Red Rain

Lord Rogers, it would appear, is one of a number of architects being lined up to develop the hideous old power station next to the commercial port in Alcúdia. The deal is that it would become some form of science, technology and arts park. Sounds ominous. Sounds vaguely familiar, too. Think Millennium Dome. Architect: Lord Rogers.

There’s no doubting the thing has to come down, and let’s hope it does, rather than some sentimentalist, seeing art deco where none exists, getting a preservation order slapped on it. Think Battersea Power Station, and the seemingly never-ending attempt to redevelop that. At least Battersea has a form of charm; the Alcúdia station has none whatsoever. So, do away with it.

But why a science, technology and arts park? The Mallorca Council, and doubtless other politicians, see this as a means of regeneration and winter tourism. If they want winter tourism, I have a much better idea. Build a Center Parcs. I mentioned this ages ago in respect of Playa de Muro. Now they have the perfect opportunity. Something people would come to in winter, unlike a science, technology and arts park. May sound as though I’m a Philistine. I’m not. But give people what they want, not what politicians might think people want and end up, potentially, with a white elephant.


Strange weather time. It’s been raining dirty. Hence today’s title and Pop Quiz. One of this singer’s finest moments. The first (non-chorus) lines are “I am standing up at the water’s edge in my dream. I cannot make a single sound as you scream.” Who? And to be nice, I’ll give you another day to answer The Crusaders’ question.

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Road Movies

I decided against slagging off the Carretera Arta once again. I decided against taking issue with the notion that is now an aid to traffic circulation. You’ve heard it before. So I decided instead to highlight the benefit, the possibility, the opportunity. Job creation for the police. That’s what it is. Aid to traffic circulation? There were police on point-duty at the roundabout at the top of the Greasy Mile this morning. That’s how much of an aid.

On Test Match Special yesterday Geoffrey Boycott was saying that the people who set the international cricket schedule love the sport, but they have never played it at a top level and don´t understand the sport at that level.

The people who have designed this road doubtless love roads. They love tarmac, white lines, roundabouts, traffic islands. They love data collection on traffic movement. They love operational research models of traffic movement. But have they ever driven on this road?

They can love Google Earth maps of the roads, their own personal road movies. But they don´t know the plot and the actors.

Within operational research there was a development some 30 odd years ago called soft systems methodology. Essentially, this was an extension of the consideration of the human element in systems. Behaviour, if you like. The people who love roads don´t seem to love behaviour. I’ll give an example. I nearly crossed a red at the Sa Pobla roundabout this morning. But I was doing what any driver does. Looking to the left to wait for the chance to go. I wasn´t looking skyward to the lights.

One of the additional problems of the road is that the crossings (and therefore the lights) are too close to the roundabouts. Their proximity does not take into account driver behaviour.

But I said I wasn’t going to slag the road off. So I won’t.


Apparently election fever has gripped the island (trust the good old “Bulletin”; never one to stint on the hyperbole). All I can say is that I must have hypothermia because I am neither gripped nor feverish.


“Street Life” was sung by Randy Crawford, and she recorded it with The Crusaders. Today's quiz: can anyone name any original members of The Crusaders? An hour’s point-duty at the top of the Greasy Mile to anyone who can.

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Street Life

Remarkable what you find in the street.

I’m not talking the what was quarter-full plastic bottle of Coke in a bag that was conveniently left under my car and the contents of which (the bottle that is, not the car) were sprayed into my neighbour’s garden by the force of a too rapidly reversing several hundredweight or so of Nissan. No, I’m talking the My Travel schedule of arrivals from Leeds-Bradford, replete with a dirty great tyre mark. What, I thought, were those sheets of stapled A4 littering up the pavement?

Cracking stuff that's what, though mercifully without home addresses, as I could have otherwise faxed a copy to my old acquaintance in Pudsey, Arthur “Lightfingers” Lightfoot, and recommended he got his jemmy and glass-cutting equipment out of the attic and gone on a bit of a night tour of the West Riding.

Still, you can’t have everything. But the sheets make interesting reading.

Which hotel in the whole of Mallorca is the most popular with this - admittedly limited - sample of northern sorts? Answer: the Sol Alcudia Centre. 17 of them. Lagomonte comes second, with Alcudia’s dominance only challenged by 10 heading off to the Bouganvilla Park in Sa Coma. Indeed Alcúdia is by some way the destination of choice for Tykes. Puerto Pollensa gets a measly eight, all of them in the Oro Playa. Not even Magalluf can apparently compare with Alcúdia when it comes to the affection of the White Rose.

Fascinating, I’m sure you’ll all agree. In future, perhaps My Travel (and Thomson, Thomas Cook etc). might just email me the lists so I don’t have to pick them up from the street. You don’t know where they’ve been. The email address is below.


Streets, roads. Roads, streets. Here we go again with the daftness that is the remodelled Carretera Arta. Now, the traffic has undoubtedly been slowed down. That’s the good thing. But one of the benefits that was alleged for the changes to the road, prior to their being done, was that they would aid the circulation of traffic. Wrong.

By high summer in past years there has always been a queue going towards the junction with the Greasy Mile. Now the queue can extend back almost as far as Eroski Syp. There always were lights here, but now they seem to be more frequently on red. Thing is it is only May. It’ll be murder by August, murder when it’s really hot and drivers are getting fractious, murder when drivers use the side-roads and try and jump the queues. Best advice is to just avoid the road completely.


A while since the Pop Quiz. But it’s back. Today’s title. Who sang it? And with which band did she record it?

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The Weird

The hunt is on.

In my life as a publisher of tourist guides, I am constantly bombarded by publicity for restaurants etc that emphasises their atmosphere, their sunny terraces, the quality of their food, their specialisms (Spanish restaurants love to announce that they are, inter alia, “specialists in meat”, which has never sounded much an enticement to me, at least).

But what I do not come across, what is never publicised is whether a place is just weird.

Weirdness comes in many guises. Weird location, weird food, weird people. And weirdness is a positive, in my book at any rate. Forget your romantic ambience, I want restaurants, bars, anything that are nuts, strange, left-field, off-the-wall, bonkers. I want ghoulish ambience, ghoulish people, bearded women, restaurants with no food, bars with no drink, the inhabitants of Bedlam.

Where are these places? They must exist. So tell me. The weirder the better. And, rest assured, the weird will be given its place in the sun (irrespective of terrace) on this blog. The rules for the search are that the weirdness must be an advantage and this weirdness would make you return. So, come on ...


Meantime, the merely magnificent. Recently I discovered an astonishing restaurant near Santa Margalida. Hardly a difficult place to discover as it sits next to the main road. Except that is that no-one ever goes to Santa Margalida, which is hardly surprising as there is little worth going for if you are the average tourist. This is a mistake, however. There is a quite impressive church, totally oversized given the size of the town, and an impressively unremarkable monument thing. Santa Margalida would be a good entry for weird towns, for which I invite more input. And it should be noted that the castle-looking affair as you go towards the town belongs to one Demis Roussos, so I was told. Not weird as such, but worth a trek to spot the large Greek.

Anyway, the restaurant is Es Turó, which is part of the very old S’Alqueria des Comte. Very, very impressive. So here´s a piccy.



Manacor’s favourite son and muscle-bound tennis heart-throb, Rafael Nadal, declares in today’s “Sunday Times” that his favourite music includes Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams.

Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams. God forbid.

Go back almost a year - to 27 May last year in fact - to find out why I cannot stand Bryan Adams.


I found out yesterday that Leapy Lee was actually born Graham Pulleyblank. He goes up in my estimation.

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All The Time In The World

I thought to say that the Spanish don’t understand time. But I have reconsidered. They understand it only too well. They take the abstract and extend it to its extremes. How else can one explain the – literal – moveable feast that is midday and hence lunchtime?

Perhaps it’s a trait of Spanish culture that they can treat the abstract with such regard. Picasso was but mere canvas to a national pastime, as it were.

The mañana ethos is too facile a description of the Spanish ambivalent adoration of time. It implies a tomorrow, when that tomorrow rarely, if ever, comes. Except when it suits.

To the northern European expat conditioned – variously – by WASPish or Prussian punctiliousness and punctuality, the void that is Spanish time can be hard to fathom.

And so is the Spanish attitude to communication. This is especially unfathomable, given that the Spanish nation has had a mobile phone surgically grafted onto to one of its collective ears. Yet, they don’t phone. They never phone.

I say all this from experience. I still don’t get Spanish time or Spanish communication. How long have I been here? I can’t say. To do so would be to seek to make tangible the abstract. Perhaps I should go native.


To other matters … Here we go again. Summer’s barely on us and the papers are screaming about jellyfish. Unlike last year’s plague, which didn’t happen, it might be a tad more likely this year. Apparently the little blighters have been loitering with intent in the waters around the Balearics during the winter rather than pissing off elsewhere, as is normally the case.

Some of you may know that the Spanish for jellyfish is “medusa”. I have an awful confession to make. I was once in a rock band that was called Medusa. Wasn’t my idea, honest. It was a lousy name especially as we were part of what was the at-the-time south-west Surrey music scene that spawned Graham Parker, The Jam and The Members. Medusa. How embarrassing.

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Vota Vota Vota

There’s an election going on. And remarkably it doesn’t involve Tony Blair. Thank God. That Trimdon speech out-did even a Serbian Eurovision winner for sheer feigned emoting.

No, these elections are local to here. And I can’t avoid them. This fucking poster turned up on the telegraph post outside my house a couple of days back. It shows a rogue’s gallery of various worthies (let’s give them the benefit of the doubt) all shot in a field, which is probably what should happen to most politicians.

The poster belongs to the PP (Conservatives to you and me). Last time there was an election, a group of PPers turned up at the gate and attempted to engage me in conversation. The foreign vote was very important, they said. Maybe it is. But I don’t vote for any of them. Not through apathy, but because there is no real attempt to engage “foreigners” in the local political process. Well, none that I am aware of, at any rate.

But if a similar group pitches up this time, what I want to know most is what they plan to do about the weeds growing in the road. Those nice green weeds heading skyward towards a poster of politicians in a field.


And just by the bye. As some acute regular readers of this blog will know, I publish local guides. I was at my printers yesterday. The print shop was full of posters for this and that politician. Printers are log-jammed at this time of year, what with getting menus, cards, maps, guides etc all done. Into this mix come the PP and PSOE and the rest. Brilliant timing.

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Sing Something Simple

Eurovision. An annual event, and an annual feature on this most Euro of blogs. The Spanish take this nonsense seriously, but given that it is indistinguishable from the rest of Spanish television, this is not surprising.

The contest has never been about music. Now it is a glorious and cynical exploitation by the mobile industry of the diaspora and the nationalistic and xenophobic tendencies of the not-so-long liberated eastern Europe and near Asia. They should just junk the song part and move straight to the voting. Brilliant.

But it cannot be taken seriously. If it were, how could one possibly explain the UK entry. Only at one level was it spot-on – a couple of homosexualists and some dodgy totty. Pretty much like any cabin crew. And for anyone who wondered whatever happened to Timmy Mallett, it would appear he’s now Ukrainian.

For what it’s worth, there was but one song that grabbed me. Despite or perhaps because of the George Michael rip-off, Turkey was the stand-out.


Meanwhile … after all the dire weather, it is now starting to large it. Perhaps all those predictions of a hot-hot-hot summer might come true.

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Oxygenated

Too busy. Too busy. Little time. But, in the irregular series of who is new and where, here we go … Oxygen in the Avda. Mexico just near the Greasy Mile has a new Dave, and an Amanda. And to prove it, here’s a photo. Nice place, nice folk.


I thought long and hard about taking a photo, but no. There were flowers on the Carretera opposite the Delfin Azul. It’s the anniversary of the terrible road accident last year. I didn’t take a photo of the flowers. Too intrusive.


And always keen to oblige with those neat little sites. Added to the links is one for Piccadilly. It's from Ben, who I hadn't seen for years until I bumped into him at the Vamps opening gig. Check out the site - good pics.


Pop quiz update – Geoff has been good to enough to let me know that it was one P. Townsend who wrote “Run, Run, Run” after all. And he can claim his Transunion timetable when next here. R. Dean Taylor was the male Motown artist. Female? Kiki Dee.

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A Load Of Rubbish

There are facts of interest, and then there facts of no interest at all. But, never let it be said that something of no interest prevents me from telling you about it.

Rubbish.

There’s a lot to be said for rubbish in Mallorca. Or at least its collection. First-rate. None of this two-weekly, maggot-ridden, tubercular, Third-World rubbish collection in benighted blighty. Every night here.

And, despite separate containers for recycling, don’t worry, just chuck it all in to the general container. Batteries, broken plastic garden furniture, nuclear waste. In it all goes. That’s my type of rubbish collection.

But, and now I come to the fact of no interest, there is other rubbish collection.

During the winter there was a beach rubbish-clearing exercise. Cost a cool 600,000 euros. No matter, this investment brought about a total collection of 168,757 kilos of rubbish. Impressive, huh?

Well, what is impressive is that great armies of the otherwise unwashed unemployed have seemingly had the job to count the rubbish. Rummaging around landfills with sets of scales, doubtless.

But where does it all go? I have the answer. It came to me after bumping into Paul Danks. As an accountant, I bow to his numeracy skills. The four thousand holes in Puerto Pollensa sounded an under-estimate to Paul. Probably right. But whatever the number, they can stuff them full of 168,757 kilos of beach rubbish.


Always in pursuit of some new bar or other that you should patronise, word up for Café Art 66 in Cala San Vicente. Strange place for a chill-out bar, given the blueness of the rinse of the average Cala tourist, but maybe the Cala will become this summer’s cool. Or maybe it won’t. Whatever, good luck to Ramon, it’s a very nice place.


Sitcom quiz – Blakey was of course played by Stephen Lewis. But now we’re back to the pop quiz. Here’s a belter, courtesy of Maconie and Radcliffe. Huge prizes. A copy of the Autocares Mallorca timetable to anyone who knows the name of the first white female artist to record for Motown. And … a copy also of the impenetrable Transunion bus timetable for Pollensa for those who also know the name of the first white male to record for Motown.

And while on Maconie and Radcliffe, they have given this blog its current record of 2007. Laura Veirs, “To The Country” from her CD “Saltbreakers”. Blissful.

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On The Buses

Here’s a strange thing.

I go to the tourist office in the paseo in Puerto Alcudia. Marina, do you have a new bus timetable? Oh, no, Autocares Mallorca aren’t bringing us any. Why not? Don’t know.

So, I go to the main tourist office in Alcudia. I ask Magdalena the same question. Same answer. Same lack of explanation.

So then I go to the Autocares office. Why aren’t you taking copies of the bus timetable to the tourist offices? Er, one girl passes me on to another. Something about tomorrow, or maybe, or something. Who knows?

Now, this might seem a slightly arcane subject to highlight, but it has a serious side. Fact is that the bus timetables always start on 1 May. Fact is that tourists need this information. Fact is that, among the top five questions tourist offices get asked, is what are the times of buses to …

Now personally I think worrying about what time a bus may or may not turn up is a form of stress best left at the airport check-in. When and if they come, they come. If you can get on, fine. If you can’t, just wait, or give up.

But this sort of thing matters to tourists. So, why is there such a disjointed approach to provision of information? Autocares Mallorca may not be a state company, but they are a stakeholder in the overall success, or otherwise, of their local community, of which tourists form a vital part.

Not to worry, the timetables will probably turn up tomorrow, or maybe they won’t.


Ok, so we’ve moved on from the pop quiz. Now, it’s old sitcoms. The title of this piece is from one. So, here goes. Name the actor who played Blakey? Easy.

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The Start Of Summer

First of May. Public holiday.

When isn’t it a public holiday here? I get endlessly confused by public holidays. Just when you think it’s some religious deal, turns out to be nothing of the sort, like Constitution Day. So May 1 is boring old Labour Day. Not a saint in sight. You could be forgiven for thinking that the only saint who is not celebrated here is Simon Templar.

Not that Labour Day will be given its rightful celebration. Oh no. The first year in Britain when this became a holiday I was still at university. My what a craic. We kidnapped a prominent member of the Socialist Workers’ Party, got him drunk and took compromising photos. All in the best of taste of course.

Spain may have enjoyed something of an economic miracle, but it still tries its hardest to suppress productivity. Take a saint, any old saint will do. Have a holiday.

That economic miracle, that economic boom, has been based to a large extent on property, and property prices. Well, things are not looking so good. The Spanish stock market has been hit by investors divesting their property stocks in anticipation of the bubble bursting in the Spanish property market. About time, too. Property is overpriced. Not necessarily wonderful news for all those on Estate Agent Street in Puerto Pollensa. Or maybe it will be, if property becomes more affordable.

But back to saints. The Catalan for saint is sant. I heard a joke yesterday. Who’s the saint for food? Santwich. Doesn’t really work in its written form, but I thought it was quite funny.

One other thing about the first of May is that denotes the start of summer, in that here spring and autumn more or less don’t register in people’s consciousnesses. Summer is May to October, in other words the main tourist season.

Pop quiz – the title of the last piece came from Jefferson Starship, in the days when they still were Jefferson.


Index for April

British products - 17 April 2007
Cafe Bony - 17 April 2007
Can Picafort - 27 April 2007
Corruption - 27 April 2007
Cyclists - 19 April 2007, 25 Apirl 2007, 27 April 2007
Didis Coast Adeventure - 25 April 2007
Driving - 7 April 2007
Eroski Syp - 17 April 2007
Estate agencies - 19 April 2007
Grupo Boulevard - 11 April 2007
Language -17 April 2007, 19 April 2007, 21 April 2007
Peter Maffay - 25 April 2007
Nordic walking - 25 April 2007
Parking - 3 April 2007
Religion - 11 April 2007
Road deaths - 13 April 2007
Roads - 20 April 2007
Roundabouts - 7 April 2007
Sa Pobla Cricket Club - 1 April 2007
Sunbeds - 27 April 2007
Taste of India - 3 April 2007
Tourists - 3 April 2007, 7 April 2007
Traditions - 21 April 2007
Trencadora - 25 April 2007
Vamps - 3 April 2007, 11 April 2007, 15 April 2007
Weather - 13 April 2007

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If Only You Believed In Miracles

I have witnessed a miracle. Stone effigies weeping? Dead men walking? A handful of fish and loaves becoming more than a mere handful? None of these. Something the more miraculous as it was so unexpected.

Trafico stopped a cyclist who went through a red light.

Maybe I should revise all that stuff about not being a believer. It was a divine moment. Not even Trafico could not have done anything. If you are going to cross a red, it’s always best to do it when a Guardia 4x4 isn’t coming out of the road that has the green. But she did. There is a God after all.


It has been a while since corruption reared its immoral head here, but today news comes of major raids in Palma. I was slightly worried that it was my lawyer who happens to be in the same road as an office raided. Phew.

Anyway, that’s by the bye. Locally, the little local issue involving the ex-mayor of Santa Margalida (done for a spot of less than appropriate behaviour) rumbles on in that the concession for providing sunbeds and parasols on Can Picafort beach is unlikely to be granted this season. Seemingly, the only offer came from someone associated with the former mayor. So, if you are off to Can Pic, you will just have to enjoy getting thoroughly sunburnt and getting a small quarry of sand in your cossies.


Pop quiz update – Geoff says The Who’s song was originally a Motown thing. Come on, you lot, get answering. The group from last time was the amazing Spirit, and the guitarist was Randy California.
We’ve been here before, but the line of this piece’s title is from …?

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Sonne in der Nacht

The miserable weather that did indeed last thirty days and thirty nights has given way to a week of blissful Mallorcan spring. At one stage, you might have expected to have found an arc perched atop the local puigs (hills) and animals embarking two-by-two, which apparently is how animals enter arcs. Now, there are moans about the heat. I was at Didi’s bike place in Puerto Alcudia yesterday. Two hale-and-hearty Germans returned with their bikes. “Zuper”, it had been, but “zu heiss”. Well, if you must do over 100 kilometres in 24 degrees what do you expect.

While at this bike place, Didi was telling me that he also promotes Nordic walking. Now this is an odd thing. I first became aware of the Mallorcaisation of Nordic walking when clocking some Germans in a supermarket. Skiing, I thought. Where were they skiing? And why carry their sticks into a supermarket? Slaloming down the north face of the bakery section?

Now in Germany you can find vast hordes traversing the plains in earnest pursuit of aerobic activity supported by two sticks. But here, for the most part, the sticks are used as … sticks. To extract any benefit from the sticks, what you do not do is just use them as a form of crutch. Still, there are those who do it correctly. Some have just gone past the house. “Click, click, clack, clack.”


And something of a German theme today as Trencadora in Pollensa has had its re-opening. Some of you may know that Trencadora is owned by the rock guitarist Peter Maffay. For many that name will mean nothing, but he is big in Germany. And speak to a German, like my neighbour Carina, and you’ll hear he’s a top bloke.

Anyway Trencadora, which is a fabulous place, hasn’t really worked, but now the charming Jutta has her hands on it, and let’s hope it does well. The photos are from the re-opening.


Many thanks by the way to Geoff who offered The Who as an answer to the Run, Run, Run question, in that he said they did a cover of a song by this name. I had in mind Jo Jo Gunne. So, if anyone knows who did the original that The Who covered, do please let us know.

And keeping this going. Jo Jo Gunne were formed by Jay Ferguson, who was a member of which American West Coast band, the guitarist in which was related to Jimi Hendrix? And as a word of explanation, the title of this piece is also the title of a Peter Maffay hit record – so now you know.

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Run, Run, Run

Appropriately enough, given it’s the London Marathon tomorrow, a bit of a running theme, if only because – and it is a tad tenuous, granted – there was a touch of quaint old Mallorcan tradition at play in Alcudia and elsewhere today.

According to Ian at Chess, a man who knows about these things, the racket outside the town hall was all in aid of something known as “corre llengua”, which literally – I think – means run language, or more likely, forward with language or some such. Anyway, whatever it means, it is all to do with promoting the local lingo. So here is a photo that does that, apparently. Told you it was tenuous.


The Scottish band was of course Deacon Blue. And today’s poser – which American group had a hit with the title of today’s piece?

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Four Thousand Holes

Yes, pop-pickers, yet another musical motif. No prizes for the title. Everyone knows the origin. What everyone may not know is that Blackburn, Lancashire has been shifted. Shifted some hundreds of kilometres south. Shifted to Puerto Pollensa in fact. Not that Pto P is much like Blackburn – and yes I have been to Blackburn, and Darwen and Accrington, before you ask – but it does share holes. Bloody great big holes. Bloody great big holes in roads. And roads in a state of nuclear winter.

Every year, just the same. Four thousand holes in Puerto Pollensa, Mallorca. But I suspect some of the holes – and roads – may have to do with Taylor Woodrow’s building on the old Garbi hole. From one enormous hole to four thousand small, but still tyre-cracking holes. Taylor Woodrow – “We deconstruct since months”. Or something like that. Dodgy English.


And the answers to yesterday’s quiz. Steely Dan was William Burroughs. Starship built that city, and The Shamen thought e’s were good. An adjunct question. Which Scottish rock band was named after a Steely Dan song?

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The State Of The Estate

“We built this city on rock and roll.” Thus sang who (one of today’s pop quiz posers).

More like, we built this city on estate agencies. Puerto Pollensa at any rate. And it’s not the only place. There is a street in Puerto Pollensa, Juan XXIII, that could easily be re-named Estate Agency Street. How many estate agents does a place need, for God’s sake?

Well, more than thirty in Pto P, that’s how many. More than thirty chasing a commission that would make even that most hard-faced breed, the British estate agent, blush with embarrassment.

But this is not my theme. No, we’re back to that old friend – dodgy English. So, what’s with the estate agency angle, I hear you all ask? State, that’s the angle. State, as in missing an “e”. In this particular instance, “e’s” are most certainly good. However, take this example. There is a magazine called “Miramar”. Front cover has the words “Real State”. The context is property. It is a common error that I can only but attribute to an over-compensation to avoid putting an “e” in front of an “s” (as would be usual in Spanish) but cocking it up. A mistake, yes, but, once again, I ask why. You can find estate agencies ballsing this up in a similar way. No excuse.


So there I was, just about to exit a side road from the carretera by Restaurant Boy in Playa de Muro. The lights were flashing to let me go.

I know to look left. Just as bloody well. Straight through the red comes a line of German cyclists. They just don’t give a shit, do they. The last couple waved by way of thanks. I had an idea for a wave. Quite different. Two fingers forming a circle, my arm going up and down in a pumping fashion. Not worth it, is it. Forget it.

Answers to the previous Pop Quiz. “Peg” was Steely Dan. “Jake The Peg” was of course Rolf. Today’s bonus quiz question. Where does Steely Dan come from? And the two regular questions, one has already been posed (in the opening line here), and the second is about “e’s” are good. Who was it? Too eezy.

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“I’m Jake (or Jose) The Peg”

It’s ok, it’s ok, the weather’s ok. “DON’T PANIC, DON’T PANIC.”

And the cry “DON’T PANIC” can be heard resonating across Puerto Pollensa’s church square. No, it is not – sadly – Corporal Jones, bayonet a-fixed and a-pointed, scattering startled Germans. “They don’t like it up ‘em, Captain.”

It is of course Jose from Bony. A man, a catch-phrase. For all your 4Ps of marketing, when it comes to bars, if you ain’t got the fifth one – personality – you may’swell jack it in now. And Jose has it in buckets, or rather in large glass jars from which he throws sweets to the kids.

Now it does help that Bony is in the church square, but Bony still manages to attract custom from morose competitors. In a word – Jose.

Is he crazy? Not a bit of it. Clever, my friends. And shown here is one of his marketing images. Yes, it really is a clothes-peg. Make of it what you will.


Britain is England. England is Britain. The Spanish are not alone in not quite getting the difference. The Germans and Americans also stumble. Let’s be honest, there are a number of English, or British, who don’t know what Britain is. But it takes the offer of food to put this all into sharp relief.

Eroski Syp is publicising a tasting of English products this Thursday. Not British, English. Pre-empting this feast, Syp has set out some products already. The Welsh and Scots should be grateful. On the display are – amongst other items worthy of avoiding – … Hula-Hoops. Yes, Hula-Hoops. The crème de la crème of English products, the Hula-Hoop.

The fact that the sign advertising this must-be-missed event is in English suggests that the Spanish will not be eschewing their paella for something soggy in tomato sauce. (Actually, the Spanish do soggy in tomato sauce quite well for themselves, thank you.)

This whole English-British confusion was also to be found recently on a note sellotaped to the Perspex surrounding of the pool at the Africa Mar Hotel in Can Picafort. (Class, eh, sellotaped note.) It asked for a waiter proficient in the “idioma británico”. That’s the “British language” if you don’t know.

British language. Muppets.


And in tribute to Jose and his peg, here is today’s Pop Quiz. Which American rock band (mainly the seventies) did a track called “Peg”? And of course, which Australian was responsible for the unbracketed title of this piece? Clue – it wasn’t Kylie.

Prize. As always, there is no prize.

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Re-Vamped

At the risk of this blog becoming a form of benefit gig for Vamps, here are some pics of the opening thrash.

Good luck to Les and Lesley.

Winter in Spring

And for thirty days and thirty nights did it rain. And the rivers of hell did overflow and bring forth a flood. The keeper of the wells did cast his eye skyward, and declare it good. For it was good, for wells and ducks. But lo, there came upon the northern domain a group of travellers bedecked in football shirts and shorts, and they did cast their eyes skyward and declare it a pile of shit. And so it was. And so it was. For thirty days and thirty nights.

Well, a bit of an exaggeration perhaps, but it really is lousy. Yet apparently the weather people say it has rained less than average in some parts. Hard to believe.


No bright news. Despite the introduction of the licence points system, road deaths have increased again. The Guardia want more resources. But, and I say it again, does it really combat reckless driving and speeding if you stick your resources at roundabouts where the most they might pick up are seat-belt and mobile offences? Yes, you might also get some drink offences, but the real problem is what goes on on the open road, like the carretera that passes in front of my house. Want speeding? It’s here. Want reckless driving? Ditto.

Beware A Tie And A Smile

I am not a believer.

No, this is not by way of a contradictory Monkees thing. I’m going religion here, in a roundabout sort of way.

I am not a believer. But some are. That’s for them. This is not my point. What is, is religious apparel. No, not habits, nothing like that. Ties, I’m talking ties.

In Mallorca, the wearing of ties is generally reserved for those with a serious business intent, unlike most of us. But it is also the accessory of choice for those of religion. Some while ago, close observers of this blog will recall my encounter with a protagonist for the Gideon Bible outside Eroski Syp in Puerto Alcúdia - as you do. Nice chap he was. But he wore a tie. And he smiled.

Yesterday, ambling along the Paseo Colon in Can Picafort, I happened upon an acquaintance. She was with a group outside a cafe. I clocked the bible. Then I clocked the smile and the tie of one of the group. Jehovah’s Witnesses.

I claim no great knowledge of their ways, except being woken from boozy slumbers of a New Year’s Day lunchtime by a ring on the bell and Peter Knowles giving up a career with Wolves to embrace a tie, a smile and a foot in the door.

So, when in Mallorca and a smiling, tie-wearing Brit sidles up to, run for your lives or be prepared to give up a good half-an-hour of your lives.


Well I mentioned the fact that “Vamps” was on the point of opening, and it will do so - this coming Saturday. And here is the logo that Les has kindly sent me. See more info on the What’s On Blog.

And given that there will be, amongst the entertainment on the Vamps opening night, an Elvis impersonator, here is also a photo of some metal art from the Tattoo shop next to Vamps, courtesy of the very nice Guido and Fernanda. Well, I think it looks like Elvis.


Grupo Boulevard’s colonisation of Playa de Muro is more or less complete in the sense that much of their DIY centre has opened to the public. Well, the optimistically monikered “Hyper Market” is open at any rate. More than can be said of other places.

The Rose and Crown remains neglected and unloved, as it was all last summer. The George and Dragon is up for rent, as is Shooters (which has been for some three years). Maybe Boulevard will make a go of things. They may not be loved by all, but at least they are trying to put some class into - as I have said before - a singularly unlovely part of the Playa.

Roads To Hell

It’s started. The early-season harmonies of vehicle horns merrily hooting and a-tooting as those attached to the horns come up against the first trikes-on-the-main-roads of Spring. Oh, and the woman on the roller blades pushing the baby buggy. Yep, she’s back. May not be the same woman, but always this time of the season there’s at least one.

The joys of motoring when the season starts to kick in. One can be happily driving along the glorious avenue that is the Greasy Mile admiring its splendid architecture, and suddenly - from behind a parked bus - out veers a junior lard mountain struggling to control a trike.

I have a further suggestion for clogging up the roads with things that should never be allowed near a stretch of tarmac. Take the wheels off the trikes, and let the fitness fanatics who would normally be on bikes, run with them, like the cars on “The Flintstones”. Better still, if the cyclists were to keep their shoes on, imagine the fabulous cacophony of clipping and clopping. A sure winner, I fancy.


And finally, here is the photo of the Pointed Thing Roundabout. Well, it wasn’t a nice day, but the whatever-it-is still looks resplendent. More I look at, more I go dental equipment. Or maybe it’s some form of punishment. Sit on that - as it were. Very Vlad, very Impaler.

Coming up, our great competition – name your favourite item of roundabout decoration. Remember, only this blog would come up with such incredible competitions.

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Tomato, Tomato, Tomayto, Tomayto

You say tomato, I say tomayto. In fact I say tinned tomato, and Les at The Canny Lad says plum tomato. Now this all stems from 2 August last year when I did something about breakfasts. To reprise: The Canny Lad, or so I said, offered just yer tinned tomato. Turns out it doesn’t only do the plum variety, but the fresh one, too. So I’m pleased to right this scurrilous wrong. These things matter, you know.

And while I’m at it, let’s add Foxes near the Magic Roundabout to the list of breakfast establishments, and – likely too – JKs in Puerto Pollensa. Jane and Kevin have thus far eschewed the full English, but this could be about to change.

Also while I’m at it. Les (and Lesley) are on the point of opening another bar. This one’s to be called “Vamps”, it being an adult-themed bar. Work thus far on it looks good, and it is situated on the Calle Astoria, just off the Greasy Mile by Bells. And on the same strip, what was Agra is now Taste of India. Much as I loved Izzy (at Agra), the place badly needed a makeover, and it is getting one, courtesy of the new boss, one Sirag, which sounds like Shearer, much to the delight of Geordies amongst us.


I’ve been asked to talk about parking, There is parking, and then there is Mallorcan parking. Why park in one space, when two will do nicely. That’s but one style of Mallorcan parking. Then there is the all-road parking, i.e. in the middle of the road. Or the pedestrian-crossing parking. Given that crossings are treated with scant regard by drivers here, that some might park on them should come as no surprise. And finally, there is the parking in hash-marked-boxes-which-are-meant-to-tell-you-not-to-park-or-you’ll-get-towed-away parking. Great sport, this one. I heartily recommend a coffee at Bar Norai in Puerto Alcudia just so you can wait for plod to come along, book a car improperly parked in the car park opposite and call for the removal truck. Excellent stuff. More of this.


Early-season Holiday Brains (an old friend of a theme from last season). Look, it’s only about 15 degrees, it’s raining at times (and a lot), I know folk want to make the most of it, but why are they walking across main roads in bare feet. Nuts, or what.

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Lovely Sa Pobla By-The-Sea

Well, I really did seem to start something. All that talk of global warming and flooding reaching as far as Sa Pobla brought literally thousands of responses all expressing the same concern. Whither the wicket at the Sa Pobla Cricket Club? Whither, or wither indeed.

Most notable was this highly evocative appraisal of the SPCC circa 2050 as the sea comes ever closer. I am indebted to Alastair and Angela for this Cardusian description which juxtaposes the old splendour of the great days of the SPCC threatened by the predicted encroachment of the sea.

"The ground slopes slightly towards the sea and a ball from this end can sometimes get lost against the stand. This, and the sea fret which makes the ball swing and dip, can bring early thrills on a green wicket but too often when the life is gone it becomes so very placid.

"Of all the great names of Sa Pobla cricket perhaps Maurice Tate is remembered with the greatest affection. From 1912 he shouldered the bowling of Sa Pobla and England over the next 25 years and when he finally sent down his last over the club honoured him with a magnificent pair of gates at the main entrance.

"Towering blocks of flats now hem in the ends of the ground but they cannot change its character, for it has mellowed in the history of the game and is an area worthy of the best in cricket. Set no more than a stone's throw from the sea, Sa Pobla has the atmosphere of a seaside resort, and the deckchairs at the northern end add to that feel. The sea can be glimpsed from the pavilion (side on to the wicket) and splendid views of the Tramuntana are partially obscured by the flats.

"These days, Sa Pobla has a slightly decrepit air, but that adds to its appeal."

Truly peerless, I'm sure you will all agree.

The attached photo shows the marvellous SPCC from the early 1930s digitally remastered to show the proximity of the sea, as might be expected by 2050. In this, we can just determine the great Maurice Tate (pictured separately) bowling to the Nawab of Alcudia during the famous Potato Series of matches between the SPCC/MCC and the Gentlemen of Northern Mallorca XI. Yes, boats could be drifting onto the outfield. Save the SPCC now! Curb carbon emissions!

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Pointless And Pointed

Who switched the lights off?

Zero sun, a bullseye of rain and three degrees this morning at 10 o’clock. Three degrees! Pity the poor sods who have pitched up hoping for some Spring heat. How utterly depressing.

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, the Carretera Arta. Well, no it’s a crap idea - the red track I mentioned last time. Karen from Foxes was giving the situation a good once-over and was muttering darkly about drivers using it rather than cyclists, which begs the question - what is the point of it? Who knows, but the whole sorry mess is leading to sweeps as to the number of accidents (and worse) through the season.

But there is always some new roundabout furniture to make the whole effort seem worthwhile. In the middle of the new one at the Palma-Sa Pobla turn, some sleek steel thing has been erected. An executive pen-holder? A piece of dental equipment?

A fish-hook is the best offer so far.

When it stops raining, in a few days, expect a nice photo and you can all enter our quiz. Name that thing on the roundabout. My guess is that, in years to come, people will refer to it not simply (as with the horse roundabout, though even the horse in question is somewhat open to other interpretations), but far more vaguely as the Pointed Thing Roundabout. And they would of course be right. That’s it. The official name. I’ve just coined it. Rotonda Cosa Puntiaguda. I hereby claim my contribution to local culture.

Rains And Boats And Cranes

And so the crappy weather meant that the cuttlefish and boat affairs in Puerto Alcudia were not the success of last year. There were people around, quite a lot in fact, but the terraces were not thronged - too cold and too much of a threat of rain. Still, I got a tasty tapa of sepia in a tangy sauce at La Recoleta; very nice it was, too.

It wasn’t as though there weren’t folk on the terraces. Hardy groups of Germans, who will sit through a gale and plagues of locusts to ensure they are fed at the correct time, were to be noted, as they were - in some abundance - earlier in the day at Cafe Paris’s brunchtime music Sunday. Paris, Can Picafort that is. Not Paris, Paris or Paris, Texas. It is quite marked just how German Can Pic is. And being towards midday, the cry is “Mahlzeit”, one of the German language’s odder utterings, Mahlzeit being a greeting used at mealtimes. Think about it. In England all these folk wandering about at midday shouting “meal time”.


At this time of the year, Easter coming up, the first real flocks of tourists arriving, you would think that all the work that needs to be done would be through. Not a bit of it. As I said at the same time last year, there is a theory that much of the building work that occurs at this time is done purely to prove to people that something is being done (there being fewer folk around earlier in the winter to impress). Consequently, you can turn any corner and be likely to encounter some fucking crane parked in the middle of the road and a couple of weasly workers in luminous jackets who have a communication breakdown in the synchronisation of their stop-go signs.

Amidst all this work, there may though be some semblance of common sense. By the Magic Roundabout I now notice that a red track has been painted to direct cyclists off of the Carretera and onto the side road that runs parallel. Now this might just be a good idea, although it would make for dangerous times ahead for pedestrians. Watch this space.

Pick a Peck o’ Pickled Picafort

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The title of this site may be AlcudiaPollensa, but it doesn’t stop me from talking about other places. Can Picafort, for example. Not a place that gets much of a look-in here. Not a place that gets much of a look-in anywhere to be honest.

It’s a strange place. Nice enough. Pleasant residential areas. Neatly laid-out road system (assuming that matters). Nice hotels (an enormous number of them). But it sort of lacks something. It’s like Playa de Muro, only bigger. The front-line there does look a bit scrappy in parts, so news that some upgrading is to be done at the Son Bauló end is to be welcomed, though how much of an improvement a relatively small spend will bring about is questionable.

At least no-one has tried to set fire to the hotels. Unlike in Alcúdia. Three of them - the Sofia Apartments, the Ciudad Blanca and the Viva Golf - have all been the target of some pyromania. The suspicion is that it’s the work of a disgruntled ex-worker (or ex-workers), though the fact that the three establishments have no connection makes it all seem a bit odd, unless the same ex-worker has managed to be kicked out of three jobs. For the record, there was no great damage, just some mattresses went up apparently.

This weekend will see the second sepia and nautical fairs in Puerto Alcúdia. Sepia, let me remind you all, means cuttlefish. Bizarre though it sounds, they devote a whole weekend to budgie food. The combined event was a rip-roaring success last year, but then the weather was brilliant, which it isn’t at the moment. Winter arrived yesterday.

And talking of rips, Trev from La Sala was wondering why I hadn’t taken more of a rip out of the new road system along the Carretera Arta. Strange, I thought I had. Anyway, here are some adjectives:

Ill-conceived, lousy, half-brained, stupid, mad, poorly-thought-out, nuts. Or perhaps ... an example of innovative traffic management and circulation designed to aid both road users and pedestrians. Ok, the last one certainly wasn’t an adjective. Any other offers?

From the Business Pages: Hot on the heels of Thomas Cook (Neckermann) taking over My Travel and Aspro Ocio (Marineland etc) taking over Western Park, now we have Thomson (TUI) acquiring First Choice. Yea, yea, so it says merger. No such thing, my friends. There is always a first amongst so-called equals, and barely ever has a merger been anything other than an acquisition. Setting aside the Marineland activity, the big four tour companies are now the big two. Both German. “Sunbedsraum” by any other name.

“Like Shooting Fish In A Barrel” - Part Two

Before I get to the subject of the title, something about service.

A US retail chain, Nordstrom, made a name for itself by offering outstanding service. Not just your ordinary how-can-I-help-you variety, but extraordinary service. It was encouraged. So if a customer was in a spot, needed a lift, say, to the airport, Nordstrom would deliver.

Now Puerto Alcúdia is not the US. Little Britain is not Nordstrom, but check this out. Today a rather frail lady came into the shop. She realised she had lost a bag. Had to be in the Syp store. The bag had medicines in it and money. No sooner mentioned than acted upon. Off went Steve to Syp, and retrieved the bag.

That’s what I call service.


So, those fish in the barrel. Another easy target has to be Leapy Lee in “Euro Weekly”. Full respect to EW for publishing the letter, as a correspondent finished her criticism of the Leapster thus:

“What I really can’t understand is how a publication that seems unbiased in every other way can publish Leapy’s weekly criticism of anything and everything. His points are sometimes valid, but please can you really call that writing! It’s in bad taste and I for one would like to see him gone.”

I’m saying nothing.


I forgot to mention. A caption beneath a photo of an ashen-faced Stuart Pearce. “Pearce yesterday dismissed speculation that is facing the sack.” Amazing what the absence of a pronoun can do.

Also - reporting a US study into the effects of Omega-3, reference was made to “gray” matter. Either a straight take from a US-originated editorial release or a failure to change to British English. “Gray” in British English is only a noun - it is a unit of radiation measure. “Gray” in British English does not exist as an adjective.

Where do these two examples come from? Where do you think?

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

“Like Shooting Fish In A Barrel”

I like this saying. When Martin Clunes once used it on “Have I Got News For You”, I made a note. Must use that some time.

“The Daily Bulletin”. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

Yesterday’s issue. Front page - Weather Forecast page 28. Er no, the Lashter actually, but only one out, page 29. See New Feature, Your Shout, p. 14. Two out, page 16.

But there’s more. Oh, yes. On the Lash page. Reference to many in British sport who have pitched up at one of his mates’ restaurants - “From Sir Alex Ferguson to Tommy Dority.” Tommy Dority? Who he? And then there’s a photo of one of the mates. With a “great (?)” of British sport - Joe Royal. Yes, yes, Joe Royal. Not Joe Royle, but Joe Royal.

Today’s issue. Aspro Ocio’s takeover of Western Water Park. Refers to “Agualand”. No, no, Aqualand.

Bad day(s) at the sub’s desk perhaps.

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

* I googled Tommy Dority. Didn’t bother after page one. Two mentions, one pertaining to charlestonrunningclub.com, the other to a site for air medical professionals. Must be the first one then.

“Feelin’ Hot, Hot, Hot”

At the risk of sounding repetitive ... Yesterday’s “Sunday Times” summarised the arguments set forth by Mark Lynas in his book “Our Future on a Hotter Planet” (Harper Collins). They made for startling reading.

Lynas sets out scenarios based on increases in temperature of one degree, to a maximum of six (which in effect means oblivion, and may - hopefully - be some many years off). In the shorter-term, he sees zero chance of avoiding a one-degree increase, itself bad enough as it will set off - inter alia - coastal flooding, drought and the partial tearing-apart of mountains. That’s one degree. Between one and two-degree heating is expected within 40 years. The 2003 heatwave will be the norm, Mediterranean holidays will cease; it will be too hot. People will seek to move north or to higher ground. When temperatures were last one to two degrees higher, the sea levels were five or six metres higher - five or six metres!!!

Doesn’t sound too good, does it. No more Mallorca holidays, no more Mallorca villas by the sea, no more Mallorca. 40 years. Half a lifetime.

The Germans, longer in environmental awareness than many other peoples, are being encouraged to holiday at home, and there are concerns that this could affect what was predicted to be a second successive ”record year” for tourism. I doubt it really will. Despite their environmental awareness, the Germans are pretty much wedded to turning mahogany under a Mallorcan sun.

“A Bicycle, Not A Road, Made For Two”

Now let’s get one thing straight; I am not anti-cycling. Indeed I am pro-cycling. Environmentally friendly, good for the health. Be it rigorous sport or a leisurely pedal regarding splendid vistas, cycling has a lot going for it.

BUT.

Years ago there was one of those public information adverts that used to get trotted out about driving. It depicted a driver turning into a devil. Cyclist: same anti-Christ, different set of wheels. Not all, of course not all, but some, oh yes. Let loose on the roads in these parts, there is a breed of cyclist who is transformed into - and I can think of only one word: four letters, c-alliterative.

The pantomime-horse shoes don’t help of course, but at least they are vaguely comedic. What is not is: riding through red lights; riding on the wrong side of the road; riding in the middle of the road (ignoring the cycle lanes). Someone said today: “they (cyclists) show a lack of courtesy”. Perhaps they are getting their own back. Cyclists and drivers; ne’er shall the twain meet, except when they collide with each other.

Which brings me of course to the Carretera Arta. Alcúdia council, unlike Muro’s (the main road remains stubbornly un-resurfaced as one enters Playa de Muro), has forked out a good chunk of euros on the road’s improvement. However, as I pointed out on 11 February, there is a bit of a design fault in the new road’s layout. Did I say “a bit”?

As mentioned before, and as shown in the photo on 11 Feb, there are now many crossing-point “islands” dotted along the road. I fully understand the thinking. Helps people cross the road. Fine. Except the disappearing cycle lanes as one comes to these islands. Except the lack of clarity as to whether one can turn left. Except the mini-roundabouts that now are starting to appear. Except the bigger roundabouts - the one at the top of the Greasy Mile for instance; the turn is too tight, too tight. Coaches ...?

I fully understand the thinking. But did anyone stop to also think about not just the cyclists, but also the mopeds, the scooters, the trikes, the women on roller blades pushing baby buggies, the disabled cyclists, the horse-drawn carriages? To say nothing of the fact that your average driver here has no comprehension as to how to approach or negotiate a roundabout - or how to indicate (which is an optional extra).

There are going to be problems.


Enough of this. This blog does from time to time celebrate the sad passing of great names. Fred Trueman was one. So, I cannot allow the death of John Inman to go unacknowledged, if only because of his part in one of the most abysmal films of all time, namely the one when the staff at Grace Brothers went on holiday together to “Spain”. It was all there. The cheap innuendo, the leering at totty (not by Mr. Humphries necessarily), the culture clash with the Germans. My, how things don’t change.


Weather watch: wind, wind and more wind. The road into Puerto Pollensa was blocked for a while this morning by a fallen tree. There was other damage, and a yacht dashed on the rocks by Club Sol. And this comes on the back of a mother and father of a storm a couple of days back. Spring, that’ll be it.

More By The Way Of Scam

It was back in November that I talked about the scam whereby restaurant or hotel (or other) owners post glowing reports on - inter alia - the likes of TripAdvisor, masquerading as a happy and contented punter. It’s taken me a while to get up to speed with this, but from the end of this year - in the UK - anyone doing so can be named and shamed by trading standards or taken to court. This is all part of a move to prevent consumers from being misled.

As back in November, I confess to a vested interest in this as on the websites associated with this blog, reviews can be posted. These are subject to vetting before they are approved, though I could never be 100% sure as to the origin. Nevertheless, this move to criminalise such glowing statements using false identities is almost certainly welcome.

The reliance that the tourist places on personal recommendation cannot be under-estimated.

It is a facet of our information society that so much information is so readily available and - more importantly - we have all become ever more reliant on this information to direct and, yes, inform, our decision-making. The trouble is a potential over-reliance and a lack of discernment. What one person considers to be the dog’s bollocks doesn’t necessarily mean that those same bollocks will be hung for another - as it were.

Still, I shall continue to vet the comments that come to the websites, on which the establishments which have thus far attracted the most comment are all part of the same business. Just coincidence, of that I’m sure. But for the record they are - in Puerto Alcúdia and on www.thealcudiaguide.com - Bells Disco, Kaos Bar and El Toro Restaurant.


January seems to have been a good month for Balearic tourism (all things being relative of course). Anyway, the numbers were up by some 20%, though of this number 50% were mainland Spanish. Maybe it was the good weather.

Our Mutual Friend

And so, just continuing with headlines of a literary nature (the last one was from Ian McEwan plus a “dis” - if you get my drift), the “friend” referred to in the previous entry turned up today. His “mutuality” stems from the fact both I and James (and Karen) from Foxes know him as well. And this is a roundabout way of giving James a name-check, because he wanted one. No sooner asked, than done, James.

But there’s more. The mutual friend still suffers from this apparent rip-off by a business transfer agency. From my admittedly limited dealings with such agencies on the island, I cannot believe that they would practise what is a form of gazumping. Were I a vendor, and the agency did that to a prospective purchaser, I’d tell them to sling their hook.

Apparently the agency expressed a degree of relief when the friend said, on learning that the price had gone up, he wasn’t interested any longer. Their reasoning; we can keep the money.

I know who they are. I’m not saying, but I know. There’ll be something; there’s always something. Like another friend who stood to lose a cool sixty-odd thousand as a deposit on a property in the south of the mainland (that was never seemingly going to come to fruition). He wanted his money back. Consult a lawyer, was the response. None of the lawyers in the vicinity was interested; friends, you see. So, he found a blog. Others had had the same problem. There was a lawyer away from the area. She took up the case. He got his money back.

There’s always something. Nowadays, there’s always something. Look out.


Weather watch: yesterday was ludicrously hot. 25 degrees, word had it. Changed today, but, hell, 25 degrees in the first week of March. Global warming? Nah, just one of those things.

The Discomfort of Strangers

Mallorca is like “Neighbours”. Well, up to a point. People don’t suddenly start living in a different house and generally don’t go missing for a couple of years after a visit to the seaside. But they do ... just go. Now, this is all ancient Neighbours’ history, as I haven’t seen it for years. But there was the time - for instance - when Shane just went. “Shane’s gone to Perth.” I think it was Madge who revealed this. One moment there, one moment gone. And others ... they always went to Perth, or Brisbane. In Shane’s case, we knew nothing of him until he pitched up in “The Flying Doctors” (which was probably where he really went). Sometimes there were set-piece departures, like Kylie’s, but normally ... zippo.

Mallorca makes for transience. The summer population is one thing. The all-year is another, which makes departure seem all the more perfunctory. People leave for a variety of reasons. There are those who need to make a rapid exit; I know of some. The need is often financial or illegal (or both). There are others who find it is not the paradise they hoped for. Then there are those businesspeople who find it’s not what how it was described in the brochure. I have a good friend - he has, or rather had, a restaurant. I’ve never really known why he came here. Maybe he doesn’t either. It wasn’t as the brochure had it, or rather as it was sold to him. He has gone. Just gone. One moment here, one moment gone.

He said that he could just pack up the car and head back for England. But he had his cats to worry about. They had been his companions; he couldn’t and wouldn’t just give them up. He had started to “passport” the cats, but for five of them it was quite a procedure. Chances were he would have gone to the south of the mainland, taken a bar. It wasn’t really him. He loved running his type of restaurant. He made the one here a success by insisting on quality of cuisine. He was successful in England, before his problems got in the way. I won’t say what they were.

I say “success”. The restaurant was a success - in high season. Out of high season, it struggled. He was told that there was business for nine months. It was bollocks. He trusted. Had I known him when he was taking it over, I could have told him it was bollocks.

“Ah”, you might say. “But what about the accounts?” What accounts? Yes, there are often some form of accounts. But that is not the whole story here. There are accounts, and then there is black. And then there is just bollocks. Bollocks and bullshit.

He also encountered this shit on the mainland. He placed a deposit on a place. When he returned, he was told - by the agent - that the price had gone up. Wanted his money back. Couldn’t. That’s how it is in Spain, he was told. What a scandal.

This friend. He had no real need for companionship, except for his cats. He just wanted to run a business, a business for nine months a year, a business that would occupy him, reward him. It was a nine-month pup. A three-month cash cow. He trusted. Perhaps he was a fool. That would be hard for me to say; he is a friend after all. But he wasn’t the first, he won’t be the last.

Mallorca is transient. Not just for those who come to live a dream. Also those who sell - and bullshit - that dream. Because they often just go, too.

I last heard from this friend about, when was it, two, three weeks ago. He was in Barcelona. Now I don’t know. Now I hope he’s ok. I could identify this friend. Some, well, quite a few people here will know him. Some will know the background to his travails. I’ll keep my powder dry. But ... I know. I know all there is to know.


Weather stuff: man alive, is it good. Stupidly warm sitting at 1919 in Puerto Pollensa today. Well, so what happened to winter?


Index for February 2007

Abranaxus - 5 February 2007
All-inclusives - 5 February 2007, 6 February 2007
Architecture - 15 February 2007
Blogs - 24 February 2007
British tourists - 6 February 2007
Business failure - 28 February 2007
Burglary - 24 February 2007
Café La Sala - 24 February 2007
Carretera Arta - 11 February 2007
Climate change - 11 February 2007
Crime - 24 February 2007
Conjuring - 5 February 2007
Cycling - 11 February 2007
Environment - 11 February 2007
Grupo Boulevard - 5 February 2007, 15 February 2007
Guardia Civil - 24 February 2007
La Placeta - 11 February 2007
Language - 15 February 2007
Playa de Muro - 15 February 2007
Roads - 11 February 2007
Tourist behaviour - 6 February 2007
Weather - 15 February 2007, 24 February 2007, 28 February 2007

Break-in

There was this piece of glass. Quite a big piece. It was lying on the lawn. What some people will chuck into a garden, I thought huffily as I walked from the car. And then I saw.

Later, that evening in fact, I found what was like a jemmy. It was on the low wall in the front of my neighbour’s house. That must have been it. The Guardia Civil officer had been unclear as to how the shutter had been ripped open.

He had parked his vehicle by where I later found the jemmy. He also didn’t notice the traces of blood on the net curtain. Or maybe he had. I didn’t notice them till later. Entering and exiting through a broken window could draw blood; it could also make a piece of glass get entangled in clothing. But when you have a small bag with an expensive digital camera, maybe you don’t worry too much. What do I know?

That was all. Just the camera, and roughly five euros in loose change. To whoever it was. Tough shit, arsehole. Don’t bother in future. There ain’t no money here.

Crime. Yes, there is. The lady officer at the Guardia the next day said it does tend to be like this as the season approaches. People arriving, looking for work, not having any money. Maybe that’s what she meant. What do I know?

Well, I do know that all my immediate neighbours have had the same problem. And now so had I. Life in Mallorca.


Nicer stuff. There’s another blog in Alcúdia. It’s originator is Trevor from the fine Café La Sala in the old town. Check it out. All about the café. Link can be found in the links list. Oh, nice photos of the café, Trev.


First lilywhite body of the season. The really rather warm weather produced it. Chap, purplish shorts, white legs, white torso, walking along the paseo in Puerto Alcúdia. And there was I in jacket, shirt and t-shirt beneath the shirt.

Dodgy English

Sometimes I wonder. It’s this English thing. And it’s this aesthetic thing.

I have had words before about this English thing. Like Taylor Woodrow’s “we build in Spain since 1958”. Ungrammatical, innit. I haven’t had too many words about carbuncles and architectural naffness. But now they come together. A kind of symbiosis. Except it’s not a carbuncle, but an expression through construction that highlights the poverty of what surrounds it.

I’m talking Grupo Boulevard, one of the area’s most prominent enterprises. Now, they did get a bit of bad PR over the Dakota restaurant at the start of the Pinewalk in Puerto Pollensa, and they duly subdued it.

Some eighteen months in the building, Boulevard’s seemingly corporate edifice is now about complete, a glass-fronted, black-grey-silver-tinted statement amidst the generally hideous row of “locals” that someone had the lack of foresight to allow to be developed in Playa de Muro. Hats off to Boulevard. The building, out of place though it is, is a distinct improvement. It would be just fine in a city’s financial area. In Playa de Muro ...?

How did planners ever get Playa de Muro so wrong? There you have splendid hotels - the Iberostars for example - but then you also have that row of non-descript, uncharismatic locals, and then you also have the total absence of a “centre” that might make Playa de Muro a place to which people would gravitate, as opposed to pass through.

Undeterred, Boulevard have erected their building. “Precioso,” is how a one-time employee described it. Perhaps. But while it may well be an improvement, how come - and here’s this English thing (eventually) - how come the name? “Boulevard Building Center”. I am not alone in thinking it sounds like a DIY store. Could they not have just run the name past an English-speaker (native preferably), and realised it sounds wrong? That’s this English thing. They’re not alone. Taylor Woodrow’s another. There are many more. Is it so difficult for local businesses (or multinational builders) to find an English-speaker who could point out the error?

Sometimes I wonder.


Weather note: Brilliant. Warm. Lovely. Blissful. Won’t last.

More Road Non-Sense?

Given the criticism that had been heaped onto the state of the Carretera Arta in Puerto Alcudia, it seems a tad chary to slag it off now that it has been resurfaced. But. In seeking to facilitate pedestrian crossing, there are crossing-point islands, most obviously the one shown here in front of the Ivory Playa hotel. Fine. They are needed. But. The potential problem is that the road narrows to the sides of the islands, cutting out the cycle lanes. I was aware of this problem this morning. There was a line of cyclists. I had to give way. No problem in that, but I fear it might be a problem. Additionally, the island is right by the exits/entries to the Ivory Playa/Campsa Garage and Eroski Syp roads, which means cars turning right or crossing the main road. Maybe there will be pedestrian crossings painted onto the road (not that they really mean much here). Maybe there’ll be speed-calmers. We’ll wait and see. But at the moment, despite the best intentions, I can see this all ending in tears.

And while I’m on the subject. The new roundabouts along the Carretera, while also welcome, have their own problem. The one at the road to Palma for instance. There are two lanes coming towards the roundabout along the main road, but the roundabout is wide enough to accommodate only one line of traffic. Again, especially given the at-best inconsistent behaviour at roundabouts here, I fear problems.


Seems I was quick off the mark in raising the potential environmental disaster that could befall Mallorca as a result of climate change. Based on information from NASA, the consequences of a one-metre rise in sea levels has been plotted on Google maps. Doesn’t make for happy reading. Flooding would reach Sa Pobla and Muro. Worse than I had inferred before. Really, if you’re thinking of buying that lovely villa on the beach, you just might want to think again. Having said this, one metre is an awful lot.


New ownership note: so much for the shortlived ownership of Katie and Marshall at La Placeta in Pollensa. They’re out of there. Harvey’s in.

How To Enjoy A Holiday

Sharp observers of this blog will know that - like many another blog - I do, from time to time, have something to say about local media or to base some of my stuff on what appears therein. Till now, I have never lifted a whole piece. But I’ll make an exception now, but only in translation from the Spanish.

There is a free newspaper that doesn’t venture north, but is available in Palma. I got a copy today. It’s called ADN. At the back there is a column called “The End” (really, English title). Not a Doors-type “The End” (my beautiful friend), just an end column. One Montserrat Dominguez.

This is what it says today (this is a slightly abbreviated version anyway):

“ITV is showing a series called ‘Benidorm’ which relates - in comedic fashion - the adventures of a group of tourists. The action centres on an all-inclusive complex. The tourists neither have to leave (this complex) nor do they have to eat paella. Did I say paella? (asks Montserrat). Excuse me: the Brits enjoy fish and chips, porridge, baked beans and other specialities of their cuisine; they don’t try local dishes. Why would they risk this, given that their surroundings reproduce a scene in which they have pubs, music, tobacco and drinks.

Why then do they come to Benidorm, to Mallorca, to the Costa Brava or to the Canaries? A walk along the coast shows us (the Spanish) that they can pass through hundreds of urbanisations without hearing a word of Castilian, Mallorquin or Catalan, or even worse, without discovering a cold beer, a slice of tortilla or a good pa amb oli. The Swedish, German or Irish ghettoes on our coastline are a wonder of mimicry.

Perhaps we should ask ourselves our own question though: in the Caribbean, all-inclusive complexes proliferate, and thousands of Spaniards seek out an exotic environment which doesn’t ruin, one jot, their own blessed routines. The French do something similar when they go to their Club Meds. What happiness! To travel thousands of kilometres to feel just like being at home.”

Well, setting aside any dodgy translation, what Montserrat is getting at is that all tourists do what the Brits are notorious for and have been for decades; it was the early ‘70s after all when Eric Idle and the Monty Python gang did the piss-take based on “Watneys Red Barrel”. But she’s right to bemoan the fact that all too few tourists seem to want to escape their familiar surroundings and enjoy the local culture. Some do, but the majority appear not to. That’s largely how it is here, especially for those ensconced in all-inclusives. She might have chosen some of her examples more carefully; I think cold beers can be had in all-inclusives - many of them in fact - but I know the point she’s making.

Happy hols!!!

Abracadabra ..

It seems so long ... Silence from your favourite blog for too long. It’s a quiet time of year. It’s quiet, unremarkable; like the weather. It’s time for spending a bit too much time over a coffee in cafés. But it’s a time for gathering some interesting bits of information. Here are some ...

All-inclusives ... chastened perhaps by the all-day and all-night drunkenness, shitting in the pools and whatever, the Mac hotels in Puerto Alcúdia have dropped the 24-hour all-inclusivity. Let’s see. But also, in the more genteel Playa de Muro, both La Dorada and the Esperanza have dropped the all-inclusive offer. Good for local businesses, especially as Grupo Boulevard’s glass edifice comes closer to opening - Dakota Tex-Mex, Gran Cafe and all.


And now for something completely different ... You don’t get too much that is different here. A bar is a bar is a bar, and Elvis impersonator is .... (fill in the rest). So a different form of evening entertainment - in Puerto Alcúdia - is to be noted. Abranaxus opened some two to three months back. It’s run by a chap called Felipe. It’s a bar, but the difference is that he does magic shows. He showed me some card tricks today. No way could I say how he did them. He has this small show area, with a camera showing his hands onto a screen. It’s a good idea. I hope he does well.

Index for January 2007

Awards of 2006 - 1 January 2007
Climate change - 11 January 2007
Cycling - 13 January 2007
Environment - 11 January 2007
“Euro Weekly” - 4 January 2007
Leapy Lee - 4 January 2007
Palma Airport - 4 January 2007
Posters - 4 January 2007
Racism - 4 January 2007
Roads - 23 January 2007
S’Albufera - 23 January 2007
Speed traps - 13 January 2007
Three Kings - 6 January 2007
Tourism economics - 4 January 2007
Weather - 13 January 2007, 23 January 2007

S’Albufera

I live opposite the S’Albufera nature reserve. For those who don’t know, this is the vast area of protected wetlands that lies largely in Playa de Muro but which extends inland to the northern-most part of Sa Pobla. Albufera is home to all manner of flora and fauna; the other morning there was a right noise - it was the water buffalo. Someone I know who works here says there are no buffalo. There certainly are. As there are also all manner of migratory birds, some of which form huge swoops of song and flapping.

Albufera has been dogged with some controversy. A while ago I mentioned that a report had criticised the lack of technical staff, upkeep and a director. Well, there is now a director who has just reported that more than 100,000 people visited the park during 2006.

I don’t know if that’s good or not, albeit the figure is up some 35% apparently. Unsurprisingly, the peak periods for visitors are spring and autumn. In summer, the numbers are less. Too hot. That’s one reason. The other? Too little interest. Sorry, but your average summer tourist ain’t gonna go wandering over in Albufera when he can be soaking up the sun by the pool. Shame, but there you go.


Some other stuff ... The resurfacing of the Carretera Arta in Puerto Alcúdia and Playa de Muro goes on apace - finally!!! And the weather note: after all the glorious weather (ever since Christmas Day), it looks like it’s collapsing. Quite a bit colder. Hey ho, maybe it’s the usual end-of-January weather belly-up.

Clippety-clop, some cyclists shop

Ah yea, they’re back. Cyclists. Great pelotons of Germans aping Jan Ullrich or Erik Zabel. Clip-clop, clip-clop; the supermarkets are alive with the sound of cycling foot furniture - a Holy Grail of horse-hoof coconut-shell karaoke heading for the bananas and the Ritter Sport*.

And shouting. Yes, shouting. On the roads. Shouting. They must have got it from the Mallorcans.

“Achtung, Horst, hier kommt ein grosser Lastwagen. Achtung ... AARRGHH.”

Well, that’s not quite how it happens, but you probably get the picture; three-abreast cyclists, one dirty great lorry, one dirty great lorry’s horn. More shouting. “Arschloch, Arschloch.”

And what do you know, the cycling season has barely even begun. Oh to be in Mallorca now that the cycling spring has Vorsprung durch Rad-Technik.

Not that any infringements of two-wheel road usage are likely to be stamped on by Trafico, especially not at present as they seem to be conducting some form of work-to-rule. All about pay apparently. And this also at a time when new set speed traps are to be introduced on main roads from Palma - one such road being that to Inca, which presumably means the motorway. The deal with the speed traps is that they are to be placed at particularly bad black spots. Five of them.

Fifty, maybe. Five hundred even. Five? Make a well-known phrase or saying involving the following words: wind, the, in, plus the gerund form of the verb to piss.

Mind you, bloody marvellous weather for cycling. Marvellous weather - pretty much - for lying on the beach. Staggeringly good at the moment. It won’t last, I’m telling you, it won’t last. Come the end of the month. Just like the last two years.

* As a footnote, one of the German slogans for Ritter Sport is “Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut.” Literally - square-shaped, practical, good. Surely only the Germans could come up with a promotion for a chocolate that stresses functionality.

“If You Can’t Stand The Heat ...”

“It was hotter than Hooker in Heater today, and hotter than Heater in Hellmouth, where the high was a hundred and thirty-three degrees.”

You, what?

The above comes from a weather-report spoof on the long-ago album “Everything You Know Is Wrong” by the American comedy troupe The Firesign Theatre. It just came to mind as I mulled over the prospects of Skegness becoming the new Magaluf and the Med becoming too hot for tourism.

More dire environmental prophesying.

Back in early November (entries of 2 and 6 November to be precise), I picked up on the Stern Report and its warnings regarding climate change. I spoke of the dangers of rising sea levels affecting unprotected coastlines here, such as in Playa de Muro. Now we have another warning - this one from the European Commission. This latest report predicts that - during this century - the Med will become “unbearably hot”, so much so that people will no longer flock to the beaches, as they will be able to enjoy Mediterranean conditions in ... well, Skeggy.

It’s long been said that an impact of global warming will be to make Britain and northern Europe that much warmer. The question no longer seems to be if but when. The problem with climate-change predictions is that their actualisations are too far off. “Oh, it’ll be all right, something’s bound to turn up.” That seems to be the reaction of many. But what if nothing does turn up? What if this warming kicks in that much earlier? What if, say, in ten, twenty years time, Mallorca is regularly notching up 40+ degrees in summer, the point at which the heat not only becomes intolerable, it becomes downright dangerous?

What is that about a goose and golden eggs? The airline industry and its partners the tour operators will have helped to have created an irreversible change (not that they are the only ones who should carry the can). But they will have contributed - largely unwittingly until relatively recently - and then they will find that there is no demand for Mediterranean holidays. Too damned hot. They will leave behind wastelands - decaying hotels, derelict bars, destroyed economies, deserted villas.

Whither Mallorca in such a scenario?

The seas will come again and reclaim the coastal plains, rendering what land remains worthless, subject as it will be to ever more encroachment and erosion; as worthless as it was considered until only the last sixty years or so. All the greed and prosperity will be washed away. People will return to the hinterland to pick over what is left of a shattered economic model that saw tourism as its wealth-creator, its greed-creator and finally its destroyer.

Have a nice holiday this year.

Three Kings

Today is Three Kings or Epiphany if you prefer. Yesterday evening there were celebrations across the island, the “Kings” arriving, e.g. by boat into the port of Alcúdia (always perishing down on the pier waiting for them - no different this year). But just what is the deal with the Kings?

The deal is thus: 6 January is the day designated as the one when “los reyes” (the kings) or “los tres reyes magos” (the three magi, aka wise men) arrived, having followed the star, and offered gifts to the baby Jesus. In terms of local tradition, kids put out their shoes (and or stockings) overnight of 5 January; this is the equivalent of Santa here, with present-giving taking place on the 6th.

So much for the background. As often with this blog, there’s an angle, a coincidental angle. Why does so much here hang on coincidence? Discuss.

Anyway, yesterday I was loading the car with stuff from the Eroski Syp supermarket. As I was doing so, someone said “hello”. Who he, thought I. Smartly dressed - tie and hat - English, in his sixties with a wife shaped like and sounding not unlike Janine Duvitski (of - inter alia - “The Worst Week of My Life” fame). No idea who they were. Just said hello, and engaged me in conversation. Staying at the Estrella - till May. That’s a long stretch, said I. The response was not what I expected. It was a non sequitur. “We are Christians. Gideons.” Then something about the difficulties relating to the siesta break and people’s occupation with work. “Er?”, I thought.

Despite having been alerted by the “we are Christians” gambit, and being a civil sort, I asked if they would be going to watch the Kings’ procession. Possibly. And then some more of the unexpected. The Kings aren’t named in the Scriptures. In the Book of Daniel there is reference - fairly accurate in historical terms (allegedly), but no names - or so they said.

And yet, though I didn’t wish to enter a debate on the subject, I had always thought their names were known - Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar. But then I don’t really do religion.

Well, they were really very nice people, and I wished them a happy new year, and then as a parting gift I was given ... a copy of The New Testament and Psalms. What can I say? Well, it is the time for gift-giving.

Happy Kings.


And just to make a weather note: beautifully clear blue skies - distinctly chilly at night but warm by day. Typical for this time of year, if the last two years are anything to go by.

Lies, Damned Lies And Statistics

Never let it be said that I cannot offer praise where it is due. Having granted “Euro Weekly” the honour of the lousy journalism award for its one-time front-page story, the latest issue redeems the paper somewhat. The headline is:

“Holiday record claim is an ‘insult’ to traders”.

This refers to the announcement of the 12.2 million people that came the Balearics way during the first eleven months of 2006. Quoting an albeit unnamed bar owner in the south of the island, the article says that the figures are being used to mask the “shortcomings” of the government. It doesn’t actually say what those shortcomings are, but one gets the point. Pertinently, the fact that Spanish tourism was up by nearly 23%, while British tourism had gone up a mere percentage point tells us a lot. The bar owner says: “Unfortunately tribes of Spanish pensioners do not put money into the till.” How right he is, and not necessarily only the pensioners, though they are an under-spending phenomenon. There is one bar in Alcúdia where they tell them to piss off for the simple reason that they clutter the bar up, spend next to nothing and expect, nay demand, freebies like crisps and olives.

The bar owner goes on: “Anyone can read what they want into figures.” Well, amen to that; I was saying as much during 2006. The emphasis of the feature then shifts to winter tourism. Magaluf is described as a “ghost town” in winter and a cut-price, all-inclusive area during summer”. Sounds familiar. It could also be said of Alcúdia. Warming to his theme, he continues: “we need quantity but we also need quality”. Where have I heard that before? Yes, right here - on this blog.

So, in a nutshell, the article savages the complacency of Sr. Flaquer and his numbers-game, calls for an alternative to all-inclusives and for more winter tourism. Couldn’t really have put it better myself. The only thing is: why is the bar owner not named?

But elsewhere in the paper, we get - on facing pages - not just one columnist of the year as voted for (apparently) by readers but two, namely someone using the moniker Boadicea and our old favourite Leapy Lee. Well, I admit I don’t pay that much attention to the paper, but how many other columnists are there? And what, in all truth, does a one-hit wonder like the Leapster do to deserve this title? Rants on about (favourably) the somewhat summary nature of justice in Saudi Arabia in decrying the procrastination of the British legal system. Strewth.

More interestingly, there is mention of the development of the terminal at the airport which should see less congestion and less of a trek for passengers, especially those travelling with low-cost airlines who, at present, face a long walk to baggage reclaim and the exit. The work is set to be completed by the end of 2009.

Also, there is a thing about an allegedly “racist” poster that has appeared around the island. The poster reads: “Productes de Mallorca: Els mallorquins són els millors”. This translates as - “Mallorcan produce (or also products). The Mallorcans are the best.” Now, you could read this as claiming that the Mallorcan people are the best, but that is not what is being said. It is the products that are the best. Whether one agrees with that is largely beside the point. But people seem to have got themselves into an almighty lather over nothing. Once more quoting an unnamed source (a resident of Puerto Pollensa who wished not to be named - why?), the article bangs on about the offensiveness of the posters and multi-culturalism versus nationalism, blah, blah. A load of noise about nothing. Forget it.