For once, something not about Mallorca or Spain. A bit of an indulgence, but bear with me ... .
I am not and never was an autograph-hunter. I have a few autographs, but too few to mention. Except for two. They are written on a compliments slip that came with the tickets for a concert at The Royal Albert Hall in London. The year was 1972. The autographs came with a sort of salutation, "love over gold". The names were those of Don Van Vliet and his wife Jan Van Vliet. I've no idea if they might be worth anything, but if they are then chances are that they are now worth more. Don Van Vliet has died. Captain Beefheart has died. The Captain is dead, long live the Captain!
The concert at the Albert Hall started with first a ballet dancer and then a belly dancer coming onto the stage. Why it should have done was a mystery, except to the Captain. Maybe it was intended to allow for some word play - ballet, belly - or to represent different worlds. His words, his lyrics were as oddball and surreal as his music. As oddball and surreal as he was. One by one, members of his Magic Band came onto the stage and performed short solos. Rockette Morton exploded his bass as did Oréjon, Zoot Horn Rollo hit a "long, lunar note and let it float", Winged Eel Fingerling slid his guitar, Ed Marimba drummed with a pair of pants on his head.
Beefheart's music was almost beyond definition. At one time, in the mid-60s, A&M Records had wanted him and The Magic Band to become a kind of west-coast American Rolling Stones. The band had a bluesy feel, but this was about as close as they came to Jagger and his group. They were just too weird for a commercial market. Beefheart eschewed the trappings of pop and, as a consequence, spent much of his music career broke. He simply wouldn't compromise and yet resented the commercial success and wealth that came the way of his old school friend Frank Zappa.
Beefheart (Van Vliet) lived near the desert in California, the Mojave. Away from the mainstream he conjured up a world of the non-mainstream. His music combined his own Howlin' Wolf-style vocals replete with growls and yelps, the blues, avant-garde experimentalism and Ornette Coleman jazz influences. The music became a highly synchronised blend of discordance and peaked with the album "Trout Mask Replica" in 1969. The cover suggested the disconnection from reality that was to be found within, Beefheart wearing a stovepipe-reminiscent top hat and the face of a trout.
The album was either a work of genius or unlistenable to. It was unquestionably painful. John Peel once described Beefheart as the only "genius" in popular music history. The excruciating, having-teeth-pulled genius of "Trout Mask Replica" was two-fold. One was that it sounded improvised. Yet it had been rehearsed over and over again. Indeed Beefheart had more or less imprisoned The Magic Band for a period of eight months while he instructed them as to how to play the 28 "songs" and while he and they had all but starved in a process that involved band members being encouraged to fight with each other and being humiliated and assaulted by Beefheart.
The second was, and this is something that never seems to be mentioned, that it had the power to frighten. Music plays with many emotions, but to make you afraid is not normally one of them. The discordance, the surrealism were dark; they were of a different world. "Trout Mask Replica" was an aural version of the nightmare that David Lynch put onto film with "Eraserhead".
Beefheart did mellow to an extent. Some of his later material was even recognisable as songs, quite sweet ones even. His relationship with Zappa, long difficult, did smooth sufficiently for them to come together on the album "Bongo Fury" in 1975. This is another of my Beefheart treasures. It was never released in the UK, but I have the import version. Amidst the more melodic music of The Mothers Of Invention, Beefheart was there, rambling on the likes of "Sam With The Showing Scalp Flat Top".
The influence of Beefheart, despite his lack of real commercial success, has been cited down the years by other musicians. Arguably, along with The Velvet Underground, his influence on subsequent rock music was greater than anyone's. His other influence, and maybe I am only now realising it, was that even if you didn't like all his music, and I didn't, he taught a lesson in how to see the world as it isn't. If you want a Spanish connection, there might well be one; he was the Dali of the music world.
Here is the Captain at his musically most indecipherable:
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Showing The Red Card: Women in Mallorcan society
A planning inspector in Calvia is under investigation having been denounced by a woman who alleges he sought sexual favours in return for "regularising" building work at the woman's home. He was caught on a mobile phone camera, but denies having requested such favours.
Being under investigation, I won't say any more, except that I have some interest in the case. I know one of the parties concerned, and it isn't the planning inspector. The reporting of the case, other than the facts as they are known, reveals that the inspector was well known in Calvia and that colleagues at the town hall are shocked by the allegations.
Would you be shocked if I were to tell you about a restaurant owner who seeks sexual favours in return for employment? Maybe you would be, maybe you wouldn't. You might be if you knew the restaurant, but that's life, you might think. That's how it is. And this is Mallorca after all.
Sexual harassment is part of a much broader picture that covers serious crimes against women. In Spain so far this year sixty-nine women have died as the consequence of violence by their partners or former partners. Not as bad as 2008 when there were 76 deaths, but the level has remained similar since the turn of the century; in 2000 one woman every five days was killed by her male partner.
In November there was the case of the woman in Pollensa killed by her octogenarian husband. It was a case that bordered on the bizarre; an old man running over his wife with a car. Another woman from Pollensa, interviewed by "Ultima Hora", fled the town and the island, concerned that she would also become the victim of an elderly husband. A reassuring aspect of the interview was the "phenomenal" support she had received from various agencies, such as the Guardia Civil.
The issue of violence against women, prompted by the Pollensa case, was publicised by local politicians. President Antich, together with other members of the government and Ramon Socías, the Balearics' central government delegate, brandished red cards on the steps of the building which is the seat of the presidency. The red cards seemed a bit silly, but the message and the action were well-intentioned and correct; showing the red card to gender-related violence.
Sexist attitudes, which manifest themselves in a whole range of actions from the relatively harmless to the criminal and serious, are hardly unique to Mallorca or Spain. To what extent they endure in being widely held is difficult to say, but Spain is a country in which the role of women has changed only relatively recently. A traditional view of the Spanish male as being highly sexist does not obtain to the degree that was once the case, but attitudes don't necessarily change, especially among older sectors of society who knew how it was in Franco's time.
An indication of attitudes, those foisted onto women, came from an international survey that appeared on the website sofeminine.co.uk, one that coincided with the international day for the elimination of violence against women on 25 November. This found that some women, especially in Spain, "still believe that forced sex in a relationship is acceptable".
Successive Spanish governments have sought to legislate against sexist attitudes and in favour of women, culminating in the current government with its policies on abortion and an attempt to introduce a Europe-wide system of restraint orders and protection, across national borders, for women suffering abuse.
Legislation has also helped in bringing about equal opportunities in employment that have, as a consequence, changed traditional family roles. While there are discrepancies in pay and the existence of a "glass ceiling" (as elsewhere), women have assumed positions of importance in business. The hotel industry in Mallorca, for example, is heavily populated with women in its upper echelons, both within hotel chains and hotel federations. Yes, a number are daughters, so family tradition still prevails, but you don't get to head such powerful organisations without being capable, family ties or no family ties.
And as in business, so also in politics. The Balearics tourism minister is a woman, the president of the Council of Mallorca is a woman and her predecessor was Maria Munar. Equality is everywhere now, as Munar has joined the male ranks in being caught up in corruption charges.
Despite the violence statistics, there is an altogether healthier respect for women and for their roles in society. This healthy respect still needs some work though. And the seeking of sexual favours, whether proven or not, has no role to play.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Being under investigation, I won't say any more, except that I have some interest in the case. I know one of the parties concerned, and it isn't the planning inspector. The reporting of the case, other than the facts as they are known, reveals that the inspector was well known in Calvia and that colleagues at the town hall are shocked by the allegations.
Would you be shocked if I were to tell you about a restaurant owner who seeks sexual favours in return for employment? Maybe you would be, maybe you wouldn't. You might be if you knew the restaurant, but that's life, you might think. That's how it is. And this is Mallorca after all.
Sexual harassment is part of a much broader picture that covers serious crimes against women. In Spain so far this year sixty-nine women have died as the consequence of violence by their partners or former partners. Not as bad as 2008 when there were 76 deaths, but the level has remained similar since the turn of the century; in 2000 one woman every five days was killed by her male partner.
In November there was the case of the woman in Pollensa killed by her octogenarian husband. It was a case that bordered on the bizarre; an old man running over his wife with a car. Another woman from Pollensa, interviewed by "Ultima Hora", fled the town and the island, concerned that she would also become the victim of an elderly husband. A reassuring aspect of the interview was the "phenomenal" support she had received from various agencies, such as the Guardia Civil.
The issue of violence against women, prompted by the Pollensa case, was publicised by local politicians. President Antich, together with other members of the government and Ramon Socías, the Balearics' central government delegate, brandished red cards on the steps of the building which is the seat of the presidency. The red cards seemed a bit silly, but the message and the action were well-intentioned and correct; showing the red card to gender-related violence.
Sexist attitudes, which manifest themselves in a whole range of actions from the relatively harmless to the criminal and serious, are hardly unique to Mallorca or Spain. To what extent they endure in being widely held is difficult to say, but Spain is a country in which the role of women has changed only relatively recently. A traditional view of the Spanish male as being highly sexist does not obtain to the degree that was once the case, but attitudes don't necessarily change, especially among older sectors of society who knew how it was in Franco's time.
An indication of attitudes, those foisted onto women, came from an international survey that appeared on the website sofeminine.co.uk, one that coincided with the international day for the elimination of violence against women on 25 November. This found that some women, especially in Spain, "still believe that forced sex in a relationship is acceptable".
Successive Spanish governments have sought to legislate against sexist attitudes and in favour of women, culminating in the current government with its policies on abortion and an attempt to introduce a Europe-wide system of restraint orders and protection, across national borders, for women suffering abuse.
Legislation has also helped in bringing about equal opportunities in employment that have, as a consequence, changed traditional family roles. While there are discrepancies in pay and the existence of a "glass ceiling" (as elsewhere), women have assumed positions of importance in business. The hotel industry in Mallorca, for example, is heavily populated with women in its upper echelons, both within hotel chains and hotel federations. Yes, a number are daughters, so family tradition still prevails, but you don't get to head such powerful organisations without being capable, family ties or no family ties.
And as in business, so also in politics. The Balearics tourism minister is a woman, the president of the Council of Mallorca is a woman and her predecessor was Maria Munar. Equality is everywhere now, as Munar has joined the male ranks in being caught up in corruption charges.
Despite the violence statistics, there is an altogether healthier respect for women and for their roles in society. This healthy respect still needs some work though. And the seeking of sexual favours, whether proven or not, has no role to play.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, December 17, 2010
People Of The Year: Spain and Mallorca
Mark Zuckerberg is "Time Man (Person) Of The Year". Good for him. He joins a distinguished list of those who "for better or worse" have most influenced events during the year. His name is now etched alongside previous winners such as Roosevelt, Churchill and The Computer. There was no person of the year in 1982, just a machine; neither Thatcher nor Galtieri could persuade the judges.
There has never been a Time Person Of The Year from Spain. There is arguably only one who might have been: Franco in 1936. Wallis Simpson won that year for some reason. He then faced some pretty tough opposition over the years of the Civil War; Chiang Kai-shek and his missus winning in 1937 and Hitler and Stalin in the next two.
If Spain has proved to be light when it comes to candidates for Person Of The Year, then Mallorca has been all but weightless. The island doesn't really do "greats". In seeking a person of the year, therefore, there is no alternative other than to forget global influence and to instead be inward-looking in considering Spain and Mallorca's persons (sic) of the year.
For Spain you probably have to look no further than Vicente del Bosque or Andres Iniesta for lifting the World Cup, but that puts them in Sports Personality of the Year territory. Influencing for better or worse? Well, does A.P. McCoy do this, other than influencing the betting habits of a nation? Discuss.
Does Zapatero qualify as person of the year? He has influenced relatively little other than his likely political downfall, but his real problem has been that he is influenced by other things. He has no real control of events, just as Mallorca's politicians have no control, except in one area. A whole dock-full of them have influenced events for the worse - Munar, Matas, (Miguel) Nadal and their shenanigans with public money. Allegedly. People of the year might well be the more anonymous faces of the anti-corruption police and judges.
But Zapatero does qualify in one respect. He responded to the Pope's accusations of secularism in Spain by saying that laws are not made "that the Pope wants". His great achievement, not just this year, has been his challenges to the Church. He may go down in history as having presided over the collapse of the boom times, but he also deserves a place in history for his social policies. He can't be made person of the year because of his economic failings, but he would still make the shortlist.
As in Spain, so Mallorca has its sporting aspirants. Rafael Nadal and Jorge Lorenzo. Great achievements by both, but what have they really influenced? The greater achievement was probably that of a non-Mallorcan, Real Mallorca's former coach Gregorio Manzano for influencing outstanding performances from a team that refused to be dragged down by a hopeless club. Even Manzano didn't influence events that much though, not to the extent of ridding the team of Sid Lowe's "no-fans" jibe.
Of Mallorca's politicians, the ones who have kept their hands clean, that is, can anything be said? Not a lot. President Antich was and is a victim of circumstances, but he did one thing for the good - booting the Unió Mallorquina party out of the coalition when the corruption charges became a daily occurrence. The weakness of his position and that of his government was, however, exposed when he had to concede the environment ministry to the Mallorcan socialists (PSM) who promptly bared their political teeth in bunkering the Son Bosc golf course. The new minister, Gabriel Vicens, has form in influencing events for better or worse, depending on your point of view; he had previously managed to hack Alcúdia town hall off so much that the planned rail extension from Sa Pobla was scrapped.
Antich said in January that he was going to make tourism his priority in 2010. Heading off to Moscow to press some flesh may have been evidence of this, but did he influence tourism events? Not so as you would have noticed. As with most things, he showed how impotent Mallorca's politicians are. They find it hard to influence anything that really matters, such as tourism. The real people of the year, as ever, are the bosses of Thomas Cook and TUI. It is they who influence events for better or worse, and so we can anticipate ever more all-inclusive in 2011.
No, there is no one person who merits the Of The Year accolade. Not a Mallorcan or a Spaniard anyway. The one who does is American. Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook influenced us, well many of us, for better or worse, and gave rise to subversiveness of the sort that saw Pollensa and its poorly maintained and littered streets being highlighted with shame and pro-duck campaigners in Can Picafort aiming to flout the law.
"Time" may have got it wrong with Wallis Simpson when it overlooked Franco, but it has got it right with Zuckerberg. Do you like or do you want to be a friend?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
There has never been a Time Person Of The Year from Spain. There is arguably only one who might have been: Franco in 1936. Wallis Simpson won that year for some reason. He then faced some pretty tough opposition over the years of the Civil War; Chiang Kai-shek and his missus winning in 1937 and Hitler and Stalin in the next two.
If Spain has proved to be light when it comes to candidates for Person Of The Year, then Mallorca has been all but weightless. The island doesn't really do "greats". In seeking a person of the year, therefore, there is no alternative other than to forget global influence and to instead be inward-looking in considering Spain and Mallorca's persons (sic) of the year.
For Spain you probably have to look no further than Vicente del Bosque or Andres Iniesta for lifting the World Cup, but that puts them in Sports Personality of the Year territory. Influencing for better or worse? Well, does A.P. McCoy do this, other than influencing the betting habits of a nation? Discuss.
Does Zapatero qualify as person of the year? He has influenced relatively little other than his likely political downfall, but his real problem has been that he is influenced by other things. He has no real control of events, just as Mallorca's politicians have no control, except in one area. A whole dock-full of them have influenced events for the worse - Munar, Matas, (Miguel) Nadal and their shenanigans with public money. Allegedly. People of the year might well be the more anonymous faces of the anti-corruption police and judges.
But Zapatero does qualify in one respect. He responded to the Pope's accusations of secularism in Spain by saying that laws are not made "that the Pope wants". His great achievement, not just this year, has been his challenges to the Church. He may go down in history as having presided over the collapse of the boom times, but he also deserves a place in history for his social policies. He can't be made person of the year because of his economic failings, but he would still make the shortlist.
As in Spain, so Mallorca has its sporting aspirants. Rafael Nadal and Jorge Lorenzo. Great achievements by both, but what have they really influenced? The greater achievement was probably that of a non-Mallorcan, Real Mallorca's former coach Gregorio Manzano for influencing outstanding performances from a team that refused to be dragged down by a hopeless club. Even Manzano didn't influence events that much though, not to the extent of ridding the team of Sid Lowe's "no-fans" jibe.
Of Mallorca's politicians, the ones who have kept their hands clean, that is, can anything be said? Not a lot. President Antich was and is a victim of circumstances, but he did one thing for the good - booting the Unió Mallorquina party out of the coalition when the corruption charges became a daily occurrence. The weakness of his position and that of his government was, however, exposed when he had to concede the environment ministry to the Mallorcan socialists (PSM) who promptly bared their political teeth in bunkering the Son Bosc golf course. The new minister, Gabriel Vicens, has form in influencing events for better or worse, depending on your point of view; he had previously managed to hack Alcúdia town hall off so much that the planned rail extension from Sa Pobla was scrapped.
Antich said in January that he was going to make tourism his priority in 2010. Heading off to Moscow to press some flesh may have been evidence of this, but did he influence tourism events? Not so as you would have noticed. As with most things, he showed how impotent Mallorca's politicians are. They find it hard to influence anything that really matters, such as tourism. The real people of the year, as ever, are the bosses of Thomas Cook and TUI. It is they who influence events for better or worse, and so we can anticipate ever more all-inclusive in 2011.
No, there is no one person who merits the Of The Year accolade. Not a Mallorcan or a Spaniard anyway. The one who does is American. Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook influenced us, well many of us, for better or worse, and gave rise to subversiveness of the sort that saw Pollensa and its poorly maintained and littered streets being highlighted with shame and pro-duck campaigners in Can Picafort aiming to flout the law.
"Time" may have got it wrong with Wallis Simpson when it overlooked Franco, but it has got it right with Zuckerberg. Do you like or do you want to be a friend?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Cutting Down To Size: Tourism strategy
The rarity with which anyone in the tourism industry utters some common sense demands that, when it is uttered, attention should be paid. The president of the Mallorcan Hoteliers Federation, as reported in "The Bulletin" (15 December), has called for the elimination of obsolete tourism accommodation and for the avoidance of duplication in tourism promotion. The federation is drawing up a strategic plan in which both these aspects feature. Praise be that someone, anyone, might apply some strategic thinking to Mallorca's tourism.
Without spelling it out in so many words, the logic of the federation's wish to eliminate outdated hotels and to regenerate tourism areas is that there would be a reduction in the number of hotels. This might sound like turkeys proposing and then voting firmly in favour of Christmas, but the hotels are suffering from a lack of stuffing and from what there is, which is all onion and no sage. The wisdom of chasing numbers at the expense of profitability has been exposed as being as pointless as filling the Christmas plate with Brussels sprouts no one wants; the trimmings need to be cut and made more edible.
The words of the federation's president deserve to be slowly chewed over and digested. "The problem with the approach to the tourist industry ... is that hoteliers, backed by the regional government, (have) been too keen on getting large numbers to the islands without creating a proper pricing structure". There are too many hotels, there is too much supply and there are relatively too high a number of tourists that generate insufficient revenue.
It's a drum that I seem to have been banging for an age. Perhaps the penny is dropping along with the profitability that goes with a percentage of tourism which is worth very little or nothing at all. The case for a strategy based on lower numbers, on improved quality of hotel and on a higher-worth tourist seems overwhelming.
What this doesn't mean is an end to mass tourism. It would be folly were it to. What it does mean is an altogether sharper focus on tourism which is less like a social service and more one of excellent service for a more demanding tourist.
It is a strategy that is not without its problems. Eliminating obsolete hotel stock and not replacing it requires a means of compensation, which is why the hoteliers have previously called for legal means by which hotels can be pulled. Upgrading stock means more than just the limited provisions of the "decreto Nadal"; it means fewer bureaucratic hoops through which hotels have to jump in order to re-develop and also means integrated approaches to resort development of the sort that has collapsed in Playa de Palma.
It is a strategy that also requires the government to rid itself of its obsession with numbers. Who cares if Mallorca slips down the tourism numbers league table. The goal difference in terms of tourism value is far more important than what's shown in the points column, that of tourism volume. Inevitably though, fewer tourists mean fewer employees; that is a political obstacle.
Another is fewer passengers passing through the airport. Central government may have inadvertently hit upon a solution. By proposing the privatisation of airports, the central government has shifted the goalposts of co-management of Palma airport by the regional government which is now up in arms at the suggestion, so long has it sought its share of the management and of the revenue that would go with it. One of the determinants of this co-management was that defined levels of passenger traffic should be achieved. Privatisation would put an end to this need, as co-management would be kicked into touch. What it wouldn't do necessarily is put an end to the need for numbers passing through the airport; landing, handling charges and so on would remain paramount for private operators.
Despite the obstacles, the hoteliers federation is right, but whether its strategy can resolve the apparent incompatibility between the numbers and the right sort of tourism (which is the incompatibility as things stand), who can tell.
The federation is also right when it comes to duplication of tourism promotion. Why are both the government and the Council of Mallorca involved in this? The Council now has more responsibilities for administering tourism, so why not just hand it the whole tourism responsibility? There again, why was this administration responsibility transferred from regional government? What really is the point of the Council of Mallorca when it comes to tourism promotion or indeed anything?
That it takes the private sector in the form of the hoteliers to try and drive strategy is telling. The government has failed to do so. A succession of tourism ministers have failed. One of them, Ferrer, did at least speak of the need for "boldness" when he assumed office, but he had no opportunity to demonstrate what this meant, as he was out of office in under two months. Otherwise, the words of the tourism ministry have too often trotted out the mantra of "alternative" tourism (gastronomy, culture, blah, blah) to the point at which you despair of it ever getting to grips with the fundamentals of summer tourism. A strategy? Yep, it would be nice.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Without spelling it out in so many words, the logic of the federation's wish to eliminate outdated hotels and to regenerate tourism areas is that there would be a reduction in the number of hotels. This might sound like turkeys proposing and then voting firmly in favour of Christmas, but the hotels are suffering from a lack of stuffing and from what there is, which is all onion and no sage. The wisdom of chasing numbers at the expense of profitability has been exposed as being as pointless as filling the Christmas plate with Brussels sprouts no one wants; the trimmings need to be cut and made more edible.
The words of the federation's president deserve to be slowly chewed over and digested. "The problem with the approach to the tourist industry ... is that hoteliers, backed by the regional government, (have) been too keen on getting large numbers to the islands without creating a proper pricing structure". There are too many hotels, there is too much supply and there are relatively too high a number of tourists that generate insufficient revenue.
It's a drum that I seem to have been banging for an age. Perhaps the penny is dropping along with the profitability that goes with a percentage of tourism which is worth very little or nothing at all. The case for a strategy based on lower numbers, on improved quality of hotel and on a higher-worth tourist seems overwhelming.
What this doesn't mean is an end to mass tourism. It would be folly were it to. What it does mean is an altogether sharper focus on tourism which is less like a social service and more one of excellent service for a more demanding tourist.
It is a strategy that is not without its problems. Eliminating obsolete hotel stock and not replacing it requires a means of compensation, which is why the hoteliers have previously called for legal means by which hotels can be pulled. Upgrading stock means more than just the limited provisions of the "decreto Nadal"; it means fewer bureaucratic hoops through which hotels have to jump in order to re-develop and also means integrated approaches to resort development of the sort that has collapsed in Playa de Palma.
It is a strategy that also requires the government to rid itself of its obsession with numbers. Who cares if Mallorca slips down the tourism numbers league table. The goal difference in terms of tourism value is far more important than what's shown in the points column, that of tourism volume. Inevitably though, fewer tourists mean fewer employees; that is a political obstacle.
Another is fewer passengers passing through the airport. Central government may have inadvertently hit upon a solution. By proposing the privatisation of airports, the central government has shifted the goalposts of co-management of Palma airport by the regional government which is now up in arms at the suggestion, so long has it sought its share of the management and of the revenue that would go with it. One of the determinants of this co-management was that defined levels of passenger traffic should be achieved. Privatisation would put an end to this need, as co-management would be kicked into touch. What it wouldn't do necessarily is put an end to the need for numbers passing through the airport; landing, handling charges and so on would remain paramount for private operators.
Despite the obstacles, the hoteliers federation is right, but whether its strategy can resolve the apparent incompatibility between the numbers and the right sort of tourism (which is the incompatibility as things stand), who can tell.
The federation is also right when it comes to duplication of tourism promotion. Why are both the government and the Council of Mallorca involved in this? The Council now has more responsibilities for administering tourism, so why not just hand it the whole tourism responsibility? There again, why was this administration responsibility transferred from regional government? What really is the point of the Council of Mallorca when it comes to tourism promotion or indeed anything?
That it takes the private sector in the form of the hoteliers to try and drive strategy is telling. The government has failed to do so. A succession of tourism ministers have failed. One of them, Ferrer, did at least speak of the need for "boldness" when he assumed office, but he had no opportunity to demonstrate what this meant, as he was out of office in under two months. Otherwise, the words of the tourism ministry have too often trotted out the mantra of "alternative" tourism (gastronomy, culture, blah, blah) to the point at which you despair of it ever getting to grips with the fundamentals of summer tourism. A strategy? Yep, it would be nice.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
United We Speak: Catalan or Mallorquín?
When is a language a dialect, and when is a dialect a language? Opinion as to the distinction between the two is one on which you will find a lack of unanimity. Linguists themselves can't agree.
If you are inclined to do so, you can go back far enough with most "languages" and argue that they are in fact dialects. It all depends where you want to start. But for current-day purposes, there are languages which are undeniably languages, one of them being Catalan. Or is it? A definition of a language is that it should be that of a "state". You may have noticed that there is no Catalan "state".
Alternatively, a language is a language if there exists a "standard" form, which is the case with Catalan. Except, of course, that there are variants. Nevertheless, the language has its own "code" in that dictionaries determine the standard form. The fact of there being variants does not negate a claim to being a language. Were it to, then English would fail the test. In the case of English, standard codes of language as set out by dictionaries, most obviously the Oxford English Dictionary, are important as there is no body which arbitrates on what is or isn't standard English, as is the case with Spanish (Castilian) or French.
The problem with these variants, however, is the vagueness as to the language-dialect distinction. Let's take Mallorquín. Is it a language? There is no Mallorcan state and there isn't a specific language code, or at least as far as I am aware. Where it appears, in dictionary form, is in the work of Antoni Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll who included Balearic languages (or are they dialects) in an all-embracing Catalan dictionary.
Greater unanimity of opinion surrounds the political dimension as to whether a language is a language or a dialect. Think what you will of the politicisation of the language debate in Mallorca, but to deny the importance of politics would be to completely fail to understand the debate, and it is a debate that has been sparked into ever more controversial life by the leader of the Partido Popular (PP), José Ramón Bauzá, who has said he will reform the so-called law on linguistic normalisation if his party wins power in May next year. This would have the effect of relegating Catalan in favour of Castilian and the languages of the individual islands.
What Bauzá argues is that there is no such thing as a "unity of Catalan". He seems to believe that Mallorquín and the other languages of the Balearics are that - languages, and not therefore dialects of Catalan. Why does he think this? The reasoning is political. If Mallorquín is distinct, then so is Mallorca from Catalonia. The political motive lies with his alliance with the Spanish state and not the aspirations of a Catalan state, language and all.
Bauzá has attempted to prove linguistically that Mallorquín is not a dialect by mentioning certain Catalan words that are not used in Mallorca or the Balearics. He has come unstuck, his theory being disproved by teachers at the institute in Inca from where a protest of schools in Mallorca is being planned against him. Moreover, even if they weren't used, this wouldn't prove anything. Dialects do tend to change words. Indeed Bauzá's whole linguistic argument is preposterous. The Catalan lineage from the time of the conquest of the thirteenth century is indisputable, except by a few who claim that a brand of Catalan was imported directly from southern France. Mallorquín has fundamental differences to Catalan, such as with the definite articles "es" and "sa" (and even these aren't used in all instances), but the differences are not so great as to suggest some sort of separate development or major divergence that might qualify it as a distinct language.
Town halls in Mallorca have responded to Bauzá by approving Catalan as Mallorca's "own language". Manacor has just followed the likes of Sa Pobla, Pollensa and Inca in doing so. Why should they do this? Apart from the political aspect, the town halls are their own local repositories of culture, and language is indivisible from culture. In Manacor, there is an additional political flavour. The mayor is Antoni Pastor, a member of the PP who does not see eye to eye with Bauzá.
But what makes this all the more curious is that claims for a Mallorquín language are therefore being denied by those who oppose Bauzá, be they from his own party or from the left of the political spectrum. So Mallorquín is a dialect, and to say it isn't would be to deny the supremacy of Catalan. It is a somewhat bizarre argument when you consider nationalist pretensions to the existence of a Mallorquín language, though perhaps it isn't so bizarre when you consider that in a different Catalan-speaking part of Spain, Valencia, the far-right has supported the notion of a separate language to the extent of calling for linguistic secession from Catalan.
Ultimately, it doesn't really matter whether you call Mallorquín a dialect or a language. What does matter is where you stand on the issue politically. And that, it would appear, is all that matters.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
If you are inclined to do so, you can go back far enough with most "languages" and argue that they are in fact dialects. It all depends where you want to start. But for current-day purposes, there are languages which are undeniably languages, one of them being Catalan. Or is it? A definition of a language is that it should be that of a "state". You may have noticed that there is no Catalan "state".
Alternatively, a language is a language if there exists a "standard" form, which is the case with Catalan. Except, of course, that there are variants. Nevertheless, the language has its own "code" in that dictionaries determine the standard form. The fact of there being variants does not negate a claim to being a language. Were it to, then English would fail the test. In the case of English, standard codes of language as set out by dictionaries, most obviously the Oxford English Dictionary, are important as there is no body which arbitrates on what is or isn't standard English, as is the case with Spanish (Castilian) or French.
The problem with these variants, however, is the vagueness as to the language-dialect distinction. Let's take Mallorquín. Is it a language? There is no Mallorcan state and there isn't a specific language code, or at least as far as I am aware. Where it appears, in dictionary form, is in the work of Antoni Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll who included Balearic languages (or are they dialects) in an all-embracing Catalan dictionary.
Greater unanimity of opinion surrounds the political dimension as to whether a language is a language or a dialect. Think what you will of the politicisation of the language debate in Mallorca, but to deny the importance of politics would be to completely fail to understand the debate, and it is a debate that has been sparked into ever more controversial life by the leader of the Partido Popular (PP), José Ramón Bauzá, who has said he will reform the so-called law on linguistic normalisation if his party wins power in May next year. This would have the effect of relegating Catalan in favour of Castilian and the languages of the individual islands.
What Bauzá argues is that there is no such thing as a "unity of Catalan". He seems to believe that Mallorquín and the other languages of the Balearics are that - languages, and not therefore dialects of Catalan. Why does he think this? The reasoning is political. If Mallorquín is distinct, then so is Mallorca from Catalonia. The political motive lies with his alliance with the Spanish state and not the aspirations of a Catalan state, language and all.
Bauzá has attempted to prove linguistically that Mallorquín is not a dialect by mentioning certain Catalan words that are not used in Mallorca or the Balearics. He has come unstuck, his theory being disproved by teachers at the institute in Inca from where a protest of schools in Mallorca is being planned against him. Moreover, even if they weren't used, this wouldn't prove anything. Dialects do tend to change words. Indeed Bauzá's whole linguistic argument is preposterous. The Catalan lineage from the time of the conquest of the thirteenth century is indisputable, except by a few who claim that a brand of Catalan was imported directly from southern France. Mallorquín has fundamental differences to Catalan, such as with the definite articles "es" and "sa" (and even these aren't used in all instances), but the differences are not so great as to suggest some sort of separate development or major divergence that might qualify it as a distinct language.
Town halls in Mallorca have responded to Bauzá by approving Catalan as Mallorca's "own language". Manacor has just followed the likes of Sa Pobla, Pollensa and Inca in doing so. Why should they do this? Apart from the political aspect, the town halls are their own local repositories of culture, and language is indivisible from culture. In Manacor, there is an additional political flavour. The mayor is Antoni Pastor, a member of the PP who does not see eye to eye with Bauzá.
But what makes this all the more curious is that claims for a Mallorquín language are therefore being denied by those who oppose Bauzá, be they from his own party or from the left of the political spectrum. So Mallorquín is a dialect, and to say it isn't would be to deny the supremacy of Catalan. It is a somewhat bizarre argument when you consider nationalist pretensions to the existence of a Mallorquín language, though perhaps it isn't so bizarre when you consider that in a different Catalan-speaking part of Spain, Valencia, the far-right has supported the notion of a separate language to the extent of calling for linguistic secession from Catalan.
Ultimately, it doesn't really matter whether you call Mallorquín a dialect or a language. What does matter is where you stand on the issue politically. And that, it would appear, is all that matters.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Bouncy, Bouncy: Regulation of bouncers
The bouncers of the Balearics are going to have to go back to school. The regional government is proposing a law that will require bouncers to undergo an official course and to pass a test that will gauge both physical and psychological abilities to do the job.
The requirements for being accredited are wide-ranging, from understanding rights under the Constitution to being able to resolve conflicts without resorting to violent methods and to having basic abilities in both Catalan and Spanish.
The background to all this is three-fold: the death of a club goer in Madrid at the hands of bouncers; the legal vacuum surrounding the club security business; the bad image that bouncers have. The colloquial term for a bouncer is "gorila"; the nicer one is "portero", the same word for goalkeeper.
Bouncers have tried to improve their image. In the UK they have been re-invented as "door hosts" or "door supervisors", but the image endures, one of intimidating muscle-bound gym monkeys - gorillas. The law in the Balearics will not be too dissimilar to requirements in the UK for obtaining a "door supervisor licence", which demands 30 hours of training; in fact, it seems to be more stringent.
At the same time as the Balearics are going down the same sort of track as the UK, there are concerns that the UK is about to take a backwards step. The Security Industry Authority, which licenses bouncers, is also a Quango and may well be disbanded. The fear is that this will mean a return to the bad old days and the re-emergence of organised crime running the club security business.
A question arises as to why there hasn't been effective control of bouncers. A central law transferred responsibility for its being enacted in the Balearics several years ago. But it was never acted upon. A conference on civil responsibility, held in Ibiza in June this year, looked specifically at the failure to introduce regulation and recorded various reports of attacks by bouncers, including one that was racially aggravated (the Balearics law includes specific mention of racism).
One aspect of the new law, and which may explain why it has not been introduced before, is that it is likely to end up costing not only individual bouncers but also club owners. Licence charges aren't that high in the UK, but this doesn't mean that they might not be in the Balearics. But even a low charge adds some further financial burden as well as further regulation to an industry that awaits the introduction of the smoking ban with some trepidation; of all the "hostelry" sectors, clubs and night bars are expected to be the hardest hit by the ban. So we can probably expect some condemnation of the law.
What doesn't seem to be being mentioned, though, is anything about tourists. As is often the case, it can be salutary to see what is being said on internet forums. In the case of bouncers, they are "aggressive", turn people away without explanation and, in one instance, did nothing to intervene when someone was being beaten up "for 15 minutes" in a particular club. Then there is the question of age. Unless you look really young, you shouldn't have problems getting past the bouncers was one piece of advice. A further aspect of the new law will be to deal with underage drinking, something which has been poorly tackled across the board in Mallorca and Spain, and so check ID. A problem, especially for British kids, is whether they have any.
As ever though, there will be an issue as to how rigorously new regulations will be applied and who will be doing the applying, and in the case of those currently working in the "industry", they will have until 2014 to pass their tests. To which one might ask: why so long? Bouncers will be going back to school, but the lessons won't be starting for some time yet.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The requirements for being accredited are wide-ranging, from understanding rights under the Constitution to being able to resolve conflicts without resorting to violent methods and to having basic abilities in both Catalan and Spanish.
The background to all this is three-fold: the death of a club goer in Madrid at the hands of bouncers; the legal vacuum surrounding the club security business; the bad image that bouncers have. The colloquial term for a bouncer is "gorila"; the nicer one is "portero", the same word for goalkeeper.
Bouncers have tried to improve their image. In the UK they have been re-invented as "door hosts" or "door supervisors", but the image endures, one of intimidating muscle-bound gym monkeys - gorillas. The law in the Balearics will not be too dissimilar to requirements in the UK for obtaining a "door supervisor licence", which demands 30 hours of training; in fact, it seems to be more stringent.
At the same time as the Balearics are going down the same sort of track as the UK, there are concerns that the UK is about to take a backwards step. The Security Industry Authority, which licenses bouncers, is also a Quango and may well be disbanded. The fear is that this will mean a return to the bad old days and the re-emergence of organised crime running the club security business.
A question arises as to why there hasn't been effective control of bouncers. A central law transferred responsibility for its being enacted in the Balearics several years ago. But it was never acted upon. A conference on civil responsibility, held in Ibiza in June this year, looked specifically at the failure to introduce regulation and recorded various reports of attacks by bouncers, including one that was racially aggravated (the Balearics law includes specific mention of racism).
One aspect of the new law, and which may explain why it has not been introduced before, is that it is likely to end up costing not only individual bouncers but also club owners. Licence charges aren't that high in the UK, but this doesn't mean that they might not be in the Balearics. But even a low charge adds some further financial burden as well as further regulation to an industry that awaits the introduction of the smoking ban with some trepidation; of all the "hostelry" sectors, clubs and night bars are expected to be the hardest hit by the ban. So we can probably expect some condemnation of the law.
What doesn't seem to be being mentioned, though, is anything about tourists. As is often the case, it can be salutary to see what is being said on internet forums. In the case of bouncers, they are "aggressive", turn people away without explanation and, in one instance, did nothing to intervene when someone was being beaten up "for 15 minutes" in a particular club. Then there is the question of age. Unless you look really young, you shouldn't have problems getting past the bouncers was one piece of advice. A further aspect of the new law will be to deal with underage drinking, something which has been poorly tackled across the board in Mallorca and Spain, and so check ID. A problem, especially for British kids, is whether they have any.
As ever though, there will be an issue as to how rigorously new regulations will be applied and who will be doing the applying, and in the case of those currently working in the "industry", they will have until 2014 to pass their tests. To which one might ask: why so long? Bouncers will be going back to school, but the lessons won't be starting for some time yet.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Jobs For The Boys: Local councillors
Local elections take place in May, and there will be more posts to vote for in Mallorca than ever before. The law on elections allows for specific numbers of town hall councillors depending on the size of municipalities' populations. Towns which have broken through different thresholds include Calvia. Now with over 50,000 registered inhabitants, it can increase its councillors from 21 to 25. Good for it. At the same time that it's adding politicians, it's cutting budgets for promoting tourism and looking after the beaches. Three towns close to upping their councillors to 21 are Alcúdia, Pollensa and Felanitx, but none has yet acquired the 20,000 residents to permit this. So they are stuck with 17.
Town halls, again depending on the size of the population, are obliged to assume responsibility for a range of minimum services. All of them have to look after basic services, such as refuse collection and street maintenance, and only as the number of people increases do these minimum services also increase.
Councillors' jobs do not, however, correspond with these services. For starters, there are councillors who have no responsibilities as such, as they are members of the opposition. Broad responsibilities are often combined and given to one councillor, while there are plenty of "jobs" that are not included in the list of minimum services. Oddly enough, I can find no reference to police in this list, yet this is a town hall service (where it applies) that falls directly under the mayor.
The system of local government is still evolving. Until relatively recently, the precise role of town halls was not that well defined within what is a four-tier scheme of central and regional government, insular government (in the case of the Council of Mallorca) and the municipalities. But a progressive system of decentralisation has granted the town halls increased responsibilities and autonomy; all part of a political philosophy to bring democracy as close as possible to the people.
The philosophy is laudable, but it has not been and still is not without its problems. One is to do with financing. The divvying up of public money has tended to prioritise regional governments even to the extent of denying central government, while local government has been the poor relation, despite assuming more responsibilities. A second is that the philosophy has not been put into practice. Only now is "citizen participation", be it through neighbourhood associations or public consultations, really starting to catch on. Certain councillors have had the responsibility added to their portfolios.
A third problem is a structural one: the sheer abundance of local authorities. This structure brings with it potential inefficiency. The populations of a half of Mallorca's municipalities are under 5,000. It has been argued, with good reason, that expecting them to be efficient is unrealistic. The call has gone out, therefore, for mergers or to at least share services. One academic study reckons that spending needs for a town of 1,000 people is 23% higher (relatively, I assume this means) than one for 5,000 people. Merger, and you don't have to be an economist to figure this out, would achieve some economies of scale.
Public spending bodies have been making similar calls to those coming from academia. The Sindicatura de Cuentas (like the Audit Commission) argues that there has to be a rationalisation of resources. The calls are not falling on deaf ears, as local politicians understand there are difficulties with the current system, but the president of the Balearics' local authorities federation maintains that the system is the best. There again, he probably would; he's also the mayor of Puigpunyent which has only around 2,000 residents.
The fourth problem, and this brings us back to the increasing numbers of councillors, has to do with these councillors themselves and issues of professionalism, qualification and the old-boys (and girls) network. One of the greatest drawbacks with localism, especially in Mallorca where everyone seems to be related to everyone else, is that of nepotism. In itself, it probably isn't often viewed as being questionable or corrupt; just how it is. But with increased responsibilities come other ones, those of transparency and ethical behaviour.
The old-boys network is such that creating new councillors can simply mean adding more jobs for the boys, while the network is also at play even between different political parties. Most of the local politicians will have grown up with each other. Political differences don't count for much when favours can still be granted. And grants are a further facet of the network. The same academic study which pointed to that 23% higher spend also considered what can happen with grants that are made to municipalities from higher levels of government. They can go to subsidising things that are not priorities or needed. And you therefore end up wondering who actually benefits and to whom the grants go.
For all its failings though, the system of local government has much to be said for it in terms of community and identity. Rationalisation would undoubtedly make sense, but just think for a moment about how passions can rise in England when boundaries are changed, new counties formed. The system is still evolving. It may be that rationalisation has to occur, but for the time being the number of councillors will increase. Whether they are needed though; well, that's another matter.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Town halls, again depending on the size of the population, are obliged to assume responsibility for a range of minimum services. All of them have to look after basic services, such as refuse collection and street maintenance, and only as the number of people increases do these minimum services also increase.
Councillors' jobs do not, however, correspond with these services. For starters, there are councillors who have no responsibilities as such, as they are members of the opposition. Broad responsibilities are often combined and given to one councillor, while there are plenty of "jobs" that are not included in the list of minimum services. Oddly enough, I can find no reference to police in this list, yet this is a town hall service (where it applies) that falls directly under the mayor.
The system of local government is still evolving. Until relatively recently, the precise role of town halls was not that well defined within what is a four-tier scheme of central and regional government, insular government (in the case of the Council of Mallorca) and the municipalities. But a progressive system of decentralisation has granted the town halls increased responsibilities and autonomy; all part of a political philosophy to bring democracy as close as possible to the people.
The philosophy is laudable, but it has not been and still is not without its problems. One is to do with financing. The divvying up of public money has tended to prioritise regional governments even to the extent of denying central government, while local government has been the poor relation, despite assuming more responsibilities. A second is that the philosophy has not been put into practice. Only now is "citizen participation", be it through neighbourhood associations or public consultations, really starting to catch on. Certain councillors have had the responsibility added to their portfolios.
A third problem is a structural one: the sheer abundance of local authorities. This structure brings with it potential inefficiency. The populations of a half of Mallorca's municipalities are under 5,000. It has been argued, with good reason, that expecting them to be efficient is unrealistic. The call has gone out, therefore, for mergers or to at least share services. One academic study reckons that spending needs for a town of 1,000 people is 23% higher (relatively, I assume this means) than one for 5,000 people. Merger, and you don't have to be an economist to figure this out, would achieve some economies of scale.
Public spending bodies have been making similar calls to those coming from academia. The Sindicatura de Cuentas (like the Audit Commission) argues that there has to be a rationalisation of resources. The calls are not falling on deaf ears, as local politicians understand there are difficulties with the current system, but the president of the Balearics' local authorities federation maintains that the system is the best. There again, he probably would; he's also the mayor of Puigpunyent which has only around 2,000 residents.
The fourth problem, and this brings us back to the increasing numbers of councillors, has to do with these councillors themselves and issues of professionalism, qualification and the old-boys (and girls) network. One of the greatest drawbacks with localism, especially in Mallorca where everyone seems to be related to everyone else, is that of nepotism. In itself, it probably isn't often viewed as being questionable or corrupt; just how it is. But with increased responsibilities come other ones, those of transparency and ethical behaviour.
The old-boys network is such that creating new councillors can simply mean adding more jobs for the boys, while the network is also at play even between different political parties. Most of the local politicians will have grown up with each other. Political differences don't count for much when favours can still be granted. And grants are a further facet of the network. The same academic study which pointed to that 23% higher spend also considered what can happen with grants that are made to municipalities from higher levels of government. They can go to subsidising things that are not priorities or needed. And you therefore end up wondering who actually benefits and to whom the grants go.
For all its failings though, the system of local government has much to be said for it in terms of community and identity. Rationalisation would undoubtedly make sense, but just think for a moment about how passions can rise in England when boundaries are changed, new counties formed. The system is still evolving. It may be that rationalisation has to occur, but for the time being the number of councillors will increase. Whether they are needed though; well, that's another matter.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Through A Glass Darkly
"Returning to England feels like journeying back to the 70s". So ran the headline of a piece by Hadley Freeman in "The Guardian". What a difference three months can make, because that was all the time she had been away. Spies, snow and student protests. When you've been away an awful lot longer, there is something reassuring about the protests; reassuring that the clock can be turned back to show that students, indeed the British, haven't lost their capacity to protest.
In the 70s we fought the cuts, marched in solidarity behind our student leader, he who went on to become "Two Pizzas", i.e. Charles Clarke. It was peaceful enough. Not all protests were. Brutality was pretty much to be expected by police for whom there was an almost total absence of trust. Gene Hunt was accurate in every way, bar one; he wasn't bent.
Protest seemed to be abandoned after the Poll Tax. Apathy through complacency took over, so much so that Iraq caused just a dribble of demonstration. The good old days have returned. But ...
Despite the ease of communication and access to information, not being over there, as in not being in the UK, makes it somewhat unreal. It's as though you are watching a documentary; it's somewhere else. You're a part of it but not. It's fascinating to observe, but that's all you are - an observer, and from a distance.
You look at it as through a glass darkly, without the benefit of the reality of being there. In a way, it mystifies. Mystifies that protests in London can seem to be so important; can be written about or spoken about. Why do we care, over here, about what happens over there? Not being over there, we have no ownership of the issue, just as we have no ownership of Cameron or Miliband, of Kate and Wills, even of Man United or Spurs or what the rotters of the remove at FIFA do to England's bid.
It's a false being. One of "Corrie" and "Eastenders". Over there is a soap as much as it is a documentary; it is no longer real, but we pretend that it somehow is. We talk about it, write about it, argue about it. But who cares over there what is thought over here? Why, in truth, should anyone over here care what anyone over here thinks about what happens over there? The answer probably lies in the fact that no one over here much cares about what happens over here, so over there retains its importance.
The false being is such that neither over there nor over here is real. Over there is through a glass darkly and over here is through Alice's looking glass, stepping through a mirror to an endlessly sunny garden but which is, in reality (if it exists), just a dream. Or so it sometimes seems. Over here is where it is forever paradise, until reality bites.
When you are away for a time and you go back over there, what do you encounter? There is the order of the landscape, the enduring beauty of the English countryside, the politeness. And other things endure. Everything changes, well, no they don't. Take That are still there, or rather are back again. Phil Mitchell's puffy face is still there. Aggers and Test Match Special are still there, replaying the legover, schoolboy giggles with Johnners.
Amidst this order, this unchanging over there, shifts have occurred. You only have to land at an airport to be aware of them. The machine guns, the ominous signs as to it is against the law for this or that and the even more ominously monikered Border Agency, the sense of underlying paranoia.
And it is like journeying back to the 70s, when there was the paranoia of The Cold War and The Troubles and also that created by the protests of students and at Grunwick and which paved the way for battles with the "enemy within". The focus of the paranoia is what has changed, and it is breeding something nastier than the Gene Hunts ever were. Or at least this is how it seems. Because without being over there, you cannot truly know. It is all through a glass darkly.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
In the 70s we fought the cuts, marched in solidarity behind our student leader, he who went on to become "Two Pizzas", i.e. Charles Clarke. It was peaceful enough. Not all protests were. Brutality was pretty much to be expected by police for whom there was an almost total absence of trust. Gene Hunt was accurate in every way, bar one; he wasn't bent.
Protest seemed to be abandoned after the Poll Tax. Apathy through complacency took over, so much so that Iraq caused just a dribble of demonstration. The good old days have returned. But ...
Despite the ease of communication and access to information, not being over there, as in not being in the UK, makes it somewhat unreal. It's as though you are watching a documentary; it's somewhere else. You're a part of it but not. It's fascinating to observe, but that's all you are - an observer, and from a distance.
You look at it as through a glass darkly, without the benefit of the reality of being there. In a way, it mystifies. Mystifies that protests in London can seem to be so important; can be written about or spoken about. Why do we care, over here, about what happens over there? Not being over there, we have no ownership of the issue, just as we have no ownership of Cameron or Miliband, of Kate and Wills, even of Man United or Spurs or what the rotters of the remove at FIFA do to England's bid.
It's a false being. One of "Corrie" and "Eastenders". Over there is a soap as much as it is a documentary; it is no longer real, but we pretend that it somehow is. We talk about it, write about it, argue about it. But who cares over there what is thought over here? Why, in truth, should anyone over here care what anyone over here thinks about what happens over there? The answer probably lies in the fact that no one over here much cares about what happens over here, so over there retains its importance.
The false being is such that neither over there nor over here is real. Over there is through a glass darkly and over here is through Alice's looking glass, stepping through a mirror to an endlessly sunny garden but which is, in reality (if it exists), just a dream. Or so it sometimes seems. Over here is where it is forever paradise, until reality bites.
When you are away for a time and you go back over there, what do you encounter? There is the order of the landscape, the enduring beauty of the English countryside, the politeness. And other things endure. Everything changes, well, no they don't. Take That are still there, or rather are back again. Phil Mitchell's puffy face is still there. Aggers and Test Match Special are still there, replaying the legover, schoolboy giggles with Johnners.
Amidst this order, this unchanging over there, shifts have occurred. You only have to land at an airport to be aware of them. The machine guns, the ominous signs as to it is against the law for this or that and the even more ominously monikered Border Agency, the sense of underlying paranoia.
And it is like journeying back to the 70s, when there was the paranoia of The Cold War and The Troubles and also that created by the protests of students and at Grunwick and which paved the way for battles with the "enemy within". The focus of the paranoia is what has changed, and it is breeding something nastier than the Gene Hunts ever were. Or at least this is how it seems. Because without being over there, you cannot truly know. It is all through a glass darkly.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Dubbed: Television and language
Come on now, admit it. How often do you ever watch a television programme in Spanish? If you don't live in Mallorca or Spain, you're forgiven, but if you do ... . There is one very good reason for not watching Spanish telly, apart from the language issue, and this is that, for the most part, it is unrelenting garbage. Better that you stick to "X Factor" or "I'm A Celebrity"; altogether more culturally enriching.
I'm not going to be holier than thou. I don't watch Spanish telly much. I used to, before I realised just how bad it was. What limited diet I have is largely confined to football. I should make more of an effort as there are some gems of the bizarre, such as the channel which seems to be devoted to a woman reading Tarot cards or human towers competitions replete with slow-mo action replays of a small child slipping and crashing onto the bodies below.
Foreign programmes are usually always dubbed, and there are an awful lot of them. Yes, you can view some in the original language as well, but for the Spaniard the voiceover (VO) is preferable. The Germans do it as well to films and telly programmes. It is so ridiculous that I once saw an interview with the boy who was the German "Harry Potter" and who had become a star in his own right. In Spanish I have watched "The Shawshank Redemption" with a Morgan Freeman who probably comes from Madrid and who almost certainly isn't black.
Dubbing, as opposed to showing programmes in the original language (almost always, therefore, English) with subtitles, may lead to the madness of an actor's personality being stripped away by a VO artist, but it can also have a serious aspect, in that it inhibits the learning of English.
However, the experience in Germany is quite telling. Though German TV dubs, the standard of English in Germany is high, far higher than it is in Mallorca or Spain. Television does have a role to play in teaching English, and no more so than in the Netherlands where, together with an educational system which promotes English from an early age, the watching of shows in English has been established practice for many years, given that the BBC has long been available. But television can't overcome an instinctive problem, one to do with the sounds of language.
There is an article by Nick Lyne about Spanish television, dubbing and language acquisition on the qorreo.com website. It's interesting, but what is even more interesting is a comment about the article. This makes the point that the Spanish language has a "particularly not-rich set of sounds in its register". This means that it can be difficult to pronounce, speak and therefore learn other languages, such as English.
The contrast is made with, for example, Dutch which is a much richer language in terms of sounds. I would guess that the same applies to German. The greater the range of sounds in a native tongue, the easier it is to acquire other languages; or so the theory seems to go. Without getting too technical, Spanish has comparatively few spoken sounds compared with English. A linguist at the Spanish equivalent of the Open University has made the point that Spanish pronunciation of English is poor because the greater number of English sounds are reduced to the few of Spanish. (Incidentally, Catalan has a few more sounds than Spanish which should, in theory, make things easier.)
The imbalance in sound recognition has major implications for the teaching of English in schools. The same linguist has said that no one seems to be bothering to make the acquisition of new sounds a key element of English. The extension of English use in teaching in Spanish and Mallorcan schools is all well and good, but how good are the teachers themselves at speaking it correctly? Despite the number of years of English instruction, the professor of language psychology at the University of Navarra is concerned that pupils leave school still not knowing how to speak English.
Earlier this year, a survey of students at the university in Palma discovered that 68% admitted to not understanding English. It may not be essential for all of them in their future careers that they do, but given the importance of English in international business and in local tourism the deficiency is somewhat startling. By a remarkable coincidence, a survey of foreign language use by students and adults in different European countries by the Eurostat research organisation at the European Commission revealed that 68% of secondary school pupils in Spain learn one foreign language - English. Learn, but can they use?
The same Eurostat survey placed Spain in the bottom three of countries in which adults speak no foreign language. And no, the UK was not behind Spain; in fact the UK does pretty well in this respect.
But to return to television. Much recent debate surrounding language and whether English originals should be shown on TV was kicked off by Fox's decision to broadcast "House" in English with subtitles. So, you'll be able to watch it in English if you want to. The question is: will the Spanish?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
I'm not going to be holier than thou. I don't watch Spanish telly much. I used to, before I realised just how bad it was. What limited diet I have is largely confined to football. I should make more of an effort as there are some gems of the bizarre, such as the channel which seems to be devoted to a woman reading Tarot cards or human towers competitions replete with slow-mo action replays of a small child slipping and crashing onto the bodies below.
Foreign programmes are usually always dubbed, and there are an awful lot of them. Yes, you can view some in the original language as well, but for the Spaniard the voiceover (VO) is preferable. The Germans do it as well to films and telly programmes. It is so ridiculous that I once saw an interview with the boy who was the German "Harry Potter" and who had become a star in his own right. In Spanish I have watched "The Shawshank Redemption" with a Morgan Freeman who probably comes from Madrid and who almost certainly isn't black.
Dubbing, as opposed to showing programmes in the original language (almost always, therefore, English) with subtitles, may lead to the madness of an actor's personality being stripped away by a VO artist, but it can also have a serious aspect, in that it inhibits the learning of English.
However, the experience in Germany is quite telling. Though German TV dubs, the standard of English in Germany is high, far higher than it is in Mallorca or Spain. Television does have a role to play in teaching English, and no more so than in the Netherlands where, together with an educational system which promotes English from an early age, the watching of shows in English has been established practice for many years, given that the BBC has long been available. But television can't overcome an instinctive problem, one to do with the sounds of language.
There is an article by Nick Lyne about Spanish television, dubbing and language acquisition on the qorreo.com website. It's interesting, but what is even more interesting is a comment about the article. This makes the point that the Spanish language has a "particularly not-rich set of sounds in its register". This means that it can be difficult to pronounce, speak and therefore learn other languages, such as English.
The contrast is made with, for example, Dutch which is a much richer language in terms of sounds. I would guess that the same applies to German. The greater the range of sounds in a native tongue, the easier it is to acquire other languages; or so the theory seems to go. Without getting too technical, Spanish has comparatively few spoken sounds compared with English. A linguist at the Spanish equivalent of the Open University has made the point that Spanish pronunciation of English is poor because the greater number of English sounds are reduced to the few of Spanish. (Incidentally, Catalan has a few more sounds than Spanish which should, in theory, make things easier.)
The imbalance in sound recognition has major implications for the teaching of English in schools. The same linguist has said that no one seems to be bothering to make the acquisition of new sounds a key element of English. The extension of English use in teaching in Spanish and Mallorcan schools is all well and good, but how good are the teachers themselves at speaking it correctly? Despite the number of years of English instruction, the professor of language psychology at the University of Navarra is concerned that pupils leave school still not knowing how to speak English.
Earlier this year, a survey of students at the university in Palma discovered that 68% admitted to not understanding English. It may not be essential for all of them in their future careers that they do, but given the importance of English in international business and in local tourism the deficiency is somewhat startling. By a remarkable coincidence, a survey of foreign language use by students and adults in different European countries by the Eurostat research organisation at the European Commission revealed that 68% of secondary school pupils in Spain learn one foreign language - English. Learn, but can they use?
The same Eurostat survey placed Spain in the bottom three of countries in which adults speak no foreign language. And no, the UK was not behind Spain; in fact the UK does pretty well in this respect.
But to return to television. Much recent debate surrounding language and whether English originals should be shown on TV was kicked off by Fox's decision to broadcast "House" in English with subtitles. So, you'll be able to watch it in English if you want to. The question is: will the Spanish?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Murphy's Law: Catastrophes
"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."
It's tempting fate to look back at 2010 before it has finished. Anything that can go wrong, still has time to go wrong. What more can we expect? Reindeer going on strike over Christmas? No flying for Santa. Maybe it would be as well, if air-traffic control decides to down radars again.
There's something apt about Murphy's Law and the air-traffic controllers. The Murphy of the Law was engaged in the measurement of G-forces in conditions of aircraft acceleration. The experiments, that went wrong, used crash test dummies and then chimps. Air-traffic control has made dummies and monkeys out of all those who had hoped for even moderate acceleration of airplanes.
The other monkeys, those of the Spanish Government, are calling for stiff prison sentences for the controllers. Cage the gorillas of the radar towers as punishment for their guerrilla tactics. It's still hard to understand quite why the controllers' mass-sicky strike took place, given that they had appeared to have been thrown some bananas back in summer.
What can go wrong will go wrong.
And it did over the "puente" of the Constitution Day/Immaculate Conception holiday bridge. Airlines and Mallorca's hoteliers and other businesses have described the impact of the strike as catastrophic: reservations cancelled, restaurants not as thronged as they might have been. There again, catastrophe has been 2010's fellow traveller, or would have been if travel had been as smooth as one would have hoped. But then, it wouldn't have been catastrophic.
The strike that affected the "puente" negatively was a bridge too far for Mallorca. If the island could speak it would be protesting that it has had it up to its neck this year.
Up to the neck, well, up to the waist at any rate, was where many found themselves barely 48 hours into the start of the season in early May. The animals were boarding two by two - chimps, gorillas, whatever - as Arks were floated on apocalyptic floods.
An Ark can be useful when what can go wrong does go wrong. No one saw it coming, until it started blinding aircraft pilots. Air-traffic control had more than just aircraft images on the screen to monitor when Iceland blew its gasket. If Murphy's Law hadn't existed, it would have come into being in April. As it turned out, it wasn't the end of the tourism world as we know it. But there remains a fear that what goes wrong could go seriously wrong.
The air-traffic controllers' strike and the volcano, catastrophes both if you believe in hyperbole, point to one great worry - the vulnerability and fragility of Mallorca. Paradise islands are all very well, except when they are cut off from the infernos of the mainlands. While some extra Arks set sail and came to the rescue from the fallout from the fiery hell of Eyjafjallajökull, they were a drop in the Mediterranean of mass transport to the havens of Barcelona, Valencia or Dénia.
There were catastrophes that weren't catastrophes. The public-sector and general strikes were whimpers of indifference. The anarchy predicted for Greece is nowhere to be seen on a Spanish horizon, but the economic hurricane could yet rip Spain to shreds and brew up a tidal wave of discontent that roars, rolls and crashes in from a deceptively serene skyline.
And in the face of hurricanes and tidal waves, air-traffic controllers will be irrelevant and Arks will be redundant, because Mallorca's vulnerability and fragility have a far greater threat. This is not Murphy's Law. We know what can go wrong as it already has. It won't happen next year or the year after next. You know what it is. Give it 40 years is what the climate changers believe.
Then you'll really be talking about catastrophe.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
It's tempting fate to look back at 2010 before it has finished. Anything that can go wrong, still has time to go wrong. What more can we expect? Reindeer going on strike over Christmas? No flying for Santa. Maybe it would be as well, if air-traffic control decides to down radars again.
There's something apt about Murphy's Law and the air-traffic controllers. The Murphy of the Law was engaged in the measurement of G-forces in conditions of aircraft acceleration. The experiments, that went wrong, used crash test dummies and then chimps. Air-traffic control has made dummies and monkeys out of all those who had hoped for even moderate acceleration of airplanes.
The other monkeys, those of the Spanish Government, are calling for stiff prison sentences for the controllers. Cage the gorillas of the radar towers as punishment for their guerrilla tactics. It's still hard to understand quite why the controllers' mass-sicky strike took place, given that they had appeared to have been thrown some bananas back in summer.
What can go wrong will go wrong.
And it did over the "puente" of the Constitution Day/Immaculate Conception holiday bridge. Airlines and Mallorca's hoteliers and other businesses have described the impact of the strike as catastrophic: reservations cancelled, restaurants not as thronged as they might have been. There again, catastrophe has been 2010's fellow traveller, or would have been if travel had been as smooth as one would have hoped. But then, it wouldn't have been catastrophic.
The strike that affected the "puente" negatively was a bridge too far for Mallorca. If the island could speak it would be protesting that it has had it up to its neck this year.
Up to the neck, well, up to the waist at any rate, was where many found themselves barely 48 hours into the start of the season in early May. The animals were boarding two by two - chimps, gorillas, whatever - as Arks were floated on apocalyptic floods.
An Ark can be useful when what can go wrong does go wrong. No one saw it coming, until it started blinding aircraft pilots. Air-traffic control had more than just aircraft images on the screen to monitor when Iceland blew its gasket. If Murphy's Law hadn't existed, it would have come into being in April. As it turned out, it wasn't the end of the tourism world as we know it. But there remains a fear that what goes wrong could go seriously wrong.
The air-traffic controllers' strike and the volcano, catastrophes both if you believe in hyperbole, point to one great worry - the vulnerability and fragility of Mallorca. Paradise islands are all very well, except when they are cut off from the infernos of the mainlands. While some extra Arks set sail and came to the rescue from the fallout from the fiery hell of Eyjafjallajökull, they were a drop in the Mediterranean of mass transport to the havens of Barcelona, Valencia or Dénia.
There were catastrophes that weren't catastrophes. The public-sector and general strikes were whimpers of indifference. The anarchy predicted for Greece is nowhere to be seen on a Spanish horizon, but the economic hurricane could yet rip Spain to shreds and brew up a tidal wave of discontent that roars, rolls and crashes in from a deceptively serene skyline.
And in the face of hurricanes and tidal waves, air-traffic controllers will be irrelevant and Arks will be redundant, because Mallorca's vulnerability and fragility have a far greater threat. This is not Murphy's Law. We know what can go wrong as it already has. It won't happen next year or the year after next. You know what it is. Give it 40 years is what the climate changers believe.
Then you'll really be talking about catastrophe.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Comprehension Lessons: Education in Mallorca
Hype, spin, fantasy. Ill-informed, wrong, misleading.
Pick any of the above. Now interpret it. Comprehend it, in other words, by using other words, and also be able to use it in context.
You are probably not a student at a secondary school in the Balearics. Were you to be, you wouldn't be much good at interpreting or comprehending. And this is not an English test. Interpretation of text, any text, is something you're pretty lousy at.
Why choose the above words? It can often be revealing to discover what is trotted out on the internet in the name of Mallorca and the Balearics, and which can be any of the above. "Fantastic." "High standards". Just two examples of what is said about education in Mallorca. You can interpret these examples as being indicative of these words. Or rather, you should interpret them thus, if, that is, you take time to look at the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) report into educational standards which is produced under the auspices of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).
This report looks not only at national standards. In the case of Spain, it breaks them down by regions. Not all, because not all are covered, but most. In three main categories - mathematics, reading comprehension, science - the Balearics are in the bottom five. In fact, only in maths do the Balearics climb out of the bottom four, and only the Canaries and the "autonomous cities" of Ceuta and Melilla, the Spanish enclaves in Morocco, are worse than the Balearics.
Fantastic? Doesn't sound like it, does it. Of the three measures, the Balearics are below the Spanish average and, by quite some margin, the OECD average.
The findings are significant. They give a wholly different impression of educational standards than the "hype" would have it, and there is an unmistakable pattern to them. The four non-mainland parts of Spain are the worst places for children to be educated. This raises its own question. Are these places somehow disadvantaged when it comes to the provision of education? There is another possibility. Maybe they're just not very good. The teaching unions would suggest that there is a disadvantage and an inequality between regions of Spain.
If one considers economic performance and levels of wealth as indicators of advantage or disadvantage, there is something to be said for this argument. Ceuta and Melilla have the lowest GDPs of all the Spanish regions. The Balearics rank only 12th out of the 17 regions plus the two autonomous cities, but there is a very different picture when you consider GDP per head of population. The Balearics are one of the wealthier regions, up there with the big earners such as Madrid, the Basque Country and Catalonia.
Living and educational standards do not necessarily coincide, but a generally accepted principle is that the higher the standard of living, the better the education. So what's going wrong in the Balearics?
For some, the low standards being achieved will be evidence of the politics of language. Possibly so. The problems with comprehension could indeed be evidence of this, as may also be the level of immigration. But there is arguably a more important issue, and it is one that contradicts the "fantastic" image. It is one of indiscipline and poor motivation and one, moreover, which debunks the notion that higher standards of living automatically mean better education. Or better pupils at any rate.
In state schools, and one probably should distinguish between public and private education, a complaint that is made is that disruptiveness is often the product of children of the better-off. Why should this be? A reason lies with the wealth and with the knowledge that an education doesn't matter if there are over-indulgent parents who will see the kids right when they leave school. A further issue, and particularly so in coastal areas, is the lifestyle. The beach, the summer and all that goes with them are seductive in creating a laidback atmosphere. It might sound great, but not if it inculcates an attitude whereby school is an inconvenience prior to papa setting you up in a bar or the family business or your taking a job as a waiter or on a boat.
It is no coincidence that the best-performing regions are the likes of Castile-Leon and Madrid. It is also no coincidence that two other regions with strong sun-and-beach connections aren't that much better than the Balearics, namely Murcia and Andalusia.
The language of education and the constant fuss that surrounds it will probably be singled out as the reason for poor educational performance, but to do so would be to disguise other factors which may be the real reasons for this performance. Whatever the reason, interpret the words correctly and don't believe the hype.
* The findings of the report relate to 15-year-old pupils. All regions of Spain were included except for Valencia, Extremadura and Castile-La Mancha.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Pick any of the above. Now interpret it. Comprehend it, in other words, by using other words, and also be able to use it in context.
You are probably not a student at a secondary school in the Balearics. Were you to be, you wouldn't be much good at interpreting or comprehending. And this is not an English test. Interpretation of text, any text, is something you're pretty lousy at.
Why choose the above words? It can often be revealing to discover what is trotted out on the internet in the name of Mallorca and the Balearics, and which can be any of the above. "Fantastic." "High standards". Just two examples of what is said about education in Mallorca. You can interpret these examples as being indicative of these words. Or rather, you should interpret them thus, if, that is, you take time to look at the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) report into educational standards which is produced under the auspices of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).
This report looks not only at national standards. In the case of Spain, it breaks them down by regions. Not all, because not all are covered, but most. In three main categories - mathematics, reading comprehension, science - the Balearics are in the bottom five. In fact, only in maths do the Balearics climb out of the bottom four, and only the Canaries and the "autonomous cities" of Ceuta and Melilla, the Spanish enclaves in Morocco, are worse than the Balearics.
Fantastic? Doesn't sound like it, does it. Of the three measures, the Balearics are below the Spanish average and, by quite some margin, the OECD average.
The findings are significant. They give a wholly different impression of educational standards than the "hype" would have it, and there is an unmistakable pattern to them. The four non-mainland parts of Spain are the worst places for children to be educated. This raises its own question. Are these places somehow disadvantaged when it comes to the provision of education? There is another possibility. Maybe they're just not very good. The teaching unions would suggest that there is a disadvantage and an inequality between regions of Spain.
If one considers economic performance and levels of wealth as indicators of advantage or disadvantage, there is something to be said for this argument. Ceuta and Melilla have the lowest GDPs of all the Spanish regions. The Balearics rank only 12th out of the 17 regions plus the two autonomous cities, but there is a very different picture when you consider GDP per head of population. The Balearics are one of the wealthier regions, up there with the big earners such as Madrid, the Basque Country and Catalonia.
Living and educational standards do not necessarily coincide, but a generally accepted principle is that the higher the standard of living, the better the education. So what's going wrong in the Balearics?
For some, the low standards being achieved will be evidence of the politics of language. Possibly so. The problems with comprehension could indeed be evidence of this, as may also be the level of immigration. But there is arguably a more important issue, and it is one that contradicts the "fantastic" image. It is one of indiscipline and poor motivation and one, moreover, which debunks the notion that higher standards of living automatically mean better education. Or better pupils at any rate.
In state schools, and one probably should distinguish between public and private education, a complaint that is made is that disruptiveness is often the product of children of the better-off. Why should this be? A reason lies with the wealth and with the knowledge that an education doesn't matter if there are over-indulgent parents who will see the kids right when they leave school. A further issue, and particularly so in coastal areas, is the lifestyle. The beach, the summer and all that goes with them are seductive in creating a laidback atmosphere. It might sound great, but not if it inculcates an attitude whereby school is an inconvenience prior to papa setting you up in a bar or the family business or your taking a job as a waiter or on a boat.
It is no coincidence that the best-performing regions are the likes of Castile-Leon and Madrid. It is also no coincidence that two other regions with strong sun-and-beach connections aren't that much better than the Balearics, namely Murcia and Andalusia.
The language of education and the constant fuss that surrounds it will probably be singled out as the reason for poor educational performance, but to do so would be to disguise other factors which may be the real reasons for this performance. Whatever the reason, interpret the words correctly and don't believe the hype.
* The findings of the report relate to 15-year-old pupils. All regions of Spain were included except for Valencia, Extremadura and Castile-La Mancha.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Culture At A Price
Where would we be without the plenitude of statistics that inform every last bit of Mallorcan and Spanish life? An awful lot less bored probably. To the diligent data collection performed at national level, we must add the micro-managerialism of the Balearics own mathematically minded. The islands' statistics institute has been bean-counting around in local cultural life in contributing to the national annual report into cultural stats. Yes, every last thing is entered into Excel, given a percentage, an average and a comparison. It is numerical Nirvana.
It doesn't come as a huge surprise to learn that spending on culture (broadly defined to include entertainment as well as the more high-brow) has fallen. This descent into Philistinism is not as pronounced in the Balearics as some other parts of Spain, but spending slumped by nearly 7% in 2009. The growth areas were home entertainment and the internet, which are culturally questionable, and the theatre, which isn't. Live music performance has been one of the biggest losers.
The staggering precision of these statistics is that we are told that in 2009 there were 11,378 popular musical concerts in the Balearics. Who on earth counts this stuff and why? Indeed, how do they count it? The decline in concerts was to the tune of 1,541 and the number of spectators fell by 132,000. This is mind-boggling in terms of its apparent uselessness.
Nevertheless, a snapshot of cultural health or sickness has some merit in allowing for general quality of life to be gauged. So the number-crunching is not completely useless. What is unclear from that figure for concerts is how many, if any, were free. There is an awful lot of culture in Mallorca which doesn't cost anything, such as that during fiestas or staged thanks to the generosity of town halls or whoever. But this free culture isn't free because much of it comes out of the public purse, which means taxpayers' money.
As a very rudimentary guide, let me give an example of what this costs. In Santa Margalida a couple of years ago, they proposed raising the annual spending on fiestas to around 800,000 euros. The town has a registered population of roughly 10,600. 75 euros per person for the fiestas in the town, Can Picafort and Son Serra, and a goodly chunk of this goes up in smoke in a short period - the half an hour it takes to send rockets into the sky. Well, fireworks are culture, are they not?
75 euros doesn't sound a lot, except of course it isn't distributed evenly, while there are plenty who pay not a centimo - tourists and those from other towns. Sometimes there is an attempt to generate income, as was the case with the Carl Cox concert in Can Picafort this summer. Free to residents of the town, it cost up to 35 euros a pop for anyone else, and wasn't that well-attended, probably as a consequence and despite Cox's celebrity.
A question arises with this "free" culture as to whether, rather than simply compiling numbers, anyone ever indulges in some more meaningful maths, as in conducting a cost-benefit analysis. If income to a town, through its bars, restaurants and so on, outstrips the costs of putting on events, then fine. But it would be nice to know if it actually does.
Of course, one can argue that even running at a loss should not matter, as fiestas and their like are all part of "cultural life". True, but this highlights the nebulous nature of what cultural life actually means, especially to visitors.
That great example of specious statistics gathering, tourism spend, has, as one of its core measurements, money tourists spend on "excursions". The problem with this is that excursions are undefined. They can mean anything from a trip to an historic site or to Pirates and Marineland, and I rather suspect that it normally means the latter two. Both are "cultural" in the broadest sense of the word, but neither qualifies as cultural tourism of the sort tourism bodies have in mind.
Buried within the report into cultural spending is a rather telling statistic (yes, there is one). It is the fact that the number of visitors to the Balearics in 2009 who came for cultural purposes fell. Don't ask how they arrive at the figure; let's just accept that they do. As cultural tourism is supposed to be such an important element of "alternative" tourism, such a decline does not lend support to this importance. And again, one has to ask what the visitor means by cultural purposes.
Where this report is good is that it does at least attempt to distinguish between different cultural activities, and it is this specificity is what is missing from information we are fed about tourists. If this were to be forthcoming, then we might be able to form a better appreciation as to what culture means to tourists, but one has the suspicion that the vagueness of the concept is rather as tourism bodies prefer it. This-a-way it can mean anything you like. But whatever it means, it will still cost, and there will be a statistician to put a figure to it.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
It doesn't come as a huge surprise to learn that spending on culture (broadly defined to include entertainment as well as the more high-brow) has fallen. This descent into Philistinism is not as pronounced in the Balearics as some other parts of Spain, but spending slumped by nearly 7% in 2009. The growth areas were home entertainment and the internet, which are culturally questionable, and the theatre, which isn't. Live music performance has been one of the biggest losers.
The staggering precision of these statistics is that we are told that in 2009 there were 11,378 popular musical concerts in the Balearics. Who on earth counts this stuff and why? Indeed, how do they count it? The decline in concerts was to the tune of 1,541 and the number of spectators fell by 132,000. This is mind-boggling in terms of its apparent uselessness.
Nevertheless, a snapshot of cultural health or sickness has some merit in allowing for general quality of life to be gauged. So the number-crunching is not completely useless. What is unclear from that figure for concerts is how many, if any, were free. There is an awful lot of culture in Mallorca which doesn't cost anything, such as that during fiestas or staged thanks to the generosity of town halls or whoever. But this free culture isn't free because much of it comes out of the public purse, which means taxpayers' money.
As a very rudimentary guide, let me give an example of what this costs. In Santa Margalida a couple of years ago, they proposed raising the annual spending on fiestas to around 800,000 euros. The town has a registered population of roughly 10,600. 75 euros per person for the fiestas in the town, Can Picafort and Son Serra, and a goodly chunk of this goes up in smoke in a short period - the half an hour it takes to send rockets into the sky. Well, fireworks are culture, are they not?
75 euros doesn't sound a lot, except of course it isn't distributed evenly, while there are plenty who pay not a centimo - tourists and those from other towns. Sometimes there is an attempt to generate income, as was the case with the Carl Cox concert in Can Picafort this summer. Free to residents of the town, it cost up to 35 euros a pop for anyone else, and wasn't that well-attended, probably as a consequence and despite Cox's celebrity.
A question arises with this "free" culture as to whether, rather than simply compiling numbers, anyone ever indulges in some more meaningful maths, as in conducting a cost-benefit analysis. If income to a town, through its bars, restaurants and so on, outstrips the costs of putting on events, then fine. But it would be nice to know if it actually does.
Of course, one can argue that even running at a loss should not matter, as fiestas and their like are all part of "cultural life". True, but this highlights the nebulous nature of what cultural life actually means, especially to visitors.
That great example of specious statistics gathering, tourism spend, has, as one of its core measurements, money tourists spend on "excursions". The problem with this is that excursions are undefined. They can mean anything from a trip to an historic site or to Pirates and Marineland, and I rather suspect that it normally means the latter two. Both are "cultural" in the broadest sense of the word, but neither qualifies as cultural tourism of the sort tourism bodies have in mind.
Buried within the report into cultural spending is a rather telling statistic (yes, there is one). It is the fact that the number of visitors to the Balearics in 2009 who came for cultural purposes fell. Don't ask how they arrive at the figure; let's just accept that they do. As cultural tourism is supposed to be such an important element of "alternative" tourism, such a decline does not lend support to this importance. And again, one has to ask what the visitor means by cultural purposes.
Where this report is good is that it does at least attempt to distinguish between different cultural activities, and it is this specificity is what is missing from information we are fed about tourists. If this were to be forthcoming, then we might be able to form a better appreciation as to what culture means to tourists, but one has the suspicion that the vagueness of the concept is rather as tourism bodies prefer it. This-a-way it can mean anything you like. But whatever it means, it will still cost, and there will be a statistician to put a figure to it.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Immaculate Misconceptions: Mallorca's holidays
There are misconceptions surrounding public holidays in Mallorca, not least the misconception related to the day off for Immaculate Conception. It is not the day when Mary was mysteriously taken by the Holy Ghost, or whoever it was; that was in fact on 25 March, which isn't a public holiday. What makes 8 December immaculate is that this was when Mary was conceived. Or at least I think that's what it's all about, unless I am labouring under a misconception. Or maybe Mary went into labour having had a misconception. I really don't know. But on 1 May I wouldn't be labouring under a misconception, as this is Labour Day. So, no chance of getting that wrong.
What there is every chance of is forgetting that a public holiday is a public holiday because it does not coincide with one from the land in which one was raised, as is the case with Immaculate Conception. The misconception, however, is that there is a public holiday in Mallorca approximately every fortnight. In England there are eight holiday days, in Mallorca there are thirteen. So, not so many more after all.
However, there is a bit of latitude. Officially, any municipality can have a maximum of fourteen holidays a year, which gives it room for manoeuvre to add the local patron saint's day. I say officially, but there is a bit of craftiness that goes on. In Alcúdia, as an example, there is a saint's day for the town itself (Sant Jaume) and one for the port (Sant Pere). A holiday in the old town is not strictly speaking a holiday in the port or vice versa, but of course this is what happens. Indeed it would be difficult to think how it couldn't happen, given that they are the same municipality. Then there are holidays which are nothing to do with the likes of Alcúdia directly but which have sort of crept in, such as Sants Antoni and Sebastian in January. They aren't holidays, but unofficially have become so.
Where confusion and further misconception as to the number of holidays can arise is with this business of municipalities deciding. I'll give you a case in point. One day I happened to go along to the municipal building in Playa de Muro wherein is the local sub-post office. Tourist information was open as usual, but the post office was shut. "Fiesta," came the word from the helpful Cati at the information reception. "Fiesta? Where? Not here there isn't." "No. In Can Picafort." "But this is Muro." "Yes, but the post office is in Can Picafort." There was something distinctly fishy about this. The post office quite clearly wasn't in Can Picafort. It, or rather its locked door, was staring me in the face. "The main post office is in Can Picafort," added Cati. "But there's a main post office in Muro town." "Yes, but this one doesn't belong to it. It's Can Picafort's."
More fool I, of course, for having forgotten that this was the duck-tossing day off in Can Picafort and for not being intimately associated with the intricacies of postal service organization. Similarly, were one in Can Picafort and wanted, on the same day, to go to the local Eroski, it would be shut. If you were none the wiser, and why would you be, you might assume that all supermarkets would be closed. But they wouldn't be. There would be another Eroski a short drive away in Alcúdia that would be open. Perish the thought though that Eroski, being a Basque company, might decide to apply the Basque Country Day to its Mallorcan shops as from next year when the day is to be introduced.
Despite this confusion, there is, if you are of a mind to think like this, the potential to increase your own personal number of holidays substantially. Bear in mind that on 15 August, you can be on one side of the roundabout entering Can Picafort from Playa de Muro and you will be working. Go to the other side, and you'll be on holiday. How many municipalities are there in Mallorca? 53? Something like that. Each with its own saint's day. Even allowing for the fact that some towns have the same saints, my guess is that you could, by moving around the island, be on holiday for at least 50 days of the year. Now you're talking. And now you're also talking about how those misconceptions aren't so misconceived after all.
But to return to the hard core of nationally or regionally observed holidays, two are relatively recent additions. Balearics Day is one, Constitution Day the other, and it has been a holiday since 1979 and celebrates the referendum on the constitution that was held on 6 December 1978. But why did they choose 6 December? The Constitution had been approved on 31 October of that year. It actually came into effect on 29 December. 31 October might have made sense, as 1 November was already a national holiday. But no, 6 December it was, with 7 December between it and Immaculate Conception. It was all another bit of craftiness, as it means there is a three-day holiday. And 29 December wouldn't have meant much, because from now until 6 January and indeed further on until Antoni and Sebastian, it's all pretty much a holiday anyway.
Misconceptions? Maybe not. Happy holidays.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
What there is every chance of is forgetting that a public holiday is a public holiday because it does not coincide with one from the land in which one was raised, as is the case with Immaculate Conception. The misconception, however, is that there is a public holiday in Mallorca approximately every fortnight. In England there are eight holiday days, in Mallorca there are thirteen. So, not so many more after all.
However, there is a bit of latitude. Officially, any municipality can have a maximum of fourteen holidays a year, which gives it room for manoeuvre to add the local patron saint's day. I say officially, but there is a bit of craftiness that goes on. In Alcúdia, as an example, there is a saint's day for the town itself (Sant Jaume) and one for the port (Sant Pere). A holiday in the old town is not strictly speaking a holiday in the port or vice versa, but of course this is what happens. Indeed it would be difficult to think how it couldn't happen, given that they are the same municipality. Then there are holidays which are nothing to do with the likes of Alcúdia directly but which have sort of crept in, such as Sants Antoni and Sebastian in January. They aren't holidays, but unofficially have become so.
Where confusion and further misconception as to the number of holidays can arise is with this business of municipalities deciding. I'll give you a case in point. One day I happened to go along to the municipal building in Playa de Muro wherein is the local sub-post office. Tourist information was open as usual, but the post office was shut. "Fiesta," came the word from the helpful Cati at the information reception. "Fiesta? Where? Not here there isn't." "No. In Can Picafort." "But this is Muro." "Yes, but the post office is in Can Picafort." There was something distinctly fishy about this. The post office quite clearly wasn't in Can Picafort. It, or rather its locked door, was staring me in the face. "The main post office is in Can Picafort," added Cati. "But there's a main post office in Muro town." "Yes, but this one doesn't belong to it. It's Can Picafort's."
More fool I, of course, for having forgotten that this was the duck-tossing day off in Can Picafort and for not being intimately associated with the intricacies of postal service organization. Similarly, were one in Can Picafort and wanted, on the same day, to go to the local Eroski, it would be shut. If you were none the wiser, and why would you be, you might assume that all supermarkets would be closed. But they wouldn't be. There would be another Eroski a short drive away in Alcúdia that would be open. Perish the thought though that Eroski, being a Basque company, might decide to apply the Basque Country Day to its Mallorcan shops as from next year when the day is to be introduced.
Despite this confusion, there is, if you are of a mind to think like this, the potential to increase your own personal number of holidays substantially. Bear in mind that on 15 August, you can be on one side of the roundabout entering Can Picafort from Playa de Muro and you will be working. Go to the other side, and you'll be on holiday. How many municipalities are there in Mallorca? 53? Something like that. Each with its own saint's day. Even allowing for the fact that some towns have the same saints, my guess is that you could, by moving around the island, be on holiday for at least 50 days of the year. Now you're talking. And now you're also talking about how those misconceptions aren't so misconceived after all.
But to return to the hard core of nationally or regionally observed holidays, two are relatively recent additions. Balearics Day is one, Constitution Day the other, and it has been a holiday since 1979 and celebrates the referendum on the constitution that was held on 6 December 1978. But why did they choose 6 December? The Constitution had been approved on 31 October of that year. It actually came into effect on 29 December. 31 October might have made sense, as 1 November was already a national holiday. But no, 6 December it was, with 7 December between it and Immaculate Conception. It was all another bit of craftiness, as it means there is a three-day holiday. And 29 December wouldn't have meant much, because from now until 6 January and indeed further on until Antoni and Sebastian, it's all pretty much a holiday anyway.
Misconceptions? Maybe not. Happy holidays.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Glittering Prizes: Tourism awards
It's that time of the year. Out of mothballs come the dicky bows and cummerbunds, the evening gowns and the tiaras (not I suppose that a tiara is ever in mothballs, but you get my drift). The awards ceremony season is upon us. The season for self-congratulation and honours. The glittering occasions for the great and good.
There are some awards you'd think they'd rather keep a bit quiet. Like Christmas bonuses being awarded to bankers, prizes for the local tourism industry might seem like bad PR. In fact, they did keep them rather quiet, as in, while the Fomento del Turismo awards event was reported, there was no mention as to who had actually been presented with the gongs. Even the Fomento's own website was silent on the matter.
The Fomento, aka the Mallorca Tourist Board, is a strange organization in that it is private, not a government body. Indeed it has at times suffered from less than marvellous relations with government, but this year there was tourism minister Joana Barceló together with the board's president and the winners. The photos proved that there were winners after all, but you would need to recognize them to know who they were.
Being unable to put names to them, there is no alternative. We're just going to have make our own up. The tourism awards to honour the outstanding year that 2010 has been. There are plenty of new categories this year, which demonstrate that 2010 has been a year of genuine innovation. So here goes ...
The Guinness Book Of Records Award to the shortest-serving tourism minister in history. And the winner was ... Yes, Miguel Ferrer. 58 days in office. Sufficient time for his having been able to announce how bold he was going to be during the 18 months he would have at tourism's helm, only to be told to take his pen and clear off when he and the rest of his Unió Mallorquina party were shown the governmental door.
The Saddest Former Tourism Minister of 2010. It went to ... Miguel Ferrer. He was seen walking his dog in the streets of Alcúdia not long after his dismissal. He wandered down the Calle Mayor, past the town hall building where only a short time before he had reigned supreme as the town's mayor. Now out of two jobs, it was symbolic that the doors of the town hall were firmly shut.
The Whistling In The Dark To Keep Up Spirits Award was handed, as every year, to the Spanish national statistics office for its tireless efforts in producing tourism spend information that made everyone realize that things were much better than they thought.
The Ant and Dec I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of This Promotion Award was graciously accepted by Rafael Nadal whose luxury boat in which he cruised around the islands of the Balearics ("these islands of joy" went the advert) ran aground when the tourism ministry ran out of dosh.
(Following the presentation to Nadal, there was a musical interlude when a Corrs tribute act performed the advert's song. If it wasn't they who had done the original, it didn't half sound like them.)
The David Attenborough Award for Natural Phenomena in a Tourism Context was handed to the country of Iceland, which served to prove how effective a small bit of God-forsaken ice and rock in the North Atlantic can be in bringing the entire tourism industry to a halt.
The FIFA Award for Moral Certitude went to the Balearics own tourism ministry for having made anti-corruption investigation the islands' one growth industry, thus providing a legacy of which the ministry can be proud.
And a special, last-minute presentation, the Throwing A Sicky 'Cos We Only Earn Some 400 Grand A Year Award, was sheepishly received by Spanish air-traffic controllers and was met with rapturous applause when they were swiftly also handed notice of disciplinary proceedings.
All in all, a year of great achievement, and after the awards event all those attending went back to their hotel. Booking one had been a little difficult as there were hardly any open, but one was found and suitably enough it was of course all-inclusive.
Here's to an even better 2011.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
There are some awards you'd think they'd rather keep a bit quiet. Like Christmas bonuses being awarded to bankers, prizes for the local tourism industry might seem like bad PR. In fact, they did keep them rather quiet, as in, while the Fomento del Turismo awards event was reported, there was no mention as to who had actually been presented with the gongs. Even the Fomento's own website was silent on the matter.
The Fomento, aka the Mallorca Tourist Board, is a strange organization in that it is private, not a government body. Indeed it has at times suffered from less than marvellous relations with government, but this year there was tourism minister Joana Barceló together with the board's president and the winners. The photos proved that there were winners after all, but you would need to recognize them to know who they were.
Being unable to put names to them, there is no alternative. We're just going to have make our own up. The tourism awards to honour the outstanding year that 2010 has been. There are plenty of new categories this year, which demonstrate that 2010 has been a year of genuine innovation. So here goes ...
The Guinness Book Of Records Award to the shortest-serving tourism minister in history. And the winner was ... Yes, Miguel Ferrer. 58 days in office. Sufficient time for his having been able to announce how bold he was going to be during the 18 months he would have at tourism's helm, only to be told to take his pen and clear off when he and the rest of his Unió Mallorquina party were shown the governmental door.
The Saddest Former Tourism Minister of 2010. It went to ... Miguel Ferrer. He was seen walking his dog in the streets of Alcúdia not long after his dismissal. He wandered down the Calle Mayor, past the town hall building where only a short time before he had reigned supreme as the town's mayor. Now out of two jobs, it was symbolic that the doors of the town hall were firmly shut.
The Whistling In The Dark To Keep Up Spirits Award was handed, as every year, to the Spanish national statistics office for its tireless efforts in producing tourism spend information that made everyone realize that things were much better than they thought.
The Ant and Dec I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of This Promotion Award was graciously accepted by Rafael Nadal whose luxury boat in which he cruised around the islands of the Balearics ("these islands of joy" went the advert) ran aground when the tourism ministry ran out of dosh.
(Following the presentation to Nadal, there was a musical interlude when a Corrs tribute act performed the advert's song. If it wasn't they who had done the original, it didn't half sound like them.)
The David Attenborough Award for Natural Phenomena in a Tourism Context was handed to the country of Iceland, which served to prove how effective a small bit of God-forsaken ice and rock in the North Atlantic can be in bringing the entire tourism industry to a halt.
The FIFA Award for Moral Certitude went to the Balearics own tourism ministry for having made anti-corruption investigation the islands' one growth industry, thus providing a legacy of which the ministry can be proud.
And a special, last-minute presentation, the Throwing A Sicky 'Cos We Only Earn Some 400 Grand A Year Award, was sheepishly received by Spanish air-traffic controllers and was met with rapturous applause when they were swiftly also handed notice of disciplinary proceedings.
All in all, a year of great achievement, and after the awards event all those attending went back to their hotel. Booking one had been a little difficult as there were hardly any open, but one was found and suitably enough it was of course all-inclusive.
Here's to an even better 2011.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, December 05, 2010
Fade Away
How long ago was it? Forty years. More maybe. No one ever seems to be able to say for certain. It's their age catching up with them. Memory playing tricks, disappearing or revolving in circles of confusion. Let's say it was around 1970, shall we. Exactitude isn't necessary.
Back then, towards the far end of Playa de Muro, an area sometimes misleadingly referred to as Alcúdia Pins which is further on, was all but uninhabited. What lay by the sea was sand, dunes' scrub, reeds and grass from Albufera. Not far away a hotel was being put up. It was to be the Esperanza. The story goes that the hotel was named after the daughter of the man whose family owned much of the land that stretched from what became Alcúdia's Bellevue and Mile area down to the forest that separates current-day Playa de Muro from Can Picafort.
There were plenty of stones and bricks that went into the building of the hotel. So many that there were a lot spare. They went much of the way to the building of two houses, one a bungalow, the other a grander affair on two levels. There was an absence of utilities and no road as such. A machete was a useful tool to hack away at the scrub and grass.
The two houses took shape and became the first of an urbanization. The bungalow had to be all but re-built some years later; there were no proper foundations. The house was that much more solid. It was, still is just about, the seaside home of a couple from the hinterland. Not rich people. Straightforward, regular Mallorcans, but they were not stand-offish. They might once have been where foreigners were concerned, but they have known many over all these years and have become friends, such as with the German woman who owned the bungalow but who died a couple of years ago.
I hadn't seen the old man for quite some time. In summer it was usual for him to be there, tending the garden. His wife, rather shaky, pottered around inside or stood on the roof terrace and shouted at neighbours, as was her preferred form of communication. It was never unfriendly, just that, in a far from untypical Mallorcan manner, volume outweighed content. The conversation, such as it was, tended to revolve around the not infrequent "desastres" involving "clientes", those who rented two flats in the house.
I saw the old man the other day. It was a bit of a shock. He has gone downhill quite suddenly. I asked him how he was, but didn't tarry long. I didn't want to embarrass him. I could see how he was, and the words of another German neighbour, one who has had a chalet there for almost as long as the original two, came into my mind. "He was crying. He said that he knew that he was dying."
There had been tears when the German woman had passed away. The old lady, the wife of the old man, had taken my arm as we had gone to spread the word. Standing in the road, heads shaking, kind words being spoken. She, the old lady, was grateful for the gifts, such as the geranium pots. They would remind her of her long-time German friend.
The old man said that his wife was well, but I know she isn't. She doesn't come to the house now. She doesn't go with her husband for their little trip to the sea. They would do this on most occasions when they came to the house in winter. He would drive to the beach's edge and might forage for some bits of wood. She would hobble to the wooden sand-break, stare at the sea and then shout a bit.
And afterwards they would go to the house where there were no winter clients to be "un desastre", just the overwhelmingly musty smell and the icebox interior before the fire started to crackle and the rooms would fill with the sweet essence of woodsmoke. Incongruous amidst the antique and dark furniture that cluttered up their flat was a flat-screen telly chirping in generally incomprehensible Mallorquín.
The old man had come with a nephew, a cheery fellow who once chatted with me in the street and explained his prostate problem and, more alarmingly, his erectile dysfunction. I didn't exactly know him that well. So much for stand-offishness. You wonder, at times, why the Mallorcans have this reputation. The old man and he, even the summer before last, used to go together for their Sunday morning swim in the sea. The nephew was his usual happy self, unlike the old man who lowered himself uneasily into the passenger seat of the car he used to drive.
He's fading away, as is his wife. The German neighbour has already faded away. And their fading will end a chapter of Playa de Muro's history. Because they are its history in this particular part of the resort. They were the first, the pioneers if you like, they who tamed the wild east of Alcúdia all those years ago. It seems almost appropriate. The resort is not dying of course, but has it, like other parts of Mallorca that developed from little or nothing at around the same time, run out of the vigour, the life that took it so far? The resort is now no youngster. It has matured, along with the industry that created it. Life cycles are real enough. For resorts, for industries. And for people.
I don't know if I'll see him again.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Back then, towards the far end of Playa de Muro, an area sometimes misleadingly referred to as Alcúdia Pins which is further on, was all but uninhabited. What lay by the sea was sand, dunes' scrub, reeds and grass from Albufera. Not far away a hotel was being put up. It was to be the Esperanza. The story goes that the hotel was named after the daughter of the man whose family owned much of the land that stretched from what became Alcúdia's Bellevue and Mile area down to the forest that separates current-day Playa de Muro from Can Picafort.
There were plenty of stones and bricks that went into the building of the hotel. So many that there were a lot spare. They went much of the way to the building of two houses, one a bungalow, the other a grander affair on two levels. There was an absence of utilities and no road as such. A machete was a useful tool to hack away at the scrub and grass.
The two houses took shape and became the first of an urbanization. The bungalow had to be all but re-built some years later; there were no proper foundations. The house was that much more solid. It was, still is just about, the seaside home of a couple from the hinterland. Not rich people. Straightforward, regular Mallorcans, but they were not stand-offish. They might once have been where foreigners were concerned, but they have known many over all these years and have become friends, such as with the German woman who owned the bungalow but who died a couple of years ago.
I hadn't seen the old man for quite some time. In summer it was usual for him to be there, tending the garden. His wife, rather shaky, pottered around inside or stood on the roof terrace and shouted at neighbours, as was her preferred form of communication. It was never unfriendly, just that, in a far from untypical Mallorcan manner, volume outweighed content. The conversation, such as it was, tended to revolve around the not infrequent "desastres" involving "clientes", those who rented two flats in the house.
I saw the old man the other day. It was a bit of a shock. He has gone downhill quite suddenly. I asked him how he was, but didn't tarry long. I didn't want to embarrass him. I could see how he was, and the words of another German neighbour, one who has had a chalet there for almost as long as the original two, came into my mind. "He was crying. He said that he knew that he was dying."
There had been tears when the German woman had passed away. The old lady, the wife of the old man, had taken my arm as we had gone to spread the word. Standing in the road, heads shaking, kind words being spoken. She, the old lady, was grateful for the gifts, such as the geranium pots. They would remind her of her long-time German friend.
The old man said that his wife was well, but I know she isn't. She doesn't come to the house now. She doesn't go with her husband for their little trip to the sea. They would do this on most occasions when they came to the house in winter. He would drive to the beach's edge and might forage for some bits of wood. She would hobble to the wooden sand-break, stare at the sea and then shout a bit.
And afterwards they would go to the house where there were no winter clients to be "un desastre", just the overwhelmingly musty smell and the icebox interior before the fire started to crackle and the rooms would fill with the sweet essence of woodsmoke. Incongruous amidst the antique and dark furniture that cluttered up their flat was a flat-screen telly chirping in generally incomprehensible Mallorquín.
The old man had come with a nephew, a cheery fellow who once chatted with me in the street and explained his prostate problem and, more alarmingly, his erectile dysfunction. I didn't exactly know him that well. So much for stand-offishness. You wonder, at times, why the Mallorcans have this reputation. The old man and he, even the summer before last, used to go together for their Sunday morning swim in the sea. The nephew was his usual happy self, unlike the old man who lowered himself uneasily into the passenger seat of the car he used to drive.
He's fading away, as is his wife. The German neighbour has already faded away. And their fading will end a chapter of Playa de Muro's history. Because they are its history in this particular part of the resort. They were the first, the pioneers if you like, they who tamed the wild east of Alcúdia all those years ago. It seems almost appropriate. The resort is not dying of course, but has it, like other parts of Mallorca that developed from little or nothing at around the same time, run out of the vigour, the life that took it so far? The resort is now no youngster. It has matured, along with the industry that created it. Life cycles are real enough. For resorts, for industries. And for people.
I don't know if I'll see him again.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, December 04, 2010
WikiWorld: Spain, Wikileaks and World Cup
Wikileaks and World Cups. They tell you much about a nation's diminished role in the scheme of things. A political leader considered to be pretty much useless by the Americans and humiliation by the quasi-nation that is FIFA.
But so much for Gordon Brown and England. Another nation has to cope with its own minor role in the scheme of things. So minor it had to combine with a minor-minor nation to try and prise the World Cup out of the clutches of the Russian mafia that has made the country one of its favourite offshore bases.
Spain is not a world power. Centuries ago it was. It has had to adjust to being an also-ran, which doesn't stop it trying to reclaim some one-time glory and importance. But when it does, it ends up looking a tad silly. As with the presidential predecessor José María Aznar. "My friend Tony" were the words put into the mouth of Aznar when he was being savaged by the satirists. The little man of world politics like a mini David Steel sitting on the shoulders of the really powerful and his lackey.
This was Iraq. Aznar stood shoulder to shoulder - well, slightly lower than shoulder to shoulder in fact - with Bush and Blair, desperate for some international kudos that had long since deserted Spain. Aznar's back in the news, thanks to the splendidly cringeworthy revelations from Wikileaks.
In 2007 Aznar confided in the American ambassador to Spain who, praise be, then broke the confidence. He was thinking of a return to frontline politics and all because he doubted that his successor as national leader of the Partido Popular, Mariano Rajoy, was up to the job. There are many who would have agreed with Aznar then and would still do so.
Poor old Rajoy. If, and it really isn't much of a choice, he were to succeed Zapatero as national president, it would be a case of trading in Mr. Bean for Mr. Grey, the uninspiring, uncharismatic bearded blunder of the PP. For one who aspires to great office, to a place on the world stage (sort of), he has an unerring capacity to come over all Bush-like, as was the case when he pooh-poohed climate change because his cousin had said so. It was only slightly better than taking the word of the bloke in the pub. Admittedly his cousin was a physics academic, but going on the say-so of one person, a relative, is a rather worrying trait for a potential national leader.
While we have been bombarded with information of seemingly rather greater importance, Spain, appropriately enough, has been relegated to the footnote category of Wikileaking. In the world scheme of things, matters Spanish are not exactly earth-shattering, but "El Pais", a sort of "Guardian" of the Spanish media left, has nevertheless been informing the Spanish public about not only Rajoy but also US pressure to stop Spanish High Court investigations into matters such as alleged war crimes in Iraq and about the use of Palma airport for rendition flights.
Wikileaks, Spanish style, doesn't make for easy reading if you are a Spanish politician, as US officials don't seem to be overly impressed. The King, on the other hand, is approved of by the Americans. And then there's Zapatero himself. He has not enjoyed great relations with the US, who doubtless see him conveying a rather bemused, bumbling, if genial, persona. Just as he was when to everyone's surprise, including his own, he snatched the presidency from Aznar. But this doesn't stop him turning up at events like the World Cup vote. Not that it did much good. Nor did the vain attempt by the president of the Spanish football federation, Ángel María Villar, to butter up the FIFA voters with his grovelling declaration that: "FIFA is clean and does things with honesty. You are all honest and hardworking and worry about football".
The Spanish, and indeed President Zapatero, do have rather more pressing issues to worry about than the failed World Cup bid, but there has been some anger regarding the decision to hand the 2018 tournament to Russia. One commentator has suggested that "we (the Spanish presumably) should emigrate to another planet".
Ah yes, to another planet, another world, where there would be no Wikileaks, Spain and England would still rule the waves and have their empires and there would be no "clean" FIFA to prevent Spain and England from forever more sharing the hosting of the World Cup between them.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
But so much for Gordon Brown and England. Another nation has to cope with its own minor role in the scheme of things. So minor it had to combine with a minor-minor nation to try and prise the World Cup out of the clutches of the Russian mafia that has made the country one of its favourite offshore bases.
Spain is not a world power. Centuries ago it was. It has had to adjust to being an also-ran, which doesn't stop it trying to reclaim some one-time glory and importance. But when it does, it ends up looking a tad silly. As with the presidential predecessor José María Aznar. "My friend Tony" were the words put into the mouth of Aznar when he was being savaged by the satirists. The little man of world politics like a mini David Steel sitting on the shoulders of the really powerful and his lackey.
This was Iraq. Aznar stood shoulder to shoulder - well, slightly lower than shoulder to shoulder in fact - with Bush and Blair, desperate for some international kudos that had long since deserted Spain. Aznar's back in the news, thanks to the splendidly cringeworthy revelations from Wikileaks.
In 2007 Aznar confided in the American ambassador to Spain who, praise be, then broke the confidence. He was thinking of a return to frontline politics and all because he doubted that his successor as national leader of the Partido Popular, Mariano Rajoy, was up to the job. There are many who would have agreed with Aznar then and would still do so.
Poor old Rajoy. If, and it really isn't much of a choice, he were to succeed Zapatero as national president, it would be a case of trading in Mr. Bean for Mr. Grey, the uninspiring, uncharismatic bearded blunder of the PP. For one who aspires to great office, to a place on the world stage (sort of), he has an unerring capacity to come over all Bush-like, as was the case when he pooh-poohed climate change because his cousin had said so. It was only slightly better than taking the word of the bloke in the pub. Admittedly his cousin was a physics academic, but going on the say-so of one person, a relative, is a rather worrying trait for a potential national leader.
While we have been bombarded with information of seemingly rather greater importance, Spain, appropriately enough, has been relegated to the footnote category of Wikileaking. In the world scheme of things, matters Spanish are not exactly earth-shattering, but "El Pais", a sort of "Guardian" of the Spanish media left, has nevertheless been informing the Spanish public about not only Rajoy but also US pressure to stop Spanish High Court investigations into matters such as alleged war crimes in Iraq and about the use of Palma airport for rendition flights.
Wikileaks, Spanish style, doesn't make for easy reading if you are a Spanish politician, as US officials don't seem to be overly impressed. The King, on the other hand, is approved of by the Americans. And then there's Zapatero himself. He has not enjoyed great relations with the US, who doubtless see him conveying a rather bemused, bumbling, if genial, persona. Just as he was when to everyone's surprise, including his own, he snatched the presidency from Aznar. But this doesn't stop him turning up at events like the World Cup vote. Not that it did much good. Nor did the vain attempt by the president of the Spanish football federation, Ángel María Villar, to butter up the FIFA voters with his grovelling declaration that: "FIFA is clean and does things with honesty. You are all honest and hardworking and worry about football".
The Spanish, and indeed President Zapatero, do have rather more pressing issues to worry about than the failed World Cup bid, but there has been some anger regarding the decision to hand the 2018 tournament to Russia. One commentator has suggested that "we (the Spanish presumably) should emigrate to another planet".
Ah yes, to another planet, another world, where there would be no Wikileaks, Spain and England would still rule the waves and have their empires and there would be no "clean" FIFA to prevent Spain and England from forever more sharing the hosting of the World Cup between them.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, December 03, 2010
Unsustainable: Transport infrastructure in Puerto Pollensa
The company that had been contracted to draw up a plan for so-called "sustainable transport" in Puerto Pollensa has had its contract rescinded. The town hall's decision to take the contract away will doubtless have been greeted by some cheering and the raising of glasses in the "moll", in particular by those who had raised concerns as to how appropriate the awarding of the contract had been in the first place.
The context of the contract and now its withdrawal was the abandonment in autumn 2008 of the botched project to pedestrianize a length of Puerto Pollensa's coast road and the town hall's subsequent desire to conduct a more all-embracing study of transport infrastructure in the resort.
In Pollensa there is a party, the Alternativa, which makes a thorough nuisance of itself in challenging the town hall, especially with regard to developments in the port. Quite rightly so. In April it was the Alternativa, aka Pepe Garcia, that questioned the process of the award of the contract.
Three companies were invited to pitch, none of them, according to Garcia, with seemingly any previous experience in the particular area of transport. The company which got the contract, but has now lost it, was Podarcis. The Alternativa was quick to point to the links between this company and the nephew of Francisca Ramón. Who she? The town hall's delegate in Puerto Pollensa.
Podarcis, to be fair to it, was looking to do the right things. One of the main reasons for the collapse of the 2008 pedestrianization was an absence of consultation. On its blog, Podarcis, referring to the final signing of the contract at the end of June, said that it would create a website which would inform residents about the plan and invite exchange of opinions related to it.
Though it may not have conducted a previous study of the exact type required for Puerto Pollensa, Podarcis can boast a fairly impressive list of infrastructure projects. It would be wrong to suggest that it didn't have credibility; it did. But the association with Ramón was always likely to make life difficult. It is perhaps convenient for all concerned, other than Podarcis, that the contract has been removed on account of what are considered to be "deficiencies" as highlighted by a technical review of the plan.
The very need for a plan, however, seemed slightly strange. Though it clearly had the pedestrianization in mind, and this will now once more be placed on the back-burner, the question arises as to why such a plan was not conducted a few years ago before the new by-pass road that cuts through the Ullal, Gotmar and Pinaret urbanizations was built.
The by-pass and the pedestrianization are one of the same thing in terms of the original plan for both that was drawn up as long ago as 1967. So long as pedestrianization is not effected, the by-pass remains if not a white elephant then under-used. Forward thinking, that the new plan for sustainable transport now envisages, was previously lacking at a time when it should have been performed. A justification for the by-pass and pedestrianization that the mayor offered was that these were planned for - 40 years before. Plans can be altered. It was no justification at all, especially as a different plan - to potentially close the entire coast road between Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa (one being eyed up by the environmentalists and the Costas) - would put the whole scheme for transport in the resort up in the air.
The one thing in the latest plan's favour is that, one would hope at any rate, it would represent rather more joined-up thinking than the piecemeal style of infrastructure development of the ill-conceived pedestrianization project of 2008 and yet another plan - that of linking pedestrianization to further construction in Ullal (the latter pretty much approved by the Council of Mallorca under its land reclassification remit).
That the technical review has pointed to a lack of clearly defined solutions that the sustainable transport plan would have produced probably scuppers any developments until at least after the coming local elections, though there is, lurking in the background, the possibility for drawing on central government finance under the Plan E scheme for projects as yet undefined.
But more than anything, the story of Puerto Pollensa and its transport, over and above local political rivalries and suggestions of nepotism, is one of multi-agency lack of co-ordination. The town hall, the Council of Mallorca, the Costas, to say nothing, in all likelihood, of the transport ministry at regional government level as well as central government's development ministry should all be involved in homing in on a definitive plan together, through proper consultation, with local businesses and residents. This, though, is the problem. There are just too many agencies, too many agendas. Sustainable? It can't hope to be.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The context of the contract and now its withdrawal was the abandonment in autumn 2008 of the botched project to pedestrianize a length of Puerto Pollensa's coast road and the town hall's subsequent desire to conduct a more all-embracing study of transport infrastructure in the resort.
In Pollensa there is a party, the Alternativa, which makes a thorough nuisance of itself in challenging the town hall, especially with regard to developments in the port. Quite rightly so. In April it was the Alternativa, aka Pepe Garcia, that questioned the process of the award of the contract.
Three companies were invited to pitch, none of them, according to Garcia, with seemingly any previous experience in the particular area of transport. The company which got the contract, but has now lost it, was Podarcis. The Alternativa was quick to point to the links between this company and the nephew of Francisca Ramón. Who she? The town hall's delegate in Puerto Pollensa.
Podarcis, to be fair to it, was looking to do the right things. One of the main reasons for the collapse of the 2008 pedestrianization was an absence of consultation. On its blog, Podarcis, referring to the final signing of the contract at the end of June, said that it would create a website which would inform residents about the plan and invite exchange of opinions related to it.
Though it may not have conducted a previous study of the exact type required for Puerto Pollensa, Podarcis can boast a fairly impressive list of infrastructure projects. It would be wrong to suggest that it didn't have credibility; it did. But the association with Ramón was always likely to make life difficult. It is perhaps convenient for all concerned, other than Podarcis, that the contract has been removed on account of what are considered to be "deficiencies" as highlighted by a technical review of the plan.
The very need for a plan, however, seemed slightly strange. Though it clearly had the pedestrianization in mind, and this will now once more be placed on the back-burner, the question arises as to why such a plan was not conducted a few years ago before the new by-pass road that cuts through the Ullal, Gotmar and Pinaret urbanizations was built.
The by-pass and the pedestrianization are one of the same thing in terms of the original plan for both that was drawn up as long ago as 1967. So long as pedestrianization is not effected, the by-pass remains if not a white elephant then under-used. Forward thinking, that the new plan for sustainable transport now envisages, was previously lacking at a time when it should have been performed. A justification for the by-pass and pedestrianization that the mayor offered was that these were planned for - 40 years before. Plans can be altered. It was no justification at all, especially as a different plan - to potentially close the entire coast road between Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa (one being eyed up by the environmentalists and the Costas) - would put the whole scheme for transport in the resort up in the air.
The one thing in the latest plan's favour is that, one would hope at any rate, it would represent rather more joined-up thinking than the piecemeal style of infrastructure development of the ill-conceived pedestrianization project of 2008 and yet another plan - that of linking pedestrianization to further construction in Ullal (the latter pretty much approved by the Council of Mallorca under its land reclassification remit).
That the technical review has pointed to a lack of clearly defined solutions that the sustainable transport plan would have produced probably scuppers any developments until at least after the coming local elections, though there is, lurking in the background, the possibility for drawing on central government finance under the Plan E scheme for projects as yet undefined.
But more than anything, the story of Puerto Pollensa and its transport, over and above local political rivalries and suggestions of nepotism, is one of multi-agency lack of co-ordination. The town hall, the Council of Mallorca, the Costas, to say nothing, in all likelihood, of the transport ministry at regional government level as well as central government's development ministry should all be involved in homing in on a definitive plan together, through proper consultation, with local businesses and residents. This, though, is the problem. There are just too many agencies, too many agendas. Sustainable? It can't hope to be.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, December 02, 2010
More Than Just A Pain In The Neck: Dystonia
Following the appearance of this article in the issue of "Talk Of The North" published today, this is the article about dystonia that was in the publication.
You know how it is. You wake up one morning. You've been lying awkwardly. The neck's stiff. It takes some time to shake off. It can be inconvenient to say the least. Bending your head to wash, turning your head when driving. Awkward, and it nags away until finally it just goes away.
You don't know how it is. You wake up one morning. The neck's stiff, but it's more than stiff. It's agony. And you can't shake it off. The neck has twisted, distorted. It's not going away, because it's permanent and there's no cure.
Julie Sanderson knows how it is. It started to come on in July last year. What she didn't know, initially, and nor did the medics, was that she was suffering from dystonia. And in her case, one of the variants of the complaint - cervical dystonia.
Dystonia is little known and little understood. It can affect anyone, of any age. It can affect different parts of the body, the most severe types being "multifocal" and generalised which affect several muscle groups. Common to all forms of dystonia is the fact that they are neurological disorders, resulting in involuntary movements and abnormalities of posture or even of speech and sight.
Diagnosis of dystonia is not straightforward. At Muro hospital, the medics thought Julie's problem might be a trapped nerve. Two months after the onset of the condition, however, there was no improvement. Indeed it was getting worse, her neck now constantly turned to one side and the pain unrelenting. Julie realised there was more to this than a trapped nerve. "There was no brain-neck connection." Hard as she might have tried to move her head, there was no response.
The breakthrough came in an unexpected way. During a visit to the pediatrician with her elder daughter, it was he who recognised the dystonia, and a suggestion of diagnosis which led to scans and then finally to treatment by the specialist Dr. Francisco Molina at Son Dureta, now at Son Espases. That treatment is one of the few available to dystonia sufferers. It involves the injection of Botox into the muscles every three months.
The Botox in effect weakens the muscles. Combined with muscle relaxants, it does at least allow Julie to lead something of a more normal life and to be able sleep more properly. But everyday activities are still a struggle. Anything from making the beds to reading a book can be difficult. Julie, separated from her husband, has come to rely on her daughters, mother and sister for assistance. And being a part of a family which runs a bar, the Jolly Roger in Puerto Alcúdia, has also not been easy. Not just in terms of the practicalities but also in terms of the "looks" and some of the comments.
"It was really quite upsetting to begin with. People seemed to treat it as a bit of a joke, and there would be all sorts of, well, pretty immature remarks. Mostly of a sexual nature." The initial responses from those who did not understand the condition added to how badly Julie felt, and how depressed the condition made her. It was the very involuntary nature of the neck movements that made it especially tough. The head can suddenly swivel to such a degree that, as Julie says, "you look like you're in 'The Exorcist' ".
"You have to learn to live with it, though. That's all you can do. Take the Botox every three months, and that's about it." She has started to take reassurance from the fact that as time has gone one, she has found out more about dystonia and read about others who suffer similarly. She mentions an article she found in the "Daily Mail" in which someone, two years after contracting dystonia, has now come to terms with it.
There is a more radical treatment than the Botox, and this is deep-brain stimulation. This requires the implanting of an electrode, analogous to a pacemaker, and is a procedure that is also used to treat Parkinson's disease. It is not, though, one that Dr. Molina is inclined to recommend. Chances of success are less than 50%, while the procedure tends to be reserved for patients who develop resistance to the Botox.
With the treatments only limited, there is a not unnatural desire to look for alternatives. Julie has been to two chiropractors, one who decided she was crazy and the other who reckoned the condition could be cured. It just made it worse. Dr. Molina was far from impressed when he was told. Manipulation of the muscles, even through gentle massage, can be harmful and also undo the work of the Botox. Despite the Botox alleviating the pain, ideally Julie would do very little in order not to make the Botox wear off too quickly. As it is, the injections have to be timed exactly. If not, then the neck would twist more and the head droop.
There are reckoned to be around 30 cases of dystonia in Mallorca which are similar to Julie's. Its comparative rareness is what can make it difficult to diagnose and is what means that there is an ignorance of the condition outside of the medical world. Julie wants to try and make people more aware of dystonia and also to reach out to other sufferers. Other than family and friends and the work of Dr. Molina, there is no support network for dystonia. And as with many conditions, this can be of huge psychological importance in coping with what is a cruelly debilitating disorder.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
You know how it is. You wake up one morning. You've been lying awkwardly. The neck's stiff. It takes some time to shake off. It can be inconvenient to say the least. Bending your head to wash, turning your head when driving. Awkward, and it nags away until finally it just goes away.
You don't know how it is. You wake up one morning. The neck's stiff, but it's more than stiff. It's agony. And you can't shake it off. The neck has twisted, distorted. It's not going away, because it's permanent and there's no cure.
Julie Sanderson knows how it is. It started to come on in July last year. What she didn't know, initially, and nor did the medics, was that she was suffering from dystonia. And in her case, one of the variants of the complaint - cervical dystonia.
Dystonia is little known and little understood. It can affect anyone, of any age. It can affect different parts of the body, the most severe types being "multifocal" and generalised which affect several muscle groups. Common to all forms of dystonia is the fact that they are neurological disorders, resulting in involuntary movements and abnormalities of posture or even of speech and sight.
Diagnosis of dystonia is not straightforward. At Muro hospital, the medics thought Julie's problem might be a trapped nerve. Two months after the onset of the condition, however, there was no improvement. Indeed it was getting worse, her neck now constantly turned to one side and the pain unrelenting. Julie realised there was more to this than a trapped nerve. "There was no brain-neck connection." Hard as she might have tried to move her head, there was no response.
The breakthrough came in an unexpected way. During a visit to the pediatrician with her elder daughter, it was he who recognised the dystonia, and a suggestion of diagnosis which led to scans and then finally to treatment by the specialist Dr. Francisco Molina at Son Dureta, now at Son Espases. That treatment is one of the few available to dystonia sufferers. It involves the injection of Botox into the muscles every three months.
The Botox in effect weakens the muscles. Combined with muscle relaxants, it does at least allow Julie to lead something of a more normal life and to be able sleep more properly. But everyday activities are still a struggle. Anything from making the beds to reading a book can be difficult. Julie, separated from her husband, has come to rely on her daughters, mother and sister for assistance. And being a part of a family which runs a bar, the Jolly Roger in Puerto Alcúdia, has also not been easy. Not just in terms of the practicalities but also in terms of the "looks" and some of the comments.
"It was really quite upsetting to begin with. People seemed to treat it as a bit of a joke, and there would be all sorts of, well, pretty immature remarks. Mostly of a sexual nature." The initial responses from those who did not understand the condition added to how badly Julie felt, and how depressed the condition made her. It was the very involuntary nature of the neck movements that made it especially tough. The head can suddenly swivel to such a degree that, as Julie says, "you look like you're in 'The Exorcist' ".
"You have to learn to live with it, though. That's all you can do. Take the Botox every three months, and that's about it." She has started to take reassurance from the fact that as time has gone one, she has found out more about dystonia and read about others who suffer similarly. She mentions an article she found in the "Daily Mail" in which someone, two years after contracting dystonia, has now come to terms with it.
There is a more radical treatment than the Botox, and this is deep-brain stimulation. This requires the implanting of an electrode, analogous to a pacemaker, and is a procedure that is also used to treat Parkinson's disease. It is not, though, one that Dr. Molina is inclined to recommend. Chances of success are less than 50%, while the procedure tends to be reserved for patients who develop resistance to the Botox.
With the treatments only limited, there is a not unnatural desire to look for alternatives. Julie has been to two chiropractors, one who decided she was crazy and the other who reckoned the condition could be cured. It just made it worse. Dr. Molina was far from impressed when he was told. Manipulation of the muscles, even through gentle massage, can be harmful and also undo the work of the Botox. Despite the Botox alleviating the pain, ideally Julie would do very little in order not to make the Botox wear off too quickly. As it is, the injections have to be timed exactly. If not, then the neck would twist more and the head droop.
There are reckoned to be around 30 cases of dystonia in Mallorca which are similar to Julie's. Its comparative rareness is what can make it difficult to diagnose and is what means that there is an ignorance of the condition outside of the medical world. Julie wants to try and make people more aware of dystonia and also to reach out to other sufferers. Other than family and friends and the work of Dr. Molina, there is no support network for dystonia. And as with many conditions, this can be of huge psychological importance in coping with what is a cruelly debilitating disorder.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Do Me A Favour: Spas, corruption and society
One of the features of quality and service improvements to Mallorca's hotels has been the introduction of spas - beauty salons, jacuzzis, wellness sessions, all that sort of carry-on. Demand for spas has come from tour operators who see them as important in upgrading the standard of hotels. Provision for their additional creation was covered by the virtually zero-rate interest finance offered by the regional government as a way of assisting hotel upgrades during the crisis and by the so-called "decreto Nadal" which cut out some bureaucratic procedures in order to facilitate renovation and development work at hotels. The reclassification of hotels that is to take place within the next few years will take account of spas.
All good stuff, but as usual there is a rather different story to be told. Note that "decreto". Who was the Nadal in question? Miguel. The former tourism minister and the "chosen one" by his predecessor as leader of the Unió Mallorquina, the matriarchal Mother Maria, Munar of that ilk. Nadal and Mother have since fallen out, their lovey-dovey photos regularly reproduced in order to stress the irony of the breakdown in their relationship, Nadal trying for all he's worth to avoid taking the rap for corruption allegations that have come his and Mother's way.
Building spas was fair enough, but who do you think was instrumental in a process for the spas - the number of which could be expected to increase - to be accredited and given quality ratings?
Maria Antònia Munar, never a hair out of place, always looking a million dollars, but don't let's ask where the dollars might have come from. As befits a one-time president of the Council of Mallorca and speaker of the regional parliament, she did of course need to look a million dollars.
Mother Munar had a personal beautician, and it was thanks to Munar that the beautician, Marisol Carrasco, along with two partners, managed to secure the contract, worth around a hundred thousand euros, to audit and certify hotel spas. The process of awarding the contract was rigged. There were three companies invited to tender for the award of the contract from the Inestur agency within the tourism ministry. However, all three belonged to the same group of people - those who won the contract.
Two former tourism ministers and key men in the UM, Francesc Buils and his successor, the aforementioned Nadal, were also keys to the process as it unravelled. Buils, himself implicated in scandal, had to have his arm twisted in order to set the process in motion. By whom? Yep, Mother. Nadal was the one who signed off on the invoices to Carrasco's company once the auditing work had commenced last year. A fourth UM politician, Antoni Oliver, is also tied up in this deal. Oliver is the former director of Inestur and was a mate of one of Carrasco's partners, one Josep Lluís Capllonch who owns a cosmetics firm in Pollensa. The role of Oliver in Pollensa's own politics has been subject to questions raised by opposition groups in the town.
The story of the spas - and all this information is, by the way, in the public domain - tells you much about how the "system" works in Mallorca. Personal favours allied to political ones. All that seems to be missing in this instance is familial nepotism. It is a system that stinks in such a rotten way that not even the aromas from a spa could get rid of the stench. And in Mother you have, or had, someone who treated her party as her own personal fiefdom, with the wretched Buils, Nadal and others her subservient Mark Antonys.
Nothing in the UM appeared to happen without Mother's bidding or approval. The election of her successor, Nadal, was a case in point. She let the chosen one have his scrapes with his rivals, Ferrer and Grimalt, let him throw his toys out of the pram and then stepped in to give them a telling-off and to approve him as leader, an outcome that had never been in question. The UM, in particular the party's mechanism in Palma, was as close as you could get to familial nepotism without there actually being blood ties. But it was a metaphor for a society in which deference - matriarchal or patriarchal - persists, and which goes a long way in explaining the "system".
Back in March, I wrote about the emergence of all the scandal that had engulfed Munar and the UM. Then I said that rather than there being concerns as to an electoral system that facilitates coalition (wrongly being singled out as a breeding ground for corruption), the "corruption scandals should be informing a debate as to what brings them about"; that it is society (Mallorcan) that "begets the politics of the island, not the other way round". In other words, it is societal collusion or at least societal mores and the way in which society operates which breed political corruption.
The other day there was a debate, one that featured leading figures from the university. A professor of law said that "so long as there is no ethical or moral transformation in society, the law will solve nothing". I suppose I feel vindicated in what I had said in March.
The spa story is a relatively minor matter when compared to some of the other charges that have been emerging, but is significant in that it highlights what many suspect, which is that little or nothing happens - be it spas or whatever - without someone benefiting in a way that they shouldn't. The spas should be places of health, but even they have been tainted by disease.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
All good stuff, but as usual there is a rather different story to be told. Note that "decreto". Who was the Nadal in question? Miguel. The former tourism minister and the "chosen one" by his predecessor as leader of the Unió Mallorquina, the matriarchal Mother Maria, Munar of that ilk. Nadal and Mother have since fallen out, their lovey-dovey photos regularly reproduced in order to stress the irony of the breakdown in their relationship, Nadal trying for all he's worth to avoid taking the rap for corruption allegations that have come his and Mother's way.
Building spas was fair enough, but who do you think was instrumental in a process for the spas - the number of which could be expected to increase - to be accredited and given quality ratings?
Maria Antònia Munar, never a hair out of place, always looking a million dollars, but don't let's ask where the dollars might have come from. As befits a one-time president of the Council of Mallorca and speaker of the regional parliament, she did of course need to look a million dollars.
Mother Munar had a personal beautician, and it was thanks to Munar that the beautician, Marisol Carrasco, along with two partners, managed to secure the contract, worth around a hundred thousand euros, to audit and certify hotel spas. The process of awarding the contract was rigged. There were three companies invited to tender for the award of the contract from the Inestur agency within the tourism ministry. However, all three belonged to the same group of people - those who won the contract.
Two former tourism ministers and key men in the UM, Francesc Buils and his successor, the aforementioned Nadal, were also keys to the process as it unravelled. Buils, himself implicated in scandal, had to have his arm twisted in order to set the process in motion. By whom? Yep, Mother. Nadal was the one who signed off on the invoices to Carrasco's company once the auditing work had commenced last year. A fourth UM politician, Antoni Oliver, is also tied up in this deal. Oliver is the former director of Inestur and was a mate of one of Carrasco's partners, one Josep Lluís Capllonch who owns a cosmetics firm in Pollensa. The role of Oliver in Pollensa's own politics has been subject to questions raised by opposition groups in the town.
The story of the spas - and all this information is, by the way, in the public domain - tells you much about how the "system" works in Mallorca. Personal favours allied to political ones. All that seems to be missing in this instance is familial nepotism. It is a system that stinks in such a rotten way that not even the aromas from a spa could get rid of the stench. And in Mother you have, or had, someone who treated her party as her own personal fiefdom, with the wretched Buils, Nadal and others her subservient Mark Antonys.
Nothing in the UM appeared to happen without Mother's bidding or approval. The election of her successor, Nadal, was a case in point. She let the chosen one have his scrapes with his rivals, Ferrer and Grimalt, let him throw his toys out of the pram and then stepped in to give them a telling-off and to approve him as leader, an outcome that had never been in question. The UM, in particular the party's mechanism in Palma, was as close as you could get to familial nepotism without there actually being blood ties. But it was a metaphor for a society in which deference - matriarchal or patriarchal - persists, and which goes a long way in explaining the "system".
Back in March, I wrote about the emergence of all the scandal that had engulfed Munar and the UM. Then I said that rather than there being concerns as to an electoral system that facilitates coalition (wrongly being singled out as a breeding ground for corruption), the "corruption scandals should be informing a debate as to what brings them about"; that it is society (Mallorcan) that "begets the politics of the island, not the other way round". In other words, it is societal collusion or at least societal mores and the way in which society operates which breed political corruption.
The other day there was a debate, one that featured leading figures from the university. A professor of law said that "so long as there is no ethical or moral transformation in society, the law will solve nothing". I suppose I feel vindicated in what I had said in March.
The spa story is a relatively minor matter when compared to some of the other charges that have been emerging, but is significant in that it highlights what many suspect, which is that little or nothing happens - be it spas or whatever - without someone benefiting in a way that they shouldn't. The spas should be places of health, but even they have been tainted by disease.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
The Division Bell: Town halls, hotels and local business
One day we learn that the number of hotel places in Mallorca devoted to all-inclusive is set to double in 2011. The next we find out that the hotel federation is calling on the Council of Mallorca to press upon town halls the need to make their tourist areas prettier.
The two things don't add up. On the principle that all-inclusive guests tend to stay in situ, then what is the point in beautifying the surroundings? And if the doubling of all-inclusive places for next year were to be repeated in subsequent years, there would be even less point, other than so that guests can peer out from their balconies at well-tended museum pieces or can be transported to and from the airport through resorts which resemble empty film sets badly in need of a producer or two.
But the federation has a point. A quick drive through Can Picafort confirms it. Winter doesn't find the place at its best of course, certainly not when it is undergoing its annual dig for victory, but even in summer it's not exactly a thing of beauty. And so it is elsewhere, even in Puerto Pollensa which is meant to be a thing of beauty. This didn't stop the demonstration in June, one inspired by what was and still is perceived as the neglect of the resort. Oddly enough, the local hoteliers shunned the demonstration. So much for solidarity either with other businesses or with the hoteliers of the island.
Can Picafort and Puerto Pollensa both emphasize what the federation is saying, or at least implying, as they are representative of a common enough complaint that emanates from the resorts and is directed at town halls some kilometres away. In Can Picafort, while Santa Margalida town hall devotes funds to redoing the town's La Beata garden, money has mainly to be begged from the regional government environment ministry to improve the narrow promenade. It's something, even if there's not much that can be done about what lies next to the prom, and I'm not referring to the beach.
The complaint is that town halls, closeted away in their old-town buildings, ignore their resorts in favour of the towns themselves. This may be more a perception than fact, but perception goes a long way, and in another town, Muro, there is little denying the fact that its resort receives barely any type of improvement or intervention from the town hall except for its own annual event - the how-much-can-we-fine the bloke with the sunbeds concession. The town itself has been the beneficiary of municipal and tourism ministry finance, as in they laid some new pavements on which all the tourists who don't go there can walk.
Alcúdia is an exception. It is surely no coincidence that the connection between the old town, and therefore the town hall building, and the port area is all but seamless. There is no distance factor. Both the old town within the walls and the port area were a mess some years ago, but not now. The transformation of both would seem to be evidence of what the hotel federation is asking for. There may still be the resort's gloriously unsophisticated Mile area, but the town hall has continued to do what it can, such as with recent spend on the beach to install new showers, an improved beach walkway, lighting and play areas.
If the hotel federation manages to bring the town and down-there in the resorts closer together, then fine, but it manages itself to remain at loggerheads with what else is down there - the restaurants, bars and other businesses. Doubling the number of all-inclusive places is unlikely to improve relations, soured earlier this year by the hotels saying that local businesses moan too much and do nothing themselves by way of improving their product or promoting resorts. And again they have a point, as in Magalluf.
One of the better, most recent initiatives in Mallorca has been the introduction of the Mallorca Rocks concerts at the eponymous hotel, owned by the Fiesta group. Not only was this a good idea, it was also successful this summer, so much so that the number of concerts is going to increase in 2011. Step forward the local tourist business association to complain and to worry that the idea of "themed" hotels might spread.
Yet here is something fresh, something to be welcomed. But not by all, it would seem. And so, as ever, you have bodies pulling in different directions, ringing a division bell of opposing, antagonistic views. Just as town halls seem unable to accept their responsibilities for their resorts, so you have the hotels and local business warring in disagreement, Puerto Pollensa's hoteliers loftily declining to support a protest and, moreover, the hotels themselves helping to add to the undermining of the Playa de Palma renewal by insisting that 3-star accommodation has to be maintained. And mention of Playa de Palma is apposite, because this was meant to be a beautification of a resort. Remind me, who are now calling on improvements to resorts? Oh yes, the hotels.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The two things don't add up. On the principle that all-inclusive guests tend to stay in situ, then what is the point in beautifying the surroundings? And if the doubling of all-inclusive places for next year were to be repeated in subsequent years, there would be even less point, other than so that guests can peer out from their balconies at well-tended museum pieces or can be transported to and from the airport through resorts which resemble empty film sets badly in need of a producer or two.
But the federation has a point. A quick drive through Can Picafort confirms it. Winter doesn't find the place at its best of course, certainly not when it is undergoing its annual dig for victory, but even in summer it's not exactly a thing of beauty. And so it is elsewhere, even in Puerto Pollensa which is meant to be a thing of beauty. This didn't stop the demonstration in June, one inspired by what was and still is perceived as the neglect of the resort. Oddly enough, the local hoteliers shunned the demonstration. So much for solidarity either with other businesses or with the hoteliers of the island.
Can Picafort and Puerto Pollensa both emphasize what the federation is saying, or at least implying, as they are representative of a common enough complaint that emanates from the resorts and is directed at town halls some kilometres away. In Can Picafort, while Santa Margalida town hall devotes funds to redoing the town's La Beata garden, money has mainly to be begged from the regional government environment ministry to improve the narrow promenade. It's something, even if there's not much that can be done about what lies next to the prom, and I'm not referring to the beach.
The complaint is that town halls, closeted away in their old-town buildings, ignore their resorts in favour of the towns themselves. This may be more a perception than fact, but perception goes a long way, and in another town, Muro, there is little denying the fact that its resort receives barely any type of improvement or intervention from the town hall except for its own annual event - the how-much-can-we-fine the bloke with the sunbeds concession. The town itself has been the beneficiary of municipal and tourism ministry finance, as in they laid some new pavements on which all the tourists who don't go there can walk.
Alcúdia is an exception. It is surely no coincidence that the connection between the old town, and therefore the town hall building, and the port area is all but seamless. There is no distance factor. Both the old town within the walls and the port area were a mess some years ago, but not now. The transformation of both would seem to be evidence of what the hotel federation is asking for. There may still be the resort's gloriously unsophisticated Mile area, but the town hall has continued to do what it can, such as with recent spend on the beach to install new showers, an improved beach walkway, lighting and play areas.
If the hotel federation manages to bring the town and down-there in the resorts closer together, then fine, but it manages itself to remain at loggerheads with what else is down there - the restaurants, bars and other businesses. Doubling the number of all-inclusive places is unlikely to improve relations, soured earlier this year by the hotels saying that local businesses moan too much and do nothing themselves by way of improving their product or promoting resorts. And again they have a point, as in Magalluf.
One of the better, most recent initiatives in Mallorca has been the introduction of the Mallorca Rocks concerts at the eponymous hotel, owned by the Fiesta group. Not only was this a good idea, it was also successful this summer, so much so that the number of concerts is going to increase in 2011. Step forward the local tourist business association to complain and to worry that the idea of "themed" hotels might spread.
Yet here is something fresh, something to be welcomed. But not by all, it would seem. And so, as ever, you have bodies pulling in different directions, ringing a division bell of opposing, antagonistic views. Just as town halls seem unable to accept their responsibilities for their resorts, so you have the hotels and local business warring in disagreement, Puerto Pollensa's hoteliers loftily declining to support a protest and, moreover, the hotels themselves helping to add to the undermining of the Playa de Palma renewal by insisting that 3-star accommodation has to be maintained. And mention of Playa de Palma is apposite, because this was meant to be a beautification of a resort. Remind me, who are now calling on improvements to resorts? Oh yes, the hotels.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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