Quite a bit has made of Palma being "The Sunday Times" choice of the best city in the world to live. The town hall in Palma has latched on to it, as have all the local papers. The publicity value is great, though there has been little or no mention of the fact that the author of the relevant article, Paul Richardson, is well-known to the press office at the Fomento del Turismo (Mallorca Tourist Board). Be that as it may.
Though the best city to live in, it isn't the best destination in the world for travellers. Who says? Trip Advisor of course. Palma doesn't even make it into the top ten of Spanish destinations let alone those in Europe or around the globe. The 2015 Travellers' Choice awards make Barcelona the number one Spanish destination and Istanbul the top European city or resort.
Of other places in the Spanish top ten, two are somewhat obscure - La Oliva on the island of Fuerteventura in the Canaries (second) and Llanes in Asturias (fifth). Otherwise, the destinations are as might be expected, albeit minus Palma, and they include - at number ten - Benidorm. Well, what do you think? Benidorm better than Palma? In the end, Trip Advisor awards and newspaper reviews are all rather subjective.
When looking at comments on Spanish news websites under articles about Palma, another place in Mallorca was given honourable mentions. In the opinion of a few of those commenting, Soller is the best place to live, and Soller was in the Trip Advisor Travellers' Choice top ten last year, as also was Calvia. They are nowhere to be seen this year. As I say, all very subjective.
But who needs awards or newspaper articles when Mallorca and the Balearics can boast that it is the national leader in 2015 in terms of an increase in winter tourism. Yes, you have read this correctly. In January and February, the Balearics registered the greatest increase of any region in Spain - 40,000 more tourists, a rise of 20%. This good news has to be placed in perspective, though. The figure of 230,000 tourists is substantially lower than the 380,000 who came to the islands in January and February not so long ago - in 2008 before crisis really struck.
The increase this year cannot disguise the weakness of Mallorca's winter tourism and also one of the laments that German tour operators have, i.e. the fact that so many hotels are closed. The German market rose by 34% in January and February but so also, according to the Frontur survey which measures these things, did the number of tourists opting to stay in private holiday accommodation. This was up by 24%. Who was it who said that private holiday lets add to the impact of seasonality rather than lessen it? Might it have been the tourism minister by any chance?
Showing posts with label Winter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Winter. Show all posts
Friday, March 27, 2015
Thursday, February 19, 2015
The Simplicity Challenge: Mallorca's winter marketing
Let me give you a challenge. You are given the task of marketing Mallorca in winter. Forget for one moment lack of flights and hotels and restaurants being closed. Think only of Mallorca. What does it offer? What would you market? The chances are that you will come up with a fairly long list. Do I need to repeat them? Not really, you are familiar enough with them.
Let me now give you a different challenge. You are given the task of marketing Tenerife in winter. Forget for one moment the availability of flights and hotels and restaurants being open. Think only of Tenerife. What does it offer? What would you market? The chances are that you are not familiar with Tenerife, not like you are with Mallorca, but were you to be familiar then you will come up with a similar list to the one you have for Mallorca. Tenerife has mountains (a massive great big one with a lot of snow on it), wildlife, gastronomy, cycling, culture, walking, golf. But if I were to now give you a final challenge, what would be your simple winter marketing message for both Mallorca and Tenerife. For Tenerife, it might be one word. Sun. For Mallorca?
I know what you are going to say. There is sun in Mallorca, too. Tenerife can have its dodgy, rainy and cloudy days. You will probably also say that oh, there is so much more in Mallorca than Tenerife. You might be right, but the chances are you are one of the converted. Preaching to the likeminded gets you only so far, and let's face it, having so much more hasn't got us all very far. But come on, I'm still waiting, what is the simple winter marketing message for Mallorca?
Image matters and image is created through many sources not just those of the marketing people. Image is a legacy of time and though there will be those who will point out that there was once a time of relative plenty in winter, predicated on sun, the dominant image, for Mallorca, is its summer sun, to which can be added unexciting but nevertheless strong attributes, such as reliability, safety and proximity. But legacy of time counts for only so much nowadays, and image has been amended. Winter sun as there once might have been has been airbrushed from the tourism image. It has been planted elsewhere, transported by the destination deciders in their tour operating and airline HQs. It is not a Mallorcan winter marketing message, only an optional extra along with the other elements on your list.
Even for Tenerife, the simple message of sun is not sufficient. It has, to use jargon, a point of parity. In other words, there are plenty of other places with winter sun. It has, therefore, to find further value, but it is the underlying simplicity of its winter message that is its hook and initial attraction. Other messages are loaded on to the foundation of the sun image, but for the tourist and for those who market to the tourist, it is that foundation and simplicity of message which appeals.
I was talking with Jason Moore (the editor of the Majorca Daily Bulletin) yesterday and he mentioned a conversation he had had with an airline marketing manager who, seemingly, had been unaware of what Mallorca has to offer in months like January and February. The marketing manager might have been surprised, but presented with an array of different types of attraction, activity, fiestas and so on, what can be done with the information? Where's the hook, where's the simple message? For a marketing manager, if sun (or snow) is the message, the task is that much more straightforward, and so welcome aboard the winter sunshine airline express.
The tourist is today confronted with overwhelming amounts of information and massive choice. For any destination, there has to be a simplicity of message in order to cut through this overload. Complexity can be added, but initially there has to be something that stands out. For all that Mallorca has its array of winter attractions, reducing them to a sensible and meaningful message is not easy. The marketing manager would be scratching his head and thinking, it's a heck of a lot of easier to flog Tenerife.
The winter message, as a result, attaches itself to comprehensible niches. Cycling in winter is a prime example. Varied landscapes and terrain, good roads, decent enough climate. The message isn't so difficult. But niches amount to only so many tourists. Lacking a core message makes the winter in Mallorca a tough marketing proposition. Packaging various niches might sound like a solution, but only partially. A strong social media presence (of which there isn't one) would help, but one still comes back to that core and simple message. And I wish I knew what it was.
Let me now give you a different challenge. You are given the task of marketing Tenerife in winter. Forget for one moment the availability of flights and hotels and restaurants being open. Think only of Tenerife. What does it offer? What would you market? The chances are that you are not familiar with Tenerife, not like you are with Mallorca, but were you to be familiar then you will come up with a similar list to the one you have for Mallorca. Tenerife has mountains (a massive great big one with a lot of snow on it), wildlife, gastronomy, cycling, culture, walking, golf. But if I were to now give you a final challenge, what would be your simple winter marketing message for both Mallorca and Tenerife. For Tenerife, it might be one word. Sun. For Mallorca?
I know what you are going to say. There is sun in Mallorca, too. Tenerife can have its dodgy, rainy and cloudy days. You will probably also say that oh, there is so much more in Mallorca than Tenerife. You might be right, but the chances are you are one of the converted. Preaching to the likeminded gets you only so far, and let's face it, having so much more hasn't got us all very far. But come on, I'm still waiting, what is the simple winter marketing message for Mallorca?
Image matters and image is created through many sources not just those of the marketing people. Image is a legacy of time and though there will be those who will point out that there was once a time of relative plenty in winter, predicated on sun, the dominant image, for Mallorca, is its summer sun, to which can be added unexciting but nevertheless strong attributes, such as reliability, safety and proximity. But legacy of time counts for only so much nowadays, and image has been amended. Winter sun as there once might have been has been airbrushed from the tourism image. It has been planted elsewhere, transported by the destination deciders in their tour operating and airline HQs. It is not a Mallorcan winter marketing message, only an optional extra along with the other elements on your list.
Even for Tenerife, the simple message of sun is not sufficient. It has, to use jargon, a point of parity. In other words, there are plenty of other places with winter sun. It has, therefore, to find further value, but it is the underlying simplicity of its winter message that is its hook and initial attraction. Other messages are loaded on to the foundation of the sun image, but for the tourist and for those who market to the tourist, it is that foundation and simplicity of message which appeals.
I was talking with Jason Moore (the editor of the Majorca Daily Bulletin) yesterday and he mentioned a conversation he had had with an airline marketing manager who, seemingly, had been unaware of what Mallorca has to offer in months like January and February. The marketing manager might have been surprised, but presented with an array of different types of attraction, activity, fiestas and so on, what can be done with the information? Where's the hook, where's the simple message? For a marketing manager, if sun (or snow) is the message, the task is that much more straightforward, and so welcome aboard the winter sunshine airline express.
The tourist is today confronted with overwhelming amounts of information and massive choice. For any destination, there has to be a simplicity of message in order to cut through this overload. Complexity can be added, but initially there has to be something that stands out. For all that Mallorca has its array of winter attractions, reducing them to a sensible and meaningful message is not easy. The marketing manager would be scratching his head and thinking, it's a heck of a lot of easier to flog Tenerife.
The winter message, as a result, attaches itself to comprehensible niches. Cycling in winter is a prime example. Varied landscapes and terrain, good roads, decent enough climate. The message isn't so difficult. But niches amount to only so many tourists. Lacking a core message makes the winter in Mallorca a tough marketing proposition. Packaging various niches might sound like a solution, but only partially. A strong social media presence (of which there isn't one) would help, but one still comes back to that core and simple message. And I wish I knew what it was.
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.
Monday, January 04, 2010
Reflections Of ...
The way life used to be. Sort of. I confess though that I had never, until a few days ago, ever had a conversation about the smell of washing powder. Go to England, and one of the first topics for discussion centres on the odour of a sweatshirt. Is it Ariel, is it Fairy or Persil? Who knows? Who, quite honestly, cares? But the conversation took place, nevertheless. Welcome to England, welcome to detergent dog days in reverse - the coldest weather for years, and slap bang over the Christmas period. Slip, sliding away. You don't get that ice or snow on an average December morn in northern Mallorca. Ever. Or talks about the competing merits of Procter & Gamble and Unilever.
Oh to be in England, now that winter's here. Rip-off England people say. Ripping off whom? And with what? Ah, you know, Mallorca's so expensive. Funnily enough, it is. We have been lulled into false senses of financial security, false beliefs about how England is more expensive. No it isn't. And it works better, despite nothing moving when there's some snow. Where's there an Argos catalogue in Mallorca, for example? Or a Primark, an Original Factory Shop? Fully clothed for twenty quid. Not in Mallorca, unless by means of a charity shop. Ok, so six quid for parking for three hours in the centre of Windsor is a bit steep, but someone's got to pay for Her Majesty.
Yea, but there's the corruption. Of course there is, but that corruption - you know the variety, that involving MPs' expenses - it's not the same. It's not in a Mallorcan premier league of nepotism and utter disregard for any sense of morality. At least ducks can get a bath in England, courtesy of a touch of fiddlery-pokery. And there are also the mass cultural experiences, shared by all via the startling array of different technologies with which numerous outlets entice consumers with even more startling arrays of offers - genuine ones, lower-cost ones. David Tennant, David Tennant, David Tennant. Wherever you were, David Tennant via the magicking of those cut-throat pricing schemes. David Tennant, Gavin and Stacey, Larry Lamb dead in one place and on a Barry Island beach for one final man-boob fling in another.
And on grey, endlessly grey days that drift into darkness and night by three in the afternoon, there is still all that landscape. From the snow fields of the Chilterns to the dips and inclines of the Mendips and Cotswolds, the sweeps of greeny-brown, an ancient church of Saxon origin, the gargoyle water ducts monstrously staring down on shivering visitors, Japanese students with a constant snip and snap of a digital camera. The enduring politeness and manners of a bakery-caff with jars of flavours secured with gauze, the lady serving in an Upstairs Downstairs bonnet. But there is one thing - the coffee. It never tastes right. It looks strong enough, but isn't. The English can't make coffee, even if the Mallorcans go too far in the other direction, unless you ask them not to.
They know their context though. In England. The Mallorcans don't always know it, or recognise it. They too often destroy it. Like the Can Ramis building in Alcúdia. Yet in Bath, huge amounts have been spent on a new shopping area with sharp-chiselled and finely-finished Bath stone. It is in keeping, it knows its place, albeit that to walk through it is to feel as though one is in a computer simulation. The virtual shopping centre of an architect's brief has become real virtuality, right there in the centre of the city.
The grim reality though is there to be witnessed close up. The machine guns of the police taking a quick coffee at a coffee shop with weak coffee in Stansted. Someone talks to them, asks them about the guns. Somehow you can't imagine asking a Guardia officer about his hardware. These coppers, young, really they were young - and I know all that guff about getting old when coppers look young - but they were. The guns are heavy they say. And they look it. A bit later, one stood guard, the gun held ominously across his chest, whilst his mate went for a leak. What do you do with a weapon of less than mass destruction when you need a slash? "Excuse me, mate. Couldn't hold this Heckler & Koch while I get Percy out, could you?" The grim reality of travelling. Of the infuriation that is RyanAir, or the hour plus queue for checking-in EasyJets all scheduled at around the same time. Want to know why it's a good idea to check-in online? Try a red-eye queue with eight other sleepy-faced flights replete with their freaky surfies having traded in their boards for skis to Innsbruck and whole displaced populations of Poland getting the hell back to Krakow.
But more than anything it's all that landscape and indeed townscape. It doesn't matter that there is so little colour, so much apparent meteorological drabness. It still amazes you, its reflections of the way things used to be. There's this thing about the paradise island, you know what it is. Mallorca, all that dramatic scenery and even some which isn't, some which is overblown, hyped and puffed, like the spoken-by-rote, sycophancy-through-groupthink eulogies for Pollensa's pinewalk. Does it really compare? No really - does it? Someone said that when people go on holiday, it's the only time they take time to actually look at things. In England, they don't look at things, only the telly. They don't stop to marvel, and so when they come away they see things and make of them a spectacular scenery, which there may well be - the Tramuntana mountains for example. But they have been entranced by an enchantment of the different, of the exotic, and assume a superiority of landscape in terms both of this difference and of their own reflected superiority. Yet they have failed to see the spectacular that surrounds them and so create icons of foreign vistas and views because they (these vistas) are foreign and because they - the visitors - may stop for once and actually look. It is this assumption of superiority that makes them not look and reflect on their own country, its drama and theatre, its curved or carved order, its mystery and legacy.
Oh to be in England, now that winter's here.
QUIZ
Today's title - supreme.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Oh to be in England, now that winter's here. Rip-off England people say. Ripping off whom? And with what? Ah, you know, Mallorca's so expensive. Funnily enough, it is. We have been lulled into false senses of financial security, false beliefs about how England is more expensive. No it isn't. And it works better, despite nothing moving when there's some snow. Where's there an Argos catalogue in Mallorca, for example? Or a Primark, an Original Factory Shop? Fully clothed for twenty quid. Not in Mallorca, unless by means of a charity shop. Ok, so six quid for parking for three hours in the centre of Windsor is a bit steep, but someone's got to pay for Her Majesty.
Yea, but there's the corruption. Of course there is, but that corruption - you know the variety, that involving MPs' expenses - it's not the same. It's not in a Mallorcan premier league of nepotism and utter disregard for any sense of morality. At least ducks can get a bath in England, courtesy of a touch of fiddlery-pokery. And there are also the mass cultural experiences, shared by all via the startling array of different technologies with which numerous outlets entice consumers with even more startling arrays of offers - genuine ones, lower-cost ones. David Tennant, David Tennant, David Tennant. Wherever you were, David Tennant via the magicking of those cut-throat pricing schemes. David Tennant, Gavin and Stacey, Larry Lamb dead in one place and on a Barry Island beach for one final man-boob fling in another.
And on grey, endlessly grey days that drift into darkness and night by three in the afternoon, there is still all that landscape. From the snow fields of the Chilterns to the dips and inclines of the Mendips and Cotswolds, the sweeps of greeny-brown, an ancient church of Saxon origin, the gargoyle water ducts monstrously staring down on shivering visitors, Japanese students with a constant snip and snap of a digital camera. The enduring politeness and manners of a bakery-caff with jars of flavours secured with gauze, the lady serving in an Upstairs Downstairs bonnet. But there is one thing - the coffee. It never tastes right. It looks strong enough, but isn't. The English can't make coffee, even if the Mallorcans go too far in the other direction, unless you ask them not to.
They know their context though. In England. The Mallorcans don't always know it, or recognise it. They too often destroy it. Like the Can Ramis building in Alcúdia. Yet in Bath, huge amounts have been spent on a new shopping area with sharp-chiselled and finely-finished Bath stone. It is in keeping, it knows its place, albeit that to walk through it is to feel as though one is in a computer simulation. The virtual shopping centre of an architect's brief has become real virtuality, right there in the centre of the city.
The grim reality though is there to be witnessed close up. The machine guns of the police taking a quick coffee at a coffee shop with weak coffee in Stansted. Someone talks to them, asks them about the guns. Somehow you can't imagine asking a Guardia officer about his hardware. These coppers, young, really they were young - and I know all that guff about getting old when coppers look young - but they were. The guns are heavy they say. And they look it. A bit later, one stood guard, the gun held ominously across his chest, whilst his mate went for a leak. What do you do with a weapon of less than mass destruction when you need a slash? "Excuse me, mate. Couldn't hold this Heckler & Koch while I get Percy out, could you?" The grim reality of travelling. Of the infuriation that is RyanAir, or the hour plus queue for checking-in EasyJets all scheduled at around the same time. Want to know why it's a good idea to check-in online? Try a red-eye queue with eight other sleepy-faced flights replete with their freaky surfies having traded in their boards for skis to Innsbruck and whole displaced populations of Poland getting the hell back to Krakow.
But more than anything it's all that landscape and indeed townscape. It doesn't matter that there is so little colour, so much apparent meteorological drabness. It still amazes you, its reflections of the way things used to be. There's this thing about the paradise island, you know what it is. Mallorca, all that dramatic scenery and even some which isn't, some which is overblown, hyped and puffed, like the spoken-by-rote, sycophancy-through-groupthink eulogies for Pollensa's pinewalk. Does it really compare? No really - does it? Someone said that when people go on holiday, it's the only time they take time to actually look at things. In England, they don't look at things, only the telly. They don't stop to marvel, and so when they come away they see things and make of them a spectacular scenery, which there may well be - the Tramuntana mountains for example. But they have been entranced by an enchantment of the different, of the exotic, and assume a superiority of landscape in terms both of this difference and of their own reflected superiority. Yet they have failed to see the spectacular that surrounds them and so create icons of foreign vistas and views because they (these vistas) are foreign and because they - the visitors - may stop for once and actually look. It is this assumption of superiority that makes them not look and reflect on their own country, its drama and theatre, its curved or carved order, its mystery and legacy.
Oh to be in England, now that winter's here.
QUIZ
Today's title - supreme.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Sunday, November 11, 2007
I’ll Light The Fire, You Place The Flowers
The weather so benign there were people in swimwear on the beach today hardly sounds like the introduction to a piece on winter heating, but it is appropriate. An absurdity of Mallorcan winters is that it is often warmer outside than inside. The reason for this is simple, and it is a reason that makes somewhat absurd some of the environmental and housing debate that I have referred to recently.
Much of Mallorca’s housing stock is inadequate for winter. Only relatively recently has there been a move towards anything like proper insulation and damp-coursing. The norm is neither. The old stone buildings, attractive and romantic that they may be, are usually freezing cold in winter. More modern buildings are similarly cold. The wooden-framed doors and windows in much housing are often sure makers of draughts.
Stone flooring, lack of carpets, large single-paned windows or terrace doors - these all make sense in summer, but in winter they are a nonsense. The solutions to the coldness of much of the housing are: expensive air-conditioning units, noxious and vapour-making butane heaters, ineffective electric radiators, wood-burning chimneys, oil-based central heating. Ah but a wood-burner is so cosy. Yes, if the space is enclosed and not subject to draught, but even then most of the heat escapes up the chimney anyway. Butane heaters - give off a fair amount of heat but also give off a significant amount of water, requiring an electricity-draining dehumidifier. The dampness of much property in winter also requires these dehumidifying monstrosities. Coal is shipped from South Africa to supply the power station for electricity that disappears through radiators and heaters that cannot compensate for the illogic of interior design, exterior thinness and draught holes.
None of the solutions is optimal unless housing design and materials are themselves optimal. That open-plan living-room with a marble stairway and an attractive large window heading towards the landing? Great in summer, a nightmare of lost energy in winter.
It occurs to me that perhaps some practical solutions need to be found - like insulation. Perhaps they are the unsexy side of the environmental and housing debate and, unless I have been missing something, they are not subjects widely addressed. I think it is about time they were.
HUGO AND THE KING
Imagine if you will a meeting of the Commonwealth heads of state. One of the less-savoury of these heads is mouthing off about something. The Queen, not amused, interrupts and tells the head to put one’s sock in it. Couldn’t happen, could it. The Queen maybe not, but King Juan-Carlos is not so reticent. To Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez at the Ibero-american gathering in Chile he said: “¿por qué no te callas?” (why don’t you shut up?). Brilliant. The King, I suspect, has said what many others would have liked to.
QUIZ
Yesterday - “Mercy Mercy Me”, Marvin Gaye. Today’s title? It’s the first line from a song about a house by a famous group.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Much of Mallorca’s housing stock is inadequate for winter. Only relatively recently has there been a move towards anything like proper insulation and damp-coursing. The norm is neither. The old stone buildings, attractive and romantic that they may be, are usually freezing cold in winter. More modern buildings are similarly cold. The wooden-framed doors and windows in much housing are often sure makers of draughts.
Stone flooring, lack of carpets, large single-paned windows or terrace doors - these all make sense in summer, but in winter they are a nonsense. The solutions to the coldness of much of the housing are: expensive air-conditioning units, noxious and vapour-making butane heaters, ineffective electric radiators, wood-burning chimneys, oil-based central heating. Ah but a wood-burner is so cosy. Yes, if the space is enclosed and not subject to draught, but even then most of the heat escapes up the chimney anyway. Butane heaters - give off a fair amount of heat but also give off a significant amount of water, requiring an electricity-draining dehumidifier. The dampness of much property in winter also requires these dehumidifying monstrosities. Coal is shipped from South Africa to supply the power station for electricity that disappears through radiators and heaters that cannot compensate for the illogic of interior design, exterior thinness and draught holes.
None of the solutions is optimal unless housing design and materials are themselves optimal. That open-plan living-room with a marble stairway and an attractive large window heading towards the landing? Great in summer, a nightmare of lost energy in winter.
It occurs to me that perhaps some practical solutions need to be found - like insulation. Perhaps they are the unsexy side of the environmental and housing debate and, unless I have been missing something, they are not subjects widely addressed. I think it is about time they were.
HUGO AND THE KING
Imagine if you will a meeting of the Commonwealth heads of state. One of the less-savoury of these heads is mouthing off about something. The Queen, not amused, interrupts and tells the head to put one’s sock in it. Couldn’t happen, could it. The Queen maybe not, but King Juan-Carlos is not so reticent. To Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez at the Ibero-american gathering in Chile he said: “¿por qué no te callas?” (why don’t you shut up?). Brilliant. The King, I suspect, has said what many others would have liked to.
QUIZ
Yesterday - “Mercy Mercy Me”, Marvin Gaye. Today’s title? It’s the first line from a song about a house by a famous group.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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