MALLORCA TODAY - Real Mallorca 1 : 0 Celta Vigo

A critical game for La Liga's bottom club Mallorca against the side one place above them. Efforts from Alfaro and especially the always impressive Dos Santos went close but otherwise it was tense stuff. Hemed with a header twelve minutes into the second half offered some hope for Mallorca who were generally in control if not exactly dominating. There was very little else to say until, staggeringly, Dos Santos fired Mallorca in front in added time. On Friday (19 April), Mallorca at home to mid-table Rayo Vallecano.

Bottom six:
15. Osasuna - Played 31, Points 31 (GD -10)
16. Deportivo - Played 31, Points 29 (GD -21)
17. Granada - Played 31, Points 28 (GD -23)
18. Zaragoza - Played 31, Points 27 (GD -21)
19. Mallorca - Played 31, Points 27 (GD -30)
20. Vigo - Played 31, Points 24 (GD -17)



Mallorca:
Aouate; Hutton, Geromel, Bigas, Kevin; Pina, Martí (Pereira 72), Márquez (Tissone 72); Alfaro (Arizmendi 84), Hemed, Dos Santos
Goal: Dos Santos (90+)
Yellows: Bigas (64), Pina (73), Dos Santos (90+)

Vigo:
Varas; Jonny, Vila, Túñez, Lago; Insa, Oubiña; Fernández, López (Orellana 70), Krohn-Dehli (Pranjic 84); Bermejo (Chu-Young 77)
Yellow: Lago (24)

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 15 April 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (4.45am): 13C
Forecast high: 22C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): East 3 locally 4. Swells from the Southeast of up to one metre.

Mainly clear skies and another fine sunny day in prospect with temperatures into the mid-twenties inland and lower by the coast.

Evening update (18.15): And it was a very fine sunny day, inland high of 25.8C.

300 Years Of Memory: Regionalism and Republicanism

There have been two anniversaries over the past few days, one of them a commemoration of an act 300 years ago, the other rather nearer to the present day, but both of them have significance for present-day Spain and can, in certain respects, be linked.

On 11 April 1713 the Treaty of Utrecht was signed. It brought to an end the War of the Spanish Succession and, while the treaty in theory created a unified Spanish state, it in fact laid the foundations for many of the problems that the Spanish state has endured ever since and still does. Under the treaty, the grandson of Louis XIV of France, Philip, the Duke of Anjou, was recognised as the King of Spain. He became King Philip V, the first Bourbon king and so the creator of the ancestral line to the current king, and it was he who was responsible for the so-called Nuevas Plantas, the decrees by which the old charters, institutions and privileges enjoyed by Catalan-speaking territories were removed.

One of the institutions that was done away with was one that had in effect been in abeyance since before the end of the fourteenth century, namely the Kingdom of Mallorca. This had come under the Crown of Aragon, and it was this "crown" which comprised various Catalan-speaking areas - Aragon itself, Valencia, the Balearic Islands and, most importantly of all, Catalonia. One says most importantly of all, because this is how it has turned out. The suppression of Catalonia's rights and privileges by Philip V lies at the heart of current Catalonian claims for independence. All the Aragon crown lands came under the rule of laws from Castile, and these laws included those to do with the use of language (Castellano and not Catalan). They were issued as retribution for Catalan opposition to Philip during the War. The Treaty of Utrecht explains a great deal about present-day tensions.

It also explains tensions on an international level. One at any rate. Under the treaty Gibraltar was ceded to Britain. Gibraltar's strategic importance (far greater than that of Menorca, which was also ceded to the British) explains why the Spanish have always wanted it back. It had been captured by a combined British and Dutch force in 1704. Utrecht defined it as British and as a British possession in perpetuity.

The more recent of the two anniversaries occurred on 14 April. This marked 82 years since the formation of the Second Republic when another Bourbon king, Alfonso XIII, was forced into exile. The Republic was to end in total disaster. It failed for all sorts of reasons, not least because it became the context for factional violence led by anarchists and communists. Yet, had it not become a potential puppet for the Soviet Union, had it not been the pretext for Franco's uprising, where might Spain be now?

It wouldn't be a monarchy, that's for sure. But it would have had many more years of settled democracy. The Republic favoured freedom of speech, ruined under Franco. It favoured freedom of association, which arguably meant that unionism, once democracy was re-established, was to be more fervent than it might otherwise have been and which arguably has also meant that political parties suffer from a certain immaturity that they might not have, had they been allowed to flourish from the 1930s. It also favoured regional autonomy, which was not to become a reality for almost fifty years. And this of course is the main link with Philip V and the Treaty of Utrecht.

82 years do not mark a notable anniversary, but in recent years the remembrance of 14 April has grown stronger across Spain and Mallorca; Pollensa is one of the towns on the island with the strongest Republican sentiment. And various events of very much more recent history have done little to douse the revival of Republicanism.

A year or so ago I would have said that the monarchy was still very much the glue that held Spain together and that Republicanism was just an old ideal of a minority on the left. A lot has happened over the past year, though, to make me wonder. The Catalans seem determined to press ahead with their referendum, one that, were independence to be claimed, would rip up the provisions made by the original Bourbon king. And the current king has his well-publicised problems, those largely not of his making but of his son-in-law.

In Spain you can never forget certain anniversaries. They are ingrained in the national psyche. And while they remain so ingrained, they can always be more than just remembered.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 14 April 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.30am): 13.5C
Forecast high: 22C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): East 2 to 3 veering Northeast 3 to 4 around midday.

Glorious spring morning. Sun all day and the week's forecast is for settled sunny and warm weather with variable and light breezes.

Evening update (20.00): A fine day, a high of 24.8C inland but up to four degrees lower on the coast. 

Managing Reputations: Trip Advisor review responses

A survey by Trip Advisor might not seem the most objective of devices to discover how highly travellers rate the use of Trip Advisor in making travel decisions, but a finding that 93% of travellers who said that review sites, such as Trip Advisor, influence their plans does not strike me as being the least bit unobjective. It's fully believable.

Trip Advisor, for all it gets some bad press, knows it has to be as reliable as possible. It has an online reputation to keep, after all. And online reputation is what Trip Advisor is all about. The same survey that the website has carried out indicates that a doubling of the number of opinions that an establishment receives can lead, in the case of hotels, to a 3% increase in bookings. However this conclusion is arrived at, you can be sure that the increase would not occur if there were a doubling in the number of opinions and they were all bad.

Monitoring online reputation has now become, or should have become, a must-do management procedure, not just for hotels. Most businesses know that this reputation should be monitored, and many do monitor what is said, but precious few seem to do anything about what is said. Monitoring, as in taking a look, is the least of what this monitoring should entail. Far more important is the response and ultimately the action.

I have conducted an unscientific survey of Trip Advisor, one to see how many businesses do actually respond to reviews. The results are far from encouraging. I chose hotels in Puerto Alcúdia, of which there are 47 ranked on Trip Advisor. From these 47 I selected ten from different parts of the ranking. Of the ten, only one hotel - an Iberostar - had made any response to a review. Another, Bellevue, used to give responses; I know because I was once with the assistant director of the complex when he was looking at reviews and replying. This was in 2009 though. Maybe the hotel has just given up. When a quarter of the reviews for your hotel (770 out of 2894) are rated as "terrible", then it must be very disheartening.

I looked at reviews for another resort, Magalluf. Of half a dozen from the 33 hotels listed, the interaction with reviewers seemed stronger. Two Sol hotels (Meliá) had replied and so had Mallorca Rocks. Eventually. A two month gap between a review being posted and a response being given isn't how this is supposed to work, but better late than never. Of other businesses I looked at, hardly any bothered to reply and when there was a reply, it was irregular and often the same stock answer. One business in Mallorca, and it may be the only one, that does this properly, is No Frills Excursions. It replies to every review and often in great detail.

Why do so few hotels, especially hotels, fail to respond? Do they not care? Some may not, but I don't think this is the reason. They don't respond because they don't create the necessary resources and because they fear making a mistake. While hotels have staff who can speak English well, writing English (or any language) is a different matter. An accidental slip can be worse than not replying at all.

Social media like Trip Advisor are making hotels' lives more difficult if these hotels are dealing with customers from a variety of countries and so with a variety of languages. I have some sympathy for them. But this doesn't mean that they should fudge the issue.

A way of resourcing this online reputation management is to contract it out. Possibly, but how wise is this? The person who responds should ideally be embedded in the hotel (or the hotel group), have perfect written skills, have ready access in order to get information and, as importantly, be in a position to do something about a complaint. All businesses, be they hotels, bars, attractions, whatever, should have reputation managers. These could be owners or directors, but someone should take responsibility and not just for complaints. Even glowing reviews need responding to, otherwise it can appear as if customers are being taken for granted.

Trip Advisor has changed the rules of the customer management game. It is one played out on the internet. One that can bring great benefits but one that can also cause great harm. 93% of travellers are influenced by review sites. That's a hell of a lot of travellers and a hell of a lot who can be turned off by reports of a holiday from hell and of a hotel from hell that fails to acknowledge the problem.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 13 April 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.15am): 12C
Forecast high: 21C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): Variable 2 to 3 predominantly Southeast.

Cloudy early on but should be sun all the way today. And for all of next week. Temperatures gradually on the rise.

Evening update (18.00): 24.2C the inland high, somewhat cooler by the coast because of the sea air.

A Strange Thing In Playa de Muro

There is a strange thing happening in Playa de Muro. It is losing its abandonment. That of the unlovely row of units across from the sumptuous summer palaces by the beach. This removal of the abandonment that has been the resort's permanent winter is the consequence of winter, a winter in a Mallorcan style that refuses to be termed otherwise even in warm spring; a Mallorcan winter means that which isn't summer, and a Mallorcan summer, in turn, is partly real summer, partly spring, partly autumn.

Holidays on two wheels are to blame. Or to be praised. Where units were once the resting place for the leaves of winter to mound up and rot until the council sent in the boy with the blower, they are now opening, being converted into off-season and main-season palacetes to serve the palaces o'er yonder. Palacetes of two wheels.

This dismal and forgotten row had first been remembered a few short years ago. The devil's work of the Grupo Boulevard demolished some of the unloveliness and built a different type of palace, one of black glass, and placed beneath it a shop of high-classness, a café of high-classness, a restaurant of ... ah well, there's the devil's work, some would maintain, those some being the Little Mallorcans of British origin who rail against commerce that advances the cause of restaurants as marketing opportunities. They should look at Boulevard's palace and marvel, marvel at how it has brought life and light where there was dinginess. Following its lead have come the revamped units where once only vamps of the darkness of night would have trod. But it has been a lead enabled by the two wheels. Playa de Muro lives, and it lives in phoney summer and phoney spring as well as in real summer and real spring.

It has been a movement over recent winters, but that movement has gathered such pace that Playa de Muro has come alive in phoney summer. Playa de Muro lives. Even I am shocked by the extent that this new life has been breathed into the resort. I hadn't expected it. Not so soon. If ever. Playa de Muro is evidence of how transformation can occur. It helps if there are summer palaces by the beach which can command an audience in phoney summer. But then there are many summer palaces across Mallorca that stand forlorn and gathering sand and dust in winter. They are not unique to Muro. What is, it would appear, is a determination, about which there had been great scepticism. Mine. Next to the palacetes of two wheels there will be a festival of two wheels this week, one that has been stolen from the island's south, packed into pantechnicons and transported sixty or so kilometres to the north. Then comes a race. The Mallorca 312. Did you know that if you take a coastal route around Mallorca, one that starts in Playa de Muro and ends in Playa de Muro, the distance is 312 kilometres? 312.2 kilometres, to be precise. It will be 312.2 kilometres of road closures and cursings to add to the normal cursings directed at the two wheels, but these cursings are so misplaced, as narrow in their mindless mutterings as the narrowness of the Little Mallorcans of British origin who curse an establishment that fails to conform to quaint Mallorca.

Summer hasn't started. It doesn't, as most people understand summer, start for over two months. In Mallorca it starts in a couple of weeks. But it has burst forth already. In Playa de Muro at any rate. The resort has left behind the permanent winter it had inherited so many years ago when those unlovely units were abandoned. It has been revived, and summer has arrived. To become a permanent summer instead? That would be nice. But no. Or at least, you would think no. There again, we hadn't (I hadn't) thought this revival would occur as it is occurring. Strange things happening indeed.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 12 April 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.45am): 18C
Forecast high: 21C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): West 3 temporarily Northwest 4 in the Formentor area.

Fine, sunny, warm morning. Not breezy at the moment.

Afternoon update (17.45): Sun all the way, but still rather chilly out of the sun, a high of 23.5C.

Scorecards In Heaven: Wisden

It's that familiar question. What do you miss about Britain? The reply is familiar, in my case at any rate. Not a lot. But in April each year there is an event which makes me wonder. It is a publishing event, one that heralds the start of summer and the return of the English cricket season. Wisden.

Arctic weather in Britain so late into the year is not so uncommon. One day in one April some years ago I stepped out of Baker Street tube en route to a meeting. It was snowing. That put an end to thoughts that I might just bunk off and go to Lord's instead. But coming back from the meeting, I found myself a nice, warm, cosy bookstore. I had yet to indulge in the annual ritual. That of the excitement of the sight of a pile of yellow-covered bricks of almanacks, their shiny white pages cut so perfectly that they looked like blocks of ice-cream.

How very different this edition was to my first Wisden. 1963's. It had become tattered. It still is tattered. Rather more in fact. It wasn't hardback, an omission on behalf of my father who bought it for me that some would argue was sacrilegious. A softback Wisden!

Hard or soft, the annual Wisden, for all its obscure coverage of public school cricket, an MCC tour to Bechuanaland, or cricket in Mongolia, was the excuse to while away hour upon hour poring over the previous season's county championship and test scorecards. They were the next best thing to actually being at a county game, to sit on the vast terraces of an empty Oval, a biting wind whipping in past the gas works while Barrington played out yet another maiden over that demonstrated the art of the forward defensive. And then there were the great scorecards, those that spoke of remarkable feats. For example, in the 1967 edition, there was the final test from the previous season: Graveney run out 165, but far more significantly, Murray lbw b Sobers 112, Higgs c&b Holford 63, Snow not out 59. Numbers nine, ten and eleven, a combined score of 234. Scorecard heaven.

Cricket is a mad sport. Its utter and innate insanity explains its attraction to many who border on having less than total contact with the real world. Eccentric sport invites eccentrics, and so Sir Patrick Moore is remembered in this year's Wisden, one of his greatest insights into cricket having been to observe that quick bowlers on Mars would have found it difficult to obtain any swing. It is a sport devoted to its own record-keeping. If cricket were to be given a school report, the comment would read that it was good at its sums. No sport has made statisticians famous in the way that cricket has: Bill Frindall, aka the Bearded Wonder, Messrs Duckworth and Lewis.

The Spanish don't have a clue about cricket. They may have a national cricket team, one largely comprising those with names that you would expect to be lining up alongside Saeed Ajmal, but in terms of the team registering with the national consciousness, it rates about as well as the British conkers team does. There was once a whole programme on the RNE3 national radio station given over to Neil Hannon's Duckworth Lewis Method and the group's eponymous album. What was the station thinking of? Not even true and British aficionados of cricket have the faintest idea how Duckworth Lewis works.

There would be little point trying to indoctrinate the Spanish and Mallorcans in the idiosyncrasies of cricket. How on earth would you overcome the issue of breaking for tea, especially when, and despite over a half a century of practice, the Mallorcans still haven't figured out how to make a cup of tea? Cricket is the great cultural divide. It is inherently bonkers and British. Let's leave the Catalans to building human towers and the Spanish to bullfighting.

For all that there is the annual ritual with Wisden, it is now something of an anachronism. Its scorecards have been usurped by online archives and real-time updating. It is no longer quite the reminder of culture from Britain that it once was. There is still the hankering after shivering with a cold pint as Onions bowls to Trescothick, but distance has been removed thanks to the internet and Cricinfo. Yorkshire all out 96. Chris Nash smashing 80 out of 104 in reply for Sussex. 80 out of 104. Scorecard heaven.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 11 April 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.15am): 14.5C
Forecast high: 21C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): Southwest 4 to 5 easing to Northwest 3 by the evening.

Light cloud but otherwise sunny. And it is sun all the way for the next few days.

Afternoon update (17.45): Windy but really quite warm, a high of 25.8C.

The Return Of The Package Holiday

Arguments there are as to who was responsible for the invention of the package holiday and arguments there are also as to the package holiday's place in today's tourism sun, but it shows little sign of being unpackaged. Quite the contrary in fact.

Mr. Thomas Cook didn't really invent the package holiday. It was a package excursion to Loughborough on Mr. George Stephenson's new-fangled steam contraption that he first offered in 1841 to a group of temperance sorts; not quite the same thing as a package holiday, therefore. Horizon Holidays can probably lay claim to having pioneered the package over a hundred years later.

It was the package holiday and pretty much exclusively the package holiday that gave rise to Mallorca's tourism boom. Oh that tour operators could wind the clock back to those golden days when there was no such thing as direct booking, no such thing (or very little thing) as the independent traveller, and no such airline entrepreneur as Stelios or Mick O'Leary.

The tour operators have spent the past roughly twenty years fighting a good fight in the name of the package holiday, while at the same time doing their own pandering to the independently minded. They have maintained a defence of the package holiday, rejected the claims that it was a thing of the past and have recently argued that its day has returned; not that it ever went away.

Reports over the winter that the package holiday was firmly back in favour carried the message that the package was enjoying a renaissance, but in fact the same thing has been said for several years. This time, however, there is strong evidence to suggest that the renaissance is genuine; the package holiday is well and truly back in fashion.

There are various reasons why the package holiday is flavour of the tourism month and season once more: it is a safer option; it is more diverse and so more sophisticated; it is cheaper or at least gives the impression of being cheaper because of its fixed-price nature. There is a lot to be said for these reasons. To take one, the safer option, one only has to cast one's mind back to when that unpronounceable volcano in Iceland went off in 2010 to appreciate that the package does have advantages; the poor buggers who had travelled independently and who were stranded in Mallorca were left in a right old pickle trying to sort out accommodation.

There are other reasons. One is the all-inclusive. Its onward march has come about partly because the tour operators needed to be able to say there was something new about the package holiday. And what better was there than a package holiday that really was a package: the whole package and nothing but the whole package. With holidaymakers attracted to the convenience of the all-inclusive, why would they then bother piecing together their own holiday and so suffering inconvenience in order to enjoy convenience? It didn't make a great deal of sense, even if there are still those who insist on seeking cheaper arrangements by travelling independently.

The latest Eurobarometer of tourism attitudes, a survey conducted annually on behalf of the European Commission, confirms the revival of the package holiday and supports findings by Spanish surveys of this revival in key tourist destinations, such as Mallorca. But other than this confirmation, the Eurobarometer reveals other findings, one of them being the fact that the all-inclusive package actually lost ground last year. The fall was only slight and the trend towards all-inclusive varied between tourists from different countries, but among the Germans, as an example, is was down by two percentage points.

This finding does not represent a reason for those who detest all-inclusive to jump for joy. But then there is a further finding in respect of "other types of package travel", i.e. those that are not all-inclusive. The increases were really very significant, just as significant as the falls in the purchasing of separate parts of the tourism package (those by independent travellers). Among the French, for instance, the increase was over 30%.

So yes, the package holiday is very much back in favour but, and contrary to expectation, it isn't the all-inclusive that is bringing it back into favour. This may just reflect what is on offer to tourists from different countries or it may reflect something else, namely that the tour operators haven't got it completely right and that, while holidaymakers are turning to the package holiday again, they are turning to the traditional one.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Dead animals on Pollensa mayor's family finca

The rambling group Pro Camins Públics, which has been pressing for full access to the walk along the old Pollensa-Lluc road that passed through the finca that belongs to the family of Pollensa's mayor Tomeu Cifre, has complained to various authorities about the appearance of dead animals on that part of the road on the finca. The mayor says that, of the animals, two sheep belonged to the finca and that the Council of Mallorca had been notified, which is normal practice so that remains can be removed.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 10 April 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (9.00am): 14C
Forecast high: 20C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): East 2 to 4 veering Southwest 4 by the evening.

A bit misty but sunny. Another pleasant day on the cards, temperatures into the low 20s.

Evening update (18.30): Once the chill of the lingering mist went, it was a good warm day, a high of 22.9C.

One Day In 1979

I don't remember 3 May 1979, as in I don't remember what the weather was like and as in I don't remember if I voted. I suppose I must have done, but if I did, I have long expunged this fruitless act from my memory. I would have voted Labour, as that's what I did, though it would have been masochistic to have voted for Callaghan. Mind you, the alternative (and not David Steel) would have required greater masochism. Margaret Thatcher was dangerous to know about. I do remember a sense of genuine fear as to what lay ahead. I can remember, on the other hand, 1 May 1997 and 2 May 1997. Both days were gloriously warm. I had been among the first to vote on 1 May. On 2 May, despite the hangover, the world suddenly seemed a very much better place after eighteen years. It seemed a better place, but how we had been fooled. That, though, is another story.

One thing is for certain. In 1979 I hadn't been in Mallorca. Had I been, on 5 May, I would have been greeted by the headline on the front page of the "Majorca Daily Bulletin" which read, "Maggie There!". And yes, there she was. On the front page of the paper and newly installed in 10 Downing Street, there was this strange woman with strangled elocution, this frightening creature who was to become the "Spitting Image" dominatrix, the one who, even before the election victory, had been causing those on the left to have convulsions brought on by anxiety and panic attacks.

Divisive. Dave has admitted that she was. And, boy, was she divisive back in 1979. The Bulletin ran a vox pop on 5 May. Opinions on the streets of Palma differed, as Gordon Rees's report showed.

One part of the Thatcher win in 1979 that may now be forgotten is the support she had from women. A Mrs. Cruttenden of Brighton told "The Bulletin" that she would have voted for Mrs. Thatcher. Would have voted? Mrs. Cruttenden was on holiday. She couldn't vote back then. It took a change to the Representation of the People Act in 1983 and a subsequent amendment to permit postal votes for those who would be on holiday at the time of a general election. Mrs. Cruttenden was not alone in voicing her support of Mrs. Thatcher. A Mrs. Dack of Nottingham said that Mrs. Thatcher seemed "straightforward". Her husband, though he felt that the Conservatives would stop the slide, was less sure. Mrs. Thatcher was the "best of two bad things".

Not all the women were as positive. Two couples - Mr. and Mrs. Sloan of Lanarkshire and Mr. and Mrs. Sanders of Manchester - were decidedly negative. Mr. Sloan spoke for Mrs. Sloan: "the country will go downhill". Neither fancied Mrs. Thatcher at all. The Sanders thought she would be a disaster for the country because she would take on the unions.

Other men, seemingly unattached to partners, expressed competing views. Mr. Barnard of Staffordshire was not a fan of Mrs. Thatcher but was nevertheless pleased that the Conservatives had won. Someone described as "an angry man who refused to give his name" offered a dismissive "huh". But a Colonel Spiro of Eastbourne was quite the opposite. He had seen a headline from the "Financial Times" about Mrs. Thatcher taking a tough line with scroungers. This was something that should have been done by Labour, declared the Colonel.

Elsewhere, and away from the streets of Palma, the president's wife at the British-American Club said that they were delighted with the results (they presumably being everyone at the club, though this might not have been the case). These results were being put up on a blackboard at the club, something that Colonel Spiro might have been interested to know about. He had complained that facilities on the island for obtaining the results could have been better and that hotels might have considered putting them up on notice boards.

And that was pretty much it for the vox pop. Only a small sample, but probably not untypical. But what a world away it seems now. No postal voting. Blackboards for writing up results. However the results were communicated though, there was no doubt. Maggie was there, and the front page said so.

(Just as a matter of passing interest and to demonstrate that Maggie's win wasn't the only news in town, on the same page as the vox pop was an item about the inaugural flight to Palma of a new charter airline. It was? Air Europe. And Air Europe was to last only a few months longer than Margaret Thatcher did as prime minister.)

*This article is an item produced for the "Majorca Daily Bulletin" that used access I have had to the paper's fifty-year archive in researching a feature on the paper's news reporting that will appear in a special supplement in May this year. So, my thanks to the paper for this access and therefore for this article.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Ternelles left out of Pollensa's walks' publicity

The latest leaflets detailing walks in Pollensa make no mention of the walk across the Ternelles finca, the one that has caused so much controversy for so long. Though it is still the case that permissions can be given by the town hall for groups of walkers to enter the finca, the most recent legal ruling declared that the finca was private, a decision that the town hall has not appealed.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Albufera park closing early because of lack of staff

The Albufera nature park, the reception to which is in Playa de Muro, has been closing earlier than it should do. The park, management for which has now transferred to the Balearics Institute for Nature (a governmental body), should stay open until 6pm but has been shutting up to two hours before. Visitors can still get into the park, despite this, but without any control, a situation criticised by environmental watchdog GOB.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 9 April 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.45am): 11C
Forecast high: 20C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): Southwest 3 to 4 easing West 3 by the afternoon and eventually variable 2.

Light cloud but plenty of blue sky. Quite warm with southwesterly breezes.

Afternoon update (17.30): A high of 22.7C. Breezy and sunny.

Losing Beaches In Calvià

Calvià town hall has produced a magazine by the name of "Entorn de Calvià" (Calvià's environment). It is 138 pages long, full of pictures and full of worthy but uninviting scientific detail. It is also in Catalan, so you'll probably give it a miss, other than to look at the pictures. It is a magazine which shows that there is very much more to Calvià than that with which it is most typically associated - its beach resorts of Magalluf, Palmanova, Peguera and Santa Ponsa. Highlighting the diversity of the municipality is a worthwhile exercise in its own right, but it is the highlighting of concerns about its beaches which will make the greatest impression. The magazine has four themes - nature, flora and fauna, the coastline and climate change. These themes are inter-related, but the inter-relationship is greatest, simply because of the overwhelming tourist demand, among the latter two: the impact of climate change on Calvià's beaches.

There isn't anything particularly new in conclusions that are drawn about the effects of climate change; they are ones that have been made regarding Mallorca as a whole. What is perhaps new is the fact that one town, and a very important town in terms of its contribution to the island's tourism, should be addressing the climate change-beach issue as it affects the town's beaches alone.

The loss of up to fifteen metres of beach and a rise in sea level of twenty centimetres by the middle of this century are familiar claims. It is the dramatic nature of such claims that can make it difficult to accept the predictions. If they are right, however, then the impacts will be as dramatic as the disappearance of coastline and the appearance of sea in someone's living-room; they are impacts that will affect the whole topography of the 50-plus kilometres of Calvià's coastline and what lies immediately behind it.

I say this, but as I have remarked previously, it is difficult to conceptualise what all this loss of beach would look like. It's why it would be helpful were there some modelling and simulation that we could all see. We might not believe it, but at least we would know what we talking about. It is only once one appreciates the potential practical implications that decisions, if any, can be made, though whether such decisions, were they to imply truly dramatic topographical alteration, would be made by normally inert and complacent governmental bodies and others is another question.

There are other issues, again familiar ones. Reduced rainfall means pressures on water supplies. The pace of land erosion, and so not just coastal erosion, is quickening and will quicken further because of forest fires. Neither having insufficient resources to keep tourists watered nor envisaging a possible desertisation sounds like great news for a town that provides a fifth of Mallorca's tourist places. Nor does the rise in temperature, though I am not so sure about this; tourists are like curry-eaters, some prefer no hotter than a Madras while others love a vindaloo.

It is the unknown of climate change, the unpredictability, the big question marks which all, despite reports such as Calvià's, make the taking of decisions or taking action so difficult. Why invest in something so uncertain? There are those who are certain of the effects of climate change on Mallorca and there are those who are not. The result? Inaction. Does it make sense, however, if the predictions really are as dramatic as we are led to believe, for the investment that is currently taking place to continue? Magalluf's Wave House is all fine and dandy, but it won't be if a real wave comes crashing in on it.

Yet, the possibility of this happening is years away, a long enough time for a very healthy return to have been made on current investment. But, and this is another aspect of the uncertainty, the loss of coast and the rise in sea level won't just occur on a particular day in, say, 2050. Do we conclude that the sea will be up by ten centimetres by 2030? I'm still not sure I know what this would actually entail, but a shorter time horizon should exercise minds rather more than one reaching into the middle of the century.

My guess is that the report, fine though it no doubt is, will receive earnest responses from all concerned and then be filed on a shelf somewhere. It will be safe enough, as Calvià town hall is well inland, so there will be no worry that it might be washed away. There again, with all the fires that are in store, it might end up on the wrong end of an inferno.

* The magazine can be seen here: http://issuu.com/culturacalvia/docs/entorn


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 8 April 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (9.15am): 8.5C
Forecast high: 19C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): Southwest and West 3 to 4 with intervals of West 2 to 3 around midday.

Chilly morning, largely cloudy, brightening and warming up later. The rest of the week looks mainly settled and quite warm.

Evening update (19.45): Fairly windy but quite warm, a high of 21.7C.

A Plan For Seasonality, At Last

You will know those ten-best lists that are the stock-in-trade of every newspaper. They are easy enough to put together and so to fill some space; just do a bit of Googling and in no time you have your ten for this and your ten for that.

The miserable weather in Britain provoked "The Guardian" (as much of an offender as any other newspaper when it comes to the ten-bests) into offering its "top ten sun spots to escape Britain's endless winter". It's travel journalism for old rope, to be honest. Google a map of the Med, a map of the Middle East and the Atlantic, get some tour operator or other business to maybe offer a few quid to get a link or a namecheck and off you go. And where are the top ten sun spots? Morocco, Cyprus, Malta, Tenerife ... yea, yea, yea. Where isn't a top ten sun spot? Where do you think?

The "Hosteltur" magazine has recently published a report entitled "Seasonality, Spanish tourism's cancer". Reflecting the absences in the top ten from "The Guardian", the report pointed out that, with the exception of the Canaries, all of Spain's main summer tourism centres are suffering as a consequence of the seasonality. Actually, "The Guardian", ignoring Mallorca but advocating Tenerife and Gran Canaria, did also recommend Alicante, not for Benidorm, you wouldn't expect "The Guardian" to do that, but for the Marjal Costa Blanca Resort, an eco-camping resort; Mallorca doesn't have such a thing, which is probably why it fails to register with "The Guardian".

The report makes it clear that the problem of seasonality has been exacerbated in recent years. It goes on to pay a good deal of attention to Mallorca, starting out by looking at all the developments in Magalluf and at the hope that these developments will lengthen the season to nine months of the year rather than seven. There are those who would challenge Calvià mayor's assertion that there are seven months of the season (it is he that the report quotes), but even if there were, how does he envisage extending the season to nine months? Well, he doesn't, other than to say that it's all the fault of the airlines that all this brand spanking new real estate that has required colossal amounts of investment will sit empty during the winter.

The president of the Balearics Hotel Chains Group, Margalida Ramis of Grupotel, is then quoted as saying that there have been greater losses over the 2012/2013 winter because of cuts to air connections. So, there we have it. It's no one else's fault; just the airlines. They say, however, that there isn't a "tourist offer" to make routes worth their while. And we all say, in response to what Calviá's mayor reckons, to what Margalida Ramis states and to the airlines' justification, that we have heard it all over and over and over. For years and years and years.

Though winter business was of a level sufficient enough in the 1990s to justify tour operators retaining tour reps through the winter (for parts of Mallorca), it was this decade that witnessed a tailing-off of what had never, despite what some might say, been huge winter tourism business. The problem of seasonality is almost as old as Mallorca's tourism industry since the boom of the 1960s. It has, as a consultant in the "Hosteltur" report points out, been a problem that has been spoken about for at least 40 years. He, Eulogio Bordas, president of THR (Turismo, Hotelería y Recreación), says that all the talk over all these years has amounted to nothing because of the absence of coherent plans and quantifiable objectives.

Bordas has a plan, and so he must be all but unique in this regard. The plan would apply to Spain, as opposed to just Mallorca, though it could, were there anyone with the vision to take it on, be applied specifically to Mallorca. What he envisages is the setting of specific goals in terms of increasing the number of winter tourists. Two million is the amount he would start out with. Crucial to doing this, he says, is not all the publicity that gets chucked around (hallelujah) but sales promotion. And this sales promotion would be designed to getting tourists to break with well-established habits. i.e. they would holiday in winter and not in the summer. In order to get them to change their routine, there would have to be all sorts of incentives, including, for example, free entrances (to some attractions).

To implement such a plan, an organisation would need to be established that comprises all the various relevant parties - from hotels, to theme parks, to restaurants, to town halls, to you name it - and absolutely critical would be the obtaining of concessions from the airports authority, AENA. Tax-free landing, for example.

One drawback with this scheme might be that if routines were changed and tourists started coming in winter, wouldn't this leave a hole in summer tourism? Not necessarily. The new markets like Russia that are coming on-stream have to be accommodated in summer. Moving some of the summer market to winter would actually be a benefit.

It is an ambitious plan (and I have only sketched part of it). It might appear impractical, though I don't think so, and at least it is a plan, something that, like Mallorca's absence from the top ten sun spots, has been conspicuous by its absence for at least 40 years.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Police search for driver in Muro cyclists' crash

The Guardia Civil, having located the car, are searching for the driver of a vehicle who collided with a group of 15 German cyclists on the old main road between Muro and Can Picafort, seven of whom required hospital treatment. The incident happened yesterday evening at around 6.30pm on what can be a dangerous road that is wall-lined, twisting and without cycle lanes.

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 7 April 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (9.15am): 11.5C
Forecast high: 17C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): North and Northwest 3 to 4, easing to Southwest 2 to 3 in the afternoon and rising to 4 by the evening.

Bright morning, the week ahead looks good enough with temperatures rising into the twenties and there being good amounts of sun.

Evening update (18.00): 18.2C the high on a sunny day but with a chill wind coming in from the sea. Very typical for this time of the year.

Serene Progress: Adults-only hotels

Is the family hotel becoming a thing of the past? The emergence and growth of the adults-only (AO) hotel would suggest that its days are numbered. They aren't of course, but AO is catching on, and catching on fast in Mallorca.

Melía Hotels International is just one chain that has been reaping the rewards from branching out into this niche market. In its first season of offering AO in Mallorca (two hotels) plus one apiece in Ibiza and Menorca, the hotels exceeded the company's expectations. It expanded the concept by introducing AO in other destinations in 2012 and its annual report for last year identified the importance of "premium" brands, such as AO, to overall company performance. There are greater margins to be made, in other words.

The trend towards AO has been in place for some years. The original AO holiday complex is generally considered to have been Sandals in Jamaica's Montego Bay back in the 1980s. The concept has grown in popularity since then, the result of a number of factors, such as a rise in the number of couples without children and of adults simply not wanting to have to listen to kids screaming in a pool all day.

In Puerto Alcúdia, the Golf Hotel has been adults-only since 2008. Branded by the Viva group as a Vanity hotel, it has been one of two AOs in the resort, the other having been the Platja d'Or. There is now a third. It is not so much a hotel as part of a large apartments complex, Sea Club. 41 apartments have been sectioned off, been given a makeover, had a wooden solarium built around an exclusive pool and been dubbed Serenity. Am I alone in seeing a certain similarity between the two brand names - the "nity" part?

The Vanity name has always seemed, to me at any rate, less than ideal. It may imply some exclusivity, but I'm not convinced that a further implication that guests might be branded as being vain is necessarily a positive. But then what do I know? It's obviously successful, vanity or no vanity, and it can boast Team Sky among its clientele.

Serenity is arguably a better name. The suggestion of tranquility, of peace and quiet, is, one presumes, what adults want from an adults-only establishment. The name also conveys an impression, one of its location. Serene, to me, would probably be beachside, the only noises the rustling of palms and the gentle waves of the Mediterranean. This is not the location though. Serenity, as part of Sea Club, is some distance from the beach and in between two of the biggest tourist complexes in Alcúdia - Bellevue and Club Mac. It is part of one of the next biggest complexes, Sea Club itself.

This said, I applaud what has been done. These large complexes offer the possibility of being broken down into individual components and niched and branded separately. It is a strategy that Bellevue is crying out for. Sea Club have stolen a march, and it is a very good march as it is just the sort of tourist business that should be happening.

My only real gripe with the name isn't the name Serenity as such but the full title of this AO enclave. It is Serenity by Sea Club. This isn't "by" as in next to, it is "by" as in from. I am wondering when "by" was first used as a marketing device ("by Terence Conran" perhaps), but its use is now widespread. There is a restaurant in Puerto Alcúdia which has a "by", and it is intended to convey a certain cachet, a presumption that the one who is doing the providing is somehow well-known or is synonymous with exclusiveness. It does no such thing when you haven't a clue who he is.

There again, the mere use of "by" gives greater kudos to the provider. Sea Club, a complex of otherwise bog-standard apartments, cranks its reputation up a notch simply through an association that "by" gives. It's a clever move, but how durable is this "by"? It is a word that can now be added to many in the marketing lexicon that, if anyone dares use them, demands that he or she be given a good slap with a hefty marketing textbook. Words like "friendly", "service", "quality", "team"; all the no-no's of contemporary marketing promotion that are trotted out in the meaningless fashion that they are.

Serenity by Sea Club. It sounds ok, though. Adults only, it will not be the only such addition. More will follow. The family hotel will be with us forever, but its pre-eminence is being challenged.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Barcelona 5 : 0 Real Mallorca

A Barça side missing a number of regulars at home to Mallorca. An upset for the visitors against the La Liga champions-in-waiting?

It all started unremarkably enough, but Barça, regardless of those who were missing, gradually took a stranglehold, and on 20 minutes Fábregas finished off a movement following Alexis's pass. Two minutes later, it was Alexis himself. A rare close effort for Mallorca - Alfaro's header from Hutton's cross - was merely followed by another Alexis-Fábregas combination, the latter adding his second and then by a reciprocal arrangement, Fábregas putting Alexis in. Second half underway and immediately it was taking-the-piss moment, Fábregas completing his hat-trick. 45 minutes of going through the motions, Barça withdrawing Iniesta, Fábregas and then Piqué, Mallorca creating little.

Let's just look at Mallorca's run-in over the final eight games. Vigo (home), Rayo Vallecano (home), Zaragoza (away), Levante (home), Bilbao (away), Betis (home), Atlético Madrid (away), Valladolid (home). Points available among this lot, but with 24 points from 30 games, the stats suggest five points at most. It could be more, as strugglers Deportivo have shown by having gone a run of wins, but will it be? Five points wouldn't be anything like enough.

Bottom six (with games to be played tomorrow affecting Vigo and Osasuna):
15. Osasuna - Played 29, Points 31 (GD -7)
16. Granada - Played 30, Points 28 (GD -18)
17. Zaragoza - Played 30, Points 27 (GD -18)
18. Deportivo - Played 30, Points 26 (GD -25)
19. Vigo - Played 29, Points 24 (GD -14)
20. Mallorca - Played 30, Points 24 (GD -31)

Barcelona:
Pinto; Alves, Bartra, Piqué (Abidal 69), Montoya; Thiago, Song, Iniesta (J. Dos Santos 50); Alexis, Fábregas (Deulofeu 65), Tello
Goals: Fábregas (19, 36, 46), Alexis (21, 38)
Yellow: Alexis (74)

Mallorca:
Aouate; Hutton, Nunes, Bigas, Kevin; Tissone, Pina (Márquez 70); Nsue (Martí 45), Alfaro, G. Dos Santos; Hemed (Arizmendi 45)
Yellow: Alfaro (63)

MALLORCA TODAY - The whole case against Urdangarin will be archived?

If you don't read Spanish well, the link to this article might prove a bit difficult. You can try putting into Google Translate and it will make some sense and probably sufficient to get the gist. Written by the excellent Matías Vallés, it suggests that the state prosecutor wants the case against Princess Cristina and her private secretary, Carlos García Revenga, to be archived, i.e. case not proven, everyone forgets about it, and Urdangarin's defence "smoothed".

Vallés says that he was originally against the indictment of Princess Cristina but that he has been persuaded to think otherwise by the Torres emails. I don't know that I agree with him. On the basis of what has been published by "El Pais" of the emails, I don't feel they are as damaging as is being made out, but there is always the possibility that emails that haven't been disclosed are potentially more harmful. Regardless of this, however, there is, as I have said in a previous article, good reason for the Princess to answer questions, if only regarding a possible abuse of her position, which is not the same as the principal allegations that have been made.

Vallés, though, sees the suspension of the subpoena of Princess Cristina as a step in the archiving of the case, and he may of course be right. The problem is that, as soon as Judge Castro issued the subpoena, to go back on it would potentially be more harmful than the Princess having to appear before him. The Spanish Government may worry about the harm being caused to the country's image because of the case, but the harm will be greater if it appears that there has been some form of stitch-up and the case is dropped.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Years of unpaid taxes at Alcúdia's market

Alcúdia town hall has acknowledged that it is owed almost 25,000 euros in taxes from market traders, money that it is unlikely to receive. The debt relates to non-payment of charges for, for instance, the removal of cardboard. The town hall says that a situation has been allowed to occur whereby licences to trade have been renewed even though there have been outstanding debts, and this has been unfair on those traders who have met their obligations. The twice-weekly market is to be trimmed down in terms of the number of stalls in an attempt to restore quality over quantity and there is to be a crackdown on the sale of pirated goods.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 6 April 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.45am): 8.5C
Forecast high: 15C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): North 6 to 7, easing through the morning to 4 to 5 rising to Northwest 5 to 6 by the evening. Swells increasing to two metres and possible storms.

Rain overnight and more rain around this morning. Due to clear up to some extent later. Still rough around the coasts, but warmer tomorrow and by midweek getting well into the twenties.

Afternoon update (17.45): The sun came out, as had been hoped, but really quite cool, a high of just over 13 degrees inland and a tad lower on the coast.

Stuffed Envelopes: Price-fixing in Spain

The opportunities for foreign residents to vote in elections in Mallorca may be restricted to municipal elections, but anyone who has bothered to vote, and even those who haven't, will know about the envelopes.

Letterboxes in Mallorca are generally not stuffed full of junk mail. Like junk phone calls, there is very little junk mail, the consequence of a strict application of data protection that is at considerable variance with how things apply in the UK. But in the lead-up to elections, letterboxes get filled with political party literature.

The chances are that many a foreign resident will simply file this literature without even opening it, but if the envelope is opened, he or she will discover other envelopes. It's all a bit like Russian dolls. There will also be voting forms and huge long lists of candidates from various parties who are arranged according to how the parties have prioritised them. The system of proportional representation means that the number one priority, if it is a municipal election, will be that party's mayoral candidate. The others, in descending order, are those who have first dibs on becoming councillors, assuming the PR goes in the party's favour.

All well and good and all well and baffling. It isn't necessary for one to fill out the voting form for one party or another in advance of heading off to the polling station - there are piles of forms there for those who, like myself, forget to do the filling-in or who have, as with mostly everyone else, chucked the envelopes in the paper recycling bin - but there will still be the requirement to put the form into the relevant envelope, depending on which election one is voting in (normally three at local election times: municipal, Council of Mallorca and regional government).

This rigmarole is the same in every municipality across Mallorca and Spain. There is a huge amount of paper and there are huge numbers of envelopes flying around. And someone has been making an enormous amount of profit from it all; this someone having been a cartel of stationery printing companies which have had a fine of 44 million euros slapped on them by the Spanish competition commission.

From 1977, i.e. from the time that democracy kicked in after Franco, until 2010, this cartel fixed the market for election stationery by fixing the price for printing and by keeping to itself the technology that is used to perform a complicated printing task. The cartel didn't only provide stationery for elections, it had also provided it for referenda and to large organisations, both public and private, that included the police, the tax agency and most government ministries.

Legislation against price-fixing has been on the Spanish statute book for years, but in 2007 a new act gave the competition commission more teeth. Last year, it issued a fine, ten thousand euros below the maximum of 60,000, on an individual company director for the first time. Joan Gaspart, the chief executive of the HUSA hotel chain and the chairman of the tourism division of the Spanish equivalent of the CBI, was fined 50,000 euros for having made a price recommendation in a speech at the tourism fair in Madrid in 2011. He had said that a rise of up to 7% in hotel prices seemed reasonable. The commission thought it unreasonable as it takes a dim view of price recommendations being made, as they can be construed as infringing competition law.

Other examples of tackling cartels have included an investigation into price-fixing by car-hire firms on the Costa del Sol, another into price-fixing for building insurance (a case that is to go back to the Spanish Supreme Court), a further one into fixing the price of petrol (BP and Repsol were fined 6.1 million euros). There are plenty of other cases.

Returning to the matter of envelopes, there was clearly a very good printing earner to be made from democracy, and a group of companies made sure they made it. It was a variant, I suppose, on the envelope stuffed with notes, but then Mallorca's electoral past has had something of the envelope-stuffing as well. In 2007, the gypsy vote was allegedly bought by the old Unió Mallorquina. In return for a payment of 25,000 euros, voting slips, already marked with a UM cross, were provided along with the relevant envelope and were to be placed in the ballot box. Maybe the UM could have saved themselves some manual cross-marking time and got the printers to have run them some slips off already marked.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 5 April 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (9.00am): 13C
Forecast high: 17C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): Northeast 3 to 4. Swells of one metre and possible storm later.

Sunny but getting cloudy and with rain on the way. Alerts in place today for rain and tomorrow for rain, wind and adverse coastal conditions.

Evening update (18.00): Sun's out now, but it went away for a time in the early afternoon when it got very dark and there was a downpour and thunder. A high of 17C.

Judgement By Email: Princess Cristina

If you knew nothing else about affairs in Spain but were presented with the news that the youngest daughter of the King had been supoeaned to appear in a court to answer questions related to a suspected corruption case and that members of the government had been listed in accounts which suggested that they had received money from a slush fund, then you would be within your rights to believe that Spain was on the point of institutional collapse.

That it may not be owes a great deal to what you wouldn't therefore know about other affairs in Spain. The indictment of Princess Cristina may be a sensation, the ledgers revealing possible black money may be dynamite, but this is Spain.

Prime Minister Rajoy, one of those listed in the ledgers, would have known about the subpoena when he addressed his party on Wednesday. Sidestepping the issue, he instead insisted that the economy would be growing by next year and that it was untrue that Spain was a country with widespread political corruption. It all rather depends on how one defines widespread, I guess.

Institutional collapse, that of either the monarchy or the government, is not going to happen, but the government and the main PSOE opposition are clearly alarmed at the damage that the Cristina sensation, coming on top of the leaked ledgers, may cause to Spain's image, such as it is, and to stability. Officially, neither the PP nor PSOE comments on judicial matters, leaving these to the judges (or judge in the case of the Princess), but this hasn't stopped unofficial voices of disapproval of Judge Castro's indictment of the Princess. He has done so as a means of self-aggrandisement, it is being suggested.

This is most unlikely. Castro is not Baltasar Garzón. But the judge will, like Garzón, have his enemies and there will be jealousies of him. It was these that helped to bring Garzón down. Any attempt, though, to constrain Castro by accusing him of exceeding his authority (which is what happened to Garzón) would be many more times damaging than either the harm that was caused to Spain's image by Garzón being disqualified or by the subpoena of the Princess.

Though the anti-corruption prosecutors are appealing the subpoena (they do not consider there are sufficient grounds for the Princess to be called), the reasons why Judge Castro has changed his mind - he had also suggested that there were insufficient grounds - are becoming clearer, and they are contained in the emails that Diego Torres has supplied the judge with. At least, one has to assume that the reasons are becoming clearer.

The emails that have appeared in the press do not make a compelling case against the Princess or indeed Urdangarin. They show that she was involved with Nóos and that Urdangarin continued his association with Nóos after both he and the Princess had resigned from Nóos on the King's instructions in 2006. But then, we already knew this. They show that, rather than having had nothing to do with Nóos, as Urdangarin has said, the Princess was involved in certain capacities, such as her having been lined up to be "sporting advisor" for a project to do with the Americas Cup (contained in an email of October 2007), but being involved in activities is not the same as having been a knowing participant in diverting public funds for personal gain. And this is the whole point of the case.

Urdangarin, and who can frankly blame him, has sought to keep his wife out of the whole affair, a wife who is a member of the Royal Family. You wouldn't have expected him to have done anything else, especially given her connections. He may therefore have been hiding her involvement, but if this involvement was as is suggested by the emails - and in one, the private secretary to the Princess says that she cannot be made an honorary president for one particular event - then, while it would amount to her lending her name to her husband's business affairs and so could be construed as wielding or abusing a position of influence, does it amount to corruption?

There are many more emails that are in the judge's possession. Quite what they contain, who can say. There are questions that the Princess should be asked, but the fact that the prosecutors have appealed the subpoena leads one to draw different conclusions, one of which is that they, the prosecutors, may be right. We will find out. Or maybe we won't.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - A dozen craft expected at Pollensa's Splash-In in May

The second Seaplane Splash-In at the military base in Puerto Pollensa will be staged between 9 and 12 May. A dozen different craft from various countries are expected to appear at the event which will also feature educational and cultural activities. The base will be open for the public to see the planes on the Sunday (11 May).

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 4 April 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.30am): 12.5C
Forecast high: 19C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): Southeast 3 to 4 veering West.

Cloudy. A chance of rain. Some sun later though. A bigger chance of rain tomorrow and on Saturday when it will be windy, windy.

Evening update (19.30): A high of 20.3C, the sun having come out and no rain having materialised. It will tomorrow.

A Question Of Degree: Tourism morality

I have never been to The Maldives. It is one of those holiday destinations that is a brochure-writer's dream. How many meaningless superlatives for islands set amidst turquoise seas with romantic, palm-lined, velvety white beaches can be contained in a brochure? The entire brochure thesaurus can be thrown at descriptions of The Maldives. But you won't find any descriptions about what it must be like if you are a fifteen-year-old girl who has been raped and who finds herself anticipating receiving a hundred lashes for her crime. Crime? How in Allah's name or any other name, can she have committed a crime?

An online petition that urges a tourism boycott of The Maldives has thus far attracted almost two million names. The islands' tourism minister has said that this damage to the tourism industry must stop. There wouldn't be a campaign in Switzerland to damage Swiss chocolate, he has protested bizarrely. No, there probably wouldn't be, but then the Swiss don't as a rule go around lashing fifteen-year-old rape victims.

If the petition succeeds, then good. If it means the collapse of a miserable government with a miserable tourism minister, then also good. Tourists taking a genuine stand against miserable regimes is long overdue. But will they? Or will tourism life just carry on much as normal, a blind eye being turned to inhumanity and turned instead to the grass sunshades dotted along those velvety white beaches where tourists can relax on sturdy wooden sun loungers listening to the gentle lapping of the turquoise sea and the screams of a girl being given a far from gentle thrashing?

Tourism and morality are often mutually exclusive. Defining tourist morality or immorality is a question of the degree of the possible immorality. Is it immoral for a tourist to come to Mallorca, stay in an all-inclusive and as a result primarily fill the coffers of a foreign tour operator? Whether it is or it isn't, no one is getting hurt. Not physically at any rate. No one is lending support to the main industry of a miserable regime that came into power by overthrowing a democratically elected president.

However, cast your minds back a few decades. Europe wasn't short of miserable regimes. Their level of miserableness was also a question of degree. For a time, the Greeks could boast one of the most miserable. It was that miserable that when I crossed the border by train from Yugoslavia, a young Yugoslav was dragged off the train and beaten up on the platform in full view of everyone on the train. Moments later, the corridors were full of Greek hostesses, beaming brightly and welcoming everyone to Greece. But then again, Tito's Yugoslavia wasn't necessarily a shining example of tolerance. And nor was Franco's Spain and so nor was Mallorca. Spain's fascism may by then have become a comedy, sunglassed villain of fascism but it was still fascism.

One of the less considered aspects of Mallorca's rise to tourism domination in the sixties is the moral one. The argument in favour of foreign tourism to Mallorca was that tourism would help ordinary people. That it would also help the regime was indisputable, but the regime being helped would mean an improved economy and greater wealth. And, as things were to turn out, the argument was a correct one. The moral issue was one that exercised British politicians more than it did tourists. The British Government, certainly in the 1950s, had no time for Franco, and this was why it did all it could to prevent British businesspeople getting involved with Mallorca's nascent tourism industry. Not that it deterred these businesspeople. And once it became clear that the Americans didn't give a damn about fascism (or rather, gave a very big damn about communism) and were willing to pump vast amounts of dollars into Spain, then the British changed their tune.

There were attempts to boycott tourism to Mallorca. The British Communist Party proposed one in the early 1960s but dropped it on the advice of their Spanish comrades. The National Union of Mineworkers urged members not to go to Mallorca and Spain in 1969. Amnesty International put up posters in airports in 1970 that were designed to dissuade tourists.

The fact is that tourists took very little notice, if any. Were they morally wrong therefore? Perhaps it was a question of degree in a different sense; that of the level of awareness that was much lower then and is much higher today. Will this awareness have an impact on The Maldives? Maybe it will or maybe it won't. Tourism and morality are not the same thing.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Puerto Pollensa residents parking places not to be introduced?

The re-introduction of the blue paid parking places in Puerto Pollensa last summer was initially to have also seen green places brought in for local residents. These green places were to be delayed to this year, but now, according to the Alternativa per Pollença, the parking arrangements in the port will be the same as last year, and so no separate arrangements for residents.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 3 April 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (9.30am): 14C
Forecast high: 19C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): West and Southwest 2 to 3 veering East and finally Southeast 4.

Sunny. Tomorrow also sunny but maybe some rain. Friday less sunny and more rain. Saturday no sun and lots of rain.

Evening update (20.15): A good day, a high of 22C.

Gone Missing: Santiago's City of Culture

Santiago de Compostela is one of Spain's grand cities. It was designated as a World Heritage Site many years before UNESCO had ever even heard of Mallorca's Tramuntana mountains. It is the destination for 100,000 pilgrims who visit the shrine of Saint James, Spain's patron saint, whose remains are supposedly in the shrine. A city with centuries of history, culture and fine architecture, a decision was taken in 2001 to bring that architecture a bit more up to date. A project to build a "city of culture" was embarked upon. Twelve years and almost 300 million euros later, there are two ruddy great holes in the ground, and two of six buildings originally conceived as comprising this "city" are missing. They are going to stay missing, while the holes may well remain holes. The plug has been pulled on the project.

Before one gets all self-righteous about this being yet another example of a profligate vanity project in the name of a Spanish regional government, which it is, there is a distinct whiff of a dome about it all. When the first two of the six, now only four buildings were opened in 2011, so a mere ten years after work had started, it would seem that no one knew what to put in them. As it is, they have become a library and an archive, which should both get the pulses racing of tourists. Two more have since also opened, one of them the building that houses the services to run the damn project. What were going to be an arts centre and a theatre are not now going to be either, as they won't be built.

The city of culture, a title that is an affront to what genuinely is a city of culture, Santiago that is, was a project dreamt up by Manuel Fraga. Remember him? You should do. He was Franco's tourism minister.

Fraga was president of Galicia from 1990 to 2005. The city of culture was to have been one of his great legacies to the region. It was, though, a legacy conceived partly out of jealousy of what the Basques had achieved with the building of the Guggenheim in Bilbao. Galicia wasn't going to be outdone. It has been and it has been left with considerable egg on its face. Far from creating a project to show off Galicia to the world and to be one of great prestige, the region has been made to look something of a laughing-stock. At least some of the other grand vanity projects that cost absolute fortunes, such as Valencia's fabulous City of Arts and Sciences, have actually been finished, though this does of course bring us to the small matter of a project in Palma that hasn't been finished either. Perhaps they could demolish the Palacio de Congresos after all, ship the wreckage to Santiago and use it to fill in the two enormous holes in the ground where holes shouldn't be.

The decision to definitively and once for all put the remaining part of the project out of its misery has been taken by the now president of Galicia, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Being Galician, it is small surprise that he is seen as a potential successor to fellow Galician Rajoy; there's nothing like having a regional dynasty to run a political party. But Feijóo, who might have been expecting only nods of approval because of the decision to ditch the cultural city, finds that there are nods of disapproval because of an apparently unrelated matter. Photographs of him on the yacht of a convicted drug trafficker that were taken in the 1990s have suddenly come into the public domain. Feijóo has known of their existence for years, as have members of the PP hierarchy, including Rajoy. Calls have been made for him to resign, but he says he won't, as he hasn't done anything wrong. He may have been less than assiduous in checking the background of Marcel Dorado, said to be a central figure in a Galician smuggling mafia and currently in nick, but there isn't any reason to believe that he has done anything wrong. Or that he needs to resign.

Feijóo has made an ambiguous statement about attempts to intimidate him. There is a good question to be asked about why the photos have come out now. What does he mean by intimidation? Who is he referring to? Perhaps there is some link to the city of culture after all. Who knows. But there is a definite feel of something fishy in Galicia, of something that's missing, and it isn't just two buildings at Santiago's city of culture.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Mallorca ports to be privatised

The management of a total of 41 ports across the Balearics, 14 of which are managed directly in Mallorca by the regional government's Ports de Balears public company (others are under this company's responsibility but not managed directly) is to be put out to privatisation. These ports include large ones, such as Pollensa and Cala Rajada, and small ones such as Barcarés in Alcúdia.

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Alcúdia fine for insulting anti-bullfight protester

A pro-bullfight supporter has been ordered to pay a 150 euro fine for insulting the co-ordinator of the anti-bullfight and animal rights group AnimaNaturalis during a protest against the bullfight during Alcúdia's Sant Jaume fiesta last July.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 2 April 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.30am): 13C
Forecast high: 19C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): Northwest and West 4, at times 5 and at intervals North 3 during the morning. Swells to two metres easing.

Better looking morning that yesterday and should be fine and sunny but a bit windy too. The forecast ahead to later in the week doesn't look that great from Thursday with rain and some wind about.

Evening update (20.00): A high of 19.7C on what was a mostly sunny day.

Losing And Finding Their Religion

Should it come as any great surprise that the youth in the Balearics are less religious than their parents or grandparents? It would surely be a surprise if they were more religious. How much can one read into the fact that a Gadeso survey has revealed that half of those aged between 16 and 29 say they don't believe in any religion and that almost 80% of Catholics between these ages admit they don't practise the religion? This compares with 70% of 30 to 44 year-olds who reckon that they are believers or 91% of the over-65s.

The Gadeso survey discovers, again no surprise, that 90% of the youthful sector favour abortion and that the percentages are lower among the older groups. There is almost unanimous agreement among the young that the system of financing of the Catholic Church, one that the last Zapatero government was going to get tough on but backed down on, is wrong. The oldsters think it is ok, though only by a small majority.

Youthful rebellion and all that, but is there more to this apparent irreligiousness than simply refusing to go to church or to the fact, as was shown in 2010, that the numbers who take religious education in secondary schools has declined significantly - a mere 15%?

Doubtless there will be hand wringing and head shaking by church supporters at what will be perceived as a moral and religious decline among the youth. It will be interpreted as a manifestation of the corrupting influence of secularism, and there will probably be some fundamentalists who try and twist the government's arm into introducing laws to herd the young into church on a Sunday morning. But they would of course be totally wrong to try and do so. I have no disagreement with those who are religious and no desire to cause any offence, but a personal conviction of deep irreligiousness places me firmly on the side of the Balearics youth.

This religious rejection comes against the background of the election of the new pope, coverage of which seemed to be just as obligatory in non-Catholic Britain as it was in Spain. Quite why an ancient Argentinian who has landed himself a decent sinecure in his old age should command so many column inches or so many TV images is beyond me. Incidentally, does anyone know how much the pope earns? Again, no disrespect meant, but why was the coverage so important other than for highlighting the various issues that Pope Francis should be tackling, like making the church rather more in tune with the twenty-first century, or the twentieth, come to that?

You may construe from all this that I don't have a great deal of time for the church. In fact, I do. For some of it what it does, notably its charity work. Caritas is a noble and honourable organisation. It, along with the Spanish Red Cross, does vastly more than the government does to help the disadvantaged. I have all the time in the world for it. And it no doubt is of help to the disadvantaged young that are being tossed onto the economic rubbish dump. If Caritas benefits from the church's state funding or from the very small percentage of tax on incomes (0.7%) that taxpayers have opted to divert directly to the church's charitable works, then so be it.

I am also not totally against the favourable tax arrangements that the church has, as in it tends not to pay any property taxes when the earthly do. But so long as it is clear that this is a tax advantage that goes towards the upkeep of wonderful churches that demand being preserved as part of cultural heritage. That the church has proved to be obstructive in entering into discussions with the government over its paying at least some more tax does it no great favours. As Spain's second largest landowner, it's not exactly short of a bob or two.

But to come back to the youth and their religious beliefs or lack of them, the latest survey shows little change to one that was conducted in 2010. When there is another one in 2016, the result will probably be roughly the same again. It is a natural youth thing, one that is subject to changing; there are no doubt some potential career-advancement opportunities by being associated with the church as they get older. What the survey shows, in all likelihood, is a pretty much normal situation. The youth can lose their religion when they are young, but when it becomes useful, they can just as easily find it again.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 1 April 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.30am): 13.5C
Forecast high: 19C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): Southwest 4 to 5 reaching West 5 to 6 by the afternoon and easing to West 3 by late evening. Swells to one metre and possible storm.

Windy again with some rain. Should clear later. The wind is likely to be a factor through the week. While tomorrow and Wednesday are due to be mainly sunny, rain is set to come in by Thursday and to stay into the weekend with temperatures slipping slightly.

Evening update (19.15): It did clear up eventually. A high of 21C.

The Years Of Flying Dangerously

Aviation history is littered with the wreckage of crashed airplanes and crashed airlines, a wreckage that was and still is a feature of the tourism industry (fortunately nowadays, the wreckage is from failed companies and not from planes smashing into mountainsides).

The growth in tourism from the sixties owed much to the arrival of the charter airline. Though not new in the sixties, the charter nevertheless became synonymous with the transporting of thousands and millions of Britons to sunny Spain so that they could indulge in the new-found fad of the fortnight's holiday in the sun.  

The charter also became synonymous with bad publicity. It was the butt of jokes for poor service and unreliable aircraft, some of which never made it to their destinations or, if they did, failed to return. The airline victim of many of those jokes was Dan-Air, which ended its life known as the airline that was sold for a quid. And some would maintain that BA paid over the odds.

Though the British holidaymaker will recall flights with Dan-Air with a certain amount of horror, tourism was not solely reliant on British carriers. Mallorca's first charter airline was Spantax. Not exclusively a charter, Spantax moved from its original base in Gran Canaria to Palma because of the greater tourist traffic that Mallorca offered. Founded by a one-time Iberia pilot called Rodolfo Bay Wright, a figure in aviation history who has been placed alongside Freddie Laker for his pioneering ways, Spantax was in existence for almost 29 years. It collapsed a quarter of a century ago. On 29 March 1988.

Spantax had, to say the least, a chequered history. In December 1972, a Convair CV990 crashed in Tenerife. All 155 occupants were killed. A year later another CV990 had a mid-air collision with an Iberia DC9. Miraculously, the CV990 was able to make an emergency landing. The DC9 was not able to. All 68 on board were dead. Three years on and there was another disaster, of a different sort. Three passengers died as a result of food poisoning from mayonnaise. In 1980, a Spantax Learjet crashed into hills eight kilometres outside Palma, killing four people.

Rodolfo (Rudy) Bay was certainly a character. The most famous tale that is told of him is of a flight in 1967 to Hamburg with members of the German press that was to demonstrate the safety of Spantax planes. Bay, who was piloting the CV990, displayed great skill in managing to stop the plane only a few metres before it would have smacked into an office building on landing. It was great skill, especially as he had landed at the wrong airport. Needless to say, the German press were not overly impressed.

It is said of Bay, which may or may not be true, that he was on good terms with Franco and that Spantax didn't pay landing fees. It is also said that Franco's government paid for the Spantax hangar at Palma. Whatever the truth of these claims, it has further been suggested that Spantax was not quite the same airline after Franco died. Nevertheless, it lasted another thirteen years, having, in 1986, been bailed out by the González government because it was, to all intents and purposes, bankrupt. Two years later, a five million US dollar loss having been made, rescue financing was not forthcoming and the airline did this time go bust, putting over 800 people out of work.

If this year marks the 25th anniversary of the Spantax collapse, next year will be the 40th anniversary of the crash of a company with which British tourists would have been far more familiar. In August 1974 the Clarksons Travel Group folded, as did its owners, Court Line. It was the most spectacular failure to have affected the holiday industry. At the time, Clarksons was offering a fortnight's full board plus flight in Mallorca for fifty quid. It wasn't a bad price, but unfortunately, and so it was to emerge, most flights were sold at a loss.

At least Clarksons didn't have the same accident record as Spantax but it did have an accident. The company chartered a Dan-Air Comet that, in July 1970, crashed in  Gerona en route to Barcelona. 112 people died.

Going on holiday in the sixties and seventies was more of an adventure than it is today. It was a journey, for many, into the unknown. It could also be a journey that came with a certain amount of danger. There may still be risks of airlines and tour operators going belly-up, but, thanks God, the chances of the aircraft doing belly-flops are far, far lower. 


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.