the landscape is resilient. It is a remarkable feature of Mallorca that so much retains a greenness despite the lack of rain. The dryness has its dangers. There have been large billboards - in Catalan of course - warning against fires in the forests. Make that also fires on mountains. A Briton has been detained following the fire on the Puig Sant Martí in Puerto Alcúdia on Sunday. The helicopter with its demolition-ball-style water bombs was scooping from the Lago Menor and the Canadair firefighting planes from the sea. On Monday there were other fires in the interior.
Mallorca, though it has its forests, is not as densely wooded as other places. Fires do not tend to take on the levels of seriousness that were the case in southern Spain earlier this summer and have been the case just recently in Greece. Unlike another Mediterranean island, Corsica, it is not the site of devastating fires, usually deliberately started. Having experienced the proximity of a major fire in Corsica and witnessed the environmental disasters visited on that island, it is something to be grateful for that Mallorca is spared such natural violence, albeit artificially created.
The most powerful remedy to fires, however, is natural, and that means rain. And rain, lots of it, is not, one fancies, that far away. Some will be saying thank goodness.
SPANISH FOOTY
And as the seasons being to change, possibly, so the football season arrives together with the No Frills bus to take those of a footballing Darren bent off to the ONO stadium (Oh, no, it's ONO; oh, no, it's Real Mallorca). The first game of the new season is against Xerez, which presumably means a lot of sherry - or maybe not. Anyway, info on the WHAT'S ON BLOG - http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - David Bowie, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyMm4rJemtI.
Today's title - and into September, it might be argued. It might as well ... Who?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
This has been a summer similar in some ways to the fierce one of 2003, the one that claimed lives across western Europe. In that year interior temperatures nudged the 40 mark in June and hardly fell below 30 for the next two months. And then right on cue, almost at the stroke of midnight on 1 September, came the storms. And they lasted for several days. The end of August and into September is the stormy season. Indeed it is far from unusual for there to be fierce storms and heavy rains in August. It was one such August storm that led to the closure of the farcically ill-prepared new metro system in Palma that was flooded. When was that? Three years ago?
This year has seen some record temperatures. The 42 of July in Sa Pobla was the highest for some fifteen years. The heat of this summer, say some, was nature's correction following what had been a generally wet winter. Nature's correction could be about to be experienced in a different way - deluges. It would not be altogether surprising. The heat and the dry weather may have turned some gardens shades of brown or even grey, but the landscape is resilient. It is a remarkable feature of Mallorca that so much retains a greenness despite the lack of rain. The dryness has its dangers. There have been large billboards - in Catalan of course - warning against fires in the forests. Make that also fires on mountains. A Briton has been detained following the fire on the Puig Sant Martí in Puerto Alcúdia on Sunday. The helicopter with its demolition-ball-style water bombs was scooping from the Lago Menor and the Canadair firefighting planes from the sea. On Monday there were other fires in the interior.
Mallorca, though it has its forests, is not as densely wooded as other places. Fires do not tend to take on the levels of seriousness that were the case in southern Spain earlier this summer and have been the case just recently in Greece. Unlike another Mediterranean island, Corsica, it is not the site of devastating fires, usually deliberately started. Having experienced the proximity of a major fire in Corsica and witnessed the environmental disasters visited on that island, it is something to be grateful for that Mallorca is spared such natural violence, albeit artificially created.
The most powerful remedy to fires, however, is natural, and that means rain. And rain, lots of it, is not, one fancies, that far away. Some will be saying thank goodness.
SPANISH FOOTY
And as the seasons being to change, possibly, so the football season arrives together with the No Frills bus to take those of a footballing Darren bent off to the ONO stadium (Oh, no, it's ONO; oh, no, it's Real Mallorca). The first game of the new season is against Xerez, which presumably means a lot of sherry - or maybe not. Anyway, info on the WHAT'S ON BLOG - http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - David Bowie, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyMm4rJemtI.
Today's title - and into September, it might be argued. It might as well ... Who?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Friday, April 03, 2009
The Closest Thing To Crazy
A hotel in Cala San Vicente that is not going to be opening this season, that is to be closed this season - possibly. "The Diario" was reporting this yesterday and saying that the establishment concerned would neither confirm nor deny it; the paper would only use the word "posible", which is an s less than an English possible even if it is pronounced differently. I spoke to a tourist office and mentioned this report. Oh yes, it was being reported elsewhere on the internet. It was ... well which one do you think? It doesn't take a lot of imagination to fathom out which one, as it was stated that it was a 3-star hotel in the Cala, so it wasn't, for example, La Moraleja. What was also being reported was that this was to do with a major tour operator. I don't know if that is the case, but the hotel is not on that tour operator's site; well, not now it isn't anyway.
I shall wait to learn more before going into this, but it tells a story - possibly - and a far from unimportant one.
Somewhere else that is closing, has closed in fact: the Crazy Horse in Puerto Alcúdia. Seems like the end of an era. The bar had opened, the 1.50 Saint Mick was chalked up, but a couple of days ago I passed by, it was obviously shut, I mentioned it to someone, and was told that that was that. Finished. Gone. Ended. And the expectation is that some flats might occupy the space at some point. Not just at the moment, one suspects.
I said that I wouldn't do the bad news stuff, but sometimes you have to. Yesterday morning, with the rain and the cold - that became heavier and more pronounced as the day wore on - I was in the old town of Alcúdia and talking with a few people; it would have made you want to slash your wrists. "Cr-eee-sis" + "mucha lluvia" = "desastre". We're all doomed, Captain Mainwaring.
Get over it, get on with it. It will be better than you think. The weather is total crap, but not forever. That said, if it rains on Saturday, as it rained yesterday afternoon, I will be very unhappy, as I have a gig to do with photos and a vox-pop at the boat and sepia fairs in Puerto Alcúdia.
And here is the weather forecast; well, the weather report. How crap can this weather be? How wet and cold can it be for the start of April? We knew we would get it in the neck at some stage, but this is truly awful. I'm going back to bed for a few weeks. Wake me up in May, or June.
But hell, Easter's on its way. And who will make you happy bunnies at Easter? You know; of course you know. Little Britain's specials. See the WHAT'S ON BLOG - http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com - for details of the LB Easter goodies.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqiABp2sHIc, a speeded-up remix of The Thompson Twins. Today's title - what pretty well kicked it off for her.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
I shall wait to learn more before going into this, but it tells a story - possibly - and a far from unimportant one.
Somewhere else that is closing, has closed in fact: the Crazy Horse in Puerto Alcúdia. Seems like the end of an era. The bar had opened, the 1.50 Saint Mick was chalked up, but a couple of days ago I passed by, it was obviously shut, I mentioned it to someone, and was told that that was that. Finished. Gone. Ended. And the expectation is that some flats might occupy the space at some point. Not just at the moment, one suspects.
I said that I wouldn't do the bad news stuff, but sometimes you have to. Yesterday morning, with the rain and the cold - that became heavier and more pronounced as the day wore on - I was in the old town of Alcúdia and talking with a few people; it would have made you want to slash your wrists. "Cr-eee-sis" + "mucha lluvia" = "desastre". We're all doomed, Captain Mainwaring.
Get over it, get on with it. It will be better than you think. The weather is total crap, but not forever. That said, if it rains on Saturday, as it rained yesterday afternoon, I will be very unhappy, as I have a gig to do with photos and a vox-pop at the boat and sepia fairs in Puerto Alcúdia.
And here is the weather forecast; well, the weather report. How crap can this weather be? How wet and cold can it be for the start of April? We knew we would get it in the neck at some stage, but this is truly awful. I'm going back to bed for a few weeks. Wake me up in May, or June.
But hell, Easter's on its way. And who will make you happy bunnies at Easter? You know; of course you know. Little Britain's specials. See the WHAT'S ON BLOG - http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com - for details of the LB Easter goodies.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqiABp2sHIc, a speeded-up remix of The Thompson Twins. Today's title - what pretty well kicked it off for her.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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