Morning high (7.58am): 5.6C
Forecast high: 16C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 18 February - Sun, cloud, 15C; 19 February - Cloud, sun, 15C; 20 February - Cloud, sun, 15C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): South 2 to 3 tending to Variable 1 to 3 in the afternoon.
Fine morning, a bit foggy in areas, but lifting to give a decent day.
Friday, February 17, 2017
Modelling The Green City
Let me say this. One, Palma is given too much attention. Yes, it is the capital, it has around half the population of Mallorca, it is the centre of the commercial and political universe on the island. It still gets a disproportionate level of attention, though. Two, its town hall councillors have an unerring capacity to unleash barrages of statistics designed to doubtless impress the citizens but which instead induce comas of numbed-by-number. Want to know the percentage increase in film shoots for adverts for the past twelve months, the rise in the number of passengers on a particular bus line, the budget elevation for rubbish collection, the percentage of full-time workers in the non-tourism sector in a certain quarter of the year? If you do, then there's a councillor (usually either Joana Maria Adrover or Neus Truyol) who will oblige.
Which isn't to say that Palma councillors are unique in this regard. Or that their utterances are of such a uniquely great abundance in order to ensure attention. As the third government in Mallorca - after the actual government and the one that would like to be, namely, the Council of Mallorca - it has a duty to follow the communication rules of its betters and numb the citizens into servile submission under the sheer weight of percentage points.
The follow-on from all this quantity is the quality. Increases here, rises there, and therefore things are better. More employment, more rubbish being collected, etc. There's nothing wrong with this, but too often the qualitative message is subservient to the quantitative announcement. What people really want to know is how are lives being improved, how is the city being improved. Not by numbers but by physical evidence of action and firm commitments to action that lead to qualitative enhancements.
I come, therefore, to praise the next mayor of Palma, Antoni Noguera. When he first landed the job as one of the plethora of the city's deputy mayors, there was less than clarity as to one of the responsibilities that had been assigned to him. Or rather, that he had assigned to himself. Deputy mayor for the model of the city. What did that mean?
We are now discovering what it means and also what pledges to improve "livability" are to do with. And we need look no further than the scheme for the urban forest to understand where Noguera is coming from. In essence it's about more green space, but it comes with the additional intention of offsetting the impact of rising temperatures by virtue of this very greening. Applause there should be for the scheme. Palma doesn't have enough green space. Providing more is desirable in different ways, not least because of the qualitative value in terms of quality of life.
Noguera has been making other contributions. There is the plan to cut lanes of traffic by two along the Paseo Marítimo. There are further ones in respect of the number of new restaurant and bar licences. In other words, there will be limits, and for once a town hall initiative affecting the city's business has been greeted with seemingly total approval. The thinking is to avoid there being ghettoes of bars and restaurants and little or nothing else. Create a mix of business, and a greater sense of civility is established.
Likewise, and although this doesn't come under Noguera, there are the changes to the use of the public way, the most controversial aspect of which has to do with terraces. It can seem as if certain councillors have it in for terraces (and they may well do), but the principle isn't wrong in wishing to create more space for people just to walk. In a sense, this is similar thinking to the urban forest and to the opening-up of the Paseo Marítimo by creating a real link between the urbanised city and its sea: the perception and reality of more space, of less clutter, of greater quality.
But is Noguera getting ahead of himself? The plan for the forest includes the velodrome and the Es Fortí military club. The town hall says it will expropriate the former. A desire to take Es Fortí out of private hands might prove more problematic. While one applauds what he wishes to create, the actual plan for the forest is still no more than a draft. Yet he says that it will be completed, along with the planting of thousands of trees along the Riera torrent, by the time the current administration finishes.
Has he been spinning as he moves towards the time when he succeeds José Hila as mayor, promoting his projects as means of guaranteeing - were there to be any doubts - this succession? One hopes not. His is a worthwhile project. Palma might just attract ever more attention, and in this instance it would be highly merited.
Which isn't to say that Palma councillors are unique in this regard. Or that their utterances are of such a uniquely great abundance in order to ensure attention. As the third government in Mallorca - after the actual government and the one that would like to be, namely, the Council of Mallorca - it has a duty to follow the communication rules of its betters and numb the citizens into servile submission under the sheer weight of percentage points.
The follow-on from all this quantity is the quality. Increases here, rises there, and therefore things are better. More employment, more rubbish being collected, etc. There's nothing wrong with this, but too often the qualitative message is subservient to the quantitative announcement. What people really want to know is how are lives being improved, how is the city being improved. Not by numbers but by physical evidence of action and firm commitments to action that lead to qualitative enhancements.
I come, therefore, to praise the next mayor of Palma, Antoni Noguera. When he first landed the job as one of the plethora of the city's deputy mayors, there was less than clarity as to one of the responsibilities that had been assigned to him. Or rather, that he had assigned to himself. Deputy mayor for the model of the city. What did that mean?
We are now discovering what it means and also what pledges to improve "livability" are to do with. And we need look no further than the scheme for the urban forest to understand where Noguera is coming from. In essence it's about more green space, but it comes with the additional intention of offsetting the impact of rising temperatures by virtue of this very greening. Applause there should be for the scheme. Palma doesn't have enough green space. Providing more is desirable in different ways, not least because of the qualitative value in terms of quality of life.
Noguera has been making other contributions. There is the plan to cut lanes of traffic by two along the Paseo Marítimo. There are further ones in respect of the number of new restaurant and bar licences. In other words, there will be limits, and for once a town hall initiative affecting the city's business has been greeted with seemingly total approval. The thinking is to avoid there being ghettoes of bars and restaurants and little or nothing else. Create a mix of business, and a greater sense of civility is established.
Likewise, and although this doesn't come under Noguera, there are the changes to the use of the public way, the most controversial aspect of which has to do with terraces. It can seem as if certain councillors have it in for terraces (and they may well do), but the principle isn't wrong in wishing to create more space for people just to walk. In a sense, this is similar thinking to the urban forest and to the opening-up of the Paseo Marítimo by creating a real link between the urbanised city and its sea: the perception and reality of more space, of less clutter, of greater quality.
But is Noguera getting ahead of himself? The plan for the forest includes the velodrome and the Es Fortí military club. The town hall says it will expropriate the former. A desire to take Es Fortí out of private hands might prove more problematic. While one applauds what he wishes to create, the actual plan for the forest is still no more than a draft. Yet he says that it will be completed, along with the planting of thousands of trees along the Riera torrent, by the time the current administration finishes.
Has he been spinning as he moves towards the time when he succeeds José Hila as mayor, promoting his projects as means of guaranteeing - were there to be any doubts - this succession? One hopes not. His is a worthwhile project. Palma might just attract ever more attention, and in this instance it would be highly merited.
Thursday, February 16, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 16 February 2017
Morning high (7.00am): 6.7C
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 3
Three-day forecast: 17 February - Sun, cloud, 16C; 18 February - Cloud, 15C; 19 February - Cloud, 15C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): East-Southeast 3.
Hopefully some more reasonable sun today. Note the UV rating edging up to three for the first time in a fair while.
Evening update (21.00): High of 17.5C.
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 3
Three-day forecast: 17 February - Sun, cloud, 16C; 18 February - Cloud, 15C; 19 February - Cloud, 15C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): East-Southeast 3.
Hopefully some more reasonable sun today. Note the UV rating edging up to three for the first time in a fair while.
Evening update (21.00): High of 17.5C.
The Vogue For Bloodletting
Given all the shenanigans involving what one tires of being told are "anti-austerity newcomers" Podemos, it has been easy to overlook that pro-austerity oldsters, the Partido Popular, are lurking in the murky political undergrowth ready to pounce on the next unsuspecting electorate - in the Balearics, that is.
Away from the islands, and in the safety of The Land That Time Forgot, the PP's national hierarchy lumbers on, a giant staggering through a forest of political half-light, never turning the torches on the corpses that are strewn across its path or are buried in a court's archives. Seemingly immune to the convulsions and eruptions everywhere else, there is a serenity for the PP, capable as they are of closeting themselves within the contentment of another electoral job done (if only just) and of pulling down the shutters to avoid the inward glares into their Jurassic lair.
The PP were forgotten at the weekend. This was not how Pablo Iglesias had intended it. The Podemos knockout to decide a winner was duly timed to coincide with the PP who were gathering only a short distance away. But because everyone was interested only in the left and even more left hooks being delivered by Errejón and Iglesias, no one took any notice of the PP. Podemos were a show, a spectacular, a political prime-time reality broadcast played out in the real-time of up-to-the second voting intentions. Time had indeed forgotten the PP. Their dullness in this post-modern political world of citizen online councils, speakers with piercings and a long mane of hair tied up in a sort of bun, and election brochures stolen from Ikea is the very thing which sustains them. They seem otherworldly, of another and former time.
Iglesias had hoped that having the two congresses at the same time would enable the citizens to draw comparisons. If the citizens did do this, then the comparison would have been between a tetchy bunch of upstart Herberts and the grim familiarity of Mariano Rajoy. In a world of convulsions there is something to be said for a leader who sports a tie, is attended to by a barber with a certain degree of frequency and can at least attempt to converse with Trump.
The cosiness of the PP's gathering was such that controversy was a distant cousin, one for the sentencing of "caso Gürtel" and for the machinations across the sea in the Balearics. And it is here in the Balearics that the national hierarchy would much prefer that a son, who at one time - now long ago - had been looked upon with benevolent, austere goodwill, would quietly disappear. But the hierarchy is not alone in having been confounded, nay startled by the sheer persistence of he who refuses to lie down - José Ramón Bauzá.
We did all rather chortle when Bauzá made it known that he was intending to attempt to once more become president of the party. There is still some chortling, but as the time moves nearer for a regional congress at least a year overdue, there is Bauzá, steadfast in his belief that he can return as the re-conquering hero of the Balearic PP. Never mind that he did his best, and mainly succeeded, in delivering a sharp instrument into the heart of Balearic society and much of his own party; he seems convinced that all that will be forgiven.
The show that the Balearic PP are planning will be bloodletting on a scale that is biblical in its abundance compared with the streams that washed across the feet of Errejón and Iglesias in Madrid last weekend. The long-time favourite to become the party's new president, Biel Company, should win in the kind of canter suited to a man with his agricultural leanings. But Bauzá has pulled two agrarians out of the hat who are his latest cheerleaders. One says that Bauzá was the best president that the Balearics has had. Both are one-time friends of Company but they no longer share company.
Company was once a friend of Bauzá's, too. It was Bauzá who made him environment and agriculture minister, but it was Company who helped to deliver the knife. Hauling in agrarians is Bauzá's way of showing he's every bit a man of conservative, farming sod as Company is.
Bauzá was aghast to see that Company had surrounded himself with members of the hierarchy at the PP congress in Madrid. Here was affirmation of what Madrid hopes for and which the temporary leader of the PP in the Balearics, Miquel Vidal, also hopes for - a single candidate who can pull the factions together. There is little chance, not while Bauzá continues along a path that may result in a humiliation greater than the defeat of the PP he presided over two years ago.
Away from the islands, and in the safety of The Land That Time Forgot, the PP's national hierarchy lumbers on, a giant staggering through a forest of political half-light, never turning the torches on the corpses that are strewn across its path or are buried in a court's archives. Seemingly immune to the convulsions and eruptions everywhere else, there is a serenity for the PP, capable as they are of closeting themselves within the contentment of another electoral job done (if only just) and of pulling down the shutters to avoid the inward glares into their Jurassic lair.
The PP were forgotten at the weekend. This was not how Pablo Iglesias had intended it. The Podemos knockout to decide a winner was duly timed to coincide with the PP who were gathering only a short distance away. But because everyone was interested only in the left and even more left hooks being delivered by Errejón and Iglesias, no one took any notice of the PP. Podemos were a show, a spectacular, a political prime-time reality broadcast played out in the real-time of up-to-the second voting intentions. Time had indeed forgotten the PP. Their dullness in this post-modern political world of citizen online councils, speakers with piercings and a long mane of hair tied up in a sort of bun, and election brochures stolen from Ikea is the very thing which sustains them. They seem otherworldly, of another and former time.
Iglesias had hoped that having the two congresses at the same time would enable the citizens to draw comparisons. If the citizens did do this, then the comparison would have been between a tetchy bunch of upstart Herberts and the grim familiarity of Mariano Rajoy. In a world of convulsions there is something to be said for a leader who sports a tie, is attended to by a barber with a certain degree of frequency and can at least attempt to converse with Trump.
The cosiness of the PP's gathering was such that controversy was a distant cousin, one for the sentencing of "caso Gürtel" and for the machinations across the sea in the Balearics. And it is here in the Balearics that the national hierarchy would much prefer that a son, who at one time - now long ago - had been looked upon with benevolent, austere goodwill, would quietly disappear. But the hierarchy is not alone in having been confounded, nay startled by the sheer persistence of he who refuses to lie down - José Ramón Bauzá.
We did all rather chortle when Bauzá made it known that he was intending to attempt to once more become president of the party. There is still some chortling, but as the time moves nearer for a regional congress at least a year overdue, there is Bauzá, steadfast in his belief that he can return as the re-conquering hero of the Balearic PP. Never mind that he did his best, and mainly succeeded, in delivering a sharp instrument into the heart of Balearic society and much of his own party; he seems convinced that all that will be forgiven.
The show that the Balearic PP are planning will be bloodletting on a scale that is biblical in its abundance compared with the streams that washed across the feet of Errejón and Iglesias in Madrid last weekend. The long-time favourite to become the party's new president, Biel Company, should win in the kind of canter suited to a man with his agricultural leanings. But Bauzá has pulled two agrarians out of the hat who are his latest cheerleaders. One says that Bauzá was the best president that the Balearics has had. Both are one-time friends of Company but they no longer share company.
Company was once a friend of Bauzá's, too. It was Bauzá who made him environment and agriculture minister, but it was Company who helped to deliver the knife. Hauling in agrarians is Bauzá's way of showing he's every bit a man of conservative, farming sod as Company is.
Bauzá was aghast to see that Company had surrounded himself with members of the hierarchy at the PP congress in Madrid. Here was affirmation of what Madrid hopes for and which the temporary leader of the PP in the Balearics, Miquel Vidal, also hopes for - a single candidate who can pull the factions together. There is little chance, not while Bauzá continues along a path that may result in a humiliation greater than the defeat of the PP he presided over two years ago.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 15 February 2017
Morning high (8.18am): 11.1C
Forecast high: 16C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 16 February - Sun, cloud, 16C; 17 February - Cloud, 16C; 18 February - Sun, cloud, 15C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 2 to 3.
Cloud and some fog giving way to a bright and sunny day (with any luck).
Evening update (21.30): Pretty good. High of 18.7C.
Forecast high: 16C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 16 February - Sun, cloud, 16C; 17 February - Cloud, 16C; 18 February - Sun, cloud, 15C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 2 to 3.
Cloud and some fog giving way to a bright and sunny day (with any luck).
Evening update (21.30): Pretty good. High of 18.7C.
The Pleasant View From Podemos
The Palacio de Vistalegre in Madrid is not what one might describe as a lovely building. Unlovely might be more accurate. To the sides of its main entrance are two enormous grey slabs with poky windows. They look like some nightmarishly anonymous apartment edifices of a Brutalist East Berlin style. To the front of these are great plinths on which two bulls stand. This is a convention centre built on the site of a former bullring and which has incorporated another.
Symbolically, this curious juxtaposition of highly unattractive, functionalist architecture and national image appears to say a great deal about the occupants of the Palacio at the weekend. The bull, representative of a monarchical, Francoist, conservative Spain that plays fast and loose with animal welfare in the name of honour and tradition, is a manifestation of what Podemos reject. The Brutalism reminiscent of collective dwelling might be said to belong to a political society that Podemos hanker after.
As far as the bulls are concerned, one has to feel that Podemos were playing an ironic joke by selecting Vistalegre for the second time of asking. As for the architecture, rarely has a convention centre been more inappropriately named, but as a symbol of Podemos, is it entirely accurate? Not if you do not consider Podemos to carry the legacy of communism, and any number of "Podemistas" will insist that they do not. But such a legacy helped partly to explain why they all gathered in Madrid at the weekend.
The navel-gazing combined with internal factionalising that have consumed Podemos energies for several months led to Vistalegre II and to the votes to decide the direction in which the party will now head. And one factional aspect had to do with communism; in particular the electoral tie-up with the United Left, which is unashamedly communist.
Podemos, under the combined umbrella of Unidos Podemos, didn't do as well as had been hoped at the June election. This was one reason why Iñigo Errejón had been promoting a less scary Podemos image. He wanted the party to adopt a fluffy demeanour instead of its anxiety-engendering stony face. The Podemistas who went to Madrid or hit the online citizen participation button were torn between a rock and a fluffy place. They chose rock.
There will be those who make an assumption that Podemos are more or less indivisible from communism anyway, but the assumption is far from accurate. In the first place, Podemos do not avow established political philosophies. There may well be strong echoes of these but they are not dogmas as such. And because of this disavowal of established thinking and organisation, there was great unease that the party should have chosen to team up with an established party at the election. And moreover, that it was a party known for its communist leanings.
A key point with Podemos which is all too easily forgotten is that they appealed to a broad spectrum of society. It was pluralist. One only has to look back at opinion polls and actual polls to appreciate that support wasn't only coming from left-leaning society. Partido Popular voters gave Podemos their support as well, seduced by the anti-corruption message and their own disenchantment. In a way, therefore, Vistalegre II was all about Errejón seeking a reconnection with this wider base that had initially served Podemos so well in propelling them to where they had got. The hook-up with the United Left seemed to cause a flight of support.
Pablo Iglesias, having seen off his rival, now has the mandate to move towards what PSOE spokesperson Mario Jiménez has described as "Pabloist-Leninism", a lurch most certainly further towards the radical left. For PSOE, there is an opportunity, it believes, so long as Pedro Sánchez doesn't manage to return as its leader. The centre-left is there for its taking and any thought of accords with Podemos are now firmly out of the window.
But what of Podemos? Are they strengthened or are they weakened? Both. Iglesias has the grip he wanted. He had instilled a certain fear factor by having stated that he would have immediately resigned had things not gone his way at Vistalegre. The Podemistas, many of them, would have sensed a weakening without the most visible face the party possesses. Some may well have been swayed to back him for this reason alone. He is still very much an asset rather than a liability with greater charisma than his rivals.
Nevertheless, there is a weakening. Errejón and his supporters, according to the voting, represent around a third of Podemistas. Errejón himself faces being purged, and it isn't beyond the bounds of possibility that there might be a formal split. In which case - whither Podemos? The next opinion polls are going to be very informative.
Symbolically, this curious juxtaposition of highly unattractive, functionalist architecture and national image appears to say a great deal about the occupants of the Palacio at the weekend. The bull, representative of a monarchical, Francoist, conservative Spain that plays fast and loose with animal welfare in the name of honour and tradition, is a manifestation of what Podemos reject. The Brutalism reminiscent of collective dwelling might be said to belong to a political society that Podemos hanker after.
As far as the bulls are concerned, one has to feel that Podemos were playing an ironic joke by selecting Vistalegre for the second time of asking. As for the architecture, rarely has a convention centre been more inappropriately named, but as a symbol of Podemos, is it entirely accurate? Not if you do not consider Podemos to carry the legacy of communism, and any number of "Podemistas" will insist that they do not. But such a legacy helped partly to explain why they all gathered in Madrid at the weekend.
The navel-gazing combined with internal factionalising that have consumed Podemos energies for several months led to Vistalegre II and to the votes to decide the direction in which the party will now head. And one factional aspect had to do with communism; in particular the electoral tie-up with the United Left, which is unashamedly communist.
Podemos, under the combined umbrella of Unidos Podemos, didn't do as well as had been hoped at the June election. This was one reason why Iñigo Errejón had been promoting a less scary Podemos image. He wanted the party to adopt a fluffy demeanour instead of its anxiety-engendering stony face. The Podemistas who went to Madrid or hit the online citizen participation button were torn between a rock and a fluffy place. They chose rock.
There will be those who make an assumption that Podemos are more or less indivisible from communism anyway, but the assumption is far from accurate. In the first place, Podemos do not avow established political philosophies. There may well be strong echoes of these but they are not dogmas as such. And because of this disavowal of established thinking and organisation, there was great unease that the party should have chosen to team up with an established party at the election. And moreover, that it was a party known for its communist leanings.
A key point with Podemos which is all too easily forgotten is that they appealed to a broad spectrum of society. It was pluralist. One only has to look back at opinion polls and actual polls to appreciate that support wasn't only coming from left-leaning society. Partido Popular voters gave Podemos their support as well, seduced by the anti-corruption message and their own disenchantment. In a way, therefore, Vistalegre II was all about Errejón seeking a reconnection with this wider base that had initially served Podemos so well in propelling them to where they had got. The hook-up with the United Left seemed to cause a flight of support.
Pablo Iglesias, having seen off his rival, now has the mandate to move towards what PSOE spokesperson Mario Jiménez has described as "Pabloist-Leninism", a lurch most certainly further towards the radical left. For PSOE, there is an opportunity, it believes, so long as Pedro Sánchez doesn't manage to return as its leader. The centre-left is there for its taking and any thought of accords with Podemos are now firmly out of the window.
But what of Podemos? Are they strengthened or are they weakened? Both. Iglesias has the grip he wanted. He had instilled a certain fear factor by having stated that he would have immediately resigned had things not gone his way at Vistalegre. The Podemistas, many of them, would have sensed a weakening without the most visible face the party possesses. Some may well have been swayed to back him for this reason alone. He is still very much an asset rather than a liability with greater charisma than his rivals.
Nevertheless, there is a weakening. Errejón and his supporters, according to the voting, represent around a third of Podemistas. Errejón himself faces being purged, and it isn't beyond the bounds of possibility that there might be a formal split. In which case - whither Podemos? The next opinion polls are going to be very informative.
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 14 February 2017
Morning high (7.17am): 9.2C
Forecast high: 16C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 15 February - Cloud, 15C; 16 February - Sun, cloud, 16C; 17 February - Cloud, 15C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): South 2 to 4, Variable at times in the morning. Swells of one metre.
Clear sky, moon's bright as sun comes up. But forecast to be mainly cloudy later.
Evening update (22.00): It wasn't cloudy later. It was nice and sunny, with a high of 19.7C.
Forecast high: 16C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 15 February - Cloud, 15C; 16 February - Sun, cloud, 16C; 17 February - Cloud, 15C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): South 2 to 4, Variable at times in the morning. Swells of one metre.
Clear sky, moon's bright as sun comes up. But forecast to be mainly cloudy later.
Evening update (22.00): It wasn't cloudy later. It was nice and sunny, with a high of 19.7C.
Saint Valentine's Day Massacring
The Council of Mallorca has been undertaking its version of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. No submachine guns have been involved, only the small fire of a campaign aimed at "dismantling" Saint Valentine, disassembling the old fellow, taking him apart and leaving him divorced of romantic love.
Saint Valentine himself may or may not have been physically disassembled when it came to the act that led to his martyring. One reason for such uncertainty is that there were various Valentines who may have been the saint. The chances are that he was combi-Valentine, made up of components, and moulded into saintliness with legend fully attached. According to the inexact history books, he copped for it in 275 when in Rome. And when in Rome in those days, it wasn't a wise thing to be going around being a Christian. If 275 was the date of his untimely end, then at least he wasn't a victim of Diocletian, who pushed martyrdom to unprecedented levels.
Valentine supposedly got into trouble for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry. Not each other, you understand, though this might be taken as something of a theme for the Council's massacring. His legendary association with weddings was to come to the aid, several centuries later, of Geoffrey Chaucer. In 1382, Chaucer scribed Parlement of Foules, which wasn't a parliament of fools but one of birds. On Saint Valentine's Day, according to Chaucer, every bird went to choose a mate, and his work was written to mark the engagement of Richard II to Anne of Bohemia.
One of his lesser known works, it was to have a profound influence, as it popularised the concept of romantic love. Without Chaucer, it is unlikely that we would have Valentine cards, Valentine candlelit dinners, Valentine city-breaks for lovers or any of the contemporary manifestations of the saint. Indeed, had it not been for Chaucer, I wouldn't be writing this and the Council of Mallorca wouldn't be engaged in its disassembling.
It wasn't as though Chaucer invented romantic love within a courtly setting. Other mediaevalists had done likewise, none more so than Andreas Capellanus with De Amore, which has come to be known as The Art of Courtly Love in English. But it was a combination of this early literary tradition and Chaucer that propelled not only Valentine's Day along its path to eventual full-blown commercialism but also inspired the dominant romanticism of Spain's literature. Despite Cervantes' lampooning of this chivalrous love, the influence remained and did so to an extent that society - part of it anyway - reflected the unreal world of literature more than literature did society.
What this bred (so to speak) was a much broader society based on what the Council of Mallorca now wishes to dismantle. This is the ubiquitous message of romantic love in which love is presented as a utopian state and that love is worth anything that it might take in order to achieve it. The mediaevalists' portrayal of romantic or courtly love placed enormous emphasis on the lengths that had to be gone to, and a current-day view suggests that this persists in creating dangerous situations that foster jealousy, control, possession. dependence and ultimately mistreatment.
Nina Parrón, the councillor for equality, believes that Valentine's Day is a celebration of "unbalanced relationships" in which the "myth" of romantic love dominates and limits love to a single way of wanting. It is this myth that the Council wishes to demolish in promoting "respect-based and equal" relationships. Furthermore, it is couching this against the background of the campaign against gender violence. Valentine's Day reinforces the presentation of a love that is not real and so leads to unequal relationships, in which violence may exist.
In addition, this leads to a stereotyping of relationships that exclude alternative ones - lesbian and gay. All of which has prompted the less than left-wing Balearic Family Forum to denounce what it considers to be the demonisation of love by the Council, which is doing so using public money. The forum argues that the Council is seeking to impose gender ideology in a totalitarian manner. "To try to say that romantic love is the same as imposition, disrespect, submission and dependence is a crude means of imposing gender ideology."
The Council's president, Miquel Ensenyat, accepts that some controversy has been aroused. But controversy is useful in order to engender debate. If the campaign makes people asks questions, then good, and he has placed it in the context of the "serious problem of gender-based deaths".
So, will people today be thinking deeply of the controversy as they head off for their Valentine's meals? What will they believe that the cards they receive really represent? Will they side with the Council's view or the family forum's view? What do you think?
Saint Valentine himself may or may not have been physically disassembled when it came to the act that led to his martyring. One reason for such uncertainty is that there were various Valentines who may have been the saint. The chances are that he was combi-Valentine, made up of components, and moulded into saintliness with legend fully attached. According to the inexact history books, he copped for it in 275 when in Rome. And when in Rome in those days, it wasn't a wise thing to be going around being a Christian. If 275 was the date of his untimely end, then at least he wasn't a victim of Diocletian, who pushed martyrdom to unprecedented levels.
Valentine supposedly got into trouble for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry. Not each other, you understand, though this might be taken as something of a theme for the Council's massacring. His legendary association with weddings was to come to the aid, several centuries later, of Geoffrey Chaucer. In 1382, Chaucer scribed Parlement of Foules, which wasn't a parliament of fools but one of birds. On Saint Valentine's Day, according to Chaucer, every bird went to choose a mate, and his work was written to mark the engagement of Richard II to Anne of Bohemia.
One of his lesser known works, it was to have a profound influence, as it popularised the concept of romantic love. Without Chaucer, it is unlikely that we would have Valentine cards, Valentine candlelit dinners, Valentine city-breaks for lovers or any of the contemporary manifestations of the saint. Indeed, had it not been for Chaucer, I wouldn't be writing this and the Council of Mallorca wouldn't be engaged in its disassembling.
It wasn't as though Chaucer invented romantic love within a courtly setting. Other mediaevalists had done likewise, none more so than Andreas Capellanus with De Amore, which has come to be known as The Art of Courtly Love in English. But it was a combination of this early literary tradition and Chaucer that propelled not only Valentine's Day along its path to eventual full-blown commercialism but also inspired the dominant romanticism of Spain's literature. Despite Cervantes' lampooning of this chivalrous love, the influence remained and did so to an extent that society - part of it anyway - reflected the unreal world of literature more than literature did society.
What this bred (so to speak) was a much broader society based on what the Council of Mallorca now wishes to dismantle. This is the ubiquitous message of romantic love in which love is presented as a utopian state and that love is worth anything that it might take in order to achieve it. The mediaevalists' portrayal of romantic or courtly love placed enormous emphasis on the lengths that had to be gone to, and a current-day view suggests that this persists in creating dangerous situations that foster jealousy, control, possession. dependence and ultimately mistreatment.
Nina Parrón, the councillor for equality, believes that Valentine's Day is a celebration of "unbalanced relationships" in which the "myth" of romantic love dominates and limits love to a single way of wanting. It is this myth that the Council wishes to demolish in promoting "respect-based and equal" relationships. Furthermore, it is couching this against the background of the campaign against gender violence. Valentine's Day reinforces the presentation of a love that is not real and so leads to unequal relationships, in which violence may exist.
In addition, this leads to a stereotyping of relationships that exclude alternative ones - lesbian and gay. All of which has prompted the less than left-wing Balearic Family Forum to denounce what it considers to be the demonisation of love by the Council, which is doing so using public money. The forum argues that the Council is seeking to impose gender ideology in a totalitarian manner. "To try to say that romantic love is the same as imposition, disrespect, submission and dependence is a crude means of imposing gender ideology."
The Council's president, Miquel Ensenyat, accepts that some controversy has been aroused. But controversy is useful in order to engender debate. If the campaign makes people asks questions, then good, and he has placed it in the context of the "serious problem of gender-based deaths".
So, will people today be thinking deeply of the controversy as they head off for their Valentine's meals? What will they believe that the cards they receive really represent? Will they side with the Council's view or the family forum's view? What do you think?
Monday, February 13, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 13 February 2017
Morning high (8.02am): 10.7C
Forecast high: 19C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 14 February - Cloud, sun, 17C; 15 February - Cloud, sun, 16C; 16 February - Cloud, sun, 16C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southeast 5 occasionally six easing South 2 to 4 during the afternoon..
Another mostly cloudy day on the cards. Mild with the possibility of a shower this afternoon.
Evening update (19.45): Glimmers of sun before there was indeed a shower. High of 19C.
Forecast high: 19C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 14 February - Cloud, sun, 17C; 15 February - Cloud, sun, 16C; 16 February - Cloud, sun, 16C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southeast 5 occasionally six easing South 2 to 4 during the afternoon..
Another mostly cloudy day on the cards. Mild with the possibility of a shower this afternoon.
Evening update (19.45): Glimmers of sun before there was indeed a shower. High of 19C.
This Wounded Land
There is an environmentalist group in Mallorca called Terraferida. The name means wounded land, and the group takes aim at what is sees as wounds inflicted on Mallorca's land. For Terraferida, human intervention is not benign. It responds to population growth, tourism, economic development and speculation. It serves itself at the expense of land, wounding it in the process.
Underpinning the beliefs of groups such as Terraferida is an unstated idyll, a hankering for a time before intervention altered the land. Yet human intervention goes to the heart of the supposedly unwounded land. It goes back to times many centuries ago, which have only recently been honoured by Unesco. The landscaping of the Tramuntana mountains was the product of ingenious intervention which created dry-stone walls, terraces and passages that survive to this day. The mountains are placed on a pedestal for tourism of an alternative variety - cultural, historical, natural - yet the mountains and this alternative tourism owe a great deal if not everything to human intervention. The motivations for intervention were quite different - they essentially boiled down to survival - but it was necessary to shape the land way back when, just as it is nowadays.
The key difference is the aggressive nature of this intervention. And interwoven with this is a connection with the land that can too easily be overlooked or not be appreciated. The connection can also be overstated, but somewhere in the middle there exists a soul in Mallorca that beats because of its land.
Contemporary political and social discourse is littered with references to land, to landscape, to scenery, to natural patrimony. This might be taken to be a consequence of the reassertion of the values of the land that were severely undermined by the process of "Balearisation" which changed coastal Mallorca irretrievably. Although Terraferida and others will point to more current-day evidence of aggressive intervention, it is the collective memory of Balearisation which informs much of this discourse. It hasn't been forgotten, and it hasn't been forgiven.
But if one goes back to times pre-Balearisation, the discourse was much the same. The early twentieth century founders of Mallorca's tourism spoke of little else than land and landscape. They were to be grateful to the publicists - the landscape artists, the writers who introduced this idyll in the Mediterranean to a gradually global audience.
It was landscape and patrimony, both natural and manmade (such as with the Cathedral), that the early movers of Mallorca's tourism promoted. And they did so, at least in part, as a response to crisis. It was one that affected the land - phylloxera.
The damage that was caused to the vineyards of Mallorca served only to reinforce the vulnerability of the island, one surviving mainly on a monoculture economy of agriculture. Tourism, predicated on land, was to provide a solution. Nowadays, the land is looked to as a means of providing a new solution to a different monoculture - that of tourism and principally a tourism of the coasts.
There has been much discussion about how tourist tax revenue is to be spent. Why, it has been asked, should revenue go to agrarian projects. One reason why is in order to recover, maintain or improve the landscape and the natural patrimony. It is too easy perhaps to consider landscape as being the Tramuntana and nothing else, purely because so much is said about the mountains. But this landscape - obviously enough - is everywhere, and it is one that provides, among other things, almond blossom at this time of the year.
The land has been wounded again. Drought and floods have created the wounds, and the land finds itself confronted by another enemy - xylella - which can deepen the wounds further. These are not self-inflicted wounds, like Balearisation was, these are natural and have an impact on the natural patrimony.
But there have been "plagues" before, such as phylloxera. The land recovers, and if human intervention can be shown to be at its most benign by hastening recovery or indeed preventing its need by stopping the destruction of almonds, olives and others, then so much the better. We wish them the very best. They are working with the soul of Mallorca - the land.
Underpinning the beliefs of groups such as Terraferida is an unstated idyll, a hankering for a time before intervention altered the land. Yet human intervention goes to the heart of the supposedly unwounded land. It goes back to times many centuries ago, which have only recently been honoured by Unesco. The landscaping of the Tramuntana mountains was the product of ingenious intervention which created dry-stone walls, terraces and passages that survive to this day. The mountains are placed on a pedestal for tourism of an alternative variety - cultural, historical, natural - yet the mountains and this alternative tourism owe a great deal if not everything to human intervention. The motivations for intervention were quite different - they essentially boiled down to survival - but it was necessary to shape the land way back when, just as it is nowadays.
The key difference is the aggressive nature of this intervention. And interwoven with this is a connection with the land that can too easily be overlooked or not be appreciated. The connection can also be overstated, but somewhere in the middle there exists a soul in Mallorca that beats because of its land.
Contemporary political and social discourse is littered with references to land, to landscape, to scenery, to natural patrimony. This might be taken to be a consequence of the reassertion of the values of the land that were severely undermined by the process of "Balearisation" which changed coastal Mallorca irretrievably. Although Terraferida and others will point to more current-day evidence of aggressive intervention, it is the collective memory of Balearisation which informs much of this discourse. It hasn't been forgotten, and it hasn't been forgiven.
But if one goes back to times pre-Balearisation, the discourse was much the same. The early twentieth century founders of Mallorca's tourism spoke of little else than land and landscape. They were to be grateful to the publicists - the landscape artists, the writers who introduced this idyll in the Mediterranean to a gradually global audience.
It was landscape and patrimony, both natural and manmade (such as with the Cathedral), that the early movers of Mallorca's tourism promoted. And they did so, at least in part, as a response to crisis. It was one that affected the land - phylloxera.
The damage that was caused to the vineyards of Mallorca served only to reinforce the vulnerability of the island, one surviving mainly on a monoculture economy of agriculture. Tourism, predicated on land, was to provide a solution. Nowadays, the land is looked to as a means of providing a new solution to a different monoculture - that of tourism and principally a tourism of the coasts.
There has been much discussion about how tourist tax revenue is to be spent. Why, it has been asked, should revenue go to agrarian projects. One reason why is in order to recover, maintain or improve the landscape and the natural patrimony. It is too easy perhaps to consider landscape as being the Tramuntana and nothing else, purely because so much is said about the mountains. But this landscape - obviously enough - is everywhere, and it is one that provides, among other things, almond blossom at this time of the year.
The land has been wounded again. Drought and floods have created the wounds, and the land finds itself confronted by another enemy - xylella - which can deepen the wounds further. These are not self-inflicted wounds, like Balearisation was, these are natural and have an impact on the natural patrimony.
But there have been "plagues" before, such as phylloxera. The land recovers, and if human intervention can be shown to be at its most benign by hastening recovery or indeed preventing its need by stopping the destruction of almonds, olives and others, then so much the better. We wish them the very best. They are working with the soul of Mallorca - the land.
Sunday, February 12, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 12 February 2017
Morning high (7.39am): 11.1C
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 13 February - Cloud, 19C; 14 February - Cloud, sun, 17C; 15 February - Cloud, sun, 17C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southeast 4 to 5.
Some cloud around first thing. Not forecast to be sunny today but looks ok to begin with.
Evening update (19.15): Sun sort of came out in the afternoon. High of 18.7C.
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 13 February - Cloud, 19C; 14 February - Cloud, sun, 17C; 15 February - Cloud, sun, 17C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southeast 4 to 5.
Some cloud around first thing. Not forecast to be sunny today but looks ok to begin with.
Evening update (19.15): Sun sort of came out in the afternoon. High of 18.7C.
The Balearic Parliament Show Goes On
Sweet and friendly Francina Armengol was apologising the other day for the "show" that has been the Balearic parliament. It's not the sort of display that the citizens - who else - deserve. Oh really? The citizens may not deserve it but, boy oh boy, have they been having a laugh. And things, as a political party elsewhere once maintained, can only get better, and we have Podemos to once more thank.
While many of the Podemos citizenry is away in Madrid or poised over the participation online voting button in deciding the fate of Pablo and The Infant Errejón, some of it has stayed at home in order to prepare for Tuesday's Great Show. Yes, Francina, the show must go on, and you're partly to blame (or to be thanked). Even if you don't understand a word of what's being said, I'd recommend a revision of normal daytime television viewing habits and tune into Tuesday's parliamentary session, during which Balti will ascend to the presidential (speaker's) throne.
It would be nice to think that this ritual could be performed with Balti clad in pure white robes and with angelic Jarabos and Camargos fluttering above him before anointing him with an artisan-crafted halo. "Truly he is the Son of Pablo," the angels would chant. Alas, this will not be. Balti, we can anticipate, will be sporting a checked sort of lumberjack affair and dodgy jeans. Besides which, any even vaguely religious connotation would be severely frowned upon, as much as any monarchist leanings would be, which Balti most certainly doesn't have.
Francina and chums have been asking (pleading) that when it comes to the moment for Balti to speak, he shows "restraint". They are more than slightly concerned about what he might come out with. This being just one of the reasons why they would have much preferred someone else to replace Xe-Lo Huertas. Will Balti take the opportunity to declare war on the Bourbons or some such?
Balti's elevation to the throne was assisted last week by a surprise guest appearance of none other than our good friend Alberto Rodríguez Rodríguez, aka Natty Dreadlock In A Babylon, the rasta Podemos Congress deputy from Tenerife. One had wondered when the two of them might team up, and prayers that they would do were fulfilled. Natty met Balti and there was a selfie (also containing the clean-cut Alberto Jarabo) in which Natty was sticking his tongue out. As you do.
While in the Babylon that is Palma, Natty was asked whether "a long hair" (Balti) and a rasta mark a change in political aesthetics. Appearance is not important, actions are, he explained. It's better that there is a speaker with long hair than one who looks to favour friends, he added. And one knew precisely to whom he was referring - Xe-Lo.
The former speaker was having her day in court. Not that she was in the dock, but rather she was making her case to be readmitted to Podemos. Among other justifications presented by her lawyer was the fact that she had her right to equality denied by being discriminated against in favour of Balti. This was because Balti had supposedly also supported the cause of Daniel Bachiller. It was the funding of his research laboratory which kicked off the whole Podemos crisis. The Podemos lawyer said the situation with Balti was different, so that was all right then.
While many of the Podemos citizenry is away in Madrid or poised over the participation online voting button in deciding the fate of Pablo and The Infant Errejón, some of it has stayed at home in order to prepare for Tuesday's Great Show. Yes, Francina, the show must go on, and you're partly to blame (or to be thanked). Even if you don't understand a word of what's being said, I'd recommend a revision of normal daytime television viewing habits and tune into Tuesday's parliamentary session, during which Balti will ascend to the presidential (speaker's) throne.
It would be nice to think that this ritual could be performed with Balti clad in pure white robes and with angelic Jarabos and Camargos fluttering above him before anointing him with an artisan-crafted halo. "Truly he is the Son of Pablo," the angels would chant. Alas, this will not be. Balti, we can anticipate, will be sporting a checked sort of lumberjack affair and dodgy jeans. Besides which, any even vaguely religious connotation would be severely frowned upon, as much as any monarchist leanings would be, which Balti most certainly doesn't have.
Francina and chums have been asking (pleading) that when it comes to the moment for Balti to speak, he shows "restraint". They are more than slightly concerned about what he might come out with. This being just one of the reasons why they would have much preferred someone else to replace Xe-Lo Huertas. Will Balti take the opportunity to declare war on the Bourbons or some such?
Balti's elevation to the throne was assisted last week by a surprise guest appearance of none other than our good friend Alberto Rodríguez Rodríguez, aka Natty Dreadlock In A Babylon, the rasta Podemos Congress deputy from Tenerife. One had wondered when the two of them might team up, and prayers that they would do were fulfilled. Natty met Balti and there was a selfie (also containing the clean-cut Alberto Jarabo) in which Natty was sticking his tongue out. As you do.
While in the Babylon that is Palma, Natty was asked whether "a long hair" (Balti) and a rasta mark a change in political aesthetics. Appearance is not important, actions are, he explained. It's better that there is a speaker with long hair than one who looks to favour friends, he added. And one knew precisely to whom he was referring - Xe-Lo.
The former speaker was having her day in court. Not that she was in the dock, but rather she was making her case to be readmitted to Podemos. Among other justifications presented by her lawyer was the fact that she had her right to equality denied by being discriminated against in favour of Balti. This was because Balti had supposedly also supported the cause of Daniel Bachiller. It was the funding of his research laboratory which kicked off the whole Podemos crisis. The Podemos lawyer said the situation with Balti was different, so that was all right then.
Saturday, February 11, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 11 February 2017
Morning high (7.16am): 9.5C
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 12 February - Cloud, sun, 18C; 13 February - Cloud, 19C; 14 February - Sun, cloud, 17C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southeast 5.
A grey day on the cards but quite warm.
Evening update (20.00): High of 16.8C. Average sort of day.
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 12 February - Cloud, sun, 18C; 13 February - Cloud, 19C; 14 February - Sun, cloud, 17C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southeast 5.
A grey day on the cards but quite warm.
Evening update (20.00): High of 16.8C. Average sort of day.
Price Reductions: Ryanair And Market Dominance
The national minister for development, Íñigo de la Serna, has asked airlines to reduce their prices because of the cut to airport taxes that will come into effect on 1 March and which will be repeated each year until 2021. Although, as he has said, the government has no legal power to demand that they do cut prices, it does have some authority. The airlines are likely to play ball; it's wise to keep the minister sweet.
The first airline to say that it will reduce prices was Air Europa, the Mallorca-headquartered operation that flies the flag for Spanish aviation, a flag that has been progressively lowered to the point that it's almost sharing space with airport ground crews. Other significant airlines are either foreign or foreign-owned. For Juan José Hidalgo, the boss of Globalia, of which Air Europa is a part, a positive response to De la Serna's request was to have been expected: a patriotic statement of aviation intent.
Less patriotic and purely hardnosed was Ryanair's announcement that it will pass on the tax cut. Again, it was to have been expected. Michael O'Leary has constantly called for lower airport charges; they are all part of the low-cost mix. With Ryanair, though, how can anyone be certain that the reduction is being directly or partially applied? This is to not say that it won't be, but is to say that the airline's prices are flexible, and it has demonstrated its willingness to cut prices in order to guarantee occupancy.
In the final quarter of last year, Ryanair achieved 95% seat occupancy. That was some achievement. By coincidence, it also turned in a 95 million profit for the quarter. While this was down - it was attributed to the fall in the value of the pound - it was still a healthy return, given that its prices overall were 17% lower. Taking account of a reduction in airport tax shouldn't pose Ryanair any business difficulty.
The point with Ryanair, and indeed other airlines, is that price fluctuation reflects the application of science and in particular the technology of Big Data. Prices aren't determined on a whim or purely marketing speculation; there is knowledge to back it up. And this information has been gained over years through the analysis of purchasing behaviour and demand. You don't become a highly successful airline just by taking a punt.
By contrast, there is the case of Iberia, which now also has its low-cost brand. Its president, Luis Gallego, has said this week that 2017 is going to be a difficult year. IATA, the International Air Transport Association, is forecasting a fall in profits of the order of 16% because of a slowdown in global economic activity and rising costs. Iberia has yet to say if it will accede to the minister's request, but it was perhaps no coincidence that Gallego was sounding a warning about lower profits at the same time as the request was being made. There are, so it seems, some airlines, such as Ryanair, which have little problem adjusting to altered pricing mechanisms, while there are others which do.
It is the ability of Ryanair to sell places that leaves other airlines, especially Air Europa and Vueling, gasping to keep up. It has been suggested that additional flights in winter between Palma and both Barcelona and Madrid could cause "havoc" with competitors. Moreover, there is increased service between Ibiza and Madrid and Barcelona, to say nothing of other increases to, for instance, Gran Canaria. It's a full-frontal battle with Vueling, Norwegian and others, and one that Ryanair is well-positioned to win. It can get the occupancy, while competitors struggle to fill their planes. Price reductions? Bring 'em on.
The first airline to say that it will reduce prices was Air Europa, the Mallorca-headquartered operation that flies the flag for Spanish aviation, a flag that has been progressively lowered to the point that it's almost sharing space with airport ground crews. Other significant airlines are either foreign or foreign-owned. For Juan José Hidalgo, the boss of Globalia, of which Air Europa is a part, a positive response to De la Serna's request was to have been expected: a patriotic statement of aviation intent.
Less patriotic and purely hardnosed was Ryanair's announcement that it will pass on the tax cut. Again, it was to have been expected. Michael O'Leary has constantly called for lower airport charges; they are all part of the low-cost mix. With Ryanair, though, how can anyone be certain that the reduction is being directly or partially applied? This is to not say that it won't be, but is to say that the airline's prices are flexible, and it has demonstrated its willingness to cut prices in order to guarantee occupancy.
In the final quarter of last year, Ryanair achieved 95% seat occupancy. That was some achievement. By coincidence, it also turned in a 95 million profit for the quarter. While this was down - it was attributed to the fall in the value of the pound - it was still a healthy return, given that its prices overall were 17% lower. Taking account of a reduction in airport tax shouldn't pose Ryanair any business difficulty.
The point with Ryanair, and indeed other airlines, is that price fluctuation reflects the application of science and in particular the technology of Big Data. Prices aren't determined on a whim or purely marketing speculation; there is knowledge to back it up. And this information has been gained over years through the analysis of purchasing behaviour and demand. You don't become a highly successful airline just by taking a punt.
By contrast, there is the case of Iberia, which now also has its low-cost brand. Its president, Luis Gallego, has said this week that 2017 is going to be a difficult year. IATA, the International Air Transport Association, is forecasting a fall in profits of the order of 16% because of a slowdown in global economic activity and rising costs. Iberia has yet to say if it will accede to the minister's request, but it was perhaps no coincidence that Gallego was sounding a warning about lower profits at the same time as the request was being made. There are, so it seems, some airlines, such as Ryanair, which have little problem adjusting to altered pricing mechanisms, while there are others which do.
It is the ability of Ryanair to sell places that leaves other airlines, especially Air Europa and Vueling, gasping to keep up. It has been suggested that additional flights in winter between Palma and both Barcelona and Madrid could cause "havoc" with competitors. Moreover, there is increased service between Ibiza and Madrid and Barcelona, to say nothing of other increases to, for instance, Gran Canaria. It's a full-frontal battle with Vueling, Norwegian and others, and one that Ryanair is well-positioned to win. It can get the occupancy, while competitors struggle to fill their planes. Price reductions? Bring 'em on.
Friday, February 10, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 10 February 2017
Morning high (6.49am): 3.4C
Forecast high: 14C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 11 February - Cloud, wind, 16C; 12 February - Cloud, 18C; 13 February - Cloud, 18C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): East 2 to 4.
Cold old morning. Not much by way of sun forecast, and the sun due to disappear over the weekend.
Evening update (22.45): Well, it was a good deal sunnier than anticipated. Not bad at all. High of 16.5C.
Forecast high: 14C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 11 February - Cloud, wind, 16C; 12 February - Cloud, 18C; 13 February - Cloud, 18C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): East 2 to 4.
Cold old morning. Not much by way of sun forecast, and the sun due to disappear over the weekend.
Evening update (22.45): Well, it was a good deal sunnier than anticipated. Not bad at all. High of 16.5C.
The Parody Of Valtonyc
Claims as to the origins of rap music are as many as its styles. There are some frankly bizarre suggestions as to elements of rap before it truly burst onto the global music scene in the late 1970s. One, and I kid you not, was from the theme to the sitcom Are You Being Served?, which was clearly a great distance removed from gangsta rap.
As with other popular musical genres, especially the more controversial ones, there have been societal justifications for their development. Gangsta rap has had its, as in being a reflection of urban suffering and neglect that spilled over into crime and violence. Yet it also spawned misogyny, homophobia and serial killings. Rap therefore acquired a self-serving justification for its anti-social messages (not all of it, obviously, given the various styles that exist and have existed). It also attached to itself the notion of art form because of lyrical styles and phrasing. In so doing, rap lost sight of what may have one time been a pure form and wrapped itself within a blanket of pomposity and desperate cleverness in a similar way that rock did with progressive music before punk took such a clear aim at it.
Punk, though, serves as a reminder of how rapidly a genre can descend to the level of parody. Indeed, all genres end up going the same way and sometimes find themselves being satirised, which is what happened to hard rock through Spinal Tap and the Comic Strip's Bad News Tour. Likewise, rap seems endlessly trapped in its parodical urban posturing, constantly straining to maintain credibility through the assertion of the art form.
Art, freedom of expression and imagery, non-censoriousness have long been advanced as the justifications for the ground-breaking. But the art form has also long suffered with being chastised for going beyond the mere ground-breaking and advocating the tasteless. Challenging society's mores and attitudes is both positive and negative, and society occasionally decides that the negative outweighs the positive. It does so by merely rejecting, by excoriating or by going to court.
The test, in a sense, is if there is gratuitousness. Is the tasteless or the offensive being displayed for the sake of it? If so, then the art form evaporates and is replaced by a meanness of spirit. On top of which, one keeps returning to the propensity for parody. Combine this meanness with an "attitude" of the urban gun-fingered style exported from the American inner city to an island in the Mediterranean, graft onto it notions of Republicanism, and you end up with someone like Valtonyc, otherwise known as Josep Miquel Arenas Beltrán.
In August 2012, I suggested that the then 17-year-old rapper was likely to be receiving a visit from someone in the near future. He had, variously, nominated the former king for assassination, the founder of the right-wing Circulo Balear Jorge Campos for death, and the mayor of Sineu for a silver bullet. He was to also have suggestions to make about various Partido Popular politicians and the one-time leader of PSOE, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba.
The visit came, and Valtonyc has been appearing before the Audiencia Nacional, with the prosecution service calling for a sentence of three years and eight months for insulting Juan Carlos and a further two years for exalting terrorism (e.g. ETA). Whatever society might think of Valtonyc, there is the slight matter of legality: you can't go around insulting kings and the crown and necessarily expect to get off scot-free.
Valtonyc has played the art form card. He told the court that he is both a poet and an artist. His work is designed to provoke rather than to, for instance, humiliate the victims of terrorism. On leaving the court, he announced that he will continue to say that the Bourbons are "mafiosos". There's provocative.
Should he be in court? Certainly under the law that safeguards the honour of the crown, then he deserves to be. He isn't the first to find that a dim view is taken of such an attack and he won't be the last. One of the more celebrated cases of this type was when the editor and cartoonist from the satirical magazine El Jueves were taken to court for insulting the then Crown-Prince Felipe. They were fined.
A few days ago there was a benefit event for him Arta, at which performers made clear their beliefs in his freedom of expression. And it is for this reason that I have some sympathy for him. Moreover, placing him in the legal spotlight fuels the very messages that caused the legal system to take action. Valtonyc has thus been granted a greater sense of self-importance than he merits. He cloaks himself in the art form defence, when he's little more than a mean parody. What's the point of his being in court?
As with other popular musical genres, especially the more controversial ones, there have been societal justifications for their development. Gangsta rap has had its, as in being a reflection of urban suffering and neglect that spilled over into crime and violence. Yet it also spawned misogyny, homophobia and serial killings. Rap therefore acquired a self-serving justification for its anti-social messages (not all of it, obviously, given the various styles that exist and have existed). It also attached to itself the notion of art form because of lyrical styles and phrasing. In so doing, rap lost sight of what may have one time been a pure form and wrapped itself within a blanket of pomposity and desperate cleverness in a similar way that rock did with progressive music before punk took such a clear aim at it.
Punk, though, serves as a reminder of how rapidly a genre can descend to the level of parody. Indeed, all genres end up going the same way and sometimes find themselves being satirised, which is what happened to hard rock through Spinal Tap and the Comic Strip's Bad News Tour. Likewise, rap seems endlessly trapped in its parodical urban posturing, constantly straining to maintain credibility through the assertion of the art form.
Art, freedom of expression and imagery, non-censoriousness have long been advanced as the justifications for the ground-breaking. But the art form has also long suffered with being chastised for going beyond the mere ground-breaking and advocating the tasteless. Challenging society's mores and attitudes is both positive and negative, and society occasionally decides that the negative outweighs the positive. It does so by merely rejecting, by excoriating or by going to court.
The test, in a sense, is if there is gratuitousness. Is the tasteless or the offensive being displayed for the sake of it? If so, then the art form evaporates and is replaced by a meanness of spirit. On top of which, one keeps returning to the propensity for parody. Combine this meanness with an "attitude" of the urban gun-fingered style exported from the American inner city to an island in the Mediterranean, graft onto it notions of Republicanism, and you end up with someone like Valtonyc, otherwise known as Josep Miquel Arenas Beltrán.
In August 2012, I suggested that the then 17-year-old rapper was likely to be receiving a visit from someone in the near future. He had, variously, nominated the former king for assassination, the founder of the right-wing Circulo Balear Jorge Campos for death, and the mayor of Sineu for a silver bullet. He was to also have suggestions to make about various Partido Popular politicians and the one-time leader of PSOE, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba.
The visit came, and Valtonyc has been appearing before the Audiencia Nacional, with the prosecution service calling for a sentence of three years and eight months for insulting Juan Carlos and a further two years for exalting terrorism (e.g. ETA). Whatever society might think of Valtonyc, there is the slight matter of legality: you can't go around insulting kings and the crown and necessarily expect to get off scot-free.
Valtonyc has played the art form card. He told the court that he is both a poet and an artist. His work is designed to provoke rather than to, for instance, humiliate the victims of terrorism. On leaving the court, he announced that he will continue to say that the Bourbons are "mafiosos". There's provocative.
Should he be in court? Certainly under the law that safeguards the honour of the crown, then he deserves to be. He isn't the first to find that a dim view is taken of such an attack and he won't be the last. One of the more celebrated cases of this type was when the editor and cartoonist from the satirical magazine El Jueves were taken to court for insulting the then Crown-Prince Felipe. They were fined.
A few days ago there was a benefit event for him Arta, at which performers made clear their beliefs in his freedom of expression. And it is for this reason that I have some sympathy for him. Moreover, placing him in the legal spotlight fuels the very messages that caused the legal system to take action. Valtonyc has thus been granted a greater sense of self-importance than he merits. He cloaks himself in the art form defence, when he's little more than a mean parody. What's the point of his being in court?
Thursday, February 09, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 9 February 2017
Morning high (6.56am): 8C
Forecast high: 13C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 10 February - Cloud, 14C; 11 February - Cloud, 17C; 12 February - Cloud, 18C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North 6 easing 3 to 4 in the afternoon.
Expected to be reasonably sunny today but not warm. Forecast for the weekend - cloudy but getting warmer with strengthening southerly winds.
Evening update (19.45): Sunny enough but a high of just 14.7C.
Forecast high: 13C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 10 February - Cloud, 14C; 11 February - Cloud, 17C; 12 February - Cloud, 18C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North 6 easing 3 to 4 in the afternoon.
Expected to be reasonably sunny today but not warm. Forecast for the weekend - cloudy but getting warmer with strengthening southerly winds.
Evening update (19.45): Sunny enough but a high of just 14.7C.
Balti Eats Balti: Mr. Speaker
I have a photo opportunity suggestion for when the new president (speaker) of the Balearic parliament is finally sworn in. He should be whisked off to the nearest curry house, where hopefully they do more than tandoori, in order that the headline can read "Balti eats Balti".
It is just possible that Balti does eat Balti, though his Mallorcan authenticity might possibly preclude this. A hearty dish of organic frito is more likely to be Balti's favoured dish "de jour". Whatever it is, one trusts that it doesn't get stuck in his beard or hair when (if) parliament resumes for the post-lunch session. They have cameras trained on parliament speakers and the speaker, you should take note.
For reasons not entirely clear other than to procrastinate ever longer, Baltasar Picornell will not be sworn in as the new speaker of parliament until next week. It's all a bit like Joe Root taking over as England captain from Alastair Cook. Everyone knows this is going to happen, but process needs to be gone through, which is rather more necessary for electing a parliament speaker than it is an England cricket captain. (Though the social media obsessives would beg to differ; the ones who still hold a candle for Kevin Pietersen and for whom due process was not observed with Cook. The obsessives maintain that Cook sold KP out in order to keep his job.)
Apart from fairly obvious differences between Balti and Joe - appearance, sport, that sort of thing - the one major difference in terms of being lined up for promotion is that Balti only recently became the frontrunner. Podemos had insisted that he would be right for the job but their preference was for another woman to replace the excommunicated Xelo Huertas. Unfortunately, the woman they had in mind, Marta Maicas, has found herself needing to do some explaining to a court in respect of allegations that the digital signature of Montse Seijas was forged - Seijas being the other Podemos deputy to have been terminated. Consequently, it was becoming clear a month ago - because Podemos were saying so - that Balti was "gaining points" in the speaker bid.
But despite assuming pole position, Balti's elevation was far from secure. That was because the Podemos partners in the "agreements for change" - PSOE and Més - didn't want anything to do with him being speaker. They still don't, but their hands have been forced by the Podemos threat to break the agreements and therefore cease to be a "partner".
Having gone through the turmoil of the institutional crisis created by the Huertas affair, the two other partners were insisting that her replacement needed to be able to guarantee stability. In fact, there are still rumblings of this nature, but Balti is being foisted upon them and on parliament because Podemos were never going to give up the parliamentary presidency: it remains for now their most significant position in regional administrations anywhere in Spain.
Why might they be so concerned that Balti will not ensure stability? To answer this, one has to consider Huertas and how she was as speaker. The history books are rapidly being revised, but she was generally felt to have made a decent fist of the job. It is one that does require being evenhanded and also a certain amount of dignity. She may have lost this because of the affair, but even when she was meeting the King and insisting that he spend the money for the official reception on soup kitchens, she didn't come across as being extreme.
This, really, is part of the issue with Balti. Not that he has hippy hair and beard, not that he was a mere metalworker (or whatever it was), but rather that he comes from a background that is strident even by Podemos terms. His membership of the union for the Third Republic and the Balearic civic unit for a Republic should make his meeting with the King something to look forward to, assuming he doesn't boycott it.
Being a Republican, though, hardly sets him out as unusual among Podemos ranks. There has to be something a bit more to the reluctance of PSOE and Més to have not wished to sanction his election. And it may just boil down to the very simple belief that they don't think he's up to the job. Fina Santiago, who is the Més minister for social services, was outraged by the idea that he was being opposed because of his work background. She explained that she believed that there were individuals within Podemos who were better qualified, better suited. She also found it odd that Podemos were backtracking on their aim for the speaker to be a woman.
Such a principle went by the board. Laura Camargo ruled herself out, Maicas was being quizzed by a judge, so there was no other option than a man. Balti it was and Balti it is, unless by some bizarre twist of politicking, the PP's candidate Nuria Riera is elected. Were she to be, then the government's pact would be well and truly busted.
It is just possible that Balti does eat Balti, though his Mallorcan authenticity might possibly preclude this. A hearty dish of organic frito is more likely to be Balti's favoured dish "de jour". Whatever it is, one trusts that it doesn't get stuck in his beard or hair when (if) parliament resumes for the post-lunch session. They have cameras trained on parliament speakers and the speaker, you should take note.
For reasons not entirely clear other than to procrastinate ever longer, Baltasar Picornell will not be sworn in as the new speaker of parliament until next week. It's all a bit like Joe Root taking over as England captain from Alastair Cook. Everyone knows this is going to happen, but process needs to be gone through, which is rather more necessary for electing a parliament speaker than it is an England cricket captain. (Though the social media obsessives would beg to differ; the ones who still hold a candle for Kevin Pietersen and for whom due process was not observed with Cook. The obsessives maintain that Cook sold KP out in order to keep his job.)
Apart from fairly obvious differences between Balti and Joe - appearance, sport, that sort of thing - the one major difference in terms of being lined up for promotion is that Balti only recently became the frontrunner. Podemos had insisted that he would be right for the job but their preference was for another woman to replace the excommunicated Xelo Huertas. Unfortunately, the woman they had in mind, Marta Maicas, has found herself needing to do some explaining to a court in respect of allegations that the digital signature of Montse Seijas was forged - Seijas being the other Podemos deputy to have been terminated. Consequently, it was becoming clear a month ago - because Podemos were saying so - that Balti was "gaining points" in the speaker bid.
But despite assuming pole position, Balti's elevation was far from secure. That was because the Podemos partners in the "agreements for change" - PSOE and Més - didn't want anything to do with him being speaker. They still don't, but their hands have been forced by the Podemos threat to break the agreements and therefore cease to be a "partner".
Having gone through the turmoil of the institutional crisis created by the Huertas affair, the two other partners were insisting that her replacement needed to be able to guarantee stability. In fact, there are still rumblings of this nature, but Balti is being foisted upon them and on parliament because Podemos were never going to give up the parliamentary presidency: it remains for now their most significant position in regional administrations anywhere in Spain.
Why might they be so concerned that Balti will not ensure stability? To answer this, one has to consider Huertas and how she was as speaker. The history books are rapidly being revised, but she was generally felt to have made a decent fist of the job. It is one that does require being evenhanded and also a certain amount of dignity. She may have lost this because of the affair, but even when she was meeting the King and insisting that he spend the money for the official reception on soup kitchens, she didn't come across as being extreme.
This, really, is part of the issue with Balti. Not that he has hippy hair and beard, not that he was a mere metalworker (or whatever it was), but rather that he comes from a background that is strident even by Podemos terms. His membership of the union for the Third Republic and the Balearic civic unit for a Republic should make his meeting with the King something to look forward to, assuming he doesn't boycott it.
Being a Republican, though, hardly sets him out as unusual among Podemos ranks. There has to be something a bit more to the reluctance of PSOE and Més to have not wished to sanction his election. And it may just boil down to the very simple belief that they don't think he's up to the job. Fina Santiago, who is the Més minister for social services, was outraged by the idea that he was being opposed because of his work background. She explained that she believed that there were individuals within Podemos who were better qualified, better suited. She also found it odd that Podemos were backtracking on their aim for the speaker to be a woman.
Such a principle went by the board. Laura Camargo ruled herself out, Maicas was being quizzed by a judge, so there was no other option than a man. Balti it was and Balti it is, unless by some bizarre twist of politicking, the PP's candidate Nuria Riera is elected. Were she to be, then the government's pact would be well and truly busted.
Wednesday, February 08, 2017
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 8 February 2017
Morning high (8.25am): 9.8C
Forecast high: 14C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 9 February - Sun, cloud, wind, 14C; 10 February - Cloud, 13C; 11 February - Cloud, 16C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North 7 locally 8. Waves to four metres.
Grey, wet and windy. And likely to stay this way. Better tomorrow but not particularly warm.
Evening update (20.00): It was a horrible morning. Heavy rain, quite windy and cold. Picked up and there was some reasonable sun, but didn't warm up. High of 13.7C.
Forecast high: 14C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 9 February - Sun, cloud, wind, 14C; 10 February - Cloud, 13C; 11 February - Cloud, 16C.
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North 7 locally 8. Waves to four metres.
Grey, wet and windy. And likely to stay this way. Better tomorrow but not particularly warm.
Evening update (20.00): It was a horrible morning. Heavy rain, quite windy and cold. Picked up and there was some reasonable sun, but didn't warm up. High of 13.7C.
The Life And Death Of Trees
It was reported last May that almost 9,000 palm trees had been destroyed in Mallorca as a result of having been affected by the picudo rojo red beetle. The number of trees which had been affected since 2006, when the beetle was first detected in Mallorca, was put at around 11,000 from a total palm population of getting on for 275,000 trees.
Trees can be saved. I know of cases where they have been and where the trees are once more flourishing. Early detection, "shock treatment", as a gardener described it to me, constant treatment, trapping the beetle can help to revive trees and then go some way to eradicating the beetle.
It is a pest which is difficult to eradicate, especially as the beetle has no predator (birds and others shun it), but it can be eradicated. It is now over three years since the last beetle was captured in the Canary Islands (Fuerteventura to be exact). Constant monitoring led the European Commission to declare the Canaries free of the insect; the first region in the world where it has been eliminated.
It was first detected in the Canaries in 2005, a year before it was in Mallorca. From that moment on up until relatively recently, i.e. well beyond that last insect having been captured, more than 700,000 palm trees were inspected. Over 200,000 were treated. Only 659 were actually removed. In a coordinated effort which involved the general public, various administrations, strict import controls, geographic information systems and more, they managed to get rid of it. The cost of doing so was nine million euros.
By contrast with the Canaries, the response in Mallorca was uncoordinated. There was also complacency that bordered on gross incompetence. Latterly, the beetle has been treated very much more effectively and efficiently. Nevertheless, in 2015 the number of trees that were eliminated was almost 1,800.
The incompetence was as detectable as the evidence of the beetle was - trees slowly dying. Although it is generally thought that the beetle first took hold in Pollensa, it wasn't Pollensa where it was first detected: this was in Campos on the other side of the island. Yet Pollensa was to become the initial and most obvious part of Mallorca that was affected, so much so that it was dubbed "ground zero" for the beetle. The response was initially a state of denial. When action was finally taken, trees were cut down and the remains left in the open: a terrible decision. Eventually it was realised that the remains had to be burned or buried, preferably both. And the burning was ideally in an incinerator, not out in the open.
One can only conclude that it was a combination of incompetence and complacency that allowed the beetle to spread. One can add to this mixture a lack of resources, especially money. As the Canaries already had the problem (and were getting on with tackling it), as Valencia and Andalusia most definitely also had the problem, then why was not more done?
The complacency was perhaps because the beetle had first been found in Spain nine years before its presence was evident in Valencia. The first reported case was in a place called Almuñécar on the Costa Granadina in Andalusia. This was way back in 1994. The apparent slowness of the plague may have led some to believe that it wasn't the threat that it turned out to be.
Despite the destruction of trees and the regrettable sight of stumps that remain, in percentage terms it has been modest. But the anxieties and sadness caused should in themselves be sufficient to have administrations in a constant state of high alert in case another threat emerges. It has, and it's called olive ebola (xylella fastidiosa), a bacteria that is far less discerning than the beetle. Its appetite is for various tree species, over 300 it is reckoned, and these are not only fruit trees - oaks, sycamores, ornamental plants; they're all on its radar.
By comparison with the potential that olive ebola has for devastation, the effects of the beetle would be small beer. It is now being said that there were indications of the pest in Mallorca in 2012, so before it started to wreak havoc in Italy. If there were signs, it was only a few months ago that there were confirmed cases. But it turns out that there were more. Has the government been slow to react? Was it in denial, complacent or incompetent? Analysis was needed to be sure, it argues. It would now be easy, says the agriculture minister, to just destroy acres of countryside by cutting down thousands of trees. Instead the bacteria has to be fought. If the fight is lost, the destruction will occur anyway.
But there is hope because there is action, so one trusts that the mistakes of picudo rojo are not being repeated.
Trees can be saved. I know of cases where they have been and where the trees are once more flourishing. Early detection, "shock treatment", as a gardener described it to me, constant treatment, trapping the beetle can help to revive trees and then go some way to eradicating the beetle.
It is a pest which is difficult to eradicate, especially as the beetle has no predator (birds and others shun it), but it can be eradicated. It is now over three years since the last beetle was captured in the Canary Islands (Fuerteventura to be exact). Constant monitoring led the European Commission to declare the Canaries free of the insect; the first region in the world where it has been eliminated.
It was first detected in the Canaries in 2005, a year before it was in Mallorca. From that moment on up until relatively recently, i.e. well beyond that last insect having been captured, more than 700,000 palm trees were inspected. Over 200,000 were treated. Only 659 were actually removed. In a coordinated effort which involved the general public, various administrations, strict import controls, geographic information systems and more, they managed to get rid of it. The cost of doing so was nine million euros.
By contrast with the Canaries, the response in Mallorca was uncoordinated. There was also complacency that bordered on gross incompetence. Latterly, the beetle has been treated very much more effectively and efficiently. Nevertheless, in 2015 the number of trees that were eliminated was almost 1,800.
The incompetence was as detectable as the evidence of the beetle was - trees slowly dying. Although it is generally thought that the beetle first took hold in Pollensa, it wasn't Pollensa where it was first detected: this was in Campos on the other side of the island. Yet Pollensa was to become the initial and most obvious part of Mallorca that was affected, so much so that it was dubbed "ground zero" for the beetle. The response was initially a state of denial. When action was finally taken, trees were cut down and the remains left in the open: a terrible decision. Eventually it was realised that the remains had to be burned or buried, preferably both. And the burning was ideally in an incinerator, not out in the open.
One can only conclude that it was a combination of incompetence and complacency that allowed the beetle to spread. One can add to this mixture a lack of resources, especially money. As the Canaries already had the problem (and were getting on with tackling it), as Valencia and Andalusia most definitely also had the problem, then why was not more done?
The complacency was perhaps because the beetle had first been found in Spain nine years before its presence was evident in Valencia. The first reported case was in a place called Almuñécar on the Costa Granadina in Andalusia. This was way back in 1994. The apparent slowness of the plague may have led some to believe that it wasn't the threat that it turned out to be.
Despite the destruction of trees and the regrettable sight of stumps that remain, in percentage terms it has been modest. But the anxieties and sadness caused should in themselves be sufficient to have administrations in a constant state of high alert in case another threat emerges. It has, and it's called olive ebola (xylella fastidiosa), a bacteria that is far less discerning than the beetle. Its appetite is for various tree species, over 300 it is reckoned, and these are not only fruit trees - oaks, sycamores, ornamental plants; they're all on its radar.
By comparison with the potential that olive ebola has for devastation, the effects of the beetle would be small beer. It is now being said that there were indications of the pest in Mallorca in 2012, so before it started to wreak havoc in Italy. If there were signs, it was only a few months ago that there were confirmed cases. But it turns out that there were more. Has the government been slow to react? Was it in denial, complacent or incompetent? Analysis was needed to be sure, it argues. It would now be easy, says the agriculture minister, to just destroy acres of countryside by cutting down thousands of trees. Instead the bacteria has to be fought. If the fight is lost, the destruction will occur anyway.
But there is hope because there is action, so one trusts that the mistakes of picudo rojo are not being repeated.
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