Robert Cornelius has a niche in history. An early pioneer of photographic technology, a self-portrait of Cornelius was one of the first, if not the first, photo taken of a person. The year was 1839; the place, Philadelphia.
Cornelius, and other early-movers in the art and science of photography, would have had no idea what they were unleashing. Almost two centuries on, and the human race and its environment has become a continuum of incessant snapping. We are photography. Homo Kodakiens.
The camera is arguably the greatest invention ever. The technology has formed the basis for record and for revision, no more so than nowadays; digital photography makes images two-a-penny and photographic software can alter images in a way that Stalin's airbrushers could never have imagined.
In Mallorca, where would we be without the camera? It has benefited from the same brilliant light in capturing land- and seascapes as that which inspired the post-impressionist school of art in Pollensa in the early twentieth century. It has been the medium for thousands, millions of the photographic cliché: the view to and from the Calvari oratory in Pollensa town; the pine tree hanging off-centre of frame as the lens scans the sweep of Puerto Pollensa's pine walk; the shadow thrown onto the horse promontory of Cala San Vicente's "Cavall Bernat". The cliché of image is as repetitious as the superlatives of adjectives that describe the scenes with the unthinking rote-speak of brochures and websites.
As focused on and clicked as the scenery are the reproduced descendants of Robert Cornelius. People. Mallorcan society, in its widest sense, appears at times to exist for one purpose - to have its picture taken. Little of this is what you might call photo-journalism; it is imagery for the sake of imagery. Its repetitiousness, its pose-style is as loaded with déjà vu as the tourist snap of the pine walk or other so-called "iconic" landscapes.
One such is the photo of long tables, disappearing into the distance, at which are seated any number of uninteresting people with dreary expressions who have gathered together to eat something. There is a recent good example of the art; a Partido Popular lunch in Campos, with, in the foreground, María Salom and José Bauzá. It is the same shot as is regurgitated from the memory cards of suppers at annual fiestas. Who on earth cares?
Politicians are, naturally, the worst when it comes to muscling into frame. The default politician photo comprises several of them, standing shoulder to shoulder, inaugurating something, standing on a platform, making some declaration or other. Just one problem with these photos is that many of the subjects, the blokes especially, are so badly dressed. Jeans really aren't politician attire, but they are in Mallorca. And the wearers look as though they've just walked in from the fields or the building site, which is probably because they have.
No more idiotic in the formulaic, side-by-side, on-stage photo is one from Artà the other day. It looks as though the whole town is in it, celebrating the almost completely unnewsworthy fact that the town has finally got round to having a tourism website. I exaggerate the numbers. They are not the whole of Artà, but they are that great that they equate to a World Cup football squad. It is so supremely old-fashioned and silly, you half expect them to launch into a chorus of "Back Home". This is photography by parish newsletter, which just about sums up the level of local politics and the sophistication that it attracts and displays.
But worse, far worse, are the photos of alleged VIPs and celebrities. They form a constant collage of the dicky-bow, the low-slung, the suntan, the champagne flute and the expensive trip to the hairdressers. These are the snaps of the faux-"Hello", misguided notion that anyone is actually interested. They are interested, if the subjects happen to be famous, but not when they are the famous unfamous or the simply unfamous. Most you have neither heard of nor care about, and if you have heard of them, you would probably prefer not to have. It is these images, though, which speak more, far more about Mallorca than the landscape clichés. Well, about a Mallorca, at any rate.
In 1839, Robert Cornelius conducted an experiment. One would doubt that he had in mind his own vanity. But what he unleashed, other than merely matters of record, was the vanity of others. One does have to distinguish between the photographing of Mallorcan society and of society Mallorca. The latter is the domain of the vain and the vaininglorious. The act of the photographer is not to inform an audience but to bow to the bows and frills of the subject. But most of this act is irrelevant, superficial and shallow; as shallow as the subjects through the lens and with even less depth of focus.
All I want is a photograph of you, something to remind me. Actually, I don't.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Cancellations because of airports' strike, but ...
The Mallorca hotel federation has reported today that cancellations of reservations for Easter have been occurring, while there has also been a halt to sales over this holiday time because of the threat of strikes by airport staff. However, the federation is declaring optimism that the strike threat will be swiftly resolved, while also pointing to demands by the regional governments of both the Balearics and the Canaries for central government to ensure 100% service, were the strikes to actually go ahead.
MALLORCA TODAY - Beverly Playa staff not been paid
Personnel at the Peguera hotel Beverly Playa have been protesting today because they have not been paid for February, the month during which they were preparing the hotel for its March opening. This hotel is part of Hotasa, the chain that belongs to Nueva Rumasa, and news of the employees' non-payment just heaps further concern onto the troubled company and worries about the other hotels in the Hotasa chain.
MALLORCA TODAY - Call for limit to transport price increases
With fuel prices having gone up by over 17%, the federation in the Balearics for transport companies has called on its members to limit their own price rises to 6%. The federation believes that higher price increases will be harmful to businesses which operate, for example, transfer buses.
MALLORCA TODAY - Property sales rise in the Balearics
January witnessed an increase of almost 20% in the sale of residential property in the Balearics. Though this was a significant rise, actual sales in the Balearics were, by some way, behind many other regions of Spain.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 14 March 2011
The predicted reverse on yesterday. Rainy, with a mix of light and thick cloud. Temperatures as of 08.30: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 12.8 C; Pollensa, 11.7 C; Puerto Pollensa, 14.0 C. The forecast is for showers until Wednesday, with an improvement anticipated later in the week.
A day of sun and showers. Highs in the area to 17.00: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 16.9 C; Pollensa, 15.8 C; Puerto Pollensa, 15.3 C.
A day of sun and showers. Highs in the area to 17.00: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 16.9 C; Pollensa, 15.8 C; Puerto Pollensa, 15.3 C.
The Adventures Of Alice In Mallorcaland
Alice was sitting by the canal's edge in a dingy English town. It was drizzling, as it always seemed to be drizzling. Alice was day-dreaming. Of a summer away from the greyness of her unremarkable town. Of a place far away, where the sun always shines, where the drink is cheap and the boys are plentiful.
Suddenly, she was jolted from her thoughts by the strange sight of a White Rabbit. Was it Comic Relief, wondered Alice. She followed the White Rabbit who was muttering to himself: "Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late". "What shall you be too late for, Rabbit?" asked Alice. "The plane of course. The plane." And with this, the White Rabbit disappeared into a travel agency into which Alice also ventured, only to find herself falling, falling, gliding and then touching down. Touching down where?
Alice looked around. She could see a small terrace and a sign that said "Drink Me". Wicked, thought Alice. A Red Bull with a cough medicine and vodka mix. She became first very small; small enough to pass through the keyhole and then very large.
"You're a big girl," said the Mat Hatter. "There's no room, no room for you here."
"There's plenty of room," replied Alice. "Who are you, anyway?"
"Maybe he's he or maybe he's not he. But he is from Luton," declared the March Hare.
"Why are you talking in riddles?" inquired Alice.
"We always talk in riddles. We talk complete gibberish. All the time." And the March Hare started to cackle a lunatic cackle.
"You're mad," said Alice.
"Not as mad as the Mad Hatter. He's from Luton."
"Why is he here? Why are you here?" asked Alice.
"We've no idea. Have some wine."
"There isn't any wine."
"Then have some tea," said the March Hare. "It's always tea time. We sit around all day and it's always tea time. Time for tea. Time for tea."
"Is this all you ever do?" Alice wanted to know.
"Sometimes we get up. Sometimes we sit down. Sometimes we come here. Sometimes we go there. There's always time for tea."
"Who's that you're resting your feet on?"
"That's the Doormat. We slag him off all day. Oh, that's what else we do." And the March Hare and the Mad Hatter cackled together.
"You might just as well say that you run me down when I'm here as I'm there when you run me down," murmured the Doormat.
"Now he's talking in riddles as well!"
"Yes, rubbish. That's what we do."
"I've had enough of this," said Alice. "This place is so, like, oh my God, total pants. No wine. I'm off to The Queen of Hearts. To look for a job. And I will, unlike you, do something."
"Do something!? Do something!? Off with her head! She's off her head."
Next time: Alice finds herself at the Croquet and Golf Ground where there are more strange characters not doing anything.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Suddenly, she was jolted from her thoughts by the strange sight of a White Rabbit. Was it Comic Relief, wondered Alice. She followed the White Rabbit who was muttering to himself: "Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late". "What shall you be too late for, Rabbit?" asked Alice. "The plane of course. The plane." And with this, the White Rabbit disappeared into a travel agency into which Alice also ventured, only to find herself falling, falling, gliding and then touching down. Touching down where?
Alice looked around. She could see a small terrace and a sign that said "Drink Me". Wicked, thought Alice. A Red Bull with a cough medicine and vodka mix. She became first very small; small enough to pass through the keyhole and then very large.
"You're a big girl," said the Mat Hatter. "There's no room, no room for you here."
"There's plenty of room," replied Alice. "Who are you, anyway?"
"Maybe he's he or maybe he's not he. But he is from Luton," declared the March Hare.
"Why are you talking in riddles?" inquired Alice.
"We always talk in riddles. We talk complete gibberish. All the time." And the March Hare started to cackle a lunatic cackle.
"You're mad," said Alice.
"Not as mad as the Mad Hatter. He's from Luton."
"Why is he here? Why are you here?" asked Alice.
"We've no idea. Have some wine."
"There isn't any wine."
"Then have some tea," said the March Hare. "It's always tea time. We sit around all day and it's always tea time. Time for tea. Time for tea."
"Is this all you ever do?" Alice wanted to know.
"Sometimes we get up. Sometimes we sit down. Sometimes we come here. Sometimes we go there. There's always time for tea."
"Who's that you're resting your feet on?"
"That's the Doormat. We slag him off all day. Oh, that's what else we do." And the March Hare and the Mad Hatter cackled together.
"You might just as well say that you run me down when I'm here as I'm there when you run me down," murmured the Doormat.
"Now he's talking in riddles as well!"
"Yes, rubbish. That's what we do."
"I've had enough of this," said Alice. "This place is so, like, oh my God, total pants. No wine. I'm off to The Queen of Hearts. To look for a job. And I will, unlike you, do something."
"Do something!? Do something!? Off with her head! She's off her head."
Next time: Alice finds herself at the Croquet and Golf Ground where there are more strange characters not doing anything.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Levante 1 : 1 Real Mallorca
A mid-table clash for Mallorca this afternoon with the Valencian side Levante has finished all square, centre back Ramis scoring for the second game in succession in equalising Juaniu's first-half strike for Levante.
Levante:
Munúa; Venta, Ballesteros (yellow, 65 min.), Nano (yellow, 70 min.), Del Horno (sub. Juanfran, 75 min.); Torres, Iborra; Valdo (yellow, 59 min.; sub. Suárez, 70 min.), Muñoz (sub. Montero, 60 min.), Juaniu (yellow, 75 min.); Caicedo.
Goal: Juaniu, 38 min.
Real Mallorca:
Aouate; Cendrós, Nunes, Ramis, Ayoze (yellow, 73 min.); Tejera (sub. Victor, 74 min.), Marti; Nsue, De Guzmán, Aki (yellow, 22 min.; sub. Pereira, 53 min.); Webó.
Goal: Ramis, 59 min.
Levante:
Munúa; Venta, Ballesteros (yellow, 65 min.), Nano (yellow, 70 min.), Del Horno (sub. Juanfran, 75 min.); Torres, Iborra; Valdo (yellow, 59 min.; sub. Suárez, 70 min.), Muñoz (sub. Montero, 60 min.), Juaniu (yellow, 75 min.); Caicedo.
Goal: Juaniu, 38 min.
Real Mallorca:
Aouate; Cendrós, Nunes, Ramis, Ayoze (yellow, 73 min.); Tejera (sub. Victor, 74 min.), Marti; Nsue, De Guzmán, Aki (yellow, 22 min.; sub. Pereira, 53 min.); Webó.
Goal: Ramis, 59 min.
MALLORCA TODAY - Lliga Regionalista making headway
The Lliga Regionalista de les Illes Balears, the party formed by the ex-Partido Popular member Jaume Font, has been making considerable progress in attracting local politicians to its ranks. One notable name to have crossed over from the defunct Unió Mallorquina (now CxI) is Malena Estrany, a Pollensa politician and the Lliga's candidate for the post of mayor in the town. Another name to have joined the Lliga is the son of the mayor of Artà, Toni Gili, who has also crossed over from the UM. Font has been meeting with a leading figure in the PP in Calvià, Bartolome Bonafé, regarding his possible defection.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 13 March 2011
As forecast, the sun is out, the skies are clear, but it is very damp. Temperatures as of 08.30: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 12.1 C; Pollensa, 11.7 C; Puerto Pollensa, 13.3 C.
A warm but windy day. Highs to 18.00: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 18.9 C; Pollensa, 17.1 C; Puerto Pollensa, 18.6 C.
A warm but windy day. Highs to 18.00: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 18.9 C; Pollensa, 17.1 C; Puerto Pollensa, 18.6 C.
Hello, Goodbye: María Salom and the Council of Mallorca
María Salom is not a name likely to ring many bells with you, but it may become familiar in the future and give us (well, me) the opportunity for some plays on her name: Salome, biblical seductress; Shalom, the Hebrew for peace and, idiomatically, for both hello and goodbye.
Hello to María Salom. Who is she? Salom is a member of the Partido Popular and is being lined up as president of the Council of Mallorca, a candidature that helped to cause the rupture in the party on account of Jaume Font having been overlooked. The candidature brought further into the open the splits within the party, causing indignation among leftish elements opposed to the perceived anti-Catalanism and alliance with the PP nationally of the local leader, José Bauzá, and causing Font to go off and form his own party.
Salom's candidature is widely believed, by the indignant left, to have been one dictated by the national party. She herself was closely aligned with Madrid, having been a deputy in the Cortes before assuming a similar role in the Balearic parliament last October. Back in the Mallorcan mainstream, and with local elections looming, she has been making her views known about the body over which she hopes she will preside.
In January, Salom referred to the Council of Mallorca as an "inefficient and expensive mastodon". She said that she would press for an ending of the Council's "accumulation of functions" and their duplication with other institutions. This was to be applauded, but her choice of animal to describe the Council was open to an interpretation she may not have intended. The mastodon has been long extinct. The Council's extinction would not be lamented, but when you are looking at becoming its president, you don't presumably advocate making yourself redundant. Or do you?
She is now saying that she will lop off some 15 million euros of the Council's budget and divert it towards social policy. Amongst savings in her sights are those on "advertising material and other superficial items that are not a priority". Whatever might she have in mind? How about the 400,000 euros the Council splashed out back in the summer of 2008 to start a campaign to promote the use of Catalan in restaurants? Yes, you have read this correctly. 400,000 euros.
This was just an example of the idiocy that the Council has got up to. Let me stress, this is not to deny the promotion of Catalan, but when it is being directed in a pointless fashion, as it was with this restaurant campaign, any good intentions are exposed as daft. As daft and as pointless as the Council often portrays itself and as pointless as it is as an unnecessary tier of additional bureaucracy.
One would imagine that this would be just the sort of thing Salom would put a stop to. Not only because it was a waste of money, but also ideologically, if one assumes that she is on-message where Bauzá's anti-Catalanism is concerned.
What one has thus far heard from Salom regarding the Council, short of her actually wanting to close it down, makes much sense. So why is there another sense? A sense of unease.
Partly, this has to do with the charge that she is a put-up job by the PP in Madrid and, therefore, an instrument of how the national party perceives the future for regionalism (not very favourably). But there is also the matter of her past.
The Sóller Tunnel case was the first great corruption scandal to hit Mallorca following the introduction of autonomy. It claimed the first president of the Balearics regional government, the PP's Gabriel Cañellas, who was forced to resign when he was implicated on a charge that involved the payment of some 50 million pesetas (300,000 euros) for electoral purposes. The case was eventually dropped, in 1997, primarily because of the invoking of the statute of limitations.
In August, 1989, a bank account was opened into which was paid a sum of money by ... María Salom. She was, when the case first came to court in 1995, cited as one of the signatories for bank accounts into which went euphemistic "donations" from a company called Cuart, owned by a friend and business partner of Cañellas, which was granted the concession for work on the tunnel.
Salom was never charged. She appeared as a witness, but that was all. She has since responded to questions about the case by saying that it would take too long to explain. Which it probably would. She was only young at the time when that first bank account was opened, 21 in fact. And she was a woman. She was probably just doing her job.
None of this would probably matter or would have been raised, had it not been for one thing. Font was supposedly denied the candidature as president of the Council because he was, at the time, implicated in a corruption case (the charge has now been archived). Bauzá has made much of not allowing anyone implicated to be forwarded for electoral nomination. Once Salom was presented as candidate, the whiff of possible hypocrisy brought the Sóller Tunnel case back to the fore.
What would take too long to explain casts a shadow over her candidature. It may be unfair that it does. She is saying much about the Council of Mallorca with which it is hard to disagree. But there is still the worry that she is somehow a stooge for an anti-regionalist and pro-Spain PP. It doesn't really help that, by coincidence, her husband's surname and now part of hers is De España. However, if she were to become president, might she in fact go further than she has thus far alluded to? Hello to the presidency, but goodbye to the Council of Mallorca. It would be a seductive message.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Hello to María Salom. Who is she? Salom is a member of the Partido Popular and is being lined up as president of the Council of Mallorca, a candidature that helped to cause the rupture in the party on account of Jaume Font having been overlooked. The candidature brought further into the open the splits within the party, causing indignation among leftish elements opposed to the perceived anti-Catalanism and alliance with the PP nationally of the local leader, José Bauzá, and causing Font to go off and form his own party.
Salom's candidature is widely believed, by the indignant left, to have been one dictated by the national party. She herself was closely aligned with Madrid, having been a deputy in the Cortes before assuming a similar role in the Balearic parliament last October. Back in the Mallorcan mainstream, and with local elections looming, she has been making her views known about the body over which she hopes she will preside.
In January, Salom referred to the Council of Mallorca as an "inefficient and expensive mastodon". She said that she would press for an ending of the Council's "accumulation of functions" and their duplication with other institutions. This was to be applauded, but her choice of animal to describe the Council was open to an interpretation she may not have intended. The mastodon has been long extinct. The Council's extinction would not be lamented, but when you are looking at becoming its president, you don't presumably advocate making yourself redundant. Or do you?
She is now saying that she will lop off some 15 million euros of the Council's budget and divert it towards social policy. Amongst savings in her sights are those on "advertising material and other superficial items that are not a priority". Whatever might she have in mind? How about the 400,000 euros the Council splashed out back in the summer of 2008 to start a campaign to promote the use of Catalan in restaurants? Yes, you have read this correctly. 400,000 euros.
This was just an example of the idiocy that the Council has got up to. Let me stress, this is not to deny the promotion of Catalan, but when it is being directed in a pointless fashion, as it was with this restaurant campaign, any good intentions are exposed as daft. As daft and as pointless as the Council often portrays itself and as pointless as it is as an unnecessary tier of additional bureaucracy.
One would imagine that this would be just the sort of thing Salom would put a stop to. Not only because it was a waste of money, but also ideologically, if one assumes that she is on-message where Bauzá's anti-Catalanism is concerned.
What one has thus far heard from Salom regarding the Council, short of her actually wanting to close it down, makes much sense. So why is there another sense? A sense of unease.
Partly, this has to do with the charge that she is a put-up job by the PP in Madrid and, therefore, an instrument of how the national party perceives the future for regionalism (not very favourably). But there is also the matter of her past.
The Sóller Tunnel case was the first great corruption scandal to hit Mallorca following the introduction of autonomy. It claimed the first president of the Balearics regional government, the PP's Gabriel Cañellas, who was forced to resign when he was implicated on a charge that involved the payment of some 50 million pesetas (300,000 euros) for electoral purposes. The case was eventually dropped, in 1997, primarily because of the invoking of the statute of limitations.
In August, 1989, a bank account was opened into which was paid a sum of money by ... María Salom. She was, when the case first came to court in 1995, cited as one of the signatories for bank accounts into which went euphemistic "donations" from a company called Cuart, owned by a friend and business partner of Cañellas, which was granted the concession for work on the tunnel.
Salom was never charged. She appeared as a witness, but that was all. She has since responded to questions about the case by saying that it would take too long to explain. Which it probably would. She was only young at the time when that first bank account was opened, 21 in fact. And she was a woman. She was probably just doing her job.
None of this would probably matter or would have been raised, had it not been for one thing. Font was supposedly denied the candidature as president of the Council because he was, at the time, implicated in a corruption case (the charge has now been archived). Bauzá has made much of not allowing anyone implicated to be forwarded for electoral nomination. Once Salom was presented as candidate, the whiff of possible hypocrisy brought the Sóller Tunnel case back to the fore.
What would take too long to explain casts a shadow over her candidature. It may be unfair that it does. She is saying much about the Council of Mallorca with which it is hard to disagree. But there is still the worry that she is somehow a stooge for an anti-regionalist and pro-Spain PP. It doesn't really help that, by coincidence, her husband's surname and now part of hers is De España. However, if she were to become president, might she in fact go further than she has thus far alluded to? Hello to the presidency, but goodbye to the Council of Mallorca. It would be a seductive message.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Nueva Rumasa employees protest
Some 3,000 employees of the conglomerate Nueva Rumasa have taken part today in a demonstration in Madrid, calling for their jobs to be defended. Nueva Rumasa, with 30 companies facing bankruptcy, now faces additional problems with its cheese-production company in Menorca, Quesería Menorquina. Employees there have been on paid leave for five days, the consequence of there not being raw materials for production. Leading supermarkets have confirmed that they have been affected by supply disruptions.
MALLORCA TODAY - New stadium plans for Real Mallorca
At a cost of between 200 and 250 million euros, Real Mallorca hope to have a new stadium by 2016. A project to re-develop the Luis Sitjar stadium, abandoned since 1999 when the club moved to its current ground, the Son Moix, which is leased from Palma town hall, will include a commercial centre and other sports areas. The new stadium would have a capacity of 27,000 spectators, not that many more than the Son Moix can hold.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 12 March 2011
Heavy cloud. Rain, but only light at present. Area highs as of 09.30: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 13.3 C; 12.3 C, Pollensa; 14.1 C in Puerto Pollensa.
Thoroughly miserable. Rain and grey. Maximum this afternoon to 18.00: 15.9 C in Alcúdia/Playa de Muro. Tomorrow is forecast to be sunny, though.
Thoroughly miserable. Rain and grey. Maximum this afternoon to 18.00: 15.9 C in Alcúdia/Playa de Muro. Tomorrow is forecast to be sunny, though.
Wanted: Tourism Minister, Forklift Experience Not Necessary
The Balearics have been on their annual jaunt to Berlin. The biggest of the round of travel fairs, the ITB, has been the backdrop to the celebratory noises coming from Germany, those speaking of staggering increases in tourism volume this summer, anything up to 50% greater sales, and of hotel chains suspending sales because of fears that high demand will lead to overbooking.
An "historic" year for tourism in Mallorca and the islands does genuinely now appear to be in the offing, despite the best attempts of the airport workers to put the kibosh on this. For once, the joyous expressions of photo-opportunistic Balearics representatives at the travel fair are unforced. Gone are the smiles through gritted teeth of an imminent, crisis-imploding season. Holiday. Celebrate.
Amongst the ecstatic faces in Berlin have been President Antich and his tourism minister, Joana Barceló. They have probably been making the most of their time in the German capital; this year's fair may well turn out to be the last that either attends. Through happenstance more than design, they can go out on a tourism high.
While you would expect both to pitch up at such an event, it is the presence of Antich which is the more significant. Progressively, over the course of his current administration, he has become a far more visible player in matters tourism. His involvement with developments of new tourism markets, China and especially Russia, has coincided with the expansion of these markets. The Russian tour operator, Natalie Tours, anticipates bringing 40% more Russian tourists to the islands this summer; an increase in the number of flight connections with Palma and other Balearic airports (34 in all) is largely due to new routes to and from Russia.
To what extent Antich can take personal credit for these developments is open to question, but he does deserve some credit for seeming to have adopted a more proactive stance when it comes to tourism. It might be said that he, and previous presidents, should have been doing this anyway, but it hasn't always been so.
If one accepts the generally held view that tourism equates to roughly 80% of Mallorca's GDP, then a hands-on presidential role in the management of what is the island's only strategic industry should be a given. It is only belatedly, however, that a local president has seen this light. For Antich, it may have been that he was left with little choice, as he was the one element of continuity while successive tourism ministers were being shown the door.
Placing tourism in a more central and lofty position in the governmental hierarchy chimes with how it is perceived in some competitor destinations. In both Turkey and the Mubarak-governed Egypt, tourism is and was afforded a special, strategic role, one reflected by the power invested in officials to ensure the success of tourism.
In the past, I have argued for a similar arrangement in the Balearics, with tourism, in effect, being treated as a special case as an office of the president. Without going so far as this, Antich more recently said that not only should tourism be the priority but pretty much everything else in Mallorca should play a supporting role to tourism. If one follows this line of argument and one of the president assuming greater executive responsibility, where does that leave the minister for tourism?
The Fomento del Turísmo (the Mallorcan Tourist Board) called the other day for a future tourism minister to be someone from the industry. Quite how this might be effected if this were not an elected official, I am unsure, but it was a not unreasonable point.
While any minister should be capable of understanding and following a brief, tourism is too important to be left to a politician whose qualifications for the post are often questionable. Take, as an example, the unfortunate Miguel Ferrer. Transported from the mayoral seat in Alcúdia, he rematerialised for a couple of months behind the tourism ministry's desk. The rationalisation for his appointment was that he was mayor of a town with a significant tourism industry. He was also, before becoming mayor, a forklift truck driver. The logic of the argument was singularly lacking, and were there any logic to it, then why not put the mayor of Sa Pobla in charge of agriculture because the town is the centre of the island's potato production?
Antich, by default, has become the de facto tourism minister, more so than Barceló who, as with her predecessors, appears to operate via a manual by which Balearics tourism ministers are obliged to utter banalities in respect of so-called alternative tourism, amongst other things. Antich does at least seem to get it, something which his likely successor, José Bauzá, gives little confidence in suggesting that he does. It may well be that the Fomento think the same, and so have called for a professional appointment.
Whether tourism is placed in the presidential palace or not, the need for someone with the correct qualifications is enormous. It is not just that 80% of GDP that needs taking care of. Tourism at government level demands dealing with the most powerful of Mallorca's businesses, the hotel and travel groups, as well as the most influential of external businesses, the airlines and tour operators. It is a job that is presidential in its scope, importance and need to be seen to be credible. If not the job of the president himself, then it has to be that of someone with real clout, knowledge and contacts. It is not a job for a forklift truck driver.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
An "historic" year for tourism in Mallorca and the islands does genuinely now appear to be in the offing, despite the best attempts of the airport workers to put the kibosh on this. For once, the joyous expressions of photo-opportunistic Balearics representatives at the travel fair are unforced. Gone are the smiles through gritted teeth of an imminent, crisis-imploding season. Holiday. Celebrate.
Amongst the ecstatic faces in Berlin have been President Antich and his tourism minister, Joana Barceló. They have probably been making the most of their time in the German capital; this year's fair may well turn out to be the last that either attends. Through happenstance more than design, they can go out on a tourism high.
While you would expect both to pitch up at such an event, it is the presence of Antich which is the more significant. Progressively, over the course of his current administration, he has become a far more visible player in matters tourism. His involvement with developments of new tourism markets, China and especially Russia, has coincided with the expansion of these markets. The Russian tour operator, Natalie Tours, anticipates bringing 40% more Russian tourists to the islands this summer; an increase in the number of flight connections with Palma and other Balearic airports (34 in all) is largely due to new routes to and from Russia.
To what extent Antich can take personal credit for these developments is open to question, but he does deserve some credit for seeming to have adopted a more proactive stance when it comes to tourism. It might be said that he, and previous presidents, should have been doing this anyway, but it hasn't always been so.
If one accepts the generally held view that tourism equates to roughly 80% of Mallorca's GDP, then a hands-on presidential role in the management of what is the island's only strategic industry should be a given. It is only belatedly, however, that a local president has seen this light. For Antich, it may have been that he was left with little choice, as he was the one element of continuity while successive tourism ministers were being shown the door.
Placing tourism in a more central and lofty position in the governmental hierarchy chimes with how it is perceived in some competitor destinations. In both Turkey and the Mubarak-governed Egypt, tourism is and was afforded a special, strategic role, one reflected by the power invested in officials to ensure the success of tourism.
In the past, I have argued for a similar arrangement in the Balearics, with tourism, in effect, being treated as a special case as an office of the president. Without going so far as this, Antich more recently said that not only should tourism be the priority but pretty much everything else in Mallorca should play a supporting role to tourism. If one follows this line of argument and one of the president assuming greater executive responsibility, where does that leave the minister for tourism?
The Fomento del Turísmo (the Mallorcan Tourist Board) called the other day for a future tourism minister to be someone from the industry. Quite how this might be effected if this were not an elected official, I am unsure, but it was a not unreasonable point.
While any minister should be capable of understanding and following a brief, tourism is too important to be left to a politician whose qualifications for the post are often questionable. Take, as an example, the unfortunate Miguel Ferrer. Transported from the mayoral seat in Alcúdia, he rematerialised for a couple of months behind the tourism ministry's desk. The rationalisation for his appointment was that he was mayor of a town with a significant tourism industry. He was also, before becoming mayor, a forklift truck driver. The logic of the argument was singularly lacking, and were there any logic to it, then why not put the mayor of Sa Pobla in charge of agriculture because the town is the centre of the island's potato production?
Antich, by default, has become the de facto tourism minister, more so than Barceló who, as with her predecessors, appears to operate via a manual by which Balearics tourism ministers are obliged to utter banalities in respect of so-called alternative tourism, amongst other things. Antich does at least seem to get it, something which his likely successor, José Bauzá, gives little confidence in suggesting that he does. It may well be that the Fomento think the same, and so have called for a professional appointment.
Whether tourism is placed in the presidential palace or not, the need for someone with the correct qualifications is enormous. It is not just that 80% of GDP that needs taking care of. Tourism at government level demands dealing with the most powerful of Mallorca's businesses, the hotel and travel groups, as well as the most influential of external businesses, the airlines and tour operators. It is a job that is presidential in its scope, importance and need to be seen to be credible. If not the job of the president himself, then it has to be that of someone with real clout, knowledge and contacts. It is not a job for a forklift truck driver.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, March 11, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Supreme Court considers speed limit legality
The Spanish Supreme Court has rejected, for the time being, a petition from two organisations to suspend the new speed limit of 110 kph. The court has to decide if this limit is in fact legal and conforms with the traffic act and will summons the government in the next five days in order to consider whether the measure should indeed be suspended.
MALLORCA TODAY - Balearics expect a million more tourists
From the ITB travel fair in Berlin, regional president Francesc Antich has said that up to a million more tourists can be expected to visit the Balearics this year. With sales rocketing, especially in Germany, some hotel chains have stopped taking bookings for the time being as they are concerned about overbooking, and not just in June, for which a suspension in sales had previously been announced. The anticipated boom in tourism this summer is also proving to be good news on the employment front, with hotels announcing "spectacular" increases to staff numbers.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 11 March 2011
High cloud, which will probably break up. Local area high as of 09.00: 10.9 C in Puerto Pollensa.
The day has remained generally cloudy, with the maximum in the area - to 17.30 - in Alcúdia/Playa de Muro of 14.2 C. Rain is forecast for much of tomorrow.
The day has remained generally cloudy, with the maximum in the area - to 17.30 - in Alcúdia/Playa de Muro of 14.2 C. Rain is forecast for much of tomorrow.
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now: Spanish misery
Once upon a time, when the world was an altogether simpler place and you could drink yourself stupid for 100 pesetas (about 60 centimos) and when a Mallorcan waiter would beam with greeting and gratitude at a small tip with which he could save up for a new piece of tin to cover his shanty hut, everyone was happy.
Those were the days. The sun did always shine, both in a Mallorcan sky and on TV. Cliff Michelmore would look out at Magalluf and inform his black-and-white audience that here was paradise found. Sylvia would wish long life to España, and we'd all sing along with smiling, happy, sombrero-wearing barmen.
Happy, happy, happy. Oh, how things change. Those were the days, my friends. They did come to an end.
The Spanish are the most miserable people in the European Union. Those in the Balearics are the sixth most miserable in Spain. The "index of misery", so says a report by two organisations (of international financial analysts and of large businesses of seasonal work), gives the Balearics a rating 1.5% above the national average and Spain as a whole a new claim on a European championship - that of the miserabiliist league table.
The "les miserables" of Mallorca have come over all Morrissey on account of inflation and unemployment. They might brighten up a tad, as seasonal work prospects buck up, thanks to the droves from the reallocation of the north African tourism vote heading Mallorca's way this summer, but even this might be shortlived. Woe, woe and thrice woe, as Frankie Howerd's Lurcio once put it. Up "Pompas fúnebres". The funeral laments continue to drone because of the misericorde struck into the heart of long-term employment contracts.
Frankie Howerd's long-faced lugubriousness is the mask of gloom now on the countenances of the island's workers. Rather than being happy, happy, they worry, worry. They are preoccupied with their "preocupación". You can't really blame them, but some will. The some who would rather the workers were waving a Dave "happiness index" around like Doddy's tickling stick or were in fact still all Ken Dodds, bursting into a chorus of "Happiness". "What a great day for going up to General Franco and telling him he's a private. Tattyfalarious! Tattyfalarious!"
Being Europe's biggest miseries seems like a strange burden for the Spanish to carry. They've got the sun, the sea, the sangria. The SEATs. What is there not to be happy about? There must surely be parts of the European Union where one has the right to be miserable. I don't know, Lithuania perhaps. There again, the Lithuanians spent most of the last century under the yoke of authoritarianism. They must be pretty damn pleased nowadays. The Spanish only had to put up with 40 years, and they have the Med rather than the Baltic. There's no pleasing some people.
But back in the day, of course, there wasn't all the worry about unemployment, as it hardly existed. Even with the sun and the sea, that's life today. Y viva la vida España.
So you'd think that with all this misery prevailing, that one-time, probably mythical state of welcoming, friendly tourist-hugging would be far from the terraces and receptions of today's Mallorca. It is a charge that gets levelled. Last year, a bunch of tour operators pitched up in Alcúdia and said that more needed to be done in showing greater friendliness. Strange then, that a few days later a spot of press investigation found there wasn't any real need to worry. Friendliness and helpfulness were all around. Then a further few days later, research from the Universitat de les Illes Balears discovered that Mallorca was bettered only by the Caribbean (and ahead of the likes of Turkey, the Canaries, Greece) when it came to tourist satisfaction, an aspect of which was friendliness.
Misery there may be in Spain, and the people of the Balearics are only the sixth most miserable set of Spaniards, after all, but the welcome remains. Always trying to look on the bright side of life, and all that. A different matter might be whether the tourist has to endure some misery. "Airport, you've got a smiling face." Hmm, not if they're all out on strike it won't have.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Those were the days. The sun did always shine, both in a Mallorcan sky and on TV. Cliff Michelmore would look out at Magalluf and inform his black-and-white audience that here was paradise found. Sylvia would wish long life to España, and we'd all sing along with smiling, happy, sombrero-wearing barmen.
Happy, happy, happy. Oh, how things change. Those were the days, my friends. They did come to an end.
The Spanish are the most miserable people in the European Union. Those in the Balearics are the sixth most miserable in Spain. The "index of misery", so says a report by two organisations (of international financial analysts and of large businesses of seasonal work), gives the Balearics a rating 1.5% above the national average and Spain as a whole a new claim on a European championship - that of the miserabiliist league table.
The "les miserables" of Mallorca have come over all Morrissey on account of inflation and unemployment. They might brighten up a tad, as seasonal work prospects buck up, thanks to the droves from the reallocation of the north African tourism vote heading Mallorca's way this summer, but even this might be shortlived. Woe, woe and thrice woe, as Frankie Howerd's Lurcio once put it. Up "Pompas fúnebres". The funeral laments continue to drone because of the misericorde struck into the heart of long-term employment contracts.
Frankie Howerd's long-faced lugubriousness is the mask of gloom now on the countenances of the island's workers. Rather than being happy, happy, they worry, worry. They are preoccupied with their "preocupación". You can't really blame them, but some will. The some who would rather the workers were waving a Dave "happiness index" around like Doddy's tickling stick or were in fact still all Ken Dodds, bursting into a chorus of "Happiness". "What a great day for going up to General Franco and telling him he's a private. Tattyfalarious! Tattyfalarious!"
Being Europe's biggest miseries seems like a strange burden for the Spanish to carry. They've got the sun, the sea, the sangria. The SEATs. What is there not to be happy about? There must surely be parts of the European Union where one has the right to be miserable. I don't know, Lithuania perhaps. There again, the Lithuanians spent most of the last century under the yoke of authoritarianism. They must be pretty damn pleased nowadays. The Spanish only had to put up with 40 years, and they have the Med rather than the Baltic. There's no pleasing some people.
But back in the day, of course, there wasn't all the worry about unemployment, as it hardly existed. Even with the sun and the sea, that's life today. Y viva la vida España.
So you'd think that with all this misery prevailing, that one-time, probably mythical state of welcoming, friendly tourist-hugging would be far from the terraces and receptions of today's Mallorca. It is a charge that gets levelled. Last year, a bunch of tour operators pitched up in Alcúdia and said that more needed to be done in showing greater friendliness. Strange then, that a few days later a spot of press investigation found there wasn't any real need to worry. Friendliness and helpfulness were all around. Then a further few days later, research from the Universitat de les Illes Balears discovered that Mallorca was bettered only by the Caribbean (and ahead of the likes of Turkey, the Canaries, Greece) when it came to tourist satisfaction, an aspect of which was friendliness.
Misery there may be in Spain, and the people of the Balearics are only the sixth most miserable set of Spaniards, after all, but the welcome remains. Always trying to look on the bright side of life, and all that. A different matter might be whether the tourist has to endure some misery. "Airport, you've got a smiling face." Hmm, not if they're all out on strike it won't have.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Airport strikes' negotiations break down
Negotiations between the Spanish national airports authority AENA and the unions representing workers who might face job losses as a consequence of the planned partial privatisation of Spain's airports have broken down this evening without agreement. As things stand, therefore, the threat of strikes, starting on 20 April and lasting during the summer, remains. AENA has given the unions a proposal to study further. One of the main issues for the unions would appear to be the future management of Madrid and Barcelona airports.
MALLORCA TODAY - More air routes for Palma
Thirty-four new air routes between different Balearics airports and tourist market countries will be operating this summer. Many of these are with Russian airports, but five new British ones include connections between Palma and East Midlands, Glasgow and Oxford.
MALLORCA TODAY - No interest in buying Hotasa hotels
Leading hotel chains in Spain and Mallorca have been expressing no interest in acquiring the hotels of the Hotasa chain, including the three in Can Picafort, which have been put up for sale by the troubled Nueva Rumasa group.
MALLORCA TODAY - Further gas scam operation
The Balearics representative of a company described as a national one "dedicated to the installation and inspection of butane and propane supply" has been arrested by police on suspicion of having operated a scam which included threatening a female victim with being fined up to 1600 euros if she did not allow an inspection for which she then had to pay 400 euros. There are other allegations stemming from this police operation which appears to be a different one to that which was being reported last month (21 February, Guardia action against butane scam).
MALLORCA TODAY - Petrol price hits yet another high
The upward movement of the price of petrol in Spain continues. The new record high, the average price for a litre of petrol, now stands at 1.32 euros.
MALLORCA TODAY - Unions meet with AENA
Representatives of three unions - the CCOO, UGT and USO - are now meeting with AENA officials at the airport authority's headquarters. This is the first meeting between the two sides since the unions announced their intention to strike on 22 days through the tourism season. The minister for development (which includes transport), José Blanco, appears confident that the strikes will not go ahead.
The morning's meeting broke up without agreement, the unions expressing displeasure with the fact that there was no representative from the development ministry and that the president of AENA was present for only a quarter of an hour.
The parties are due to sit down again at 17.00 this afternoon.
The morning's meeting broke up without agreement, the unions expressing displeasure with the fact that there was no representative from the development ministry and that the president of AENA was present for only a quarter of an hour.
The parties are due to sit down again at 17.00 this afternoon.
MALLORCA TODAY - Bookings for the summer up by 50%
With the ITB travel fair in Berlin having started, Mallorca can celebrate the fact that German sales for the coming tourist season have rocketed - by 50%. Such an increase in sales has never been experienced before, suggesting that this year will genuinely be an historic summer for Mallorca's tourism.
MALLORCA TODAY - Alcúdia old people's home officially opened
The presidents of both the regional government and the Council of Mallorca attended yesterday the official opening of Alcúdia's new home and day centre for old people. Converted from the former Hospital d'Alcúdia at a cost of over one million euros, the home has space for up to 40 residents.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 10 March 2011
Sunny start, but with a good deal of quite grey cloud. At 08.30, Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 5.4 C; Pollensa, 8.9 C; Puerto Pollensa, 9.5 C. Maximums of up to 15 C forecast.
Another sunny day, but with temperatures remaining generally low, a high for the area today being Pollensa at 12.9 C.
Another sunny day, but with temperatures remaining generally low, a high for the area today being Pollensa at 12.9 C.
The Train Not Now Standing ...
Amongst the various measures announced by the Spanish Government to save energy and oil in light of the little local difficulty in north Africa is one to incentivise the use of public transport. An incentive, that of a 5% discount on local train journeys, does not, unless I'm very much mistaken, apply in Mallorca, as this reduction applies to services operated by Renfe, and Renfe doesn't run services in Mallorca.
Whatever incentive may or may not be flying around, therefore, would have to be one through SFM (Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca), the local operator. The problem is that SFM doesn't always do the greatest of jobs in incentivising travellers, because of its proneness to breaks in service. For ten months, following an accident near to Sineu station, the line between Sineu and Manacor had been closed. It re-opened on Monday of this week. Up and running once more, there have, however, been delays in the service.
The unfortunate accident at Sineu just added to the woes that SFM has had to contend with, such as a train catching fire and an attempt at sabotage on the line near Inca. There have also been other delays to services, the consequence of the process of electrification, which is due to be mostly finished by the end of this month. This upgrading of the network, welcome though it may be, disguises, though, the dashed ambitions of the current regional government.
When Francesc Antich re-assumed the presidency in 2007, one of his Big Things was that his new administration would usher in "the age of the train". With the words of Jimmy Savile not quite ringing in our ears, we waited on the platform of political promises for the arrival of trains to take us to Alcúdia and Cala Ratjada. And we're still waiting.
The two main rail projects were to have been the extension of the line from Sa Pobla to Alcúdia and the re-creation of the old line from Manacor to Artà and on to Cala Ratjada. Both have been controversial; one (the Alcúdia extension) has failed to emerge, the other has been dogged by problems, so much so that the Balearic parliament has now censured the transport minister, Gabriel Vicens (PSM - Mallorcan socialists), and called for a legal and technical audit of works.
Yet the Artà line had benefited from having additional funding, money that was finally diverted from the Alcúdia line, after months of bickering between Vicens's department and Alcúdia town hall as to the siting of the rail track and terminal had threatened a complete withdrawal of central government finance. The stand-off between the town hall and the department, regardless of any differing and legitimate logistical and environmental issues, was a nonsense of rivalry between Mallorca's two nationalist parties - the now defunct UM of the town hall and the PSM of the transport ministry. The result? No railway.
In spite of the odd accident, fire, delays, undelivered new lines and political handbags, the rail service in Mallorca is not bad. Like buses, the service is inexpensive. But, also like buses, it only does so much. Governments, such as the Spanish one, may talk blithely of incentives to change transport habits, but behaviour will not change when the infrastructure, in terms of network coverage, is lacking. And in Mallorca, there is a real issue in respect of where you put this infrastructure, as evidenced by the farce over the siting of the Alcúdia extension.
Another hope of government is that the public will eschew King Car in favour of cycling. Fine, but as pointed out the other day, there are issues of safety as well as facility where biking is concerned. The wish to create a new cycle lane across the northern tourism zone is fair enough, but how can it be done? In parts of the road that would accommodate this new lane, which would need to be much wider than is currently the case in order to confer genuine safety, there simply isn't the space.
Along one stretch, that from Puerto Alcúdia to Can Picafort, there has also been ambition for a tram service. And to one side of part of this stretch is a damn great, legally protected nature reserve. How could all the competing transport needs - cars, lorries, taxis, buses, bikes, trams, to say nothing of nutters on roller blades and tourist trikes - all be comfortably fitted in? They couldn't be, unless there was a complete change in attitude among the main road users - drivers of cars and commercial vehicles.
Mallorca has one of the highest levels of car ownership per head of population anywhere in Europe. The car is king. For a very good reason. Public transport services only run, or run with anything like reasonable frequency, where demand makes economic sense, which excludes a great deal of the island.
In urban areas, such as that of the northern conurbation on the bay of Alcúdia, roads devoted to multi-use, as envisaged with the addition of trams and new cycle lanes, could only hope to work were there a system under which priority was given to everything - and everyone (pedestrians, therefore) - other than cars and lorries; a system akin to that which exists in parts of the Netherlands. But in a land in which patience is not the greatest of virtues, you would have to wonder if such a system could ever function. And the same mentality would be unlikely to result in a major uptake in public transport services, incentives or no incentives.
Whatever central government might think, whatever the regional government might think (or have thought), Mallorca is not about to experience the age of the train anytime soon. Or the age of the bicycle.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Whatever incentive may or may not be flying around, therefore, would have to be one through SFM (Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca), the local operator. The problem is that SFM doesn't always do the greatest of jobs in incentivising travellers, because of its proneness to breaks in service. For ten months, following an accident near to Sineu station, the line between Sineu and Manacor had been closed. It re-opened on Monday of this week. Up and running once more, there have, however, been delays in the service.
The unfortunate accident at Sineu just added to the woes that SFM has had to contend with, such as a train catching fire and an attempt at sabotage on the line near Inca. There have also been other delays to services, the consequence of the process of electrification, which is due to be mostly finished by the end of this month. This upgrading of the network, welcome though it may be, disguises, though, the dashed ambitions of the current regional government.
When Francesc Antich re-assumed the presidency in 2007, one of his Big Things was that his new administration would usher in "the age of the train". With the words of Jimmy Savile not quite ringing in our ears, we waited on the platform of political promises for the arrival of trains to take us to Alcúdia and Cala Ratjada. And we're still waiting.
The two main rail projects were to have been the extension of the line from Sa Pobla to Alcúdia and the re-creation of the old line from Manacor to Artà and on to Cala Ratjada. Both have been controversial; one (the Alcúdia extension) has failed to emerge, the other has been dogged by problems, so much so that the Balearic parliament has now censured the transport minister, Gabriel Vicens (PSM - Mallorcan socialists), and called for a legal and technical audit of works.
Yet the Artà line had benefited from having additional funding, money that was finally diverted from the Alcúdia line, after months of bickering between Vicens's department and Alcúdia town hall as to the siting of the rail track and terminal had threatened a complete withdrawal of central government finance. The stand-off between the town hall and the department, regardless of any differing and legitimate logistical and environmental issues, was a nonsense of rivalry between Mallorca's two nationalist parties - the now defunct UM of the town hall and the PSM of the transport ministry. The result? No railway.
In spite of the odd accident, fire, delays, undelivered new lines and political handbags, the rail service in Mallorca is not bad. Like buses, the service is inexpensive. But, also like buses, it only does so much. Governments, such as the Spanish one, may talk blithely of incentives to change transport habits, but behaviour will not change when the infrastructure, in terms of network coverage, is lacking. And in Mallorca, there is a real issue in respect of where you put this infrastructure, as evidenced by the farce over the siting of the Alcúdia extension.
Another hope of government is that the public will eschew King Car in favour of cycling. Fine, but as pointed out the other day, there are issues of safety as well as facility where biking is concerned. The wish to create a new cycle lane across the northern tourism zone is fair enough, but how can it be done? In parts of the road that would accommodate this new lane, which would need to be much wider than is currently the case in order to confer genuine safety, there simply isn't the space.
Along one stretch, that from Puerto Alcúdia to Can Picafort, there has also been ambition for a tram service. And to one side of part of this stretch is a damn great, legally protected nature reserve. How could all the competing transport needs - cars, lorries, taxis, buses, bikes, trams, to say nothing of nutters on roller blades and tourist trikes - all be comfortably fitted in? They couldn't be, unless there was a complete change in attitude among the main road users - drivers of cars and commercial vehicles.
Mallorca has one of the highest levels of car ownership per head of population anywhere in Europe. The car is king. For a very good reason. Public transport services only run, or run with anything like reasonable frequency, where demand makes economic sense, which excludes a great deal of the island.
In urban areas, such as that of the northern conurbation on the bay of Alcúdia, roads devoted to multi-use, as envisaged with the addition of trams and new cycle lanes, could only hope to work were there a system under which priority was given to everything - and everyone (pedestrians, therefore) - other than cars and lorries; a system akin to that which exists in parts of the Netherlands. But in a land in which patience is not the greatest of virtues, you would have to wonder if such a system could ever function. And the same mentality would be unlikely to result in a major uptake in public transport services, incentives or no incentives.
Whatever central government might think, whatever the regional government might think (or have thought), Mallorca is not about to experience the age of the train anytime soon. Or the age of the bicycle.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Senate against oil exploration
The upper house of the Spanish parliament has revoked the central government's decree to authorise oil exploration that would bring prospecting close to the shores of the Balearics. Opposition to the plan for exploration has been considerable, on account of perceived threats to the environment and to tourism.
MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa animal refuge
Pollensa town hall is not renewing its agreement with the animal refuge in Pollensa whereby it pays 60,000 euros per annum for the collection and sheltering of abandoned animals. The sheltering service will be put out to public tender, though the collection will not be as it is a smaller contract.
MALLORCA TODAY - Hotetur bankruptcy petition
It has emerged that on 11 February, Hotetur, the hotel chain to which Bellevue and Lagomonte in Puerto Alcúdia belong, filed for bankruptcy with a Palma court that has yet to judge the admissibility of the petition. Hotetur was acquired from Grupo Marsans by the investment company Posibilitum in June last year.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 9 March 2011
Grey start to the day. Mix of heavy and light clouds. Yesterday's winds have generally dropped, though occasional gusts to 25 kph. At 09.00, Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 11.4 C; Pollensa, 10.0 C; Puerto Pollensa, 12.0 C.
Sun from around midday, but temperatures have struggled, the high anywhere in the Alcúdia and Pollensa area today - to 17.00 - being 12.8 C in Alcúdia/Playa de Muro.
Sun from around midday, but temperatures have struggled, the high anywhere in the Alcúdia and Pollensa area today - to 17.00 - being 12.8 C in Alcúdia/Playa de Muro.
The Bars' Big Day Off
What on earth is everyone going to do? A day with no bars or restaurants. We'll all have to do some work for once. And re-arrange the location for all our meetings. Where? Nary a café nor bar with its doors open, we'll have to use things like offices. We'll have to make our own coffee and, so, rather than complaining about the cost of a café's cortado, we'll moan about the price of a packet of molido from the supermarket. Life will simply be unbearable.
The bars and restaurants of the Balearics are planning on taking a day off. All of them. Ha-ha-ha. As if. One day in the not-too-distant future, in an act of protest against the smoking ban, the coffee machines will lie idle, the tapas will be taped up and the cañas will be canned.
One supposes that the bar owners will hope that this decaffeinated day will prompt an uprising of the dislocated populace, wandering aimlessly like the lost tribes of Israel in vain search of a welcoming terrace. Government buildings will be stormed. Riots will ensue. "We need our coffee!" will shout the dispossessed. Spain's "coffee revolution" will occur.
Will it? Hardly. First problem is going to be getting all bars and restaurants to agree as to the day. What about a Sunday? You must be joking. Busiest day of the week. Erm, so how about a Tuesday? Are you kidding? It's market day in ... (add as applicable). Tell you what. A Saturday. 9 April. You what? It's the first day of the boat fair in Puerto Alcúdia.
The bar and restaurant owners aren't totally stupid, unlike the airport workers. They intend to have their day of protest before the tourism season kicks in. Of course they will. They're not going to close once the punters start streaming in from the easyJets.
But getting agreement or universal support for a day's closure sounds as unlikely as the local population announcing a collective abstinence from coffee, regardless of whether it's inspired by bar closure or not. There's one very good reason why it will be hard to agree to. Self-interest. Takings may, allegedly, be down by 20, 30, 40%, but mass action by a suddenly co-operative union of bar and restaurant owners would reverse the tradition of looking after number one. If this day does go ahead and is a success, I'll eat my coffee machine.
This is not the first time that a protest of this sort has been considered, albeit that previously it was for an altogether different reason. In Alcúdia, rather than a pointless street demo, the idea was floated of a mass closure - during the tourist season - as a way of voicing discontent with the effects of all-inclusives.
Damaging though this might have been, in various ways, it would have been intended to show the damaging, long-term impact of all-inclusives - a resort with no bars or restaurants open, because they no longer have the business. Over-dramatic perhaps, but, as demonstrations go, it would have been powerful. But it would never have happened and never will happen. It's all down to self-interest.
If the bar and restaurant owners' day of inaction does get agreed to, what would happen were some bars to ignore it? Are there going to be pickets flying around, trying to prevent customers getting in?
Assuming that the bars and restaurants are prepared to forego a day's business, what about effects to other businesses? The hard-pressed ensaïmada industry, sales already generally down, will suffer a day's loss of fresh lard being scoffed. Newspaper publishers will also suffer, because there will be no bars to buy their papers for the clientele to read, though they might also benefit as said clientele would have to actually fork out for a paper for once.
There would be ripples in the wider economy from a bar's day of inaction, but these ripples would be nothing compared with the floods that might occur. No bar open. Where the heck do you go for a pee?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The bars and restaurants of the Balearics are planning on taking a day off. All of them. Ha-ha-ha. As if. One day in the not-too-distant future, in an act of protest against the smoking ban, the coffee machines will lie idle, the tapas will be taped up and the cañas will be canned.
One supposes that the bar owners will hope that this decaffeinated day will prompt an uprising of the dislocated populace, wandering aimlessly like the lost tribes of Israel in vain search of a welcoming terrace. Government buildings will be stormed. Riots will ensue. "We need our coffee!" will shout the dispossessed. Spain's "coffee revolution" will occur.
Will it? Hardly. First problem is going to be getting all bars and restaurants to agree as to the day. What about a Sunday? You must be joking. Busiest day of the week. Erm, so how about a Tuesday? Are you kidding? It's market day in ... (add as applicable). Tell you what. A Saturday. 9 April. You what? It's the first day of the boat fair in Puerto Alcúdia.
The bar and restaurant owners aren't totally stupid, unlike the airport workers. They intend to have their day of protest before the tourism season kicks in. Of course they will. They're not going to close once the punters start streaming in from the easyJets.
But getting agreement or universal support for a day's closure sounds as unlikely as the local population announcing a collective abstinence from coffee, regardless of whether it's inspired by bar closure or not. There's one very good reason why it will be hard to agree to. Self-interest. Takings may, allegedly, be down by 20, 30, 40%, but mass action by a suddenly co-operative union of bar and restaurant owners would reverse the tradition of looking after number one. If this day does go ahead and is a success, I'll eat my coffee machine.
This is not the first time that a protest of this sort has been considered, albeit that previously it was for an altogether different reason. In Alcúdia, rather than a pointless street demo, the idea was floated of a mass closure - during the tourist season - as a way of voicing discontent with the effects of all-inclusives.
Damaging though this might have been, in various ways, it would have been intended to show the damaging, long-term impact of all-inclusives - a resort with no bars or restaurants open, because they no longer have the business. Over-dramatic perhaps, but, as demonstrations go, it would have been powerful. But it would never have happened and never will happen. It's all down to self-interest.
If the bar and restaurant owners' day of inaction does get agreed to, what would happen were some bars to ignore it? Are there going to be pickets flying around, trying to prevent customers getting in?
Assuming that the bars and restaurants are prepared to forego a day's business, what about effects to other businesses? The hard-pressed ensaïmada industry, sales already generally down, will suffer a day's loss of fresh lard being scoffed. Newspaper publishers will also suffer, because there will be no bars to buy their papers for the clientele to read, though they might also benefit as said clientele would have to actually fork out for a paper for once.
There would be ripples in the wider economy from a bar's day of inaction, but these ripples would be nothing compared with the floods that might occur. No bar open. Where the heck do you go for a pee?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - 20% rise in Balearics bookings this summer
The tourism ministry has stated that the level of bookings for the coming season from the main tourism markets, primarily the UK and Germany, equates to a 20% increase over 2010.
MALLORCA TODAY - Airport workers announce 22 days of strikes
The airport-workers' unions have announced that, in protest against the part privatisation of the AENA airports authority, they plan to strike on 22 days. These are 20, 21, 24, 25 and 30 April; 2, 14, 15, 19 and 20 May; 13, 23 and 30 June; 1, 2, 3, 4, 15 and 31 July; 1, 15 and 31 August. AENA is maintaining negotiations with the unions, and a meeting is planned to take place this coming Thursday.
MALLORCA TODAY - Laudrup for Hamburg?
Real Mallorca's coach, the Dane Michael Laudrup, would appear to be being lined up to take over at German Bundesliga club Hamburg at the end of the season. His fellow countryman, Frank Arnesen (formerly director of football at Spurs and sporting director at Chelsea), has signed as Hamburg's general manager, fuelling the rumour that Laudrup will join him.
MALLORCA TODAY - Doctor gets 77 years for sexual abuse - or does he?
An ear, nose and throat specialist was sentenced yesterday in Palma to 77 years (and four months) for various sexual offences on female patients at a clinic in Palma, which were committed between 2004 and 2008. The doctor will, however, spend a maximum of four years in prison, as the most he is obliged to serve is three times the tariff for the most serious of the offences he committed, which is one year and four months. The 77 years refer to the total number of offences, but the headlines, like the one here, pick up on the 77, when it is in fact completely irrelevant.
MALLORCA TODAY - Bars and restaurants to close in smoking ban protest
With losses of up to 40% since the introduction of the smoking ban on 2 January, bars and restaurants in the Balearics have decided to take action to attempt to have the ban modified. One measure, to occur within the next couple of months but before the start of the tourist season, is that all bars and restaurants will close for a day. Another is that cigarette machines will be switched off. The restaurant association within the Balearics business confederation plans to meet with political parties in order to seek changes to the tobacco law.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 8 March 2011
Largely cloudy, but with bright spells. Wind picking up to 30-plus kph. At 08.30, Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 13.3 C; Pollensa, 11.6 C; Puerto Pollensa, 13.7 C.
A blustery, mostly cloudy day has seen temperatures fall in the afternoon from a daytime high in the area of 13.7 C at midday in Alcúdia/Playa de Muro. As of 17.30, the best local temperature is 13.1 C in Puerto Pollensa.
A blustery, mostly cloudy day has seen temperatures fall in the afternoon from a daytime high in the area of 13.7 C at midday in Alcúdia/Playa de Muro. As of 17.30, the best local temperature is 13.1 C in Puerto Pollensa.
Cyclomania: Mallorca and cycling tourism
I love cyclists. I love their tap-dancing sounds on solid supermarket floors. I love their wailing to each other as they race along the carreteras. I love the roads being alive with the sound of cycling whoosh and the shouts of greeting they exchange with white-van men. I want to stroke their spokes and handlebars. I want to hug each and every one of them as I drive past them. Each and every one of the 90,000 of them.
I haven't always loved cyclists. I have been saloon-car Scrooge to toe-clipping and a-cloppetying Tiny Tims. But I have been visited by the ghosts of cycling past, present and future. I have seen the error of my ways.
It started last year with my being upbraided for the annual ritual that coincides with the beginning of the cycling season, i.e. the ritual of taking the rise. Then something more personal happened. Two old friends, one from schooldays, one from university. They came out. It was a surprise, but these are liberated times. One, to whom I spoke recently for the first time in years, confessed to being a "mad road biker". "A mad road biker?" I enquired. Yes, mad. Not mad as in being sectioned or maniac mad, but mad keen. Old friendships can mean much when bringing on a conversion; that with the other friend was so intimate, he once head-butted me while doing a Denis Law impression.
The mad road biker is so mad keen he began to ask about cycling in Mallorca. One day, he might become one of the thousands of cyclists on the island's roads in late winter and early spring. Ninety thousand of them, the number expected between March and mid-May this year.
Ninety thousand isn't a huge number. If you take the total of the island's annual tourist intake to be around nine million, cyclists amount to a mere one per cent. But it's something, when set against the general absence of tourists in the off-season.
Ah yes but, goes the cyclophobe opposition; 90,000 not spending anything, to say nothing of them getting in the way on the roads. There's an element of truth in the non-spending argument, but only an element. A drink here or there at a bar may not amount to a great deal, but you try hacking up the side of the Puig Major with a three-course lunch washed down with a bottle of red rumbling and sloshing around inside you. It's the après-cycle when the cyclist comes into his or her consumption own. I've seen them. Seen them individually demolishing the side of a cow. Were Erdinger to have its own brewery in places like Playa de Muro, then it would be drunk dry daily.
While there is a myth that cyclists keep their cash firmly in their panniers - the director of Mallorca's tourism development says they actually spend 15% more than your average tourist - there is also a myth that they are all German and therefore only quaffing "weizen". It seems as though they are all German, all "heil", hale and hearty, but they are not. It's because some are Swiss or Austrian. The country that apparently dispatches the greatest number of cycling tourists is the UK. 30%. A statistic I find hard to believe, given the lack of UK flights by comparison with those from Germany. But we will, I suppose, have to take the tourism ministry at its word and accept that the 30% is a reflection of the fact that suddenly cycling has become a sport that the Brits are any good at.
The 90,000 on two wheels have to be considered in the wider context of activity tourism. There are, it would appear, 150,000 hikers tramping across Mallorca on an annual basis as well as 100,000 golfers. Both figures seem surprisingly high, but there again, you're less aware of golfers than you are of cyclists. Golfers don't, as a rule, launch a tee shot down a main road.
Put these numbers together and the level of activity tourism as a whole starts to sound a bit more respectable. It's still not huge, but the 3.8% of tourism that the three groups together represent is 3.8% that might not otherwise be in Mallorca, and it is a percentage that is rising year in year out.
With an eye on increasing the number of cycling tourists, plans are afoot to improve both bike lanes and safety. Three cyclists were killed in Mallorca in 2010, the same number as in 2009. Some roads have a particularly bad reputation for being unsafe, such as that between Pollensa and Campanet, one route in the north of the island, the area most favoured by cyclists. There is a proposal, coming from the Alcúdia and Can Picafort hotel association, of revisiting the idea of creating a special bike lane that would run between Puerto Pollensa and Artà, across more or less the whole of the northern tourist zone in other words. Good. They should do all of this.
I don't expect a wholesale conversion of the island's cyclophobes into born-again cyclophiles. Loving cyclists may be stretching things, but learning to live with them isn't. Even if they do sound daft when they're clomping around a supermarket.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
I haven't always loved cyclists. I have been saloon-car Scrooge to toe-clipping and a-cloppetying Tiny Tims. But I have been visited by the ghosts of cycling past, present and future. I have seen the error of my ways.
It started last year with my being upbraided for the annual ritual that coincides with the beginning of the cycling season, i.e. the ritual of taking the rise. Then something more personal happened. Two old friends, one from schooldays, one from university. They came out. It was a surprise, but these are liberated times. One, to whom I spoke recently for the first time in years, confessed to being a "mad road biker". "A mad road biker?" I enquired. Yes, mad. Not mad as in being sectioned or maniac mad, but mad keen. Old friendships can mean much when bringing on a conversion; that with the other friend was so intimate, he once head-butted me while doing a Denis Law impression.
The mad road biker is so mad keen he began to ask about cycling in Mallorca. One day, he might become one of the thousands of cyclists on the island's roads in late winter and early spring. Ninety thousand of them, the number expected between March and mid-May this year.
Ninety thousand isn't a huge number. If you take the total of the island's annual tourist intake to be around nine million, cyclists amount to a mere one per cent. But it's something, when set against the general absence of tourists in the off-season.
Ah yes but, goes the cyclophobe opposition; 90,000 not spending anything, to say nothing of them getting in the way on the roads. There's an element of truth in the non-spending argument, but only an element. A drink here or there at a bar may not amount to a great deal, but you try hacking up the side of the Puig Major with a three-course lunch washed down with a bottle of red rumbling and sloshing around inside you. It's the après-cycle when the cyclist comes into his or her consumption own. I've seen them. Seen them individually demolishing the side of a cow. Were Erdinger to have its own brewery in places like Playa de Muro, then it would be drunk dry daily.
While there is a myth that cyclists keep their cash firmly in their panniers - the director of Mallorca's tourism development says they actually spend 15% more than your average tourist - there is also a myth that they are all German and therefore only quaffing "weizen". It seems as though they are all German, all "heil", hale and hearty, but they are not. It's because some are Swiss or Austrian. The country that apparently dispatches the greatest number of cycling tourists is the UK. 30%. A statistic I find hard to believe, given the lack of UK flights by comparison with those from Germany. But we will, I suppose, have to take the tourism ministry at its word and accept that the 30% is a reflection of the fact that suddenly cycling has become a sport that the Brits are any good at.
The 90,000 on two wheels have to be considered in the wider context of activity tourism. There are, it would appear, 150,000 hikers tramping across Mallorca on an annual basis as well as 100,000 golfers. Both figures seem surprisingly high, but there again, you're less aware of golfers than you are of cyclists. Golfers don't, as a rule, launch a tee shot down a main road.
Put these numbers together and the level of activity tourism as a whole starts to sound a bit more respectable. It's still not huge, but the 3.8% of tourism that the three groups together represent is 3.8% that might not otherwise be in Mallorca, and it is a percentage that is rising year in year out.
With an eye on increasing the number of cycling tourists, plans are afoot to improve both bike lanes and safety. Three cyclists were killed in Mallorca in 2010, the same number as in 2009. Some roads have a particularly bad reputation for being unsafe, such as that between Pollensa and Campanet, one route in the north of the island, the area most favoured by cyclists. There is a proposal, coming from the Alcúdia and Can Picafort hotel association, of revisiting the idea of creating a special bike lane that would run between Puerto Pollensa and Artà, across more or less the whole of the northern tourist zone in other words. Good. They should do all of this.
I don't expect a wholesale conversion of the island's cyclophobes into born-again cyclophiles. Loving cyclists may be stretching things, but learning to live with them isn't. Even if they do sound daft when they're clomping around a supermarket.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, March 07, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa worst for coastal irregularities
The Costas Authority took action in 2010 against 356 various breaches of coastal regulations in the Balearics. These related to illegal building, businesses which had exceeded areas which they were permitted to develop, and illegal moorings. It is the latter of these which help explain why Pollensa was the worst-offending municipality in Mallorca. A campaign against such moorings (generally speaking, boats anchored where they shouldn't have been and without permission) was mounted last summer in Puerto Pollensa and elsewhere in Mallorca.
MALLORCA TODAY - Real estate activity in Balearics increased in 2010
The Spanish Government has released figures showing the levels of buying and selling transactions in the real estate market during 2010 which reveal that the Balearics experienced growth of 14.5%, the fourth best among the Spanish regions and autonomous cities.
MALLORCA TODAY - Further revision to Balearics' growth forecast
Finance minister Carles Manera, responding to last week's independent forecast of lower economic growth in the Balearics this year than that of Manera's regional government, has today increased the government's forecast to as high as 1.3%. The cause for much of this optimism lies with the positive predictions for this summer's tourism as well as with the fact, as pointed out on this blog last week, that the Balearics were unique in being the only region of Spain to show a fall in unemployment in February.
MALLORCA TODAY - Levels of cycling tourism in Mallorca
From March to the middle of May, the number of cycling tourists expected to visit Mallorca will be around 90,000 in total, roughly one per cent of the total number of tourists that the island receives in a year. Mainly located in Alcúdia and Pollensa and in Playa de Palma, 30% of this number comprises British cyclists.
MALLORCA TODAY - Speed limit in force
The new speed limit of 110 kph on motorways was introduced at 6am this morning. One aspect of this is the operation of speed cameras, assuming they are operable. The cameras, centrally controlled by computer, have a margin of error of 10%, which means that they kick in at 120 kph, the previous speed limit.
MALLORCA TODAY - Over two-thirds of hotels in Mallorca open for Easter
According to the hoteliers' federation, almost 69% of hotels, equivalent to 122,000 beds, will be open at Easter. In March, some 45% are open.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 7 March 2011
Chilly feel to the morning, but clear skies and sunny. At 09.00, Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 6.1 C; Pollensa, 12.1 C; Puerto Pollensa, 10.8 C.
Warm sunshine all day. Today's highs to 17.00: 14.7 C, Alcúdia/Playa de Muro and Puerto Pollensa.
Warm sunshine all day. Today's highs to 17.00: 14.7 C, Alcúdia/Playa de Muro and Puerto Pollensa.
Roll Out The Barrel: Oil and airport strikes
Just when you thought that all those nice Arab sorts, running around causing a spot of bother, were helpfully attempting to pack Mallorca with wall-to-wall tourists, along come ... . Well, along come some other Arab sorts, those standing smugly in their sunglasses in front of some giant desert derricks. And, just to make things really ducky, along also come some airport-worker sorts.
As one door opens, so several close. Airlines, motorists, bus operators, taxi-drivers; all held over an oil barrel. Airport workers, rather than rolling out the barrel in greeting the Easter holidaymaker, threaten anything other than a barrel of fun. The gang's all there, waiting to get all aboard to jet off to sunny Spain, but rather than being able to enjoy the oom-pa-pa of an Arenal or to throw their cares away in Alcúdia, they end up sleeping on a bum- and back-breaking plastic bucket of an airport-lounge seat.
You knew that something had to go wrong. All we need is for Iceland to get in on the act again. It was all looking so good, all a bit too good. It couldn't last, and it hasn't.
Thomas Cook, Air Berlin, Air Europa and British Airways all started the ball rolling. Thomson and First Choice have followed. A family of four now faces forking out an extra 60 quid for its flights to Palma, assuming they can get on a plane. The Spanish airport workers intend to turn what is known as "jueves santo" (holy Thursday) into bloody Thursday, followed by Bad Friday, as airplanes will all be in the wrong places. Bloody airport workers, moan the families of four, already a couple of ponies and a brace of Godivas more out of pocket, having to hand over excessive cash in a refugee-camp-style departures lounge, while they wait for the workers to clock back in.
The airport workers plan a strike because they're unhappy about proposals for the part privatisation of AENA, the national airports authority. AENA reckons the strike won't happen, but then it probably would reckon this. Even if the strike were not to take place at Easter, the brothers are holding their sword of Damocles over the rest of the tourism season. They haven't quite got the Spanish Government over a barrel, but they're readying their staves and metal hoops just in case.
The uncertainty about oil supply is proving to be even less a barrel of laughs than the airport workers walking out. While the airlines are slapping on surcharges left, right and centre, the local buses and taxi-drivers have got their own worries. The price of petrol and diesel is now at a record high in Spain, so all those transfers and excursions and cabs back to the hotel after a night on the razz might also start attracting some extra charge.
The bus operators, and these include those for public transport, are hoping that they can prise a subsidy out of the government and create a so-called "professional" fuel price, as opposed to an unprofessional one for the suckers who have to drive cars. It might help them, the bus operators, out, and it might help in preventing surcharges, but at the same time as the government is hoping to claw back God knows how many millions of euros by reducing the motorway speed limit, it would be handing it out again to the coach firm transferring tourists to and from the airport.
And with the rise in the price of petrol, might we also anticipate a new addition to the moaning car-hire noises? "I've had to pay 700 euros for a tatty old Focus and now they expect me to pay 1.3 euros a litre as well. The authorities must do something." If it's any consolation, petrol in Spain is still cheaper than in many other European countries. But it won't be a consolation. It'll just be another stick with which to beat the local tourism industry.
There is, though, some good news. The fifteen quid per person Thomson surcharge is a lot less than that for long-haul and it is also less than the surcharge for travelling to Greece and Turkey. And Egypt. "Ha-ha-heh-ha-ha, you're more expensive." "And you started it." Which they did, give or take the odd Tunisia. And it was all really, really nice of them to have done so. We could have settled back and contemplated a fine summer, tourism money rolling in, staring out at a serene, calm sea. Until someone woke us from the dream and there was a ruddy great oil slick washing over us.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
As one door opens, so several close. Airlines, motorists, bus operators, taxi-drivers; all held over an oil barrel. Airport workers, rather than rolling out the barrel in greeting the Easter holidaymaker, threaten anything other than a barrel of fun. The gang's all there, waiting to get all aboard to jet off to sunny Spain, but rather than being able to enjoy the oom-pa-pa of an Arenal or to throw their cares away in Alcúdia, they end up sleeping on a bum- and back-breaking plastic bucket of an airport-lounge seat.
You knew that something had to go wrong. All we need is for Iceland to get in on the act again. It was all looking so good, all a bit too good. It couldn't last, and it hasn't.
Thomas Cook, Air Berlin, Air Europa and British Airways all started the ball rolling. Thomson and First Choice have followed. A family of four now faces forking out an extra 60 quid for its flights to Palma, assuming they can get on a plane. The Spanish airport workers intend to turn what is known as "jueves santo" (holy Thursday) into bloody Thursday, followed by Bad Friday, as airplanes will all be in the wrong places. Bloody airport workers, moan the families of four, already a couple of ponies and a brace of Godivas more out of pocket, having to hand over excessive cash in a refugee-camp-style departures lounge, while they wait for the workers to clock back in.
The airport workers plan a strike because they're unhappy about proposals for the part privatisation of AENA, the national airports authority. AENA reckons the strike won't happen, but then it probably would reckon this. Even if the strike were not to take place at Easter, the brothers are holding their sword of Damocles over the rest of the tourism season. They haven't quite got the Spanish Government over a barrel, but they're readying their staves and metal hoops just in case.
The uncertainty about oil supply is proving to be even less a barrel of laughs than the airport workers walking out. While the airlines are slapping on surcharges left, right and centre, the local buses and taxi-drivers have got their own worries. The price of petrol and diesel is now at a record high in Spain, so all those transfers and excursions and cabs back to the hotel after a night on the razz might also start attracting some extra charge.
The bus operators, and these include those for public transport, are hoping that they can prise a subsidy out of the government and create a so-called "professional" fuel price, as opposed to an unprofessional one for the suckers who have to drive cars. It might help them, the bus operators, out, and it might help in preventing surcharges, but at the same time as the government is hoping to claw back God knows how many millions of euros by reducing the motorway speed limit, it would be handing it out again to the coach firm transferring tourists to and from the airport.
And with the rise in the price of petrol, might we also anticipate a new addition to the moaning car-hire noises? "I've had to pay 700 euros for a tatty old Focus and now they expect me to pay 1.3 euros a litre as well. The authorities must do something." If it's any consolation, petrol in Spain is still cheaper than in many other European countries. But it won't be a consolation. It'll just be another stick with which to beat the local tourism industry.
There is, though, some good news. The fifteen quid per person Thomson surcharge is a lot less than that for long-haul and it is also less than the surcharge for travelling to Greece and Turkey. And Egypt. "Ha-ha-heh-ha-ha, you're more expensive." "And you started it." Which they did, give or take the odd Tunisia. And it was all really, really nice of them to have done so. We could have settled back and contemplated a fine summer, tourism money rolling in, staring out at a serene, calm sea. Until someone woke us from the dream and there was a ruddy great oil slick washing over us.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Fines for speeding in Spain
With the introduction from tomorrow (7 March) of the new motorway speed limit, penalties for speeding have been adjusted. For driving between 111 and 140 kph, there will be a fine of 100 euros. Between 141 and 160 kph, the fine rises to 300 euros plus, if the speed is more than 151 kph, a loss of two points on the driving licence. The fines increase to 600 euros for going over 191 kph. But such excessive speeds can also attract potentially more serious sanctions.
MALLORCA TODAY - Taxis, buses and airlines look at increasing their prices
With the rising cost of oil, transport providers in Mallorca are considering ways of dealing with this increase. While airlines such as Air Berlin and Air Europa, facing a 30% rise in costs, have already decided to place a surcharge on the price of a ticket, local transport operators are hoping to be able to avoid having to pass on the increase by pressing for a subsidised "professional" petrol/diesel tariff. Public transport buses and also the coach operators for transfers and excursions face having to absorb or pass on a 15% rise.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 6 March 2011
A crisp and bright morning with temperatures expected to rise to around 14 C. At 07.30, the local area high temperature is 7.3 C.
And maximums for today to 17.00 on what has been a fine and sunny day: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 14.7 C; Pollensa, 14.8 C; Puerto Pollensa, 14.2 C.
And maximums for today to 17.00 on what has been a fine and sunny day: Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 14.7 C; Pollensa, 14.8 C; Puerto Pollensa, 14.2 C.
Out Of Proportion: A week in Mallorcan politics
Even by Mallorca's bizarre standards, last week was a decidedly odd one for the island's political classes. One party changes its name, one politico slams judges and prosecutors for getting above their station, and another defends the previously indefensible.
The Unió Mallorquina is dead. Long live the Convergència per les Illes Balears. How are we now supposed to anglicise the party? No more is it "unionist". Is it convergenist, whatever this might mean? The new party has swiftly adopted an abbreviation - CxI - which is even more obscure, except for an "x" marking the spot of where the old UM body is buried.
Ex-UM mayors and councillors have been similarly swift in discarding their past, rushing to converge on the Convergència, every good man and not so good man coming to the aid of the new party. As if anyone will buy it. They're dead men walking towards the cliff's edge of falling into oblivion, and the new party as a whole might yet tumble with them if a judge's demand for a 1.6 million euros bail, levelled against the UM, is upheld. What a political party is supposed to post bail for is beyond me. You can't exactly bang up a party as such. Or maybe you can. The alacrity with which the UM transmogrified into CxI might have been expedient in the hope that the UM would no longer be liable. For whatever it is supposed to be liable.
The judges and the prosecutors are having a jolly old time of it. The UM, even in death, is the gift that keeps on giving and keeps on allowing the legal system to throw out wild statements about bail amounts and demands for time in clink. While politicians, accused of getting up to their usual shenanigans, are unseemly, so also is the publicity blaring of the m'learned-friends institution. A million euros bail here, a twenty-year stretch there. Do I hear a million and a half or thirty years? It's the prosecutors' public auctions for guilt not yet proven. And the press, of course, love it. Where would it be in Mallorca without its outlandish headlines of how much and how long?
Into all this has emerged the odd figure of Ramón Socias. Odd, because he pops up now and then, disappears for a while and then re-appears, offering some grand insight into the less-than-healthy state of Balearics' political or social life. The central government's delegate for the islands, he's a bit like the Governor-General of Australia. You don't really know what the point of him is, but he's there, nevertheless.
Or perhaps he's like an honorary head of state, were the Balearics to be a state, which they most certainly are not, as José María Aznar would fervently insist. Though Francesc Antich is "president", in the same way that Zapatero is "president", neither can, in strict constitutional terms, be thus. You don't get presidents in monarchical democracies, which would mean that Socias is a sort of über-non-president.
Whatever Socias is, he gave the judges a ticking off for acting in a "disproportionate" fashion in hounding the poor former UM-ists who have allegedly been siphoning off Palma town hall moolah for some political advantage. Cue all manner of indignation. Unseemly the process of arrest and publicity may be, but there is also meant to be such a thing as the independence of the judiciary from the executive. Socias had a point, but whether he was wise to express it is another matter, and the head of the judges' deanery was one who did think it unwise. On balance though, Socias's intervention might yet be seen to be wise, if it cuts out what is the real disproportionality, namely the media-manipulated fandango of the prosecutors' song and dance.
While Socias, by implication, some might suggest, appeared to side with the allegedly corrupt, the Partido Popular's leader, José Ramón Bauzá, entered the fray to seemingly support former president Jaume Matas. He praised the investments of the ex-PP president and reckoned that court cases involving him were "for show". So, do we now have to believe that Mallorca is engaged in Stalinist-style show trials? Maybe we do. Bauzá's intervention was doubly peculiar, given the brownie points he has won for not allowing candidature of any politico implicated in corruption and his avowal of legal reform to tighten the noose around future corruption.
One might have thought it wiser for Bauzá to keep quiet where Matas was concerned, especially as Jaume has to try and scrape together the odd million or so in order to stay out of nick. Again. Another headlining bail demand, this time for his nights at the opera building that didn't get built. Disproportionate? All for show? Maybe Bauzá should have a word with Socias, and together they both keep mum. Or perhaps he should suggest that Matas changes his name.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The Unió Mallorquina is dead. Long live the Convergència per les Illes Balears. How are we now supposed to anglicise the party? No more is it "unionist". Is it convergenist, whatever this might mean? The new party has swiftly adopted an abbreviation - CxI - which is even more obscure, except for an "x" marking the spot of where the old UM body is buried.
Ex-UM mayors and councillors have been similarly swift in discarding their past, rushing to converge on the Convergència, every good man and not so good man coming to the aid of the new party. As if anyone will buy it. They're dead men walking towards the cliff's edge of falling into oblivion, and the new party as a whole might yet tumble with them if a judge's demand for a 1.6 million euros bail, levelled against the UM, is upheld. What a political party is supposed to post bail for is beyond me. You can't exactly bang up a party as such. Or maybe you can. The alacrity with which the UM transmogrified into CxI might have been expedient in the hope that the UM would no longer be liable. For whatever it is supposed to be liable.
The judges and the prosecutors are having a jolly old time of it. The UM, even in death, is the gift that keeps on giving and keeps on allowing the legal system to throw out wild statements about bail amounts and demands for time in clink. While politicians, accused of getting up to their usual shenanigans, are unseemly, so also is the publicity blaring of the m'learned-friends institution. A million euros bail here, a twenty-year stretch there. Do I hear a million and a half or thirty years? It's the prosecutors' public auctions for guilt not yet proven. And the press, of course, love it. Where would it be in Mallorca without its outlandish headlines of how much and how long?
Into all this has emerged the odd figure of Ramón Socias. Odd, because he pops up now and then, disappears for a while and then re-appears, offering some grand insight into the less-than-healthy state of Balearics' political or social life. The central government's delegate for the islands, he's a bit like the Governor-General of Australia. You don't really know what the point of him is, but he's there, nevertheless.
Or perhaps he's like an honorary head of state, were the Balearics to be a state, which they most certainly are not, as José María Aznar would fervently insist. Though Francesc Antich is "president", in the same way that Zapatero is "president", neither can, in strict constitutional terms, be thus. You don't get presidents in monarchical democracies, which would mean that Socias is a sort of über-non-president.
Whatever Socias is, he gave the judges a ticking off for acting in a "disproportionate" fashion in hounding the poor former UM-ists who have allegedly been siphoning off Palma town hall moolah for some political advantage. Cue all manner of indignation. Unseemly the process of arrest and publicity may be, but there is also meant to be such a thing as the independence of the judiciary from the executive. Socias had a point, but whether he was wise to express it is another matter, and the head of the judges' deanery was one who did think it unwise. On balance though, Socias's intervention might yet be seen to be wise, if it cuts out what is the real disproportionality, namely the media-manipulated fandango of the prosecutors' song and dance.
While Socias, by implication, some might suggest, appeared to side with the allegedly corrupt, the Partido Popular's leader, José Ramón Bauzá, entered the fray to seemingly support former president Jaume Matas. He praised the investments of the ex-PP president and reckoned that court cases involving him were "for show". So, do we now have to believe that Mallorca is engaged in Stalinist-style show trials? Maybe we do. Bauzá's intervention was doubly peculiar, given the brownie points he has won for not allowing candidature of any politico implicated in corruption and his avowal of legal reform to tighten the noose around future corruption.
One might have thought it wiser for Bauzá to keep quiet where Matas was concerned, especially as Jaume has to try and scrape together the odd million or so in order to stay out of nick. Again. Another headlining bail demand, this time for his nights at the opera building that didn't get built. Disproportionate? All for show? Maybe Bauzá should have a word with Socias, and together they both keep mum. Or perhaps he should suggest that Matas changes his name.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, March 05, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Real Mallorca 1 : 2 Valencia
Two goals from Pablo Hernández have condemned Real Mallorca to another home defeat. Mallorca took the lead through a penalty by Ramis, following a foul on Webó, but Pablo equalised two minutes later and then sealed the game in the second half with a left-foot finish. Valencia stay third in La Liga. Mallorca are, for the time being, still tenth, but tomorrow's fixtures may well change this.
Real Mallorca: Aouate; Cendrós, Ramis (yellow card, 74 min.), Nunes, Kevin; De Guzmán (sub. Joao Victor, 84 min.), Martí (sub. Tejera, 81 min.); Pereira (sub. Aki, 65 min.), Nsue, Castro; Webó (yellow card, 72 min.)
Goal: Ramis, 30 min.
Valencia: Guaita; Bruno, Ricardo Costa, David Navarro, Alba; Pablo, Topal, Mata (sub. Vicente, 80 min.), Banega (sub. Albelda, 87 min.); Jonás (sub. Joaquín, 70 min.), Aduriz
Goals: Pablo, 32 min.; 56 min.
Real Mallorca: Aouate; Cendrós, Ramis (yellow card, 74 min.), Nunes, Kevin; De Guzmán (sub. Joao Victor, 84 min.), Martí (sub. Tejera, 81 min.); Pereira (sub. Aki, 65 min.), Nsue, Castro; Webó (yellow card, 72 min.)
Goal: Ramis, 30 min.
Valencia: Guaita; Bruno, Ricardo Costa, David Navarro, Alba; Pablo, Topal, Mata (sub. Vicente, 80 min.), Banega (sub. Albelda, 87 min.); Jonás (sub. Joaquín, 70 min.), Aduriz
Goals: Pablo, 32 min.; 56 min.
MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa follows Alcúdia Convergència lead
The Unió Mallorquina group at Pollensa town hall, of which mayor Joan Cerdà is one, have followed the example of the UM at Alcúdia town hall in adopting the new name of Convergència per les Illes.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 5 March 2011
A bright and sunny start with a reasonable forecast for the rest of the weekend. Highest temperature locally at 09.00: 10.6 C in Puerto Pollensa.
Mainly sunny all day. To 18.00, today's high in the area: 13.9 in Puerto Pollensa.
Mainly sunny all day. To 18.00, today's high in the area: 13.9 in Puerto Pollensa.
You Bet: "Wetten, dass ...?" in Palma
How many of you remember a TV show called "You Bet"? It was hosted, variously, by Brucie, the lovely Matthew Kelly and death-by-tabloid Darren Day. It was the British version of a show called "Wetten, dass ...?" that has run on German television since 1981.
"Wetten, dass ...?" is more than just a game show. It also features chat and music. It is meant to last a couple of hours but always overruns spectacularly. The show is more of an event than a mere TV programme. It airs irregularly, perhaps six times a year. It attracts higher viewing audiences in Germany than any other show. It is broadcast by ZDF, one of the main terrestrial channels. It is an institution, and so is its current presenter, Thomas Gottschalk.
Gottschalk is to call it a day this summer. 24 years of more or less uninterrupted hosting of "Wetten, dass ...?" will come to an end with a live broadcast on 18 June from the bullring in Palma. It will not be the first time that the show has been aired from Mallorca, and it is also not the only German TV programme to be broadcast from the island.
On 18 June, in addition to viewers in Austria and German-speaking Switzerland and anywhere else, 16 million Germans will watch "Wetten, dass ...?". A golden opportunity? You bet it is. Guess who will be collaborating. The Council of Mallorca's economy and tourism department, the Mallorca Tourism Foundation and Air Berlin. They can surely hardly believe their luck. Pre-promotion for and the sheer hype surrounding the show will present the opportunity to advertise Mallorca, while the show itself will be one huge promo for the island.
It isn't all luck, though. Gottschalk's swan song is indicative of the close ties between Germany and Mallorca and of how German broadcasters and other businesses, Air Berlin most obviously, work for their own benefit and to that of Mallorca. ZDF knows that a broadcast from Palma gives "Wetten, dass ...?" additional kudos; Air Berlin knows that it can transport ever more Germans to an island which is, in effect, its home.
Just think about this. Here is a programme, not being shoved onto satellite, but one on national television. The typical star list for "Wetten, dass ...?" is the crème de la crème, and not only of German celebrities. In the past, it has featured the likes of David Bowie, David Beckham, Tom Cruise, Madonna. It is A-list plus, not the Z-listers and their hangers-on-about-town that the British in Mallorca get lumbered with.
This is serious TV and a serious promotional gift horse. It is not the pathetic hope that "Mad Dogs" might afford the chance to show off and say that you recognise such or such a bit of the island or that the series itself might do anything for British tourism. It is not the laddish irrelevance of a "Top Gear" jaunt or "The Inbetweeners" film to maybe adding the odd few Brit tourists. "Wetten, dass ...?" is full-on, unashamed, let's-go-for-the-German-market cashing-in. And everyone benefits. ZDF, Air Berlin and Mallorca.
So you ask yourself, if the Germans can do this, why not the British? I don't know the answer, but part of it may lie simply with the bonds between Germany and Mallorca. For all that Britain is a key tourism market, Mallorca does not have the same hold over the Brits as it does the Germans. A local politician, I forget which one, once said that the British "have Mallorca in their genes". It was a stupid statement, but if it were true, then the Germans must have been around for the Big Bang that eventually created their Mallorcan genes and DNA.
But even given these bonds, someone has to make things happen. Television shows, as opposed to one-size-fits-alling adverts, do have an immense power where promotion is concerned. And with "Wetten, dass ...?" (and, as I say, it isn't the only German show that is ever broadcast from Mallorca) this power is no better demonstrated.
As the 18 June show will be Gottschalk's last, there will be an additional and special dimension to it. And they've chosen Mallorca for this special occasion. It's an incredible coup for the island. It's just a pity that, although Gottschalk helps with translating into English for his non-German celebs, the show is in German and that it will be barely acknowledged by the British media and tourism industry or be barely watched by a British audience.
Just think about. A show with a 16 million audience, on the BBC or ITV, beamed from Mallorca. You can bet that it wouldn't be turned down, but you can probably also bet that it won't happen.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
"Wetten, dass ...?" is more than just a game show. It also features chat and music. It is meant to last a couple of hours but always overruns spectacularly. The show is more of an event than a mere TV programme. It airs irregularly, perhaps six times a year. It attracts higher viewing audiences in Germany than any other show. It is broadcast by ZDF, one of the main terrestrial channels. It is an institution, and so is its current presenter, Thomas Gottschalk.
Gottschalk is to call it a day this summer. 24 years of more or less uninterrupted hosting of "Wetten, dass ...?" will come to an end with a live broadcast on 18 June from the bullring in Palma. It will not be the first time that the show has been aired from Mallorca, and it is also not the only German TV programme to be broadcast from the island.
On 18 June, in addition to viewers in Austria and German-speaking Switzerland and anywhere else, 16 million Germans will watch "Wetten, dass ...?". A golden opportunity? You bet it is. Guess who will be collaborating. The Council of Mallorca's economy and tourism department, the Mallorca Tourism Foundation and Air Berlin. They can surely hardly believe their luck. Pre-promotion for and the sheer hype surrounding the show will present the opportunity to advertise Mallorca, while the show itself will be one huge promo for the island.
It isn't all luck, though. Gottschalk's swan song is indicative of the close ties between Germany and Mallorca and of how German broadcasters and other businesses, Air Berlin most obviously, work for their own benefit and to that of Mallorca. ZDF knows that a broadcast from Palma gives "Wetten, dass ...?" additional kudos; Air Berlin knows that it can transport ever more Germans to an island which is, in effect, its home.
Just think about this. Here is a programme, not being shoved onto satellite, but one on national television. The typical star list for "Wetten, dass ...?" is the crème de la crème, and not only of German celebrities. In the past, it has featured the likes of David Bowie, David Beckham, Tom Cruise, Madonna. It is A-list plus, not the Z-listers and their hangers-on-about-town that the British in Mallorca get lumbered with.
This is serious TV and a serious promotional gift horse. It is not the pathetic hope that "Mad Dogs" might afford the chance to show off and say that you recognise such or such a bit of the island or that the series itself might do anything for British tourism. It is not the laddish irrelevance of a "Top Gear" jaunt or "The Inbetweeners" film to maybe adding the odd few Brit tourists. "Wetten, dass ...?" is full-on, unashamed, let's-go-for-the-German-market cashing-in. And everyone benefits. ZDF, Air Berlin and Mallorca.
So you ask yourself, if the Germans can do this, why not the British? I don't know the answer, but part of it may lie simply with the bonds between Germany and Mallorca. For all that Britain is a key tourism market, Mallorca does not have the same hold over the Brits as it does the Germans. A local politician, I forget which one, once said that the British "have Mallorca in their genes". It was a stupid statement, but if it were true, then the Germans must have been around for the Big Bang that eventually created their Mallorcan genes and DNA.
But even given these bonds, someone has to make things happen. Television shows, as opposed to one-size-fits-alling adverts, do have an immense power where promotion is concerned. And with "Wetten, dass ...?" (and, as I say, it isn't the only German show that is ever broadcast from Mallorca) this power is no better demonstrated.
As the 18 June show will be Gottschalk's last, there will be an additional and special dimension to it. And they've chosen Mallorca for this special occasion. It's an incredible coup for the island. It's just a pity that, although Gottschalk helps with translating into English for his non-German celebs, the show is in German and that it will be barely acknowledged by the British media and tourism industry or be barely watched by a British audience.
Just think about. A show with a 16 million audience, on the BBC or ITV, beamed from Mallorca. You can bet that it wouldn't be turned down, but you can probably also bet that it won't happen.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, March 04, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - New Spanish motorway speed limit to last four months
The Spanish Government has today announced a series of measures designed to save energy. One of these, previously announced, is the lowering of the motorway speed limit to 110 kph, which comes into force on Monday, 7 March. The new speed limit will be in force for at least four months, and in addition to this, there are to be incentives for drivers to invest in more efficient tyres and projects to promote public transport and bicycle use.
MALLORCA TODAY - Spanish airport workers due to strike on Thursday before Easter
Employees of AENA, the national airports authority, protesting at privatisation of Spain's airports, are due to strike on Thursday, 21 April, "Jueves Santo" in Spain, and the day before Good Friday. AENA itself says it is convinced the strike will not happen. Formal notification of the strike is expected to be made next week on Tuesday, 8 March.
MALLORCA TODAY - Nueva Rumasa to sell hotels
The conglomerate Nueva Rumasa, facing mounting accusations as well as mounting debts, has announced that it intends to sell off its hotels, those operated by the Hotasa chain, which include the Clumba Mar in Can Picafort. A week ago, the group was saying that everything was proceeding normally with the hotels this season and while the intention is that they should all open by 1 May, with the exception of the Beverly Playa in Peguera, which has already opened, there is some worry as to whether staff will be paid properly, as suppliers will be given priority by the cash-strapped company.
Meanwhile, Nueva Rumasa is said to still owe 1.4 million euros to Kraft Food for the purchase of the Quesería Menorquina in 2009.
Meanwhile, Nueva Rumasa is said to still owe 1.4 million euros to Kraft Food for the purchase of the Quesería Menorquina in 2009.
MALLORCA TODAY - Alcúdia drops Unió Mallorquina name
Council leaders in Alcúdia, including the mayor, Miguel Llompart, have become the first councillors in Mallorca to abandon the Unió Mallorquina name in favour of the new one, Convergència per les Illes. The new party itself has announced that it will, in abbreviated form, be known as CxI.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 4 March 2011
Sunny spells but also heavy clouds and rain. At 08.30, 11.0 C in Alcúdia/Playa de Muro; 8.1 C in Pollensa; 10.9 C in Puerto Pollensa.
An improvement this afternoon. Rain keeping off and generally sunnier and feeling warmer. Maximum temperature to 17.00 in the area - 12.7 C in Alcúdia/Playa de Muro.
An improvement this afternoon. Rain keeping off and generally sunnier and feeling warmer. Maximum temperature to 17.00 in the area - 12.7 C in Alcúdia/Playa de Muro.
The Great Taste Of Sausage: The sobrasada
Let's just say that you were to pick up a copy of an English newspaper and in it you were to read about hotels in England making a big deal about having pork pies, Cumberland sausage and scones on their menus. You might think, so what. Or you might think, that doesn't sound like something to brag about. You would of course be right to think this.
Compare this non-news with what you get served up locally. As an example - forty hotels in Mallorca now include sobrasada amongst their other delicacies, which could well include ensaïmadas and empanadillas. Fantastic, you might think. Better get yourself off to one of these hotels for some sausage, some lard cake and a pie that bears a relationship, sans spud, to the Cornish pasty.
While it would be most unlikely that you would dash off a hotel reservation on the basis of this gastronomic mix, you would, were you to have booked in to one of these 40 hotels, be able to sample some traditional and basic Mallorcan grub. And it would be, so says the president of the geographic identification of the sobrasada, "fundamental" (basic, if you like) that, as a tourist, you get to "know and try the most traditional" of the island's sausages. It would be even more fundamental, if you happened to be German, so goes a different line of geographic identification from this head sausage-maker, because Germans of course eat nothing else other than sausages.
The sausage, of whatever variety, is still a sausage. I have never been able to look one in the eye in quite the same way since the time that an old friend, climbing the managerial ladder at Sainsbury's, once regaled me (if this is the right term) with his story of a trip to the sausage factory. Despite what might be said to the contrary, you can be reasonably assured that any sausage contains parts of a pig you'd rather not think about.
Ah yes, but there's sausage and then there's sausage. Plastic-wrapped and pink abominations and superior, haute-hype-cuisine, stuffed with paprika and with a geographic identification, making it sound like it's under surveillance by satellite-positioning technology. Step forward, please, the sobrasada.
To be fair, and assuming you can ignore what it is you might actually be putting inside you, the sobrasada is pretty damn tasty. But it can't get over the fact that it remains what it is - a sausage. And there's tasty and there's tasty. A Cornish pasty can be pretty damn tasty, too, but there is not the same hullabaloo surrounding a pasty as there is the sobrasada, even if it is also identified geographically.
Maybe there are presidents of the pasty society in Cornwall, of the Cumberland sausage guild or the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association going around, insisting that it is "fundamental" that tourists scoff the local fare. But if there are, I suspect they are not doing so with quite the same pretensions or demands as the sobrasada propagandists. Fundamental, fundamental - you will try our sausage. You will like it.
This insistence comes with a business dimension, especially where Germany is concerned. So enamoured of sausage are Germans that the sobrasada league is eyeing up the German market as a way of beefing up (well, you don't pork up) sobrasada sales. Which is fair enough, but how much sausage can one nation, even one as porker as the German nation, smother in mustard and wash down with lager?
Placing the sobrasada, or indeed the ensaïmada or empanadilla, in front of a tourist is perfectly reasonable. Each is representative of the current, touristically-correct philosophy of local sourcing by hotels. But which are these 40 hotels? I fancy I know which ones they are not. Ones at which the clientele would take one look and dismiss the sobrasada as "foreign". It wouldn't go down too well as it doesn't lend itself to being covered in HP or dipped into a cold and congealing egg yolk. Whichever these 40 hotels might be however, is the fact that they are offering sausage really worthy of news? Weirdly, it is.
The sobrasada cannot disguise its essential and simple sausageness. It is, regardless of its authenticity, geographical stamp and paprika, a basic food. It is fundamental, to a Mallorcan culinary tradition, but its basic nature is one that it shares with other local specialities, about which a ballyhoo is made above their station in the gastronomic food chain. Bread and oil, for example. As with pa amb oli, sobrasada can be tasty, tasty, very, very tasty, but it's not unique in being tasty. Sausage sarny, anyone?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Compare this non-news with what you get served up locally. As an example - forty hotels in Mallorca now include sobrasada amongst their other delicacies, which could well include ensaïmadas and empanadillas. Fantastic, you might think. Better get yourself off to one of these hotels for some sausage, some lard cake and a pie that bears a relationship, sans spud, to the Cornish pasty.
While it would be most unlikely that you would dash off a hotel reservation on the basis of this gastronomic mix, you would, were you to have booked in to one of these 40 hotels, be able to sample some traditional and basic Mallorcan grub. And it would be, so says the president of the geographic identification of the sobrasada, "fundamental" (basic, if you like) that, as a tourist, you get to "know and try the most traditional" of the island's sausages. It would be even more fundamental, if you happened to be German, so goes a different line of geographic identification from this head sausage-maker, because Germans of course eat nothing else other than sausages.
The sausage, of whatever variety, is still a sausage. I have never been able to look one in the eye in quite the same way since the time that an old friend, climbing the managerial ladder at Sainsbury's, once regaled me (if this is the right term) with his story of a trip to the sausage factory. Despite what might be said to the contrary, you can be reasonably assured that any sausage contains parts of a pig you'd rather not think about.
Ah yes, but there's sausage and then there's sausage. Plastic-wrapped and pink abominations and superior, haute-hype-cuisine, stuffed with paprika and with a geographic identification, making it sound like it's under surveillance by satellite-positioning technology. Step forward, please, the sobrasada.
To be fair, and assuming you can ignore what it is you might actually be putting inside you, the sobrasada is pretty damn tasty. But it can't get over the fact that it remains what it is - a sausage. And there's tasty and there's tasty. A Cornish pasty can be pretty damn tasty, too, but there is not the same hullabaloo surrounding a pasty as there is the sobrasada, even if it is also identified geographically.
Maybe there are presidents of the pasty society in Cornwall, of the Cumberland sausage guild or the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association going around, insisting that it is "fundamental" that tourists scoff the local fare. But if there are, I suspect they are not doing so with quite the same pretensions or demands as the sobrasada propagandists. Fundamental, fundamental - you will try our sausage. You will like it.
This insistence comes with a business dimension, especially where Germany is concerned. So enamoured of sausage are Germans that the sobrasada league is eyeing up the German market as a way of beefing up (well, you don't pork up) sobrasada sales. Which is fair enough, but how much sausage can one nation, even one as porker as the German nation, smother in mustard and wash down with lager?
Placing the sobrasada, or indeed the ensaïmada or empanadilla, in front of a tourist is perfectly reasonable. Each is representative of the current, touristically-correct philosophy of local sourcing by hotels. But which are these 40 hotels? I fancy I know which ones they are not. Ones at which the clientele would take one look and dismiss the sobrasada as "foreign". It wouldn't go down too well as it doesn't lend itself to being covered in HP or dipped into a cold and congealing egg yolk. Whichever these 40 hotels might be however, is the fact that they are offering sausage really worthy of news? Weirdly, it is.
The sobrasada cannot disguise its essential and simple sausageness. It is, regardless of its authenticity, geographical stamp and paprika, a basic food. It is fundamental, to a Mallorcan culinary tradition, but its basic nature is one that it shares with other local specialities, about which a ballyhoo is made above their station in the gastronomic food chain. Bread and oil, for example. As with pa amb oli, sobrasada can be tasty, tasty, very, very tasty, but it's not unique in being tasty. Sausage sarny, anyone?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, March 03, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Balearics economic recovery stalls
According to the centre for economic investigation, growth in the Balearics economy has hit something of an obstruction, there having been a cooling in the final quarter of 2010. The centre is placing growth in the Balearics at 0.5% this year, lower than the 0.6 or 0.7% that the regional government finance minister had suggested last week. However, the improvement in unemployment figures for February, the Balearics being the only region of Spain to have experienced a fall, suggests that there may be more positive signs of slow recovery.
MALLORCA TODAY - Petrol price hits record high
The average price of a litre of petrol has topped the 1.3 euros mark (at 1.308), a new high.
MALLORCA TODAY - Matas has to pay 1.6 million euro bail
Former regional president, Jaume Matas, has been told he needs to find a further bail to avoid going into prison. This relates to irregularities surrounding the project for the opera house in Palma and specifically the issue of a contract for the architect Santiago Calatrava, allegedly paid for work which wasn't carried out. The bail has been set at 1.6 million euros.
MALLORCA TODAY - Russian visitors to increase in number
Natalie Tours, one of Russia's leading tour operators, is increasing the number of flights to both Palma and Ibiza this summer. The nine weekly flights this year, which also include two from Kiev to Mallorca, will increase by 40% the number of Russian (and Ukrainian) visitors catered for by Natalie Tours. The total number of Russian tourists in the Balearics is expected to reach 90,000 this year, a 60% rise over 2010.
MALLORCA TODAY - New multi-storey parking for Palma airport
The AENA airports authority has given the go-ahead for the building of a new car park at Palma airport. With an initial budget of 12.7 million euros, the new car park, for both long stay and hire cars, will have 2,173 spaces.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 3 March 2011
Persistent rain and cold. At 09.30, 7.1 C in Alcúdia/Playa de Muro; 8.3 C in Pollensa; 7.3 C in Puerto Pollensa.
Heavy rain, on and off, for most of the day. Afternoon's high in the area to 17.00 - 11.1 C in Puerto Pollensa.
Heavy rain, on and off, for most of the day. Afternoon's high in the area to 17.00 - 11.1 C in Puerto Pollensa.
Through Sepia-Tinted Spectacles: Alcúdia's cuttlefish fair
Sepia, in English, is the fluid secreted by cuttlefish. The word is more commonly associated with sepia tint, the brownish colour utilised by designers, film-makers and others to provide a nostalgic, clichéd effect that represents "old". Though the inky fluid itself might not be used any longer, it was this that first gave us sepia tint.
In Puerto Alcúdia, the Confraria de Pescadors (literally, the fishermen's brotherhood) has its own building. It is on the old pier in the port. In it, there are ancient photos, some of them with sepia tint. These photos have, on the occasion of past spring fairs in Puerto Alcúdia, formed exhibitions of the local fishing history. This year, the building and the Confraria will not be taking part in the spring fair.
Sepia, or sipia, depending on your linguistic preference, is Spanish and Catalan not only for the tint but also the cuttlefish itself. The sepia fair, combined with a nautical fair, has become an established, early-spring event in the port. The boat bit was spun out from the autumn fair in the old town as a way of addressing the fact that the port was missing out in not having its own fair. Locating it in the port also made greater sense. And so it was that when the idea for the boat fair was hit upon, they decided to invent another one to celebrate the local fishing industry, its heritage, its skills and its different major catches, of which sepia is one.
Devoting an entire fair to what for most Brits is something to do with keeping budgerigars happy and to what is like stuffing an inner tube into your mouth seemed, to this Brit anyway, a weird pretext for a celebration. Unless it is cut into small pieces, fried with herb and spice and served with rice and some mayo, cuttlefish is rotten, to the point of being inedible. But then who am I to deny a culinary tradition, even if it is no good?
The first sepia and boat fair in 2006 was a huge success. Blessed by perfect April weather, warm, blue skies brought out vast numbers of visitors in giving the port a pre-season boost. Terraces were jammed, so much so that some restaurants could barely cope with the demand.
Since 2006, the fair has hit some difficulties. The crowds still come, but there have been rumblings from some restaurants that they have been overlooked when it comes to participation, while others have moaned about demands placed upon them for paying for town hall promotion.
The boat fair has also not escaped some backlash. Though it is the island's largest outside of Palma, it is small by comparison. Some nautical-related businesses in Alcúdia itself, those situated close by in the Alcudiamar marina, have ceased to have their own stands, either on the grounds of cost or because they can't afford to have personnel at both a stand and at their units in the marina. The most popular stands during the weekend event are not those with boats, jet-skis and the like, but the craft stalls of the market that was a later addition to the fair's mix.
There is now a further difficulty. The Confraria, the fishermen themselves, are going to withdraw their support and participation. While the sepia fair was partly intended to be a celebration of the fishermen's work and of their cuttlefish catch, this hasn't proven to be the case. Restaurants, rather than buying their sepia from the local fishermen, get it from wholesalers at prices half or more than those that they have to pay the fishermen. It is for this reason that the fishermen are planning to down nets and take them home over the weekend of 9-10 April.
Alcúdia's mayor, Miguel Llompart, has been attempting to arbitrate in what has become a real old spat between the restaurant owners and the fishermen. He concedes that the negative responses from the fishermen in respect of, for example, lowering their prices a tad will mean that neither the Confraria building nor the old pier will be part of this year's fair. The pier is in fact loaned out for the event, and on it, were it once more to be made available, would be a marquee in which restaurants would sell tasters of sepia that has not been bought locally.
Though it seems perverse that the fair should not feature the local catch, one can have sympathy for the restaurant owners. Why should they pay up to 12 euros a kilo when they can get away with paying as little as four euros? An answer might be that they should be prepared to pay the higher rate; they do, after all, reap some benefit from the event and they are part of the same local economy as the fishermen. But needs and economic times must, you have to suppose.
Without the local catch, however, the whole event becomes a bit of a charade. The sepia angle becomes a commercial excuse rather than a cultural justification. The fair, when it started, was a very good idea, but the best of ideas can become mired in local battles. And so, in years to come, there will be photos of the first, glorious spectacle, a reminder of what it once was, tinted with sepia.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
In Puerto Alcúdia, the Confraria de Pescadors (literally, the fishermen's brotherhood) has its own building. It is on the old pier in the port. In it, there are ancient photos, some of them with sepia tint. These photos have, on the occasion of past spring fairs in Puerto Alcúdia, formed exhibitions of the local fishing history. This year, the building and the Confraria will not be taking part in the spring fair.
Sepia, or sipia, depending on your linguistic preference, is Spanish and Catalan not only for the tint but also the cuttlefish itself. The sepia fair, combined with a nautical fair, has become an established, early-spring event in the port. The boat bit was spun out from the autumn fair in the old town as a way of addressing the fact that the port was missing out in not having its own fair. Locating it in the port also made greater sense. And so it was that when the idea for the boat fair was hit upon, they decided to invent another one to celebrate the local fishing industry, its heritage, its skills and its different major catches, of which sepia is one.
Devoting an entire fair to what for most Brits is something to do with keeping budgerigars happy and to what is like stuffing an inner tube into your mouth seemed, to this Brit anyway, a weird pretext for a celebration. Unless it is cut into small pieces, fried with herb and spice and served with rice and some mayo, cuttlefish is rotten, to the point of being inedible. But then who am I to deny a culinary tradition, even if it is no good?
The first sepia and boat fair in 2006 was a huge success. Blessed by perfect April weather, warm, blue skies brought out vast numbers of visitors in giving the port a pre-season boost. Terraces were jammed, so much so that some restaurants could barely cope with the demand.
Since 2006, the fair has hit some difficulties. The crowds still come, but there have been rumblings from some restaurants that they have been overlooked when it comes to participation, while others have moaned about demands placed upon them for paying for town hall promotion.
The boat fair has also not escaped some backlash. Though it is the island's largest outside of Palma, it is small by comparison. Some nautical-related businesses in Alcúdia itself, those situated close by in the Alcudiamar marina, have ceased to have their own stands, either on the grounds of cost or because they can't afford to have personnel at both a stand and at their units in the marina. The most popular stands during the weekend event are not those with boats, jet-skis and the like, but the craft stalls of the market that was a later addition to the fair's mix.
There is now a further difficulty. The Confraria, the fishermen themselves, are going to withdraw their support and participation. While the sepia fair was partly intended to be a celebration of the fishermen's work and of their cuttlefish catch, this hasn't proven to be the case. Restaurants, rather than buying their sepia from the local fishermen, get it from wholesalers at prices half or more than those that they have to pay the fishermen. It is for this reason that the fishermen are planning to down nets and take them home over the weekend of 9-10 April.
Alcúdia's mayor, Miguel Llompart, has been attempting to arbitrate in what has become a real old spat between the restaurant owners and the fishermen. He concedes that the negative responses from the fishermen in respect of, for example, lowering their prices a tad will mean that neither the Confraria building nor the old pier will be part of this year's fair. The pier is in fact loaned out for the event, and on it, were it once more to be made available, would be a marquee in which restaurants would sell tasters of sepia that has not been bought locally.
Though it seems perverse that the fair should not feature the local catch, one can have sympathy for the restaurant owners. Why should they pay up to 12 euros a kilo when they can get away with paying as little as four euros? An answer might be that they should be prepared to pay the higher rate; they do, after all, reap some benefit from the event and they are part of the same local economy as the fishermen. But needs and economic times must, you have to suppose.
Without the local catch, however, the whole event becomes a bit of a charade. The sepia angle becomes a commercial excuse rather than a cultural justification. The fair, when it started, was a very good idea, but the best of ideas can become mired in local battles. And so, in years to come, there will be photos of the first, glorious spectacle, a reminder of what it once was, tinted with sepia.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Unió Mallorquina faces oblivion
Despite changing the name of the party (to the Convergència de les Illes Balears), the Unió Mallorquina could be on the edge of collapsing. There are some doubts being raised as to whether this new name will be acceptable, given a similar one in existence, while, more importantly, the party is being held accountable for the latest scandal, the "caso Picnic", and faces paying a bail of 1.6 million euros, money that it does not have. To the party's aid, however, has come the Balearics central government delegate, Ramón Socias, who has argued that the latest legal actions taken against the UM are "disproportionate", a charge refuted by the dean's office for judges in Palma. The UM, name change or not, may be unable to take part in the forthcoming local elections, while the possibility exists of a completely separate and new party being formed by current party members.
MALLORCA TODAY - Alcúdia's fishermen snub annual cuttlefish fair
The annual sepia (cuttlefish) fair that takes place alongside the boat fair in Puerto Alcúdia, and which is scheduled for the weekend of 9 to 10 April, looks as though it will not involve the local fishermen who capture the sepia, or indeed their sepia. The fishermen's association has said that it will not participate or assist in any fashion as it gets no support from local restaurants which, rather than buying sepia from the Alcúdia fishermen, acquire it from wholesalers. The restaurants argue that they can get high-quality sepia at around half the price than that which it costs from the local fishermen.
MALLORCA TODAY - Balearics register fall in unemployment
Other than the autonomous city of Melilla, which registered a very slight fall in unemployment, the Balearics was the only autonomous region of Spain to show a decline in the February jobless figure. A fall of 1.7% brings the level of unemployment in the islands down to 89,662. The total number of unemployed in Spain increased in February to 4,299,263.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 2 March 2011
Heavy clouds and feeling cold. At 09.30, the local high in the area: 10.9 C in Puerto Pollensa.
This afternoon, at 16.30, temperatures everywhere struggling to reach 9 C. Rainy and chilly. But tomorrow is meant to see an improvement and the forecast by the weekend is very much better, with temperatures climbing to 15 or 16 degrees and low probability of rain.
This afternoon, at 16.30, temperatures everywhere struggling to reach 9 C. Rainy and chilly. But tomorrow is meant to see an improvement and the forecast by the weekend is very much better, with temperatures climbing to 15 or 16 degrees and low probability of rain.
The Politics Of Speed: The motorway speed limit debate
The Spanish Government's decision to introduce a lower speed limit on motorways as a means of cutting petrol and diesel consumption has not met with universal approval. To the voices of critics who believe it is merely a smokescreen to try and increase revenue from speeding fines now come those of business.
The reduction in the speed limit from 120 to 110 kph, to be implemented from 7 March, is intended to be a temporary measure, one to be brought in because of concerns regarding oil supply from north Africa. President Zapatero has reiterated his hope that it will indeed be temporary. However, having been introduced, might such a temporary measure, especially if it appears to be successful - in different ways - become permanent?
Tráfico, which refuses to be drawn on the savings that the speed limit change might bring about (such a technical issue is nothing to do with Tráfico), has, nevertheless, indicated that the ten kilometre reduction would "substantially" lower the severity of accidents, adding that this severity would be further reduced were the speed limit to be set at 100 kph.
From this, one can see that what is meant to be a measure introduced for a specific purpose - saving petrol - has already become the focus of debate for other matters to do with driving. It may well be that a permanent change comes about, through the back door, because of reasons unrelated to the purpose of the 110 kph limit.
The objections of business in Mallorca centre on the impact on commercial road users. The president of the association of taxi drivers has, for example, said that it will result in a loss of revenue for drivers whose journeys will now take longer. He may have a point, but taxi drivers, as well as other road users, face all manner of factors which influence journey times, especially during the main tourism season. One is the sheer volume of traffic, another is alterations to road layouts and the introduction of lower speed limits in urban areas.
In Puerto Alcúdia, as an example, the carretera (highway) that runs parallel to the coast is now, generally speaking, a slower and safer road than it used to be. Whereas one used to feel that whenever one took a car onto Mallorcan roads it was a case of dicing with the probability of accident or death, it now feels altogether safer.
The safety aspect, though, is one that clouds the issue, as it is clearly not meant to be the reason for the speed limit reduction. But if Tráfico, a far from uninfluential voice, has its way, then it is likely to become the reason, adding to the PR problem that the government faces with the implementation of the ten-kilometre cut.
In addition to the accusation that this is all just a front for bumping up revenue from fines, is a belief that the savings claimed by the government (some 1,400 million euros a year) are a fabrication. Again, there is some justification for being sceptical, as the actual amount of petrol consumed by a driver is influenced by factors other than speed alone, such as acceleration versus maintaining a cruising speed and low tyre pressures. And as for Tráfico's argument about the severity of accidents, do ten kilometres per hour really make that much difference? You can surely be killed or badly injured at 110 kph as easily as you can at 120 kph. Or maybe you can't be; I'll bow to Tráfico's expertise in the matter.
However, it's probably worth putting this into some context. The 120 kph limit is higher than the 70 mph limit on British motorways. At 110 kph, it would be slightly lower, by a factor of 1.7 miles per hour. Objections to the reduction seem somewhat spurious, when one makes this sort of comparison. This said though, the British limit is one of the lowest in Europe, and the British transport minister, Philip Hammond, has hinted that the limit could be raised to 80 mph. And why? To increase productivity. Which brings you back to the objections from Mallorcan business.
To place the argument in a safety context, the number of deaths from road collisions in Spain is almost double that of the UK, but simply attributing these to speed is to overlook other factors, while they also overlook a downward trend in road deaths. In the Balearics, the number of deaths has fallen significantly since the turn of the century - from 149 in 2001 to 48 in 2009. The figure increased in 2010 - to 56.
But rather than speed alone, many of these were attributed to "distractions", such as using a mobile or fiddling with a sat-nav. Reducing the speed limit might not, because of these other factors, bring about falls in road accidents. Indeed, it may mean the opposite. There was a previous cut to the speed limit, to 100 kph in the mid-70s, one that was brought in for the same reasons as the latest one - oil supply. The number of accidents increased.
The debate about the change to the speed limit should be confined to the reason for its introduction, and this alone. But if the debate is to be extended, to cover not just speed but also safety and styles of driving, then it needs to also be extended to roads other than motorways; to some of the carreteras, especially the older ones in Mallorca. It is these which are the island's most dangerous roads.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The reduction in the speed limit from 120 to 110 kph, to be implemented from 7 March, is intended to be a temporary measure, one to be brought in because of concerns regarding oil supply from north Africa. President Zapatero has reiterated his hope that it will indeed be temporary. However, having been introduced, might such a temporary measure, especially if it appears to be successful - in different ways - become permanent?
Tráfico, which refuses to be drawn on the savings that the speed limit change might bring about (such a technical issue is nothing to do with Tráfico), has, nevertheless, indicated that the ten kilometre reduction would "substantially" lower the severity of accidents, adding that this severity would be further reduced were the speed limit to be set at 100 kph.
From this, one can see that what is meant to be a measure introduced for a specific purpose - saving petrol - has already become the focus of debate for other matters to do with driving. It may well be that a permanent change comes about, through the back door, because of reasons unrelated to the purpose of the 110 kph limit.
The objections of business in Mallorca centre on the impact on commercial road users. The president of the association of taxi drivers has, for example, said that it will result in a loss of revenue for drivers whose journeys will now take longer. He may have a point, but taxi drivers, as well as other road users, face all manner of factors which influence journey times, especially during the main tourism season. One is the sheer volume of traffic, another is alterations to road layouts and the introduction of lower speed limits in urban areas.
In Puerto Alcúdia, as an example, the carretera (highway) that runs parallel to the coast is now, generally speaking, a slower and safer road than it used to be. Whereas one used to feel that whenever one took a car onto Mallorcan roads it was a case of dicing with the probability of accident or death, it now feels altogether safer.
The safety aspect, though, is one that clouds the issue, as it is clearly not meant to be the reason for the speed limit reduction. But if Tráfico, a far from uninfluential voice, has its way, then it is likely to become the reason, adding to the PR problem that the government faces with the implementation of the ten-kilometre cut.
In addition to the accusation that this is all just a front for bumping up revenue from fines, is a belief that the savings claimed by the government (some 1,400 million euros a year) are a fabrication. Again, there is some justification for being sceptical, as the actual amount of petrol consumed by a driver is influenced by factors other than speed alone, such as acceleration versus maintaining a cruising speed and low tyre pressures. And as for Tráfico's argument about the severity of accidents, do ten kilometres per hour really make that much difference? You can surely be killed or badly injured at 110 kph as easily as you can at 120 kph. Or maybe you can't be; I'll bow to Tráfico's expertise in the matter.
However, it's probably worth putting this into some context. The 120 kph limit is higher than the 70 mph limit on British motorways. At 110 kph, it would be slightly lower, by a factor of 1.7 miles per hour. Objections to the reduction seem somewhat spurious, when one makes this sort of comparison. This said though, the British limit is one of the lowest in Europe, and the British transport minister, Philip Hammond, has hinted that the limit could be raised to 80 mph. And why? To increase productivity. Which brings you back to the objections from Mallorcan business.
To place the argument in a safety context, the number of deaths from road collisions in Spain is almost double that of the UK, but simply attributing these to speed is to overlook other factors, while they also overlook a downward trend in road deaths. In the Balearics, the number of deaths has fallen significantly since the turn of the century - from 149 in 2001 to 48 in 2009. The figure increased in 2010 - to 56.
But rather than speed alone, many of these were attributed to "distractions", such as using a mobile or fiddling with a sat-nav. Reducing the speed limit might not, because of these other factors, bring about falls in road accidents. Indeed, it may mean the opposite. There was a previous cut to the speed limit, to 100 kph in the mid-70s, one that was brought in for the same reasons as the latest one - oil supply. The number of accidents increased.
The debate about the change to the speed limit should be confined to the reason for its introduction, and this alone. But if the debate is to be extended, to cover not just speed but also safety and styles of driving, then it needs to also be extended to roads other than motorways; to some of the carreteras, especially the older ones in Mallorca. It is these which are the island's most dangerous roads.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Real shock Espanyol
Real Mallorca this evening won away at Espanyol with a winner coming from Nsue in the eighty-second minute. Espanyol, fifth in La Liga, lost for the fourth time at home, despite having dominated the first half and leading 1-0 at half-time. It should, though, have been one apiece at the break, Castro having missed a penalty in the fifth minute. Webó it was who brought the scores level on 63 minutes. Real Mallorca move up to tenth, level on points with Atletico Madrid and Real Sociedad, but having played one game more and with an inferior goal difference.
Espanyol
Kameni; Chica, Amat, Galán, Javi López; Verdú (Dátolo, sub 76), Duscher (Rui Fonte, sub 87); Luis García (Manu Molina, sub 65), Sergio García, Callejón, Álvaro.
Goal: Álvaro, 18 min.
Real Mallorca
Aouate; Cendrós, Nunes, Ramis, Ayoze; Nsue, J.Víctor, Tejera (Pina, sub 83), Pereira; Castro (Aki, sub 80), Webó (Rubén, sub 90).
Goals: Webó, 63 min.; Nsue, 82 min.
Espanyol
Kameni; Chica, Amat, Galán, Javi López; Verdú (Dátolo, sub 76), Duscher (Rui Fonte, sub 87); Luis García (Manu Molina, sub 65), Sergio García, Callejón, Álvaro.
Goal: Álvaro, 18 min.
Real Mallorca
Aouate; Cendrós, Nunes, Ramis, Ayoze; Nsue, J.Víctor, Tejera (Pina, sub 83), Pereira; Castro (Aki, sub 80), Webó (Rubén, sub 90).
Goals: Webó, 63 min.; Nsue, 82 min.
MALLORCA TODAY - Puerto Pollensa market may move permanently
While work is being carried out on the market square in Puerto Pollensa, the weekly market has been moved to the car parking in front of the swimming-pool. What was thought to be just a temporary measure may become permanent. If stallholders prefer the new location, the town hall has suggested that the move may indeed be made permanent.
MALLORCA TODAY - Unió Mallorquina name change; president cited
Not long after he had overseen a meting at which it was agreed that the Unió Mallorquina would change its name to Convergència de les Illes Balears, the party's president, Josep Melia, was cited, along with the party's secretary-general, to declare before the Palma judge presiding over the so-called "Operación Picnic" case. This investigation into the diversion of public funds and alleged vote manipulation has now led to further arrests of UM figures in Palma. Melia was called as he is the "legal representative" of the now ex-party.
MALLORCA TODAY - Bar fined for cider bottle being only in English
A bar in Santa Ponsa has received a fine of 500 euros for selling an Irish cider which only had information about ingredients in English, contrary to the requirement for labelling to be in the "official language of the state", i.e. Castilian. Fines for such infractions can be as high as 3,000 euros.
MALLORCA TODAY - February wetter and colder than usual
The meteorology office has given its figures for the month of February, which show that Mallorca was both wetter and colder than the average. Capdepera, for example, registered 57 litres of rain, more than double the average, and also colder temperatures than normal. The highest temperature on the island was in Sa Pobla at 24 degrees.
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 1 March 2011
A wild night and still wild, winds up to 66kph (in Pollensa), but though clouds are heavy, there has so far been little rain about. At 08.30, temperatures - 10.7 C in Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 9.2 C in Pollensa and 11.3 C in Puerto Pollensa.
Today's maximums to 17.00 - Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 10.7 C, Pollensa, 11.2 C, Puerto Pollensa, 11.8C. Small amount of rain in Alcúdia only.
The forecast is for winds to increase again tonight and for these, together with occasional heavy showers, to continue at least until Thursday.
Today's maximums to 17.00 - Alcúdia/Playa de Muro, 10.7 C, Pollensa, 11.2 C, Puerto Pollensa, 11.8C. Small amount of rain in Alcúdia only.
The forecast is for winds to increase again tonight and for these, together with occasional heavy showers, to continue at least until Thursday.
The Wrecking Crew: Knocking GESA down
What do you do with a rubbish building that is as unloved as it is unlovely? The obvious answer is to knock it down. But unfortunately, the obvious is all too rarely considered in the pursuit of some bonkers creation of "emblems".
The GESA monstrosity in Palma, empty for over two years, took, in all, ten years to construct. I claim no expertise in matters of demolition, but ten minutes might be sufficient to raze much of the damn thing, to put it and anyone obliged to look at it out of their misery.
I am not fundamentally against preserving lousy architecture. Some has a certain idiosyncratic charm, but the GESA building has no redeeming feature. It has no art-deco curiosity, it is not representative of some intrinsically important patrimony; it's an office building, that's all it is. Yet it is, absurdly, meant to be preserved.
You can't necessarily trust everything an architect might say - one was, after all, responsible for the GESA building in the first place - but Patxi Mangado, an architect originally involved with the development of the Palacio de Congresos, by which the GESA building will remain, once a) expressed his surprise that it was still there and b) suggested that it should be pulled down.
So much for common sense though. Instead, we have the situation in which ideas are being tossed into the pot to find the maddest of them to justify the building's continuing existence. In addition to previous proposals for an auditorium and restaurant, the latest, coming from the co-ordinator of youth activities at the town hall, is that part of the building should be given over to so-called "self-management" whereby several floors would be devoted to youthful artistic endeavours and workshops and a cultural association for showing off whatever work or projects these endeavours might yield.
There is nothing wrong with this idea at all, apart from one thing: locating it in the GESA building. The lack of empathy between a brutalist, early 60s-designed office block and current-day, dreadlocked art and craft is extreme. Furthermore, no one seems to be mentioning how this "self-management" might be paid for, as in, for instance, where the money for the building's energy would come from. Perhaps GESA should offer to give something back and supply electricity for free.
The bizarre language that surrounds the building, that used by those who seem determined for it to stay, is no better summed up than by this youth activities' co-ordinator who reckons that "sociocultural self-management" would make the GESA block "an emblematic enclave of the city".
Here we go again, stuff that isn't emblematic, as with, for instance, the building of a new road through Playa de Muro, suddenly becomes so. The GESA building is emblematic of one thing and one thing alone - office building design and not very good design at that. The other main suggestion, that it houses offices, is the only sensible one to have been advanced, for the very simple reason that this is exactly why it was ever built.
The rationalisation that is currently going on is weird. There are plenty of buildings in Palma which are emblematic, the Cathedral for example, but to claim that GESA is one of them is to imply that Palma is emblematic of naff commercial architecture. It's not exactly what the tourist brochures might wish to boast of, though heaven knows they probably will, unless the Partido Popular secure the town hall administration in May and do as they have promised, which is to send in the bulldozers.
What you do with old GESA offices and plant is not confined to Palma. The de-commissioned power station in Alcúdia, idle for years, is meant at some stage to become a science and technology museum. The architectural tendering for its re-development, which brought with it a fair degree of publicity, largely because Lord Rogers was up for the gig, resulted in the plan that is currently as idle as the power station itself. There's no money in other words.
This may well be a blessing. If it means the museum never seeing the light of day, we might all be spared the waste of money it would be. As with the GESA building, the power station deserves being knocked down. In its place should go a Center Parcs or something of genuine tourist appeal. But this would never happen because it wouldn't be emblematic. Consequently, the chimneys, at the very least, have to remain and to remain the blots on the landscape as one scans the bay of Alcúdia and spies these two long-impotent erections (if this isn't a contradiction in terms).
As with some commercial buildings, I am in favour of preserving some old industrial architecture. But whereas a power-station chimney or two or four might look ok in an urban landscape, London's for example, the same cannot be claimed for the vista across a bay in a tourism zone that is meant to be renowned for its natural beauty. If chimneys are what you want, there is one anyway; that of the power station by Albufera that took over from the one in Puerto Alcúdia.
Both the GESA building and old power station are emblematic, or symptomatic to be more accurate; symptomatic of confused notions of architectural preservation which insist, firstly, that heritage exists where it does not and, secondly, that scenery is enhanced when it most certainly isn't.
It's all very obvious, or should be. Bring on the wrecking crew and the explosives.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The GESA monstrosity in Palma, empty for over two years, took, in all, ten years to construct. I claim no expertise in matters of demolition, but ten minutes might be sufficient to raze much of the damn thing, to put it and anyone obliged to look at it out of their misery.
I am not fundamentally against preserving lousy architecture. Some has a certain idiosyncratic charm, but the GESA building has no redeeming feature. It has no art-deco curiosity, it is not representative of some intrinsically important patrimony; it's an office building, that's all it is. Yet it is, absurdly, meant to be preserved.
You can't necessarily trust everything an architect might say - one was, after all, responsible for the GESA building in the first place - but Patxi Mangado, an architect originally involved with the development of the Palacio de Congresos, by which the GESA building will remain, once a) expressed his surprise that it was still there and b) suggested that it should be pulled down.
So much for common sense though. Instead, we have the situation in which ideas are being tossed into the pot to find the maddest of them to justify the building's continuing existence. In addition to previous proposals for an auditorium and restaurant, the latest, coming from the co-ordinator of youth activities at the town hall, is that part of the building should be given over to so-called "self-management" whereby several floors would be devoted to youthful artistic endeavours and workshops and a cultural association for showing off whatever work or projects these endeavours might yield.
There is nothing wrong with this idea at all, apart from one thing: locating it in the GESA building. The lack of empathy between a brutalist, early 60s-designed office block and current-day, dreadlocked art and craft is extreme. Furthermore, no one seems to be mentioning how this "self-management" might be paid for, as in, for instance, where the money for the building's energy would come from. Perhaps GESA should offer to give something back and supply electricity for free.
The bizarre language that surrounds the building, that used by those who seem determined for it to stay, is no better summed up than by this youth activities' co-ordinator who reckons that "sociocultural self-management" would make the GESA block "an emblematic enclave of the city".
Here we go again, stuff that isn't emblematic, as with, for instance, the building of a new road through Playa de Muro, suddenly becomes so. The GESA building is emblematic of one thing and one thing alone - office building design and not very good design at that. The other main suggestion, that it houses offices, is the only sensible one to have been advanced, for the very simple reason that this is exactly why it was ever built.
The rationalisation that is currently going on is weird. There are plenty of buildings in Palma which are emblematic, the Cathedral for example, but to claim that GESA is one of them is to imply that Palma is emblematic of naff commercial architecture. It's not exactly what the tourist brochures might wish to boast of, though heaven knows they probably will, unless the Partido Popular secure the town hall administration in May and do as they have promised, which is to send in the bulldozers.
What you do with old GESA offices and plant is not confined to Palma. The de-commissioned power station in Alcúdia, idle for years, is meant at some stage to become a science and technology museum. The architectural tendering for its re-development, which brought with it a fair degree of publicity, largely because Lord Rogers was up for the gig, resulted in the plan that is currently as idle as the power station itself. There's no money in other words.
This may well be a blessing. If it means the museum never seeing the light of day, we might all be spared the waste of money it would be. As with the GESA building, the power station deserves being knocked down. In its place should go a Center Parcs or something of genuine tourist appeal. But this would never happen because it wouldn't be emblematic. Consequently, the chimneys, at the very least, have to remain and to remain the blots on the landscape as one scans the bay of Alcúdia and spies these two long-impotent erections (if this isn't a contradiction in terms).
As with some commercial buildings, I am in favour of preserving some old industrial architecture. But whereas a power-station chimney or two or four might look ok in an urban landscape, London's for example, the same cannot be claimed for the vista across a bay in a tourism zone that is meant to be renowned for its natural beauty. If chimneys are what you want, there is one anyway; that of the power station by Albufera that took over from the one in Puerto Alcúdia.
Both the GESA building and old power station are emblematic, or symptomatic to be more accurate; symptomatic of confused notions of architectural preservation which insist, firstly, that heritage exists where it does not and, secondly, that scenery is enhanced when it most certainly isn't.
It's all very obvious, or should be. Bring on the wrecking crew and the explosives.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, February 28, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Action against the botellón in Palma
Palma town hall has today introduced by-laws to try and curb street-drinking parties. The "botellón" has long been an issue of concern on account of noise and mess as well as under-age drinking. The town hall's order will expressly prohibit the drinking of alcohol in the streets by minors and will also seek to place parts of the city off-limits to gatherings for such parties.
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