But Not Forgotten

There are times when I get a distinct sense of déjà vu.

There are times when I get a distinct sense of déjà vu.

And it was like it only happened yesterday. All of it. Well, a lot of it. Like the Tour of Mallorca cycle race. It starts today. It is a year since the last one, which you might expect to be the case, but it doesn't make it any less mindboggling. It was like it only happened yesterday.

There was this thing a few weeks ago about a woman who has total memory. That is total memory, as in she cannot forget things. From ever. It's all there. It never goes. Total recall. All the time. Can you imagine that? Not that I have a similar affliction, but I may see the most inconsequential of things and a whole history comes into my mind - as, for instance, with the Tour of Mallorca.

We All Stand Together, 12 February, 2008. That was the last time. A year ago. It seems hard to believe. I remember the miserable faces of the Guardia doing the security (nothing unusual about that I suppose; miserable Guardia faces, that is), meeting someone walking his dogs, going into Kroxan for a coffee, seeing the bike clothing and gear for sale close to the finishing line, missing the taking of a photo with the mayor in it, making the jibe about what do the totty on the winner's platform have in their bags, asking what the point is of being a spectator at this sort of thing. Last year a stage ended in Puerto Alcúdia. By Kroxan. It was a sunny day. I can also remember the haze that afternoon that hung over the Sant Marti mountain as I gazed the length of Tucan in anticipation of the riders haring towards the finish.

I also remember that this race used to have a stage that started in Pollensa. I remember it pouring down with rain one year, waiting in Café Illa and then heading up to the Carrer Costa i Llobera to see the cyclists negotiate the wet and slippery cobbles. It seemed like a health and safety issue to get too close to the riders.They've changed this. Not everything remains the same, even if the memory does and so it was with the Classic Car rally. A stage did start from the nautical club. Ben, who would like to run his MG Midget in the race, thinks not now. Of course it wouldn't. Stupid me. How could it? The cars went along the front line. Couldn't now, could they. Pedestrianised. Or maybe they suspend that for a day. No-one much pays any attention to it anyway. It might be good if they were to list the stages on the website. Maybe they will. Classic Car Rally, 18-21 March - http://www.rallyislamallorca.com/


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Queen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuxS-9t3tnY). Today - forgiven but ... and the youtube - a real treat - is from before they were well-known.

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Friends Will Be Friends

Now, you know those fire runs and demonic bonfires; the ones that occur at mostly all fiestas but especially at the likes of Sant Antoni in January. Yes, you do know. And if you say you don't, you've obviously not been paying attention, so you can be damn grateful that I'm not going to give you a test on Alcúdia place names - as I threatened yesterday - but just don't let it happen again. Right, got that clear. The fire runs have cropped up on numerous occasions here, so you've got no excuse. And you've also no excuse for not knowing that I have suggested that running along streets with lighted torches and making bonfires on someone's door step might, just might, be a tad dangerous. And damn me, the European Union agrees with me. I should tell you, some time, about my one-time involvement with the European Union, in the form of the European Commission and its then special group to study the effects of electronic publishing, but that was years ago, so I won't bother, but suffice it to say that I, and our European masters, have form and some connections. And what a fine body of men, women and bureaucrats they are. So, anyway, the point is that Brussels is taking an interest in the fire runs. It doesn't seem to approve. How surprising. What it's going to do, and indeed what business it is of Brussels I'm not entirely sure. If Mallorcans wish to set fire to their houses and to themselves as part of their weekly piss-ups (sorry, fiestas) then let them. I'm certainly not going to stop them. Indeed, I will stand by and roar on my approval. More fire, more fire!!

However, there is a gloriously wonderful twist to this, and that is that the Balearic Government is holding its cap out for rather more Brussels moolah than it currently gets - about 35 million euros more of Brussels moolah, or an increase of some 200% plus. No small amount therefore. President Antich and his boys believe that the Balearics "has (sic) to meet costs no other isolated region in Europe faces". Or so says "The Bulletin". I think there might be a bit of a translation issue here as the Balearics aren't exactly isolated in the sense that, say, virtually uninhabited parts of northern Norway are, but that's another issue. I do, though, understand - sort of - what the government means. And what it means is that it wants more money. So say all of us, me especially. But, to come to the point, there are to be some Balearic Day celebrations in Brussels as part of this attempt to land a rather larger wedge of regional development funding. And these celebrations, less than diplomatically perhaps, are to include a fire run. What a brilliant idea. There is Brussels saying stop it, and the Balearic Government goes along to Brussels' own back garden and sets fire to it. How to win friends and influence bureaucrats. Actually, I am with Brussels. We're not going to give you 35 million euros so you can go and blow it all on making stupid demons' outfits and buying everyone family-sized packs of Standard fireworks.


I mentioned a couple of days ago that Top Gear is due to be filmed in Mallorca. As a slight coincidence, Clarkson has gone and got himself in the news for a different reason. Normally, I don't fall into the expat trap of believing that everything and anything back in Britain is worthy of comment (even if the comment was actually made in Australia), but I will make an exception simply because of the coincidence. If one studies what Clarkson said, one must ask, well, what is the fuss? "One-eyed?" Yes. "Scottish?" Apparently so. "Idiot?" Well, that's up to you to decide, but I fancy that some have used stronger insults for Gordon Brown, such as, of course, the sage of Santa Ponsa, Leapmeister Lee, who commonly refers to the PM as Herr Braun, thus, seemingly, affording him (Brown, that is), hilarious Nazi overtones. Ho, ho. Expect a future column from the Leapmeister to compare himself with Clarkson (rather than Littlejohn, which is his norm) and for him to point out that he, too, has called Brown a liar. The big difference, of course, is that no-one takes any notice.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Alicia Keys (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJiLcNQdye4). Today - big hair and big moustache.

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

You Don't Know My Name

Having several languages to contend with makes life confusing enough without there being the additional palaver which is trying to make sense of the names of different parts of towns, some of which come in different languages as well. Let's take Alcúdia as an example shall we. Yesterday, I was studying the telephone directory, as you do, and I realised that, for the purposes of Telefonica at any rate, Alcúdia, though in population terms barely 17,000 strong, boasts sufficient parts that there is one part per head of population. Well, that is a slight exaggeration, but there do appear to be vast numbers of them, and they don't necessarily conform with other classifications.

As far as Telefonica is concerned, these are the different parts of Alcúdia - and pay attention because you're likely to be tested on this at some stage - La Marina, Camp de Mar, Barcares, Morer Vermell, El Mal Pas, Bon Aire, Ca S'Angles, Port d'Alcúdia, Albufera, Son Fe and, of course, Alcúdia. There is also a sort of subordinate and frankly completely unnecessary section to the directory which is for Es Port d'Alcúdia; unnecessary because it's already appeared under Alcúdia.

Then there is, as an alternative source of local place namery, the map book of the "pueblos" of Mallorca. For Alcúdia, this lists Sa Marina, Camp de Mar, Barcares, Morer Vermell, Manresa, Mal Pas, Bonaire, Ca S'Angles, Alcanada, Port d'Alcúdia, Lago Menor, Lago Esperanza, Platja d'Alcúdia and Alcúdia.

I hope you're following all this. What one can establish, on an admittedly smallish survey, is that there are parts of Alcúdia, for which there appears to be some agreement as to some names. Minor differences may occur thanks (or rather not thanks) to the application of Mallorquín - as in Sa as opposed to La Marina. At least to the north of the town, there is a degree of harmony, even if no-one knows where these places start and finish. Camp de Mar, from what I can make out, is the same as Barcares, and why Telefonica ignores Manresa I'm not sure; alternatively, one might ask why it bothers to refer to so many places that occupy the same small acreage of land. Then there are parts that one simply didn't know existed. Go on, how many of you knew of Ca S'Angles and Son Fe? I still don't know where Son Fe is, though I'm guessing it's the road out of Alcúdia going towards the motorway. Ca S'Angles is as you go towards Barcares from the old town. There, you can amaze your friends with your new-found and utterly useless knowledge.

But when we get into what is generically known as Puerto Alcúdia or Port d'Alcúdia, to use the Catalan, the fun really starts. For Telefonica, the whole of the area from the Magic roundabout to the Muro boundary is Albufera. How many of you living in that area know that? Given that Albufera is not even in Alcúdia, this is quite an achievement. To be fair, Albufera used to be. All of what is now The Mile and Magic was once Albufera, but hasn't been for a fair old while now. Not that this stops Telefonica. The alternatives are the names of the lakes or Platja d'Alcúdia (Alcúdia Beach), though one is also likely to encounter Bahía d'Alcúdia (Alcúdia Bay).

Although all the little parts to the north of the old town manage to get named, in the Telefonica classification there is no place for Alcanada; it is Port d'Alcúdia. Alcanada doesn't exist, which may be why some residents there have problems getting broadband.

As with many things here, there is no one defining reference. It's a bit like the law. You just take the bit you fancy and apply that. Someone once asked what the area off Avenida Pedro Mas y Reus was called. He needed to know, so he thought, as he was looking to rent a villa in that area. Rather foolishly, he thought that all websites, maps etc. might conform to a singularity of place names. Not so, of course. As anyone can tell you, Pedro Mas y Reus has many names, some of them even official. The town hall would generally call it Ciudad Blanca, but how many others do? The lack of agreement or knowledge is what gives rise to places and areas adopting unofficial names - like Bellevue or Magic to describe areas. They may be unofficial, but they are more accurate and more relevant. Albufera certainly isn't.


A haven for writers
The Balearic Government has apparently supported a motion which would make the islands a sort of safe haven for writers who are persecuted for what they write in other countries. This is fascinating. Why? Because the Balearics are part of Spain, and Spain is not without a streak of censoriousness. Take the rip out of the King and the Royal Family and you could find yourself up before the local beak. Some of you may remember the case of the cartoon that took the piss out of the King's son and his wife, and resulted in a fine and a right old fuss about whether it was correct to prosecute or to apply a limit to the freedom of the press. I wonder, therefore, if a writer who had offended royalty in another country, would be extended the safety of the haven of the Balearics.


More bargains!!!
Some might maintain that the property market in Mallorca has not really been affected by the slight economic difficulty and that prices have not tumbled. These some are talking bollocks - generally speaking. I know people who, for different reasons, are very keen to shift their properties, be it because they have to (repayment problems) or because they need to return to the UK, or some such equivalent, non-financial reason. I know, therefore, of - for example - a house in Puerto Alcúdia. Very nice. Bungalow-style. Three bedrooms. Was on the market originally for 450,000 euros. How much now? 300 grand. That, I'm telling you, is one hell of a bargain. Anyone who's interested, just email me and I'll put you in touch.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Sophie Ellis Bextor (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Nsi05HkXw). Today - US female R&B-soul singer.

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

Murder On The Dancefloor

One Dakota, two Dakota, three Dakota, four.

Not yet five Dakota, six Dakota, seven Dakota, more, but is it just a malicious rumour going around town that Puerto Pollensa is to get a fourth Dakota Tex-Mex? What huge entertainment if it is. For this would bring forth (or maybe that's fourth) a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, as also would the news that the fish and chip shop was to turn into a Chinese, though, in all likelihood, a reallocation of an existing Chinese. It (The Codfather fish'n'chip shop, that is) has moved, by the way, to where the Ivy Garden was. Of course, fish and chip shops are ok, it would appear. No-one has ever seemed to moan that there is one, but it is hardly authentic, as in not being typically Mallorcan or some such, which is, of course, deemed to be the only sort of restaurant allowable in Puerto Pollensa (by many expats, that is). Tex-mexs's, an abundance of Chinese; these are not right, these ruin Puerto Pollensa, but a chippy on the other hand ... Oh well.

As for the fourth Dakota rumour, I know where it might be going, though of course it might just all be someone's vivid imagination and that the place in question will turn out to be nothing of the sort - or maybe another Burger King. Meantime, I'm not saying.


Two evenings ago, there was, apparently, a programme on some obscure channel about Mallorca. How dumb can TV get, do you suppose? How dumb can the people who watch this drivel get, do you suppose? I have a nightmare that hell is a constant loop of The Jeremy Kyle Show - tribes of Karen Matthews or those with brains the size of hers, faces to match and sitting in bars wearing ill-washed bras. Actually, I have seen a few like that here, wandering gormlessly along The Mile. The thing is we don't need Virgin Channel One, or whatever it was, to tell us that there are stupid and ugly people who come on holiday to Mallorca. If you missed the programme, and I certainly did, it was called "Sun Sea and A&E". My, what a hoot, must have thought the production company. Let's do a docu on some chavs kicking the crap out of each other, getting rat-arsed and ending up in the casualty departments of some Mallorcan hospitals - specifically in Son Dureta and the Muro hospital. The surprise is that they actually got to the A&E department at all. Normally, they skip that bit and go straight to the morgue having taken a quick dive from the hotel balcony. According to the website of the production company, the series - and yes there are seven more like this - ranges "from too much booze to too much sun; from accidents on the dancefloor to kids' catastrophes in the pool". At least there were only accidents on the dancefloor and not murder.

Better news is that the Top Gear laddos are to come for the Classic Car rally in March and do a show. This normally features a stage from Puerto Pollensa, with the starting-point in the nautical club, so this year, one imagines, it will be thronged with expats desperate to try and ingratiate themselves with the Top Gear trio. I would advise caution. Clarkson's vitriol would doubtless extend to mostly all expats. If I were you, I'd avoid the Top Gear-ists like the plague. Not that I don't like Clarkson; quite the opposite. And anyone who has seen fit to punch Piers Morgan is fine by me. One trusts that the programme will show some suitably pleasant landscapes and be a rather more positive representation of Mallorca than some Chardonnay who has vomited over a nurse in Muro hospital A&E. Oh, and if you think Clarkson might go easy on the local expattery, do be warned: remember he once said that anyone who had moved to Spain had held up a post office. And I daresay he's had time to work on that particular theme and to come up with something of equivalent hostility to Alexei Sayle's one-time character assassination of Leapy Lee and rubbishing of the Costa expat. Here's hoping.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Clash (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trolcS3V7dY). Today - this was just so good.

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

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

At times of recession, it is reassuring to know that certain sectors of employment appear to be not just buoyant but are also enjoying some growth. I read somewhere that Mallorca could offer the world its expertise in tourism and thus make this an export business. That sounds too much like hard work for most Mallorcans. Far better that they stick to something that they are just as expert at but which requires virtually no effort. I am thinking of the current growth in ... road works' stop-and-go-sign men. Of course, the number of stop-and-go-sign men is directly proportional to the number of road works, and I am glad to say that, despite economic woes, the normal Mallorcan winter of holes, mechanical diggers and tarmac is unaffected, thus giving rise to the employment of the stop-and-go-sign men. I am wondering, though - how does one become a stop-and-go-sign man? Is there a course? A City and Guilds or something? A mite tedious I will grant you, but so long as the weather's reasonable or you can keep yourself well wrapped up, it seems like a pretty decent way of spending a winter. Here comes a car, I know, let's get the stop sign out and then wait for half and hour and see what sort of a queue can form.

Not too far from me, one can admire the art, or is it science, of the stop-and-go-sign man. Near to the entrance to the reception to Albufera, they are building a roundabout; yet another roundabout. For an island that, until fairly recently, could boast but one roundabout (in Palma), there has been a roundabout annexation of lebensraum proportions. Has the environmental group GOB ever complained about the number of roundabouts? Not as far as I am aware, and yet the landscape has been transformed by them. The Carretera Artà that runs through Puerto Alcúdia and Playa de Muro is now a circle of roundabouts - largish ones, smallish ones, ones with sculptures on, ones that are only painted onto the surface of the road and are therefore ignored. All manner of roundabout existence is to be found on this road, and yet more appear. A question is whether there is to also be an increase in the employment of Trafico cops. The more roundabouts there are, the more police they need to stand by them.


And another form of employment that's bearing up under the strain of economic hard times is that of the winter beach cleaning corps. My ancient Mallorcan neighbours may consider the beach back of us "un desastre" (as I explained the other day), but it has since been cleared of much of its rubbish - all part of the 600,000 euros that is spent on keeping the beaches of Mallorca and the Balearics clean (or reasonably clean) over the winter months. This beach cleaning is not something as crude as a whacking great bulldozer scooping up sand, bamboo and seaweed. No. They treat the beaches more delicately. I was watching the chaps the other day. They were using what was the equivalent of a rake. I'm not kidding. A rake. The beach between Alcúdia and Can Picafort stretches for what - ten, eleven kilometres? And they're using a rake. No bloody wonder it costs 600 grand.


Meanwhile ... You might think that the heavy snows in the UK offer an excuse to utilities not working correctly, and you would - up to a point - be correct. There is no excuse here. Calm weather, nothing unusual. Seven in the evening. No water. This is not unusual. And no, this is not a case of oh this is Spain. What this is, is crap. This is incompetent. And of course, as it is after two in the afternoon, there is no-one manning the phones at the water company, which is FUSOSA. Well, make a note. This is the emergency mobile, which is only obtainable an answer machine at one of the main numbers. You will need it if you live in Playa de Muro - 676 454 423. Muppets.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Who (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyv_65o1HDY). Today - from The Who to ...?

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

I'd Call That A Bargain

So, still on "The Sunday Times", as I was yesterday, one of the more objectionable things about that newspaper is the regular column of the 50-most-pretentious-and-50-most-expensive-holiday-destinations-for-people-called-Jacinta-and-Gideon variety, i.e. not for those from Basildon called Chardonnay and Dazza. It came as something of a surprise this week, therefore, to find 50 villas that don't cost 10,000 euros a day; indeed, they were 50 "bargain villas". Well, there's a first time for everything, even a bargain from Rupert Murdoch. And amongst these 50 bargain villas - defined as less than 200 pounds per person for a week at the most expensive time of the season - was one in Pollensa. Even the journo seemed surprised - "our budget won't stretch far on Mallorca" was his admission. It wouldn't stretch anywhere in Pollensa; well not normally.

Now, no doubt this villa (or townhouse to be more accurate) has the appropriate licence, but there are those properties that do not. The accommodation police take a keen interest in places without licences. One local agency heard the sound of heavy boots, had its collar felt and copped a five-figure fine for promoting holiday lets that didn't have the requisite licences. Last year, they (the authorities, that is) started to delve more into what was being offered via the internet, and one can imagine that they will be just as assiduous, if not more so, this year. Whatever the legality or possible illegality of some holiday lets, there is the mighty force of the hotels pressurising the tourism polizei into getting rid of as many lets as they can. And yet in somewhere like Pollensa, take away the private accommodation - the flats, the villas, the townhouses - and you would cut out a good half of the total industry. Compared with other parts of the island in close proximity to it (such as Alcúdia), Pollensa's hotel stock is not that large.


And it is the villa-dwellers who are just the sort of holidaymaker that, as part of that market so horribly described as "quality tourism", would head off to the nearest golf course. Sorry to keep banging on about golf. For someone who doesn't play the sport and indeed finds it a largely pointless and tedious past-time, I do - I confess - give it a fair amount of houseroom. And here is some more; and some pretty surprising more, too. A German golf magazine, according to the German weekly paper "Mallorca Zeitung", says that Mallorca is the top destination for golf. More than that, it says that the best golf course in Europe is ... Alcanada. Can this be so? Is Mallorca actually better than, say, Portugal? And is Alcanada better than, for example, any of those courses used for the British Open? Not having read the original, I cannot vouch for the objectivity, or otherwise, of these conclusions, though in both instances I am inclined to sense the influence of a touch of subjectivity. Alcanada? Best golf course in Europe!?


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Patti Smith, "Because The Night" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xACZHv-sLCg). Today - not unknown to this blog, their name is a question.

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

Belongs To Us

Birmingham council has apparently banned apostrophes from street signs. Which might be the excuse for a cheap joke at the expense of Brummies were it not for the fact that they are not the only ones who don't know what an apostrophe is. How many speakers of the Queen's English, one must ask, are fully conversant with the correct use of the apostrophe? And does it matter?

Some of you will know that I have had my moments on this blog; moments of despair as to English and its use locally. Most recently, there was the piece of 30 November (I Can't Help Myself) and the "excellent quality" that was (incorrectly of course) "open for lunch and dinner". You will note that there was an apostrophe in the title of that piece. Gather a group of ten inhabitants of Birmingham, and one of them might venture the reason - omission - which is one of the purposes of the apostrophe. The other is to indicate possession. This may all sound - to some of you - like basic English, but, trust me, there are many here who had a note from their mother the day they did the apostrophe at school: I did once have to explain to someone (British) the difference between "its" and "it's" and the fact that the former is an exception to the possession rule. And while on matters English, don't get me started on fewer versus less. No-one seems to know this one, and those Spaniards who may use English newspapers in order to learn English are going to come unstuck when it comes to - for example - something like the "nowadays you get less/fewer euros to the pound" conundrum. Perhaps I should do a multiple-choice quiz, except in this instance it would only be a multiple of two. Is it "less euros" or "fewer euros"? Answers, as always, to the email address below.

But coming back to the apostrophe, its use to demonstrate possession is often apparent in the names of bars - JK's, for instance. There is also a theory that names which end in "s" are, in some way, better than others. The basis of this theory - such as it is, and theory is rather overstating it, one fancies - seems to be that it (the "s") implies a certain homeliness and familiarity. It is a theory I have heard expounded on more than one occasion, normally when significant amounts of cold drink have been consumed. The question then, though, is whether there is an apostrophe and, if there isn't, whether there should be. All important stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.

Many years back now, Barclays - as in the bank - dropped the apostrophe. Strictly speaking, it should be Barclay's (the bank of Barclay). Other businesses also dispensed with the apostrophe. In sport, you are as likely to read Lords Cricket Ground as Lord's (it should be the latter - the ground of Thomas Lord). In the case of Barclays, and other businesses, there was a marketing reason for dumping the apostrophe - it just gets in the way when it comes to graphics. But more fundamentally, the apostrophe just seemed to become unnecessary. Barclays was the name, whether it implied possession or not. And the sound of the "s" was and is as important as anything else. The company may have collapsed, but Woolworth was always Woolworths; there was no need for an apostrophe, but the addition of the "s" made it sound as though it "belonged". For all of us as customers, we like things to belong to us; the mere use of a letter can make them seem to do so. Hence, therefore, that theory about homeliness and familiarity associated with names that end in "s". Whether apostrophe or not - and I really don't know that it matters - that "s" in the name can, one is led to believe, make all the difference. There again, it might all be complete bollocks.


I would like to thank Rod Liddle in "The Sunday Times" for drawing my attention to the sorts of Christian names you would not encounter on upmarket holidays, which - by implication - means that you would encounter them on downmarket ones. He was referring specifically to a company called Activities Abroad whose boss was the one who identified the chav names that would not be registered on one of its holidays. So, get yourself booked in for a fortnight at one of this area's chavvest all-inclusives, of which there are a few, if you happen to be named thus - Dazza, Britney, Chardonnay, Shannon or Candice. And to that list, one can add Kylie, Jordan, Wayne, Tyler, and on and on. You know, there is something in the Spanish rules about Christian names after all.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Robert Plant, but here is a version by Alison Krauss (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmrdh8jO5lc). Today - "because the night belongs to us ..." Who?

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

Big Log

How do you get hotels to stay open in winter? Incentives, plenty of carrot? Or how about the reverse and plenty of stick? Were you aware that hotels have the option to stay open in winter but that many fail to take up that option? Hotel X will be officially listed as six, seven or twelve months of the year, and if it is the twelve, irrespective of whether the hotel does take up the option and is open, there will be a local tax for the off-season months; not a big one but tax nonetheless. This is where the stick, or rather a bigger stick with a pointed end, is due to come in; in Alcúdia at any rate; and in 2011. If the hotel has that option, it is going to be paying a higher tax for the privilege. With that stick hovering, the hope would be that the hotel would actually open. It's a theory, I suppose.

We've been here before. The issue is less one of the hotel staying open as why anyone would want to come to the hotel or whether they would be able to come even if they did want to, and for this latter aspect one has to consider the airlines and the tour operators. It's all very well using the stick of higher taxes to make those hotels stay open - and there is no actual shortage of those with the option - but, with the best will in the world, will people bother turning up? While the hotel itself may be able to conjure up enough by way of food, drink and entertainment, the hotel - by itself - is not a reason to come. It is what goes on outside that matters. And it is the ability of the hotel/hotels - together with the local authority - to put in place packages of things to do that would justify the higher tax. Otherwise it is just punitive, especially if the town hall sits on its backside and doesn't get involved with promotion and proactively assisting in creating attractive packages of events.


More immediately pressing of course is what this season will bring. Tourism minister Nadal's vain plea to the media to avoid scaremongering has been for the most part just that - vain. There again, if the head of the Mallorca hotel federation is willing to feed the media with stories of "worries" then that same media is hardly likely to ignore them. He's at it again, saying that there are these "worries" in Alcúdia and Muro because of the likely problems with the British market. Well, there will always be worries, but it should not be overlooked that one thing both Alcúdia and Muro have going for them is that they are cosmopolitan; the British are important but the tourist market in these places is pretty diverse, more so than, for example, Pollensa. Sr. Horrach, the federation head, is also warning that the hotels can anticipate fewer tourists and lower revenues this year. I think we would be worried if he were to say the opposite.


JOBS VACANCIES - SUMMER SEASON 2009
A first for the blog and probably a last as well. Recession may have hit Spain, but not Mallorca (and that is officially the case), and so employment opportunities flourish - sort of. Anyway, here are positions that I am pleased to offer. Well, not me as such; offering on someone's behalf.

Travel agency requires:

1. Customer service/sales staff

Positions available for season starting mid April until end October 2009.
Duties include providing information to clients, proactive selling of services in our resort offices.
Applicants must be well presented, confident, have a good knowledge of the island of Mallorca, be willing to learn, work well in a small team, flexible with regard to working hours. Languages an advantage.
We provide:
Spanish contract; weekly sales commission; a young dynamic work environment; full and ongoing training.


2. In-house tour guides

Duties include accompanying groups of clients to various points, providing interesting, entertaining commentary throughout the journey, ensuring the welfare of the customers and the success of the day.
Would suit mature person on a part-time basis.
Applicant needs to be physically fit, well presented, confident on the microphone, have a good knowledge of the island.
Applications for both positions welcome to the following email address. Please attach a recent photograph.

summerwork2009@hotmail.com

(Let me just say that, though it may not be clear which company this is, it is a very reputable business and I can vouch for both the company and the authenticity of the posts being offered - just in case anyone might think otherwise.)


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Spandau Ballet, "True" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYb83KM4at4). Today - Ok, so it's rather bigger than a stick. Who was it?

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I Want The Truth To Be Said

What was I saying about the gift that keeps on giving? And indeed about GOB keeping quiet? Although I am running the risk of this blog becoming a Son Bosc golf/GOB benefit gig, the carry-on over the mooted course is just too absurd to ignore. GOB may be keeping mum (or mum-ish) where the "Nadal Decree" is concerned, but it has its mouth wide open when it comes to the Playa de Muro golf course that isn't. And this is just the point. GOB has taken umbrage at the fact that it has been promoted as though it were in existence and has issued a "denuncia", which I presume to mean a denuncia as in a complaint to plod that plod is therefore obliged to act on. This same report - from "The Diario" - uses the adjective "engañosa" to describe the publicity for the golf course that has emerged at the Fitur trade fair. This means deceitful. I guess in the UK we would talk of misrepresentation. As there is no golf course as such, GOB may have a point, though personally I applaud those who have produced the publicity for having such brass neck and giving us all a bit of a laugh. Apparently also in this publicity material, a parking area in the Albufera nature park is shown, which will come as a great surprise since no vehicles are allowed into it. Cracking stuff.


There was this thing on Five Live a couple of days ago about a pub landlord who has banned swearing. The chap sounded like a fairly dour Scotsman, who reckoned that swearing is actually illegal because it's a breach of the peace, though it might take a bit of persuading m'lud that the odd "bloody" or even an "f-word" was a breach of the peace when the language is so much a part of everyday communication. But be that as it may. What if, though, bars here - Brit bars, that is - were to do the same? Ban swearing. Most of them would be empty. Sorry, all of them would be empty.

As one who is not unknown to utter the occasional oath, the notion of trying to eliminate from a place of drink a degree of uncouthness would be as likely as GOB not being gobby about Son Bosc. But show some respect. Every other word a swear word. No, not me, but there are plenty whose vocabulary is that limited that every other word is. However, there are those who like it - swearing, that is; they like it that much that they even celebrate it, as in the Brit bar in Puerto Pollensa that used to have one night a week as a swearing night. What the f***'s the f****** point of that f****** b*******?


And just coming back to the disaster that was last Saturday's winds ... I included a photo from the Laberinto maze in Playa de Muro the other day. Yesterday, I went there. Disaster is apt. Jake, who is a pretty good mate of mine, told me that he was practically reduced to tears. I can understand. Anyone who knows the maze will know that there are loads of pines there. Most still are. But almost all have been affected. What a mess. And then cutting all the fallen branches of pine trees at this time of year brings another problem. The caterpillars. Very, very nasty.


Dropping like flies. John Martyn one day, Bill Frindall, the Test Match Special scorer, the next. Another shock.


QUIZ
Today's title - where's this from? Clue is with "truth".

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Index for January 2009

Alcúdia beach - 18 January 2009
Alcúdia in January - 27 January 2009
All-inclusives - 9 January 2009
Building licences - 7 January 2009, 11 January 2009, 30 January 2009
Cala San Vicente - 11 January 2009
Catalan - 17 January 2009, 18 January 2009
Charities - 6 January 2009
Clementines - 13 January 2009
Economic crisis - 13 January 2009, 19 January 2009, 23 January 2009
Fiestas - 14 January 2009, 15 January 2009, 18 January 2009, 20 January 2009, 21 January 2009
Fire runs - 14 January 2009
Franco - 10 January 2009
GOB - 16 January 2009, 30 January 2009, 31 January 2009
Golf - 16 January 2009, 24 January 2009, 29 January 2009, 31 January 2009
Heart attack - 3 January 2009
Hotel Formentor - 7 January 2009
Hotels - 7 January 2009, 30 January 2009
Language - 17 January 2009, 18 January 2009
Mallorca brand - 19 January 2009
Minigolf - 6 January 2009
Movistar - 29 January 2009
Nationalities - 23 January 2009
Palma airport - 22 January 2009
Pi de Ternelles - 15 January 2009
Playa de Muro - 6 January 2009, 16 January 2009, 24 January 2009
Pollentia museum - 24 January 2009
Processionary caterpillars - 23 January 2009
Rafael Nadal - 30 January 2009
Real Mallorca - 15 January 2009
Review of 2008 - 4 January 2009
Rubbish tips - 12 January 2009
Sa Pobla - 14 January 2009
Sant Antoni - 14 January 2009, 15 January 2009, 18 January 2009
Sant Sebastià - 20 January 2009, 21 January 2009
Season 2009 - 22 January 2009
Smoking - 28 January 2009
Snow - 10 January 2009
Son Bosc - 16 January 2009, 24 January 2009, 29 January 2009
State funding - 25 January 2009
Swearing - 31 January 2009
Telefonica - 29 January 2009
Tour operators - 8 January 2009
Tourism - 17 January 2009, 19 January 2009, 22 January 2009
Tourism promotion - 24 January 2009, 25 January 2009, 30 January 2009
Town halls - 28 January 2009
Wind - 25 January 2009, 26 January 2009
Year 2009 - 5 January 2009

Solid Air

At the Fitur tourism trade fair in Madrid, it has been a tale of two Nadals. Two Christmases. Every day is like Christmas in a Mallorca tourism wonderland. One Nadal is Miquel of that ilk, the tourism minister, who has been granted the air of a mediaeval pope, thanks to the "decreto Nadal" (Nadal's decree) which is the one by which the island's hotels can enjoy rather loosened "procedures" in order that they can go ahead with modernisations. The papal bull, or rather its equivalent, was signed and sealed at Fitur. Hotels can increase their land areas, but not their heights; they can develop pools, spas and the like but cannot build more rooms; they still need licences, but the period for their granting is to be shortened (at least that is the hope; there are still, doubtless, those in the hotels' managements who would question whether all the parties involved in the tortuous licensing bureaucracy will actually see to a shortening).

In the "Ultima Hora" newspaper, there was a piece that asked: "why is GOB keeping quiet?". GOB, as I'm sure you all know by now, is the island's environmental pressure group. And if you don't know, what have you been doing? The headline was particularly interesting because GOB is never knowingly quiet about anything that has even the merest hint of the environment to do with it. So what caused the question? It has all to do with the Nadal decree. Some of the "procedures" do, of course, have an environmental nature, but the initiative is designed to help not just the hotels but also the construction industry and to enhance Mallorca's "quality" in light of competition from other holiday destinations. No-one really objects to any of this, including - so claims the author in the newspaper - GOB. The reason for the alleged silence, it is said, is political. Had this been an administration of the conservative Partido Popular, there would probably have been demonstrations. Maybe so, but is this really a party political thing? Nadal is also the leader of the Unió Mallorquina. This is not a left-wing party. The president of the Balearic Government may be socialist, but his administration is an eclectic mix of left and nationalist centre. Moreover, GOB has not been totally silent. As soon as the initiative was first mooted, it was argued - by the environmental lobby - that this was all a way of destroying procedures to protect the environment in the name of doing something because of the economic crisis. Which is precisely true. The crisis has brought it about, as the building trade needed a boost and someone noticed that other countries were stealing a march on Mallorca because their hotels were in better nick. At a time of economic difficulty, you do all you can to ensure what market you do have does not get eroded by factors over which you do actually have some control, i.e. the state of the hotels. So, GOB has been both vocal and silent. Maybe it has realised it needs to be a tad pragmatic, which is not a word one normally hears in association with the environmentalists.

And then there is the other Nadal - Rafa. With something of an ace and a winner down the line, he's been unfurled as the face of Mallorca and the Balearics at Fitur, thus consummating, as it were, the agreement between the government and Nadal that he should be its main man for tourism promotion. As I said when this was first discussed, it's a no-brainer. Nadal has the right image and, as importantly, he is Mallorcan, which is more than can be said for previous "faces". It is a no-brainer, but then ... . Just think about it. There is to be a TV campaign in the UK (one in Germany is already underway) which features Nadal in enticing holidaymakers to Mallorca and the Balearics. So, you are sitting there. There is a break between the two halves of the latest episode of "Corrie" and up pops Rafa. Is his appearing going to make you come to Mallorca? I don't know. He is obvious as a face of promotion, but will he make any difference? And there again, he's promoting the Balearics as opposed to just Mallorca, and one has to ask if that is right. Firstly, he is Mallorcan and not Balearican (or whatever the word is). Secondly, we had this thing quite recently (the head of the Mallorcan hotel federation) talking about the strength of the "Mallorca" brand, not of the Balearic brand. You can add to all this the facts that many holidaymakers come to Mallorca every year, and so it is questionable how effective a Rafa message is, other than as reinforcement, and also that tennis is largely a middle-class sport in the UK. Rafa may have a global appeal, but were they thinking their ABC social classifications when they offered him several million for the campaign? And I suppose, in the current circumstances, is a highly-paid tennis player going to convince people to take a holiday, or might someone offering a whacking great discount do rather better? I also suspect they don't quite have Rafa in mind when it comes to much of the all-inclusive brigade. Rafa's right, but not totally right.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - ELO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUpPlzeK7RM).

Today - this is not a quiz question, it is the title of the greatest album by one of the all-time greats who died yesterday and is therefore one of the blog's occasional obits, this time celebrated with a title - John Martyn, ladies and gentlemen. God, how sad how is that. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg_Utj4Aljc).

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

Telephone Line

1485. Some of you will recall that I lay claim to being a history scholar. Scholar is perhaps an over-exaggeration, but one I can live with. As a result though, show me certain numbers in combination and I am likely to be suddenly transformed into a weird beard with leather-patched sports jackets, i.e. a history tutor. 1485? Come on, you must know it as well. Kingdom for a horse and all that. Yes, you know it, of course you do. War of the Roses - Battle of Bosworth Field, 22 August 1485 to be precise, and Richard III begging for a horse while his crown hung on a thorn bush, or so said a certain playwright. 1485. It was also the year of birth of the unfortunate Catherine, she of Aragon and later the first missus of the lunatic Henry VIII. Well, I have to give some sort of a Spanish twist, do I not? There is another Spanish twist. 1485. The war of the mobile phone companies. How many times have I received a call from 1485 in the past week or so? I contacted Vodafone. Not because I hadn't anything better to do, but because they are the ones to whom I pay good money for the privilege of some twat pestering me with calls I don't want. "I've been getting this call from 1485," says I. "1485? Must be costing the caller a fortune." (Actually, they didn't say that.) "Do you know who it is?" asks I. "Is it a scam, a hack or what?" "None of them," comes the reply. "It's Movistar," they say with the hint of a laugh. "Marketing", they add; marketing being a word the Spanish (and not just the Spanish) tend to use, erroneously, to mean selling. "Movistar!?" "Movistar," they repeat.

For those of you who don't know, Movistar is the mobile wing of Telefonica, the national phone company. Movistar is making unsolicited calls to my mobile and to many others, if what I'm now seeing on the internet is anything to go by. There are many here who will have nothing to do with anything that is vaguely to do with Telefonica, and that includes Movistar. I am not one of them. I don't get upset by all-powerful organisations, though there are those, including the European Commission, who do: Telefonica is not unfamiliar with huge fines for uncompetitive, anti-trust activity. But I don't want them being a damn nuisance and calling my mobile with their automated system that repeats its call after half an hour, every day, when you don't bother answering, which is every time the number rings. Consequently, and very politely, do you mind sodding off?


There are many gifts that keep on giving here, as in being basically daft and continuing to be so. One such is, of course, the gloriously ridiculous projected golf course in Playa de Muro. My, what fun it has given us over the months and now years. What will we all do when they've actually built the damn thing? Not play golf on it, that's for sure. Anyway, as noted recently, Muro has managed to publicise the course as an attraction, despite it still being no more than a series of bunkers on an architect's plan and the winsome look of an endangered species on an environmentalist's sentimental propaganda. Mere bagatelle, implies the mayor, when it is pointed out that the course has neither been built nor fully approved. Bagatelle. Now that's a game where small balls are struck into numbered holes, is it not? A bit like golf, and just as pointless, or certainly just as pointless as the course in Muro.

One of the many problems for the golf course is that there is an apparently endless supply of environmentalists who emerge from the undergrowth and are willing to keep the whole debacle being debated. Step forth, therefore, the advisors on flora and fauna to the Balearic Government's environment department. They reckon that not enough is being done to protect the rare orchid on the Son Bosc finca; the rare orchid that has been the main subject of the environmental objection to the conversion of the finca. Now, given that this orchid is so rare and apparently so damn important, might it not have been an idea to ask these advisors before? Maybe. However, even had they been, what they have to say is not "binding". In other words, it doesn't count. So, why did they bother asking them? The point is that the course design has already been changed to accommodate this orchid. The eighth hole has been shifted as, originally, it would have meant some high handicappers trampling through the rough and hacking the orchid to pieces as they tried to get back on the fairway. Now, the enviro champions, GOB, have found that there's a problem with the seventh hole, too. Well, what a surprise. I wonder how long it will be before someone reckons there is a rare ant (or dec) breeding on the site of the green of the sixth hole. This can just go on and on, can't it. And it probably will. Maybe they could just build the first 16-hole golf course and have done with it. Or 15-hole. The gift that keeps on giving.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDgq10Rsb-0). Today's title - perms and probably the alleged cello scrotum.

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Bend It

Flexibility. This might be a good word; a good word to describe how things are here. Not flexibility in the positive sense so much - as in he/she demonstrated flexibility in his/her thinking - but flexibility in the maybe we'll do what we're told to or maybe we won't sense. And often one fancies it is the latter. Let's take smoking in cafés shall we. Without wishing to puff on an old pipe once more and blow some smoke rings of explanation as to how the law is meant to apply (with the emphasis on the "meant to"), suffice it to say that, in some establishments, there is a no-smoking area and a smoking area. Theoretically, there is meant to be some physical division between the two, but let's not get bogged down in theory, for in practice what you have is a theoretical no-smoking area which is right next to a practical smoking area. In other words, it doesn't make any real difference whether one part of the café is dubbed "no smoking" because the smoke is available to all. How charitable these regulations are. And even in the no-smoking area, the rigidity of that no-smoking command is, yes, flexible. Or to use another word - ignored.

Now, without wishing to finger anywhere or anyone in particular, and given that I happen to like the place and am familiar with its coffees, pastries and baguettes, there is a café in Puerto Alcúdia that is mightily popular with locals and expats alike. It has - or had the other day when I was there - a particularly flexible approach to smoking (or no smoking, as it may be). Right by my head and therefore next to my table was a sign that read "zona no fumadors". I don't think I need to translate. I hadn't appreciated that the zona no fumadors appears to extend to one table alone, as - at the next table - were a trio, two of whom I recognised from a bar which, without wishing to finger anywhere or anyone, is by the grand canal in Puerto Alcúdia, and one of the two was puffing away heartily. At the adjoining table were two "girls", who I didn't recognise, and who were both happily making some serious inroads into a packet of Marlboro.

Flexible. It's not far from bendy, is it. And bendy is not far from bent. And bent is not far from rules. Flexible, that'll be it.


Meantime, rare old sport in the Junior Common Rooms, sometimes known as the local town halls. The only thing that appears to be missing from meetings of the town hall politicos is vast quantities of alcohol, which were deemed a pre-requisite in my day of student politics in the JCRs. Alcohol, though, was not the only requirement. I once chaired a special meeting that was a vote of no confidence in the editors of the college rag. It was packed out, but it didn't stop me having my apple crumble and custard while it was going on. But anyway, where was I? Ah yes, only slightly more relevant than JCR politics is what goes on in the town halls. Always good for a spat is Santa Margalida where the spokesman for the Unió Mallorquina was expelled from a meeting for having the audacity to accuse the mayor (Partido Popular) of high-handedness and something called "indocumentado", which, though it is pretty clear, I'm unsure as to the precise sense in which it is being used, and one needs to be a bit cautious as this all revolves around some 800 grands worth of invoices. Anyway, it all sounds like jolly good fun with accusations being hurled about to do with curbing freedom of expression and all that sort of stuff. There again, 800 grand is on rather a grander scale than debates we used to have about donating 20 quid to the Shrewsbury Three or the Iranian Ninety-One or the M Twenty-Five or the Temperance Seven - whatever cause it happened to be, and it was invariably of a right-on far-left nature and involved endless discussion as to whether payments were "ultra vires". If there is one or rather are two words that describe my university life, they would be ultra and vires, and I still don't know what they mean.

But the Junior Common Room to beat them all is of course that in Pollensa, where mayor Cerdà is under fire for the town's cleaning arrangements. When isn't he under fire? The United Left/Greens, the one-man mayoral destruction unit that is Pepe García, is having a go about the fact that the company that does the cleaning - sort of - has not had a contract for several months. Ah look, just don't worry about it. It'll be an oversight. You know how flexible things can be here.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Beverley Knight (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vobWLTdCzvo). Today's title - the lead singer sadly died recently.

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Keep This Fire Burning

I park near to where the Bulldog billboard has been bent and twisted by the winds. I hadn't come to do so, but I take a bit of a detour down to the old-town Eroski so that I can look at the German supermarket that has not long opened. Together with the Müller store, it forms a little Germany. Maybe Lidl should try acquiring the Eroski. I go into the mall - if you can call somewhere with three stores a mall - and I ignore the chap at the entrance. He doesn't deserve it. Who does? Well, I don't completely ignore him; just mutter "no". He has said to me: "perdone, señor". It's the second time in a few days. There was someone outside the Eroski near to Playa de Muro. Not the local colour who is often there. Someone else. "Perdone." Is this how it is? The other day I saw this chap by the karting at the Magic roundabout. I'd presumed he was waiting to be picked up. He had several bags tied up and mounted on a shopping-trolley. He obviously wasn't picked up, or he missed his ride. I saw him again yesterday - twice in fact. The same pile of bags, the same trolley; five maybe six quite large bags. Is that all his life resting on a borrowed Eroski trolley as he wheels himself and what he's trying hard to keep hold of around Puerto Alcúdia?

And it's bitterly cold. My hands are freezing. I think of the man with the trolley, of the guy saying "perdone", and walk the quiet and sad streets of January Alcúdia, noting the places for rent or sale, the places that are closed and empty. I recognise someone from one of these closed places. He passes me in Constitution Square. "Uep?" I ask. He stutters some response and walks on. So do I, but think that maybe I should chat to him. When I turn, he's disappeared or he has melded into a vagueness of dark winter coats and bobble hats pulled hard down over the forehead. Somehow, all seems dark though it is still very much light; 4.30 or so. The green cross of the chemists is neon-conspicuousness flashing against the indifference of the late afternoon sun.

Maybe you imagine it, but you think to yourself - didn't there used to be so-and-so here? Such a shop, such a bar? And then there's a surprise because there is something that definitely didn't used to be there. A new small hotel. Can Pere. Where did that come from? And you realise that it's already two, three months since you last trod these streets, and that you are out because - for you, well, for me - it's a new beginning, a new round of doing what I do. And despite the gloom and the sadness, there is always something new, but I still manage to think about the trolley man and the pathetic "perdone" and how damn cold it is. They could do with keeping the fires going. I kick at some earth of one of the Sant Antoni or Sebastià fire mounds and some charred wood slumps into the pit that the kick makes, joined by a sweet packet that has been discarded, as though the fire mound is just any old rubbish tip. And there is a bonfire that has been built but not been used. Maybe there's some other event. Or maybe, because it was a tall fire, they decided it was too risky with the winds. Last thing they'd want is to set fire to the town hall. Not that it would be a bad idea. Keep everyone warm: the beggars and the homeless certainly.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Ultravox (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDspWsK_-vQ). Today's title - single from a leading British female R&B/soul singer; the song was actually first done by a Swedish R&B act.

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Reap The Wild Wind

Part of a wall had collapsed. It had never been a complete wall, but one of those of ornateness, the bricks not bricks as such but squares to let the air pass through, or not. They are not robust enough to withstand 130 kilometres an hour's worth of wind, so someone has discovered. Perhaps they'll build a proper wall instead next time.

And everywhere there was pine. Cones; thousands of cones, small, medium, large; twig and branch of pine; whole trunk of pine. Pine lying in the street, pine lying in gardens, pine lying half in and half out gardens, pine with the procesionarios' sacs now close to the ground, close enough to touch or to grab and wonder what happens if you do so. The still strong breezes squeeze huge branches, with fresh wounds like bright fruit, jagged and swaying like dead men who've been hanged. Another gust, and you look out for the fear of the dead man's kiss crashing against your back as you make a forlorn escape.

Buffeted against kerbing or strewn indiscriminately, pine and a collective detritus of the dead spikes of palms or that plant of the pineapple family whose name I can never recall but with leaves as sharp as Johnny Depp's hands that can twirl in a high wind like a switchblade and tear the flesh.

And then another wall, by a hotel, that is also down, and the permanent marquee is flapping and torn, bending over the now wave shape formed by the artificial grass hedge. A building site has become like a bomb site, the temporary wire fencing smashed and scattered the length of the road, ever more pines crashed in on piles of bricks. By the beach, there is sand; sand mingling with all those shards of wood that has not been captured for the beach by the bamboo barriers, because those bamboo barriers have been bent from V-shape to avant-garde distortion. A cable hangs useless, disrupting communication. A shop front, abandoned for winter, has had its frames for awning and signs rearranged as abstract sculpture. Publicity boards that had occupied an empty restaurant facade have disappeared. You see them, eventually, sulking in the entrance to another shop, sharing the space with even more bits of pine and palm.

Someone walks past and says: "un desastre". And they weren't wrong. For almost twenty-four hours it had raged. A 24-hour, 130-150 kilometre-per-hour disaster.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Fleetwood Mac (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE4HGlmtOcg). Today's title - new romantic-ish and one of them co-wrote one of the biggest selling songs of all time.

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

Oh Well

Clearly, the town halls all look to push the boat out when they're heading off to Madrid for the Fitur jolly. For some, such as Muro, this involves promotional material for something that doesn't actually exist (as noted yesterday); for others, Alcúdia say, it is a musical offering. Specifically, those who pitch up to hear what Alcúdia has to offer at the Madrid tourism fair are also likely to become the proud owners of a CD with twelve chill-out songs, reflecting "the sensations of well-being" associated with Alcúdia (it says in "Ultima Hora"). Of course when you have introduced something as massively under-publicised and as pointless as the beach chill-out area then what better to complement this particular sensation of well-being than a CD with the sort of sounds that you would struggle to hear from the couple of speakers hanging limply from poles of said chill-out area. Otherwise, what are these "sensations of well-being", do you suppose? Good beach, yep; some decent enough restaurants, sure; an old-town atmosphere to complement the tourism centre, certainly. And then? The marina; the smaller, out-of-the-way areas like Mal Pas; the Roman history. Do you know something? I may be a cynic at times, but Alcúdia has got a hell of a lot of "well-being" going for it. Ignore those naysayers who would deny this. Yes, there is naffness, too, but naffness is often fun. Ignore that "it's like Blackpool" rubbish. They don't know what they're talking about. I wouldn't mind one of those chill-out CDs. I'm sure I can find a way of getting hold of one.

Anyway, not so much chill, indeed the temperatures rose quite remarkably on Friday - to almost 20 degree maximum in Sa Pobla. But this change was accompanied by the most ferocious of winds. That doesn't do justice. Frightening at times. Not even a sleeping pill could prevent my being woken in the middle of the night before last by the sound of the wind; a wind that kept on throughout the day and then on into last night. It was a "ponent" - a west wind, gusting up to 130 kilometres per hour. It's one way of reducing the processionary caterpillar problem, I guess. High winds, bring down pine trees, doesn't really matter if there are caterpillars ready to destroy them. For once, "desastre" is fairly appropriate. And this morning, calm but cold again, one can go out and survey the damage - the trees and bits of tree across and to the sides of streets; all the debris in the gardens and in the roads.

But coming back to the Alcúdia chill-out CD, this is the idea of a body known as the consortium for the external promotion of Alcúdia (or something like that); the same consortium which has dreamt up all the developments on the beach, such as the unknown chill-out zone. The funding for the beach stuff is not coming from central government, i.e. from Madrid. But there are other projects which will enjoy such state benefaction. And so it is that Alcúdia, for example, is due to receive a bit over 3 million euros for projects such as developments of the residence home for senior citizens. Pollensa is to get slightly less than 3 million. The money going to all the town halls on the island has been listed in the press, and there does seem to be a pretty firm correlation between population and the amounts. Alcúdia - population 17,435; funding 3,085,790; Pollensa - 16,570; 2,932,696; Santa Margalida - 10,608; 1,877,492; Muro - 6,741; 1,193,078. And so it goes on. Spare a thought for the smallest municipality in Mallorca. That is Escorca. It has a population of 290, and is getting a measly 51 grand.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Shaggy, "Mr. Boombastic" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lutqplLMvfk). Today's title - before some of them went strange.

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Physical Attraction

Well over a year after the announcement of the new museum for Pollentia in Alcúdia (27 August 2007, "It's Build A House Where We Can Stay"), they're finally getting round to drawing up a draft plan. Well, not quite yet; don't let's get too excited, it'll be another three months or so. But they're working on it. These things take time, you know. They don't happen overnight. Like the power station conversion; that's only - what - getting on for two years since they set that all in motion. The fact that they haven't got the finance sorted out - or hadn't when they made a presentation a month or so back at the Auditorium - is a mere trifle. No, no, these things must take time, especially as so many need to have their say-so. In the case of the new Pollentia museum, the consortium overseeing it involves the town hall, central Mallorcan bods and also Madrid, and it is Madrid which is actually paying for the museum, so I suppose they have an interest to make sure it goes according to plan, unlike other local developments, such as Can Ramis.

And talking of consortia ... The new tourism promotion consortium in Muro - to which I referred on 2 December ("And There's A Message That I'm Sending Out") - has been active. Know what it's gone and done? It's produced a leaflet. Know what's included in this leaflet, one that's to be available at the Fitur tourism fair in Madrid next week? Included is the fact that the golf course on the Son Bosc finca near to Playa de Muro is one of the "main tourist attractions" in the northern area (quote taken in translation from "The Diario"). There is one slight drawback. There is no golf course. Well, not yet, there isn't. And there are still various hoops to pass through, to say nothing of militant enviros strapping themselves to rare orchids in defiance of bulldozers, which may yet prevent the course ever seeing the light of an early-morning tee-off. The piece in The Diario mentions the fact that the website of one of the main parties in the consortium - the hotel association - says that a golf course is being planned. I had pointed this out myself in the article of 2 December. But note that it is being planned. There is a fair difference, I would say, between planned and being one of the main tourist attractions.

I'm no expert but something tells me that, unless something actually physically exists, it is stretching a point to suggest that it is an attraction. The mayor of Muro doesn't seem to have too much difficulty with all this, given that the only thing holding the golf development back is a modification to the project - that to avoid the rare orchid where the eighth hole was originally meant to have gone. It may well be the case that everything else is more or less tickety-boo, but only the other day we had the minister for mobility giving the course the thumbs-down, albeit that he seemed to have placed himself firmly in the enviros' camp (16 January: "Land Of Confusion").

It's good, though, that the Muro consortium has got its arse in gear and is heading off to Madrid to do some promotion. There is nothing wrong with that at all. However, if someone books a holiday on the basis of a golf course, are they not going to be slightly disappointed? Or. I can imagine at the Fitur fair someone approaching a Muro representative, clutching the relevant promotional literature and asking about the golf course. "Ah yes," would come the reply. "It isn't actually built yet." "But it says here that it is one of the area's main tourist attractions." "Yes, well, it will be. But not just yet." "When is it likely to be?" "Erm, well, erm, can you wait there a minute, I just need to have a word with my colleague..." Actually it would be worth taking a flight to Madrid just so that one could go to the Muro stand and ask them about their golf course. Priceless.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Robert De Niro's Waiting", Bananarama (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N7fZ1UiacI). Today's title - it's included in what was an enormous reggae hit for an American-Jamaican who, so it is claimed, takes his name from a Scooby-Doo character.

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Talking Italian

Tucked along the foot of page three in yesterday's "Bulletin", and therefore looking as though it were an advert, was something that wasn't an ad. It was in fact a piece which reported on the degree to which other nations are liked (and, by implication, disliked) by the Spanish. One presumes that this has come from some worthy research, though there was no clue as to the source in this feature-ette. What we got was that, with 36 per cent, the Italians rank highest in the Spaniard's affection. And the British? The British upon whom so much of the tourism industry depends and indeed a fair portion of the construction industry? 13 per cent, a measly 13 per cent, five percentage points fewer than the Germans and only four more than the Greeks who, let's face it, don't count.

13 per cent. Bloody ingrates. All the good that the Brits do for the Spaniards and they can't even rate the Brits above the Germans. For several decades now, the British have been commandeering local housing, starting up King's Armses and serving warm beer and full Englishes, flatly refusing to speak anything other than the Queen's Brummie, Scouse or Cockney, parading acres of white flesh splattered with tattoos in front of the sensibility-offended locals, and vomiting the length of the resorts' promenades. And for all this, the Spaniards can only rate us a bit higher than the Greeks. What have the Greeks ever done for Spain? And as for placing the Italians at the top of the pile. One can only assume that there is a certain cultural similarity, partly one founded on attitudes to the respective nations' fiscal systems; either that or the one-time closeness between fascist dictators, or perhaps a closeness between the lingos.

If one were to ask a similar question of Brits, I feel it is reasonably certain that, given a choice of Spanish, French and German, the latter two would not come top of a who-does-the-Brit-like poll. The Spanish, by virtue of not actually being French or German, would - in all likelihood - top the Brits' poll. Not now they won't, having demonstrated such British dislike. Bring on Eurovision!


Meanwhile, a Spanish minister has made a call to arms for a made-in-Spain campaign as the way for the country to buy its way out of economic crisis. What a splendid idea. Let's all go and spend way more than we need to on the likes of furniture in Spanish stores rather than in IKEA where stuff is vastly cheaper. One of Spain's problems is its lack of competitiveness and that can often translate as too expensive. No, let's not buy made-in-Spain, but buy what's best value for money, and, in general, that won't be Spanish. However, even if we wished to not buy Spanish, we would struggle with certain things - like with wine in supermarkets. Here the full effects of the free European market are to be found; hardly a non-Spanish bottle for sale. The minister needn't worry. There is a certain protectionism that makes it nigh impossible not to buy Spanish.


And to a different matter ... I'm looking up. Looking up at trees. At pine trees. I can count at least four sacs of the processionary caterpillars in one. These pine trees that hang over the streets and pavements. You begin to make a calculation as to the pine trees in the neighbourhood, the ones with sacs and roughly where the caterpillars might fall. It's still early, but the sacs are growing. They'll be out with the guns soon in order to shoot them down and then sling them in the rubbish or set fire to them. It's a pretty gruesome end, if you happen to be a processionary caterpillar. Many won't have got that far, or shouldn't have done if the trees were sprayed. I wasn't aware of any spraying locally. There was meant to have been. But what there was meant to have been would have occurred in forest - public areas. There are many pines that are on private land and hang over the public land of the pavements and then - unless someone detaches the sacs - deposit the contents of those sacs. Not very pleasant.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Besnard Lakes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtsHKvOomRE or http://www.myspace.com/thebesnardlakes). Today's title - where does this come from? A previous-era girl group.

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Disaster

Someone once told me that the authorities couldn't really care less what sort of holidaymakers turn up in Mallorca, so long as they turn up and turn up in great numbers; numbers sufficient to justify the investment that has been put into the development of Palma airport, and numbers which would increase that much more - and no self-interest involved here of course - so that the local government would be able to take a piece of the pie in managing the airport. But that would be some way off. Especially if the numbers decline. And falling numbers are really not what anyone had in mind. The only problem is that the number did fall - in 2008.

The movement of people though the airport is, in some ways, one of the better ways of gauging tourism activity. Not totally of course. There are enough ranges of lard mountain being herded through Son Sant Joan en route to their all-inclusive troughs to skew any meaningful notion as to numbers and indeed types of holidaymaker. But as, for the most part, the tourist arrives by air, you do get a reasonable handle on things, always assuming that there hasn't been some - how to put it - massaging of the figures. And there doesn't appear to have been, not for 2008 at any rate; there was a decline just short of 400,000. That said, of the three main tourist markets (mainland Spain, Germany and the UK), the largest fall was among the Spanish, the UK showed a fall of some 100,000, but the Germans increased slightly.

Insofar as 2008 performance can mean anything when projecting for this season, the airport numbers do seem to tally with other reports from last year, especially in respect of the slump in Spanish tourism. The good news for the north of the island is that this market is of little consequence. Anyway, despite the call by the tourism minister for some positive spin, the message doesn't seem to have found its way to one commentator in "Ultima Hora" who says that it will require a "titanic effort to avoid a disaster this year". Ah yes, that word again. Disaster. The minister said we media sorts shouldn't use it, but up it pops - regular as ... well as regular as "desastre", because anything or everything here can be a "desastre". The beach near to me is at present, according to my ancient Mallorcan neighbours, "un desastre"; the reason being that it's full of natural rubbish. One of the flats that the ancients rent out was also once "un desastre" after three TUI reps had been in it for a season. The word is actually used so much that it does rather lose its meaning.

We are told that 2009 is likely to be on a par with 2006. Now, I don't really recall the ins and outs of that particular year, but I don't remember it being "un desastre". Indeed, although 2007 was meant to have been a record year, there were those who would maintain that 2006 was better. So, quite where this gets us I've no idea. Nowhere in all likelihood. But if 2007 was indeed a record year, then is there not some consolation in accepting that not every year can be a record year, and that if there is a bit more of a decline in the numbers of Brits exiting the Luton EasyJet it doesn't actually equate to "un desastre"? There is a slight drawback in this argument in that 2008 was meant to have been a record year as well, which was probably bollocks and the lower numbers coming through the airport would tend to to support that. But we have the word of the bloke at TUI, i.e. its chief executive, who says that people will still take their foreign holiday; the thing that will prevent them is not recession, but unemployment. To that end, let's just hope people keep their jobs. Or ... desastre.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Dandy Warhols (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuFtfhOipNQ). Today's title - ok, you'll be doing well with this, but it comes from a wonderful Canadian indie group who did get the odd mention here in 2007. They take their name from some water in Saskatchewan.

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Every Day Should Be A Holiday

Many though the number of holidays may be, not every day is a holiday and not every day is a holiday everywhere, albeit that I'm beginning to believe that, on any given day, somewhere is celebrating a holiday. Life can get very confusing here. Yesterday was Sant Sebastià. Ostensibly a Palma-only gig, it has found its way onto the list of holidays and therefore days off elsewhere on the island. Sant Antoni was on Saturday; it's a bigger thrash in some places compared with others and is a holiday in some towns and not others. Then there is the word itself - fiesta. It means both party and holiday. Some places it's a party-holiday, a fiesta-fiesta, if you like; some places it's just a party - fiesta-lite - or neither a holiday nor a party, it seems. Keeping track of all of this is virtually impossible. For example, the Saturday gone, in Pollensa, was a fiesta-fiesta, a holiday and a party for Sant Antoni and the pine-tree climbing. Yesterday was a fiesta-fiesta for Sebastian in certain municipalities, but wasn't in others; indeed it wasn't really even a fiesta-lite in others.

So, I went along to the municipal building in Playa de Muro. My intention was to post two birthday cards at the post office. Strangely, the shutters for the post office were pulled to, but the building was open. Cati, the receptionist at what doubles as the tourist office and Muro's satellite town hall office, said the post office was closed. I could see that.

"Fiesta."

"Fiesta?"

"Fiesta."

"But you're working," I point out.

"It's not a fiesta in Muro."

I look at the locked door of the post office with a growing sense of bewilderment. It is a fiesta in Can Picafort. But this isn't Can Picafort. No, but the post office is. Let's just run through all that again - the post office, which is located in Muro, is closed because, although it is in Muro, it isn't; it is in fact in Can Picafort (or Santa Margalida if you want to be pedantic). And because it isn't in Muro - as such - it is closed because today is a holiday in Can Picafort. Well, glad we've got that straightened out.

The danger, having found that the not-the-Muro-sub-post-office is shut for the day, is if then one decides to go to a different post office. As it turns out, Alcúdia, for example, would have been a safe bet; no fiesta or at least not a fiesta-fiesta. But had one gone off to Sa Pobla it would not have been. Despite Sant Antoni being such a big deal there, they take Sebastian off.

I once suggested that Mallorca should sell itself as a 365-day-a-year party-people place. Even on this relatively small island, it may indeed be possible to find somewhere that is holding a fiesta, and somewhere that is, therefore, closed for the day. Never let it be said that something as trivial as work might get in the way of a day off and a fiesta. Or in the way of bringing the postal system to a grinding halt, in whichever town it happens to be - or not.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Sebastian", Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OIFk2dQcno). Today's title - single by one of the Portland, Oregon flock. Think play on the name of an artist.

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Somebody Called Me Sebastian

You have to go to the Spanish press to get anything that is especially critical when it comes to local issues. It would be most unlikely that you would read anything like a piece in "Ultima Hora" yesterday in the English press, a piece that had a right old go at Palma town hall for its organisation of this year's Sant Sebastià jollies. To remind you - San Sebastià is one of the biggest gigs of the year. Sebastià (Sebastian, obviously) is the patron saint of Palma. Some of you may recall I explained how he came to be so once before on the blog, but it maybe bears repetition from three years ago, so here goes ...

"Sebastian, originally from France, was a Roman soldier, martyred for his Christian faith. That he became Palma’s patron saint was pure chance; it wasn’t as if he had any association with the place, while his crypt is to be found in Rome. But in the first part of the sixteenth century (1523 is generally considered to be the year), there was a particularly bad dose of the plague knocking around. Anyway, or so the story goes, one Manuel Suriavisqui, the owner of a bone from Sebastian, pitched up in Palma at the time of the plague, together with the bone. And what do you know...? That old bone helped to quell the plague. And so Sebastian was declared the patron of Palma."

Sebastian may have been hijacked by other parts of the island (any excuse for a fiesta anywhere is gratefully accepted), but in Palma he, and his celebrations, remain hugely significant. Last night was the music night, with the squares in the centre open to acts of varying sorts. Last year there was an international flavour - ELO, for example. This year there was not. Last year they said, after the event, that more needed to be done in terms of international promotion and attracting an international audience to Palma for Sebastian. This year they seem to have overlooked this.

"Ultima Hora" criticises the organisers for not knowing what the people of Palma want, for the lack of international acts, for lower quality than in previous years. It points out that there were few even national performers; most were local and that meant Catalan. There seems to have been a politicisation of the music of Sebastian. Maybe it was just because Palma couldn't afford anyone else, or maybe it was propitious and allowed them to justify a much more parochial approach. If so, they have made a big mistake. Sebastian is a cracking event, and the town hall knows that it deserves more international attention, so why fall back on the purely local? Whatever happened to that increased international promotion? Yea, ok, perhaps it's just the economy determining this year's event, but perhaps - and it wouldn't be the first time I've said it - the Mallorcans just don't want foreigners at their do's.

And perhaps they don't want them because there are sufficient bodies knocking about as it is. At the Sa Pobla witches night event, 8,000 made use of the special train services alone. In Muro, for the blessing of the animals, there were some 5,000 - people, that is, as opposed to animals. The numbers who turn up, year in, year out, may not make a lot of sense when you consider that these events are basically the same, year in, year out. But then, you read something else in "Ultima Hora", something in Catalan that, under the heading "Sant Antoni i Sant Sebastià", begins "som un poble" (we are a people), and which you know is going to be a reflection on the changes of local society and traditions - and it is. It is also not a million miles away from what I have said before about the way in which they keep hold of their traditions here as some form of mass psychological buffer to the changes that have occurred. In fact, it is very close to what I have said, which, I guess, is rather reassuring - for me, at any rate. And this may explain why they - the Mallorcans - are indifferent, antagonistic perhaps to those traditions being internationalised either through content or by those in attendance. And then someone goes and complains about not enough being done for winter tourism ...


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Just Stand Up", Mariah Carey, Beyoncé et al (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfbxxd01mzk). Today's title - it was the first single by whom? Quite unlike what one came to associate with him/them.

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Things Get Better

The president of the Mallorcan hotel federation is concerned; the Spanish tourist office in London is worried. You wouldn't really expect them to be feeling any differently - or would you? No, I didn't think you would. The theme is the same, only the contents differ; 2009 is likely to be a difficult year. Er, yes, I think we've probably all gathered this. Maybe tourism minister, Miquel Nadal, was right when he tried to persuade the media to be more "responsible" in its reporting of what he maintains will not be a "disaster" (2009, that is). Or do the stories indicating a bad season at some point just become so repetitious that people switch off? I know I have. When Antoni Horrach, the hotel federation president, speaks of tour operators cutting capacity and flights, it's really the same old news. Equally when the tourist office says that market conditions are tough because of the credit crunch and the euro-pound situation, it is not only the same old news - ad bloody nauseam - you do actually begin to lose the will to live.

Listen up - WE KNOW THIS. It is not necessary to keep on repeating it.

It only becomes necessary as a means of filling space in newspapers. Though Sr. Nadal was being vaguely censorious with his desire to see the media acting in a way that kept the bad news at bay, I do now start to sympathise with him. Not because bad news should not be reported, but because of the sheer monotony of the message. The fact is that until the season is under way, we aren't really going to know. The chances are that things will be better than thought; that many holidaymakers are holding off making their purchases just yet; that the tour operators can make additional capacity if there is the demand; that Mallorca is still a place that attracts those holidaymakers, despite the market conditions and despite Turkey and other non-Euroland destinations.

Sr. Horrach featured in a lengthy interview in "The Diario" yesterday. Why there were no questions about all-inclusives I'm not sure; it would have been one of the first on my list. He didn't really have much of interest to say, but one thing stood out, and this was when he was talking about the promotion of Mallorca. He described the Mallorca "brand" as the "Coca-Cola" of Mediterranean tourism. What does that mean? Sickly sweet and doesn't do much for your teeth or your waistline? He meant, at least I assume he meant, that Mallorca is known by everyone, in the same way that Coke is. Of global brands, Coca-Cola is one that has universal recognition. And why? Because they keep promoting it and keep creating an image which, despite the obvious unhealthiness of the drink, is still valued and trusted. You might think that Coke has long not needed promotion, but that's where you would be wrong, because the constant promotion, the constant position in the consumer's front of mind is what maintains the brand's strength. It's a damn good analogy that Sr. Horrach is making, or it would be if Mallorca had maintained the same level of intensity in its promotion. It may not be comparable to Coke, but - as a brand - Mallorca certainly has its recognition. And what Sr. Horrach didn't say was that Coke has maintained its awareness and its position in markets through a consistency of message. When Coca-Cola attempted to introduce "New" Coke some years ago, the company faltered, as did its marketing message. New Coke was dropped. The same applies, or should, to Mallorca, and that is the core value, the core attributes of the Mallorca brand, which remain those that have existed since the advent of mass tourism. It is for this reason that to start modifying the brand, playing with it in terms of "alternative" tourism is such a very dangerous move. Mallorca is known, very well known. Don't go messing around with its brand image - "new Mallorca"; don't go there. And, as importantly, devote the promotional budget to the Coca-Cola-isation of the Mallorca name - one of sun, sea and fun. Things go better, things get better (see the quiz question); it doesn't all have to be gloom.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - MGMT, "Electric Feel" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtUI5MC9tVM). Today's title - not quite "things go better" (as in with Coke) but nearly. This is a line from an all-female, R&B charity song from last year.

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Shock Me Like An Electric Eel

So, after the night of the demons and the fires and the barbecues and the eel specialities (in Sa Pobla at any rate), there was the day of blessing - Sant Antoni day. Yesterday was his big day out. The saint of animals who, on the eve of his saint's day, was celebrated for having spurned the advances of the devil; hence the demons and the fires. It's a familiar theme of course. La Beata in Santa Margalida, often said to be the most traditional of the Mallorcan fiestas, is based on the same idea. There isn't necessarily a huge amount of imagination surrounding some of these fiestas; a bit of tempting by Satan and a bit of telling him to sling his horns and his hook and, Antoni's your uncle, you've got yourself another fiesta. As for the actual day of Tone, many of the local towns have blessings of animals. And so people lug along their dogs, which doubtless foul the pavements and are also blissfully unaware that the bloke in the funny garb is actually blessing them and so bark and snarl when he gets a bit close. Presumably there weren't too many eels being brought along to get some religion.


Further to yesterday's piece, there was something of an outcry in response to Sr. Middelmann's observations. One has to assume that he knew that he would probably shock people into a response, and that he has. The Catalan defenders, the likes of the Obra Cultural Balear (the group that set up the talking-Catalan-in-cafés carry-on), have said that they are offended and that what Middelmann had to say was provocative and not appropriate for one who holds the post that he does with the "Fomento del Turismo". The thing is that, though he has wandered into political waters that he might have done better to stay out of and also pontificated on matters not solely to do with tourism, he might well argue that there needs to be a balance in the language debate, especially as it affects tourism. It might be recalled that another group known as "La Mesa del Turismo", back in the summer (9 July: I Say High, You Say Low), presented a manifesto in support of the defence of Castilian. One leg of this table is Air Berlin. And Middelmann holds a senior post with the airline.


Coming back to one of the stories of 2008 - the developments on Alcúdia beach - the town hall has decided that it needs to do more; to do more that probably no-one much will notice, like no-one much noticed the WiFi system and the idiotic chill-out zone. To recap - the WiFi system, the networking of a stretch of beach of some two and a half kilometres or so, was meant to be a highly innovative development (some might have said it was a vanity project, but be that as it may). By the end of August, it had attracted precisely 72 customers - along the beach at any rate. As for the chill-out zone, this was something that not even the nearby tourist office was aware of, and it was just a glorified set of loungers with some apologies of speakers hanging pathetically from some poles. Anyway, undeterred by the underwhelming experience of 2008, the town hall and the hotel association are going to effect further developments. Mind you and to be fair, these - swings and play areas for children and an upgrade of the pathway at the back of the beach - will be welcomed and will also be far more obvious than the WiFi, unless, that is, they do the sensible thing and actually publicise the internet facility, which was not the case last season. Now, had you read about this latest development in "The Bulletin", you might, like I was, have been rather taken aback. Why? Well, because it said that this was going, with assistance from the Inestur promotional organisation, to set the town hall and the hoteliers back some ... 720 million euros. I have not made a mistake. It did say 720 million, under a headline that proclaimed that millions were to be spent. If one goes to "The Bulletin's" sister paper, "Ultima Hora", you will find out the real amount - 720 thousand. Oops. So, if you were shocked to learn that the rough equivalent of the GDP of a very small nation was about to be spent on the beach at Alcúdia, you can rest easy: it isn't to be. However, you might not rest easy. Despite the rather large difference in the reported spend, 720 thousand still sounds like a bloody lot of dosh for some swings and a better pavement. 720 thousand, 720 million, who knows. Either way, the amount is either 10,000 or 10 million times more than the number who had booked WiFi on Alcúdia's beach last summer. 72 customers for the WiFi, and now 720,000 or 720 million: doesn't matter. How wonderfully serendipitous and multiplicative.

The new beach spend was decided at a recent town hall gathering at which they also looked forward to the completion of the old town Can Ramis development (finally, eventually, whenever) and the "endowment" of services along the Calles Pollentia and Teodoro Canet. The former runs from the old town down to the other roundabout (i.e. not the horse roundabout) and effectively joins on to the latter as it heads off past the main parking area in the port. But what services are these? Anyone care to guess?


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Sugababes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24nX-ZMB4Gs). Today's title - a line from a brilliant 2008 song; American hippy popsters who might just have spent some time listening to Prince.

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