Morning high (6.54am): 11.1C
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 8 February - Cloud, sun, wind, 13C; 9 February - Cloud, sun, wind, 13C; 10 February - Cloud, 13C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northwest 2 to 4 backing West in the afternoon.
Calmer, as the wind is down. A sunny day expected but clouding over with the risk of showers by the evening. Wind picking up again tomorrow, and the temperature dropping.
Evening update (21.45): Decent until a spot of rain in the evening. High of 21.2C.
Tuesday, February 07, 2017
Working Eight Months A Year
Carlos Herrera is a journalist. He has a large following on a radio show that goes out on COPE, one of the most listened to broadcasters in the country. By way of background, it is of interest to note that COPE started out life as an essentially religious broadcaster. It has become very much more general in its output, though it would appear that it is owned by the church in that the Spanish Episcopal Conference has 50% of the shares of the company to which COPE belongs. Dioceses and religious orders are other shareholders.
This does perhaps need bearing in mind, as it suggests that COPE might not be rabidly left-wing. Its politics and its ownership are, however, of only passing relevance to today's theme, which is one that Carlos has offered. On his show there is a slot, the title of which lends itself to alternative translations but which I shall call "fools' defibrillator". Carlos and co-host pick up on particular stories and offer to defibrillate those who have uttered foolishness or nonsense. And so it was that he held up to ridicule Laura Camargo of Podemos.
The travel magazine and website Preferente highlighted her inclusion on the show last week, noting - and this may or may not have been ironic - that Camargo is the only person in Podemos in the Balearics who has the capacity to think. She may be, but then what she thinks and says ended up being the target for Carlos.
This was specifically to do with her views on workers in the tourism industry who, after eight months' work, are knackered and shouldn't be expected to have to work through winter and therefore all year. In fact, she said this before Christmas, so the story is an old one. On 23 December I drew attention to her remarks, wondering why it should be deemed acceptable for workers to do no more than eight months.
Still, better than late never the Camargo eight-month opinion surfaced on Carlos's show last week and also became the focus of a set-to between Podemos and Ciudadanos (C's). Carlos found it hard to understand, given, for instance, that radio journalists work all year. They are not the only ones. If anyone is interested, I work twelve months a year, usually seven days a week and not untypically up to eleven or twelve hours a day. Am I knackered? All the time.
Ah but, this is just sitting down and typing, is it not? Generally, yes. But there is being physically knackered and there is being mentally knackered. Neither state is particularly ideal, but suffice it to say that I tended to agree with Carlos's observation.
Camargo came out with this eight-month business in the broader context of tourism policy. We don't want more tourists in the winter, she said, and used the knackered workers as a reason why not. What of course she was really getting at was that we (Podemos) don't want more tourists, full stop. In fact, we'd prefer that there were fewer of them. Camargo and Podemos are highly suspicious of government attempts to erode seasonality and therefore make the tourism season ever longer. The workers, it can seem (and probably are), something of a smokescreen.
Which is not to deny that there are workers in the tourism industry who put in long hours, day after day over a several-month period with few breaks (if at all) and don't get particularly well paid. Camargo has a point, especially when it comes to exploitation, but only up to a point. Politically, she is very much on the side of the workers and has made her feelings about hoteliers well enough known, and the politics were partly where Carlos Herrera was coming from, as most certainly also was the leader of the C's, Albert Rivera. He tweeted the other day that Camargo is a deputy with a party which proposes gifts of income paid for by the state.
Rivera's tweet brought differing responses. Some accused him of demagoguery. Others took issue with the Podemos view of work and supported him. In the latter camp was a tweet which read: "Some consider work to be a punishment and being on the dole a fiesta."
In addition to stirring up the political ill-feeling between Podemos and the C's (not that it needs much stirring), the Camargo remarks served not only as a statement about her party's views on tourism but also to reignite the whole issue of the unbalanced nature of work and employment.
She was essentially saying that the situation which has been created because of seasonality is as it should be. Tourism is not the only industry affected by seasonality, but there are others which are not. Would she advocate everyone working no more than eight months a year? Police, nurses, firemen just to take three examples. Defibrillate away, Carlos.
This does perhaps need bearing in mind, as it suggests that COPE might not be rabidly left-wing. Its politics and its ownership are, however, of only passing relevance to today's theme, which is one that Carlos has offered. On his show there is a slot, the title of which lends itself to alternative translations but which I shall call "fools' defibrillator". Carlos and co-host pick up on particular stories and offer to defibrillate those who have uttered foolishness or nonsense. And so it was that he held up to ridicule Laura Camargo of Podemos.
The travel magazine and website Preferente highlighted her inclusion on the show last week, noting - and this may or may not have been ironic - that Camargo is the only person in Podemos in the Balearics who has the capacity to think. She may be, but then what she thinks and says ended up being the target for Carlos.
This was specifically to do with her views on workers in the tourism industry who, after eight months' work, are knackered and shouldn't be expected to have to work through winter and therefore all year. In fact, she said this before Christmas, so the story is an old one. On 23 December I drew attention to her remarks, wondering why it should be deemed acceptable for workers to do no more than eight months.
Still, better than late never the Camargo eight-month opinion surfaced on Carlos's show last week and also became the focus of a set-to between Podemos and Ciudadanos (C's). Carlos found it hard to understand, given, for instance, that radio journalists work all year. They are not the only ones. If anyone is interested, I work twelve months a year, usually seven days a week and not untypically up to eleven or twelve hours a day. Am I knackered? All the time.
Ah but, this is just sitting down and typing, is it not? Generally, yes. But there is being physically knackered and there is being mentally knackered. Neither state is particularly ideal, but suffice it to say that I tended to agree with Carlos's observation.
Camargo came out with this eight-month business in the broader context of tourism policy. We don't want more tourists in the winter, she said, and used the knackered workers as a reason why not. What of course she was really getting at was that we (Podemos) don't want more tourists, full stop. In fact, we'd prefer that there were fewer of them. Camargo and Podemos are highly suspicious of government attempts to erode seasonality and therefore make the tourism season ever longer. The workers, it can seem (and probably are), something of a smokescreen.
Which is not to deny that there are workers in the tourism industry who put in long hours, day after day over a several-month period with few breaks (if at all) and don't get particularly well paid. Camargo has a point, especially when it comes to exploitation, but only up to a point. Politically, she is very much on the side of the workers and has made her feelings about hoteliers well enough known, and the politics were partly where Carlos Herrera was coming from, as most certainly also was the leader of the C's, Albert Rivera. He tweeted the other day that Camargo is a deputy with a party which proposes gifts of income paid for by the state.
Rivera's tweet brought differing responses. Some accused him of demagoguery. Others took issue with the Podemos view of work and supported him. In the latter camp was a tweet which read: "Some consider work to be a punishment and being on the dole a fiesta."
In addition to stirring up the political ill-feeling between Podemos and the C's (not that it needs much stirring), the Camargo remarks served not only as a statement about her party's views on tourism but also to reignite the whole issue of the unbalanced nature of work and employment.
She was essentially saying that the situation which has been created because of seasonality is as it should be. Tourism is not the only industry affected by seasonality, but there are others which are not. Would she advocate everyone working no more than eight months a year? Police, nurses, firemen just to take three examples. Defibrillate away, Carlos.
Monday, February 06, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 6 February 2017
Morning high (7.32am): 10.9C
Forecast high: 14C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 7 February - Sun, cloud, 17C; 8 February - Cloud, wind, 12C; 9 February - Cloud, wind, 14C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northwest 7 to 8 easing 6 by the evening. Waves to five metres.
Still very windy. Due to be reasonably sunny, with the wind easing off later. Forecast to get colder on Wednesday with the snow line at 800 metres and more wind.
Evening update (20.00): High of 16.4C. Reasonable amount of sun, and the wind has now dropped.
Forecast high: 14C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 7 February - Sun, cloud, 17C; 8 February - Cloud, wind, 12C; 9 February - Cloud, wind, 14C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northwest 7 to 8 easing 6 by the evening. Waves to five metres.
Still very windy. Due to be reasonably sunny, with the wind easing off later. Forecast to get colder on Wednesday with the snow line at 800 metres and more wind.
Evening update (20.00): High of 16.4C. Reasonable amount of sun, and the wind has now dropped.
Telling Fantastic Stories: Mallorca's Folk Tales
If Rafael Nadal is the epitome of contemporary Manacor and Mallorca - a global name who has amassed fame from a sport largely unknown to the populace of Alcover's era - then Alcover is the figurehead for a Manacor and Mallorca insularity. There are few Mallorcans from history who can hold a candle to Alcover's promotion of deep-rooted and old traditions, ones set in the land of the island's ruralism.
The reverence shown to Alcover could simply have been reserved for his works on linguistics. He was a driving force behind the dictionary of Catalan in its different varieties: its purest form and its derivatives, such as those of the Balearics. Or it may have been for his historical research, as with his study of the times of King Jaume II of Mallorca. It might possibly have been for his place in the religious hierarchy, though one suspects not.
While his linguistic work was sufficient for him to have been placed on the pedestal that he now commands, it was the use of language that means he is unsurpassed in having captured tradition and custom. This was the language of the folk tale.
In 1896, the first volume of "Aplec de Rondaies Mallorquines d'En Jordi d'es Racó" appeared. Jordi d'es Racó was Alcover's pseudonym. His collection of Majorcan folk tales was to stretch to numerous volumes (twenty-four in all). And so many are the tales that it seems fantastic that an island could have provided the number it did. Just as fantastic is the nature of these tales, and it should be noted that in this context "fantastic" means based on fantasy.
Alcover set about collecting these tales in the manner that collectors elsewhere did. An English contemporary of Alcover's was Cecil Sharp. His interest wasn't tales as such but their singing and their performance. Sharp sought to revive the folk songs of English villages and Morris dancing. He did so because he felt that these traditions were all but dying out. Alcover thought exactly the same. If we generally attribute a decline in Mallorcan traditions and culture to the upheavals of the tourism boom and the movement to the coasts, then we do perhaps need to revise our understanding. In the late nineteenth century there was a different type of upheaval, one of emigration forced onto a rural population.
What Alcover and Sharp had in common was the nature of the raw material for the tales and the songs. There was virtually no written documentation. The source of the material was spoken: the oral tradition. In this way, therefore, Alcover combined his work on dialects that was to inform his dictionary (and other scholarly works) with the manifestation of dialect - the handed-down folk tale, which could essentially be the same in different parts of Mallorca but with its own peculiarities in terms both of content and language.
The initial volumes of the "rondalles" included such tales as "L'amo de So Na Moixa" (amo meaning owner). From this tale was developed the bighead character that forms part of Alcudia's S'Estol del Rei en Jaume - King James' group. He is the mad miller who goes around throwing flour over passers-by. This somewhat jovial character does, however, disguise an underlying menace and mean-spiritedness. Alcover's tales are littered with the fantastic - dragons, monsters, crazy people - but these surreal figures have some reality of the times when the tales developed: harshness of the rural way of life; vendettas; superstitions; mistrust; revenge.
The mad miller is just one example of how Alcover's tales have been made physical. Another is the tale of the Muc or Much, a story of giants, treasure and beasties, the setting for which is the "Puig de Reig" near Sineu. The Much has become the theme for its own fiesta, and a weird one at that, which is held each August.
The Mallorcan folk tale has undergone two periods of revival. There was Alcover's own and there is the one that is very much of the present. Storytelling, sometimes musically, is everywhere. And this current-day tradition owes virtually everything to one man: Antoni Maria Alcover. A week of dedication is the least he deserves.
* Photo: L'amo de So Na Moixa, the Mad Miller of S'Estol del Rei en Jaume.
Sunday, February 05, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 5 February 2017
Morning high (7.23am): 15.7C
Forecast high: 16C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 6 February - Sun, wind, 14C; 7 February - Sun, cloud, 17C; 8 February - Cloud, 13C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): West-Southwest 6 at intervals 7 veering Northwest 7 to 8 by the late afternoon. Waves to four metres.
Windy old morning and due to get windier. Rough at sea and by the coasts. Possibility of a shower. Better tomorrow but still very windy.
Evening update (20.00): Sunny for a time and quite warm - high of 20.6C - but cloudy later and the temperature slumped. As for the wind, boy was it blowing, especially this morning.
Forecast high: 16C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 6 February - Sun, wind, 14C; 7 February - Sun, cloud, 17C; 8 February - Cloud, 13C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): West-Southwest 6 at intervals 7 veering Northwest 7 to 8 by the late afternoon. Waves to four metres.
Windy old morning and due to get windier. Rough at sea and by the coasts. Possibility of a shower. Better tomorrow but still very windy.
Evening update (20.00): Sunny for a time and quite warm - high of 20.6C - but cloudy later and the temperature slumped. As for the wind, boy was it blowing, especially this morning.
The Playground Of The Balearic Parliament
It doesn't get much better, does it. Aspiring parliamentary headmaster, Vicenç Thomas, took the throne that he covets, if only temporarily, and started to read the register. "Huertas?" "Seijas?" "Has anyone seen Huertas or Seijas?" "They're behind Més," blurted Jarabo. "Huertas, Seijas, why are you behind Més?" "We are of the left," they responded as one. "You may well be, but you were told to go and sit on the naughty chairs behind the PP. So I ask again - why are you behind Més?" "This deputy's going nowhere," insisted Seijas. "Look, I shall ask you only once more to go and sit behind the PP. If you don't, then I'll call security and they will physically move you." "It'll take a small army of security to do that," scoffed Jarabo. "Please, Jarabo, I expect better from you. There will be no weightist or fattist jokes in this chamber. Huertas, Seijas, why are you still there?"
And with that Xe-Lo and Montse arose and plodded off to the one and nines of the public gallery. Rarely, if ever, have the public been privileged to have a former speaker and friend come among them. And the public gallery is to where they will return until such a time as they are granted their wish to be among Mésites, if only in the rear. When might this be? Hell will probably have frozen over or perhaps the arrival of a new headmaster (not Vicenç) will enable a more conciliatory approach. This is unlikely, though, if Jarabo gets his way. Balti is the only man (or woman) for the job, it now seems. And if the Mésites and PSOE turn him down, then Jarabo and Podemos will break the pact. So there. Yah-boo!
They don't want Balti because he's a metalworker, insisted Jarabo. Which isn't strictly accurate as he's a full-time parliamentary deputy. He once was, though. But this isn't of course the reason why PSOEMés don't want him. It's pretty obvious why not. He looks like the one-time bass guitarist with The Allman Brothers Band. That's why. Get a haircut, Balti, and you'll be ushered in no problem.
Once the Xe-Lo/Montse panto was dispensed with, it was the turn of the PP to put on a display. As one they stood up and marched out of the chamber. Normally, in Congress anyway, it's Podemos who are the ones for the walking in response to jibes (typically of a Venezuelan nature) being launched from the PP. The insults were on the other foot (or mouth) in parliament.
Jarabo described a "mafioso relationship" between the PP and Palma police. Illegal trafficking in and possession of weapons, obstruction of justice, trafficking influence, malfeasance, coercion, bribery, threats, extortion, falsehood, insider dealing, crimes against public health, offences against the environment. And there, among the PP ranks, was the alleged "boss" of this network - Alvaro Gijón. Off marched the PP, two of them returning only for formality's sake, while there were heated discussions to a) get them all to go back and b) get Jarabo to apologise, which he didn't.
Vicenç, if he had seriously felt that the parliamentary presidential malarkey was worth it, would have been having second thoughts. Best let Balti handle things in future, Vicenç. Things can only get more ridiculous.
And with that Xe-Lo and Montse arose and plodded off to the one and nines of the public gallery. Rarely, if ever, have the public been privileged to have a former speaker and friend come among them. And the public gallery is to where they will return until such a time as they are granted their wish to be among Mésites, if only in the rear. When might this be? Hell will probably have frozen over or perhaps the arrival of a new headmaster (not Vicenç) will enable a more conciliatory approach. This is unlikely, though, if Jarabo gets his way. Balti is the only man (or woman) for the job, it now seems. And if the Mésites and PSOE turn him down, then Jarabo and Podemos will break the pact. So there. Yah-boo!
They don't want Balti because he's a metalworker, insisted Jarabo. Which isn't strictly accurate as he's a full-time parliamentary deputy. He once was, though. But this isn't of course the reason why PSOEMés don't want him. It's pretty obvious why not. He looks like the one-time bass guitarist with The Allman Brothers Band. That's why. Get a haircut, Balti, and you'll be ushered in no problem.
Once the Xe-Lo/Montse panto was dispensed with, it was the turn of the PP to put on a display. As one they stood up and marched out of the chamber. Normally, in Congress anyway, it's Podemos who are the ones for the walking in response to jibes (typically of a Venezuelan nature) being launched from the PP. The insults were on the other foot (or mouth) in parliament.
Jarabo described a "mafioso relationship" between the PP and Palma police. Illegal trafficking in and possession of weapons, obstruction of justice, trafficking influence, malfeasance, coercion, bribery, threats, extortion, falsehood, insider dealing, crimes against public health, offences against the environment. And there, among the PP ranks, was the alleged "boss" of this network - Alvaro Gijón. Off marched the PP, two of them returning only for formality's sake, while there were heated discussions to a) get them all to go back and b) get Jarabo to apologise, which he didn't.
Vicenç, if he had seriously felt that the parliamentary presidential malarkey was worth it, would have been having second thoughts. Best let Balti handle things in future, Vicenç. Things can only get more ridiculous.
Saturday, February 04, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 4 February 2017
Morning high (7.54am): 14.9C
Forecast high: 19C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 5 February - Cloud, sun, wind, 16C; 6 February - Sun, cloud, wind, 14C; 7 February - Sun, cloud, 16C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): West-Southwest 4 to 5 occasionally 6 during the morning.
Breezy morning and cloudy. Should be sunny spells later. Tomorrow is expected to be very windy; an amber alert in place.
Evening update (19.00): High of 20.7C. Sunny at times, but clouded up again later.
Forecast high: 19C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 5 February - Cloud, sun, wind, 16C; 6 February - Sun, cloud, wind, 14C; 7 February - Sun, cloud, 16C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): West-Southwest 4 to 5 occasionally 6 during the morning.
Breezy morning and cloudy. Should be sunny spells later. Tomorrow is expected to be very windy; an amber alert in place.
Evening update (19.00): High of 20.7C. Sunny at times, but clouded up again later.
Palma And 100% Tourist Tax
The Balearic parliament got down to business this week after its extended winter break. The tourist tax was top of the agenda; the spending thereof. The main discussion, brought up by the Partido Popular, concerned investments for the town halls, which had received none directly. Away from parliament, mayors were convening to consider this, and it was mayors from the PP who were the most strident in demanding some action. They were suggesting that the Felib association, which is the town halls' body, should take the matter to court and seek legal review of the way in which the revenue has been spent.
In the end, the mayors decided on a more conciliatory approach, but not without raising the possibility of pursuing an amendment to the tax legislation and establishing a fixed amount which should go directly to municipalities. They also wanted greater clarity and transparency in respect of revenue spending.
For a government which has made so much of being transparent and of engaging in consensus and dialogue (a point not lost on the PP during parliament's debate), the implication of an absence of transparency will sit uneasily. Or it should do, not least because Felib is represented on the committee which decides how the tax is spent. If it felt that there was some opacity, then something was clearly wrong in the decision-making process.
The government, it has to be said, has created a rod for its own back by, on the one hand, wishing to be participative and involving so many organisations on the spending committee and, on the other, totally failing to be more evenhanded with the distribution of revenue. President Armengol accepted that expectations had been raised and had not been met, but she reminded everyone that there had been the priority for water projects and that the actual pot (30 million) was substantially lower than that it will be next time round.
The trouble is that all the various interested parties do expect, and they have every right to expect. Otherwise, why are they participating in the decision-making and getting nowhere? Biel Barceló didn't help to allay their concerns by saying that the tax is not a distributive system, i.e. everyone doesn't automatically get a share. I'm sorry but that's exactly how it is seen, and the government needs to address the criteria for distribution with some urgency. If not, then the arguments will grow louder.
The extent of the discontent could be found in statements such as that of the Farmers Union. While agriculture is receiving some consideration in the revenue spending, the union - especially against the backdrop of drought and floods - was aghast to note that the Balearic Symphony Orchestra will be having money spent on it.
No one is satisfied, especially not Palma. The tourism councillor, Joana Maria Adrover, is waiting on information to show just how much tax revenue Palma contributed. Once the town hall knows this, it will be agitating that, in effect, it keeps all that revenue for itself. A further problem for the government is that it risks appearing hypocritical if it were to totally dismiss the demands of Palma and other town halls (especially those with high levels of tourism). While it is seeking a new financing system which will have less emphasis on the Balearics subsidising poorer regions of Spain, it cannot play the "solidarity" card and insist that Palma should accept a subsidising function. It might sound like greed on behalf of the town hall (and I for one don't think it should be treated in such a preferential manner), but it does have a point. There again, so also would Calvia, Alcudia and other main tourism municipalities.
Palma will doubtless be taking note of developments in Catalonia. The government there has agreed to increase to 50% the amount of tourist tax revenue which goes to the municipalities. Barcelona, while welcoming this development, is insisting that it should have all the revenue which the city generates, which is exactly what Palma is inferring it wants.
The tourist tax spending has opened up a can of worms. The government has some hard thinking to do in order to prevent rows in the future; ones which eventually might find their way to the courts.
In the end, the mayors decided on a more conciliatory approach, but not without raising the possibility of pursuing an amendment to the tax legislation and establishing a fixed amount which should go directly to municipalities. They also wanted greater clarity and transparency in respect of revenue spending.
For a government which has made so much of being transparent and of engaging in consensus and dialogue (a point not lost on the PP during parliament's debate), the implication of an absence of transparency will sit uneasily. Or it should do, not least because Felib is represented on the committee which decides how the tax is spent. If it felt that there was some opacity, then something was clearly wrong in the decision-making process.
The government, it has to be said, has created a rod for its own back by, on the one hand, wishing to be participative and involving so many organisations on the spending committee and, on the other, totally failing to be more evenhanded with the distribution of revenue. President Armengol accepted that expectations had been raised and had not been met, but she reminded everyone that there had been the priority for water projects and that the actual pot (30 million) was substantially lower than that it will be next time round.
The trouble is that all the various interested parties do expect, and they have every right to expect. Otherwise, why are they participating in the decision-making and getting nowhere? Biel Barceló didn't help to allay their concerns by saying that the tax is not a distributive system, i.e. everyone doesn't automatically get a share. I'm sorry but that's exactly how it is seen, and the government needs to address the criteria for distribution with some urgency. If not, then the arguments will grow louder.
The extent of the discontent could be found in statements such as that of the Farmers Union. While agriculture is receiving some consideration in the revenue spending, the union - especially against the backdrop of drought and floods - was aghast to note that the Balearic Symphony Orchestra will be having money spent on it.
No one is satisfied, especially not Palma. The tourism councillor, Joana Maria Adrover, is waiting on information to show just how much tax revenue Palma contributed. Once the town hall knows this, it will be agitating that, in effect, it keeps all that revenue for itself. A further problem for the government is that it risks appearing hypocritical if it were to totally dismiss the demands of Palma and other town halls (especially those with high levels of tourism). While it is seeking a new financing system which will have less emphasis on the Balearics subsidising poorer regions of Spain, it cannot play the "solidarity" card and insist that Palma should accept a subsidising function. It might sound like greed on behalf of the town hall (and I for one don't think it should be treated in such a preferential manner), but it does have a point. There again, so also would Calvia, Alcudia and other main tourism municipalities.
Palma will doubtless be taking note of developments in Catalonia. The government there has agreed to increase to 50% the amount of tourist tax revenue which goes to the municipalities. Barcelona, while welcoming this development, is insisting that it should have all the revenue which the city generates, which is exactly what Palma is inferring it wants.
The tourist tax spending has opened up a can of worms. The government has some hard thinking to do in order to prevent rows in the future; ones which eventually might find their way to the courts.
Friday, February 03, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 3 February 2017
Morning high (7.11am): 13.8C
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 4 February - Cloud, sun, 19C; 5 February - Cloud, sun, 17C; 6 February - Sun, cloud, 14C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southwest 4 to 5.
A mainly sunny day expected. Weekend should be mostly fine but at times very windy.
Evening update (22.00): Hmm, well, not as sunny as hoped. Average - high of 18.2C
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 4 February - Cloud, sun, 19C; 5 February - Cloud, sun, 17C; 6 February - Sun, cloud, 14C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southwest 4 to 5.
A mainly sunny day expected. Weekend should be mostly fine but at times very windy.
Evening update (22.00): Hmm, well, not as sunny as hoped. Average - high of 18.2C
The Alegality Of Fraud: Rentals
Alegality. It's not a word that's particularly common in English, but it does exist and is generally used, as would be expected, in discussions of legal matters. It also crops in respect of international business and globalisation, and is sometimes spelled a-legality. Its meaning, and I quote from the Urban Dictionary's definition, is "an unambiguously wrong, disruptive and often deliberately committed act for which there is not yet a specific law making that act expressly illegal."
The Spanish word "alegalidad" is much more commonly used. It most certainly isn't confined to arcane analyses of law. It is applied to more mundane, everyday issues, and there is a great deal of it. Alegality tumbles out of many a newspaper column inch. One has to conclude, correctly, that there is an abundance of issues for which law has not determined if acts are expressly legal or illegal, regardless of any ambiguous or deliberate wrongdoing. The mere fact that alegality crops up as often as it does leads one to also conclude that the law is often inadequate, ill-defined or not applied.
There often isn't application. Legislation, be it national, regional, municipal, can sit on the books having been approved and passed by the relevant legislatures without coming into force. This legislative inactivity is most common at the municipal level. Many are the one-time approved ordinances that one hears of which only some time later (several years in some instance) are officially adopted. In the intervening period, and despite there perhaps being previous ordinance, the potential for alegality increases, because no one is quite sure of the legal security.
The definition above is thus not always applicable locally. It isn't necessarily the case that acts are "unambiguously wrong". Yes there may be some taking advantage of a situation, but it is the essential ambiguity of legality that allows alegality to flourish, with responsibilities and powers of competing legislative bodies, to say nothing of the hierarchy of the courts' system, adding more fertiliser.
An example of mundane Mallorcan alegality was the car parking near Es Trenc. Much of what has now emerged after the ludicrously protracted process to arrive at a law for the nature park had to do with car parking. The upshot of the legislation is that plots which were once used for parking will not be, and they had been closed down because of their alegality. They weren't illegal but nor were they legal. The alegality had existed for years.
I was reminded of this legal ambiguity when rummaging through an archive of old newspaper articles. It was one from August last year. It had been kept because of its headline. It was a quote which said that "our tourism is based on alegality, illegality and fraud in law". The person who made the quote was Dr Juan Franch Fluxá from the law department at the University of the Balearic Islands.
His specific references were as follows: the alegality is exemplified by the likes of party boats; illegality can be found in the renting of apartments to tourists; fraud exists with those who use the tenancy act to rent to tourists and do so via Airbnb. "An unacceptable absurdity," he concluded.
What was interesting about Dr Franch's quote was that he didn't refer to rentals in terms of alegality. Yet alegal is how they have often been described. As an example, the CCOO union spoke at the end of 2015 of holiday properties being rented in an alegal fashion amounting to 25% of the regulated (legal) offer. The use of alegal has therefore created its own ambiguity regarding holiday rentals. But another member of the university's law department, Avel-lí Blasco, has also been unequivocal. Tourist rental in apartment buildings is not "alegal", it is "illegal".
The point is that one wonders how rentals of this type ever acquired a description of alegal. They have been proscribed in Balearic law for years, and if they hadn't been, then why was the law being used to fine owners? Perhaps it has been the case that certain interests have wished to promulgate the notion of alegality.
The use of the tenancy act is a different matter. Dr Franch's strident assertion of a fraud in law is something with which one take issue. If owners abide strictly by the terms of the tenancy act - no publicising as tourist/holiday accommodation and no services - then how can there be fraud? But what he was getting at was owners who abuse the law and seek to conceal the real intent, whether the property is being offered on Airbnb or any other website.
Rather than fraud in law necessarily, the tenancy act has created the scope for alegality insofar as it is a loophole. The national government should, indeed must, amend the act. If it doesn't, then legislation, such as that envisaged in the Balearics, will always be open to abuse. And yes, fraud.
The Spanish word "alegalidad" is much more commonly used. It most certainly isn't confined to arcane analyses of law. It is applied to more mundane, everyday issues, and there is a great deal of it. Alegality tumbles out of many a newspaper column inch. One has to conclude, correctly, that there is an abundance of issues for which law has not determined if acts are expressly legal or illegal, regardless of any ambiguous or deliberate wrongdoing. The mere fact that alegality crops up as often as it does leads one to also conclude that the law is often inadequate, ill-defined or not applied.
There often isn't application. Legislation, be it national, regional, municipal, can sit on the books having been approved and passed by the relevant legislatures without coming into force. This legislative inactivity is most common at the municipal level. Many are the one-time approved ordinances that one hears of which only some time later (several years in some instance) are officially adopted. In the intervening period, and despite there perhaps being previous ordinance, the potential for alegality increases, because no one is quite sure of the legal security.
The definition above is thus not always applicable locally. It isn't necessarily the case that acts are "unambiguously wrong". Yes there may be some taking advantage of a situation, but it is the essential ambiguity of legality that allows alegality to flourish, with responsibilities and powers of competing legislative bodies, to say nothing of the hierarchy of the courts' system, adding more fertiliser.
An example of mundane Mallorcan alegality was the car parking near Es Trenc. Much of what has now emerged after the ludicrously protracted process to arrive at a law for the nature park had to do with car parking. The upshot of the legislation is that plots which were once used for parking will not be, and they had been closed down because of their alegality. They weren't illegal but nor were they legal. The alegality had existed for years.
I was reminded of this legal ambiguity when rummaging through an archive of old newspaper articles. It was one from August last year. It had been kept because of its headline. It was a quote which said that "our tourism is based on alegality, illegality and fraud in law". The person who made the quote was Dr Juan Franch Fluxá from the law department at the University of the Balearic Islands.
His specific references were as follows: the alegality is exemplified by the likes of party boats; illegality can be found in the renting of apartments to tourists; fraud exists with those who use the tenancy act to rent to tourists and do so via Airbnb. "An unacceptable absurdity," he concluded.
What was interesting about Dr Franch's quote was that he didn't refer to rentals in terms of alegality. Yet alegal is how they have often been described. As an example, the CCOO union spoke at the end of 2015 of holiday properties being rented in an alegal fashion amounting to 25% of the regulated (legal) offer. The use of alegal has therefore created its own ambiguity regarding holiday rentals. But another member of the university's law department, Avel-lí Blasco, has also been unequivocal. Tourist rental in apartment buildings is not "alegal", it is "illegal".
The point is that one wonders how rentals of this type ever acquired a description of alegal. They have been proscribed in Balearic law for years, and if they hadn't been, then why was the law being used to fine owners? Perhaps it has been the case that certain interests have wished to promulgate the notion of alegality.
The use of the tenancy act is a different matter. Dr Franch's strident assertion of a fraud in law is something with which one take issue. If owners abide strictly by the terms of the tenancy act - no publicising as tourist/holiday accommodation and no services - then how can there be fraud? But what he was getting at was owners who abuse the law and seek to conceal the real intent, whether the property is being offered on Airbnb or any other website.
Rather than fraud in law necessarily, the tenancy act has created the scope for alegality insofar as it is a loophole. The national government should, indeed must, amend the act. If it doesn't, then legislation, such as that envisaged in the Balearics, will always be open to abuse. And yes, fraud.
Thursday, February 02, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 2 February 2017
Morning high (7.25am): 10.3C
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 3 February - Cloud, sun, 18C; 4 February - Sun, cloud, 18C; 5 February - Cloud, sun, 19C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southwest 4 to 5.
A little breezy with spots of low cloud at dawn. Should be another decent day with some warm sunshine.
Evening update (20.15): Wasn't bad for a time but went downhill in mid-afternoon. Windy and cloudy. High of 19.9C.
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 3 February - Cloud, sun, 18C; 4 February - Sun, cloud, 18C; 5 February - Cloud, sun, 19C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southwest 4 to 5.
A little breezy with spots of low cloud at dawn. Should be another decent day with some warm sunshine.
Evening update (20.15): Wasn't bad for a time but went downhill in mid-afternoon. Windy and cloudy. High of 19.9C.
The Quality Of Numbers: Tourists
Three weeks ago, the national minister tourism, Álvaro Nadal, announced that the final scores on the doors for 2016 would reveal a 9.9% rise in the total number of tourists who came to Spain. In fact, he slightly undervalued the rise. Rather than the number increasing to 75.3 million, it went up to 75.6 million. Let joy be unconfined.
Nadal said that this was all the fruit of the boost to the tourism sector, which is recognised as the most competitive in the world. The trouble is that the "boost" owed very little to competitiveness but mostly everything to security. Numbers vary as to how many tourists Spain has been "borrowing", but - and you can pretty much pick a number at random - a favoured one bears some similarity to last year's percentage increase.
Competitiveness is one of those concepts like the tedious vogue for sustainability that can mean whatever you really want it to. A ten per cent increase, there's your competitiveness, even if it isn't and even it means ever greater quantity. A further element of competitiveness is price. We are now used to being told that Mallorca's holidays are as if not more expensive than anywhere else's, but of course Mallorca, along with the rest of the islands, topped the 13 million tourist mark for the first time last year. Ever more quantity, and one that was only partially amused by the price.
Yet another element of the competitiveness equation is quality, one being pursued with transformational zeal by hoteliers such as Meliá, whose vice-president, Gabriel Escarrer, has said that the only way to compete with certain destinations is through quality and not through price. Hence, prices will doubtless continue to rise while the quality ante is raised ever higher.
For now, it would seem, a wish to not have to be competitive on price but stress the quality is being fulfilled (assuming one accepts that quality is at least keeping pace with other destinations). But it is a price competitiveness with a fair chunk of Hobson's choice. Moreover, it is current price competitiveness that comes with a sting in the tail. The number of tourists is going up, but their spend is going down.
This was a familiar lament last year, and in their announcement of the annual scores on the doors, the alliance for touristic excellence, Exceltur, said that the average spend per tourist had indeed declined. Furthermore, it was some distance below what Nadal had been talking about three weeks previously, when he had said that the spend had gone up.
The quoting of spend statistics is something which I think - I hope - we all take with a sizable pinch of salt. It is even more sizable given that Nadal's figure was roughly 300 euros higher than Exceltur's. Perhaps there are two sets of statistics, which is news to me, but there you go. Whatever the real (?) figures are, they underpin the apparent discrepancies in what overall competitiveness should entail. Quality is the principal aim, or so it appears, but what about the quantity?
The ever increasing numbers are, as many in the tourism industry believe, not what Mallorca and Spain should be about. Quality should come before quantity. Yet there was the minister, just three weeks ago, praising a ten per cent increase in quantity. As his figure showed an increase in spend, then he would do, but his figure isn't the same as the Exceltur number.
The muddle over numbers reflects the confusion over what the strategy should be: the real strategy, that is. Is it the case that Mallorca and Spain truly want fewer tourists and ones who will be undeterred by price and attracted principally (or perhaps exclusively) by quality? If it is, then it's about time it was stated and expressed unequivocally.
There are parts of the tourism industry who feel like this. Reducing numbers is most definitely not confined to left-wing, environmentalist agitators, and the debate over numbers and the quality-quantity equation has existed for years. Ah, but is it about fewer tourists? Is it not about maintaining the current number (perhaps with those who have been "borrowed") but at a greater level of quality. All 70 million or so of them? Or 13 million or so in the case of the Balearics?
There are certain sectors of the industry which are only interested in numbers increasing. Aena represents one. The more passengers the better, even if a significant proportion fly low-cost, which supposedly means lower quality (which it doesn't in all instances by any means).
The current tourism boom, largely the consequence of "borrowed" tourists, isn't sustainable. If it were, then quantity will beat quality every time. But even without these temporary tourists, is quality about to prevail? It's been spoken about for years. Rather like the statistics, you have to wonder if it's all just waffle.
Nadal said that this was all the fruit of the boost to the tourism sector, which is recognised as the most competitive in the world. The trouble is that the "boost" owed very little to competitiveness but mostly everything to security. Numbers vary as to how many tourists Spain has been "borrowing", but - and you can pretty much pick a number at random - a favoured one bears some similarity to last year's percentage increase.
Competitiveness is one of those concepts like the tedious vogue for sustainability that can mean whatever you really want it to. A ten per cent increase, there's your competitiveness, even if it isn't and even it means ever greater quantity. A further element of competitiveness is price. We are now used to being told that Mallorca's holidays are as if not more expensive than anywhere else's, but of course Mallorca, along with the rest of the islands, topped the 13 million tourist mark for the first time last year. Ever more quantity, and one that was only partially amused by the price.
Yet another element of the competitiveness equation is quality, one being pursued with transformational zeal by hoteliers such as Meliá, whose vice-president, Gabriel Escarrer, has said that the only way to compete with certain destinations is through quality and not through price. Hence, prices will doubtless continue to rise while the quality ante is raised ever higher.
For now, it would seem, a wish to not have to be competitive on price but stress the quality is being fulfilled (assuming one accepts that quality is at least keeping pace with other destinations). But it is a price competitiveness with a fair chunk of Hobson's choice. Moreover, it is current price competitiveness that comes with a sting in the tail. The number of tourists is going up, but their spend is going down.
This was a familiar lament last year, and in their announcement of the annual scores on the doors, the alliance for touristic excellence, Exceltur, said that the average spend per tourist had indeed declined. Furthermore, it was some distance below what Nadal had been talking about three weeks previously, when he had said that the spend had gone up.
The quoting of spend statistics is something which I think - I hope - we all take with a sizable pinch of salt. It is even more sizable given that Nadal's figure was roughly 300 euros higher than Exceltur's. Perhaps there are two sets of statistics, which is news to me, but there you go. Whatever the real (?) figures are, they underpin the apparent discrepancies in what overall competitiveness should entail. Quality is the principal aim, or so it appears, but what about the quantity?
The ever increasing numbers are, as many in the tourism industry believe, not what Mallorca and Spain should be about. Quality should come before quantity. Yet there was the minister, just three weeks ago, praising a ten per cent increase in quantity. As his figure showed an increase in spend, then he would do, but his figure isn't the same as the Exceltur number.
The muddle over numbers reflects the confusion over what the strategy should be: the real strategy, that is. Is it the case that Mallorca and Spain truly want fewer tourists and ones who will be undeterred by price and attracted principally (or perhaps exclusively) by quality? If it is, then it's about time it was stated and expressed unequivocally.
There are parts of the tourism industry who feel like this. Reducing numbers is most definitely not confined to left-wing, environmentalist agitators, and the debate over numbers and the quality-quantity equation has existed for years. Ah, but is it about fewer tourists? Is it not about maintaining the current number (perhaps with those who have been "borrowed") but at a greater level of quality. All 70 million or so of them? Or 13 million or so in the case of the Balearics?
There are certain sectors of the industry which are only interested in numbers increasing. Aena represents one. The more passengers the better, even if a significant proportion fly low-cost, which supposedly means lower quality (which it doesn't in all instances by any means).
The current tourism boom, largely the consequence of "borrowed" tourists, isn't sustainable. If it were, then quantity will beat quality every time. But even without these temporary tourists, is quality about to prevail? It's been spoken about for years. Rather like the statistics, you have to wonder if it's all just waffle.
Wednesday, February 01, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 1 February 2017
Morning high (7.02am): 6.6C
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 2 February - Cloud, sun, 18C; 3 February - Sun, cloud, 17C; 4 February - Cloud, sun, 18C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): South 2 to 3.
Should be fine for much of the day but with cloud building up later on.
Evening update (20.00): It was mostly sunny and pretty warm - high of 21.2C.
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 2 February - Cloud, sun, 18C; 3 February - Sun, cloud, 17C; 4 February - Cloud, sun, 18C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): South 2 to 3.
Should be fine for much of the day but with cloud building up later on.
Evening update (20.00): It was mostly sunny and pretty warm - high of 21.2C.
1903 And All That: Adults-Only
The date was 17 December, 1903. The place was near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The two men involved were brothers - Orville and Wilbur. The Wright Brothers could not possibly have envisaged what they would unleash, not least the fact that 114 years later in a city across the Atlantic which back then they may or may not have been familiar with, their efforts are to be honoured in the form of an airport lounge.
This isn't any old airport lounge. Manchester Airport's Terminal 3 is to have an adults-only lounge, and it will be known as 1903. Despite the name being in memory of Orville and Wilbur, this isn't a year that otherwise carries particular and popular significance. It thus has an enigmatic, quirky, almost mysterious connotation. The anonymity of the year is what grants the name a uniqueness. Clever people, these marketing types; the use of a year is a neat trick that they often play.
The uniqueness will cost 30 quid if booked in advance or 35 quid if you just turn up on the day. This relatively modest sum will be rewarded with complimentary buffet, free booze, free, unlimited wifi and, most importantly, an absence of anyone under the age of sixteen (one assumes that the sixteen and seventeen year olds will be given a discount because of the booze; or maybe not).
Mischievously, one can already sense that a certain category of adults-only will be eyeing up the thirty quid as a bargain means of facilitating lavish pre-flight getting plastered. But adults-only aren't like that. Are they? Well, in other marketing people's worlds, they most certainly are not. The prevailing image is of couples in their late twenties with good teeth etc., looking deliriously happy as they wallow in the spas and fine wines (in very modest amounts) of their adults-only hotel environment. Thank God we booked adults-only, the images shout.
In a way, this prevailing and predominant age image reveals the adults-only to be enjoying their final flings. Rather like the lads and ladettes on tour to Maga (other untransformed resorts are now available) go through rites of passage and the entire card on a happy hour prior to one day settling down (some of them) to marital bliss, so the adults-only is (are) having their final days in the sun before THEY come along. The kids. There'll be no more adults-only for them until they reach sufficient age to qualify for the older person/senior packages and have grown grey gracefully, still retaining the teeth and the delirium.
The 1903 lounge is just a further milestone along the journey towards adults-only touristic domination. Or does it denote a return to days of yore? 1903 was notable - in Mallorca anyway - for another reason, and that was the opening of Palma's Gran Hotel. Styled on the Ritz, one of its ambitions lay with attracting the early twentieth century tourist. And one can probably safely assume that under-16s would have been in limited supply: they hadn't really invented "the family" back then.
Mallorca's adults-only establishments, of which there is an ever increasing number, are something of a throwback to the grand days of travel, when the tourist most definitely fell into the category marked "quality". It is the unabashed desire to attract this quality tourist - one who's loaded and doesn't get rat arsed - which is one of the reasons for the growth of the adults-only concept. Plus the fact that adults-only is that much more profitable. The family is thus being denigrated to a degree, certainly the degree which arrives with three-star baggage and remains cloistered in the confines of child-hell poolside all-inclusive.
One does of course have to attribute the adults-only movement to the so-called "Cupid of the Caribbean", Gordon "Butch" Stewart, who founded the Sandals Resorts and also made them the first word in all-inclusive heaven: Sandals offered first-class AI. It took a fair old time for adults-only to transport itself to Mallorca and Spain. By 2011 there were only 25 such establishments nationally. They're now all over the place, their critical number meaning that TripAdvisor can have its bests-of, and apparently the Grupotel Playa Camp de Mar is the best of the best in Mallorca.
There have been concerned voices raised about the growing proliferation of adults-only, one being that it is a form of discrimination. If societal mores are such that there cannot be discrimination on the basis of gender, religion or race, then why should children be singled out and excluded?
The marketers will say, and do, that adults-only is all about responding to social and cultural changes. And perhaps so, but if the number of hotels becomes that many, where do the deliriously happy thirty year olds go when THEY do finally come along?
This isn't any old airport lounge. Manchester Airport's Terminal 3 is to have an adults-only lounge, and it will be known as 1903. Despite the name being in memory of Orville and Wilbur, this isn't a year that otherwise carries particular and popular significance. It thus has an enigmatic, quirky, almost mysterious connotation. The anonymity of the year is what grants the name a uniqueness. Clever people, these marketing types; the use of a year is a neat trick that they often play.
The uniqueness will cost 30 quid if booked in advance or 35 quid if you just turn up on the day. This relatively modest sum will be rewarded with complimentary buffet, free booze, free, unlimited wifi and, most importantly, an absence of anyone under the age of sixteen (one assumes that the sixteen and seventeen year olds will be given a discount because of the booze; or maybe not).
Mischievously, one can already sense that a certain category of adults-only will be eyeing up the thirty quid as a bargain means of facilitating lavish pre-flight getting plastered. But adults-only aren't like that. Are they? Well, in other marketing people's worlds, they most certainly are not. The prevailing image is of couples in their late twenties with good teeth etc., looking deliriously happy as they wallow in the spas and fine wines (in very modest amounts) of their adults-only hotel environment. Thank God we booked adults-only, the images shout.
In a way, this prevailing and predominant age image reveals the adults-only to be enjoying their final flings. Rather like the lads and ladettes on tour to Maga (other untransformed resorts are now available) go through rites of passage and the entire card on a happy hour prior to one day settling down (some of them) to marital bliss, so the adults-only is (are) having their final days in the sun before THEY come along. The kids. There'll be no more adults-only for them until they reach sufficient age to qualify for the older person/senior packages and have grown grey gracefully, still retaining the teeth and the delirium.
The 1903 lounge is just a further milestone along the journey towards adults-only touristic domination. Or does it denote a return to days of yore? 1903 was notable - in Mallorca anyway - for another reason, and that was the opening of Palma's Gran Hotel. Styled on the Ritz, one of its ambitions lay with attracting the early twentieth century tourist. And one can probably safely assume that under-16s would have been in limited supply: they hadn't really invented "the family" back then.
Mallorca's adults-only establishments, of which there is an ever increasing number, are something of a throwback to the grand days of travel, when the tourist most definitely fell into the category marked "quality". It is the unabashed desire to attract this quality tourist - one who's loaded and doesn't get rat arsed - which is one of the reasons for the growth of the adults-only concept. Plus the fact that adults-only is that much more profitable. The family is thus being denigrated to a degree, certainly the degree which arrives with three-star baggage and remains cloistered in the confines of child-hell poolside all-inclusive.
One does of course have to attribute the adults-only movement to the so-called "Cupid of the Caribbean", Gordon "Butch" Stewart, who founded the Sandals Resorts and also made them the first word in all-inclusive heaven: Sandals offered first-class AI. It took a fair old time for adults-only to transport itself to Mallorca and Spain. By 2011 there were only 25 such establishments nationally. They're now all over the place, their critical number meaning that TripAdvisor can have its bests-of, and apparently the Grupotel Playa Camp de Mar is the best of the best in Mallorca.
There have been concerned voices raised about the growing proliferation of adults-only, one being that it is a form of discrimination. If societal mores are such that there cannot be discrimination on the basis of gender, religion or race, then why should children be singled out and excluded?
The marketers will say, and do, that adults-only is all about responding to social and cultural changes. And perhaps so, but if the number of hotels becomes that many, where do the deliriously happy thirty year olds go when THEY do finally come along?
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 31 January 2017
Morning high (7.01am): 11C
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 1 February - Sun, cloud, 17C; 2 February - Cloud, sun, 18C; 3 February - Cloud, sun, 16C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southwest 3 to 4 backing South.
Looking clear before sunrise - stars are twinkling - and hopefully there might actually be the promised sun today.
Evening update (20.15): The sun did shine, and with a high of 20.1C.
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 1 February - Sun, cloud, 17C; 2 February - Cloud, sun, 18C; 3 February - Cloud, sun, 16C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southwest 3 to 4 backing South.
Looking clear before sunrise - stars are twinkling - and hopefully there might actually be the promised sun today.
Evening update (20.15): The sun did shine, and with a high of 20.1C.
What Former Mayors Do Next
What does a mayor do when he or she is no longer mayor? Much depends on why the tenure finishes. In more extreme cases, a mayor ends up in jail, if particular naughtiness has been engaged in: Andratx with Eugenio Hidalgo is an example. A mayor may also move up the political food chain, either by design or by accident.
José Ramón Bauzá used his Marratxi mayoral credentials to launch himself on a largely unsuspecting Partido Popular and Balearic society and become the islands' president. Alternatively, the mayor's job is retained while pursuing higher things. Astonishing though it may seem, but Maria Munar was mayor of Costitx all the time she was minister for education and then president of the Council of Mallorca. It's safe to assume that she is not planning a return to Costitx town hall.
Miquel Ferrer, an Alcudia mayor for some years, was an accidental beneficiary of promotion. While Munar's Unió Mallorquina was crumbling under the mounting mountain of corruption evidence, he resigned as mayor in order to become tourism minister. It was almost a case of last man standing, i.e. a senior figure in the party who wasn't banged up or en route to being so. Alas for Miquel his ministerial tenure was brief, and he hasn't been seen in town hall circles ever since he and the remaining members of the UM were ejected from the Antich "pact" of government.
Otherwise, unless because of retirement or the offer of something better, a mayor ceases to be mayor because of election defeat. Does this mark the moment to move onto other things? Sometimes but certainly not always. The ranks of town halls' councillors are littered with ex-mayors, biding their time for the next election and their return to once more wield the mayoral wand: the PP's Rafel Torres in Inca is a case in point. There are, therefore, former mayors in a state of constant rotation and on the comeback trail. One election comes along, out they go; the next one, and in they step again.
But there is a further reason why a mayor is no longer, and this is the consequence of the "pact". It doesn't happen in all instances by any means. There are plenty of town hall coalitions at present which don't envisage any mid-term mayoral change, but there are some. Where Santa Margalida is concerned, for example, the handing-over has already occurred, a mere eighteen months into the four-year period. More logically it takes place after two years, which is what will happen in Palma.
José Hila will step down in June. After he does, what will he do? One would assume that he will remain a councillor and become one of the array of deputy mayors. But it isn't as simple as that. Whether he stays or whether he goes (and going would be because staying would represent something of a humiliation), does one anticipate his spending the remaining two years plotting his comeback as mayor in 2019? Almost certainly yes, but Palma doesn't operate like mostly any other municipality. There are higher authorities who have their input, say and decisions when it comes to candidates for mayor.
Palma is its own mini-government. This status is why the position of mayor is of such critical importance to the political parties. Prior to the last election there were all the machinations to ensure that Mateu Isern was unable to stand again for the PP. And with the next election some two years or so away, the jockeying for positions are already beginning, with PSOE manoeuvring towards the starter's tape.
In an apparent reversal of promotion upwards (to government), it is understood that President Armengol has her man lined up to be candidate - the employment, trade and industry minister Iago Negueruela. This wouldn't of course be like a demotion because of Palma's mini-government pretensions. It would be a plum job. But why Negueruela?
In addition to being from good (Galician) socialist stock, he has been something of a safe pair of hands at the ministry, capable of announcing a load of statistics and initiatives to combat labour fraud. He wasn't actually elected as one of the 59 parliamentary deputies, but a background in employment inspection was what landed him the appointment. None of this, though, is a good reason for him to be mayor. However, Armengol is determined to have her man for the simple reason that Hila wasn't her choice last time and there are still gaping wounds among PSOE in Palma because of the infighting that was the prelude to Hila's election.
Whether Negueruela, a "foreigner", would be the one to unite factions seems unlikely, so when it finally comes to the choice of candidates for 2019, Hila will have lined himself up for another go and for a comeback. The battle for Palma has already begun.
Index for January 2017
Airport policy - 11 January 2017
Associations: too many - 12 January 2017
Big Data and tourism - 27 January 2017
CIA files, Joan March and Nazis - 30 January 2017
Culture, tourist tax and top stories from 2016 - 1 January 2017
Floods, drought and olive ebola - 29 January 2017
GOB and tourism - 10 January 2017
Goigs and Sant Antoni - 14 January 2017
Holiday rentals - 6 January 2017, 16 January 2017, 21 January 2017, 25 January 2017
Hotels and virtual reality - 18 January 2017
Illustrious sons and daughters - 2 January 2017
Mariano Rajoy - 3 January 2017
Mayors and their comebacks - 31 January 2017
Ministers and travel - 26 January 2017
Musical theatre - 22 January 2017
News and repetitious messages - 20 January 2017
Podemos tensions - 8 January 2017, 15 January 2017, 17 January 2017, 23 January 2017
Sant Antoni and tourism - 5 January 2017
Sant Julià - 7 January 2017
Sant Sebastià - 24 January 2017
Satire: demons and Kings - 9 January 2017
Tourism promotion - 13 January 2017
Tourismphobia - 19 January 2017
Tourist tax - 4 January 2017, 28 January 2017
José Ramón Bauzá used his Marratxi mayoral credentials to launch himself on a largely unsuspecting Partido Popular and Balearic society and become the islands' president. Alternatively, the mayor's job is retained while pursuing higher things. Astonishing though it may seem, but Maria Munar was mayor of Costitx all the time she was minister for education and then president of the Council of Mallorca. It's safe to assume that she is not planning a return to Costitx town hall.
Miquel Ferrer, an Alcudia mayor for some years, was an accidental beneficiary of promotion. While Munar's Unió Mallorquina was crumbling under the mounting mountain of corruption evidence, he resigned as mayor in order to become tourism minister. It was almost a case of last man standing, i.e. a senior figure in the party who wasn't banged up or en route to being so. Alas for Miquel his ministerial tenure was brief, and he hasn't been seen in town hall circles ever since he and the remaining members of the UM were ejected from the Antich "pact" of government.
Otherwise, unless because of retirement or the offer of something better, a mayor ceases to be mayor because of election defeat. Does this mark the moment to move onto other things? Sometimes but certainly not always. The ranks of town halls' councillors are littered with ex-mayors, biding their time for the next election and their return to once more wield the mayoral wand: the PP's Rafel Torres in Inca is a case in point. There are, therefore, former mayors in a state of constant rotation and on the comeback trail. One election comes along, out they go; the next one, and in they step again.
But there is a further reason why a mayor is no longer, and this is the consequence of the "pact". It doesn't happen in all instances by any means. There are plenty of town hall coalitions at present which don't envisage any mid-term mayoral change, but there are some. Where Santa Margalida is concerned, for example, the handing-over has already occurred, a mere eighteen months into the four-year period. More logically it takes place after two years, which is what will happen in Palma.
José Hila will step down in June. After he does, what will he do? One would assume that he will remain a councillor and become one of the array of deputy mayors. But it isn't as simple as that. Whether he stays or whether he goes (and going would be because staying would represent something of a humiliation), does one anticipate his spending the remaining two years plotting his comeback as mayor in 2019? Almost certainly yes, but Palma doesn't operate like mostly any other municipality. There are higher authorities who have their input, say and decisions when it comes to candidates for mayor.
Palma is its own mini-government. This status is why the position of mayor is of such critical importance to the political parties. Prior to the last election there were all the machinations to ensure that Mateu Isern was unable to stand again for the PP. And with the next election some two years or so away, the jockeying for positions are already beginning, with PSOE manoeuvring towards the starter's tape.
In an apparent reversal of promotion upwards (to government), it is understood that President Armengol has her man lined up to be candidate - the employment, trade and industry minister Iago Negueruela. This wouldn't of course be like a demotion because of Palma's mini-government pretensions. It would be a plum job. But why Negueruela?
In addition to being from good (Galician) socialist stock, he has been something of a safe pair of hands at the ministry, capable of announcing a load of statistics and initiatives to combat labour fraud. He wasn't actually elected as one of the 59 parliamentary deputies, but a background in employment inspection was what landed him the appointment. None of this, though, is a good reason for him to be mayor. However, Armengol is determined to have her man for the simple reason that Hila wasn't her choice last time and there are still gaping wounds among PSOE in Palma because of the infighting that was the prelude to Hila's election.
Whether Negueruela, a "foreigner", would be the one to unite factions seems unlikely, so when it finally comes to the choice of candidates for 2019, Hila will have lined himself up for another go and for a comeback. The battle for Palma has already begun.
Index for January 2017
Airport policy - 11 January 2017
Associations: too many - 12 January 2017
Big Data and tourism - 27 January 2017
CIA files, Joan March and Nazis - 30 January 2017
Culture, tourist tax and top stories from 2016 - 1 January 2017
Floods, drought and olive ebola - 29 January 2017
GOB and tourism - 10 January 2017
Goigs and Sant Antoni - 14 January 2017
Holiday rentals - 6 January 2017, 16 January 2017, 21 January 2017, 25 January 2017
Hotels and virtual reality - 18 January 2017
Illustrious sons and daughters - 2 January 2017
Mariano Rajoy - 3 January 2017
Mayors and their comebacks - 31 January 2017
Ministers and travel - 26 January 2017
Musical theatre - 22 January 2017
News and repetitious messages - 20 January 2017
Podemos tensions - 8 January 2017, 15 January 2017, 17 January 2017, 23 January 2017
Sant Antoni and tourism - 5 January 2017
Sant Julià - 7 January 2017
Sant Sebastià - 24 January 2017
Satire: demons and Kings - 9 January 2017
Tourism promotion - 13 January 2017
Tourismphobia - 19 January 2017
Tourist tax - 4 January 2017, 28 January 2017
Monday, January 30, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 30 January 2017
Morning high (7.41am): 6C
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 31 January - Sun, cloud, 18C; 1 February - Sun, cloud, 17C; 2 February - Cloud, sun, 18C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southwest 3 to 4.
See if today is sunnier than yesterday. Forecast suggests so. Warmer as well.
Evening update (19.45): So much for the sunnier weather then. Dry but mostly cloudy. High of 17.6C.
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 31 January - Sun, cloud, 18C; 1 February - Sun, cloud, 17C; 2 February - Cloud, sun, 18C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southwest 3 to 4.
See if today is sunnier than yesterday. Forecast suggests so. Warmer as well.
Evening update (19.45): So much for the sunnier weather then. Dry but mostly cloudy. High of 17.6C.
Joan March And The CIA Files
The left-wing opposition at Santa Margalida town hall wants to revoke the title of illustrious son that was awarded to Joan March in 1956. There are three reasons why. One is because of information that has come from recently declassified CIA documents; not least the fact that he was involved with the sale of Jewish assets.
Joan March is known (and now mostly reviled) for all sorts of things. Being Franco's banker is just one. Another relates to the role he played in the Second World War and its aftermath. He also figures in the First World War, but by the time that war broke out in 1939 he had assumed a far more significant role. As the CIA files indicate, he was one of the most important businesspeople in Europe.
He used his business influences in different ways, such as with playing both sides during the war. His connections to both the British and the Germans have been well documented. For the Nazis, for instance, he supplied submarines in the Mediterranean from ships with the Trasmediterránea line. The same shipping company was the means by which Jews were transported to New York. March was paid handsomely for movements that were not permitted. When the FBI sought to intervene, it was Churchill who had a word with Roosevelt.
The CIA files really only confirm what was known about March's involvement in the war. A great deal of information had been gathered about him by the British, the French, the Russians, the Germans and the Americans. At the end of the war, the Americans and the Russians discovered a mountain of documentation related to him in Berlin. What the CIA now reveal is that a contrabandist, Michael Olian, was investigated in 1946 within the framework of Nazi war crimes. He sold assets of French Jews at reduced prices through an agreement with a Swiss bank in Madrid. Joan March was one of two beneficiaries.
March was untouchable. Although he principally treated the war as a grand business opportunity, there was also his duplicity. The Americans, or at least the Office of Strategic Services (which was to become the CIA), wanted to detain him. March had Churchill to thank for the fact that he was not detained and was to amass ever greater fortune and business power after the war. The CIA was unable to arrest March because Spain was "supposedly neutral". Obstacles were placed in front of American intelligence by "our diplomats".
The CIA files in some ways are more revealing about the post-war activities of Nazis in Mallorca. To what extent, if any, March was involved in Nazi activity isn't stated. Such involvement was probably unnecessary, as what emerges is a picture of how the Franco regime consented to the presence of Nazis and would indeed provide protection.
The Nazi presence on the island had been established prior to the war. Hans Dede became the permanent German consul in 1933 and remained so during the war. It was Dede who had pursued, with local assistance, German Jews and pacifists who had settled in Mallorca: in Cala Ratjada in particular. One was Karl Otten, who the British helped to escape. He became a propagandist with the BBC. Another was Hugo Cyril Kulp Baruch, better known as Jack Bilbo, who had established the Waikiki bar, but who left Mallorca when he recognised that the island wasn't the safe haven he had hoped it would be.
The CIA files establish that Dede had originally and ostensibly arrived in Mallorca as the employee of a company. He was categorised as being "notoriously anti-Semitic". He was also a spy. Following the war, the Allies demanded that he be handed over. It was too late. He had gone to South America. But, and as one dossier in the CIA files shows, there was apparently no shortage of Nazis residents on the island after the war. Military people and scientists, they were the focus of what in 1947, according to the CIA, was an imminent resurgence of the Nazi Party.
But was there really a resurgence? Nazism had been well embedded during the war and prior to it: there had, for example, been a Nazi rally in Portals Nous in 1938. Although there may have been Nazis on the island, did they pose the type of threat the CIA files hint at? Of the better-known names, Dede was no longer in Mallorca. Otto Skorzeny, who was to live in Barcares in Alcudia, wasn't here in 1947. He was undergoing de-Nazification, but didn't renounce National Socialism. He escaped and went to Madrid in 1948.
The point is that whatever strength of Nazi sentiment there may have been in the years immediately following the war, this didn't create a momentum. Mallorca and Spain did, after all, have its own brand of fascism to sustain it.
Joan March is known (and now mostly reviled) for all sorts of things. Being Franco's banker is just one. Another relates to the role he played in the Second World War and its aftermath. He also figures in the First World War, but by the time that war broke out in 1939 he had assumed a far more significant role. As the CIA files indicate, he was one of the most important businesspeople in Europe.
He used his business influences in different ways, such as with playing both sides during the war. His connections to both the British and the Germans have been well documented. For the Nazis, for instance, he supplied submarines in the Mediterranean from ships with the Trasmediterránea line. The same shipping company was the means by which Jews were transported to New York. March was paid handsomely for movements that were not permitted. When the FBI sought to intervene, it was Churchill who had a word with Roosevelt.
The CIA files really only confirm what was known about March's involvement in the war. A great deal of information had been gathered about him by the British, the French, the Russians, the Germans and the Americans. At the end of the war, the Americans and the Russians discovered a mountain of documentation related to him in Berlin. What the CIA now reveal is that a contrabandist, Michael Olian, was investigated in 1946 within the framework of Nazi war crimes. He sold assets of French Jews at reduced prices through an agreement with a Swiss bank in Madrid. Joan March was one of two beneficiaries.
March was untouchable. Although he principally treated the war as a grand business opportunity, there was also his duplicity. The Americans, or at least the Office of Strategic Services (which was to become the CIA), wanted to detain him. March had Churchill to thank for the fact that he was not detained and was to amass ever greater fortune and business power after the war. The CIA was unable to arrest March because Spain was "supposedly neutral". Obstacles were placed in front of American intelligence by "our diplomats".
The CIA files in some ways are more revealing about the post-war activities of Nazis in Mallorca. To what extent, if any, March was involved in Nazi activity isn't stated. Such involvement was probably unnecessary, as what emerges is a picture of how the Franco regime consented to the presence of Nazis and would indeed provide protection.
The Nazi presence on the island had been established prior to the war. Hans Dede became the permanent German consul in 1933 and remained so during the war. It was Dede who had pursued, with local assistance, German Jews and pacifists who had settled in Mallorca: in Cala Ratjada in particular. One was Karl Otten, who the British helped to escape. He became a propagandist with the BBC. Another was Hugo Cyril Kulp Baruch, better known as Jack Bilbo, who had established the Waikiki bar, but who left Mallorca when he recognised that the island wasn't the safe haven he had hoped it would be.
The CIA files establish that Dede had originally and ostensibly arrived in Mallorca as the employee of a company. He was categorised as being "notoriously anti-Semitic". He was also a spy. Following the war, the Allies demanded that he be handed over. It was too late. He had gone to South America. But, and as one dossier in the CIA files shows, there was apparently no shortage of Nazis residents on the island after the war. Military people and scientists, they were the focus of what in 1947, according to the CIA, was an imminent resurgence of the Nazi Party.
But was there really a resurgence? Nazism had been well embedded during the war and prior to it: there had, for example, been a Nazi rally in Portals Nous in 1938. Although there may have been Nazis on the island, did they pose the type of threat the CIA files hint at? Of the better-known names, Dede was no longer in Mallorca. Otto Skorzeny, who was to live in Barcares in Alcudia, wasn't here in 1947. He was undergoing de-Nazification, but didn't renounce National Socialism. He escaped and went to Madrid in 1948.
The point is that whatever strength of Nazi sentiment there may have been in the years immediately following the war, this didn't create a momentum. Mallorca and Spain did, after all, have its own brand of fascism to sustain it.
Sunday, January 29, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 29 January 2017
Morning high (7.25am): 10.7C
Forecast high: 14C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 30 January - Sun, 17C; 31 January - Sun, cloud, 17C; 1 February - Sun, cloud, 17C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North 5 to 6 easing 3 to 4 in the morning and backing West-Northwest 3 in the afternoon.
A spell of decent, sunny weather starting today and getting warmer during the week before, as the forecast has it at present, rain likely to return on Thursday or Friday.
Evening update (19.30): Disappointing. There was some sun but not as much as the forecast had suggested. High of 16.6C.
Forecast high: 14C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 30 January - Sun, 17C; 31 January - Sun, cloud, 17C; 1 February - Sun, cloud, 17C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North 5 to 6 easing 3 to 4 in the morning and backing West-Northwest 3 in the afternoon.
A spell of decent, sunny weather starting today and getting warmer during the week before, as the forecast has it at present, rain likely to return on Thursday or Friday.
Evening update (19.30): Disappointing. There was some sun but not as much as the forecast had suggested. High of 16.6C.
The Plagues Of Vince Vidal
Oh dear me, Vince, what have you done? Our friendly and favourite government minister, Enviro Man Vince Vidal, has been getting it in the neck big time. It was all Vince's fault that great hectares (one hectare equals 2.47105 acres) of Mallorca were under water, that entire crops were ruined, that farmers will be left destitute, that Cala Ratjada was crashing into the sea, that rocks were tumbling in abundance onto roads across the Tramuntana.
Yep, it was all Vince's fault. What had he been doing with himself for the past year and a half? Why hadn't he been out with his cement mixer to shore up a hole in the wall in Cala Ratjada? Why hadn't he been digging out environmentally unfriendly vegetation from torrents and collecting several hundred supermarket shopping trolleys, bits of old furniture, bags of building material waste and chunks of former pine and palm tree trunks which had mysteriously found their way into the same torrents?
He really hasn't had the best of luck, has he. It was also his fault that the taps had been running dry and the reservoirs had become small ponds. What can he expect next? A plague of locusts? That'll be his fault as well.
The drought and the floods were the consequence of historical inaction related to the water resource system and the maintenance of the torrents. Yes, it may well be that the likes of Muro had been demanding that Vince pitch up and clean out its torrent, but there is such a thing - strangely enough - as budgets. Why did Vince have such a barney with Cati Cladera at finance? Just because he's a Mésite and she isn't? Well, no, maybe it had something to do with needing more moolah to keep the torrents flowing properly.
The environment, we have become very aware, does need investment. If it didn't, then we wouldn't have had the former ecotax and now the new tax which pretends that it isn't an ecotax. Environmentalists GOB insist that it should be, while Palma wants to spend it all on piles of its crumbling patrimony. But call the tax what you want, there is the small matter of half of last year's revenue going on water. That's water as in seeking to ward off the worst that extended periods of dry and hot weather might throw at Mallorca. And why? Because there hadn't been investment in the past. That's why. Vince is not to blame for that.
Of course, he can't really do anything right. When the farmers were whining about insufficient aid to compensate for an absence of forage, this was all down to Vince been parsimonious. And there was he, a minister with previous eco credentials up to his beard. Shame on you, minister. Now that Noah has been forced to admit the livestock two by two, the farmers are agitating for a different reason.
At least they can be thankful that Madrid has finally remembered there is a Mallorca and will be emptying the contingency fund piggy-bank to compensate for British diners being unable to devour the earliest new potato crop. Vince, while his tears add to the inundations as he surveys the sodden spud fields of old Sa Pobla, will be thinking that he really needs to have a word with his chums at GOB. They earnestly believe that Mallorca should revive its full one-time agrarian glory (?). Are they mad?
His cabinet colleagues, alarmed that the government as a whole is being lined up and shot at for having caused the floods, have told Vince that he needs to become Enviro Action Man. And this is what he is doing. Appearing here, there and everywhere. But if Vince and the cabinet thought they only had the floods and the missing part of a harbour wall to worry about, they had to think again. A plague is either on its way or is already here. Not locusts but the "xylella fastidiosa", the bacteria also known as olive ebola.
Here's something else to suggest that GOB are a couple of trees short of the full orchard, because olive ebola can be devastating. Vince knows it can be. But he hadn't let on that there were more cases of affected trees than the ministry was saying there were. More than the vagaries of weather, it is the handling of olive ebola that is raising questions about management at the environment and agriculture ministry. Almonds, olives, cherries, vines; they're all susceptible. Vince must be wishing that all he had to worry about was the drought.
Yep, it was all Vince's fault. What had he been doing with himself for the past year and a half? Why hadn't he been out with his cement mixer to shore up a hole in the wall in Cala Ratjada? Why hadn't he been digging out environmentally unfriendly vegetation from torrents and collecting several hundred supermarket shopping trolleys, bits of old furniture, bags of building material waste and chunks of former pine and palm tree trunks which had mysteriously found their way into the same torrents?
He really hasn't had the best of luck, has he. It was also his fault that the taps had been running dry and the reservoirs had become small ponds. What can he expect next? A plague of locusts? That'll be his fault as well.
The drought and the floods were the consequence of historical inaction related to the water resource system and the maintenance of the torrents. Yes, it may well be that the likes of Muro had been demanding that Vince pitch up and clean out its torrent, but there is such a thing - strangely enough - as budgets. Why did Vince have such a barney with Cati Cladera at finance? Just because he's a Mésite and she isn't? Well, no, maybe it had something to do with needing more moolah to keep the torrents flowing properly.
The environment, we have become very aware, does need investment. If it didn't, then we wouldn't have had the former ecotax and now the new tax which pretends that it isn't an ecotax. Environmentalists GOB insist that it should be, while Palma wants to spend it all on piles of its crumbling patrimony. But call the tax what you want, there is the small matter of half of last year's revenue going on water. That's water as in seeking to ward off the worst that extended periods of dry and hot weather might throw at Mallorca. And why? Because there hadn't been investment in the past. That's why. Vince is not to blame for that.
Of course, he can't really do anything right. When the farmers were whining about insufficient aid to compensate for an absence of forage, this was all down to Vince been parsimonious. And there was he, a minister with previous eco credentials up to his beard. Shame on you, minister. Now that Noah has been forced to admit the livestock two by two, the farmers are agitating for a different reason.
At least they can be thankful that Madrid has finally remembered there is a Mallorca and will be emptying the contingency fund piggy-bank to compensate for British diners being unable to devour the earliest new potato crop. Vince, while his tears add to the inundations as he surveys the sodden spud fields of old Sa Pobla, will be thinking that he really needs to have a word with his chums at GOB. They earnestly believe that Mallorca should revive its full one-time agrarian glory (?). Are they mad?
His cabinet colleagues, alarmed that the government as a whole is being lined up and shot at for having caused the floods, have told Vince that he needs to become Enviro Action Man. And this is what he is doing. Appearing here, there and everywhere. But if Vince and the cabinet thought they only had the floods and the missing part of a harbour wall to worry about, they had to think again. A plague is either on its way or is already here. Not locusts but the "xylella fastidiosa", the bacteria also known as olive ebola.
Here's something else to suggest that GOB are a couple of trees short of the full orchard, because olive ebola can be devastating. Vince knows it can be. But he hadn't let on that there were more cases of affected trees than the ministry was saying there were. More than the vagaries of weather, it is the handling of olive ebola that is raising questions about management at the environment and agriculture ministry. Almonds, olives, cherries, vines; they're all susceptible. Vince must be wishing that all he had to worry about was the drought.
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