That's Not Fair

The summer fiestas start to fade, but as they do, they merge with and morph into another form of tradition - the fair. This is a seamless continuum of event that will be reversed at Christmas and into the new year. No event more symbolises the transition from summer to the autumnal fair than the Binissalem Vermar. It yearns for and does not want to lose the slowly disappearing summer by its insistence on fiesta but accepts the time of year with the celebration of the grape harvest. Vermar means grape harvest.

The Binissalem event is as drawn out as the Can Picafort August fiesta, but, unlike that summer party, its length enables it to straddle seasons; it starts in summer and ends in autumn. It is equinoctial fiesta. The Vermar, a vinous grand tasting, treads grapes and presents a battle of almost festishistic down-and-dirty rolling in crushed fruit. Binissalem, the home also of the dry-stone wall fiesta, is the centre of rural celebration; its parties are statements of difference. Yet one wonders if the Vermar may continue at the time of the turn of the seasons. Climate change, so we are told, is leading to grape ripening occurring earlier and to new challenges to wine-makers. Spain has more land devoted to vines than any other country. Rising temperatures threaten not only the grape industry but also the fiestas.

The autumn fair is something that can be found in many towns across the island. Alcúdia has its own fair at the start of October. But being a Mallorcan event, it cannot dispense with the trappings of the fiesta. Accordingly, alongside the farm machinery, the stands and the animals are the giants, the folk dance and the inevitable night party with its DJs and bands, raging from the old-town centre and keeping the neighbours awake. At the fair are all manner of local curiosities - from fans and hats to custom cars of eccentric design and highly-tuned engines. The fairs are also occasions for the island to show off - governmental publicity stunts for the environment and tourism and industry's wares in the form of, for example, Mallorcan wines. They are fine events, but one wonders quite what they achieve. Alcúdia's fair bears similarities each year. It is though they are events for preaching to the already knowing or converted. But they, like the fiestas, are tradition. And tradition goes an awfully long way in Mallorca.

For information on both the Vermar and the Alcúdia Fair, go to the What's On Blog - http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com.

And if, in wet and miserable summer Britain for instance, you are wondering whether climate change is all but a figment of the imagination, try this ... Tucked away in a piece in "The Diario" the other day was a thing which reported the views of a Nobel prize winner. He says that south-west Europe, which includes Mallorca, could anticipate an increase in average temperatures of up to six degrees over the next six years. Six degrees! Over six years! Is he kidding? Presumably he isn't. But if it were to be the case, then frankly I think we should be extremely worried. And quite why this has not been more widely reported, I am not sure. Six degrees. It's just not fair; perhaps they'll have to shift all the fairs to December if that's the case.

QUIZ
Yesterday's title - the single "The Gap" wasn't that good, so instead here is something that was - The Thompson Twins, "All Fall Out" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y_91nGEDYw). Today's title - this is a line from a current song; she's still a rock star and she's a colour.

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Into The Gap

Following up on yesterday's reference to the mad plan to close the coast road between Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa, there are some other factors to be taken into account. While Pollensa town hall might have got it into their collective heads that this is more than just some whim, there is the not insignificant matter of what Alcúdia thinks about it all. I drove along the road yesterday, and checked the boundary signs. That for Puerto Pollensa, the you-have-now-left Puerto Pollensa one, that is, is just past the new roundabout for the new bypass road. The welcome-to-Alcúdia one is right next to the old road to Pollensa, quite some way further along the coast road. Maybe the gap in between is Pollensa's (as opposed to just Puerto Pollensa's); whatever, the road itself "belongs" as much to Alcúdia as it does to Pollensa.

I cannot imagine that such a scheme - to close the main link road connecting Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa - can be within the gift of a local town hall; it is too strategically important in terms of transport infrastructure. I had always assumed that decisions regarding the "carreteras" were at least rubber-stamped centrally, if not made. There is then the issue of necessity. The closure would require another road. If not, the detour would be so inconvenient that Puerto Pollensa would be partially cut off. Besides, there is simply no need for another road; the one we have at present, i.e. the coast road, is perfectly adequate, if sometimes dangerous. That the beach may be expanded, as a consequence of getting rid of the road, and that the beach that is currently there might be "beautified" with imported sand, may be the desire of some environmental fanaticism, but who would actually use that beach? If there were no road, then how would beach users get there?

Finally, there is another strategic transport matter. It concerns the idea that there might be a tram that goes to Puerto Pollensa if there can ever be any agreement on the siting of the train terminal in Alcúdia. One hears less of this part of the mooted tramline than of the one that might go to Can Picafort, but it remains a possibility. And if so, well where would that go?

I don't believe this scheme will ever see the light of day. It's unnecessary, it's impractical, it serves an ill-defined environmental fancy, it would be hugely expensive (and the tab would be picked up centrally, not by the town halls), it would be unpopular ... Erm, is there any reason for it?

It was against this background that I had a conversation with someone in Puerto Pollensa yesterday. This chat also touched on Garry Bonsall's complaint which I also mentioned in yesterday's piece. The nub of the conversation was that Pollensa town hall, unlike Alcúdia's, seems to make secondary the needs of its port area. In other words, the town of Pollensa takes preference. I'm not sure this is right (Pollensa's roads, for example, are just as appalling as those in the port), but it is right in that this is a perception, and perceptions matter just as much as realities. Pollensa town hall has an image and a PR problem, if you like. It's not the only one. People in Playa de Muro and Can Picafort make the same sorts of complaints about their town halls, those of Muro and Santa Margalida. The great difference between Alcúdia and the other three is that the town and the port (or resort) is geographically linked. Pollensa, Muro and Santa Margalida are all several kilometres away from their resorts; Alcúdia is right on top of its. One does not hear the same level of complaint. Ok, Alcúdia town hall does its share of daft things, too, but there is not the same perceptual gap; one that distance only helps to accentuate. It is as if there is an elitism in the towns that affords the resorts secondary status. And people get upset, especially upset, as it is they in the resorts who generate such a high proportion of the town halls' revenues. There is something of the town halls acting as kingdoms of mediaeval England, dispatching their reeves or sheriffs to extract taxes from the thanes and peasantry, whilst lording it (as it were) in their castles of antiquity - which is about right in terms of the ages of the towns. And now I think of it, history says that Spain retained an essentially feudal system well into the last century, one that the Second Republic (which Franco crushed) sought to dismantle. That wasn't so long ago, and some seem to have good memories of feudalism.

Local democracy is a fine idea. I have no problem with it. It should be far more widespread in the UK. But if it results in perceptual faultlines and accusations that great parts of the municipalities are not listened to, then it is democracy by sham and autocracy by fiefdom. There again, isn't that the nature of democracy?


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - she's an old favourite of the blog, and thanks to a first-time quiz respondent Terence who got Dusty Springfield and Dionne Warwick (who did it first) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxl7YbVi4Cs. Today's title - big-selling album from one of the most intriguing British "pop" bands of the '80s. Think Hergé's Adventures of Tintin.

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Wishin' and Hopin'

And so the Puerto Pollensa road-closure fiasco continues to make itself felt. "The Bulletin" reports on the concerns of my old friend Garry Bonsall, dentist of Alcúdia and head of the Gotmar Residents' Association. In brief, these are a lack of consultation regarding the pedestrianisation and the potential to send more traffic and parking into the leafier areas of, for example, Gotmar, and the plan to in fact close the road between Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa in order to expand the beach. There is quite a bit more besides, including a threat of legal action against the town hall.

While I sympathise, my understanding was that there had been, finally, some consultation, though quite with whom I'm not exactly sure, presumably not the good people of Gotmar. Moreover, the pedestrianisation compromise, as I referred to on 14 September, doesn't restrict vehicle access nearly as much as the original plan. Consequently, I'm not sure quite how the Gotmar residents will be affected. Perhaps they will be. As for this closure of the coast road idea, it frankly beggars belief that this might be done. What was the point of building the new road if now it won't be accessible except by another road from somewhere? I've gone over this reclaimed ground before (9 May: Road To Nowhere). It had seemed as though it were some fantasy idea, but apparently not. The point though is that this would not be a Pollensa town hall matter. It might fancy closing the road, for whatever reason, but it would surely be one for higher authorities than the gaffe-prone council. There may be some sound environmental thinking here, but not if it means cutting a huge swathe through land at the back of Albufereta in order to create a link road to the one that's just been completed.

But amongst those higher authorities, one wonders at times. Here we now have a Balearic Government minister, who's leaving the sinking ship to head up the Playa de Palma project, saying that the same number of people are employed in the Balearics as there were last year. Excuse me. Have I been misreading those reports of increased unemployment? Have the tourist and construction industries not been laying off workers after all? It's all been a dream, and here's Bobby coming out of the shower. One fears that there is a sizeable dose of wishful thinking knocking around. The minister goes on to say that the government is looking at ways of working through the current economic crisis and at remodelling the economy (which appears to mean throwing a whole load of money at public construction, which hardly sounds like a remodelling) and at "policies to boost tourism and commerce", whatever they might be.

What part of the planet is the minister on? It doesn't appear to be that part formed by an archipelago in the Mediterranean. The unpalatable truth for Balearic politicians is that the "crisis" reveals just how impotent and irrelevant they are when the world's economy is in such strife. They can affect little, other than dabble at the edges. They might like to think so, and to blame previous administrations, but they are neutered, emasculated, up the "mierda" creek minus an implement of manoeuvre. The good times let the regional governments, such at that in the Balearics, to follow the same policy of unchecked boom as the national government. But with the arrival of the bad times, they are left wallowing with nowhere to turn, except to Madrid for assistance.

Mallorca is caught in a vice of factors almost completely beyond anyone's control. It, as part of Spain, is one, along with the UK, of the big victims of the economic slump. Were there not so much debt already sloshing around (and there was a great ocean of it before anyone had even heard of sub-prime), it might not be so bad, but there is - business and personal. The level of Spain's consumer debt exceeds even that of the reckless UK. The island's main industries - tourism and construction - are utterly at the mercy of economic circumstances. The local government may want to splash more cash in the direction of the construction industry, but it will be public spending that merely papers over the cracks of an unbalanced economic model, assuming the cash is actually forthcoming. This all said, the good news coming out of Alcúdia at any rate is that certain hotels are showing healthy bookings for next year and even taking them for 2010. Among all the turmoil, let us hope.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Geoff rightly points out that it was a traditional folk song, but fair to say I think that The Beach Boys popularised "Sloop John B" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_KY_d9MQv8). Today's title - who made this a hit?

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I Feel So Broke Up, I Wanna Go Home

"The others, the youngsters who make up the majority, are different. Theirs is a simple motivation: a bit of work and a lot of partying - they hope. In truth it's the other way round, and often they get disenchanted when they discover that a bar owner does actually want you to turn up on time, look as though you have not been out till six in the morning and to work eight hours or more. And once they have hired you, they don't want you walking out or feigning "the sick"." (5 March 2008, Keep On Moving.)

The above has not lost its relevance over the months of the season. Primarily it is the youngsters, but not exclusively. The turnover of staff during the season is a problem that afflicts many an establishment. Some staff have to be dismissed; other staff just walk out or hand in their notice. For various reasons, they can't hack it: a boyfriend or girlfriend issue; hours are too long; it's not what they thought it would be; they're too regularly hungover; family. Any number of reasons.

Superficially, it all looks so attractive. A summer in the sun, a load of laughs and a bit of work to finance them. The reality is often rather different. Some pack it in very quickly; others stagger on until finally they've had enough. Some are just not equipped to be away from home for so long, but have been seduced by the apparent romance of the summer in the sun of Mallorca. I recall once being in the Club del Sol near Puerto Pollensa. A girl, a member of the entertainment team, was pouring it all out to a sympathetic receptionist. She was sobbing and complaining about the hours and how she had never been told what to expect. Maybe she hadn't been, but maybe she was also a bit naïve. The other day, apparently, three reps from a hotel in Alcúdia just left without saying anything. Perhaps they hadn't been told what to expect. About the long hours, about the complaining tourists. There is perhaps some sympathy for the kids who come as reps. They are generally ill-informed, but as they are the main point of contact for the tourist they are the ones who bear the brunt of problems or questions. And because they are ill-informed, they go on making the same sort of errors. It's a small example, but a few days ago a rep, from the hotel in question, directed a guest to the bus stop for Palma. It was on the wrong side of the road; there is no bus to Palma in that direction. How many people had previously stood there in a vain wait for a bus that didn't exist?

The pay is not great, be it for bar staff, reps, entertainers. There can be the perks, in some instances, such as accommodation paid for, but the money is not huge. And at some point, the routine, the sometimes sweaty and cramped conditions, the hours or the endless babble of tourists causes a breaking-point. Not in all cases, far from it of course. I think, for example, of a group of Dutch kids who were the entertainers at the Red Lion a few years back. They kept their enthusiasm and vitality up till the bitter end. And most do, but not all.

Perhaps it just comes down to character: character that enables the appreciation that the job comes first; that can cope with being away from home for a long period and maybe also for the first time; that can repress the temptations of which there are many, some of which can age even the most bright-eyed over the course of a season.

The seasoned of the seasonal workers are different. They are the pros. The ones who have seen it all before and have probably been there before and got the t-shirt. These are the workers who come back, often to the same establishment, year after year, because they are reliable and because they know it is work rather than play that their employer demands. And those poor employers who have to go through the bureaucratic rigmarole and the expense attached to it, only to then find themselves in the lurch. The employers who can also be presented with the member of staff who goes on the sick and may then return with a fine tan or be seen dancing on a table, having partaken of many a cold drink. How is it that quite so many seem to get sick here? Ok, the employers may not pay huge wages, but then no one does, and it is, after all, they who take the risk of the business in the first place, who face the raft of regulations, who might cop it from the likes of the noise police*.

But come next year and there will be a new bunch of kids hoping for the same adventure. Doubtless I will be contacted by a few seeking advice, as I have been before. And you just hope that they come with their eyes wide open and that those eyes stay wide open, rather than become dulled by lack of sleep and what the island has to offer, which isn't perhaps quite how the tourist understands it.

* I understand that the Jolly Roger in Puerto Alcúdia, just a couple of minutes past the midnight curfew, were dobbed on to the noise police the other day. Result: a fine.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - well, I reckoned this was pretty obscure, but, damn me, up popped John with the right answer; it was The Bonzo Dog Band, "Shirt". Today's title - one from those normally associated with summer fun.

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Would You Mind? We're Talking About Shirts

"So, where do you stand on the men with no shirts debate?" "What men with no shirts debate?" "Men with no shirts in bars and supermarkets and so on." "Never thought about it. Never been bothered about it." Thus replied a bar-owner (female). The bar in question has a terrace and it is in Puerto Alcúdia. There is a bar in Puerto Pollensa that does not have a terrace and also has a sign saying "no shirt, no sale" - or something like that.

What does it matter? Shirtlessness, that is. Elsewhere, I have seen an exchange about this in the context of the alleged increased tackiness of Puerto Pollensa. Men with no shirts. God forbid. And in the resort of the blessed that is Puerto Pollensa, as opposed to the resort of the damned of Puerto Alcúdia. What will become of us all? At the one extreme, I fancy there are those who would prefer males to be clad in safari suit and pith helmet and to be carrying a stout cane with some flagellant straps on the end with which to ward off flies and the natives. At the other, there are those who seem only to have brought with them a pair of shorts and flip-flops and ward off everyone and everything with an expanse of belly. Avert that child's eyes and put blinkers on that horse! A semi-naked man, with added lard!

Some people have no class. That's undoubtedly the case. When last nosebagging at Taste of India, a gentleman of body artwork seated himself at the adjoining table - minus shirt. Why? Would the same gentleman tackle a tikka masala in his local Indian back home bare to the waist? No, I don't imagine he would. It may be warm, but it's not a nudist colony. And even at nudist colonies, mercifully, people generally dress for dinner.

There is of course body and body. Unfortunately, there is often far too much body. The Phil Mitchell-isation of the British male is a curious, knuckles-to-the-fore, arms in the Dubya coat-hanger-position phenomenon of mob-instinct peer-grouping among adults who really ought to know better. And there was I thinking that "clone" was a gay motif. Gut, tattoos, a low-number head shave. Ultra attractive. Many moons ago, I noted here that two Spanish women in the Eroski supermarket uttered "guapo" (lovely) in a sarcastic tone as two Mitchells who had failed to pack a shirt bullocked by - vast beef mountains of flesh that should have been carved up and had the toothpick of a price per kilo stuck into them on the meat counter. What on Earth do they think they look like? Eroski seems to have given up with its sign asking for a shirt and something on the feet. It had little effect, so the poor, demure girlies at the check-outs still get a very full frontal of stomach and man boob in glorious pink.

There again, they are on holiday. And when on holiday, any decorum that may have been attained over the years is left on the airplane, deposited in the EasyJet rubbish sack. Not though that I am without some sympathy. Restaurants, main supermarkets, chemists - here are places of almost Catholic reverence that require the male equivalent of the something on the female shoulder. But bars, those with terraces especially, and on the streets? When you come from a land of the summer midday moon, every opportunity is needed for third-degree sunburn on that voluminous hillock of ashen belly.

The real problem is that places like Puerto Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa have never quite managed to reconcile the fact that they are holiday resorts and also working, everyday towns. Viewed through the eyes of someone living in either (and also by those tourists who remembered to include a shirt on their packing list), there is something of the naff about troops of the non-shirted parading the streets. But to how many tourists does it actually occur that there is life beyond the beach and the pool? No, I don't blame them. Unappealing it may be for some, but it's holiday. Just be thankful they brought their shorts.


SUNWING GETS IT IN THE NECK
When a hotel and apartment complex has been around for getting on for 40 years, there comes a time for a bit of smartening up. And over the past winter, the Sunwing Resort in Puerto Alcúdia received just a refurb. Would have cost a bit. Unfortunately, it's going to cost a bit more. "The Diario" reports on a fine of some 750 grand for works that apparently didn't have the right licence and that caused a nuisance to neighbours. Oops.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Jam, "That's Entertainment" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv55WsedLYI). Today's title - this comes from something by some of the greatest lunatics of British popular music - and they were?

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Lights Going Out And A Kick In The Balls

Follow the leader. Or something like that. No sooner has Puerto Alcúdia had its day of the tourist than Calvia is going to do likewise. 25 September and it will be a day of fun, fun, fun and thanks to the visitors who fill the coffers of Palmanova and Magalluf licensed premises. Worryingly, the whole thing is set to end with performances by groups doing "internationally known songs", to quote "The Bulletin". Sounds like more Beatlejuice to me. Whatever.

Tourist days. Sounds all well and good, but why are they taking place in September? And with this in mind, what about thanking all the other tourists? Those who will be around and who were around in Alcúdia will be and were the unwitting representatives of a whole season's tourist humanity. I hope they feel suitably honoured. But it is a bit undemocratic. Having a tourist day seems like a tautology. Every day is a tourist day during the season, is it not? One day among the 184 of the official season when the tourist is lauded; the other 183 when he is not. Are all tourist establishments to be given smile lessons and hand out "I Love Tourists" badges? And what of the ents to be staged? Where are the drink as much as you can until your head expands and projectile vomiting contests? No true day of the tourist would be complete without them. 183 days of the year they take place, so why not the 184th? What they should do is make the tourist day a national holiday, not tell any tourists and then close everything for the day. That would be more like it.

Or perhaps a tourist day should involve a good old, healthy punch-up, especially for the Brits; or at least some 12 per cent of them. "The Diario" today reports on findings from a body of the European Commission which say that this percentage was engaged in street or "places of night entertainment" scraps during 2007. It will surprise few to learn that the Brits head the league table. That 12 per cent may be a tad on the conservative side. It does not seem to include incidents that occur within the confines of hotels. Having a bundle is, for some, all part of the holiday experience and entertainment - "lights going out and a kick in the balls".

The fisherman's fair in Puerto Pollensa that occurred over the weekend, decreed a success, would probably not have attracted many who prefer a touch of violence to some samples of Mallorcan produce and gastronomy. Ostensibly a fair to celebrate all things sea-going, this event also embraces the land, in the form of information regarding things such as honey and almonds as well as "show cooking" of different dishes. The fair takes its place alongside others on the island which do similar; all part of a hoped-for spin-off into a different form of tourism.

"Show cooking" is something one stumbles across quite a bit here. There is a place in Puerto Alcúdia, for example, that advertises itself as a show cooking location. The restaurant, Pippers, shows off a grill and the cooking of meat. The term appears to be a translation of "muestra" ("mostra" in Catalan), to mean show or demonstration. As such, it has crept into general usage and has moved away from the mere sense of a demonstration to become a "show" - the preparation of a meal as a spectacular, if you like. But also as such, although the individual words - show and cooking - are clearly understandable, the concept may not be. The anglicisation as a promotional device may, ironically, make sense to the Spanish but may mean less to the Brit, or indeed other nationalities. Expect, therefore, there to be more and more restaurants engaging in it.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Undertones. Today's title - this has been a question before; well worthy of repetition though; where's it from?

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Happens All The Time

"Vuelta al cole". Back to school. It's that time of year, and tomorrow will see the mass return to the reality of education after the months of beach and play. As every year, the newspapers will doubtless be full of photos of the munchkins returning after having spent a quarter of the year on holiday. Last year when I reported on the "vuelta", I mentioned that the press had reported that the return had gone off "with normality". I'd love to know what abnormality would be, and, as chance would have it, there will be some served up in Puerto Alcúdia. Nothing like a bit of parental direct action, as school will still be out tomorrow if they have their way. There is a touch of local difficulty regarding the temporary classrooms at the new secondary school and their safety. The governmental body for education and culture is getting it in the neck for failing to meet promises. Back to school and back to the beach, it would seem.


The length of the holiday as much as the act of the return adds power to the news that is the "vuelta", and so it will, as always, make the news. A summer holiday double in length of that in England might suggest a pretty relaxed educational regime. It would be an incorrect perception. The total number of hours spent per annum in Spanish schools is not that far behind that of England which not only has some of the longest hours it also has the shortest summer holidays (along with Wales and Germany); the difference is in the region of 450 hours per year. This may seem a lot until one appreciates that, for example, the number of hours in Finland is 1700 less than England; and Finland is a country with a higher level of educational achievement than in England or Spain. The Finns, by the way, have 11 weeks of summer holiday. Spanish kids spend more time in school than do their German counterparts by a factor of 600 hours, despite the twelve-week summer holiday.

The new school term will also see the introduction of English (or French or German) as the language of teaching for certain subjects, the choice and discretion of individual schools participating in the scheme. English, for instance, could be used for maths, art or biology. Hmm. I remember biology. We started with the amoeba, if memory serves, and then the memory fades. I never really graduated much beyond the simple single cell. To have been instructed in Spanish would have made it even less comprehensible. I don't know quite how this English or other foreign language teaching is meant to help. Perhaps simple English lessons might be the answer. To explain relatively complex subjects in an alien language will depend enormously on the skill of the teacher as well, and some crash courses in English for teachers do not necessarily arm them with all those skills.


FLOODS AND ROADS - EVERY TIME
The early arrival of autumn in the form of the storm that struck on Friday left, no surprise, the coast road into Puerto Pollensa awash with flood water. Happens all the time. There was me thinking that they were meant to have done something to have alleviated the flooding problem. Come the rains, and it's going to happen. Mind you, this is a useful way around the road closure-or-not conundrum. Just summon up a few storms and nature takes the decision out of the hands of the town hall.

As the debate about the road rumbles on, I am less and less clear as to quite why there is a desire to pedestrianise it. Or at least pedestrianise the whole length up to Llenaire. There is a perfectly adequate form of pedestrian mobility as it is: the pavement. If the plan were to ban vehicles as far as, for instance, Sail and Surf and La Gola, I could see some sense. This would mean that the areas of Puerto Pollensa's frontline with the main concentration of pedestrians would become more easily negotiated by those pedestrians. But up as far as Llenaire? Why? It can only be as a justification for the new road, which is fair enough - up to a point. The new road is, or should be, to alleviate some of the congestion in the centre of the port, so a partial increase in pedestrianisation would achieve this. To close the road for the whole length, however, would merely create a problem that does not exist.

AND MORE ...
Teach me to put together features a day in advance. So this is by way of an almost immediate update. It now seems that the road will be closed between the Calle Elcano, which is the road opposite the entrance to the wharf (Moll Sur), and the Avenida Paris, which is just a bit past where I had suggested. This means that there will be no pedestrianisation as far as Llenaire and that the bit between the nautical club roundabout and the wharf will remain open. That indeed had been another thing I couldn't quite understand - access to the wharf and nautical club and also to the parking area. Now, it would seem, it is to remain open, though it will also mean entering from Calle Juan XXIII. The compromise closure is to be effected over this coming week. That's it then. For now.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Yardbirds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUZg6VHfcLM). Today's title - Northern Irish.

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Shape Of Things

The towns of Alcúdia and Pollensa are two of Mallorca's most extraordinary bequeathals. Their histories are a conjoint immensity of pre-Christendom, occupation, imported cultures, war, religion and architecture. These are the histories that reside within the city walls and in the ruins of Pollentia in Alcúdia and about the Plaça Major, up the Calvari steps and to the Roman bridge of Pollensa. Here is the architectural heritage of an old Mallorca. And then there is the rest.

Drive along the road from the motorway and glance to your left as you pass Pollensa, and you might well be inclined to just carry on. The impression is, if not of brutalism, then of a modernist fudge of non-description. Locally, one refers to the "pueblos" (small towns). Yet in reality Alcúdia and Pollensa are old and new towns, the latter nailed on as minor urban sprawls of unintelligent design. The idea that a sympathetic contemporary architecture might have mimicked the town-house style of the hearts of the towns was lost in planning offices stripped of foresight and amenable to a developer's lack of heart. The old centre of Alcúdia is protected by law as a heritage site; the surrounds were and are unprotected against an architectural dog's breakfast. Even something as "cultural" as Alcúdia's Auditorium looks like it has been transported, brick by glass facia, from a Robbins university campus lecture theatre in England; new, in the sense that the sixties might be defined as new, and utilitarian in both design and its lack of sympathy. It is not just Alcúdia and Pollensa. Sa Pobla, Santa Margalida, Muro all suffer in varying degrees; Muro's outer reaches, for example, could best be described as dreary, though some might spin this as light-industry chic. I'm not sure how one would describe them at worst.

There is not the same competition between the new and the old in the two towns' resorts, but it hasn't prevented them from being hotch-potched according to the latest whim, mainly of apartment block construction. Glass, less glass; white, less white; colour, less colour; however it is decreed by current trend, the effect is uniform in its very lack of uniformity - an absence of an overarching sense of purpose in terms of there being some symmetry to the towns' appearances. The ports of Alcúdia and Pollensa are the victims perhaps of their success and of their continuity. By contrast, Can Picafort, largely built from scratch over the past five decades, has a certain consistency and regulation, certainly in the residential areas of Son Bauló and the Avenida Santa Eulalia. In Son Bauló, there has been some success in marrying tourist and residential real estate with a degree of harmony; in the avenida, the two Viva complexes add grace to rather than detract from a wide-streeted elegance. Can Pic is a kind of Mallorcan Singapore: out with the old, in with the new, and applied with a degree of autocracy.

The ever-onward development of the ports, demonstrated by the various apartment sites in a state of permanent non-completion that may yet see them completed, has made the ports Lego architectural irregularity. One shape here, one shape there. It is only the old towns, the real old towns, that have the satisfaction of order.


And, in the case of Alcúdia, there is another shape that looms - that of the train. Where will it go? Will it go? The other evening, there was a meeting of local people to discuss the proposals for the siting of the line and the terminal. The advantages of the train coming to Alcúdia should be obvious, but there are those who are opposed to it, wherever it might end up. And then there are those opposed to specific sitings. You can, for example, see a "no-to-the-train" sign along the road from the roundabout as you enter Alcúdia going towards the roundabout for Puerto Pollensa. Anywhere but in the backyard of my finca, or right through my finca. Despite the sense of a terminal somewhere close to the centre of population, i.e. towards the back of the lovely auditorium, there is a lack of sense in respect of the changes to the landscape across the finca areas and their expropriation, to say nothing of the links to the proposed tram routes. Francesc Antich wanted an age of the train. It could be he will get an age. An age of debate with potentially no end.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Martika, "Toy Soldiers" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpJy46o_7b0). Today's title - '60s greats.

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We All Fall Down

The collapse of the XL Leisure Group pretty much says all that we need to know. If the UK's third largest tour operator is forced into administration, then it is confirmation of the dire state of the general economy - credit crunch, rising fuel prices, inability to re-finance. There are doubtless some holidaymakers stranded in Mallorca as a consequence, and others who may have no holiday or refund, if they booked direct. This news comes on the back of the troubles at two Mallorca-based airlines. Spanair's travails have been well-publicised. Futura is facing its own collapse and also some questions as to the motives of the Highbury Investment Group. A further company, another UK tour operator, Seguro, has been a victim of Futura entering administration, as the airline was the carrier for the bulk of Seguro's customers. Unfortunately, there is probably more of all this to come, and it was rather predictable. If anything, it may well push those looking to book next year into the hands of companies who would appear to be totally stable - TUI and Thomas Cook most obviously.


MORE ABOUT CATALAN
The promotion of Catalan. It's not the first time we've been here, and it won't be the last. This week, the Balearic Government rejoined the consortium of the Ramón Llull Institute. As reported in "Ultima Hora", the previous administration of Jaume Matas (Partido Popular) had left the consortium because of a "lack of political will"; it's reckoned that the real reason was the promotion of the Catalan language. The current president, Francesc Antich, called the return to the fold an "historic day" for the Catalan language and culture. The institute does indeed exist to promote the Catalan language.

Llull is someone I have spoken about before. He is not only one of the most famous of Mallorcans in history, he is also one of the most interesting characters of all European history of the Middle Ages. He is rightly celebrated, and he is rightly associated with the promotion of Catalan - up to a point. That Llull was a highly significant mover in the development of the language is beyond dispute. He wrote in Catalan, and indeed his novel "Blanquerna", written in Catalan, is often referred to as the first European novel. This all said, Llull, I fear, might be looking down on this latest political manoeuvre in promoting Catalan with some disquiet.

A polymath, considered to have been an early influence on later computation and logic theories, Llull was also a multi-linguist who pressed for the creation of teaching in languages other than Catalan at major European universities. He was a far from one-dimensional person; his outlook went well beyond the confines of his island or his "country" (Aragon, of which Mallorca was a part).

Figures from history are invoked for all manner of reasons and co-opted by all manner of movements. Llull is very much one of these. His Catalan credentials are unimpeachable, but, intellectually and for reasons of religious convergence, he was not wedded to Catalan alone. It is for this reason that I express some misgiving. Iconic he was and is, but as a figurehead for an exclusiveness of his native tongue, I am not so sure that he would approve.

But don't let us, as I have been accused of, seek some anti-Catalan agenda. Let me say this: I find Catalan an intriguing language. It is more satisfying than Castilian as it possesses a sort of coarse refinement. It is rough-edge language, rooted in the relative obscurity of Occitan. It has little of the flair, grandeur and drama of Castilian. It is far less rounded; literally, in the instances where it dispenses with an "o" that would be found in Castilian. It has the feel of the underground, a sense of subversion. No wonder Franco sought to proscribe it.

It is said that the Catalan-speaking areas, especially that of Catalonia around Barcelona, have a more liberal tradition in various ways, be it art or thinking: more liberal, that is, than other parts of Spain. Defence of the language is understandable; it is understandable at emotional, cultural and intellectual levels. Yet this liberal tradition seems to run counter to a mono-linguistic dialectic, one in which the name of Ramón Llull is taken. Against his better judgement quite probably.


SEPTEMBER STORMS
It's started. With uncanny regularity, the middle of September heralds a change in weather. It is the time of the "gota fría" (cold drop). There is thunder about and brooding clouds and a distinct fall in temperature. 12 September - on at least two occasions before I can remember this being the date when the weather went pear-shaped. And what is today? The island has been put on a state of yellow alert, with the threat of major "inundations." Well, I guess we needed the rain.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Ace of Base (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96jFtzVa80A). Today's title - "we all fall down like ...?" Superb song.

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I Saw The Sign

The will it close, will it not close confusion continues regarding the frontline road from Llenaire into Puerto Pollensa. There was a letter to the "Ultima Hora" newspaper the other day about the projected closure and also about the new bypass. Unfortunately, it was in Catalan, but I get the gist. Lack of information as to the exact plans of the town hall, was the bypass really necessary; that sort of thing. It also mentions, as I pointed out a while back, that there is a sign at the roundabout as one comes from Alcúdia that directs traffic into the centre along the very road that is meant to be closed at some point. In other words, it doesn't direct traffic along the bypass, unless, that is, you want to go to Palma perhaps.

I have been along the bypass a few times now. It's a joy. There's hardly any other traffic. Of course there will be if the coast road is closed, but if it isn't, then the letter-writer's complaint as to the destruction of the area around Llenaire, brought about by the hugely expensive bypass, has some substance. As for that sign, a few days ago there was a sort of blue bin-liner affair attached to it with an arrow pointing towards the bypass. I presume that it wasn't official, and that some wag had put it there as a way of making a point to the town hall (or whoever is responsible for road signs). Even if the frontline remains open, why not send traffic along the bypass? You can get to the centre just as easily; more easily in fact. Anyway, this temporary bin-liner sign is no longer there, and just to emphasise how much the town hall recognises that everyone is still of course using the coast road, there is another sign, a damn great big one across the road that announces this weekend's fisherman's fair in Puerto Pollensa (see the WHAT'S ON BLOG - http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com - for information).

They seem to have a bit of a problem with road signs here. The classic road sign that isn't a road sign by the Hiper supermarket in Puerto Pollensa is one of the finest examples. What it is, is a warning road sign, intended to tell you to get into lane for the real road sign at the lights some 100 metres further along - around a slight bend, so conveniently you can't actually see that there are other signs and a junction. What happens therefore is that the uninitiated slow down or stop, get confused, cause the driver behind to get mad, and then maybe proceed or go left or right, which is not what you should do.

Then there is another bypass. The one that goes at the back of Bellevue in Puerto Alcúdia. This road is similarly lightly used. It may take you out of your way, but in summer it is much quicker to use it than crawl along the carretera in order to get into the centre of the port or to go to Alcanada or the old town. The only problem is that the sign at the roundabout directs traffic to Palma and Sa Pobla, which is fair enough, but it neglects the bypass possibility. Moreover, at the next roundabout the sign for Palma directs you along the road to Sa Pobla, the old one by Albufera; the old one with that bridge where it is one-way traffic. What it does not do is direct you along the bypass to Palma, which is by far the simpler route. As one enters Alcúdia from the motorway, the bypass is similarly poorly signed. It says Can Picafort and Arta. Again, this is fair enough, but it fails to therefore inform the driver that this is the road for, for example, Hidropark and Bellevue, to say nothing of Playa de Muro. For the tourist especially, these signs are, shall we say, less than useful.


WHAT WAS YESTERDAY?
The day England became World Cup favourites? Bloody hot, the consequence of all that air being sucked in from Africa? Well, one of these. It was also the "day of the tourist". If you are a tourist, congratulations, you have a day named after you. It was Puerto Alcúdia's day of the tourist. Did anyone know? Anyway, there were sports, arroz brut (bet that went down well with the Bellevue crowd), and musical "spectaculars", among which was a performance by the omnipotent Beatles tribute - Beatlejuice. And they are omnipotent. Everywhere you go, these non-lookalikes are to be found. With the greatest respect to some friends with whom I spent an evening being serenaded over a meal by said Beatlejuice, I found them singularly underwhelming. They liked them. There again, I'm none too taken with most, if any, tributes. What do I know. There again, I'm not a tourist. Wasn't my day.


AND WHAT IS TODAY?
The day for a hangover after England's glorious victory? The anniversary of you know what? Both. It also marks a 600.

Mention of those signs by Hiper brings me to the fact that this entry is the 600th on the blog. One of the earliest entries spoke about these very signs. You won't find that entry any longer as I've started a process of deleting old archives. The blog's just got too big. Accordingly, the stuff for 2006 now starts in July of that year. Some of the old stuff may well be worth revisiting at some point and re-doing. Anyway, as this is number 600, I'd just like to say thanks to all of you who come here. I had never anticipated that making entries daily back in October last year would have had so much impact. I have had those who tell me they are "too addicted" to the blog or who look at the blog as the first thing once the computer has been powered up. It is quite nice to know that. It's also nice to get comments that the blog is "refreshing", "very good incisive stuff" and an "antidote to some other sites where the sun always shines on the sangria". So to all of you, once again, thanks a lot. I very much appreciate your time in both reading the blog and contacting me. Do keep sending your emails, comments, observations, disagreements, and answering the odd quiz question. Which brings me to ...


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Racing Cars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7xEfNrXOLg). The vocals on the video are not very clear. Today's title - Swedish.

Oh, and today is also someone's birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KAREN!

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They Shoot Horses Don't They

If you were to just stand under the baking sun for an hour or so, you would get pretty damn hot. You would also get stressed, then distressed. You are a warm-blooded animal. Heat without movement or relief is not good for you. Horses are warm-blooded animals, too. You are probably familiar with the white marks around the neck as some "sweat up" before a race. Why, therefore, would you let a horse stand under a hot sun without relief for an hour or so? The answer is that you probably wouldn't.

There was a short piece in "The Bulletin" yesterday which said that tourists had been unhappy at the sight of horses standing around in the sun. These are the horses that take those tourists on their horse-and-carriage rides; in this case, in Playa de Muro. There was a suggestion also that a horse appeared to be injured. The tourists contacted an animal rights group.

I was told yesterday that some tourists had been to the circus, Circo Williams, in Puerto Alcúdia. They had complained about the bears at the circus; that the animals had seemed distressed and not necessarily in the best of condition. They had wondered how "the Spanish" could allow such a thing.

In the village of Fornalutx on Saturday, there was the annual "bull run". This involves a bull being pulled along with ropes around its neck, then being allowed to run through the streets before finally being killed and eaten. There had been protests prior to the event.

You might just detect a certain theme to these three examples.

The apparent indifference to animal welfare continues, despite laws to grant rights to animals. I am wary of the local animal cruelty debate. Wary because of the expatriate propensity to be sanctimonious and to start telling the locals how they should run their affairs. You may recall a previous piece on bullfighting. I am not in favour of banning it, nor though do I like it. Whether it continues or is terminated should be a matter for the Spanish people to decide. It is not an issue whereby busy-bodying Brits should act with some sort of missionary zeal against the actions of perceived heathens.

That all said, how on Earth can something like the bull run be allowed? Just the basics of the description above are grotesque enough. While one can defend the bullfight from the point of view of its spectacle and theatre, there can be no similar defence for this. It is cruelty dressed up as tradition minus the costumes and olés. At least that is how it seems if one adopts an anthropomorphic sentimentalism, which may run counter to a less squeamish local culture.

There is a scientific debate going on regarding the extent to which animals have feelings. The debate falls into two schools, of which one - the ethological - maintains that there is evidence as to the existence of animal feelings. Notwithstanding the semantic and therefore philosophical difficulty of applying a word associated with human reactions to an animal, I am not unpersuaded by the ethological argument. Yet there remains the ambiguity of ever proving it. To this end, it is understandable that the debate, in layman terms, is polarised at one extreme by those who attribute to animals all forms of human emotion and at the other those who consider animals to be totally non-sentient in being unable to perceive, i.e. make a mental judgement: dumb animals, if you like. The Spanish, one guesses, are less prone to apply the former extreme than many British.

But there is an illogic as to what is deemed acceptable or unacceptable here. I cannot understand what the fuss is about where the now-banned duck throwing of the Can Picafort summer fiesta is concerned. I understand it even less when a bull is pursued, slain and then scoffed as part of another fiesta. It makes no sense. Perhaps ducks have more professional lobby groups than do bulls.

The circus comes to town once a year. I can remember when the circus used to come to our town when I was young. I can remember the clowns, the acrobats, the elephants, the lions. They stopped the performing animals long ago. But here they carry on. At least they don't kill bulls at circuses, and they don't shoot horses, do they?


REAL MALLORCA - THE DEAL DONE?
After the procrastination and a considerable amount of column inches devoted to will they, won't they, it would appear that Paul Davidson's acquisition of Real Mallorca is drawing to a completion. Yesterday an agreement was signed for him to pay 38 million euros for a 93% holding. This is not the final part of the equation or the final date, which is 15 October, but it would seem that the British businessman will indeed now be the club's new owner. Good luck.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Three Dog Night (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWMt5Hk0E-g), but Randy Newman wrote it, and The Animals performed it first. Today's title - yes, it was a film, but which Welsh group had a hit with it?

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Mama Told Me Not To ...

Family closeness is all well and good, but the Spanish, in the form of young-adult offspring, have traditionally often failed to leave the womb, especially the young-adult Spanish male, for which read also of course Mallorcan male. I once read someone bemoaning the nature of this species. To paraphrase, it was in terms of sun shining from where only those with certain proclivities or medical staff would dare venture. The Mallorcan son can do so little wrong that he is indulged and is quite content to reciprocate by continuing to feast from his mother's table. There is one Mallorcan chap who I meet periodically, except that is when he fails to show up, normally because mama has insisted she cooks lunch. And this Mallorcan chap runs a restaurant. Go figure.

But some do of course escape. The only problem is that the economic crisis is driving them back to the welcoming arms of mama who doubtless had told them not to go in the first place. Everything is back again as it should be in the Mallorcan family, courtesy of the American sub-prime crisis. According to a piece in "The Times", 60% of those between the ages of 18 and 34 live at home, more than a quarter of that figure being over 30. And now the numbers are rising.

In my immediate neighbourhood, there is one 30-something who is still at home and who has enjoyed many a mama's hearty meal by the looks of him. Another, in the house opposite, is still there, and his brother lives round the corner. One rather grand house has a whole load of them; it's all a bit like "Dallas" minus the oil.

For one who, had it not been for university meaning that a room was kept available for the rare trip home, would have been shown the parental door at the end of schooling, I find it all a bit strange. But there is a serious side to all this in that economic circumstances are making it hard to move out even if they want to. Young people tend to be employed on temporary contracts and so are the first to get the chop, while an average salary across Spain for those under 35 is 18,000 euros. Leaving mama has never been more difficult.


BAD DEBT
"DEUDOR". Know what it means? Change a couple of letters and you would have the English. Debtor. All the Spanish that might have headed to the beach near me on Sunday would of course have known the word. That may have been the intention; the more that could see, the better. The only problem was the morning rain and cloud which meant that, despite the afternoon sun, the beach was more or less deserted on what is otherwise the busiest day of the week. Consequently, there were only a few other cars where normally one gets some double-parking. It made one car stand out though. A Volvo estate. I seem to have seen it there quite regularly. Someone else would have known it would be there, too. And would probably have taken into account that the repair workshops would be closed till Monday. "Deudor" had been scratched into the bonnet. The tyres had been slashed. It was not perhaps as vandalistic as a car I once saw near Sea Club in Puerto Alcúdia. Its windows had been smashed and it had been spray-painted with the word "GRASS". And yes, it was the English word; I've not translated.

Much as many here will resort to a "denuncia" to the police for matters trivial enough that they should be possible to resolve with a bit of adult discussion or will fabricate the "facts" of a denuncia, there are many others who will take matters into their own hands - for those things for which a bit of adult discussion might be beyond the wit of either party or for which there seems no other resort than to vandalism or violence. Exasperation can sometimes drive people to extraordinary measures. Not that I am condoning grand auto vandalism. Far from it. But I can understand the exasperation.

I have no way of knowing the circumstances behind the "deudor" attack, but if someone owes you money, there is not a lot you can do about it, unless you have pretty deep pockets and are willing to go through a protracted court procedure. There is no such thing here as a small claims court. And if you happen to be the one who owes the money, here's a word of advice. Find yourself a garage. Oh, and it might be an idea if you pay the garage's landlord as well.


DON'T GIVE A FIG
A year ago I did a piece about figs. This is the fig season. My mate with a finca near Santa Margalida delivered a tray last night. Pure ambrosia. I hadn't appreciated, until he told me, that they are highly calorific. To Hell with it. Hand me another.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Immigrant Song", Led Zeppelin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svR3iXKTJvc). Today's title - ok, Tom Jones, but who came first and who had the first hit?

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Our Only Goal Will Be The Western Shore

British politics may be about to cross the Rubicon of taboo by debating, sensibly, the issue of immigration. The Labour MP Frank Field has an idea for caps for non-EU immigrants. For years, ever since Enoch Powell and his "rivers of blood", immigration has been the subject that barely dares speak its name in politics, save for the extremist views of the far right. This reticence to position immigration at the centre of the political dialectic has helped to spawn the xenophobia of the BNP, which has been only too willing to address the issue through its one-eyed perspective. But now, this may be about to change; one trusts that reason and nuance will prevail, rather than hysteria and myopia.

In Spain, there has been more openness on the subject, even if to raise it can result in accusations of racism. Just this happened to the failed Partido Popular presidential candidate Mariano Rajoy who, moreover, was accused of hypocrisy in suggesting limits when it had been his party that had encouraged immigration. And now? The socialist government of Spain is to impose a freeze on non-EU immigration where it affects jobs that could otherwise be done by Spaniards (or indeed, one presumes, those from the EU). Economics can change political rhetoric and posture, for the economic situation and unemployment are behind this move.

The Spanish immigration drive was founded on the need to augment the labour force. Construction was booming and workers were required. Over the course of a decade, the immigration population of the country grew by 800%. Now the boom has led to bust and the immigrant workers are superfluous. The Spanish government is offering incentives for these workers to leave - up to around 18,000 euros worth of incentive, so long as they don't come back within three years. The vast immigrant workforce has served Spain well, and it has not been that expensive - 1,200 euros per month for construction labourers - while it has been a net contributor to the social security system. Until now.

Eastern European, African and Caribbean workers may have been a temporary and opportunistic group of "guest workers" that the Spanish government was only too happy to embrace, but there is a wider dimension to the immigration debate, which is that of population. Recent predictions from Brussels indicate that, by the middle of the century, not only will Britain's population have increased substantially so too will Spain's. There was a map that showed densities of future population. In the case of Mallorca, the island was one single, unbroken blob; high density, in other words.

A government's management is similar to a company's in that it is a case of managing resources. When the company hits bad times, it lays workers off. Spain Inc. is doing the same, while also making the qualification for employment tougher. Discrimination it may be, but Spain is doing no more than many other countries. Try getting into Australia, for example. Population growth is another aspect of resource management. There are clear benefits from immigration, but there are also downsides, not least in terms of housing and urban crowding.

Immigration is regularly pinpointed as a top concern among the local population in Mallorca. The argument that immigrants take jobs away is largely spurious, but there are other facets, such as the alteration to the way of life. There is, though, no going back on the cosmopolitanism of Mallorca, certainly not while EU mobility laws apply. Besides which, the change to that way of life began the moment that mass tourism took off, together with the immigration and land ownership that occurred even before the liberalisation of movement. But the management of immigration from the point of view of living accommodation and its support elements, e.g. schools, hospitals etc., at some point becomes critical. As a foreigner in a not so large part of a foreign land, I am not unaware of that fact. However, the question is what would constitute a critical point. 2 million, a doubling of the current population of Mallorca? Less? More? Does anyone really know?


TIME SHARE - TIME OUT
September is here and the scratch-cardists of time share, sorry holiday clubs, have called time for the season and pissed off back to Gran Canaria. That's the good news. It seems a little odd to close down in Alcúdia and Pollensa whilst the richer pickings of September are circulating, but maybe there are even more to be suckered in in Maspalomas. The less good news is that they'll be back. One bar-owner tells me his gaff may be their new morning meeting-place from next season. Nice additional work if you can get it maybe. I hadn't realised how many of them there are. Enough to fill a smallish terrace, that's for sure.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Don't Give Up", Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl1rRxG251s). Today's title - where does this come from? Immigration!!

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I've Changed My Name

Who remembers that old TV film "The Knowledge"? It highlighted the lengths that London cabbies have to go to in order to learn the street names and routes of the capital. I knew some cabbies when I lived in London. They did indeed have to endure a test of that "knowledge". It was the case that if you took a mini-cab, rather than a London taxi, you might well have ended up telling the driver how to get to A or B. Very rarely would a cabbie not know.

London is very much bigger than Palma, but spare a thought for the Palma taxi driver. There is due to be a change to no less than 141 street names in the city. This is the consequence of linguistics, place-name usage and the law of "historic memory", for which, read Franco. Under this law, all symbols of the Franco era are to be dismantled. And that includes street names.

Now just think about this. Suppose you lived in a city in the UK of similar size to Palma, say Bristol, and one morning woke up to find that, following some political or politically correct decision, you now lived in Gordon Brown Way or Archbishop Tutu Close. Don't expect the postman to necessarily deliver to you that morning. Changing a street name here or there is not that problematic, but to do it wholesale ... Maps, post-office records, land-registry records, one's own registration with the town halls, business addresses, advertising and of course the poor old cabby.

A few days ago, I mentioned that Muro town hall is being pressed to change names of roads associated with Franco. I daresay this applies to other municipalities locally. I really wouldn't know. Presumably, local Mallorcan people do know; possibly. And if they do know, perhaps some take exception, or perhaps they don't. The linguistics aspect of street names applies, I would guess, to those in Castilian; Catalan is the PC in a land where PC generally counts for very little.

Palma may be different, simply because of its sheer spread and size, but in small towns, such as Alcúdia or Pollensa, the street name, if not irrelevant, holds very much less significance purely in terms of locating a place. Very few people use street names; very few could tell you the names of streets in their immediate area. Like time is a vague concept here, so too is location from the point of view of street naming. Perhaps it all has to do with the fact that names have changed in the past. Whatever the reason, street names are not often referred to.

The British don't operate in such a vague fashion, until, that is, they have lived here for some time. You will get a new incomer here who fastidiously uses a road name, only to be greeted with a blank expression or a correction. "Pere Mas i Reus." "Oh, you mean the Mile." Alternative names become the norm, even to the point of inaccuracy. In Puerto Pollensa, the pinewalk is often used to describe the whole of the current pedestrian promenade, i.e. from the roundabout along what is the Paseo Anglada Camarasa. This isn't the case; the pinewalk is the Paseo Voramar. But, importantly, no one would ever use either name, so pinewalk it is, however you define it.

Changes to or new street names are nothing new. Competing and changing political parties have seen to this, with their preferences for Castilian or Catalan. But there are names that suffer from almost complete lack of recognition, despite their being attached to relatively important bits of road. The Carretera Artà, which runs from the port of Alcúdia to Can Picafort and beyond (to Artà rather obviously), is, for the whole of its length as far as the forest in Playa de Muro, a series of sub-avenues. Not that many would know this. The avenidas Reina Sofia, Juan Carlos, Albufera and Playas de Muro are the side roads of the carretera, but again, no one refers to them as such, or very few do. Moreover, they don't always appear on maps. And with pressure for de-Francoisation, cartography faces a confused immediate future and no doubt many a confused tourist working from yet-to-be-updated maps. Even one or two isolated street-name changes take time to filter into the public domain of street plans. For a time, a few years back, I could lay claim to having designed the only accurate street map of Can Picafort, and I only found out by walking around one afternoon. On some maps you can still find a Carrer Dunes; you won't if you go looking for it. Then there are street names that confuse as a consequence of recent duplication. In Puerto Pollensa the Carretera Formentor is the road that runs parallel to the front line (of the pinewalk). It was the old road to Formentor, but not any longer since they built the bypass, which is - possibly - the Carretera Formentor.

It all makes you wonder why we bother with street names and indeed why they ever came about in the first place. It's probably all the fault of the Romans, but, apart from names that lead somewhere, as in Carretera Artà, why not just use numbers. Street One, Two, Three. The only problem is that someone would find a Francoist association or they would argue the toss over whether they should be Castilian or Catalan numbers. Just leave them alone.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Strawberry Fields Forever" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywg-PdeGVL0). Today's title - "... but no one wants you when you lose."

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Nothing Is Real

With a degree of fanfare for the worthies of government, business and a few local people, the new "centro de interpretación" for the Son Real finca outside Can Picafort was formally opened a couple of nights ago. I trust all had an enjoyable time and partook of some fine hospitality; chances are it will be the first and only time they go. Like restaurant inaugurations, openings of public facilities attract the freeloader and the great and good, never for them to set foot in the place again.

Back in July (24 July, People Get Real), I queried the value of this new centre. Making Son Real sustainable, having a centre of some description; these are worthy and appropriate aims. But the number of visitors anticipated and the amount spent just don't add up. Well sorry, they do add up or are rather divisible, and the sums don't make a huge amount of sense as a calculation of visitor to actual cost.

The "new" Son Real will charge 5 euros top whack, with kids getting in at half price. As I commented back in July, I would guess that a great proportion of the visitors will be school children on trips, as is the case with Albufera. But even assuming that all the 20,000 anticipated visitors per annum were to actually put in an appearance (which would require something in the region of a three-fold increase on current numbers) and also assuming that they were to pay the full price, it will take 30 years to recoup the cost of the new development; it has cost 3 million euros.

How can this possibly be justified? Son Real, it is said, has "international significance", but for whom? Tourists? How many even know of its existence, or indeed how to get to it? Perhaps they're improving the information, but Son Real has hardly been something well signed or even publicised. And one presumes the charge is for the centre and museum as opposed to the actual finca. If so, you can cut that 20,000 by a proportion.

The real message being sent out by Son Real is one of egoistic sustainable tourism and development; the finca itself is managed by the centre for sustainable development. There is nothing inherently wrong in this, but what is wrong is the belief that the type of project undertaken at Son Real holds any great benefit for tourism. It doesn't. Or if it does, only at an inconsequential level. Son Real sits alongside the projected new Pollentia centre and arts and science museum in Alcúdia as an example of a qualitative exercise in minority interest. Fine buildings, fine centres add to the overall quality of life for everyone, tourist included, but there is a delusion that they will provide for an alternative form of tourism that will be anything other than a drop of culture in the Mediterranean.


POLLENSA AND ITS ACCOUNTS
One might have imagined that budgets for the current year would long ago have been approved, like last year for example. Not so in Pollensa where problems are never far from the town hall's agenda. According to the "Diario", the budgets will be "finalised" this coming Tuesday. Oh well, better late than never. And taking account, as it were, of the tardiness of their completion, the town hall is employing a company to put together next year's accounts somewhat earlier and also to oversee financial control of the council's accounts. As always, there is an opposition politico who begs to differ with the approach, but rather more fundamentally, the fact of employing an outside firm suggests that the town hall simply lack the competence to do what should be one of their main tasks.

I don't know how financial control of the town halls is performed here, but given the debts that many have and to say nothing of the periodic scandal that erupts, there is much to be said for a system of external control. In Pollensa's case, they may just have stumbled across the right solution for the wrong reason, though this still raises a question as to the existence or rigidity of some form of external audit. If an audit is not mandatory, it damn well ought to be.


REAL MALLORCA ... MORE CARRY ON
"Ultima Hora" has a line today. It describes the events surrounding the proposed takeover of Real Mallorca having a touch of the Marx Brothers; it also describes the events as a soap opera. Perhaps they should really be a Carry On. Carry On Prevaricating, or some such.

Yesterday was meant to have seen an agreement. Now it will be next week. Maybe. Meantime the coach of the team is asking desperately for some clarification of what's going on. The shadow of Freddy Shepherd still looms over the takeover, as does the more shadowy figure of an unnamed Russian magnate. Paul Davidson, for his part, remains confident, and "The Bulletin", front pages with "Real Deal" today. A more sober assessment is to be found in the pages of the Spanish press which sets out the current situation. The fact is that Davidson, who initially tabled an offer far higher than that of Shepherd, has moved to a lower price. When I drew a comparison with Mike Ashley the other day, one thing seems clear: he is performing a thorough process of due diligence, and quite rightly so. Ashley didn't, and that was just part of the reason for the mess he's in. Presumably the examination of the books has led to the lower offer. Meanwhile, Vicente Grande, the current owner, played by Kenneth Williams in the Carry On version, is getting it from all sides - "Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me".

If Davidson doesn't in the end take the club over, it won't be for lack of trying. But perhaps his initial offer was no more than an opening gambit to kill off the Shepherd bid. Now both parties are mired in the legal process, things have become that much more complicated. Maybe Mr. Grande underestimated Mr. Davidson. If so, he should have taken time to study Davidson's landmark triumph over the UK Financial Services Authority. This is a canny businessman who may yet succeed in his acquisition. And perhaps we will find out if he has this week, or perhaps we won't.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Walker Brothers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ8XLglx8HQ). Today's title - "... and nothing to get hung about."

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The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore

Following on from the mention on 3 September of that one hundred thousand tourists pitching up this summer, here is an explanation that puts rather stringy meat on none-too-large a bone. I had rather suspected this was the case, and it is. The 100,000, if indeed that turns out to be the number, are those being sent to Mallorca as part of a "social" tourism exercise. In itself, it is nothing new; just the numbers are greater. Basically, what it entails is that OAPs from European countries get a free or subsidised stay during winter. The Danes, for instance, have been doing this for years. It can work out as or more cost-effective to pack the oldsters off to hopefully warmer climes than to fork out for energy during a Scandinavian winter. There's probably also a touch of good old therapy and calculation of savings to the country's national health service in all of this as well. Add to that the fact that the sun in effect disappears for much of the Scandinavian winter; the sun doesn't shine anymore, especially for the old folk.

So this exercise is part of the island's tourism salvation in winter. Don't get too excited. 100 grand's worth of senior citizenry may sound a lot, but, as a measure of the island's tourism, stand this against the annual total; it's around the 11 or 12 million mark. The so-called pilot scheme that will bring this latest wave of visitors will amount to slightly less than one per cent of that total. Apparently this latest initiative has been put into place quite quickly. You bet it has. Small the number may be in percentage terms, but it will still enable them to issue some glowing statistics to show that winter tourism is on the increase, and they will be entirely misleading.

Swelled though the winter tourism numbers may well be by this intake, it will make very little difference. Hotels may find it viable to open in order to welcome the pensioners through their revolving doors, but they won't be employing vast armies to serve them. There may be some extra jobs to be had, but not many, certainly not at the sort of level that will help to alleviate the unemployment crisis.

As I say, this is not actually new. In Alcúdia there have, for a number of years, been Scandinavian visitors in winter, brought here courtesy of their governments. As far as the wider economy is concerned, they have little or no impact. You will not find that restaurants, bars and shops all decide to suddenly stay open in anticipation of winter riches. This form of tourism is not your Saga, mortgage-paid-off, well-pensioned septuagenarian with a full wallet ready to be pickpocketed. The term "social" tourism says all that needs to be known.


Another sign that winter is approaching is that the local environment ministry is to undertake, during October, a programme of fumigation of forest areas in a bid to combat the "plague" of processionary caterpillars. The moths that are responsible for the caterpillars, the same moths that those bags you see hanging off trees are supposed to capture, are probably not the target for the biological bacterial insecticide to be used; rather, one presumes, it will be directed at the eggs the moths lay. Whatever. The spraying is to be done by light aircraft, so when you wonder why there are low-flying planes this autumn this will be the reason. The caterpillars are not only harmful to trees, they can be extremely unpleasant if they come into contact with human skin, so anything that gets rid of the damn things is to be welcomed. However, pine trees are not confined to forest areas alone. There's a bloody great big one in the neighbour's garden, and several in the streets just in the immediate area. Keep wearing those hoodies in February and March in case a procession falls off and marches along your neck - it is the caterpillar's hairs that emit the toxin which, generally no worse than a wasp or bee sting, can be more serious for some.

And while on insect life that can make human existence miserable, what is with it flies in the late summer and then winter? During most of the summer you hardly see or hear one or have one buzz you with the sort of persistence they do from September onwards. Come, say, November, and while the weather is agreeable enough to do some sunning on the sun terrace, a stint under the rays is often curtailed thanks to the appearance of squadrons of flies. Why?


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Suzanne Vega (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FQoiqa_A9A). And Marlene was of course Marlene Dietrich. Today's title - it was great; who were they?

And the bar was ... Foxes Arms, Puerto Alcúdia. The Leicester stuff was the giveaway.

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Marlene On The Wall

Walls. For a language with such a vast vocabulary, English is linguistically enclosed by its wall. We need adjectives in order to distinguish between our different walls. Spanish, though vocabularily challenged by comparison to English, has built all manner of walls. "Pared" is interior, "muro" is exterior, "muralla" is city. Catalan shares muralla and merely substitutes a "t" inside and dumps an "o" outside. I can claim to actually live in the beach of the external wall (playa de muro). English, it might be said, broke out of the wall enclosure by painting a mural, which is the same word in both Castilian and Catalan, but it otherwise remains stubbornly singular. Not here, unless one remains stubbornly attached to English alone. Wherever there is a wall, there is a different word. That garden wall? "Tapia".

Any study of the Mallorcan wall has to take account of its nounal variation. A wall is a wall is a wall in English, but not so here. The local walls are not just differing nouns they are also structures of competing cultures, geology and manufacture. To categorise the external wall with the broad brush of homogeneity would be to ignore the variety of sand stones that form the brickwork and to forget that such stones are often both external and internal, in neither case having necessarily been subjected to rendering or plastering. There is a certain similarity between some external brickwork with that of, for example, Bath stone, even if the finish is more rugged. Yet, move down the east coast to Santanyi, and there one finds a more golden sandstone which lends to the town a suffusion of the sun at its mellow setting.

The more contemporary external wall, on the other hand, is a stucco or cement render of multi-colouring, sympathetic to the natural environment of sand, earth and flora. Here are the yellows of sun, the light ochres of sand, the sienna turning terracotta of some of the earth, and even shades of bougainvillaea russets and pinks. A further tradition, founded on the reflective properties of white, has been modernised through the uniform chic of neutrality and grey, threatening a retreat of the vibrancy of palette of the nature-inspired wall.

The hotels and apartments, the exclusively tourist ones, tend to the default white, though there are also light yellows and the occasional collision of colour, such as the soothing but striking combination of sky and sun in the pastel blue and yellow of the Alcúdia Garden. Mostly, the hotel exterior walls are colourless indifference; they elicit no response until one is startled by the stylistic affrontery of something such as the dirty red brick and white mix of the Siestas, buildings colour-hewn from the one-time Hungarian national football team strip.

Interior walls are stone or bare. Flock wallpaper, indeed any wallpaper, has failed to garner favour in a climate of winter dampness that infests interiors denied the protection of damp-proofing or adequate insulation. These walls instead are the repositories of generational clash. Religious icons, the sepia of the genealogical line and the austerity of dark canvases are usurped by plasma-ing and also the IKEA-isation of art that hangs from the contemporary interior wall. And art is a regular, not least in some restaurants which have swapped their seafaring paraphernalia for galleries of abstract, impressionism and faux-Fauvist post-impressionism of the Pollensa school. But the interior wall is also the declaration of affiliation, no more so than the British bars which are shrines to the old country's localism. Here, the wall is of synthetics and replica; it is wall designed by label, of sponsor, town, city and club. And different types of icon in terms of merchandise, promotion and product climb other walls - Paris Hilton, say, in a perfumery; Beckham in all manner of stores; Bob Dylan across one wall of Pollensa's Café Illa. Other old icons still have their place on posters or bags - an Elvis or Marilyn perhaps. Marlene on the wall.

The wall in its varieties blinds us with its mere functionality, yet it is rich in history, culture and symbolism. We take walls for granted and fail to look, but there are other walls than just those of buildings and of ancient defences. One doesn't even have to escape to the country to appreciate them. These are the dry-stone walls, the centuries-old crafting of which abounds even in urban areas, and which even have a fiesta in celebration.

Walls, wherever you go, walls; in whichever language you choose. Bang your head against a brick one if you must, just don't ignore them.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Pink Floyd, "Money" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl6NfQyNLto). Today's title - American folk-ish singer; who was the Marlene of the song?

Extra quiz: in which bar was the photo taken?

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Think I'll Buy Me A Football Team

August. High season. A time for work and for jobs. You would think that, but it has not been so. The Balearics have witnessed an increase in unemployment in the hotel sector of 28% during August. It is not the only sector affected.

Twenty-eight per cent. Whatever other statistics may get thrown around about occupancy and spend, this figure is revealing and alarming. There is nothing to take up the slack. The construction industry in the doldrums cannot do it, so where do people turn to? The dole queues are the only answer, and yet many do not qualify for benefit, only for special help. Winter approaches, and the scene is one of unremitting bleakness until the 2009 season. God knows what that will bring. A while back, someone allegedly in the know reckoned that the tourism sector, for which read mainly the hotels, would help to alleviate the employment crisis in construction during the coming winter. It was rubbish then, and it still is.

The only brightness comes in the form of what is anticipated to be a good September. Partly, this may be the consequence of dreadful August weather in the UK and a load of last-minuting. But it will be hotel occupancy on the back of heavy discounts. Cut the prices and there is less money sloshing around for employment. There is some hope for the winter in the form of an initiative between the Tourism Ministry and the European Commission, which will see - supposedly - a hundred thousand tourists coming to the Balearics in the low season from January. Quite what this initiative is I am unclear. Perhaps this was that person in the know had in mind. Whatever it is, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Meantime, in the property sector there has been a fall in house prices in the Balearics of some 7% over the summer. Notwithstanding the difficulties of getting accurate actual house-price values, as I mentioned a few days ago, this decline, while indicative of the general "crisis", is not unwelcome in a market that had overheated through excessively high prices. A question is how much further the price fall will go. A reasonable guess would be that there is still a fair bit more to come. So even with prices in general coming down, now is still not necessarily a good time to be buying, even, that is, if a mortgage could be secured.


AND SO TO FOOTBALL ...
Newcastle United, in the guise of Freddy Shepherd, had a temporary Mallorcan dimension when the club's former chairman was in line to take over Real Mallorca. The club is in the news yet again for different reasons. And what, you may ask, does the Keegan fiasco have to do with Real? In two words - Mike Ashley.

Ashley, on becoming Newcastle's boss, adopted the persona of the fan, going into the stands, wearing the shirt, drinking the beer. He is reviled. Paul Davidson, who is on the point of completing the due-diligence process prior to his acquisition of Real, has said, more or less, that he will be on the terraces and will be a fan.

Ashley is a successful businessman, so is Davidson. The latter has said that he would have nothing to do with the football side of affairs. Ashley has ended up having a great deal to do with the football side of affairs. Businessmen do not invest in anything, let alone football clubs, without exercising control. In Ashley's case, the whole Newcastle experience is turning into a nightmare.

Davidson says that the Mallorca deal will assist in the promotion of the business that has made him wealthy - piping. I don't think I'm alone in wondering quite how. The "Diario" interviewed him the other day and put that very question. It's still not really clear.

I wish Mr Davidson only success, but there is much about the acquisition that raises worries. Professing to be a fan is one thing; being a fan is another. Being a fan is in the blood. Ask a Newcastle supporter. The notion also that somehow Brit expats will suddenly be magicked into being Mallorca supporters and help to fill the ground is spurious. Those expats have their clubs, the ones they watch on Sky or in bars. It's in the blood. And what of the local Real fans? Foreign ownership of a football club in an island where the attitude is every bit as parochial as the Geordie's? Real had a bad first result in La Liga; the club has lost some key players. Last season's seventh may have been the occasional flash in the pan that Real is capable of. I wish Mr Davidson well, but I hope he's observing what's been happening with Mike Ashley.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Average White Band (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBWQZ6tvT-E). Today's title - a line from a song from one of the most successful albums of all time.

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)

Pick Up The Pieces

He was an elderly gentleman. He couldn't move very quickly. He was shouting after a portly man in a green top and red shorts. His wife came out of the supermarket. She looked at me. Her husband had a heart condition. He had been pickpocketed.

I drove down the side road by Eroski and pulled the car up in front of green top. A very large English tourist was making his way down the road as well. Eventually the elderly gentleman arrived as well. Green top turned his pockets out. Nothing. The elderly gentleman was convinced. I was threatening a call to the police, but it would have been a waste of time. There was nothing. Maybe it was a mistake. I apologised to green top. He apologised. I'm not quite sure why; probably as he didn't actually have the missing wallet. Perhaps he had slipped it to an accomplice. Or it was just a mistake.

It had happened in the Eroski store, the same one out front of which had occurred the pickpocketing by a carnation seller that I spoke about back in March. The very large English tourist commented that you don't expect this sort of thing to happen here. Unfortunately, you do, or should. And so the elderly gentleman with the heart condition went back to the Platja D'Or to report his cards missing, his money gone, his hotel key also gone; at least they could issue him with a re-programmed one.

Then this morning. Playa de Muro's municipal buiilding. There are several people sitting and waiting to see the Guardia. A rep is with one old couple and she is talking with one of the staff at reception, explaining what has been taken; the receptionist says she will help to file the statement with the Guardia.

Petty crime. And it can ruin a holiday. Get your pocket picked, and you are left to try and pick up the pieces of not only what has been stolen but also the shock of its occurrence and the negativity of the experience. It can stain one's attitude to a place. It can happen anywhere, but one just worries that there is more of it about, and that it might increase. The UK Home Office has predicted a rise in property crime as recession bites. There's no reason to think it will be any different here.


OPEN-WATER SWIMMING
This Saturday (6 September) will see the latest annual "Travessa-Xtreme", the open-water swimming race from Formentor beach to the San Pedro cove in Mal Pas, a 7 kilometre dash and splash of foam, arms and legs across the bay of Pollensa, except of course it is no dash - it takes nearly two hours for Olympic swimmers to do the 10 kilometre race. It is a popular event, one about which enquiries are made to the websites from the UK. At its competitive level, the Travessa reflects the interest in the Olympics open-water swimming, which proved to be a surprisingly engrossing spectator event, not least because of the heroics of Natalie du Toit and Maarten van der Weijden. At a recreational level, open-water swimming is becoming an increasingly popular active form of holiday, but not, as far as I am aware, in Mallorca. Maybe someone can put me right on that. It could be that open waters around the island can just be too turbulent, no more so than in Pollensa bay. For the competitive swimmer, an aggressive freestyle in the swirl may be a challenge; less so perhaps for the recreational swimmer bobbing along gently with a girly breaststroke.

More information about the swim is to be found on the WHAT'S ON BLOG. Note that there is also a swim on 20 September.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Banderas, "This Is Your Life" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rcLLa5mPvU). Today's title - instrumental plus this line: easy.

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This Is Not A Story, This Is Not A Book

Flags. You get quite a few flags on houses here. By the beach near me is a group of holiday chalets on top of which is a flag. An ancient German tourist once asked me what the flag was. Mallorcan, said I, but it could be the Balearic one; I can never remember the difference. Along the coast there is another flag, a flag that has caused a bit of a kerfuffle, sufficient for the boys in green to be asked to intervene.

By the roundabout as one enters Can Picafort coming from Playa de Muro is a road down to what is known as Ses Casetes des Capellans which is actually in Muro. It is a strange enclave of small holiday homes, some like glorified beach-huts. They surround an area that is used as parking; some disappear along tracks into the forest. There is a feel of Jaywick Sands about Ses Casetes. It is the flag on one of these holiday homes that has caused the problem. And the problem is? Well the flag is the Spanish flag but it features also a pro-Franco symbol. Such symbols are now effectively banned. Neighbours have complained, Muro town hall have said it basically isn't their problem and so the Guardia are now involved.

All this Francoism lingers on. Muro council is also being cajoled into renaming streets that have their origins in the Generalissimo era, which may be fair enough but would add to the confusion that has also come from streets having dual names (Catalan and Castilian) or having been changed from one to the other, and then back again, depending upon the prevailing political mood and complexion of the local council. Street names may not necessarily offend or their connotations be apparent, but a flag is a pretty overt statement of affiliation.

There was something else the other day that acted as a reminder of the days of fascism. It was a weird letter in "Euro Weekly" from some body calling itself the Historian Group Mallorca. The letter was in response to a review of Victoria Hislop's novel "The Return". Let me quote: "She (Hislop) is only concerned with the cowardly socialists." This may give you a flavour. It goes on to say that atrocities were perpetrated by the Republicans and to imply that Spain would, without Franco, have been like Russia. Now no one would deny that both sides were culpable of some dreadful acts during the Civil War, but, as I understand it, Hislop does chronicle this fact, though as she's writing a novel, she's entitled to take whatever angle she wishes; she is not writing a history textbook. Moreover, to say that Spain would have been like Russia has some truth only insofar as the Republican ranks were populated with Communists and received Soviet support (and the Nationalists were bolstered by the Nazis and the Italians). The Republicans were, however, a rather more eclectic mix than only outright Marxist-Leninists. But for any historian to extrapolate that a defeat of Franco would have resulted in a Communist state akin to the old USSR or that it would have lasted for any great time is purely hypothesis. This speculation though is revealing for one thing - the assumption that Spain would have swapped one form of totalitarianism for another; a sympathetic view of the Franco period should not allow the dreamt-up guise of a different tyranny to pardon the Nationalists their sins. One can theorise all one likes. Had the Republicans won, the battle lines of the Second World War would have been different. Hitler, who in any event didn't always see eye to eye with Franco and had indeed once threatened Spain with invasion, would surely have invaded. Or a Spanish front might have invaded occupied France. From there, who knows what would have transpired? We can all speculate, but it isn't history.

I don't know who this group is, but as it is a letter in good English to an English publication, I have to assume that it comprises English speakers, possibly and rather alarmingly expats. Whoever they are, the adoption of a title "Historian Group Mallorca" suggests an intent to speak for Mallorca. I don't think so.


THE WIFI WHITE ELEPHANT
You could have predicted this. The much-hyped WiFi zone on Puerto Alcúdia's beach has to date attracted ... Well how many do you think have bought the cards that allow you to get the connection? Today's "Diario" tells us. 72. How many people do you suppose have been on the beach since the connection was established in June? Until such time as great hordes of laptop users are cyberspacing on the sand, I will continue to believe that this has been nothing more than a vanity project on behalf of the town hall.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Brian Wilson, "Midnight's Another Day". This song is so poignant. Wilson's voice has gone, but you can almost imagine The Beach Boys circa mid-60s singing this. Go to the website and it plays - http://www.brianwilson.com. Today's title - this is a line from a brilliant early 90s song by a female group whose name is Spanish: think flags and Antonio.

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