Movements have occurred in the Tramuntana mountains. Their landscape has altered. Only partially but significantly, topped and tailed by Pollensa and Calvia. The mountains' political landscape has been given a gloss of red but also of green, and it doesn't come any greener than in Pollensa. Here, the new mayor is Miquel Àngel March, the former and long-time spokesperson for GOB, Mallorca's eco-enviro group/watchdog. In Calvia the earth has not moved quite so dramatically in swallowing up the Partido Popular - an old-school socialist sort is in charge - but new-school socialism, as with Més, the eco-nationalist variety, hovers in the background.
There are nineteen municipalities which are embraced - either wholly or in part - by the mountains, over a third of all of Mallorca's municipalities. Each has its interest in the Tramuntana, each has its say about conservation, preservation, management and tourism. But rising above them are the peaks of the Tramuntana consortium and the Council of Mallorca. Their landscapes are also altering, along with their personnel, and at the Council this change might involve its presidency falling to the former mayor of one of the smaller municipalities: Miquel Ensenyat of Més, the ex-mayor of Esporles.
The mountains are thus far from immune to political change. On the face of it, in conservation and preservation terms, the mountains might be said to have got a result. One-time GOB here, eco-nationalists there: how green tinged with red are their valleys. And for the Save the Tramuntana campaign, the movement of the political furniture might also represent a result. The mountains will be saved.
Did you know that there was a Save the Tramuntana campaign? Well there is. And you can sign its petition, its civil manifesto at Change.org*. But why do the mountains need saving? Wasn't the UNESCO declaration - the World Heritage Site - all to do with saving? Yes, but according to the campaign organisers, the guidelines and objectives for making the Tramuntana "a sustainable natural and cultural landscape" are not being met because of a "lack of political will (and) the difficulties of co-ordination between the different administrative organs". "Designations have been used more as a tourist attraction than a guide to protect our environment." (Designations include the UNESCO declaration.)
The campaign is principally concerned with the effects of tourism. It says: "The Serra de Tramuntana must not repeat the excesses committed elsewhere on the Mallorcan coast. We do not want the opportunistic short-term attitude nor the institutional indifference to give way to mass tourism and the inevitable and irreversible destruction of our values, our landscape, our traditions and the Mediterranean way of life".
Mass tourism? In the mountains? Possibly so. But the mass is not the mass of overcrowded beach resorts, unless this is supposed to refer to, for example, Puerto Sóller. The Tramuntana in Calvia does not extend to the resorts there, while Puerto Pollensa is just outside the Tramuntana zone. I'm guessing it is more a reference to the volume of tourists, while the campaign also refers to activities - motorbiking for example - which are "abuses" and that threaten the mountains with being turned into a "theme park".
The organisation of the Tramuntana, post-UNESCO declaration, doesn't appear to have been terribly effective. The campaign has a point here, but has this been because of a lack of political will and difficulties of co-ordination or does the whole management of the Tramuntana within a tourism framework suffer from the lack of a clear vision as to what is wanted from the mountains?
A point about the UNESCO declaration is that if there are abuses which threaten conservation and preservation, the status of World Heritage Site can be and will be taken away. A further point, and one expressed to me by a leading authority on tourism marketing, Professor David Carson, is that the declaration was the worst thing that could have happened to the Tramuntana. Why? Because it imposes so many constraints that tourism development is hindered. It isn't as if the declaration is against tourism development - it most certainly isn't - but it has to be done in line with principles of conservation and preservation, which apply to land, buildings, people and ways of life.
With the change in the political landscape, a more sympathetic attitude towards the campaign's objectives may be obtained. But again, one comes back to what the vision actually is. The campaign calls for "a model of quality tourism ... without being elitist." Would this be in line with the Més desire for greater sharing of the spoils of tourism? And would it therefore not be as it is in Pollensa? In a profile of Miquel Àngel March, it says that he is from a town which is the "capital of the tourist elite in Mallorca". What do we want from the mountains?
* www.salvarlatramuntana.com.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 17 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (6.30am): 19C
Forecast high: 28C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 18 June - Sun, 29C; 19 June - Sun, 25C; 20 June - Sun, 25C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North-Northeast 2 to 4, easing North 2 by the afternoon.
The morning after. Some patches of rainwater still observable after yesterday's storm. There is a chance that there will be some rain again this morning, but otherwise things will be returning to normal with settled, sunny weather in store through the rest of the week.
Evening update (20.00): Cloud lingered for a fair time. Mainly sunny later. A high of 26.4C.
No Frills Excursions
Political Change And The Church
Discussion of the political upheaval brought about by regional and municipal elections across Spain as well as Mallorca has focused primarily on the circumstances which contributed to this upheaval; there has been less discussion as to what it will actually all mean. In Mallorca, consideration of the consequences of change has been specific, such as the likelihood of an eco-tax being introduced. Important though such policy is, it is not a consequence at a fundamental level. What does this political change mean for institutions? There will be, we are assured, greater participation in political decision-making. If so, then the public will provide town halls and regional administrations with their input. How great this might be, however, remains to be seen.
The impact on political institutions, because of programmes of participation, has been the principal area of discussion, but what of another institution - the Catholic Church? It has hardly been mentioned, or hadn't been prior to the elections. It might be argued that this is because of its diminished role, but this diminution is greatly exaggerated. Sure there is greatly lower church attendance than was once the case. Certainly the church can no longer count on anything like majority support on issues such as abortion or homosexuality. But the church still plays a key role in society. Lower attendance at church does not mean that society has turned its back on Catholicism, and surveys prove the point; a majority of Spaniards still consider themselves to be Catholics.
This said, there is a great deal of difference between strict conservatism and secular Catholicism. The secular nature of society was emphasised in the Constitution which, at the same time, guaranteed religious freedoms, and secularism, whether the church likes it or not, is what now dominates society. It has been to the Partido Popular's great discredit that it has not appreciated this in its attempts to undo liberal advances, especially those of the Zapatero administration.
As new town hall regimes get their feet under the table, it has been instructive to note that in two cases - Alcúdia and Felanitx - one of the first priorities has to do with summer fiestas. In Alcúdia, the administration under the regionalist El Pi and PSOE socialists has the organisation of the imminent Sant Pere fiestas to concern it, but there is more to the fiestas than just the arrangements for the late-night parties or the kiddies' entertainment. There is religion as well; the fiestas are after all, though it might be forgotten, religious occasions.
Alcúdia's new mayor, Antoni Mir, has not expressly said anything about the relationship of the town hall with the local church, but the Felanitx mayor, Joan Xamena, most certainly has. A member of the Més Mallorcan socialists-nationalists, Xamena has been talking about the town's Sant Agustí fiestas. The town hall, which is now a pact of the Més Bloc, PSOE and El Pi, will not be attending any religious acts - processions or mass - during the fiestas. Felanitx town hall, he has made clear, is a secular administration.
The relationship between church and town hall is a curious one. Though religion itself may no longer dominate lives in towns and villages, the physical presence of the church does. There is and can be no avoiding the colossal nature of the church building. It is, therefore, right at the heart of communities, but to what extent is the parish church (and other churches) viewed as only an architectural treasure by these local communities? Secularism might suggest that this is how it is perceived, but I am not convinced that this is so.
There has long been a debate as to this relationship. One side of the argument, in keeping with what Felanitx's mayor has said, is that a town hall, as a secular authority, should not show any religious inclination, and constitutionally there is no reason why it should. A mayor and councillors swear allegiance to the statute of autonomy in the Balearics and to the king; not to the Catholic Church. Where there have been overt displays of participation in religious ceremonies by mayors, there have also been strong denunciations. This has been the case, for example, in Granada. By contrast and in other instances, for example in Valladolid, the mayor has established that councillors can attend ceremonies but only in a private capacity.
Participation in religious acts is not the only way in which relations can cause some controversy. There is also the tax status. Town halls have been eyeing up ways of extracting tax from which churches are generally exempt. If Spain, at its national election, were to move politically in the way that many municipalities have, there could be fundamental changes awaiting the Catholic Church. And in Mallorca it could face another one. The next president of the Council of Mallorca may well be from Més. He would also be the first gay man to be its president.
The impact on political institutions, because of programmes of participation, has been the principal area of discussion, but what of another institution - the Catholic Church? It has hardly been mentioned, or hadn't been prior to the elections. It might be argued that this is because of its diminished role, but this diminution is greatly exaggerated. Sure there is greatly lower church attendance than was once the case. Certainly the church can no longer count on anything like majority support on issues such as abortion or homosexuality. But the church still plays a key role in society. Lower attendance at church does not mean that society has turned its back on Catholicism, and surveys prove the point; a majority of Spaniards still consider themselves to be Catholics.
This said, there is a great deal of difference between strict conservatism and secular Catholicism. The secular nature of society was emphasised in the Constitution which, at the same time, guaranteed religious freedoms, and secularism, whether the church likes it or not, is what now dominates society. It has been to the Partido Popular's great discredit that it has not appreciated this in its attempts to undo liberal advances, especially those of the Zapatero administration.
As new town hall regimes get their feet under the table, it has been instructive to note that in two cases - Alcúdia and Felanitx - one of the first priorities has to do with summer fiestas. In Alcúdia, the administration under the regionalist El Pi and PSOE socialists has the organisation of the imminent Sant Pere fiestas to concern it, but there is more to the fiestas than just the arrangements for the late-night parties or the kiddies' entertainment. There is religion as well; the fiestas are after all, though it might be forgotten, religious occasions.
Alcúdia's new mayor, Antoni Mir, has not expressly said anything about the relationship of the town hall with the local church, but the Felanitx mayor, Joan Xamena, most certainly has. A member of the Més Mallorcan socialists-nationalists, Xamena has been talking about the town's Sant Agustí fiestas. The town hall, which is now a pact of the Més Bloc, PSOE and El Pi, will not be attending any religious acts - processions or mass - during the fiestas. Felanitx town hall, he has made clear, is a secular administration.
The relationship between church and town hall is a curious one. Though religion itself may no longer dominate lives in towns and villages, the physical presence of the church does. There is and can be no avoiding the colossal nature of the church building. It is, therefore, right at the heart of communities, but to what extent is the parish church (and other churches) viewed as only an architectural treasure by these local communities? Secularism might suggest that this is how it is perceived, but I am not convinced that this is so.
There has long been a debate as to this relationship. One side of the argument, in keeping with what Felanitx's mayor has said, is that a town hall, as a secular authority, should not show any religious inclination, and constitutionally there is no reason why it should. A mayor and councillors swear allegiance to the statute of autonomy in the Balearics and to the king; not to the Catholic Church. Where there have been overt displays of participation in religious ceremonies by mayors, there have also been strong denunciations. This has been the case, for example, in Granada. By contrast and in other instances, for example in Valladolid, the mayor has established that councillors can attend ceremonies but only in a private capacity.
Participation in religious acts is not the only way in which relations can cause some controversy. There is also the tax status. Town halls have been eyeing up ways of extracting tax from which churches are generally exempt. If Spain, at its national election, were to move politically in the way that many municipalities have, there could be fundamental changes awaiting the Catholic Church. And in Mallorca it could face another one. The next president of the Council of Mallorca may well be from Més. He would also be the first gay man to be its president.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 16 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (6.15am): 18C
Forecast high: 26C; UV: 7
Three-day forecast: 17 June - Cloud, sun, 28C; 18 June - Sun, cloud, 24C; 19 June - Sun, 24C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 3 to 4.
Bit cloudy this morning. Likely to be some rain and storm around at some point. May also be some rain tomorrow but things will settle down before the weekend.
Evening update (20.00): Well, there was some rain and storm. A hell of a lot of both and they went on for some considerable time. A high of 25.7C but there were lows down towards 16C when things were at their heaviest.
No Frills Excursions
A Day In Mallorca Three Hundred Years Ago
This coming Saturday at 9am an excursion has been arranged. It will take the trippers from the Cami Jesus in Palma to the south-east of the island. It has been arranged by the association of friends of the Museum of Mallorca and those going on the trip will hear about Cala d'Or - the name which "Don Pep" Costa Ferrer gave the one-time Cala d'Hort - and will visit Cala Llonga, the "curious" church of S'Horta, Felanitx and then, having had some wine, some ensaimada, some meats and sausages (courtesy of the local co-operative), they will be back in Santanyi to take in S'Alqueria Blanca and finally Calonge.
This is not an excursion that one suspects will attract many, if any tourists, but it is a day out which, nonetheless, would prove highly illuminating for anyone (including tourists) with an interest in Mallorca's history: would do, except that it will all be in Mallorquín no doubt.
Though the excursion is on 20 June, its purpose is to mark an event which happened 300 years ago on 16 June 1715. The title of the excursion is "Calonge 1715, a battle to save dignity". On that day 300 years ago the battle of Calonge took place. It was one that had far-reaching consequences for Mallorca.
The War of the Spanish Succession finally put paid to the kingdom of Mallorca, which had only been a notional kingdom for centuries but had retained a title of administrative kingdom tied in with the Crown of Aragon and ultimately with the Crown of Spain. The war brought an end to this. The Crown of Aragon was abolished and the kingdom of Mallorca definitively and for all time disappeared along with it.
The dismantling of the Crown of Aragon, the removal of privileges that Catalonia had and the creation of a centralised Spanish state were the consequence of the Nueva Planta decrees of the first Bourbon king of Spain, Philip V. They were also his revenge. The Crown of Aragon, and so Catalonia, Valencia and Mallorca, had sided with Charles VI, the Holy Roman Emperor, during the war. Once Spain was left to its own devices at the end of the war, Philip, with French help, set about the submission of Aragon and the creation of a single Spanish state. The war was, and I quote one source, "a world war of a colonial character with the subjugation on the part of Bourbon Castile, with the decisive military support of the French army, of the Catalan Nation". The far-reaching consequences have never been forgotten: they inform the current-day arguments regarding Catalan and nationalism of the Catalan Lands.
Nine months before the battle of Calonge the city of Barcelona had finally fallen, having been under siege by Bourbon troops for more than a year. The advance on Mallorca was, in effect, a mopping-up operation to eliminate any remaining resistance to Philip. The south-east of Mallorca had played a significant part in the siege, as Felanitx was a major supplier to the people of the city who were trapped by the Bourbon forces. Felanitx and other parts of Mallorca were Barcelona's food suppliers, a fact that was reflected in a saying of the time - "the Mallorcan pantry is coming".
When Barcelona fell in September 1714 it was clear that Mallorca was going to be a target. The Marquès Josep Antoni de Rubí i de Boixadors had been made the new viceroy of Mallorca in 1713. He decided that the island would not surrender. Instead, it would defend itself. In early 1715 there were demonstrations of support for this stance and against the Bourbons. Ceremonies of blessings of flags occurred in Palma and various villages, Felanitx included. The Marquès de Palmer was placed in charge of the south-eastern region of Felanitx, Santanyi and Campos. Felanitx could count on 400 men to counter any attack. Palmer got hold of 300 new shotguns.
On 11 June a force of 30,000 troops set sail from Barcelona. An initial assault on Santa Ponsa was, remarkably enough, rebuffed. The force split into two. One was to land in the bay of Alcúdia, the other in the south-east. On 15 June the Spanish-French army landed at Cala Llonga, Cala Figuera and Cala Ferrera. The next day the full artillery landed. The invasion had begun and at Calonge a small army of six hundred confronted the Bourbon forces. The battle didn't last long.
There were of course deaths and there was also plunder, but it would seem that there wasn't great bloodshed. The Marquès de Rubí surrendered on 2 July in order to spare Palma. The repression started immediately, though references to genocide are greatly exaggerated. The battle of Calonge had been one for dignity and in some respects - 300 years on - there is still a battle for that dignity.
This is not an excursion that one suspects will attract many, if any tourists, but it is a day out which, nonetheless, would prove highly illuminating for anyone (including tourists) with an interest in Mallorca's history: would do, except that it will all be in Mallorquín no doubt.
Though the excursion is on 20 June, its purpose is to mark an event which happened 300 years ago on 16 June 1715. The title of the excursion is "Calonge 1715, a battle to save dignity". On that day 300 years ago the battle of Calonge took place. It was one that had far-reaching consequences for Mallorca.
The War of the Spanish Succession finally put paid to the kingdom of Mallorca, which had only been a notional kingdom for centuries but had retained a title of administrative kingdom tied in with the Crown of Aragon and ultimately with the Crown of Spain. The war brought an end to this. The Crown of Aragon was abolished and the kingdom of Mallorca definitively and for all time disappeared along with it.
The dismantling of the Crown of Aragon, the removal of privileges that Catalonia had and the creation of a centralised Spanish state were the consequence of the Nueva Planta decrees of the first Bourbon king of Spain, Philip V. They were also his revenge. The Crown of Aragon, and so Catalonia, Valencia and Mallorca, had sided with Charles VI, the Holy Roman Emperor, during the war. Once Spain was left to its own devices at the end of the war, Philip, with French help, set about the submission of Aragon and the creation of a single Spanish state. The war was, and I quote one source, "a world war of a colonial character with the subjugation on the part of Bourbon Castile, with the decisive military support of the French army, of the Catalan Nation". The far-reaching consequences have never been forgotten: they inform the current-day arguments regarding Catalan and nationalism of the Catalan Lands.
Nine months before the battle of Calonge the city of Barcelona had finally fallen, having been under siege by Bourbon troops for more than a year. The advance on Mallorca was, in effect, a mopping-up operation to eliminate any remaining resistance to Philip. The south-east of Mallorca had played a significant part in the siege, as Felanitx was a major supplier to the people of the city who were trapped by the Bourbon forces. Felanitx and other parts of Mallorca were Barcelona's food suppliers, a fact that was reflected in a saying of the time - "the Mallorcan pantry is coming".
When Barcelona fell in September 1714 it was clear that Mallorca was going to be a target. The Marquès Josep Antoni de Rubí i de Boixadors had been made the new viceroy of Mallorca in 1713. He decided that the island would not surrender. Instead, it would defend itself. In early 1715 there were demonstrations of support for this stance and against the Bourbons. Ceremonies of blessings of flags occurred in Palma and various villages, Felanitx included. The Marquès de Palmer was placed in charge of the south-eastern region of Felanitx, Santanyi and Campos. Felanitx could count on 400 men to counter any attack. Palmer got hold of 300 new shotguns.
On 11 June a force of 30,000 troops set sail from Barcelona. An initial assault on Santa Ponsa was, remarkably enough, rebuffed. The force split into two. One was to land in the bay of Alcúdia, the other in the south-east. On 15 June the Spanish-French army landed at Cala Llonga, Cala Figuera and Cala Ferrera. The next day the full artillery landed. The invasion had begun and at Calonge a small army of six hundred confronted the Bourbon forces. The battle didn't last long.
There were of course deaths and there was also plunder, but it would seem that there wasn't great bloodshed. The Marquès de Rubí surrendered on 2 July in order to spare Palma. The repression started immediately, though references to genocide are greatly exaggerated. The battle of Calonge had been one for dignity and in some respects - 300 years on - there is still a battle for that dignity.
Monday, June 15, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 15 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (6.45am): 17.5C
Forecast high: 28C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 16 June - Storm, 26C; 17 June - Cloud, sun, 23C; 18 June - Sun, 24C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): East-Northeast 2 to 4. Storm anticipated in the afternoon.
Sun coming through as cloud seems to be breaking up first thing, but there is an alert in place for a storm later on and a similar weather warning for tomorrow. Cooler as a result but more settled sunny conditions due to come in by Thursday.
Evening update (21.00): A high of 27.4C. Another afternoon storm today. Quite heavy. More to come tomorrow.
No Frills Excursions
Before And After: Mallorca Observed
The photo was taken in the 1960s. By today's standards, its colour was not well defined and indeed the colour was partly unnecessary as much of the land was, in any event, grey. It was an aerial photo of what was to become the City of Lakes in Alcúdia. The greyness, with tinges of brown but an almost total absence of green, was marked with the boundaries of plots. Here were to be buildings: hotels, apartments, villas, houses, restaurants, bars, shops. There were few landmarks on the photo. The Boccaccio apartments were there; they had arrived some time before the hotel of the same name. What were to be named the Ciudad Blanca apartments by the beach could be detected. Otherwise, there was little that stood out.
Today, if there were to be a similar photo, you would probably be unable to distinguish the Boccaccio apartments. They aren't much to look at anyway, but a claim can be made for their history, one that is longer than most of the City of Lakes. As for the Ciudad Blanca apartments, not many people realise they are apartments or that they were the first apartments to be built in this part of Alcúdia (right at the start of the 1960s). Are they not just a part of the hotel with the same name? Well no, not really. They occupy the same large plot but they were there many years before the hotel was built.
Had a photo been taken some thirty years before, the view would have been different. The reclamation of Albufera - the greyness of the photo can be attributed to the ash from the power station that was used for this reclamation - had only been partial. It might have been possible to see the old golf course, the old pumping station, the road that ran parallel to the coast. There wouldn't have been other roads, except for one or two tracks. There wouldn't, for example, have been the rudimentary street of the 1960s photo that was named after one of those who had been responsible for the first phase of Alcudia's transformation in the 1930s - Pedro Mas y Reus. And had there been a photo some thirty years before this, there would have been nothing, save for the track that was the coastal road and vast acres of wetland.
The reason for mentioning the Alcúdia photo is that it was taken at a time when the change to the landscape was only just beginning. This was to be a change that was absolute. The City of Lakes, the Venice of Mallorca as it was claimed it would be, was the largest single urban tourism development undertaken in Mallorca. Much of the island's coastal areas was subject to similar development, but not on the scale - for a single project - as was the case in Alcúdia. The photo represents a transitory phase in the before and after: it is one of the more striking of the "befores" or "in-betweens", if you prefer.
There is an abundance of photographic records of how Mallorca once looked. Much of this, especially because of social media, has been brought into the public domain. Resorts, as they were, are there for all to see. But these photos become most striking - poignant even - when they are compared with the current day. That track is now a main road. That field is now a hotel. That small shop which once sold milk is now a hypermarket.
I have recently been involved in a project about the Tramuntana mountains. A key point about this is the fact that, despite human intervention over many centuries, the mountains have not been harmed. Indeed, where this intervention has occurred, it has been beneficial in giving the mountains the characteristics they now have. But then, mountains are mountains. They are not, generally speaking, conducive to mass urbanisation. They are also obstinately irremovable.
The same cannot be said for wetlands, fields, dunes, forests of the sort that once proliferated in greater abundance than they now do. This is not a criticism, it is a statement of fact: something (or some things) had to give way in order that Mallorca could have its tourism, its economic development and its industrial revolution.
For all that today's tourists benefit from this transformation, there are many who are fascinated by how things were. It is an interest driven by curiosity rather than sadness necessarily. Before and after is fascinating. It is why talk in the past of a tourism museum for Mallorca should have been much more than talk. But there is, by way of compensation, that abundance of photographic evidence now available. And there are also co-ordinated projects designed to demonstrate the before and after. Jaume Gual is a photographer who has been involved in such projects. Urban scenes, rural scenes, he specialises in Mallorca's before and after.
"El Paistage Observat", the landscape observed, is a collection of art held by the Council of Mallorca and photos by Jaume Gual. It shows how painting and photography contrasts but also how scenes now contrast. As part of the PalmaPhoto season, the exhibition is at Palma's La Misericordia Cultural Centre.
Today, if there were to be a similar photo, you would probably be unable to distinguish the Boccaccio apartments. They aren't much to look at anyway, but a claim can be made for their history, one that is longer than most of the City of Lakes. As for the Ciudad Blanca apartments, not many people realise they are apartments or that they were the first apartments to be built in this part of Alcúdia (right at the start of the 1960s). Are they not just a part of the hotel with the same name? Well no, not really. They occupy the same large plot but they were there many years before the hotel was built.
Had a photo been taken some thirty years before, the view would have been different. The reclamation of Albufera - the greyness of the photo can be attributed to the ash from the power station that was used for this reclamation - had only been partial. It might have been possible to see the old golf course, the old pumping station, the road that ran parallel to the coast. There wouldn't have been other roads, except for one or two tracks. There wouldn't, for example, have been the rudimentary street of the 1960s photo that was named after one of those who had been responsible for the first phase of Alcudia's transformation in the 1930s - Pedro Mas y Reus. And had there been a photo some thirty years before this, there would have been nothing, save for the track that was the coastal road and vast acres of wetland.
The reason for mentioning the Alcúdia photo is that it was taken at a time when the change to the landscape was only just beginning. This was to be a change that was absolute. The City of Lakes, the Venice of Mallorca as it was claimed it would be, was the largest single urban tourism development undertaken in Mallorca. Much of the island's coastal areas was subject to similar development, but not on the scale - for a single project - as was the case in Alcúdia. The photo represents a transitory phase in the before and after: it is one of the more striking of the "befores" or "in-betweens", if you prefer.
There is an abundance of photographic records of how Mallorca once looked. Much of this, especially because of social media, has been brought into the public domain. Resorts, as they were, are there for all to see. But these photos become most striking - poignant even - when they are compared with the current day. That track is now a main road. That field is now a hotel. That small shop which once sold milk is now a hypermarket.
I have recently been involved in a project about the Tramuntana mountains. A key point about this is the fact that, despite human intervention over many centuries, the mountains have not been harmed. Indeed, where this intervention has occurred, it has been beneficial in giving the mountains the characteristics they now have. But then, mountains are mountains. They are not, generally speaking, conducive to mass urbanisation. They are also obstinately irremovable.
The same cannot be said for wetlands, fields, dunes, forests of the sort that once proliferated in greater abundance than they now do. This is not a criticism, it is a statement of fact: something (or some things) had to give way in order that Mallorca could have its tourism, its economic development and its industrial revolution.
For all that today's tourists benefit from this transformation, there are many who are fascinated by how things were. It is an interest driven by curiosity rather than sadness necessarily. Before and after is fascinating. It is why talk in the past of a tourism museum for Mallorca should have been much more than talk. But there is, by way of compensation, that abundance of photographic evidence now available. And there are also co-ordinated projects designed to demonstrate the before and after. Jaume Gual is a photographer who has been involved in such projects. Urban scenes, rural scenes, he specialises in Mallorca's before and after.
"El Paistage Observat", the landscape observed, is a collection of art held by the Council of Mallorca and photos by Jaume Gual. It shows how painting and photography contrasts but also how scenes now contrast. As part of the PalmaPhoto season, the exhibition is at Palma's La Misericordia Cultural Centre.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 14 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (6.30am): 19C
Forecast high: 29C; UV: 9
Three-day forecast: 15 June - Sun, cloud, 26C; 16 June - Storm, 20C; 17 June - Cloud, sun, 23C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): West 2 to 4 veering North-Northeast during the morning. Possible storm in the afternoon.
Fine, clear-skies morning, but there may be cloud around later and turn out to be rather like yesterday with a bit of a storm brewing by the afternoon - the forecast out at sea is for a likely storm. Maybe Thursday before things settle.
Evening update (20.00): Storm and a bit of a downpour early afternoon. Otherwise pleasant enough. High of 28.8C. Yellow alerts issued for storms for tomorrow and Tuesday.
No Frills Excursions
The Day Of The Wand
Garrick Ollivander knew a thing or two about wands. "The wand chooses the wizard ... it's not always clear why," he informed the young wizard. For those of you who may have been living an hermitic existence for the past several years or have become one of those foreigners who has gone so native that the only tales you will consider are those in Mallorquín of Antoni Maria Alcover (in which case you won't be reading this anyway), let me tell you who Garrick was - Harry Potter's wand supplier. Garrick was right. It most certainly isn't clear why a wand ends up with who it does.
Yesterday was the day of the wand. Some might call it a baton, a rod, a staff or just a pointy stick. But the mayoral "vara" (which is really a rod and is the official term) is in fact a "varita" (a wand) for the very simple reason that it has magically ended up with a mayor and no one is entirely sure how or indeed why. Some wavers of the wand are doing so without having secured municipal administrations which guarantee them majority support, but they were handed the wand thanks to the ceremonies of investiture: solemn occasions when parties with no intention of entering into an administration nonetheless willingly permit the wand-waver to ascend to the mayoral throne.
The chaotic post-election bargaining that has gone on between the various parties in the villages and towns has now at least come to an end. But it is only the beginning. How on earth are some of these municipalities going to operate when there are coalitions comprising such disparate philosophies as there are and, in certain instances, cannot depend upon majorities to effect local legislation? It is easy to perhaps blame Podemos for all this mayhem, but other parties have been similarly puerile. The only one to emerge with real credit is Més. Its leader Biel Barceló was in effect telling PSOE and Podemos to behave themselves and to allow a three-way coalition for the regional government. Més has not imposed the sort of conditions that other parties have for coalitions. It has been almost statesmanlike amidst squabbling akin to the playground.
You do at least have to hand it to Podemos. They said they wouldn't accept PSOE as leaders of administrations, and they have more or less stuck to their guns. But, is this really what people voted for? For a party to decline places in administrations because of differences it might have? If you vote for a party, do you not do so on the pretext that you want it to be in government? Podemos - "We Can" - is more like "Well, we could, if it wasn't for them".
In Palma, however, the Soms of Podemos have indeed said they can. And will. It took some doing, and once more Més, in the form of Antoni Noguera, were the diplomats who got everyone to see sense, but the compromise will see the wand metaphorically split in half. Two years of a PSOE mayor, two years for a Més mayor, and the Soms' bloke will be the administration's spokesperson for the duration.
Trying to make sense of how these administrations are formed is about as difficult as understanding the election system which gives rise to them. Eoin Morgan, England's one-day cricket captain, said on Friday that he didn't understand how Duckworth-Lewis works. The same can be said of the electoral and post-electoral system here: it is a Duckworth-Lewis of arcane obscurity. While there is so much desire in this new age of participatory politics for transparency perhaps it could start with making the election system a touch more transparent - as in being even vaguely understandable. This all said, it has allowed for its moments of schadenfreude; none more so delicious than in Calvia. What was it the Partido Popular's José Manuel Ruiz was predicting before the election? A landslide? The only slide has been that of his party. Out of the town hall. Duckworth-Lewis has rained on his parade and all the pre-election barbecues etc. designed to attract support that wasn't there. Bye, bye.
There again, Ruiz may be able to get his own back. Calvia is a good example of the wand-waver only - as yet - having a majority in order to confirm the bestowing of the wand. Alfonso Rodríguez can admire his newly acquired varita, but if the Yes Maybes of Sí Se Puede and the open ones of the Open Left decide to say maybe not and close the door, then he could be stuffed. Unlikely, as a formal coalition may yet emerge, but Calvia goes to show how uncertain the post-electoral scene is.
Yesterday was the day of the wand. Some might call it a baton, a rod, a staff or just a pointy stick. But the mayoral "vara" (which is really a rod and is the official term) is in fact a "varita" (a wand) for the very simple reason that it has magically ended up with a mayor and no one is entirely sure how or indeed why. Some wavers of the wand are doing so without having secured municipal administrations which guarantee them majority support, but they were handed the wand thanks to the ceremonies of investiture: solemn occasions when parties with no intention of entering into an administration nonetheless willingly permit the wand-waver to ascend to the mayoral throne.
The chaotic post-election bargaining that has gone on between the various parties in the villages and towns has now at least come to an end. But it is only the beginning. How on earth are some of these municipalities going to operate when there are coalitions comprising such disparate philosophies as there are and, in certain instances, cannot depend upon majorities to effect local legislation? It is easy to perhaps blame Podemos for all this mayhem, but other parties have been similarly puerile. The only one to emerge with real credit is Més. Its leader Biel Barceló was in effect telling PSOE and Podemos to behave themselves and to allow a three-way coalition for the regional government. Més has not imposed the sort of conditions that other parties have for coalitions. It has been almost statesmanlike amidst squabbling akin to the playground.
You do at least have to hand it to Podemos. They said they wouldn't accept PSOE as leaders of administrations, and they have more or less stuck to their guns. But, is this really what people voted for? For a party to decline places in administrations because of differences it might have? If you vote for a party, do you not do so on the pretext that you want it to be in government? Podemos - "We Can" - is more like "Well, we could, if it wasn't for them".
In Palma, however, the Soms of Podemos have indeed said they can. And will. It took some doing, and once more Més, in the form of Antoni Noguera, were the diplomats who got everyone to see sense, but the compromise will see the wand metaphorically split in half. Two years of a PSOE mayor, two years for a Més mayor, and the Soms' bloke will be the administration's spokesperson for the duration.
Trying to make sense of how these administrations are formed is about as difficult as understanding the election system which gives rise to them. Eoin Morgan, England's one-day cricket captain, said on Friday that he didn't understand how Duckworth-Lewis works. The same can be said of the electoral and post-electoral system here: it is a Duckworth-Lewis of arcane obscurity. While there is so much desire in this new age of participatory politics for transparency perhaps it could start with making the election system a touch more transparent - as in being even vaguely understandable. This all said, it has allowed for its moments of schadenfreude; none more so delicious than in Calvia. What was it the Partido Popular's José Manuel Ruiz was predicting before the election? A landslide? The only slide has been that of his party. Out of the town hall. Duckworth-Lewis has rained on his parade and all the pre-election barbecues etc. designed to attract support that wasn't there. Bye, bye.
There again, Ruiz may be able to get his own back. Calvia is a good example of the wand-waver only - as yet - having a majority in order to confirm the bestowing of the wand. Alfonso Rodríguez can admire his newly acquired varita, but if the Yes Maybes of Sí Se Puede and the open ones of the Open Left decide to say maybe not and close the door, then he could be stuffed. Unlikely, as a formal coalition may yet emerge, but Calvia goes to show how uncertain the post-electoral scene is.
Saturday, June 13, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 13 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (7.00am): 20C
Forecast high: 29C; UV: 9
Three-day forecast: 14 June - Sun, cloud, 29C; 15 June - Cloud, 23C; 16 June - Storm, sun, 22C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 2 to 4 occasionally Variable veering Southwest by late afternoon.
Nice enough morning. Should be reasonable enough though cloud around and just a small chance of some spots of rain. Similar situation tomorrow, and then for the start of the week there is a risk of more stormy weather at times.
Evening update (19.30): Turned out to be a bit stormy today. Came in mid-afternoon, rain in some areas, only thunder in others. High of 28.6C.
No Frills Excursions
The Rush To Legalise
If a week is a long time in politics, in the politics of tourism it can seem like an eternity. The negotiations regarding the formation of the next government in the Balearics drag on and on, maintaining the period of uncertainty for the island's immediate (and perhaps longer) tourism future and leaving up in the air issues to do with possible policy and current projects - anything from all-inclusives, tourist tax, legalisation of hotel places and investment to the Palacio de Congresos convention centre.
There is an admission that there are "thorny" topics that the negotiations have had to contend with. One of them is the eco-tax. Though PSOE had said in their manifesto that they would consider this, they would do so only in the context of general financing arrangements for the Balearics. If these are to alter, they won't do until after the general election. PSOE, aware of the hash that was made with the old eco-tax, would really rather not go there again unless they are forced to.
One of the issues that has received considerably less attention than others has been that of the legalisation of hotel places. You may or may not be surprised to learn that there are such things as illegal hotel places, rooms or entire floors that were created without the requisite permission having been obtained. These illegal places have been proving to be a useful little earner for the regional government: making them legal demands payment, and the funds raised have gone into the tourism ministry's special fund for use on resorts' infrastructures. Applications to legalise places have been proceeding calmly for several years. All of a sudden, however, there has been an avalanche of requests. There were almost as many in May alone as there were for 2013 and 2014 combined. The reason for this flurry of activity is obvious: hoteliers fear what a new government might do in preventing legalisation and indeed what the ultimate sanctions might be.
The hoteliers have also feverishly been putting in place what they can for projects to expand hotels. They are reckoning on restrictions being introduced but are also bargaining on the fact that any new legislation would take a few months to enact.
As yet, there is no way of knowing precisely what a regime of the left would do with regard to all-inclusives and holiday lets. On the latter, a more permissive regulatory regime would be highly likely, and APTUR, the Balearic association for holiday apartments and accommodation, has worked out that some 15,000 apartments would be legalised under changes that a pact of the left would introduce. As for all-inclusives, does one detect an attempt to pre-empt any moves on behalf of the tourism ministry, from which the minister and others will soon be departing once new government jobs have been divvied up?
The ministry has issued some stats about all-inclusives, and quite frankly they appear to be a complete work of fiction. According to the ministry, the past three years have witnessed a change in strategy on behalf of hotels, i.e. abandoning all-inclusive. So much so that all-inclusive equates to only 12% of the entire hotel stock.
First thing to ask about this is, has the ministry, therefore, received all the information about all-inclusives that it said it was going to under a registration plan announced only a few weeks ago? Seems unlikely. Second thing to say is that this registration was supposedly coming in because there hadn't previously been one. In which case, how can the ministry state with any accuracy that the last time it counted - in 2010 - all-inclusive amounted to 18% of hotel stock?
Thirdly, and rather more importantly, the ministry says that the 18% in 2010 was made up of 165 establishments in Mallorca which offered all-inclusive - a total of 81,078 hotel places. That would mean that there were in all 450,000 hotel places in Mallorca. There weren't and there still aren't: the figure is around 290,000: 30% all-inclusive is the number which has generally been quoted over the past few years
Even this number is hard to believe, and it certainly doesn't apply to specific resorts. There may indeed be some decline in the level of all-inclusive because hotels are realising they can make more money by not offering AI, but the ministry's figures are not to be believed. If the intention had been to try and make the "problem" of AI seem less great than it is, it hasn't worked.
There is an admission that there are "thorny" topics that the negotiations have had to contend with. One of them is the eco-tax. Though PSOE had said in their manifesto that they would consider this, they would do so only in the context of general financing arrangements for the Balearics. If these are to alter, they won't do until after the general election. PSOE, aware of the hash that was made with the old eco-tax, would really rather not go there again unless they are forced to.
One of the issues that has received considerably less attention than others has been that of the legalisation of hotel places. You may or may not be surprised to learn that there are such things as illegal hotel places, rooms or entire floors that were created without the requisite permission having been obtained. These illegal places have been proving to be a useful little earner for the regional government: making them legal demands payment, and the funds raised have gone into the tourism ministry's special fund for use on resorts' infrastructures. Applications to legalise places have been proceeding calmly for several years. All of a sudden, however, there has been an avalanche of requests. There were almost as many in May alone as there were for 2013 and 2014 combined. The reason for this flurry of activity is obvious: hoteliers fear what a new government might do in preventing legalisation and indeed what the ultimate sanctions might be.
The hoteliers have also feverishly been putting in place what they can for projects to expand hotels. They are reckoning on restrictions being introduced but are also bargaining on the fact that any new legislation would take a few months to enact.
As yet, there is no way of knowing precisely what a regime of the left would do with regard to all-inclusives and holiday lets. On the latter, a more permissive regulatory regime would be highly likely, and APTUR, the Balearic association for holiday apartments and accommodation, has worked out that some 15,000 apartments would be legalised under changes that a pact of the left would introduce. As for all-inclusives, does one detect an attempt to pre-empt any moves on behalf of the tourism ministry, from which the minister and others will soon be departing once new government jobs have been divvied up?
The ministry has issued some stats about all-inclusives, and quite frankly they appear to be a complete work of fiction. According to the ministry, the past three years have witnessed a change in strategy on behalf of hotels, i.e. abandoning all-inclusive. So much so that all-inclusive equates to only 12% of the entire hotel stock.
First thing to ask about this is, has the ministry, therefore, received all the information about all-inclusives that it said it was going to under a registration plan announced only a few weeks ago? Seems unlikely. Second thing to say is that this registration was supposedly coming in because there hadn't previously been one. In which case, how can the ministry state with any accuracy that the last time it counted - in 2010 - all-inclusive amounted to 18% of hotel stock?
Thirdly, and rather more importantly, the ministry says that the 18% in 2010 was made up of 165 establishments in Mallorca which offered all-inclusive - a total of 81,078 hotel places. That would mean that there were in all 450,000 hotel places in Mallorca. There weren't and there still aren't: the figure is around 290,000: 30% all-inclusive is the number which has generally been quoted over the past few years
Even this number is hard to believe, and it certainly doesn't apply to specific resorts. There may indeed be some decline in the level of all-inclusive because hotels are realising they can make more money by not offering AI, but the ministry's figures are not to be believed. If the intention had been to try and make the "problem" of AI seem less great than it is, it hasn't worked.
Friday, June 12, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 12 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (5.15am): 23C
Forecast high: 30C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 13 June - Sun, cloud, 29C; 14 June - Sun, cloud, 25C; 15 June - Sun, cloud, 25C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southwest 3 to 4 veering Northeast 3 by the afternoon.
Not much sign of any stars before dawn. Cloudy and rather steamy. There might be a spot rain later. Getting brighter later but remaining close. Mostly sunny over the weekend but with some cloud.
Evening update (21.30): Some rain but nothing heavy. Sunnier in the afternoon. High of 29.1C.
No Frills Excursions
Photographer And Priest: Catany Foundation
Catany would have struggled to really have known the priest, but Monserrat would almost certainly have known him. Catany was born in 1942; the priest died in 1944. They were, to all intents and purposes, neighbours. The priest's house was in a different street (Convent) to that of the Catany family (Cardenal Rossell), but it was on the corner of the Cardenal Rossell. The Catany home was on the corner of Convent.
This proximity was doubtless an important factor in Catany having been influenced by Monserrat. It was an influence that was to take him to Barcelona, to Israel, to Egypt, to the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. He was based in Barcelona from 1960, but he never forgot his home town and home island. Before he died in 2013, he had made provision for his legacy and that of Tomas Monserrat to be preserved: in Llucmajor, in the old houses where one had died and the other had been born. The project for this preservation has yet to be realised.
The American "Life" magazine once named Catany among its 100 greatest photographers in the world, and he was honoured by the governments of both the Balearics and Catalonia. His was a photography that was as diverse as it was original - portraits, landscapes, the surreal, nudes, still life (as in vases of flowers for example), journalistic. It was a photography that he wished to bequeath to Mallorca, and in October 2013, he had been due to fly from Barcelona to the island with plans for the photographic centre project. These plans had been packed into his suitcase. He never made the journey. He died of a heart attack.
These plans were, however, only the latest for a project that had been conceived some years earlier. In 2007, with the backing of the town hall in Llucmajor and of the Council of Mallorca, the process was set in motion for the creation of the Toni Catany Foundation. Three years later, the legal framework for this had been agreed to by the two authorities, the Council, in the meantime, having acquired both the house of Tomas Monserrat and the Catany family home. Catany himself would supply all his photographic legacy, which was to include cameras as well as photographs, negatives, you name it, plus work by other photographers.
The Council had been in receipt of 4.3 million euros, funds that had been supplied by Turespaña, the national agency for tourism, and channelled through the regional government. This was in 2009. By June 2013, not long before he died, Catany wrote to the Council. To say that he was disappointed was probably an understatement. Nothing had happened, yet the project had been officially announced and architects' plans (which can be viewed on the internet) had been drawn up.
In April of this year, executors of his will and therefore members of the foundation were baffled when they learned of a decision of the Council's to release a million euros for the redevelopment of Monserrat's house. They were baffled because no one at the Council had apparently been in contact with them. The trustees were not objecting to work being done, they were just alarmed by the fact that they were not being informed. The Council's view was that, as it was now the owner of the house, it would go ahead with the bidding process for the redevelopment.
At least, however, something finally seemed to be moving, but the tardiness that the Council of Mallorca has shown over something that is a statutory investment (backed by the money that had been forthcoming in 2009) is something that the left-wing parties which seem poised to take over at the Council will address: they have said that such investments in the island's culture, like the Catany foundation, will be fulfilled.
The point is that one of the key reasons for the existence of the Council is a responsibility for the island's culture. Economic crisis will of course be cited in mitigation, and Maria Salom, on becoming president in 2011, was faced with a Council with huge debts. But the funding was expressly made available. With any luck the vision of Toni Catany will now be realised in the not-too-distant future and his legacy will be there for all to see.
* As part of the PalmaPhoto season, there will be a documentary film about Catany at the Cineciutat, 25 June at 10pm.
Thursday, June 11, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 11 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (6.00am): 22C
Forecast high: 30C; UV: 9
Three-day forecast: 12 June - Cloud, 29C; 13 June - Sun, cloud, 27C; 14 June - Sun, cloud, 26C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): East 4 to 5 veering Southeast during the morning.
Some cloud around. Quite close and a warmer night and early morning. Cloud likely during today and tomorrow, with a slight risk of a shower. Looking ahead the forecast is for cooler and possibly rainy conditions at the start of next week, though as this is a few days away, the picture could change.
Evening update (20.00): Cloud, only light, came in rather earlier than had been forecast. Clammy old day. High of 29.4C.
No Frills Excursions
The Pantomime Mule Of Manacor
The mule has its own place in Mallorca's story. Along with the donkey, it was a prime source of energy for mills and wells. Blindfolded, in order to prevent sickness, the mule or the donkey would be harnessed and walk in a circle to extract water or grind wheat - mills were even used to grind salt and clay. The mule was not the only source of power. Man was as well: slaves. When the slave trade came to an end, the mule reassumed greater duties, unless there was sufficient wind to do its job for it. The mills driven by mules, donkeys and humans were known as "molinos de sangre": mills of blood.
In 1891 the town hall in Palma was approached with a request to create the city's first public transport system. On 20 September of that year, this system was inaugurated. It went to Porto Pi and was 4.4 kilometres long. It was a tram, but more specifically a "tram of blood": it was driven by mules.
The first mule trams were known as ripers, rippers, riperts or ripperts. They existed in other cities - Barcelona and Madrid, for example - and the inconsistency in spelling may be purely down to local usage. They all had a common root, though, and that was one Monsieur Ripert, a carriage-maker from Marseille. He came up with the design, others stole it but used his name, and so emerged the riperts (or whatever they were called). In truth, they weren't really trams at all but a forerunner of the bus, but they were around for a good number of years after the first journey in 1891: the proper, electrified tram line to Porto Pi wasn't to start until 1916. Nevertheless, there were mule-drawn riperts heading out to what were still suburbs in the 1920s, such as El Terreno.
Elsewhere on the island, the mule was being affected by the arrival of technology. While much of Mallorca remained stuck in the nineteenth century, the first bicycle had appeared in the 1860s, the train had arrived by the final quarter of the 1800s and then the car and real buses came along in the first quarter of the 1900s. The Sóller train, went it opened in 1912, was to cut the journey time from Palma from four hours to one hour: it was also a lot more comfortable and a lot less hairy (the journey, that is, as opposed to the mule).
Eventually of course, the mule was to lose its transport source of employment, though for the mule population there were still the mills, the wells and the hard labour of the countryside. Nowadays, it would be hard to place a figure on how many mules there are in Mallorca; it is easier to place a price on the mule, if adverts on the internet are anything to go by. There is one available for 600 euros; three others for 250 euros each - urgent sales on account of the owner having to move away.
In its different ways, therefore, the mule has its place in the Mallorcan story, one that is both urban and rural, but it is the countryside, or at least more rural areas, where the mule remains more honoured today. This said, Manacor is a fairly large urban area and long a centre of industry. Manacor has, however, acquired a mule. Not a real one but a pretend one. The "mulassa" of Manacor, which is basically like a pantomime horse with one playing the front, another playing the back, was revealed in front of 200 or so expectant citizens of Manacor last week. It danced, it cavorted, the folk musicians made music. The mulassa had arrived and its first big performance will come at this year's Sant Jaume fiestas.
Mallorca has its range of odd characters that take to the streets at fiesta time: the giants, the big heads, the dragons, the cavallets. And the Manacor mulassa, it might be said, falls into the general category of the latter: figures with a horsey theme. The artist Sebastià Riera Pocovi has been responsible for the mulassa, and the significance of the mule is that there was, in times gone by, a tradition of there being a raffle to win a mule on Sant Jaume day.
But there is more to the mulassa than this local tradition. The figure of a mule goes back centuries in Catalan fiesta tradition. La Mulassa de Barcelona, for example, can trace its history to 1601. It seemingly disappeared from the festivities' scene around 1812 but was revived in the late 1980s. It goes on tour, and it has appeared in Mancor de la Vall, while the Mulassa de Falset (in Catalonia) has turned up in Santa Maria del Cami. Now Manacor has one, maybe it will go on tour as well, though it's more likely that every town and village will want one.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 10 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (6.45am): 19.5C
Forecast high: 30C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 11 June - Cloud, 30C; 12 June - Cloud, sun, 27C; 13 June - Sun, cloud, 26C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): East 2 increasing 4 by midday.
Warm morning, more than warm day ahead. But, what's this? Cloud for tomorrow and Friday. Only a slight chance of rain it would seem, but cloudy for a couple of days it may well be.
Evening update (20.00): A bit cloudy at times but only a bit. High of 30.8C.
No Frills Excursions
Fiesta Of Vendetta: Canamunt, Canavall
I recently had a conversation about "mafias" in Mallorca. A point I made was, as I have written in a previous article, that it is a term used widely and pejoratively and almost always inaccurately, though I could concede that there is the old saying about Mallorca that it is "Sicily without the guns". Yes, came a response, that may be true, but then the Cosa Nostra had learned from Mallorca. This may or may not be true, but Mallorca had, historically, circumstances not dissimilar to those which gave rise to the original Sicilian mafia of the nineteenth century and which produced the island-wide warfare that broke out at the end of the sixteenth century and that lasted for much of the following century. This was perhaps Mallorca's most infamous interlude: the Canamunt and the Canavall vendetta.
The background to these two factions was what had happened in the decades before the vendetta started. Following the Germanies civil war 1521 to 1523, there were land confiscations and land grabs by a nobility which was often absent as well as any number of lawsuits and a general absence of interest in Mallorca on behalf of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. Things didn't improve under his son, Philip II, and so Mallorca was largely left to its own devices and to lawlessness that was never far from the surface and which finally and truly surfaced as a result of the feud between two families - the Anglada and Rossinyol. They and their supporters came to acquire the names Canamunt and Canavall because they lived in the villages of Amunt and Avall in Palma.
Things all kicked off in 1598 and what was to follow was in a sense another civil war but not between the poor and the rich, which was essentially what the Germanies had been about, but between rival nobilities and others who were drawn into the conflict from right across the island. It was time, until things calmed down in the 1660s, of appalling violence, assassination, banditry and protection racketeering. Here were, in essence, two mafias going head to head in a vendetta because honour had supposedly been impugned.
Banditry, not exactly uncommon in the Mediterranean of former times, was to be a principal cause of the rise of the mafia after Sicily had been liberated from a feudal system but also exposed to the desires of land grabbers who could act with freedom because the island was so poorly policed. But well before it emerged, Mallorca was ripe with the trappings of what was to consume the Italian island, and it even included the 1619 assassination of a judge - Jaume Joan de Berga y Salas - who had sought to bring criminals to justice. The vendetta was such that the reasons for it having started were forgotten as gangs and gangsters, who would align themselves with one of the two factions (occasionally swapping sides), created decades-long mayhem. The viciousness was dreadful and certain towns suffered more than others. The Canavall of Pollensa were especially unpleasant. A woman and two daughters were raped because they were suspected of being for the Canamunt; more than 130 people were murdered.
In light of all this, you might well ask why anyone would wish to create a fiesta which takes as its theme the Canamunt and Canavall vendetta. Well, the collective Orgull Llonguet in Palma wants to do precisely this, and it would seem that there is going to be a Canamunt i Canavall fiesta this summer. The provisional date had been 12 July but may now be 1 August. Orgull means pride, and the llonguet is a type of bread. The collective describes itself as being "gastro-festival". In other words, it has been and is engaged in creating different types of fiesta for Palma where there has been discontent with the organisation of January's patron saint celebrations for Sant Sebastià and where there isn't a summer fiesta as such.
What they have in mind for this fiesta heaven only knows, though a promised battle will feature nothing more dangerous than water. It is probably safe to say that it will all be tongue in cheek in the same way as Sant Kanut is, this being the alternative Sant Sebastià fiesta. For Sant Kanut an image of this fake saint is carried in the style of the images of real saints. The name comes from the Catalan "canut" to mean a marijuana joint. Indeed, the association of Canamunt-Ciutat Antiga residents in Palma already have a fiesta in which there is the wacky image of Sant Rescat (Saint Rescue), and the Orgull Llonguet one will complement this in making what is hoped will become a major summer fiesta in the city.
It seems a strange old justification for a fiesta, but then strange things happen in Mallorca. Fortunately, they are not the strange of the seventeenth century.
The background to these two factions was what had happened in the decades before the vendetta started. Following the Germanies civil war 1521 to 1523, there were land confiscations and land grabs by a nobility which was often absent as well as any number of lawsuits and a general absence of interest in Mallorca on behalf of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. Things didn't improve under his son, Philip II, and so Mallorca was largely left to its own devices and to lawlessness that was never far from the surface and which finally and truly surfaced as a result of the feud between two families - the Anglada and Rossinyol. They and their supporters came to acquire the names Canamunt and Canavall because they lived in the villages of Amunt and Avall in Palma.
Things all kicked off in 1598 and what was to follow was in a sense another civil war but not between the poor and the rich, which was essentially what the Germanies had been about, but between rival nobilities and others who were drawn into the conflict from right across the island. It was time, until things calmed down in the 1660s, of appalling violence, assassination, banditry and protection racketeering. Here were, in essence, two mafias going head to head in a vendetta because honour had supposedly been impugned.
Banditry, not exactly uncommon in the Mediterranean of former times, was to be a principal cause of the rise of the mafia after Sicily had been liberated from a feudal system but also exposed to the desires of land grabbers who could act with freedom because the island was so poorly policed. But well before it emerged, Mallorca was ripe with the trappings of what was to consume the Italian island, and it even included the 1619 assassination of a judge - Jaume Joan de Berga y Salas - who had sought to bring criminals to justice. The vendetta was such that the reasons for it having started were forgotten as gangs and gangsters, who would align themselves with one of the two factions (occasionally swapping sides), created decades-long mayhem. The viciousness was dreadful and certain towns suffered more than others. The Canavall of Pollensa were especially unpleasant. A woman and two daughters were raped because they were suspected of being for the Canamunt; more than 130 people were murdered.
In light of all this, you might well ask why anyone would wish to create a fiesta which takes as its theme the Canamunt and Canavall vendetta. Well, the collective Orgull Llonguet in Palma wants to do precisely this, and it would seem that there is going to be a Canamunt i Canavall fiesta this summer. The provisional date had been 12 July but may now be 1 August. Orgull means pride, and the llonguet is a type of bread. The collective describes itself as being "gastro-festival". In other words, it has been and is engaged in creating different types of fiesta for Palma where there has been discontent with the organisation of January's patron saint celebrations for Sant Sebastià and where there isn't a summer fiesta as such.
What they have in mind for this fiesta heaven only knows, though a promised battle will feature nothing more dangerous than water. It is probably safe to say that it will all be tongue in cheek in the same way as Sant Kanut is, this being the alternative Sant Sebastià fiesta. For Sant Kanut an image of this fake saint is carried in the style of the images of real saints. The name comes from the Catalan "canut" to mean a marijuana joint. Indeed, the association of Canamunt-Ciutat Antiga residents in Palma already have a fiesta in which there is the wacky image of Sant Rescat (Saint Rescue), and the Orgull Llonguet one will complement this in making what is hoped will become a major summer fiesta in the city.
It seems a strange old justification for a fiesta, but then strange things happen in Mallorca. Fortunately, they are not the strange of the seventeenth century.
Tuesday, June 09, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 9 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (6.30am): 19.5C
Forecast high: 31C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 10 June - Sun, 30C; 11 June - Sun, cloud, 29C; 12 June - Sun, cloud, 26C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Variable 2 to 3, locally Northeast 4 during the afternoon.
You know it's summer when the early morning temperatures are barely below 20 (wait till they're more like 24), so the current fine pattern continues. Another very good day to come, but the forecast for later in the week is hinting at a bit of a dip in the high temperatures.
Evening update (19.45): A high of 30.3C.
No Frills Excursions
The Never-Ending Argument Of Language
There was this interview. It was with the philologist who is responsible for linguistic use at the IB3 broadcaster. At the conclusion of the interview she says of the Balearic language that it doesn't exist. To speak of a Balearic language is provocative, just as it is when one refers to the Catalan of Mallorca. It is the philological way, but she doesn't like it because, for centuries, we have called it Mallorquín.
In Mallorca, it can appear, there are more philologists than you can shake a dictionary at. These "students" of languages, be they actual students, professors or hobbyists, proliferate to an extent that is hard to comprehend for those of us brought up without an obsession with arguing over languages and their historical significance. Philologist was a word, a profession if you like, that I was well aware of before coming to Mallorca, but never had it occurred to me that there would be a place where the philologist seems as common as the town hall official, and as equally bloody-minded in all likelihood.
And the town halls have their own quasi-philologists, the councillors who are charged with the responsibility for what, through literal translation, is linguistic normalisation but which is better translated as standardisation. Either noun will do, as the whole term is a euphemism for Catalan. Or is it?
The philologist of the interview, Mariantònia Lladó, has a contentious responsibility at IB3. Anything to do with language has the potential to be contentious - which is one reason why there are so many philologists knocking around - and at IB3 it has been just this. It has all had to do with an issue that will, for the great majority of you, seem impenetrable and arcane, but that is because you will not be obsessed with the detail of language, one that is so micro-scrutinised that there are arguments which haggle over the use of the word "the". At IB3, "the" became a politico-philological battle. The Partido Popular, which ruled the broadcaster through its government vice-president Antonio Gomez and then José Manuel Ruiz, who failed so spectacularly in becoming mayor of Calvia, insisted that the Mallorquín "the" should be used and not the Catalan "the". Mariantònia, elsewhere in the interview, reveals her "the" preference, lamenting the fact that, except out in the villages of Mallorca, the "new generations" use the literary "the", i.e. the Catalan one.
For the Bauzá PP, so desirous of distancing itself from anything marked with the stamp of Catalonia, the intervention over "the" at IB3 went to the heart of its linguistic politics, and the very notion of there being a linguistic politics can strike many as being somewhat absurd. But that's because they are not bound up in the ceaseless polemic that can appear to define all politics of Mallorca.
The PP line, and that of Mariantònia (and I hope I'm not misrepresenting her), is to promote the languages of the islands at the expense of Catalan. Yet this can appear to be - in political terms - contradictory. The PP disassociates itself from notions of nationalism - those which are not Spanish nationalist - but it advocates a distinct language, Mallorquín. And what, as far as nationalism is concerned, is more nationalist than a language? But then, it isn't contradictory if it is accepted that there are minority languages/dialects within the framework of the grand nationalism of Spain and it also isn't contradictory if this acceptance is one to cock a snook at the pretensions of Catalan nationalism which involve a geographically broader area than just Catalonia - the mythical Catalan Lands.
Inherent to this line is an argument that the languages of the islands, and each island lays claim to having one, are the products of some form of separate development. Well, quite clearly there has been. When there are 250 plus kilometres of sea that divorce Mallorca from the Catalan heartland as well as a history of Arabic language and Vulgar Latin (and it is this which is the root of the "the" argument), there was bound to have been linguistic modification. But the mother tongue is Catalan (and/or variants that themselves influenced and created Catalan). To refer to the "Catalan of Mallorca" is, however, says Mariantònia, provocative. And in this, for many Mallorcans in my experience, she is right. Mallorcans speak Mallorquín and not Catalan, albeit there are obvious, very strong similarities.
So, one comes back to this business of linguistic normalisation, sometimes determined at town halls by councillors who proudly speak their Mallorquín (and nothing else) but within an ideological framework of Catalan nationalism and with responsibility for the normalisation of Catalan. And ditto the schools, where the argument is over the promotion of Catalan, not of Mallorquín.
Still, this all helps to allow philology to flourish and for there to be never-ending arguments, and the fact is that they will never end.
In Mallorca, it can appear, there are more philologists than you can shake a dictionary at. These "students" of languages, be they actual students, professors or hobbyists, proliferate to an extent that is hard to comprehend for those of us brought up without an obsession with arguing over languages and their historical significance. Philologist was a word, a profession if you like, that I was well aware of before coming to Mallorca, but never had it occurred to me that there would be a place where the philologist seems as common as the town hall official, and as equally bloody-minded in all likelihood.
And the town halls have their own quasi-philologists, the councillors who are charged with the responsibility for what, through literal translation, is linguistic normalisation but which is better translated as standardisation. Either noun will do, as the whole term is a euphemism for Catalan. Or is it?
The philologist of the interview, Mariantònia Lladó, has a contentious responsibility at IB3. Anything to do with language has the potential to be contentious - which is one reason why there are so many philologists knocking around - and at IB3 it has been just this. It has all had to do with an issue that will, for the great majority of you, seem impenetrable and arcane, but that is because you will not be obsessed with the detail of language, one that is so micro-scrutinised that there are arguments which haggle over the use of the word "the". At IB3, "the" became a politico-philological battle. The Partido Popular, which ruled the broadcaster through its government vice-president Antonio Gomez and then José Manuel Ruiz, who failed so spectacularly in becoming mayor of Calvia, insisted that the Mallorquín "the" should be used and not the Catalan "the". Mariantònia, elsewhere in the interview, reveals her "the" preference, lamenting the fact that, except out in the villages of Mallorca, the "new generations" use the literary "the", i.e. the Catalan one.
For the Bauzá PP, so desirous of distancing itself from anything marked with the stamp of Catalonia, the intervention over "the" at IB3 went to the heart of its linguistic politics, and the very notion of there being a linguistic politics can strike many as being somewhat absurd. But that's because they are not bound up in the ceaseless polemic that can appear to define all politics of Mallorca.
The PP line, and that of Mariantònia (and I hope I'm not misrepresenting her), is to promote the languages of the islands at the expense of Catalan. Yet this can appear to be - in political terms - contradictory. The PP disassociates itself from notions of nationalism - those which are not Spanish nationalist - but it advocates a distinct language, Mallorquín. And what, as far as nationalism is concerned, is more nationalist than a language? But then, it isn't contradictory if it is accepted that there are minority languages/dialects within the framework of the grand nationalism of Spain and it also isn't contradictory if this acceptance is one to cock a snook at the pretensions of Catalan nationalism which involve a geographically broader area than just Catalonia - the mythical Catalan Lands.
Inherent to this line is an argument that the languages of the islands, and each island lays claim to having one, are the products of some form of separate development. Well, quite clearly there has been. When there are 250 plus kilometres of sea that divorce Mallorca from the Catalan heartland as well as a history of Arabic language and Vulgar Latin (and it is this which is the root of the "the" argument), there was bound to have been linguistic modification. But the mother tongue is Catalan (and/or variants that themselves influenced and created Catalan). To refer to the "Catalan of Mallorca" is, however, says Mariantònia, provocative. And in this, for many Mallorcans in my experience, she is right. Mallorcans speak Mallorquín and not Catalan, albeit there are obvious, very strong similarities.
So, one comes back to this business of linguistic normalisation, sometimes determined at town halls by councillors who proudly speak their Mallorquín (and nothing else) but within an ideological framework of Catalan nationalism and with responsibility for the normalisation of Catalan. And ditto the schools, where the argument is over the promotion of Catalan, not of Mallorquín.
Still, this all helps to allow philology to flourish and for there to be never-ending arguments, and the fact is that they will never end.
Monday, June 08, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 8 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (6.30am): 18.5C
Forecast high: 31C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 9 June - Sun, 29C; 10 June - Sun, cloud, 27C; 11 June - Sun, cloud, 27C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 2 to 3, locally 4 during the afternoon.
And what do you know? There'll be wall-to-wall sun, it'll be quite hot and the breezes will be only light. Later in the week - possibly just a change.
Evening update (21.30): High of 31.7C, and that is warm.
No Frills Excursions
A Short History Of The Potato
There has long been debate as to who actually was responsible for introducing the potato to England. But regardless of the competing claims of Sir Francis Drake or Thomas Harriot, the potato was to prove to be a grand agricultural success. But before it turned up in England, it had appeared in Spain, which is only logical given that the Spaniards had been all over southern America like a rash from the moment that Columbus didn't discover America but rather the Caribbean. By the second half of the sixteenth century, the potato was being cultivated in Spain, such as in the Basque Country, but its migration to other parts of the country was slow. And right at the back of the potato revolution queue was Mallorca.
They held the annual potato fair in Sa Pobla at the weekend. The spud is to Sa Pobla as the orange is to Sóller, yet remarkably enough it was Sóller where it was once cultivated in some abundance, possibly equally as much as in Sa Pobla. But this cultivation wasn't to occur, with anything like intensity, until roughly 300 years after the Spaniards of empire had first introduced the potato to Spain.
It was the Menorcans who were responsible, and they in turn had the British to thank. Wherever the Briton roamed in occupation, he took the potato with him, and so Menorca became the nursery for what was, many years later, to become a primary source of Sa Pobla's agricultural economy.
It was, it would seem, one Alexandre de Cauterac who was the chief initial advocate of the potato. In 1799, he recognised that the potato could become an important crop as part of the recovery of parts of the Albufera wetlands next to Sa Pobla. While the reclaiming of the wetlands through the drainage by the British engineers in the second half of the nineteenth century is rightly recognised as having created greater agricultural possibilities, there had already been some small-scale reclaiming. The land was deemed suitable for vegetable growing. Up until then, Sa Pobla's economy had been based on vines, cereals, hemp and flax. Despite the water of the wetlands, the town's agriculture, and indeed the town itself, was relatively poor. In the sixteenth century, for example, it had been observed that "the village which is poorest in water ... is that of Sa Pobla, where the number of wells does not even reach ten".
But even once the potato was revealed to the island, the cultivation was slow to take off. Mallorca's Captain General offered a prize in 1816 for the best potatoes to be grown in Alcudia and Sa Pobla. Twenty years later the Mallorcan Economic Society of Friends of the Land were issuing reports commending cultivation, but though the potato was being grown, the volume was such that it was almost a luxury. The Sóller growers of the mid-1860s were able to command high prices for this new and delicious food. Nevertheless, the potato's popularity among Sa Pobla's farming community was on the rise. Though he didn't specifically identify the potato, the Archduke Louis Salvador, whose "Die Balearen" was as much a census of economic production on Majorca as a work of cultural observation, was able to say in 1872 that 477 hectares of production on marshy farmland included vegetables, by which he mainly meant the potato.
Initially, the potatoes were grown as animal feed. There was a reluctance to eat something that was grown in soil, as there was an assumption that it might not be good for the health. But elsewhere, such as in France, the potato was gaining a reputation as the "bread of the poor", so by around the mid-nineteenth century cultivation started to take off, albeit it was to remain mostly for personal consumption rather than to be on a grand scale. The Archduke could see that there was development, but it wasn't until the British engineers got to work that there was the land for more intensive production.
Different varieties of potato were introduced but it was to be the Royal Kidney variety which was to truly turn Sa Pobla into the potato economy it became, and this didn't appear until 1924. By then, the town's potatoes were being exported to the UK, but with the Royal Kidney, production grew massively and so did the export trade. Sa Pobla was to become a part of British eating habits: the town was exporting a variety of new potato. As the town had also benefited from the introduction of rice in Albufera around the turn of the twentieth century, this once poor agricultural town ceased to be poor.
So, the potato fair - a celebration of the gastronomy, very much removed from the days when there was a reluctance to eat potatoes - symbolises Sa Pobla's potato agricultural tradition: a tradition which is more recent than one might have thought.
They held the annual potato fair in Sa Pobla at the weekend. The spud is to Sa Pobla as the orange is to Sóller, yet remarkably enough it was Sóller where it was once cultivated in some abundance, possibly equally as much as in Sa Pobla. But this cultivation wasn't to occur, with anything like intensity, until roughly 300 years after the Spaniards of empire had first introduced the potato to Spain.
It was the Menorcans who were responsible, and they in turn had the British to thank. Wherever the Briton roamed in occupation, he took the potato with him, and so Menorca became the nursery for what was, many years later, to become a primary source of Sa Pobla's agricultural economy.
It was, it would seem, one Alexandre de Cauterac who was the chief initial advocate of the potato. In 1799, he recognised that the potato could become an important crop as part of the recovery of parts of the Albufera wetlands next to Sa Pobla. While the reclaiming of the wetlands through the drainage by the British engineers in the second half of the nineteenth century is rightly recognised as having created greater agricultural possibilities, there had already been some small-scale reclaiming. The land was deemed suitable for vegetable growing. Up until then, Sa Pobla's economy had been based on vines, cereals, hemp and flax. Despite the water of the wetlands, the town's agriculture, and indeed the town itself, was relatively poor. In the sixteenth century, for example, it had been observed that "the village which is poorest in water ... is that of Sa Pobla, where the number of wells does not even reach ten".
But even once the potato was revealed to the island, the cultivation was slow to take off. Mallorca's Captain General offered a prize in 1816 for the best potatoes to be grown in Alcudia and Sa Pobla. Twenty years later the Mallorcan Economic Society of Friends of the Land were issuing reports commending cultivation, but though the potato was being grown, the volume was such that it was almost a luxury. The Sóller growers of the mid-1860s were able to command high prices for this new and delicious food. Nevertheless, the potato's popularity among Sa Pobla's farming community was on the rise. Though he didn't specifically identify the potato, the Archduke Louis Salvador, whose "Die Balearen" was as much a census of economic production on Majorca as a work of cultural observation, was able to say in 1872 that 477 hectares of production on marshy farmland included vegetables, by which he mainly meant the potato.
Initially, the potatoes were grown as animal feed. There was a reluctance to eat something that was grown in soil, as there was an assumption that it might not be good for the health. But elsewhere, such as in France, the potato was gaining a reputation as the "bread of the poor", so by around the mid-nineteenth century cultivation started to take off, albeit it was to remain mostly for personal consumption rather than to be on a grand scale. The Archduke could see that there was development, but it wasn't until the British engineers got to work that there was the land for more intensive production.
Different varieties of potato were introduced but it was to be the Royal Kidney variety which was to truly turn Sa Pobla into the potato economy it became, and this didn't appear until 1924. By then, the town's potatoes were being exported to the UK, but with the Royal Kidney, production grew massively and so did the export trade. Sa Pobla was to become a part of British eating habits: the town was exporting a variety of new potato. As the town had also benefited from the introduction of rice in Albufera around the turn of the twentieth century, this once poor agricultural town ceased to be poor.
So, the potato fair - a celebration of the gastronomy, very much removed from the days when there was a reluctance to eat potatoes - symbolises Sa Pobla's potato agricultural tradition: a tradition which is more recent than one might have thought.
Sunday, June 07, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 7 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (6.15am): 18C
Forecast high: 31C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 8 June - Sun, 31C; 9 June - Sun, 28C; 10 June - Sun, cloud, 27C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 2 to 4.
And today, there will be sun. Lots of it, together with lots of heat. They said there would be a cooling of temperatures. It appears they were wrong.
Evening update (21.15): Excellent day. High of 30.2C.
No Frills Excursions
Boots And Shoes: Lloseta
The First World War brought certain benefits to Mallorca. Because of Spain's neutrality and of desires to escape war, the island became home to those who sought refuge, and within this atmosphere of calm, the island's culture was able to flourish, assisted by, for example, the painters of the Pollensa School. Business also benefited: the war years saw, for instance, the founding of the Trasmediterranea shipping line. Ships, other than those for passengers and trade, were built in Mallorca. They were destined for war support. Guns were manufactured. Uniforms made. The ordinary people of Mallorca might not have seen much evidence of the benefits of the war industry, but the less ordinary did: Mallorca's businesses, by and large, had a good war.
There was another product that the island exported at that time. Armies do not march on their stomachs, they march on their boots. Mallorca's footwear industry enjoyed a period of growth: the French army was the beneficiary of the island's boot making.
This industry was already important before the war. In 1900, almost 14% of Mallorca's manufacturing industry had been that of footwear and leather products. This sector had grown in the second half of the nineteenth century by over five per cent, and it was to later grow so significantly that by the 1970s it was responsible for a third of all Mallorca's manufacturing.
At the time of the war, the main centre for production was Palma, but demand for footwear - from the mainland and the Spanish colonies as well as for war needs - was to see production diversify geographically. And the area of Mallorca where this diversification chiefly occurred is the one that today is most associated with footwear: the Raiguer region.
But well before the war, and despite Palma's domination of production, the Raiguer region had started to become a centre of its own production, and this owed a great deal to one man - Antonio Fluxá. In 1877, already an expert in shoemaking, he went to England to learn about new methods of manufacture. When he returned to Mallorca, he shared what he had discovered with others involved in the leather industry in Inca. It was to be almost a hundred years later (1975) that Camper was truly established, but one of its marks does state "Camper, Boots & Shoes, 1877".
So Antonio Fluxá, whose descendants were to also found Lottusse and Iberostar, can be rightly identified as the main inspiration for the footwear industry's geographical diversification, and while Inca was and still is the town most recognised for its leather products and so therefore boots and shoes, it was not the only town to reap the dividends. One other was Lloseta.
The footwear industry in Lloseta began rather humbly at the end of the nineteenth century, but by the 1930s it was the town's principal industry. So significant was Lloseta (and its industries - also mining in the early years following the Civil War and cement from the 1960s) that between 1900 and 1970 it had the fourth highest population growth of all towns in Mallorca. Indeed, in terms of population density, by 1970 only Palma had more residents per square kilometre than Lloseta.
But not everything went smoothly. The success of the industry brought with it industrial conflict in the 1930s, something that was to be stamped out by the Civil War and Francoism, and the regime was to prove to be - as it was for other industries - highly detrimental. Lloseta's footwear business was set back by a total lack of investment. Products were being made by hand. Antonio Fluxá's vision of more modern production several decades earlier was on hold. Inca, nevertheless, could count on twelve of its footwear workshops (out of 49) being mechanised in 1950. Lloseta, on the other hand, had none.
Mechanisation, or rather its absence, did have an advantage for one part of the workforce - the female one. But when machinery did finally arrive, jobs became more the domain of men, though there were to be more opportunities for women as Lloseta's by then traditional footwear industry was leaking male workers to the construction and tourism boom of the 1960s.
Among the firms involved in the industry, none was more important than Calzados Ordinas, founded in 1890 by Antonio Ordinas Escalas. There were to be other companies, and one of the best known is Bestard. It was founded in 1940, so it is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. Bestard is known for its excellent range of mountain boots.
And Bestard is one of the exhibitors at the Lloseta Shoe Fair, which is taking place this weekend. It is the sixteenth such fair, one that celebrates a town's industry which, by comparison with Inca's, is less known but which, historically, is just as long.
There was another product that the island exported at that time. Armies do not march on their stomachs, they march on their boots. Mallorca's footwear industry enjoyed a period of growth: the French army was the beneficiary of the island's boot making.
This industry was already important before the war. In 1900, almost 14% of Mallorca's manufacturing industry had been that of footwear and leather products. This sector had grown in the second half of the nineteenth century by over five per cent, and it was to later grow so significantly that by the 1970s it was responsible for a third of all Mallorca's manufacturing.
At the time of the war, the main centre for production was Palma, but demand for footwear - from the mainland and the Spanish colonies as well as for war needs - was to see production diversify geographically. And the area of Mallorca where this diversification chiefly occurred is the one that today is most associated with footwear: the Raiguer region.
But well before the war, and despite Palma's domination of production, the Raiguer region had started to become a centre of its own production, and this owed a great deal to one man - Antonio Fluxá. In 1877, already an expert in shoemaking, he went to England to learn about new methods of manufacture. When he returned to Mallorca, he shared what he had discovered with others involved in the leather industry in Inca. It was to be almost a hundred years later (1975) that Camper was truly established, but one of its marks does state "Camper, Boots & Shoes, 1877".
So Antonio Fluxá, whose descendants were to also found Lottusse and Iberostar, can be rightly identified as the main inspiration for the footwear industry's geographical diversification, and while Inca was and still is the town most recognised for its leather products and so therefore boots and shoes, it was not the only town to reap the dividends. One other was Lloseta.
The footwear industry in Lloseta began rather humbly at the end of the nineteenth century, but by the 1930s it was the town's principal industry. So significant was Lloseta (and its industries - also mining in the early years following the Civil War and cement from the 1960s) that between 1900 and 1970 it had the fourth highest population growth of all towns in Mallorca. Indeed, in terms of population density, by 1970 only Palma had more residents per square kilometre than Lloseta.
But not everything went smoothly. The success of the industry brought with it industrial conflict in the 1930s, something that was to be stamped out by the Civil War and Francoism, and the regime was to prove to be - as it was for other industries - highly detrimental. Lloseta's footwear business was set back by a total lack of investment. Products were being made by hand. Antonio Fluxá's vision of more modern production several decades earlier was on hold. Inca, nevertheless, could count on twelve of its footwear workshops (out of 49) being mechanised in 1950. Lloseta, on the other hand, had none.
Mechanisation, or rather its absence, did have an advantage for one part of the workforce - the female one. But when machinery did finally arrive, jobs became more the domain of men, though there were to be more opportunities for women as Lloseta's by then traditional footwear industry was leaking male workers to the construction and tourism boom of the 1960s.
Among the firms involved in the industry, none was more important than Calzados Ordinas, founded in 1890 by Antonio Ordinas Escalas. There were to be other companies, and one of the best known is Bestard. It was founded in 1940, so it is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. Bestard is known for its excellent range of mountain boots.
And Bestard is one of the exhibitors at the Lloseta Shoe Fair, which is taking place this weekend. It is the sixteenth such fair, one that celebrates a town's industry which, by comparison with Inca's, is less known but which, historically, is just as long.
Saturday, June 06, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 6 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (6.30am): 17.5C
Forecast high: 29C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 7 June - Sun, 24C; 8 June - Sun, 27C; 9 June - Sun, 27C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Variable 2 to 3, locally Northeast 4 during the afternoon.
And once more ... A fine morning and a fine day in prospect, plenty of sun, fairly hot, light breezes. Staying good through the weekend, though due to be cooler tomorrow.
Evening update (20.15): Fabulous. High of 30.7C.
No Frills Excursions
Too Much Uncertainty: Mallorca's tourism industry
The hiatus which occurs in Spain - in its towns and its regions - following elections is unsatisfactory. Stability is the key word that politicians have been uttering for weeks - those from the Partido Popular especially - yet stability is undermined even before the precise make-up of new governments is known (which may in themselves cause greater loss of stability). The hiatus period, the one the tourism industry is currently enduring, is especially damaging, or potentially so. The industry is worried, alarmed even by what type of governments might emerge, but the sooner they know, the better. Meantime, there is rumour, there is speculation, there is heightened anxiety. It's not good for business.
Four years ago of course, the hiatus was not a problem. Most parts of the country, like the Balearics, were looking forward to a Partido Popular government. In the Balearics the industry knew what was coming and it couldn't disguise its delighted expectation. Because of the current uncertainty there are pleas for the industry to be treated kindly, for the gains of the past four years not to be undermined.
Nationally, Joan Molas, the president of CEHAT, the confederation of hoteliers, has stressed the importance of not undoing the recovery that tourism has fuelled. He has also stressed problems that the hotel industry still has: not having regained levels of profitability that were being attained before crisis struck; the emergence of the alternative, "collaborative" economy and its proliferation of illegal lets; the absence of genuine plans to transform "mature" (i.e. outdated) resorts; the need for seasonal incentives, such as reduced social security payments.
On these, he may be right to worry, though not necessarily on the final item - in the Balearics, the left is inclined to introduce such incentives. But the worries, caused by the uncertainty, can lead to wrong conclusions. For example, in Barcelona, where the left-wing Ada Colau looks likely to become mayor, there was talk of her being opposed to the city's continuing the staging of the massive Mobile World Congress. In fact, she has signed a document expressing her support for it to continue to be held in Barcelona.
Nevertheless, with a new contract for the congress to be signed in Singapore next month (a contract from 2018, as Barcelona is still guaranteed it until then), there will be nervousness, as has already been demonstrated: a Meliá project being frozen, as also is one to build a hotel in the city's Deutsche Bank tower; greater urgency in trying to sell off hotels. This concern is being expressed all over the country. In the Balearics, Menorca may arguably be the worst affected island if anticipated projects are halted: the five new resorts planned by the French Zannier group, four of them of a luxury nature, might now not happen. In Mallorca, what might now occur in Playa de Palma? The building of new hotels could still be stopped. The Palacio de Congresos might fall, as in end up being demolished after all: Més had raised the possibility before the election and Més could provide the next mayor of Palma.
In Mallorca, for the moment, we can't be sure how things will turn out. On one issue, the return of the eco-tax, there does seem to be slight disagreement between PSOE, Més and Podemos. At the time of writing, the three parties' representatives had yet to discuss this and to see if it might form part of a parliamentary programme if the three can agree to a coalition. In fact, all three did refer to such a tax in their election manifestos, but for PSOE it was more the case of its being a fallback position if the general financing system for the Balearics is not improved. Neither Més nor Podemos is said to be set on when a tax might actually be introduced, but here is just one item of uncertainty that the election and the hiatus are causing. No one knows for sure about the eco-tax, and even were there to be a three-way PSOE-Més-Podemos government, they still might not know. There will be plenty in the tourism industry who will be praying that PSOE's Francina Armengol is amenable to an approach from the PP to form a coalition (unlikely though this would be).
Four years ago of course, the hiatus was not a problem. Most parts of the country, like the Balearics, were looking forward to a Partido Popular government. In the Balearics the industry knew what was coming and it couldn't disguise its delighted expectation. Because of the current uncertainty there are pleas for the industry to be treated kindly, for the gains of the past four years not to be undermined.
Nationally, Joan Molas, the president of CEHAT, the confederation of hoteliers, has stressed the importance of not undoing the recovery that tourism has fuelled. He has also stressed problems that the hotel industry still has: not having regained levels of profitability that were being attained before crisis struck; the emergence of the alternative, "collaborative" economy and its proliferation of illegal lets; the absence of genuine plans to transform "mature" (i.e. outdated) resorts; the need for seasonal incentives, such as reduced social security payments.
On these, he may be right to worry, though not necessarily on the final item - in the Balearics, the left is inclined to introduce such incentives. But the worries, caused by the uncertainty, can lead to wrong conclusions. For example, in Barcelona, where the left-wing Ada Colau looks likely to become mayor, there was talk of her being opposed to the city's continuing the staging of the massive Mobile World Congress. In fact, she has signed a document expressing her support for it to continue to be held in Barcelona.
Nevertheless, with a new contract for the congress to be signed in Singapore next month (a contract from 2018, as Barcelona is still guaranteed it until then), there will be nervousness, as has already been demonstrated: a Meliá project being frozen, as also is one to build a hotel in the city's Deutsche Bank tower; greater urgency in trying to sell off hotels. This concern is being expressed all over the country. In the Balearics, Menorca may arguably be the worst affected island if anticipated projects are halted: the five new resorts planned by the French Zannier group, four of them of a luxury nature, might now not happen. In Mallorca, what might now occur in Playa de Palma? The building of new hotels could still be stopped. The Palacio de Congresos might fall, as in end up being demolished after all: Més had raised the possibility before the election and Més could provide the next mayor of Palma.
In Mallorca, for the moment, we can't be sure how things will turn out. On one issue, the return of the eco-tax, there does seem to be slight disagreement between PSOE, Més and Podemos. At the time of writing, the three parties' representatives had yet to discuss this and to see if it might form part of a parliamentary programme if the three can agree to a coalition. In fact, all three did refer to such a tax in their election manifestos, but for PSOE it was more the case of its being a fallback position if the general financing system for the Balearics is not improved. Neither Més nor Podemos is said to be set on when a tax might actually be introduced, but here is just one item of uncertainty that the election and the hiatus are causing. No one knows for sure about the eco-tax, and even were there to be a three-way PSOE-Més-Podemos government, they still might not know. There will be plenty in the tourism industry who will be praying that PSOE's Francina Armengol is amenable to an approach from the PP to form a coalition (unlikely though this would be).
Friday, June 05, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 5 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (6.15am): 17C
Forecast high: 30C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 6 June - Sun, 25C; 7 June - Sun, 26C; 8 June - Sun, 26C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): East 2 to 3, occasionally 4 from midday.
More wall-to-wall sun today, and the walls will be occupied by the sun for the foreseeable future, though the temperatures are due to lower from tomorrow with northerlies adding some greater freshness.
No Frills Excursions
A Tram Runs Through It
It was curious in a way. One of the dominant figures of national politics at that time was the only Mallorcan to have thus far been prime minister of Spain, Antoni Maura, who had as one of his driving principles an end to the cacique, a system of abuse within a further system of pretend democracy; one characterised by favours and privileges. Yet, Jerónimo and Maura were close. Jerónimo was a supporter of Maura's. And when it came to the train and the tram, Maura was to prove to be useful. Or so at least goes one of the versions of the train-tram story, the one about the length of the railway line being too short to qualify for a government grant. Because it was too short, the plan was hatched to extend it, not by train but by tram to the port. And Jerónimo! A grant was forthcoming, thanks to Maura.
This is all of course lost in the mists of early twentieth-century time. It doesn't really matter now what the precise circumstances were that led to the creation of the tram. What does is that Sóller has its tram. And its train. There is nowhere else on Mallorca that is defined in the way that Sóller is. It is a definition of transport, and the plaque pays homage to this.
It is hypothetical, but what if the railway line had been the grant-requiring thirty kilometres minimum in length? Would the expedience of the initially unplanned-for tram have been replaced by the foresight of a tram? Rather than having been some sort of accident of transport planning, might it have been conceived as an essential means of linking town and port? One with tourism in mind?
Though Sóller and its port are distinct, they are indistinct precisely because of the tram. It is fundamental to both. Sóller has many defining characteristics, but none is as significant as the tram. It is its own attraction, but it is important in a way that makes Sóller unique. Unlike other municipalities in Mallorca where the town and the resort are separated by some distance, Sóller and the port are intimately linked. They are, therefore, a single entity: a double whammy of touristic potential produced by a mode of transport that reeks of nostalgia and times past but is nevertheless very much of the present.
It is perfectly conceivable that the tram would have been created anyway. But not principally because of tourism. Sóller's port had long been a vital means for the town's exports. Just as the train was not originally only designed to move people but also produce, so the tram would shift produce. That the tram was to become one of the iconic and main symbols for Sóller and Mallorcan tourism was more happenchance than design.
Jerónimo, though certainly not immune to the business potential of the "new" industry of tourism, was more concerned with expanding conventional business interests and introducing other infrastructure, such as electricity. There was to be someone else, however, who had tourism firmly in mind, and had his wish been fulfilled, Sóller might now not have quite the same claim it does for transport uniqueness and the curiosity factor of this transport in the Tramuntana mountains. That someone else was Antoni Parietti. He was the engineer responsible for the roads to Sa Calobra and from Puerto Pollensa to Formentor: both built with tourism in mind. Parietti had another project. The intention had been for a funicular railway to go to the top of the Puig Major, where there was to have been an observatory, a restaurant and ... some type of snow sports resort.
Parietti's vision was never fulfilled. Wars got in the way and the funicular plan was eventually scrapped in favour of a road to serve what was to become a military installation. Had the project been fulfilled, well, you can probably draw your own conclusions as to what it might have meant for winter tourism. It wasn't and so Sóller, with its train and the tram that runs through it, was left for all time to reap the benefits of uniqueness.
Thursday, June 04, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 4 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (6.15am): 17.5C
Forecast high: 30C; UV: 7
Three-day forecast: 5 June - Sun, 30C; 6 June - Sun, 26C; 7 June - Sun, 26C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 2 to 3.
Fine morning. Sunny day. Quite hot. That's it.
Evening update (23.45): A high of 30.2C.
No Frills Excursions
The Special Relationship? America and corruption
As news was coming in on Tuesday regarding the extraordinary development at FIFA, there was discussion as to why the FBI and US prosecutors were taking such an interest in FIFA affairs. Here, after all, is a country that doesn't have much football tradition. Yes, it has a reasonable team, it has staged a World Cup and would hope to hold further tournaments, but in terms of the global game, the US is not in its premier league. So why all the interest?
The most revealing explanation was that to do with Obama's agenda to root out corruption - wherever it might be. The world's policeman is the world's anti-corruption prosecutor as well. And to get a flavour of this, one only has to take a look at what was posted onto the White House's website on 24 September last year.
"President Obama and the US Government continue to drive a robust agenda to stem corruption around the world and hold to account those who exploit the public’s trust for private gain. Preventing corruption preserves funds for public revenue and thereby helps drive development and economic growth. By contrast, pervasive corruption siphons revenue away from the public budget and undermines the rule of law and the confidence of citizens in their governments, facilitates human rights abuses and organized crime, empowers authoritarian rulers, and can threaten the stability of entire regions. The United States views corruption as a growing threat to the national security of our country and allies around the world."
This briefing goes on at considerable length in explaining how the US has become a "global leader on anti-corruption efforts". Among its various "actions" include "working with other countries to promote anti-corruption, transparency and open government". Maybe the US had been talking to the Swiss Government and Swiss prosecutors. But while the reports were of FIFA and possibly Blatter being fingered, thoughts turned elsewhere. Spain.
Ángel María Villar Llona is the president of the Spanish Football Federation. He has been since 1988. He is also a vice-president of FIFA. In the recent vote for the FIFA presidency, Spain sided with Blatter. This was hardly surprising. When the spoils for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were announced, Villar Llona rounded on those who were accusing FIFA of corruption (principally the British media) by saying that "FIFA is clean and does things with honesty". He has echoed Blatter's sentiment that FIFA represents a football "family". When he was re-elected as president in 2008, he spoke of the "union between all the families of football". He taunted the English FA with its talk of "allegations", ones which should not be made about families. He was one of those who, when David Bernstein of the FA spoke out against Blatter, turned on Bernstein and the FA.
In 2010, a Spanish judge concluded that Villar Llona and other directors of the Spanish federation should be absolved of accusations that had been made against them, though the judge did say that there had been "abominable management in accounting for trips, expenses and purchase of foreign currency".
Villar Llona was due to have been restored as FIFA's head of referees, reward for backing Blatter in his re-election campaign; this, despite his facing possible sanctions related to the bidding for the 2018 World Cup. Where does Blatter's resignation leave Villar Llona?
But while the Spanish Football Federation may now look a little isolated within UEFA (not totally of course because the French, among others, had also supported Blatter), what about Spain, as in its government?
The US and Spain have generally had a strong relationship. It was the Americans who primarily brought Franco into the twentieth century by having - with the help of the likes of American Express - promoted the tourism which was to explode in the 1960s. The Americans also gave Franco military support. More recently, there were strains in the relationship because of Zapatero's opposition to the Iraq War, though Spain did then support US policy in Afghanistan. Under Rajoy, relations have been more cordial. But what about corruption?
As if the Partido Popular and the Spanish Government needed any more reminder of the issue, at the same time as the PP was getting a kicking in regional elections, there were more arrests in Valencia while a judge, in addition to opening proceedings against former PP officials in respect of the so-called "B accounts" affair, was fixing a civil bond of 1.2 million on the PP.
One looks at the wording from the White House statement of September last year. While some of it would not apply to Spain, some of it does. FIFA's affairs are one thing, but what of those of the Spanish Government? What does Obama make of corruption charges here? And what would the US make of Spain were it to be governed by parties of the left with anti-corruption agendas?
The most revealing explanation was that to do with Obama's agenda to root out corruption - wherever it might be. The world's policeman is the world's anti-corruption prosecutor as well. And to get a flavour of this, one only has to take a look at what was posted onto the White House's website on 24 September last year.
"President Obama and the US Government continue to drive a robust agenda to stem corruption around the world and hold to account those who exploit the public’s trust for private gain. Preventing corruption preserves funds for public revenue and thereby helps drive development and economic growth. By contrast, pervasive corruption siphons revenue away from the public budget and undermines the rule of law and the confidence of citizens in their governments, facilitates human rights abuses and organized crime, empowers authoritarian rulers, and can threaten the stability of entire regions. The United States views corruption as a growing threat to the national security of our country and allies around the world."
This briefing goes on at considerable length in explaining how the US has become a "global leader on anti-corruption efforts". Among its various "actions" include "working with other countries to promote anti-corruption, transparency and open government". Maybe the US had been talking to the Swiss Government and Swiss prosecutors. But while the reports were of FIFA and possibly Blatter being fingered, thoughts turned elsewhere. Spain.
Ángel María Villar Llona is the president of the Spanish Football Federation. He has been since 1988. He is also a vice-president of FIFA. In the recent vote for the FIFA presidency, Spain sided with Blatter. This was hardly surprising. When the spoils for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were announced, Villar Llona rounded on those who were accusing FIFA of corruption (principally the British media) by saying that "FIFA is clean and does things with honesty". He has echoed Blatter's sentiment that FIFA represents a football "family". When he was re-elected as president in 2008, he spoke of the "union between all the families of football". He taunted the English FA with its talk of "allegations", ones which should not be made about families. He was one of those who, when David Bernstein of the FA spoke out against Blatter, turned on Bernstein and the FA.
In 2010, a Spanish judge concluded that Villar Llona and other directors of the Spanish federation should be absolved of accusations that had been made against them, though the judge did say that there had been "abominable management in accounting for trips, expenses and purchase of foreign currency".
Villar Llona was due to have been restored as FIFA's head of referees, reward for backing Blatter in his re-election campaign; this, despite his facing possible sanctions related to the bidding for the 2018 World Cup. Where does Blatter's resignation leave Villar Llona?
But while the Spanish Football Federation may now look a little isolated within UEFA (not totally of course because the French, among others, had also supported Blatter), what about Spain, as in its government?
The US and Spain have generally had a strong relationship. It was the Americans who primarily brought Franco into the twentieth century by having - with the help of the likes of American Express - promoted the tourism which was to explode in the 1960s. The Americans also gave Franco military support. More recently, there were strains in the relationship because of Zapatero's opposition to the Iraq War, though Spain did then support US policy in Afghanistan. Under Rajoy, relations have been more cordial. But what about corruption?
As if the Partido Popular and the Spanish Government needed any more reminder of the issue, at the same time as the PP was getting a kicking in regional elections, there were more arrests in Valencia while a judge, in addition to opening proceedings against former PP officials in respect of the so-called "B accounts" affair, was fixing a civil bond of 1.2 million on the PP.
One looks at the wording from the White House statement of September last year. While some of it would not apply to Spain, some of it does. FIFA's affairs are one thing, but what of those of the Spanish Government? What does Obama make of corruption charges here? And what would the US make of Spain were it to be governed by parties of the left with anti-corruption agendas?
Wednesday, June 03, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 3 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (5.45am): 16.5C
Forecast high: 29C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 4 June - Sun, 29C; 5 June - Sun, 26C; 6 June - Sun, 26C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): South and Southeast 2 to 3 backing East and Northeast 2 to 4 towards midday.
Sun, light breezes, hot, clear skies and clean air - take great care with possible sunburn; conditions because of an absence of haze that is more common later in the summer make sunburning even more of a risk right now.
Evening update (20.15): High of 30.1C. Clouded over somewhat later on.
No Frills Excursions
The Sofa Of All Elections
It was an image of the elections. Not all the pre-voting barbecues, not the landscape littered with posters for parties no one had ever heard of, not José Ramón and fellow PP sorts off for family days out on the "day of reflection", traipsing through the cultural heritage countryside of Mallorca, vice-president "Nipper" Gomez with a man-of-the-people rucksack strapped to his back. Not these. The image was the sofa, the inflatable one belonging to Madrid's mayoral aspirant Esperanza Aguirre. Esperanza - hope, expectation. She went in hope and expectation, blowing up her sofa with a foot pump in the neighbourhoods of the capital. She packed it into a Ryanair hold and transported it to Mallorca. Once more inflated, it was to come to the aid of José Ramón. It didn't. She came, she inflated, he lost. Deflated.
Esperanza will need to try harder. A whole inflatable three-piece with foot rests and coffee table might now be required. She is battling against a new-age Podemos-style sofa, an Ahora Madrid one, not decorated with motifs of Real or Atlético but discreet hammers and sickles (supposedly). You see, the elections may be over but the real election has since begun. The unseemly scramble for coalitions, for retention of or gaining of power - municipal and regional.
Why was Esperanza dragging an inflatable around with her? It was all an attempt to get up close to the people (though in typically Spanish style, the people are rarely referred to; they are the more impersonal "citizens"). Closeness, listening: these were keywords of the elections as much as "stability" was. But things can, if you are not careful, become unstable. If the sofa gets the puncture of electorate rejection, the air is evacuated. Buoyant politics in a PP manner become the sinking feeling of defeat.
The sofa was a late-in-the-day attempt to demonstrate closeness. For years, closeness was of no consequence. But then along came the new lot, with their mantras of participation, their Twitter accounts and online citizen (people) decision-making. Suddenly, the old lot were reminded that there were citizens (people). Blimey, maybe we ought to talk to them. Get up close and personal. Unfortunately, inflatable sofas have been proven not to be the answer, unless the question was -how does a politician make herself appear rather ridiculous? Answer: get an inflatable. What next? Accompanying bouncy castles to keep the kiddies happy while mum and dad are being listened to, close up on the sofa?
But in an act of probably sofa satire, the left have discovered furniture as well. Or they have in Sa Pobla at any rate. Més per Sa Pobla became Sofa per Sa Pobla for a brief time at the weekend. Not that this was an inflatable. Oh no, it was an altogether more rigid affair, an expression of permanence: their hope, their expectation. Where had the sofa come from? Newly acquired from Ikea or maybe hauled out of a nearby skip? Recycled. That will be it. Més are not eco-nationalists for nothing.
The sofa was introduced to the market square on Sunday. As it wasn't right in the market, it probably didn't contravene any licensing regulations regarding market stalls. Not that Més should worry, if they become part of the ruling administration. Everyone will be getting new sofas. The town hall will provide. Perhaps. The sofa's appearance was part of the Més post-election election campaign for government. Improbable though it had seemed, Més wants to ally with PSOE and the Independents and El Pi to form the administration. Anyone but the PP, basically, even if it means an unholy alliance of unlikely bed or rather sofa fellows.
Going to market would mean that the Més message would reach a wide audience - one that includes foreign residents who make habitual trips to the Sa Pobla Sunday market. Not that they matter; they don't vote in any event. No, this was a message for the "poblers". Or might the sofa have been mistaken for an item for sale? Might its occupants have been taken for traders? There, after all, was Antonio Simón Tomás, the Més mayoral candidate, holding up a notice which read 1,141. A bit overpriced, the market visitors would have thought. For a recycled sofa.
This was of course the number of votes that Més had received. "Thank you", the notice also read. 1,141 - 997 fewer than the PP, which received the most votes. 18.7% of the share of the vote - 16.4% lower than the PP's share. How strange it can seem that the system of proportional representation can discount the wishes of 35% of those who bothered to vote. But then, the PP's closeness had only been air - some of it hot. It had been temporary. The Més closeness was more substantial and it was placed in the corner of the people's market.
Esperanza will need to try harder. A whole inflatable three-piece with foot rests and coffee table might now be required. She is battling against a new-age Podemos-style sofa, an Ahora Madrid one, not decorated with motifs of Real or Atlético but discreet hammers and sickles (supposedly). You see, the elections may be over but the real election has since begun. The unseemly scramble for coalitions, for retention of or gaining of power - municipal and regional.
Why was Esperanza dragging an inflatable around with her? It was all an attempt to get up close to the people (though in typically Spanish style, the people are rarely referred to; they are the more impersonal "citizens"). Closeness, listening: these were keywords of the elections as much as "stability" was. But things can, if you are not careful, become unstable. If the sofa gets the puncture of electorate rejection, the air is evacuated. Buoyant politics in a PP manner become the sinking feeling of defeat.
The sofa was a late-in-the-day attempt to demonstrate closeness. For years, closeness was of no consequence. But then along came the new lot, with their mantras of participation, their Twitter accounts and online citizen (people) decision-making. Suddenly, the old lot were reminded that there were citizens (people). Blimey, maybe we ought to talk to them. Get up close and personal. Unfortunately, inflatable sofas have been proven not to be the answer, unless the question was -how does a politician make herself appear rather ridiculous? Answer: get an inflatable. What next? Accompanying bouncy castles to keep the kiddies happy while mum and dad are being listened to, close up on the sofa?
But in an act of probably sofa satire, the left have discovered furniture as well. Or they have in Sa Pobla at any rate. Més per Sa Pobla became Sofa per Sa Pobla for a brief time at the weekend. Not that this was an inflatable. Oh no, it was an altogether more rigid affair, an expression of permanence: their hope, their expectation. Where had the sofa come from? Newly acquired from Ikea or maybe hauled out of a nearby skip? Recycled. That will be it. Més are not eco-nationalists for nothing.
The sofa was introduced to the market square on Sunday. As it wasn't right in the market, it probably didn't contravene any licensing regulations regarding market stalls. Not that Més should worry, if they become part of the ruling administration. Everyone will be getting new sofas. The town hall will provide. Perhaps. The sofa's appearance was part of the Més post-election election campaign for government. Improbable though it had seemed, Més wants to ally with PSOE and the Independents and El Pi to form the administration. Anyone but the PP, basically, even if it means an unholy alliance of unlikely bed or rather sofa fellows.
Going to market would mean that the Més message would reach a wide audience - one that includes foreign residents who make habitual trips to the Sa Pobla Sunday market. Not that they matter; they don't vote in any event. No, this was a message for the "poblers". Or might the sofa have been mistaken for an item for sale? Might its occupants have been taken for traders? There, after all, was Antonio Simón Tomás, the Més mayoral candidate, holding up a notice which read 1,141. A bit overpriced, the market visitors would have thought. For a recycled sofa.
This was of course the number of votes that Més had received. "Thank you", the notice also read. 1,141 - 997 fewer than the PP, which received the most votes. 18.7% of the share of the vote - 16.4% lower than the PP's share. How strange it can seem that the system of proportional representation can discount the wishes of 35% of those who bothered to vote. But then, the PP's closeness had only been air - some of it hot. It had been temporary. The Més closeness was more substantial and it was placed in the corner of the people's market.
Monday, June 01, 2015
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 1 June 2015
Stefanos
Morning high (6.30am): 16.5C
Forecast high: 27C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 2 June - Sun, 28C; 3 June - Sun, 26C; 4 June - Sun, 26C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Variable 2 to 3, locally South at times.
Summer, it can be said, is well and truly here. Stable and sunny weather, the main variant being the breezes. Today there will be southerlies for a time which will probably crank up the air temperature for a while.
Evening update (20.00): High of 29.7C. Pretty warm then.
No Frills Excursions
Arresting Angelic Spanish
Oh my good Lord. "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts." Where's the Lord when you need Him? Nowhere, it would appear, when the National Police come a-knocking. "We're coming to get you, Seraphim." Not even the fact that Seraphim is the archangel who looks over the police could prevent this. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. And there was worse still. This was the angel of Spanish. Serafín Castellano. Banged up. Corruption. Allegedly. What else would it be?
How terribly ironic that the national government delegate to Valencia (a Partido Popular one) who bears the name of one of the two official languages of Spain - the one that the PP typically has a preference for - should, firstly, be the government delegate in Catalan-variant-speaking Valencia and, secondly, that he should find plod banging on the door waving around a corruption charge only a few days after the regional elections. The ones in which corruption didn't play a part. Or did, depending on which PP apologist was speaking. Rajoy must be spitting feathers. Those of an angel's wings with the name of Castellano-Spanish, to boot. Spanish was under arrest.
Well, did corruption play a part? According to the Balearics PP government spokesperson Nuria Riera, it didn't. It was all the fault of errors in communication. Which was something of an admission for the PP spokesperson to make. It was all her fault then. But Nuria was holding her hands up - not as the police were waving guns in her direction - but in confessing that there would now be a need for "self-criticism": the same self-criticism that was going to be applied after the stuffing at the Euro elections last year but which wasn't.
What a wretched week last week was for Nuria. She was the one with the awkward task of publicly announcing election results on the telly. She could be seen visibly shrinking as the awful truth was being revealed. Much as she might have preferred for there to have been one final burst of communication error, it was impossible: her party was going down the pan. But while she insisted that the corruption hovering over the PP with its now angelic, non-Catalan symbolism was not a factor, others fessed up and said it was. Like, for instance, the president of the PP in Palma, José María Rodríguez. Well he should know, having only avoided a rap thanks to the statute of limitations.
Nuria was left to struggle with the communication breakdown between PP Balearics and PP Central. There is going to be a party congress at the end of the summer, she insisted. Oh no there isn't, said central office. You'll have to wait until after the general election. Why this apparent difference of opinion or communication error? Nothing to do with José Ramón Bauzá wishing to clear the PP leadership decks in the Balearics and prepare his campaign to be elected as a PP Balearics delegate to the national parliament? Or was it one final - and vain - attempt to demonstrate that PP Balearics was more regionalist than its critics would suggest and wasn't a mere puppet of central office?
How terribly ironic that the national government delegate to Valencia (a Partido Popular one) who bears the name of one of the two official languages of Spain - the one that the PP typically has a preference for - should, firstly, be the government delegate in Catalan-variant-speaking Valencia and, secondly, that he should find plod banging on the door waving around a corruption charge only a few days after the regional elections. The ones in which corruption didn't play a part. Or did, depending on which PP apologist was speaking. Rajoy must be spitting feathers. Those of an angel's wings with the name of Castellano-Spanish, to boot. Spanish was under arrest.
Well, did corruption play a part? According to the Balearics PP government spokesperson Nuria Riera, it didn't. It was all the fault of errors in communication. Which was something of an admission for the PP spokesperson to make. It was all her fault then. But Nuria was holding her hands up - not as the police were waving guns in her direction - but in confessing that there would now be a need for "self-criticism": the same self-criticism that was going to be applied after the stuffing at the Euro elections last year but which wasn't.
What a wretched week last week was for Nuria. She was the one with the awkward task of publicly announcing election results on the telly. She could be seen visibly shrinking as the awful truth was being revealed. Much as she might have preferred for there to have been one final burst of communication error, it was impossible: her party was going down the pan. But while she insisted that the corruption hovering over the PP with its now angelic, non-Catalan symbolism was not a factor, others fessed up and said it was. Like, for instance, the president of the PP in Palma, José María Rodríguez. Well he should know, having only avoided a rap thanks to the statute of limitations.
Nuria was left to struggle with the communication breakdown between PP Balearics and PP Central. There is going to be a party congress at the end of the summer, she insisted. Oh no there isn't, said central office. You'll have to wait until after the general election. Why this apparent difference of opinion or communication error? Nothing to do with José Ramón Bauzá wishing to clear the PP leadership decks in the Balearics and prepare his campaign to be elected as a PP Balearics delegate to the national parliament? Or was it one final - and vain - attempt to demonstrate that PP Balearics was more regionalist than its critics would suggest and wasn't a mere puppet of central office?
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