Bang bang. The hunting season started yesterday. It lasts until January. There are apparently 26,000 licensed hunters in the Balearics; that sounds like an awful lot. As of yesterday, there were any number of birds, such as thrushes, starlings and partridges, as well as rabbits (and quite possibly other species) keeping a beady eye out for the sight of a long barrel. At least there is some control. A hunter cannot just go and blast everything out of the skies or off the land, but it may well come as a surprise that the likes of the partridge are included in this annual cull, and some of it is just that - a cull, as a proportion of the hunters are so-called preservation hunters.
To what extent the non-preservation hunters are actually making a contribution to planned wildlife management, I am not altogether sure. At a guess, I would suggest it is not that great a contribution. The hunting of wild birds sounds like a sport of the landed classes, as it is elsewhere, though here I wouldn't be so certain; it is still not that long ago that much of Mallorca was essentially rural with therefore rural pursuits. Hunting is as much a tradition as the fiesta; there is an annual hunters' "fiesta" which alternates its venue across the island. Another target of the hunter's gun, the mountain goat, is said to be of superior quality here and one that it is hoped will also attract a certain tourist, one with a rifle.
But one cannot put Mallorcan hunting into the same class as the hoorays who might pitch up for the glorious twelfth. Apart from anything else, there are no hoorays as such here; well, not among the Mallorcans at any rate. Of the older Mallorcans, I know of some who, wealthy, are also what one might describe as the salt of the earth; they shoot, they ride horses, the rural pursuit is still a part of their lives, as it would have been that of their fathers and grandfathers.
Nevertheless, not everyone is happy with the hunting. And up pops, once more, our old friends, the environmental pressure group GOB. Barely a day passes it seems without GOB making a pronouncement or a denunciation about something or other. Much as I may incline towards the environmental cause, my take on it is essentially pragmatic; GOB's is if it moves or if it grows or if it's about to be built upon or interfered with in some way by mankind, it should be left alone. It's why I referred the other day to a certain Carlism in the environmental movement here. The desire, it seems, is to revert to the pure and natural state; it is a dogmatic stance.
The power that GOB appears to now exert suggests that it might be brought into the governmental process. I doubt very much if the group would fall for that one. Once formally politicised, its members would be pressured themselves into being somewhat less one-eyed and one-issued; they wouldn't go for it. Far better to be unofficially politicised and to lob the enviro grenades (harmless ones and no doubt biodegradable, to boot) onto the political or commercial or even the environmental agenda, if this last one doesn't sound a tad contrary. For GOB has raised objections as to what is going on at the Son Real finca near to Can Picafort, the one that is managed by the sustainable development foundation, who, one would imagine, wears its environmental badge with pride. GOB would beg to differ, as hunting for birds, specifically thrushes, is to be permitted on the finca. The pressure group believes, not perhaps without some justification, that a preservation area should not be one for the extermination of the very migratory birds that it attracts and which are to the fore in the environmental argument for such preservation in the first place. GOB also reckons that tourists (yes, all those thousands upon thousands who don't come) will find it a mite peculiar that they have to dodge a hunter's aim as they are targetting the very same birds with a binocular lens. (Actually, that's sort of what is reckoned; it's not what has been said in those words exactly.)
GOB may well have an argument, but the sounds of gunshot I now hear are coming from where? Unless the sounds are travelling an awfully long distance, they are emanating from Albufera, the other and more important nature-preservation park in the area; as they have since I have been a neighbour. Even were they not, the problem with GOB is that it just can't keep its gob shut. Its pronouncements are so regular that they start to become tiresome; the group is in danger also of crying wolf (as opposed, naturally, to hunting wolf). What may have escaped GOB's attention is the fact that if it is deemed necessary to cull and to hunt, where better to do it than in areas which attract birds. The hunters are unlikely to be wandering through the middles of towns taking potshots at a passing thrush. It may indeed seem strange, to GOB, that they hunt birds in Son Real, but for the group to now make it an international issue by informing those in countries with tourists to Mallorca is taking it all a bit far. GOB devotes too much energy to hunting for new battles; these get to a stage where those who might otherwise have sympathy switch off, and so they become counter-productive. Just a little less gobby, please.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Commodores - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFHbGuSRAwg. Today's title - the one-time other half of an Irish-sounding fellow.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Monday, October 13, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Easy Like Sunday Morning
There was an article in "The Bulletin" the other day which was based on a chat with four British holidaymakers in Magalluf. It was not without some interest. Unfortunately, the paper does not archive its articles; otherwise it might be worth linking it so you could all read it. But there you go. Perhaps the most interesting part was the conclusion, as it is the first time I can recall anywhere in the English media here saying something close to what I have - several times. The writer, Brett Gibbons, said - and I paraphrase - that if the various authorities on the island asked people what they wanted, as opposed to presuming what they want, Mallorca may be able to re-establish itself as "Europe's top winter and summer holiday resort". I'm not sure if the island has slumped that much in summer terms, but winter-wise it obviously has. The conclusion felt like something of a vindication for what I have said before here. It relates, in part, to what I was expounding on 2 October (Here I Go Again), and also before in respect not only of the fact that winter promotions are put together which only touch the edges but also the fact that there seems to be little attempt to discover what the tourist might prefer.
The problem is, though, talk to a small group of holidaymakers and you only get a very small impression as to what tourists, in the wider sense, are actually thinking. The group's main concerns centred on prices, service and buses; I have devoted a good deal of blog space to two of these. One, that of prices, is now like a broken record. The complaint is that Mallorca has become too expensive. One wonders at times quite what visitors expect. Well, one knows what they expect - low prices - but they are unrealistic. The introduction of the euro and, as importantly, the ground rules for joining the European Monetary System may have had the effect of raising prices, but that is now long past. The fundamental reason for higher prices is that Mallorca has ceased to be a cheap place. The correction in the local economy may have been dramatic and unwelcome in many respects, but it has occurred and there is no going back on it. Once the "market" really took off in Mallorca, price increases were an inevitability; those currently cheap alternative tourist destinations of eastern Europe will eventually undergo the same transformation.
The poor bar-owner is not an idiot. He knows what he can charge, if only by looking at what the competition is levying. Some may charge to excess, but the majority do not. What seems to be unappreciated is the costs that bars face. When there have been calls for price controls on items like coffees, where are similar ones for the government to cap prices of the likes of energy and social security or for it to force landlords to cut their rents? Intervene with the market in one way, and you have, in the pursuit of fairness, to do so on a much wider basis. It won't happen. And it is not as if all items on a bar menu are expensive. Take the English breakfast. This can be as low as 2.50 euros. Bars make next to nothing on breakfasts; they are loss leaders.
Service I don't wish to go over again here, but buses ... Buses, that's something of a new one. My personal acquaintance with the island's public transport can be summed up in two journeys from Palma, one of which went less than according to plan when the bus broke down somewhere south of Inca. But at a touch over 5 euros to get back to Playa de Muro, the prices are nothing to quibble about; indeed they seem to be among the few things in Mallorca that can now qualify for the cheap categorisation. I suggest all tourists spend all day and every day on a public bus, so that they can appreciate island value for money. But these buses don't go everywhere you might want them to. And if they do, for instance between the east coast resorts and Alcúdia or Pollensa, anticipate several hours of bottom discomfort and do not expect to return for a week. The bus companies aren't daft either. That the odd tourist might want a direct route to some cutesy little mountain village does not justify a regular service for a regular public which would only need a bus once every few years when they're awaiting delivery of the new 4x4.
Maybe the tourist authorities aren't so stupid after all. There's nothing they can do about prices, any attempt at introducing something sensible like a direct bus route to the airport would only result in the taxi-drivers adopting guerilla tactics and letting the buses' tyres down, and as for a surly waiter or two, what are they going to do, dispatch the happy police to cuff the offender round the ear? No, what they should be doing, and maybe the conclusion to that article intended this, is to take an altogether bigger picture of tourist wants and needs, rather than seeking to implement something that has only minority appeal. But I've said all this before, and I don't want to start sounding like a broken record either.
LITTLE LOCAL DISASTERS
5 am Sunday morning. What's that noise? Not in the road. Inside. Water. Everywhere in the utility room and coming into the kitchen. A constant rush of heating. Some steam. The boiler has sprung a leak big time. It had developed one a week or so ago. The chap was meant to come during the week to replace a cover which had cracked slightly, causing the initial leak. He didn't. Water bloody everywhere. Isolate the fuse and switch it off. Turn off the mains water feed. Is there a stop valve for the boiler alone? Dark. Looking around with a torch. No sign. Chase the water out as best as possible and keep the doors open to dry everything out. No going back to bed. 5 am, sodding Sunday morning. Becomes 6 and then 7 sodding Sunday morning. And it's not just Sunday, it's the fiesta of Pilar, and tomorrow is a "puente" holiday as well. Try getting anything done here on a Sunday or especially when there's a fiesta around. Anyone know a plumber?
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Anthony Powell. Today's title - Motown-ers.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
The problem is, though, talk to a small group of holidaymakers and you only get a very small impression as to what tourists, in the wider sense, are actually thinking. The group's main concerns centred on prices, service and buses; I have devoted a good deal of blog space to two of these. One, that of prices, is now like a broken record. The complaint is that Mallorca has become too expensive. One wonders at times quite what visitors expect. Well, one knows what they expect - low prices - but they are unrealistic. The introduction of the euro and, as importantly, the ground rules for joining the European Monetary System may have had the effect of raising prices, but that is now long past. The fundamental reason for higher prices is that Mallorca has ceased to be a cheap place. The correction in the local economy may have been dramatic and unwelcome in many respects, but it has occurred and there is no going back on it. Once the "market" really took off in Mallorca, price increases were an inevitability; those currently cheap alternative tourist destinations of eastern Europe will eventually undergo the same transformation.
The poor bar-owner is not an idiot. He knows what he can charge, if only by looking at what the competition is levying. Some may charge to excess, but the majority do not. What seems to be unappreciated is the costs that bars face. When there have been calls for price controls on items like coffees, where are similar ones for the government to cap prices of the likes of energy and social security or for it to force landlords to cut their rents? Intervene with the market in one way, and you have, in the pursuit of fairness, to do so on a much wider basis. It won't happen. And it is not as if all items on a bar menu are expensive. Take the English breakfast. This can be as low as 2.50 euros. Bars make next to nothing on breakfasts; they are loss leaders.
Service I don't wish to go over again here, but buses ... Buses, that's something of a new one. My personal acquaintance with the island's public transport can be summed up in two journeys from Palma, one of which went less than according to plan when the bus broke down somewhere south of Inca. But at a touch over 5 euros to get back to Playa de Muro, the prices are nothing to quibble about; indeed they seem to be among the few things in Mallorca that can now qualify for the cheap categorisation. I suggest all tourists spend all day and every day on a public bus, so that they can appreciate island value for money. But these buses don't go everywhere you might want them to. And if they do, for instance between the east coast resorts and Alcúdia or Pollensa, anticipate several hours of bottom discomfort and do not expect to return for a week. The bus companies aren't daft either. That the odd tourist might want a direct route to some cutesy little mountain village does not justify a regular service for a regular public which would only need a bus once every few years when they're awaiting delivery of the new 4x4.
Maybe the tourist authorities aren't so stupid after all. There's nothing they can do about prices, any attempt at introducing something sensible like a direct bus route to the airport would only result in the taxi-drivers adopting guerilla tactics and letting the buses' tyres down, and as for a surly waiter or two, what are they going to do, dispatch the happy police to cuff the offender round the ear? No, what they should be doing, and maybe the conclusion to that article intended this, is to take an altogether bigger picture of tourist wants and needs, rather than seeking to implement something that has only minority appeal. But I've said all this before, and I don't want to start sounding like a broken record either.
LITTLE LOCAL DISASTERS
5 am Sunday morning. What's that noise? Not in the road. Inside. Water. Everywhere in the utility room and coming into the kitchen. A constant rush of heating. Some steam. The boiler has sprung a leak big time. It had developed one a week or so ago. The chap was meant to come during the week to replace a cover which had cracked slightly, causing the initial leak. He didn't. Water bloody everywhere. Isolate the fuse and switch it off. Turn off the mains water feed. Is there a stop valve for the boiler alone? Dark. Looking around with a torch. No sign. Chase the water out as best as possible and keep the doors open to dry everything out. No going back to bed. 5 am, sodding Sunday morning. Becomes 6 and then 7 sodding Sunday morning. And it's not just Sunday, it's the fiesta of Pilar, and tomorrow is a "puente" holiday as well. Try getting anything done here on a Sunday or especially when there's a fiesta around. Anyone know a plumber?
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Anthony Powell. Today's title - Motown-ers.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Saturday, October 11, 2008
A Dance To The Music Of Time
There was a "ball de bot" the other evening in Playa de Muro. Well, there was meant to have been, but Thursday's wild weather may have forced its abandonment. Whatever. The ball de bot, a staple of fiestas, is also dragged onto the municipal building forecourt or onto other places, like the Paseo Marítimo in Alcúdia, to act as a piece of Mallorcan authenticity to be enjoyed by local and tourist alike.
The ball de bot is at the heart of Mallorca's folkloric traditions. It can be compared to Morris dancing, but only in the sense that it is a form of folk dance; it doesn't have the weirdness of the Morris dance. And generally it is not performed by men with beards. There is, however, a potential link - the Morris name is widely assumed to be connected with the Moors; the Morris dance is a kind of distant cousin perhaps to the ball de bot.
The survival and omnipresence of the ball de bot at the fiestas are testimony to the strength of the local folk tradition, and, unlike Morris dancing, it doesn't attract piss-taking; it's all quite serious. A while ago, one of the strange attempts at defining Englishness included Morris dancing as an indication thereof. It was wrong-headed as it is not a tradition taken seriously by most people. Only its very oddness and eccentricity could be said to be typical of a strand of Englishness; the dance is almost beside the point when set against the sight of men in peculiar outfits waving hankies. The ball de bot is neither odd nor eccentric; it is typically Mallorcan for the dance alone.
Attend a fiesta or fair locally, and at some point there will be a ball de bot, often performed by the same troupe - Sarau Alcudienc - which gets its fair share of bot gigs throughout the fiesta season and as part of the promenade entertainment for the masses in summer. But it is not the only ever-present. Others are the local bag-pipe players ("xeremiers") and the giants ("gegants"). Each town or village seems to have its own giants. Pop in, for example, to Muro town hall and they are standing there, huge and surreal in the reception area. One time when they were hauled down to Playa de Muro to put in a guest appearance, they were then left lying on their backs in the reception of the municipal building; sleeping it off following the revelries of the local fiesta while tourists, town hall staff and members of the Guardia Civil navigated courses around their prone bodies.
And there is more surrealism in the form of the "caparrot", another type of giant but one with head masks that has come to embrace satire. Typically, local politicians might find the rip being taken out of them by a caparrot, and, let's face it, there is plenty to take the rip out of, though how a head mask can quite convey the sense of money being buried in a garden is open to some wild imagination.
It is a fair question to ask quite why these traditions have held sway. I read the other day about a Mallorca of a childhood perhaps some 40 or 50 years ago. While the fiestas formed a part of that time, the reminiscing was not a million miles away from an English childhood, certainly one in less urban or rural areas. While there weren't the fiestas as in Mallorca, there were the fetes, the fairs, the traditions of Pancake Day, Guy Fawkes and May Day. These survive, but have been corporatised in the case of Bonfire Night, while others are probably regarded as being rather quaint or absurd in a more cynical culture. The obvious difference lies with the religious basis of the fiesta, and yet devout Catholicism holds far less influence than was once the case.
I have suggested previously that perhaps the survival of Mallorcan traditions is a reaction to change; a mass psychology of introspection that seeks reassurance in a past when the present suggests the loss of that past. Or maybe it is simply a case of relativeness in terms of time. Mallorca has only been "industrialised" for some 50 years; an essentially agrarian society half a century ago still maintains the links to the traditions of the small villages and towns. Mallorca became a consumerist society later as well, not just because of the backwardness and isolation of the island until relatively recently but also because of the inhibition of much of the Franco era. And in the fiestas one might even divine a certain post-Franco reaction. Anything regional, especially if it was couched in a Catalan tongue, was something the Generalissimo was ill-disposed towards, and accordingly some of the traditions were repressed.
There is no sense that these traditions are about to be lost. The still closeness of the communities, despite the wealth that has been accrued since the tourist industrialisation, reinforces the traditions. There is also no sense in which the traditions are forced, as in we must at all costs not allow our traditions to die out. They happen because they always happen. The fiestas may be repetitious - year after year they have a distinct sameyness - but there are always the giants and the pipers and the ball de bot. Same every year. And not about to change.
Here is a youtube link for a ball de bot - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0XEXSekpd4
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Splodgenessabounds - "Two Pints Of Lager And ..." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1658Mfhoyw). Today's title - a famous 12-volume series of books by?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
The ball de bot is at the heart of Mallorca's folkloric traditions. It can be compared to Morris dancing, but only in the sense that it is a form of folk dance; it doesn't have the weirdness of the Morris dance. And generally it is not performed by men with beards. There is, however, a potential link - the Morris name is widely assumed to be connected with the Moors; the Morris dance is a kind of distant cousin perhaps to the ball de bot.
The survival and omnipresence of the ball de bot at the fiestas are testimony to the strength of the local folk tradition, and, unlike Morris dancing, it doesn't attract piss-taking; it's all quite serious. A while ago, one of the strange attempts at defining Englishness included Morris dancing as an indication thereof. It was wrong-headed as it is not a tradition taken seriously by most people. Only its very oddness and eccentricity could be said to be typical of a strand of Englishness; the dance is almost beside the point when set against the sight of men in peculiar outfits waving hankies. The ball de bot is neither odd nor eccentric; it is typically Mallorcan for the dance alone.
Attend a fiesta or fair locally, and at some point there will be a ball de bot, often performed by the same troupe - Sarau Alcudienc - which gets its fair share of bot gigs throughout the fiesta season and as part of the promenade entertainment for the masses in summer. But it is not the only ever-present. Others are the local bag-pipe players ("xeremiers") and the giants ("gegants"). Each town or village seems to have its own giants. Pop in, for example, to Muro town hall and they are standing there, huge and surreal in the reception area. One time when they were hauled down to Playa de Muro to put in a guest appearance, they were then left lying on their backs in the reception of the municipal building; sleeping it off following the revelries of the local fiesta while tourists, town hall staff and members of the Guardia Civil navigated courses around their prone bodies.
And there is more surrealism in the form of the "caparrot", another type of giant but one with head masks that has come to embrace satire. Typically, local politicians might find the rip being taken out of them by a caparrot, and, let's face it, there is plenty to take the rip out of, though how a head mask can quite convey the sense of money being buried in a garden is open to some wild imagination.
It is a fair question to ask quite why these traditions have held sway. I read the other day about a Mallorca of a childhood perhaps some 40 or 50 years ago. While the fiestas formed a part of that time, the reminiscing was not a million miles away from an English childhood, certainly one in less urban or rural areas. While there weren't the fiestas as in Mallorca, there were the fetes, the fairs, the traditions of Pancake Day, Guy Fawkes and May Day. These survive, but have been corporatised in the case of Bonfire Night, while others are probably regarded as being rather quaint or absurd in a more cynical culture. The obvious difference lies with the religious basis of the fiesta, and yet devout Catholicism holds far less influence than was once the case.
I have suggested previously that perhaps the survival of Mallorcan traditions is a reaction to change; a mass psychology of introspection that seeks reassurance in a past when the present suggests the loss of that past. Or maybe it is simply a case of relativeness in terms of time. Mallorca has only been "industrialised" for some 50 years; an essentially agrarian society half a century ago still maintains the links to the traditions of the small villages and towns. Mallorca became a consumerist society later as well, not just because of the backwardness and isolation of the island until relatively recently but also because of the inhibition of much of the Franco era. And in the fiestas one might even divine a certain post-Franco reaction. Anything regional, especially if it was couched in a Catalan tongue, was something the Generalissimo was ill-disposed towards, and accordingly some of the traditions were repressed.
There is no sense that these traditions are about to be lost. The still closeness of the communities, despite the wealth that has been accrued since the tourist industrialisation, reinforces the traditions. There is also no sense in which the traditions are forced, as in we must at all costs not allow our traditions to die out. They happen because they always happen. The fiestas may be repetitious - year after year they have a distinct sameyness - but there are always the giants and the pipers and the ball de bot. Same every year. And not about to change.
Here is a youtube link for a ball de bot - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0XEXSekpd4
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Splodgenessabounds - "Two Pints Of Lager And ..." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1658Mfhoyw). Today's title - a famous 12-volume series of books by?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Friday, October 10, 2008
And A Packet of Crisps Please
You can tell when the season is drawing to a close. The Eroski supermarket lets its stock (admittedly limited) of foreign products dwindle. The true state of grocery xenophobia - Spanish and Mallorcan products alone - returns to the supermarket shelf. And no product typifies this more than the crisp. The summer months' variety pack of crisps augments the voluminous but dull array of Spanish crunchy snacks in a bag. The German-sourced Crunchips paprika flavour, a prince amongst the paupers of the local crisp world, packs up its seasonal court and winters in the obscurity of its Lorenz headquarters in Neu-Isenburg, a town notable for having the highest number of restaurants per head of population in Germany - not all of them serving only crisps. The Spanish crisp can't even do paprika, as it can't do most things, flavour-wise.
Despite the voracious snacking habits of the Spanish and the vast amounts of shelf space devoted to the crisp and its off-shoots, the Spanish are ill-served by their local producers. The Lays packs offer an appeal in the uniformly attractive look of their contents, but an obsession with the Iberian ham flavour as a staple results in potato-slice ennui as does the sheer number of the non-flavoured crisp. I have long since failed to see the point of a potato crisp that tastes only of potato. Crisp eating for the Spaniard is an act of habitual indifference as opposed to one of taste sensation and surprise. Worse still are the crisps that provide the equivalent of munching through a brick of Trex. Grease may be an essential ingredient of the crisp, but there's no need to boast about it. The Spanish crisp is all too often the junk of the junk world. Where is the diversity of a Walkers or a Marks and Spencer? Last time I was in England I was introduced to a sweet Thai (or something like that) Walkers. It was crisp heaven, or hell perhaps if one has personally just nosebagged an entire family-sized packet.
The one concession to crisp internationalisation that survives the late-summer stock purge lies with the Pringle, the pretentious wave in a cylinder that can't quite admit to being a crisp and indeed lawyers, for VAT purposes, argued successfully that it was not. However, its very packaging (in addition to it being unquestionably moreish) gives the muncher the pleasure of realising that, even as the contents of the tennis-ball-style container dip well below the halfway mark, there are still many more crisps awaiting than might have been imagined; it's a clever trick of packaging illusion. The Pringle is the Tardis of the crisp universe.
Unfortunately, no such cleverness exists in the world of the Spanish crisp. The one positive of its almost unrelenting awfulness is that offered to the waistline through crisp abstinence. As the Crunchips head for the snow of Germany, so items of clothing will begin to once more gradually become winter-wearables.
ELDERLY TOURISTS
The late-season tourist is a mixture of economy class, small infants and earnest senior citizens, many of whom are readily recognisable from their kit of backpack, khaki shorts and knobbly-knees. These are the walking tourist seniors of autumn, blessed with a hardiness of constitution that defies wild, windy and wet weather - as was the case yesterday. Among the ranks of this older October market is also the ex-colonial who insists on a Panama hat even under a weakening Mallorcan sun. One of the wonders of this Saga-ist invasion is its unfailing courtesy and good manners. The very numbers may make driving a slower than normal procedure owing to the less-than-sprightly tackling of main road crossing points, but stop for a group of oldsters and you will always get an acknowledgement and a smile, after there have been minutes of will-they, won't-they cross as they are unsure as to whether a car that has actually stopped does mean that they can use the crossing rather than be then callously mowed down.
I have great sympathy for this older market and for the at-times downright rudeness that it attracts. It's another Eroski moment. The other day an ex-colonial pair with his 'n' hers matching Panamas were getting into an awful tangle at the checkout. Yes, the store was quite busy, but it was not their fault that the pack of meat didn't have a bar code. "Not possible to pay. No price," chanted the checkout girl, indicating, not that they understood, that they should go and get an alternative pack with a code on. It was also not their fault that they failed to realise the need to weigh and then price their fruit and veg. I've said this on more than one occasion before. If there is no obvious sign - in a language other than Spanish - to advise as to the procedure, or no assistance, what can the store expect. It is especially tough on the elderly who get seriously flustered, as did this couple. Finally when it came to paying, the old boy neither understood the amount nor the coinage, so there was more faffing about and undisguised frustration on the part of the checkout girl. And amidst all this confusion, he had left his wallet down on the counter. This is a store not unknown to suffer petty theft.
The couple went and had a drink at the supermarket bar. I felt I had to talk to them. I explained what had been going on, because they still didn't really get it. I also advised the old boy to take better care of his wallet. I could have seen him being pickpocketed otherwise; he was a walking victim.
Whether it likes it or not, Eroski, a main supermarket chain, is still part of the tourist market. Not all of its staff are rude or unhelpful - some are quite the opposite - but it is unacceptable that polite but uncomprehending elderly tourists can be treated in such a poor fashion. They deserve much better.
And finally on Eroski, the one opposite the Platja d'Or in Alcúdia, that is. It is a year now since I spoke about the hole, the one of the broken bricks as you exit the car parking. Why is it still there?
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Mothers of Invention. As Terence rightly got it - "Frank Zappa's ironic analysis of the 'Laurel Canyon set' ". Today's title - Two whats of what and a packet of crisps. Who was it?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Despite the voracious snacking habits of the Spanish and the vast amounts of shelf space devoted to the crisp and its off-shoots, the Spanish are ill-served by their local producers. The Lays packs offer an appeal in the uniformly attractive look of their contents, but an obsession with the Iberian ham flavour as a staple results in potato-slice ennui as does the sheer number of the non-flavoured crisp. I have long since failed to see the point of a potato crisp that tastes only of potato. Crisp eating for the Spaniard is an act of habitual indifference as opposed to one of taste sensation and surprise. Worse still are the crisps that provide the equivalent of munching through a brick of Trex. Grease may be an essential ingredient of the crisp, but there's no need to boast about it. The Spanish crisp is all too often the junk of the junk world. Where is the diversity of a Walkers or a Marks and Spencer? Last time I was in England I was introduced to a sweet Thai (or something like that) Walkers. It was crisp heaven, or hell perhaps if one has personally just nosebagged an entire family-sized packet.
The one concession to crisp internationalisation that survives the late-summer stock purge lies with the Pringle, the pretentious wave in a cylinder that can't quite admit to being a crisp and indeed lawyers, for VAT purposes, argued successfully that it was not. However, its very packaging (in addition to it being unquestionably moreish) gives the muncher the pleasure of realising that, even as the contents of the tennis-ball-style container dip well below the halfway mark, there are still many more crisps awaiting than might have been imagined; it's a clever trick of packaging illusion. The Pringle is the Tardis of the crisp universe.
Unfortunately, no such cleverness exists in the world of the Spanish crisp. The one positive of its almost unrelenting awfulness is that offered to the waistline through crisp abstinence. As the Crunchips head for the snow of Germany, so items of clothing will begin to once more gradually become winter-wearables.
ELDERLY TOURISTS
The late-season tourist is a mixture of economy class, small infants and earnest senior citizens, many of whom are readily recognisable from their kit of backpack, khaki shorts and knobbly-knees. These are the walking tourist seniors of autumn, blessed with a hardiness of constitution that defies wild, windy and wet weather - as was the case yesterday. Among the ranks of this older October market is also the ex-colonial who insists on a Panama hat even under a weakening Mallorcan sun. One of the wonders of this Saga-ist invasion is its unfailing courtesy and good manners. The very numbers may make driving a slower than normal procedure owing to the less-than-sprightly tackling of main road crossing points, but stop for a group of oldsters and you will always get an acknowledgement and a smile, after there have been minutes of will-they, won't-they cross as they are unsure as to whether a car that has actually stopped does mean that they can use the crossing rather than be then callously mowed down.
I have great sympathy for this older market and for the at-times downright rudeness that it attracts. It's another Eroski moment. The other day an ex-colonial pair with his 'n' hers matching Panamas were getting into an awful tangle at the checkout. Yes, the store was quite busy, but it was not their fault that the pack of meat didn't have a bar code. "Not possible to pay. No price," chanted the checkout girl, indicating, not that they understood, that they should go and get an alternative pack with a code on. It was also not their fault that they failed to realise the need to weigh and then price their fruit and veg. I've said this on more than one occasion before. If there is no obvious sign - in a language other than Spanish - to advise as to the procedure, or no assistance, what can the store expect. It is especially tough on the elderly who get seriously flustered, as did this couple. Finally when it came to paying, the old boy neither understood the amount nor the coinage, so there was more faffing about and undisguised frustration on the part of the checkout girl. And amidst all this confusion, he had left his wallet down on the counter. This is a store not unknown to suffer petty theft.
The couple went and had a drink at the supermarket bar. I felt I had to talk to them. I explained what had been going on, because they still didn't really get it. I also advised the old boy to take better care of his wallet. I could have seen him being pickpocketed otherwise; he was a walking victim.
Whether it likes it or not, Eroski, a main supermarket chain, is still part of the tourist market. Not all of its staff are rude or unhelpful - some are quite the opposite - but it is unacceptable that polite but uncomprehending elderly tourists can be treated in such a poor fashion. They deserve much better.
And finally on Eroski, the one opposite the Platja d'Or in Alcúdia, that is. It is a year now since I spoke about the hole, the one of the broken bricks as you exit the car parking. Why is it still there?
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Mothers of Invention. As Terence rightly got it - "Frank Zappa's ironic analysis of the 'Laurel Canyon set' ". Today's title - Two whats of what and a packet of crisps. Who was it?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Plastic People
The marathon article about Real Mallorca the other day had a number of gaps. Deliberately, as it was long enough as it was. I am indebted though to a letter-writer to "The Bulletin" for raising an issue that I didn't pursue in that earlier article - that of the environmental aspect of Paul Davidson's proposed plastics recycling factory, the one that appears to play such an important part in the strategy for Real Mallorca.
The letter refers to the "outrage" of the recycling plant. Maybe it is, but maybe there is another side to the story. There is much science surrounding plastics recycling, some of it aimed at reducing or eliminating the environmental and health damage that can be a by-product of the recycling process. For example, there is one process being developed which seeks to remove the impurities both of the recycled product and also of the CO2 that is used in the process; the CO2 itself would be recycled, leading to an "environmentally benign procedure"*.
Nevertheless, there is an environmental question mark over the recycling process, and one does have to wonder if the Davidson plan has fully taken account of the environmental lobby in Mallorca; much of it is of an extreme environmental Carlist** nature. Have Mr. Davidson and his associates actually run the whole thing by any authority or is it, as it were, a pipe dream, given Mr. Davidson's success with pipes and tubing? The letter-writer also refers to the logistical sense of locating a plant in Mallorca; it's a fair point. To make economic sense, a plant would require the importing of much waste. Yet, not only is Mallorca typically an exporter of much of its waste for recycling, one of the business problems for plastic waste recyclers in other countries has been the actual shortage of waste. This stems, in large part, to a lack of consumer education, and nowhere is more lacking in this regard than Mallorca, and one imagines also on the mainland.
Despite the strength of the environmental voice on the island, the consumer-side mechanics of recycling are not well developed. Just to take plastics. Here you don't get numbers to denote different types of plastic. The local household here places its waste in different communal containers - general and garden; glass; paper; plastic and tin cans. Once, when the plastics truck appeared, I asked the chap if I could chuck in the legs of a broken plastic garden table. No problem. And yet, the chemical make-up of those legs is almost certainly not of a recyclable nature or wanted by a recycler. The US numbering system informs the consumer as to the type of plastic and its consequent recyclability. The easiest and most recyclable plastic products are things such as bottles for water and drinks, shampoos, detergents and those made from polystyrene. Others, e.g. shower curtains, film (as in cling film for example), supermarket bags and Tupperware (and garden tables), are, for differing reasons, not welcomed by recyclers, simply because of the low possibility of actually recycling the stuff. The best way of getting rid of them, other than chucking them in with the other plastics or general waste, and hoping no one notices, is to return them to the manufacturer who then has the headache as to what to do with them.
In Germany the system is altogether more rigorous, one of the strictest you can find. It was Germany, surprise, surprise, that originated the household waste Gestapo that comes and roots around in your containers to check that the waste is in order. The vast municipal dumps in Germany are like open-cast factories of control and organisation. First, they check the contents of your car boot and you have to pay for certain things. Second, you are instructed as to which enormous skip you must go to for which item of waste. Third, there are camp commandants barking out instructions to anyone foolish enough to try and deposit the wrong item in the wrong skip. But at least you know what to do. Every last conceivable product is allocated its own waste treatment.
By contrast, here, as with many other things Spanish, they make a lot of the recycling deal and then can't really be arsed to see it through. Take that exporting of Mallorca's waste. You may recall me mentioning before that during August a vast mountain of waste had grown next to Alcúdia's commercial port. It was there because the recycling firms on the mainland were on holiday. It was perhaps rather indicative of an apparent indifference. There are dumps here, but where is another matter. Whether many use them I very much doubt. One of the first "cultural shocks" on coming to Mallorca was with the disposal of garden waste. I had gathered together several sacks of the stuff, then thought where's the tip. It was only then that I realised you chucked it in with the general household stuff. Great. Much has been made of the increases in "rubbish tax" as a means of paying for more recycle processing, but quite what happens with the stuff that is collected I am not sure. For instance, I don't know if any plastics are currently being recycled on the island. I presume not as, of the stuff that grew into that mountain in Alcúdia, much of it comprised plastic bottles, the main constituent of the current consumer plastic recycling effort.
As a consequence of a not wholly efficient method of collection, lack of labelling, education and enforcement as well as apathy and laziness (you want to see the amount of plastic and glass that gets tossed into the general container), much that might otherwise be ready for recycling ends up as landfill. I have said before that the system here is excellent because you can just chuck any old thing in the rubbish, but I do get pangs of guilt. And all of these things contribute to costs of sorting and to the shortage of certain items, as with plastics for recycling. Which brings us back to the Davidson recycling plan. A lack of "raw material" is one thing, but one must ask if the exporting of plastics to the mainland is because of the absence of a recycling plant or because the island does not want it in its own backyard. Has the Davidson plan got some in-principle agreement or does it lack legs - plastic or otherwise?
* The quoted words come from an article on the emagazine.com website, a good resource for recycling and other environmental issues. I acknowledge this site and the sciencedaily site as sources of some information in the above - http://www.emagazine.com and http://www.sciencedaily.com.
** Carlism was a movement against liberalism in nineteenth-century Spain and which promoted a pure and traditional Catholic state.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Depeche Mode - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzHMhQOU1fE. Today's title - by one of the great weird American bands; maternal.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
The letter refers to the "outrage" of the recycling plant. Maybe it is, but maybe there is another side to the story. There is much science surrounding plastics recycling, some of it aimed at reducing or eliminating the environmental and health damage that can be a by-product of the recycling process. For example, there is one process being developed which seeks to remove the impurities both of the recycled product and also of the CO2 that is used in the process; the CO2 itself would be recycled, leading to an "environmentally benign procedure"*.
Nevertheless, there is an environmental question mark over the recycling process, and one does have to wonder if the Davidson plan has fully taken account of the environmental lobby in Mallorca; much of it is of an extreme environmental Carlist** nature. Have Mr. Davidson and his associates actually run the whole thing by any authority or is it, as it were, a pipe dream, given Mr. Davidson's success with pipes and tubing? The letter-writer also refers to the logistical sense of locating a plant in Mallorca; it's a fair point. To make economic sense, a plant would require the importing of much waste. Yet, not only is Mallorca typically an exporter of much of its waste for recycling, one of the business problems for plastic waste recyclers in other countries has been the actual shortage of waste. This stems, in large part, to a lack of consumer education, and nowhere is more lacking in this regard than Mallorca, and one imagines also on the mainland.
Despite the strength of the environmental voice on the island, the consumer-side mechanics of recycling are not well developed. Just to take plastics. Here you don't get numbers to denote different types of plastic. The local household here places its waste in different communal containers - general and garden; glass; paper; plastic and tin cans. Once, when the plastics truck appeared, I asked the chap if I could chuck in the legs of a broken plastic garden table. No problem. And yet, the chemical make-up of those legs is almost certainly not of a recyclable nature or wanted by a recycler. The US numbering system informs the consumer as to the type of plastic and its consequent recyclability. The easiest and most recyclable plastic products are things such as bottles for water and drinks, shampoos, detergents and those made from polystyrene. Others, e.g. shower curtains, film (as in cling film for example), supermarket bags and Tupperware (and garden tables), are, for differing reasons, not welcomed by recyclers, simply because of the low possibility of actually recycling the stuff. The best way of getting rid of them, other than chucking them in with the other plastics or general waste, and hoping no one notices, is to return them to the manufacturer who then has the headache as to what to do with them.
In Germany the system is altogether more rigorous, one of the strictest you can find. It was Germany, surprise, surprise, that originated the household waste Gestapo that comes and roots around in your containers to check that the waste is in order. The vast municipal dumps in Germany are like open-cast factories of control and organisation. First, they check the contents of your car boot and you have to pay for certain things. Second, you are instructed as to which enormous skip you must go to for which item of waste. Third, there are camp commandants barking out instructions to anyone foolish enough to try and deposit the wrong item in the wrong skip. But at least you know what to do. Every last conceivable product is allocated its own waste treatment.
By contrast, here, as with many other things Spanish, they make a lot of the recycling deal and then can't really be arsed to see it through. Take that exporting of Mallorca's waste. You may recall me mentioning before that during August a vast mountain of waste had grown next to Alcúdia's commercial port. It was there because the recycling firms on the mainland were on holiday. It was perhaps rather indicative of an apparent indifference. There are dumps here, but where is another matter. Whether many use them I very much doubt. One of the first "cultural shocks" on coming to Mallorca was with the disposal of garden waste. I had gathered together several sacks of the stuff, then thought where's the tip. It was only then that I realised you chucked it in with the general household stuff. Great. Much has been made of the increases in "rubbish tax" as a means of paying for more recycle processing, but quite what happens with the stuff that is collected I am not sure. For instance, I don't know if any plastics are currently being recycled on the island. I presume not as, of the stuff that grew into that mountain in Alcúdia, much of it comprised plastic bottles, the main constituent of the current consumer plastic recycling effort.
As a consequence of a not wholly efficient method of collection, lack of labelling, education and enforcement as well as apathy and laziness (you want to see the amount of plastic and glass that gets tossed into the general container), much that might otherwise be ready for recycling ends up as landfill. I have said before that the system here is excellent because you can just chuck any old thing in the rubbish, but I do get pangs of guilt. And all of these things contribute to costs of sorting and to the shortage of certain items, as with plastics for recycling. Which brings us back to the Davidson recycling plan. A lack of "raw material" is one thing, but one must ask if the exporting of plastics to the mainland is because of the absence of a recycling plant or because the island does not want it in its own backyard. Has the Davidson plan got some in-principle agreement or does it lack legs - plastic or otherwise?
* The quoted words come from an article on the emagazine.com website, a good resource for recycling and other environmental issues. I acknowledge this site and the sciencedaily site as sources of some information in the above - http://www.emagazine.com and http://www.sciencedaily.com.
** Carlism was a movement against liberalism in nineteenth-century Spain and which promoted a pure and traditional Catholic state.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Depeche Mode - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzHMhQOU1fE. Today's title - by one of the great weird American bands; maternal.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
My Secret Garden
One of those scandals to which I referred the other day (3 October) has taken an hilarious turn; hilarious and scarcely believable. The scandal centres on payments allegedly received by various individuals in the previous Balearic Government administration in return for contracts. So get this. Buried in the garden of Antonia Ordinas, the ex-director general for economic development and one of those implicated, was the small matter of 200 grands' worth of euros. Now I wonder how that got there. Maybe the dog buried it; that'll be it. Or was this all an innovative approach to economic development? Plant the dosh and watch it grow.
I'm thinking of digging up my garden and looking to see if someone, or some dog, might have been kind enough to have secreted a similar stash. I doubt it; more likely it would reveal a decayed Trevor's body and the resultant swift dash for the first EasyJet out of Palma by a Mandy and a Beth. Just my rotten luck. Though that was the patio; and no, I'm not digging that up. A word to those who may misappropriate funds in the future - could there be a tad more democracy about it, and spread the burying around.
Democracy suffers as a consequence of such scandals, or rather the impulse to effect what becomes a scandal undermines democracy. If people in high places act in such a way, then democracy is shot; trust is a fundamental of the system. The problem is that politics here (and elsewhere, let's not get sanctimonious) is, or has been, like the Tour de France or the Olympics sprint finals; you suspect some of them are doping, but you don't know which ones. So it is, or let's hope was, in public life when it comes to illicitly gained wedges. However, this latest scandal, following on from others both at local and regional governmental levels, is not necessarily an indication of an endemically corrupt system. As I said on 3 October, the greater teeth given to the police and the greater rigour with which they are willing to root out corruption is likely to produce results - and the resultant publicity - that might at one time have been swept under the carpet or buried in the garden.
Nevertheless, the impression is that there was something rotten in the state of the Balearics during the last administration; a former minister is now alleged to have known all about the currently unfolding scandal. Invariably, this makes it a party political matter as the previous administration was controlled by the Partido Popular, while the current one is that of PSOE socialists. The PSOE might though be cautious in claiming the moral high ground when it comes to the schadenfreude of sleaze; just ask New Labour.
And so to today's adventures with the pedestrianising folk of Puerto Pollensa. Firstly, the closure between Elcano and Bot applies to both directions. Previously it was said that the route from Avenida Paris to Alcúdia would remain open. Seemingly, it isn't. Secondly, the "Diario" has unearthed some who actually think it's a good idea, quoting one lady who suggests that tourists in hotels and apartments are delighted. They may well be, but, with the exception of the Hotel Romantic and the odd apartments, the road remains open in front of all the other hotels - Uyal and Pollentia, for example. And are those in the Uyal and Pollentia not delighted? Are they clamouring for a bit of their own front-hotel pedestrianisation? No, I don't suppose they are.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Genesis (again). Today's title - Brit electro pop band; song from the early '80s, but they're still going.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
I'm thinking of digging up my garden and looking to see if someone, or some dog, might have been kind enough to have secreted a similar stash. I doubt it; more likely it would reveal a decayed Trevor's body and the resultant swift dash for the first EasyJet out of Palma by a Mandy and a Beth. Just my rotten luck. Though that was the patio; and no, I'm not digging that up. A word to those who may misappropriate funds in the future - could there be a tad more democracy about it, and spread the burying around.
Democracy suffers as a consequence of such scandals, or rather the impulse to effect what becomes a scandal undermines democracy. If people in high places act in such a way, then democracy is shot; trust is a fundamental of the system. The problem is that politics here (and elsewhere, let's not get sanctimonious) is, or has been, like the Tour de France or the Olympics sprint finals; you suspect some of them are doping, but you don't know which ones. So it is, or let's hope was, in public life when it comes to illicitly gained wedges. However, this latest scandal, following on from others both at local and regional governmental levels, is not necessarily an indication of an endemically corrupt system. As I said on 3 October, the greater teeth given to the police and the greater rigour with which they are willing to root out corruption is likely to produce results - and the resultant publicity - that might at one time have been swept under the carpet or buried in the garden.
Nevertheless, the impression is that there was something rotten in the state of the Balearics during the last administration; a former minister is now alleged to have known all about the currently unfolding scandal. Invariably, this makes it a party political matter as the previous administration was controlled by the Partido Popular, while the current one is that of PSOE socialists. The PSOE might though be cautious in claiming the moral high ground when it comes to the schadenfreude of sleaze; just ask New Labour.
And so to today's adventures with the pedestrianising folk of Puerto Pollensa. Firstly, the closure between Elcano and Bot applies to both directions. Previously it was said that the route from Avenida Paris to Alcúdia would remain open. Seemingly, it isn't. Secondly, the "Diario" has unearthed some who actually think it's a good idea, quoting one lady who suggests that tourists in hotels and apartments are delighted. They may well be, but, with the exception of the Hotel Romantic and the odd apartments, the road remains open in front of all the other hotels - Uyal and Pollentia, for example. And are those in the Uyal and Pollentia not delighted? Are they clamouring for a bit of their own front-hotel pedestrianisation? No, I don't suppose they are.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Genesis (again). Today's title - Brit electro pop band; song from the early '80s, but they're still going.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Match Of The Day
After weeks of confusion, which have seen mysterious Uzbeks as well as a high-energy drinks manufacturer and of course Freddy Shepherd hovering around the club's perimeters, Real Mallorca finally does now appear to be the new pride and joy of Paul Davidson, aka "The Plumber". Debt-ridden owner, Vicente Grande, has signed the sale agreement, and all that is now needed is the final whistle to be blown by the judge signing off on Grande's affairs. There should be no surprise penalty shoot-out. Unfortunate perhaps that Mallorca should choose this past weekend to go down at home to Sporting Gijon, a side previously worse than Tottenham, having lost all five games of the season.
Mr. Davidson has been pursuing the club since July when, or so it would seem, he read about the Shepherd bid, and went along with a much higher one. At the time, it appeared almost like a whim. Since then, he has spoken about Champions League and branding; nothing new, you might think, but what are the prospects?
Real Mallorca is a moderately successful team. It managed seventh in La Liga last season and has featured in both the Champions League and UEFA Cup since the turn of the century. It would be wrong to discount chances of further European adventure. La Liga, though dominated by the big two of Barcelona and Real Madrid, does not present the same obstacles to European breakthrough as the Premier League. A current example is Villarreal who are in this season's Champions League and riding high in La Liga. This is a small-town club. Villarreal, the town, barely scrapes a 50,000 population; the ground holds 22,000. Yet money pumped into the club has helped it to where it is. How long Villarreal can continue to play with the big boys though is open to question. Other wannabes have come and gone. Real Sociedad and Celta Vigo, for example, have fallen out of the top flight and into major financial problems. Debt is an issue for most Spanish teams.
Like England, there is a whole wedge of TV money sloshing around the Spanish league. Making sense of it is another matter, as there have been interminable legal wranglings as to who has what rights, but money there is, and Madrid and Barça have tended to ensure that they get the lion's share of it. Welcome though the broadcasters' benefaction is, the big two have come to be not only Spain's wealthiest clubs but also among the world's wealthiest on the basis of other ingredients - their repeated successes, regular Champions League places, huge stadiums, worldwide brand recognition and tradition. It is when you consider these ingredients that the difficulties for a club like Mallorca become obvious. None of the factors noted above applies. Its stadium is not much bigger than Villarreal's and it is an unknown in world and therefore branding terms.
Villarreal have required substantial additional investment to enable them to compete. This has attracted players like Riquelme and Pires, but neither is exactly in the same league, so to speak, as a Beckham, a Zidane or a Figo. The team's captain is Marcos Senna, the excellent but unexciting bedrock of Spain's Euro Championship-winning side. With a small stadium (like Mallorca's), match-day revenue is a fraction of that which Madrid and Barça can receive. The lessons for Real Mallorca are obvious. Mr. Davidson would need to be prepared to plumb deeply into his coffers and inject a fair old amount of moolah over and above that of his acquisition to get the club anywhere near where he might wish to see it.
One might think that a bit of new stadium building or development might help, but that would be a long-term project and the potential for a new site is almost zero, especially given the environmental resistance here to anything that smacks of rather frivolous use of land. A proposal for a new stadium has been resisted, not least by Palma town hall who, it should be noted, actually own the current stadium. Mr. Davidson could not, even if he were to wish to, move the club out of Palma; his purchase agreement forbids it. Yet even were there to be a larger stadium, it is questionable how easily it might be filled. The club has trouble doing that as it is. Coming back to the Villarreal situation, that club gets regular attendances a couple of thousand under capacity. But it is a club in a small town. Real Mallorca has a whole island to draw on, but cannot. Part of the reason, besides a lack of success, may well be because many Mallorcan football fans side with Barça. When Manchester United played the Catalan side in the last Champions League semi-finals, I went along to a bar in Alcúdia. The people there were watching "their" team. An identification here with things Catalonian is not as readily made as you might think, except when it comes to football and also the quasi-political nature of Barcelona football club. To support Barça is as much about not supporting Real Madrid, and therefore the Spanish mainstream establishment, as it is about a football team.
Creating a larger fan base may mean that the ONO stadium gets close to regular full attendances, but where might these fans come from? If not Mallorcans, then how about the expats? There is a small expat following for Real Mallorca, and an increase in this is something to which Mr. Davidson has alluded, but how realistic is it to think in terms of more becoming regular club supporters? One sticking-point is that many an expat football fan is devoted to one club already - the one back home - and even if that club may not be featuring on Sky, the chances are that this football fan will watch an English game that clashes with a Real Mallorca match. Just because the club will be English-owned does not mean that whole hordes of new, expat fans will flock to the ONO. There is undoubtedly a tourist interest in Real Mallorca, but this is temporary and also determined by the main tourist season. Apart from a handful of games at the start and the end of the football season, there is otherwise no meaningful tourism that might provide short-lived Real Mallorca fans.
One of the Holy Grails of the new breed of football club owners is that of branding and merchandising, with much of it being snapped up by fans in remote parts of the world. For Real Mallorca, the issue starts very much closer to home; in Palma, for example. There was, a while back, a piece in "The Bulletin" which suggested that there was scope for greater merchandising, asking where one could buy a replica shirt in Palma. I don't know the answer as to where one can buy such a thing, except from the club probably. And perhaps that's it. Anyone who wants a shirt has got one. Who else would? The club is, if you like, about the size of a Premier team such as Stoke. With the greatest of respect to Real Mallorca, I imagine that there are Stoke fans dispersed throughout the UK and across the globe who crave the latest shirt; I can't imagine there is the same demand for a Mallorca kit. But shirts are really the least of it. The branding of football clubs is an exercise in selling success, tradition, legacy and great players. The merchandise that flows along with this branding is dependent upon these elements. There are few clubs in the world that can pull this off with any degree of success; their names are obvious - Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal at a pinch, Real Madrid and Barça, Juventus, AC Milan and maybe Inter. Critically, what these clubs have in common is a legacy. It's why Chelsea, for instance, have ground to make up on them in terms of global awareness. And the players that such clubs can attract is vital. Beckham, and the Beckham image, were crucial to Real Madrid as a business.
Paul Davidson's branding aims seem to be rather different. In a piece in "El Mundo" a while back, he explained that he intends to create a new business, based in Mallorca, which will recycle and manufacture plastic products and also, one presumes, to act as a name for marketing his current businesses. The new business will take the name of the football club. In a way he seems about to create a sort of factory team in a reverse fashion to those such as PSV Eindhoven (Philips) or Bayer Leverkusen. He says that this business will make "mucho dinero" in selling to the whole world, and that this mucho will find its way to the team.
In this regard, Mr. Davidson is certainly an original in being willing to invest in the local economy over and above the sole acquisition of the club. But I doubt if I am alone in wondering about the strategy; it sounds curious, but being curious does not mean it is wrong, it could be brilliant. That said, it will still require, firstly, that the club is marketed well and is successful; he is effectively buying the goodwill of the name as a vehicle for other business. Secondly, were he to sell the football club, what would happen to the business? Without the football club, how could he still trade as Real Mallorca S.A.? Thirdly, if he sees Mallorca as a sound place to invest in for the plastics business, why not just do that? Why go to the trouble of buying a football club? The answer to that lies, once again, in the value of the club's name, and the added value it must generate through branding and on-the-pitch success.
I'm sure he knows the answers to these things as he's a shrewd businessman. He is to be wished well in his venture. I, for one, hope he succeeds, and even if he doesn't it will be fascinating to follow a left-field entrepreneurial approach to club ownership backed by a to-be-applauded commitment to the local economy. There has been a fair degree of negative comment in the Spanish press regarding his acquisition. In part, this reflects a parochial perspective in Mallorca. It shouldn't matter who the owner is if the club is successful. But that, I suppose, is the real problem. If it's successful. If not, that press will turn very quickly. Then there will be issues regarding the management of the club. Sr. Grande is to stay as chairman. This might seem wise as it maintains an obvious local element, but Sr. Grande is not universally popular with the Mallorca fans and if the team struggled, would heads roll? Sr. Grande's for example. Much has also been made in the press of the fact that Mr. Davidson should not be attacked as there were no Mallorcans or Spaniards who came forward to buy the club. It's a fair point, but the other way of looking at it is - why didn't they?
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Lightning Seeds - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z28cGUc0Ri0. Today's title - who recorded a song with this title?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Mr. Davidson has been pursuing the club since July when, or so it would seem, he read about the Shepherd bid, and went along with a much higher one. At the time, it appeared almost like a whim. Since then, he has spoken about Champions League and branding; nothing new, you might think, but what are the prospects?
Real Mallorca is a moderately successful team. It managed seventh in La Liga last season and has featured in both the Champions League and UEFA Cup since the turn of the century. It would be wrong to discount chances of further European adventure. La Liga, though dominated by the big two of Barcelona and Real Madrid, does not present the same obstacles to European breakthrough as the Premier League. A current example is Villarreal who are in this season's Champions League and riding high in La Liga. This is a small-town club. Villarreal, the town, barely scrapes a 50,000 population; the ground holds 22,000. Yet money pumped into the club has helped it to where it is. How long Villarreal can continue to play with the big boys though is open to question. Other wannabes have come and gone. Real Sociedad and Celta Vigo, for example, have fallen out of the top flight and into major financial problems. Debt is an issue for most Spanish teams.
Like England, there is a whole wedge of TV money sloshing around the Spanish league. Making sense of it is another matter, as there have been interminable legal wranglings as to who has what rights, but money there is, and Madrid and Barça have tended to ensure that they get the lion's share of it. Welcome though the broadcasters' benefaction is, the big two have come to be not only Spain's wealthiest clubs but also among the world's wealthiest on the basis of other ingredients - their repeated successes, regular Champions League places, huge stadiums, worldwide brand recognition and tradition. It is when you consider these ingredients that the difficulties for a club like Mallorca become obvious. None of the factors noted above applies. Its stadium is not much bigger than Villarreal's and it is an unknown in world and therefore branding terms.
Villarreal have required substantial additional investment to enable them to compete. This has attracted players like Riquelme and Pires, but neither is exactly in the same league, so to speak, as a Beckham, a Zidane or a Figo. The team's captain is Marcos Senna, the excellent but unexciting bedrock of Spain's Euro Championship-winning side. With a small stadium (like Mallorca's), match-day revenue is a fraction of that which Madrid and Barça can receive. The lessons for Real Mallorca are obvious. Mr. Davidson would need to be prepared to plumb deeply into his coffers and inject a fair old amount of moolah over and above that of his acquisition to get the club anywhere near where he might wish to see it.
One might think that a bit of new stadium building or development might help, but that would be a long-term project and the potential for a new site is almost zero, especially given the environmental resistance here to anything that smacks of rather frivolous use of land. A proposal for a new stadium has been resisted, not least by Palma town hall who, it should be noted, actually own the current stadium. Mr. Davidson could not, even if he were to wish to, move the club out of Palma; his purchase agreement forbids it. Yet even were there to be a larger stadium, it is questionable how easily it might be filled. The club has trouble doing that as it is. Coming back to the Villarreal situation, that club gets regular attendances a couple of thousand under capacity. But it is a club in a small town. Real Mallorca has a whole island to draw on, but cannot. Part of the reason, besides a lack of success, may well be because many Mallorcan football fans side with Barça. When Manchester United played the Catalan side in the last Champions League semi-finals, I went along to a bar in Alcúdia. The people there were watching "their" team. An identification here with things Catalonian is not as readily made as you might think, except when it comes to football and also the quasi-political nature of Barcelona football club. To support Barça is as much about not supporting Real Madrid, and therefore the Spanish mainstream establishment, as it is about a football team.
Creating a larger fan base may mean that the ONO stadium gets close to regular full attendances, but where might these fans come from? If not Mallorcans, then how about the expats? There is a small expat following for Real Mallorca, and an increase in this is something to which Mr. Davidson has alluded, but how realistic is it to think in terms of more becoming regular club supporters? One sticking-point is that many an expat football fan is devoted to one club already - the one back home - and even if that club may not be featuring on Sky, the chances are that this football fan will watch an English game that clashes with a Real Mallorca match. Just because the club will be English-owned does not mean that whole hordes of new, expat fans will flock to the ONO. There is undoubtedly a tourist interest in Real Mallorca, but this is temporary and also determined by the main tourist season. Apart from a handful of games at the start and the end of the football season, there is otherwise no meaningful tourism that might provide short-lived Real Mallorca fans.
One of the Holy Grails of the new breed of football club owners is that of branding and merchandising, with much of it being snapped up by fans in remote parts of the world. For Real Mallorca, the issue starts very much closer to home; in Palma, for example. There was, a while back, a piece in "The Bulletin" which suggested that there was scope for greater merchandising, asking where one could buy a replica shirt in Palma. I don't know the answer as to where one can buy such a thing, except from the club probably. And perhaps that's it. Anyone who wants a shirt has got one. Who else would? The club is, if you like, about the size of a Premier team such as Stoke. With the greatest of respect to Real Mallorca, I imagine that there are Stoke fans dispersed throughout the UK and across the globe who crave the latest shirt; I can't imagine there is the same demand for a Mallorca kit. But shirts are really the least of it. The branding of football clubs is an exercise in selling success, tradition, legacy and great players. The merchandise that flows along with this branding is dependent upon these elements. There are few clubs in the world that can pull this off with any degree of success; their names are obvious - Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal at a pinch, Real Madrid and Barça, Juventus, AC Milan and maybe Inter. Critically, what these clubs have in common is a legacy. It's why Chelsea, for instance, have ground to make up on them in terms of global awareness. And the players that such clubs can attract is vital. Beckham, and the Beckham image, were crucial to Real Madrid as a business.
Paul Davidson's branding aims seem to be rather different. In a piece in "El Mundo" a while back, he explained that he intends to create a new business, based in Mallorca, which will recycle and manufacture plastic products and also, one presumes, to act as a name for marketing his current businesses. The new business will take the name of the football club. In a way he seems about to create a sort of factory team in a reverse fashion to those such as PSV Eindhoven (Philips) or Bayer Leverkusen. He says that this business will make "mucho dinero" in selling to the whole world, and that this mucho will find its way to the team.
In this regard, Mr. Davidson is certainly an original in being willing to invest in the local economy over and above the sole acquisition of the club. But I doubt if I am alone in wondering about the strategy; it sounds curious, but being curious does not mean it is wrong, it could be brilliant. That said, it will still require, firstly, that the club is marketed well and is successful; he is effectively buying the goodwill of the name as a vehicle for other business. Secondly, were he to sell the football club, what would happen to the business? Without the football club, how could he still trade as Real Mallorca S.A.? Thirdly, if he sees Mallorca as a sound place to invest in for the plastics business, why not just do that? Why go to the trouble of buying a football club? The answer to that lies, once again, in the value of the club's name, and the added value it must generate through branding and on-the-pitch success.
I'm sure he knows the answers to these things as he's a shrewd businessman. He is to be wished well in his venture. I, for one, hope he succeeds, and even if he doesn't it will be fascinating to follow a left-field entrepreneurial approach to club ownership backed by a to-be-applauded commitment to the local economy. There has been a fair degree of negative comment in the Spanish press regarding his acquisition. In part, this reflects a parochial perspective in Mallorca. It shouldn't matter who the owner is if the club is successful. But that, I suppose, is the real problem. If it's successful. If not, that press will turn very quickly. Then there will be issues regarding the management of the club. Sr. Grande is to stay as chairman. This might seem wise as it maintains an obvious local element, but Sr. Grande is not universally popular with the Mallorca fans and if the team struggled, would heads roll? Sr. Grande's for example. Much has also been made in the press of the fact that Mr. Davidson should not be attacked as there were no Mallorcans or Spaniards who came forward to buy the club. It's a fair point, but the other way of looking at it is - why didn't they?
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Lightning Seeds - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z28cGUc0Ri0. Today's title - who recorded a song with this title?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Monday, October 06, 2008
The Life Of Riley
There was both a "storm" and a "sensation" the other day. The words were those of "The Bulletin". They applied to a story that had appeared in "The Daily Mail". Allegedly, it was the work of one Lynnette Evans, depicted as a disgruntled expat tired of life in Puerto Portals. Her partner claims that only one per cent of what she had actually said made it into the Mail article; she didn't, for instance, live in Puerto Portals. The editor of The Bulletin remarks that the Mail article is "totally different" to the original. One wonders, therefore, what the Mail was seeking to achieve, other than run an expat-in-hell feature, and hell was part of the headline.
I have only seen the Mail article and the rebuttals in the Bulletin. Not having seen the original, it's impossible to pass comment. Yet the Mail article, taken at face value, is venomous in its characterisation of a certain expat type. What it does is to portray an expat lifestyle of shallowness, of shopping and lunch, of image and money obsession and of parties on yachts. It is written about Puerto Portals. Some while ago, I suggested that, were there to be a soap about expats here, Alcúdia would be Eastenders or Corrie, while Pollensa would be Dallas or Dynasty. I was wrong. Pollensa would be Howards' Way; Portals would be Dynasty. Pollensa is sort of wannabe wealth unreality; Portals is the real unreality. Harking back also to that thing about Sardinians having had enough of ostentatious wealth, if and when the Mallorcans choose to start slinging wet sand at the yachts, it will be Portals sand that they use.
An island the size of Essex might, you would think, be fairly homogeneous, but it isn't. While there are pretensions in the north, there is little of the celebrity vanity of parts of the south. I presume that "Celebrity" magazine is still kicking around down south; it never ventures north because the celebrities are penned in to their gated southern communities or are moored along with the yachts in marinas of expensive Sunseekers such as Portals. The Riki Lash column in the Bulletin is partly a big-up for his celeb chums and their restaurants in places like Bendinat. The Mail article taps a similar vein of wealth, celebrity and vacuity; it's not an expat lifestyle I recognise in the north, or maybe I just don't move in the right circles. Sure there are the gofe (sic) clubs and the yachts, but, in my experience, expats are, for the most part, regular people, most of them working and with little time for airs and graces, and this applies all over the island. It ain't the life of Riley for everyone.
I once had the misfortune to go to the Santa Ponsa Country Club. Not that there is anything wrong with the place as such; indeed, it is quite pleasant. But, from a table engaged in a business meeting, one was aware, from the sheer loudness, of the God-awful pretentiousness of some fellow countrymen and women; they were doing lunch, as I imagine they do lunch most days. The Mail, or was it Ms Evans, reckons these lunches can go on till six in the evening.
Among the country club set were some "brown wrinklies" whose exposure to ultra-violet had given them faces lined like shutters. They're the ones who've not overdosed on the cosmetics and the surgery. Down in Portals, do not be surprised to see a Joan Collins-alike, botox baked hard by the sun and expressions as immobile as a waxwork, or a going-to-seed Victoria Principal-ity tottering on Jimmy Choos and toppling over with an uplifted bosom.
On first moving to the island, someone said to me that one of the good things about Mallorca was that people were unconcerned about image. He then went on to tell me about the Porsche he used to drive during his time in the City. I started to become aware of the bling that dangled from his wrists and around his neck. I suspected him of talking bollocks, and he was. He may well have hung out at the country club as Santa Ponsa was his manor.
The Mail is not wrong in identifying one stratum of expat humanity, but it is wrong if it seeks to generalise this to the island as a whole. That some expats may choose to live their lives in a certain way, in a certain shallow way, is for them to decide; the expat community, in its diversity, is merely a reflection of any community. The majority of people I know, and also, or so it would seem, Ms Evans, have taken quite a different decision.
Here is the link for the Mail's article - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1066285/As-revealed-75-000-Britons-emigrating-year-expat-warns-escaping-PARADISE-land-HELL.html
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Mike Read, and this was what disgusted him - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPLrXFw76Qg. Today's title - Liverpool chaps
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
I have only seen the Mail article and the rebuttals in the Bulletin. Not having seen the original, it's impossible to pass comment. Yet the Mail article, taken at face value, is venomous in its characterisation of a certain expat type. What it does is to portray an expat lifestyle of shallowness, of shopping and lunch, of image and money obsession and of parties on yachts. It is written about Puerto Portals. Some while ago, I suggested that, were there to be a soap about expats here, Alcúdia would be Eastenders or Corrie, while Pollensa would be Dallas or Dynasty. I was wrong. Pollensa would be Howards' Way; Portals would be Dynasty. Pollensa is sort of wannabe wealth unreality; Portals is the real unreality. Harking back also to that thing about Sardinians having had enough of ostentatious wealth, if and when the Mallorcans choose to start slinging wet sand at the yachts, it will be Portals sand that they use.
An island the size of Essex might, you would think, be fairly homogeneous, but it isn't. While there are pretensions in the north, there is little of the celebrity vanity of parts of the south. I presume that "Celebrity" magazine is still kicking around down south; it never ventures north because the celebrities are penned in to their gated southern communities or are moored along with the yachts in marinas of expensive Sunseekers such as Portals. The Riki Lash column in the Bulletin is partly a big-up for his celeb chums and their restaurants in places like Bendinat. The Mail article taps a similar vein of wealth, celebrity and vacuity; it's not an expat lifestyle I recognise in the north, or maybe I just don't move in the right circles. Sure there are the gofe (sic) clubs and the yachts, but, in my experience, expats are, for the most part, regular people, most of them working and with little time for airs and graces, and this applies all over the island. It ain't the life of Riley for everyone.
I once had the misfortune to go to the Santa Ponsa Country Club. Not that there is anything wrong with the place as such; indeed, it is quite pleasant. But, from a table engaged in a business meeting, one was aware, from the sheer loudness, of the God-awful pretentiousness of some fellow countrymen and women; they were doing lunch, as I imagine they do lunch most days. The Mail, or was it Ms Evans, reckons these lunches can go on till six in the evening.
Among the country club set were some "brown wrinklies" whose exposure to ultra-violet had given them faces lined like shutters. They're the ones who've not overdosed on the cosmetics and the surgery. Down in Portals, do not be surprised to see a Joan Collins-alike, botox baked hard by the sun and expressions as immobile as a waxwork, or a going-to-seed Victoria Principal-ity tottering on Jimmy Choos and toppling over with an uplifted bosom.
On first moving to the island, someone said to me that one of the good things about Mallorca was that people were unconcerned about image. He then went on to tell me about the Porsche he used to drive during his time in the City. I started to become aware of the bling that dangled from his wrists and around his neck. I suspected him of talking bollocks, and he was. He may well have hung out at the country club as Santa Ponsa was his manor.
The Mail is not wrong in identifying one stratum of expat humanity, but it is wrong if it seeks to generalise this to the island as a whole. That some expats may choose to live their lives in a certain way, in a certain shallow way, is for them to decide; the expat community, in its diversity, is merely a reflection of any community. The majority of people I know, and also, or so it would seem, Ms Evans, have taken quite a different decision.
Here is the link for the Mail's article - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1066285/As-revealed-75-000-Britons-emigrating-year-expat-warns-escaping-PARADISE-land-HELL.html
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Mike Read, and this was what disgusted him - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPLrXFw76Qg. Today's title - Liverpool chaps
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Relax? Won't Do It
Credit needed. Fat chance, you might think. The organisation for small to medium-sized businesses is asking for a relaxation of the rules to allow banks to extend credit to small businesses which are, or will be, struggling. I doubt that there will be any relaxation.
One of the reasons why Spain is in a relatively good position to withstand the worst of the financial and banking crisis is the regulation of banks. While some of the smaller savings banks may be vulnerable, the larger ones should be safe enough. At the heart of this is an old stipulation put into place by the Bank of Spain which forced banks to build up reserves to combat precisely the kind of crisis that has engulfed institutions elsewhere. The banks had to create reserves to meet bad loans. Santander, the saviour of Bradford & Bingley, benefited from such sound management as well as an acquisition policy that has made it one of Europe's leading banks. Moreover, the national bank's rules prevented much of the bundling of mortgage risk into financial products, the type of which led to the toxic debt of the sub-prime crisis in the USA.
Nevertheless, there has been an almighty amount of lending, and therefore debt, in the form of mortgages, and now there is the problem of people who have taken on large mortgages for overpriced properties being unable to meet higher mortgage repayments but unable to lower prices of these properties. The banks are trying to be accommodating, but there is also so little mortgage lending occurring at present that those facing negative equity are unlikely to attract buyers even if those buyers were persuaded to pay the prices being sought to cover the high mortgages. In this climate, therefore, it is difficult to see how the banks can be persuaded to take a more relaxed attitude towards their business lending. This could have quite significant repercussions. Businesses, such as bars or restaurants, that are available for purchase might normally be snapped up, but unless a buyer has the cash or certainly the bulk of it, a loan is far less likely to be offered as part of the purchase package. One can anticipate, perhaps, that more businesses may stay closed with no purchaser and the owner unable to trade. Another aspect of the credit crunch is likely to be felt as the new season next year approaches. It is not uncommon, certainly at the start of the season, for businesses to get credit from suppliers. Yet these suppliers may well be seeking credit from their suppliers, and so the cycle goes. If the banks won't assist and if suppliers are reluctant to either, then one does wonder how easy some businesses are going to find even getting going next year.
EVER MORE PEDESTRIANISATION AND ROAD SIGNS
And once more into the breach, dear friends, the breech position of the Puerto Pollensa pedestrianisation, now with added Bot dimension. Where would we be without it? The press had it that the trial closure of the front line was to be between the Calle Elcano and the Avenida Paris. It isn't. Apologies, because I said before that it was, because that was how it was being reported. Yesterday morning, I happened to spy a notice in the El Pozo bar in the port. It said that the closure was to be between Elcano and Calle Bot. For those who do not know, Calle Bot is the road that goes past the Pollensa Park hotel; it is further down the road than Avenida Paris going towards Alcúdia. So I went and checked, and the diversion sign does indeed send traffic along Calle Bot. Thanks for the misinformation.
As far as the Gotmar residents challenge is concerned, this doesn't change things that much, albeit that the Calle Bot and then the Calle Cadernera meet up with the roundabout on the new road for Gotmar. More of an issue perhaps, were this to become a permanentish state, is that the Calle Bot is not a road designed to take great volumes of traffic. It may no longer be the pitted and potted horror it once was, but it is narrow, and when there are delivery trucks parked up by the bars, Bot is also a pain in the arse. However, I sense in all this a cunning plan by Mayor Cerdà. He and his town hall chums will already know that Bot is a botch of impracticality. So at some point they will sit in session and say that it's not quite working, this Bot-ty passage. And some bright spark, who has been rehearsing the lines handed to him, will receive the end of the metaphorical mayoral pointed stick, spring to attention and declare that there is a road that is suitable for traffic, the Avenida Llenaire. And they will all nod their heads and say, "why didn't we think of that?". Though of course they did and had, as this was the plan all along - to pedestrianise the whole of the road from Llenaire. And so it will happen because the alternative has been designed to fail. Cue ever more angst in the ranks of the Gotmar radicals.
Now that the pedestrianisation trial has been started, there is still the question of the road signs. As one comes to the junction of Juan XXIII, the road down to the roundabout by the entrance to the nautical club, and the Calle Vicente Buades, the road signs show right for Palma and Pollensa and left for Alcúdia. Ever since the new road opened, this has been a nonsense; it is now even more of a nonsense, as you can of course no longer get to Alcúdia if you happen to go left, which of course many a tourist in a hire car will attempt. Go left, go right, who knows?
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Paul Young (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l8D0aFVjvg). Today's title - no prizes except for knowing which DJ saw to its banning by Radio One.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
One of the reasons why Spain is in a relatively good position to withstand the worst of the financial and banking crisis is the regulation of banks. While some of the smaller savings banks may be vulnerable, the larger ones should be safe enough. At the heart of this is an old stipulation put into place by the Bank of Spain which forced banks to build up reserves to combat precisely the kind of crisis that has engulfed institutions elsewhere. The banks had to create reserves to meet bad loans. Santander, the saviour of Bradford & Bingley, benefited from such sound management as well as an acquisition policy that has made it one of Europe's leading banks. Moreover, the national bank's rules prevented much of the bundling of mortgage risk into financial products, the type of which led to the toxic debt of the sub-prime crisis in the USA.
Nevertheless, there has been an almighty amount of lending, and therefore debt, in the form of mortgages, and now there is the problem of people who have taken on large mortgages for overpriced properties being unable to meet higher mortgage repayments but unable to lower prices of these properties. The banks are trying to be accommodating, but there is also so little mortgage lending occurring at present that those facing negative equity are unlikely to attract buyers even if those buyers were persuaded to pay the prices being sought to cover the high mortgages. In this climate, therefore, it is difficult to see how the banks can be persuaded to take a more relaxed attitude towards their business lending. This could have quite significant repercussions. Businesses, such as bars or restaurants, that are available for purchase might normally be snapped up, but unless a buyer has the cash or certainly the bulk of it, a loan is far less likely to be offered as part of the purchase package. One can anticipate, perhaps, that more businesses may stay closed with no purchaser and the owner unable to trade. Another aspect of the credit crunch is likely to be felt as the new season next year approaches. It is not uncommon, certainly at the start of the season, for businesses to get credit from suppliers. Yet these suppliers may well be seeking credit from their suppliers, and so the cycle goes. If the banks won't assist and if suppliers are reluctant to either, then one does wonder how easy some businesses are going to find even getting going next year.
EVER MORE PEDESTRIANISATION AND ROAD SIGNS
And once more into the breach, dear friends, the breech position of the Puerto Pollensa pedestrianisation, now with added Bot dimension. Where would we be without it? The press had it that the trial closure of the front line was to be between the Calle Elcano and the Avenida Paris. It isn't. Apologies, because I said before that it was, because that was how it was being reported. Yesterday morning, I happened to spy a notice in the El Pozo bar in the port. It said that the closure was to be between Elcano and Calle Bot. For those who do not know, Calle Bot is the road that goes past the Pollensa Park hotel; it is further down the road than Avenida Paris going towards Alcúdia. So I went and checked, and the diversion sign does indeed send traffic along Calle Bot. Thanks for the misinformation.
As far as the Gotmar residents challenge is concerned, this doesn't change things that much, albeit that the Calle Bot and then the Calle Cadernera meet up with the roundabout on the new road for Gotmar. More of an issue perhaps, were this to become a permanentish state, is that the Calle Bot is not a road designed to take great volumes of traffic. It may no longer be the pitted and potted horror it once was, but it is narrow, and when there are delivery trucks parked up by the bars, Bot is also a pain in the arse. However, I sense in all this a cunning plan by Mayor Cerdà. He and his town hall chums will already know that Bot is a botch of impracticality. So at some point they will sit in session and say that it's not quite working, this Bot-ty passage. And some bright spark, who has been rehearsing the lines handed to him, will receive the end of the metaphorical mayoral pointed stick, spring to attention and declare that there is a road that is suitable for traffic, the Avenida Llenaire. And they will all nod their heads and say, "why didn't we think of that?". Though of course they did and had, as this was the plan all along - to pedestrianise the whole of the road from Llenaire. And so it will happen because the alternative has been designed to fail. Cue ever more angst in the ranks of the Gotmar radicals.
Now that the pedestrianisation trial has been started, there is still the question of the road signs. As one comes to the junction of Juan XXIII, the road down to the roundabout by the entrance to the nautical club, and the Calle Vicente Buades, the road signs show right for Palma and Pollensa and left for Alcúdia. Ever since the new road opened, this has been a nonsense; it is now even more of a nonsense, as you can of course no longer get to Alcúdia if you happen to go left, which of course many a tourist in a hire car will attempt. Go left, go right, who knows?
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Paul Young (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l8D0aFVjvg). Today's title - no prizes except for knowing which DJ saw to its banning by Radio One.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Wherever I Lay My Hat, That's My Home
In following up on the piece of 23 September (I Don't Belong Here), I'd like to thank Colin for his considered comments. The nub of these concerned the notion that existing or old definitions do not necessarily obtain any longer - specifically, in respect of so-called expatriate integration. In citing Arthur C. Clarke, he referred to the idea of a society in which, inter alia, one's allegiance is to a place where one feels ideologically "at home". Philosophical this may be, but it is helpful in directing the debate regarding integration into altogether more fertile territory.
Integration implies a transformation into a state of some permanence in that the expat adopts, pretty well lock, stock and barrel, the mores of his new country, or Mallorca from our perspective. This permanence is not just a case of "being there" but also a permanence in the mind, a new way of thinking or the discarding of previous influences. My argument the other day was that the media are complicit in preventing this, and therefore a state of permanence or integration is unattainable. Whatever role the media may play, I'm not sure that either integration is the right description or indeed that what it implies is wholly desirable.
When one talks in socio-political terms of a "narrative", one refers to a form of "story" with which an idea, ideology or philosophy is conveyed. The integration "narrative" is too precise; it ignores a whole raft of issues, be they psychological ones, be they religious, political, cultural or merely personal. I spoke the other day to a friend in Holland. She has lived there for 17 years; she has a Dutch husband and a daughter. What was integration for her? It was the whole shooting-match, of language and assumption of a different culture, displacing that with which she had grown up. She neither felt integrated, nor did she wish to be. Tellingly, were she to be integrated, she would no longer be who she is or was. I have a friend who has lived in Barcelona for about 30 years; he is married (to a Peruvian woman as it happens) and has a daughter now at university. He is fluent in the language, but his "integration" does not extend to not reading a British daily newspaper or to not regaling me with emails brimful of cricket, football and of old mates and our pranks in England. I once asked if he'd taken to supporting Barça. No effing way. He's still a Derby man and still sounds every bit a Derby man. By the same token, there are many here who, despite many years residence, display similar disregard to obvious statements of integration. As the clichéd maxim would have it, you can take the boy (or girl) out of London (or Derby or wherever), but you can't take London out of the boy. And this is surely the point. One defines oneself by who one is, not necessarily by where one lives. Integration, in its fullest sense, is undesirable as it requires psychological, cultural and personality dislocation. Clarke's notion of feeling "at home" does perhaps come closer as a narrative for the expatriate, and this "at home", in one's mind, can be whatever one chooses, be it the route of more or less everything British or most things Mallorcan.
The political desire for and hence narrative regarding "integration" is founded on the notion, pretty much, of total assimilation. In Britain, one has the dichotomy of integration and multi-culturalism residing alongside each other in the political narrative. The two states are essentially mutually exclusive. The assimilation of British immigration is an issue way beyond where I want to go here, but the same narrative does not really apply to expats coming to Mallorca. The fluidity of movement, especially from Britain into Spain, does not suggest permanence; the expat may come for a period and then decide to return. Moreover, the choice of moving from Britain is rarely one of economic need, as is the case with much immigration to Britain; it is essentially a lifestyle decision, even for those who do come to work. The consequence of this is then one of convenience. The expat, shielded by the existence of a ready-made community, readily-available media and readily-bookable flights "home" if wished, can cherry pick what he or she wants from the Mallorcan way of life; there is little urgency or pressure to do otherwise. To quote Colin - "with this sort of perspective (that of Clarke's "at home") one could have as much or as little ‘integration’ as one wanted without attracting opprobrium". And to take another cliché - home is where the heart is. Clarke's home is Mallorca if that is where the heart is, but the head determines how Mallorcan that home becomes.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Billy Bragg. Today's title - which British singer had a number one?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Integration implies a transformation into a state of some permanence in that the expat adopts, pretty well lock, stock and barrel, the mores of his new country, or Mallorca from our perspective. This permanence is not just a case of "being there" but also a permanence in the mind, a new way of thinking or the discarding of previous influences. My argument the other day was that the media are complicit in preventing this, and therefore a state of permanence or integration is unattainable. Whatever role the media may play, I'm not sure that either integration is the right description or indeed that what it implies is wholly desirable.
When one talks in socio-political terms of a "narrative", one refers to a form of "story" with which an idea, ideology or philosophy is conveyed. The integration "narrative" is too precise; it ignores a whole raft of issues, be they psychological ones, be they religious, political, cultural or merely personal. I spoke the other day to a friend in Holland. She has lived there for 17 years; she has a Dutch husband and a daughter. What was integration for her? It was the whole shooting-match, of language and assumption of a different culture, displacing that with which she had grown up. She neither felt integrated, nor did she wish to be. Tellingly, were she to be integrated, she would no longer be who she is or was. I have a friend who has lived in Barcelona for about 30 years; he is married (to a Peruvian woman as it happens) and has a daughter now at university. He is fluent in the language, but his "integration" does not extend to not reading a British daily newspaper or to not regaling me with emails brimful of cricket, football and of old mates and our pranks in England. I once asked if he'd taken to supporting Barça. No effing way. He's still a Derby man and still sounds every bit a Derby man. By the same token, there are many here who, despite many years residence, display similar disregard to obvious statements of integration. As the clichéd maxim would have it, you can take the boy (or girl) out of London (or Derby or wherever), but you can't take London out of the boy. And this is surely the point. One defines oneself by who one is, not necessarily by where one lives. Integration, in its fullest sense, is undesirable as it requires psychological, cultural and personality dislocation. Clarke's notion of feeling "at home" does perhaps come closer as a narrative for the expatriate, and this "at home", in one's mind, can be whatever one chooses, be it the route of more or less everything British or most things Mallorcan.
The political desire for and hence narrative regarding "integration" is founded on the notion, pretty much, of total assimilation. In Britain, one has the dichotomy of integration and multi-culturalism residing alongside each other in the political narrative. The two states are essentially mutually exclusive. The assimilation of British immigration is an issue way beyond where I want to go here, but the same narrative does not really apply to expats coming to Mallorca. The fluidity of movement, especially from Britain into Spain, does not suggest permanence; the expat may come for a period and then decide to return. Moreover, the choice of moving from Britain is rarely one of economic need, as is the case with much immigration to Britain; it is essentially a lifestyle decision, even for those who do come to work. The consequence of this is then one of convenience. The expat, shielded by the existence of a ready-made community, readily-available media and readily-bookable flights "home" if wished, can cherry pick what he or she wants from the Mallorcan way of life; there is little urgency or pressure to do otherwise. To quote Colin - "with this sort of perspective (that of Clarke's "at home") one could have as much or as little ‘integration’ as one wanted without attracting opprobrium". And to take another cliché - home is where the heart is. Clarke's home is Mallorca if that is where the heart is, but the head determines how Mallorcan that home becomes.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Billy Bragg. Today's title - which British singer had a number one?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Friday, October 03, 2008
Bread And Circuses
My university had a collegiate system; it still does. What this meant was that, in addition to a central student union body politic, each of the college JCRs (junior common rooms) had a mirror political organisation. The "executives" typically comprised half-a-dozen elected "officials". Nowadays, I understand, these have more than doubled; there are even three social secretaries. How many social secretaries does it take to arrange a piss-up? Whatever.
As students, much of our politics was taken ultra seriously. Much of it was also interminably boring and utterly irrelevant. I was president of one of these JCRs. Occasionally, I would lapse into a bout of deranged seriousness before being dragged out of it by being reminded that I was also partly responsible for what was for those already politically correct days an outrageous alternative student publication. (And if one wonders as to some of the origins of contemporary British political correctness, the national student movement under Jack Straw and, in my time, Charles Clarke, is a good place to start.)
Student politics of that time were dominated by the Broad Left (anything from old-style Labour through to Marxist Communism), but the JCRs and the central union were pretty catholic in their executive make-up. Proportional representation and the single transferrable vote saw to it that the executives were coalitions of divergent political ideologies. One JCR was different; two to be exact. Both were "run" by a non-affilated grouping of which I was one. We had a hold over the two JCRs thanks to a wide network of mates, thanks to policies of "bread and circuses" to anaesthetise the masses, thanks to periodic character assassinations of opponents, thanks to the odd bit of manipulation here or there. We were, after a fashion, a nationalist local party who took power mainly for power's sake. We had fallings-out among ourselves, but never for policy reasons because there weren't any, other than making enormous amounts of alcohol dirt cheap. We did more or less as we liked. There were few checks and balances. General meetings that threatened censure were packed with supporters and the amenable, and the publications were under our control. In truth, we were probably more Stalinist than those who were card-carriers.
Local Mallorca politics is like student politics. It mirrors the real thing but is ultimately somewhat futile. Parties follow the mainstream and others are created out of perhaps honourable notions of representation of a people but are also the manifestation of power grab. For an island of some one million people, the number of "colleges" (the municipalities) is prolific; the smallness of the communities feeds the networks of mates who seek and support power. The municipalities can affect certain things, but they are also responsible for their own bread and circuses in the form of fiestas and fireworks; they are social secretariats writ large. There are questionable checks and balances, as the periodic scandals testify to. Ultimately, politics at town hall level and even island level defers to the centre when it comes to the really crucial issues, such as the current economic problems. At a practical level, the proliferation of centres of democracy and the existence of various party groupings spread whatever talent there is thin to the point of debatable existence.
Instinctively, I am drawn to the highly decentralised, local model of democracy, as it exists in Mallorca, but that is not to say that it doesn't have its faults. However, the party structure and the electoral system, which invariably results in coalition, make local politics a playground that imitates Madrid and give rise to in-fighting and cross-party fighting. Localness can lose a local focus when the politics becomes the main purpose. The checks and balances inherent to a coalition seem not to function when one party assumes and asserts greater power. Take the scandals. Theoretically, these should not arise under a system of cross-party executives, but they do. Even trifling matters, such as the use of Catalan only by the Pollensa town hall, as I mentioned the other day, should be challenged and prevented by non-nationalists, but they are not.
The alleged turmoil within the Unió Mallorquina, that has arisen because of the sacking of aides by the UM's tourism minister, and scandals, of which there are two more major ones floating around, have led some to question the purpose and sense of localism. While the party nature of local politics can undermine the credibility of the island's local democracy model, it is not necessarily the case that the scandals do. One reason for their arising is the greater force with which corruption is being tackled than used to be the case. It may once have been the case that those who acted in a corrupt or fraudulent manner would have believed that friends in high places would see to it that they were immune. Not any longer. The mates network is beginning to fall apart in this respect.
What needs to be taken into account is the youthfulness of Mallorcan and Spanish democracy. Thirty years and they are still finding their feet. Pollensa's engagement of an outside company to draw up its budgets may be an admission of lack of competence, but it is competent in admitting an independent analysis; it edges the town halls towards a system of external audit which would check not only the potential for misappropriation but also the dominance of one party's say-so.
There is much that is downright stupid about the island's local politics, but the hope is that, as the model matures and is shaped, that politics becomes less like that of the student JCR and more credible. In the wider scheme of things, it will always be "somewhat futile", but the closeness of democracy is a not unworthy aim and should not be swept away because of the apparent inability of some politicians to see eye to eye or because of scandals.
And still with Pollensa town hall, the pedestrianisation imbroglio now finds the Gotmar revolutionaries willing to indeed take legal action. Garry Bonsall may well feel that there is a chance of success; I hope he's right, it could be an expensive and lengthy process. The environmental pretext for challenging the town hall is one thing, the apparent lack of consultation is another. It is precisely this that should be a central plank of local democracy. If indeed it has not been conducted satisfactorily, then there is much to commend Garry's move. As a test case, it could help to define more clearly the responsibilities of town halls - all part of that maturing and shaping of the local political model.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Hollies. Today's title - English political folky.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
As students, much of our politics was taken ultra seriously. Much of it was also interminably boring and utterly irrelevant. I was president of one of these JCRs. Occasionally, I would lapse into a bout of deranged seriousness before being dragged out of it by being reminded that I was also partly responsible for what was for those already politically correct days an outrageous alternative student publication. (And if one wonders as to some of the origins of contemporary British political correctness, the national student movement under Jack Straw and, in my time, Charles Clarke, is a good place to start.)
Student politics of that time were dominated by the Broad Left (anything from old-style Labour through to Marxist Communism), but the JCRs and the central union were pretty catholic in their executive make-up. Proportional representation and the single transferrable vote saw to it that the executives were coalitions of divergent political ideologies. One JCR was different; two to be exact. Both were "run" by a non-affilated grouping of which I was one. We had a hold over the two JCRs thanks to a wide network of mates, thanks to policies of "bread and circuses" to anaesthetise the masses, thanks to periodic character assassinations of opponents, thanks to the odd bit of manipulation here or there. We were, after a fashion, a nationalist local party who took power mainly for power's sake. We had fallings-out among ourselves, but never for policy reasons because there weren't any, other than making enormous amounts of alcohol dirt cheap. We did more or less as we liked. There were few checks and balances. General meetings that threatened censure were packed with supporters and the amenable, and the publications were under our control. In truth, we were probably more Stalinist than those who were card-carriers.
Local Mallorca politics is like student politics. It mirrors the real thing but is ultimately somewhat futile. Parties follow the mainstream and others are created out of perhaps honourable notions of representation of a people but are also the manifestation of power grab. For an island of some one million people, the number of "colleges" (the municipalities) is prolific; the smallness of the communities feeds the networks of mates who seek and support power. The municipalities can affect certain things, but they are also responsible for their own bread and circuses in the form of fiestas and fireworks; they are social secretariats writ large. There are questionable checks and balances, as the periodic scandals testify to. Ultimately, politics at town hall level and even island level defers to the centre when it comes to the really crucial issues, such as the current economic problems. At a practical level, the proliferation of centres of democracy and the existence of various party groupings spread whatever talent there is thin to the point of debatable existence.
Instinctively, I am drawn to the highly decentralised, local model of democracy, as it exists in Mallorca, but that is not to say that it doesn't have its faults. However, the party structure and the electoral system, which invariably results in coalition, make local politics a playground that imitates Madrid and give rise to in-fighting and cross-party fighting. Localness can lose a local focus when the politics becomes the main purpose. The checks and balances inherent to a coalition seem not to function when one party assumes and asserts greater power. Take the scandals. Theoretically, these should not arise under a system of cross-party executives, but they do. Even trifling matters, such as the use of Catalan only by the Pollensa town hall, as I mentioned the other day, should be challenged and prevented by non-nationalists, but they are not.
The alleged turmoil within the Unió Mallorquina, that has arisen because of the sacking of aides by the UM's tourism minister, and scandals, of which there are two more major ones floating around, have led some to question the purpose and sense of localism. While the party nature of local politics can undermine the credibility of the island's local democracy model, it is not necessarily the case that the scandals do. One reason for their arising is the greater force with which corruption is being tackled than used to be the case. It may once have been the case that those who acted in a corrupt or fraudulent manner would have believed that friends in high places would see to it that they were immune. Not any longer. The mates network is beginning to fall apart in this respect.
What needs to be taken into account is the youthfulness of Mallorcan and Spanish democracy. Thirty years and they are still finding their feet. Pollensa's engagement of an outside company to draw up its budgets may be an admission of lack of competence, but it is competent in admitting an independent analysis; it edges the town halls towards a system of external audit which would check not only the potential for misappropriation but also the dominance of one party's say-so.
There is much that is downright stupid about the island's local politics, but the hope is that, as the model matures and is shaped, that politics becomes less like that of the student JCR and more credible. In the wider scheme of things, it will always be "somewhat futile", but the closeness of democracy is a not unworthy aim and should not be swept away because of the apparent inability of some politicians to see eye to eye or because of scandals.
And still with Pollensa town hall, the pedestrianisation imbroglio now finds the Gotmar revolutionaries willing to indeed take legal action. Garry Bonsall may well feel that there is a chance of success; I hope he's right, it could be an expensive and lengthy process. The environmental pretext for challenging the town hall is one thing, the apparent lack of consultation is another. It is precisely this that should be a central plank of local democracy. If indeed it has not been conducted satisfactorily, then there is much to commend Garry's move. As a test case, it could help to define more clearly the responsibilities of town halls - all part of that maturing and shaping of the local political model.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Hollies. Today's title - English political folky.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Here I Go Again
Oh, oh, people, people, listen up. I have said before that I really, really appreciate comments coming into me as emails. The problem with the comments facility with the blogger system is that they can be left anonymously - unless, that is, I make it that only "members" can comment, which I don't want to do. But I don't like anonymity. If someone has something to say, it would be wonderful to do so openly. The other point about the comments facility is that, as the blog moves on so quickly, it doesn't really lend itself to responses and more comments, so a comment to a piece from a few days ago or longer ago gets lost. If it is sent as an email, I can either reproduce the comment, quote from it and/or correspond with you directly if you so wish. Not though do I wish to deter the anonymous who then become regular email correspondents with incisive comments to make. To that end, Colin, I haven't forgotten the follow-up integration piece; it's on its way.
Anyway, that all said, there was such a comment to the piece of 25 September (The Sun Ain't Shining No More). This said that it was an interesting article but wanted to know what the "one or two attractions" that I referred to were. It's a fair question, and it deserves an answer. One reason for not setting these out in the previous piece was that I had covered this before, so I didn't necessarily wish to repeat myself. However, I am aware that new people come to the blog all the time, so perhaps a degree of repetition is worthwhile.
The context of the comment and of the article was, of course, that old chestnut, winter tourism, one that gets roasted over an open butane-gas heater every winter only to find, when the shell is opened, that there is nothing but a rotten fruit of inconsequentiality. The grand winter tourism delusion is that a mix of often vaguely thought-out niches with equally vague notions of demand is somehow going to magic an off-season of visitor riches. A bit of golf and cycling, a bit of culture and history, a bit of gastronomy, a bit of shopping; these make for the stuff of the delusion. This is not to deny that there is a nice little niche for all these, but little is the operative word, and little is not a word expressed enthusiastically in the tour operator, the hotel or the airline lexicon. As importantly, the belief that Mallorca can be in some way re-branded or double-branded as a tourism centre without a unifying message - and all those bits do not add up to a unified message - overlooks the strength of the real Mallorca brand, namely sun, sea, sangria, the f-word (fun) and the e-word (entertainment). That is the Mallorca brand. All the rest is an, if you like, sub-brand that filters through the main brand. All this rest exists as a support mechanism, not as the control room.
Winter attractions do exist, mainly in the south, such as the Palma Aquarium. They do not, in themselves, make for a great winter tourist demand. Attractions I have in mind are on an altogether grander scale, and the Gran Escala project near Zaragoza is, or should be, the sort of thing to not just put fear up the Mallorcan tourist authorities but also make them consider, digest and wonder - what if? What if all those casinos, all those theme parks and all those hotels? On a less grand scale, take the conversion of the old power station in Alcúdia. A shiny science museum might sound prestigious, but it ain't going to bring in loads of punters expressly to visit it. Build a Center Parcs. Of course they'd would come. They go to those in the UK and Holland, and the weather's worse. Or. Those fiestas of January; Sant Antoni especially. A damn great theme park near Sa Pobla, the centre of Sant Antoni on the island, with demons as the central motif. All year with virtual devils and fire-runs and some that are for real. EuroDemon.
Yes, some of this may well sound blue sky, it would appal the environmental lobby and the conservative Mallorcan mindset with an inward-looking perspective which believes that a heritage and history of marginal, relative importance allied to a romantic image will result in mini-mass tourism. It will not. Some of the above may be rubbish. I am willing to accept that, but you get nowhere without some perhaps insane thinking. The editor of "The Bulletin" once called for a bit of imagination. Quite agree. And I've offered it, along with other views about the promotion of Mallorca over the months and now years.
But then of course there are the politicians ...
FOOTBALL SHIRTS
Oh my Mellors, oh my Spoonys, oh my Alan Greens of "what do you think about Orient's chances this season" 6-0-6. Danny Baker is back on Tuesdays. Twice sacked from the show he originated, and probably about to make it a third. But not before he has raised and then trashed the folly that is the football replica kit. "Nothing is more depressing and distressing (when on holiday) than someone coming towards you in a Yeovil shirt." Could be any other of course.
I confess. I have never owned one item of football replica. The only Spurs paraphernalia I ever had was a scarf - three of them in fact - until, that is, the third went the way of the other two during the ritual Saturday post-match beating at the hands of Chelsea fans in Victoria station. But not only are whole Far-Eastern sweat shops of footie replica paraded on the summer streets of puertos Alcúdia and Pollensa, I even have friends here who wear such stuff. Integration? Expat integration? Hand me that Real Mallorca shirt. On second thoughts, don't bother.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Squeeze: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JYiylIluQQ. Today's title - one of them went on to team up with a former Byrd and a nearly Monkee.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Anyway, that all said, there was such a comment to the piece of 25 September (The Sun Ain't Shining No More). This said that it was an interesting article but wanted to know what the "one or two attractions" that I referred to were. It's a fair question, and it deserves an answer. One reason for not setting these out in the previous piece was that I had covered this before, so I didn't necessarily wish to repeat myself. However, I am aware that new people come to the blog all the time, so perhaps a degree of repetition is worthwhile.
The context of the comment and of the article was, of course, that old chestnut, winter tourism, one that gets roasted over an open butane-gas heater every winter only to find, when the shell is opened, that there is nothing but a rotten fruit of inconsequentiality. The grand winter tourism delusion is that a mix of often vaguely thought-out niches with equally vague notions of demand is somehow going to magic an off-season of visitor riches. A bit of golf and cycling, a bit of culture and history, a bit of gastronomy, a bit of shopping; these make for the stuff of the delusion. This is not to deny that there is a nice little niche for all these, but little is the operative word, and little is not a word expressed enthusiastically in the tour operator, the hotel or the airline lexicon. As importantly, the belief that Mallorca can be in some way re-branded or double-branded as a tourism centre without a unifying message - and all those bits do not add up to a unified message - overlooks the strength of the real Mallorca brand, namely sun, sea, sangria, the f-word (fun) and the e-word (entertainment). That is the Mallorca brand. All the rest is an, if you like, sub-brand that filters through the main brand. All this rest exists as a support mechanism, not as the control room.
Winter attractions do exist, mainly in the south, such as the Palma Aquarium. They do not, in themselves, make for a great winter tourist demand. Attractions I have in mind are on an altogether grander scale, and the Gran Escala project near Zaragoza is, or should be, the sort of thing to not just put fear up the Mallorcan tourist authorities but also make them consider, digest and wonder - what if? What if all those casinos, all those theme parks and all those hotels? On a less grand scale, take the conversion of the old power station in Alcúdia. A shiny science museum might sound prestigious, but it ain't going to bring in loads of punters expressly to visit it. Build a Center Parcs. Of course they'd would come. They go to those in the UK and Holland, and the weather's worse. Or. Those fiestas of January; Sant Antoni especially. A damn great theme park near Sa Pobla, the centre of Sant Antoni on the island, with demons as the central motif. All year with virtual devils and fire-runs and some that are for real. EuroDemon.
Yes, some of this may well sound blue sky, it would appal the environmental lobby and the conservative Mallorcan mindset with an inward-looking perspective which believes that a heritage and history of marginal, relative importance allied to a romantic image will result in mini-mass tourism. It will not. Some of the above may be rubbish. I am willing to accept that, but you get nowhere without some perhaps insane thinking. The editor of "The Bulletin" once called for a bit of imagination. Quite agree. And I've offered it, along with other views about the promotion of Mallorca over the months and now years.
But then of course there are the politicians ...
FOOTBALL SHIRTS
Oh my Mellors, oh my Spoonys, oh my Alan Greens of "what do you think about Orient's chances this season" 6-0-6. Danny Baker is back on Tuesdays. Twice sacked from the show he originated, and probably about to make it a third. But not before he has raised and then trashed the folly that is the football replica kit. "Nothing is more depressing and distressing (when on holiday) than someone coming towards you in a Yeovil shirt." Could be any other of course.
I confess. I have never owned one item of football replica. The only Spurs paraphernalia I ever had was a scarf - three of them in fact - until, that is, the third went the way of the other two during the ritual Saturday post-match beating at the hands of Chelsea fans in Victoria station. But not only are whole Far-Eastern sweat shops of footie replica paraded on the summer streets of puertos Alcúdia and Pollensa, I even have friends here who wear such stuff. Integration? Expat integration? Hand me that Real Mallorca shirt. On second thoughts, don't bother.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Squeeze: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JYiylIluQQ. Today's title - one of them went on to team up with a former Byrd and a nearly Monkee.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Labelled With ...
The news that a local man has been arrested on suspicion of acts of a sexual nature against women on Playa de Muro beach is to be welcomed; it's also not before time. The person in question, it is alleged, has been pursuing his past-time, if one can call it that, for three years. I would suggest that he may not be the only one, or at least he has not been the only one to conduct himself in a rather strange manner on the beach.
The approaches to women all occurred in "isolated" parts of the beach. This refers to the rustic beach, as opposed to the beach backed by hotels. It is a wonderful part of the beach because of its quietness. I guess that's its attraction for those who don't have sunbathing and swimming in mind. Go there with any regularity, and one becomes accustomed to clocking the same few individuals who habitually walk along the beach and also nip in and out of the dunes. It's one thing to perhaps go and hide behind a dune to take a leak or to position yourself behind a dune as shelter from the wind; otherwise, why would you nip in and out? Voyeurism is one reason - the rustic beach attracts nude sunbathers as well as those who don't go kit off - other, might one say, more active impulses are another.
This summer there seems to have been an increase in helicopter activity. One afternoon, a 'copter was hovering for ages above the beach. One can but only assume it was in connection with the attacks on women. While these attacks have not been of a very serious nature, they have obviously been alarming. That the police have now apprehended one of the "beachwalkers", perhaps the handful of others might be deterred from their weird hobby.
LABELLED WITH CATALAN
The United Colombia Association. Bet this is a group you will all be intimately familiar with. Colombia Pictures perhaps, Colombia Records, the Colombia football team, and be careful if you're a defender and are responsible for a World Cup defeat. Bang, bang. The United Colombia Association? Nope, I'd never heard of them either. Could have been the name of a band for all I knew, until, that is, there was a news item which has it that the UCA (let's call them that) is to introduce a local campaign that boycotts the purchase of products that are labelled only in Catalan. Moreover, UCA reckons the Unió Mallorquina party is xenophobic. What was I saying the other day? Well actually what I said the other day was that, the occasional rant against the foreign infidel notwithstanding, the UM is pretty moderate. UCA clearly disagrees. And it wants us to stop buying all those Catalan-only-labelled products because we won't understand what's in them. Maybe so for Colombians. For us mere Brits, it makes no difference. Don't understand whatever language it is, unless it's English; and even then there's probably a problem. Personally, I like the practice of Basque-based supermarket chain Eroski of including four languages on their own brands, one of which is Basque. What sort of a language is that!? Here are a few Basque words from a shower-gel bottle - "horiexek", "zumurrik", "bizigarriak", "ongizatezko". Brilliant. My sort of language. Utterly impenetrable and unlike anything else. Catalan? Phar, too much like others; too damn understandable. Label everything in Basque I say. Goats' bollocks in brine. Could be for all we would know. But they would be delicious, or maybe not. And anyway, where are all these Catalan-only-labelled products? Even if there were huge numbers of them, of which I am unaware, this is not the issue. No, the issue is to buy Basque, and Basque alone. That way no one will have a clue.
Incidentally, there is also a Basque word "usain", which means ... Sorry, I've no idea, but it is of course the name of the Jamaican Olympic sprint champion. Don't know why I bother mentioning this. Just thought you might be interested. Or possibly not.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - John Martyn (and one-time missus, Beverley). Today's title - the missing word starts with "l" and has four letters, as if you didn't know. Who?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
The approaches to women all occurred in "isolated" parts of the beach. This refers to the rustic beach, as opposed to the beach backed by hotels. It is a wonderful part of the beach because of its quietness. I guess that's its attraction for those who don't have sunbathing and swimming in mind. Go there with any regularity, and one becomes accustomed to clocking the same few individuals who habitually walk along the beach and also nip in and out of the dunes. It's one thing to perhaps go and hide behind a dune to take a leak or to position yourself behind a dune as shelter from the wind; otherwise, why would you nip in and out? Voyeurism is one reason - the rustic beach attracts nude sunbathers as well as those who don't go kit off - other, might one say, more active impulses are another.
This summer there seems to have been an increase in helicopter activity. One afternoon, a 'copter was hovering for ages above the beach. One can but only assume it was in connection with the attacks on women. While these attacks have not been of a very serious nature, they have obviously been alarming. That the police have now apprehended one of the "beachwalkers", perhaps the handful of others might be deterred from their weird hobby.
LABELLED WITH CATALAN
The United Colombia Association. Bet this is a group you will all be intimately familiar with. Colombia Pictures perhaps, Colombia Records, the Colombia football team, and be careful if you're a defender and are responsible for a World Cup defeat. Bang, bang. The United Colombia Association? Nope, I'd never heard of them either. Could have been the name of a band for all I knew, until, that is, there was a news item which has it that the UCA (let's call them that) is to introduce a local campaign that boycotts the purchase of products that are labelled only in Catalan. Moreover, UCA reckons the Unió Mallorquina party is xenophobic. What was I saying the other day? Well actually what I said the other day was that, the occasional rant against the foreign infidel notwithstanding, the UM is pretty moderate. UCA clearly disagrees. And it wants us to stop buying all those Catalan-only-labelled products because we won't understand what's in them. Maybe so for Colombians. For us mere Brits, it makes no difference. Don't understand whatever language it is, unless it's English; and even then there's probably a problem. Personally, I like the practice of Basque-based supermarket chain Eroski of including four languages on their own brands, one of which is Basque. What sort of a language is that!? Here are a few Basque words from a shower-gel bottle - "horiexek", "zumurrik", "bizigarriak", "ongizatezko". Brilliant. My sort of language. Utterly impenetrable and unlike anything else. Catalan? Phar, too much like others; too damn understandable. Label everything in Basque I say. Goats' bollocks in brine. Could be for all we would know. But they would be delicious, or maybe not. And anyway, where are all these Catalan-only-labelled products? Even if there were huge numbers of them, of which I am unaware, this is not the issue. No, the issue is to buy Basque, and Basque alone. That way no one will have a clue.
Incidentally, there is also a Basque word "usain", which means ... Sorry, I've no idea, but it is of course the name of the Jamaican Olympic sprint champion. Don't know why I bother mentioning this. Just thought you might be interested. Or possibly not.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - John Martyn (and one-time missus, Beverley). Today's title - the missing word starts with "l" and has four letters, as if you didn't know. Who?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
The Road To Ruin
Proof, if it were needed, and really it wasn't, that the season has misfired comes in the form of a report from the organisation for small to medium-sized businesses. Revenue down by as much as 25% for bars and restaurants, even during the height of summer. Of course, one never really knows with these stats and percentages; there was another report recently which indicated that tourist spend had been up. Common sense suggests that the fall is more representative, though it doesn't tell the full story as there are places I know for a fact that have enjoyed increases this season. Nevertheless, the figures don't surprise, and it is not only the bar and restaurant trade that has endured a hard year; the sea-based businesses have also seen a slump. I know of one that reports about a 30% decrease. Messing about on the sea is an optional extra at the best of times; at the worst of times it ceases to be an option.
Elsewhere, reps are being allowed to go home early as there simply aren't the people, and from next year there is to be a trimming of rep staff for the season as a whole; at least, that's the word coming out of First Choice mouths. This is not necessarily a reaction to economic circumstances, though they may hasten a strategy for more remote forms of guest assistance, one which I heard that TUI had in mind. Phone services, be they helplines or via mobile phones, are likely to be the de-personalised reps of the future.
Reps may get a bad press, but they are far from all bad. One of their problems is a lack of information, something I referred to recently in respect of the rep giving the wrong advice for a bus to Palma. But how much information can they truly be expected to assimilate if they don't know a resort? There may be the resort "bibles" for them to digest and learn on arrival, but - as with anything - if you don't use what you learn, you forget it. Reps that come back for the following year may find themselves allocated to a different resort. Where's the sense in that? They have to do the learning all over again for somewhere else. However, in future it is likely that there will be fewer of them. Bad press or not, I would reckon most tourists prefer the personal touch, even if it is misinformed. Rather than turning to the telecoms services, chances are the guests will rely more on hotel receptions, which may not be what hotel receptions want to hear. And somehow I can't see some old dears needing a chemist texting a request for information.
BANKING CRISIS
The banking crisis continues its claim on victims and now it has branched out from its epicentre of Anglo-Saxon capitalism; a Belgian bank does not fall into this category. The Spanish bank, Santander, is a white knight for a British bank, which all sounds as though the Spanish system is bearing up where others aren't. Up to a point, this is the case. Spanish banks, for example, didn't have great exposure to Lehman's, but loss of confidence knows few boundaries, be it among consumers or financial markets. The real danger for Spain lies with its debt; the country ranks alongside the UK in this regard, and much of this debt is the result of reckless mortgage lending. There is also a concern regarding Spain's reserves, which the Bank of Spain sold off to finance the country's current account deficit, meaning that that if there were to be a banking crisis, the national bank might be stretched as the lender of last resort, notwithstanding Spain's place within the European monetary system. Recently, the head of the Sa Nostra bank on the island offered reassurances that the financial sector was strong, but there have been plenty of mumblings to the contrary. Spanish banks may not have had the buffeting of those in the UK or the US, but don't be sure that they won't. This sucker may not be going down, or anything like it, but this sucker could yet get sucked. The perversity of the House of Representatives' vote is only likely to add to the potential for collapse in countries and banks as yet unaffected, though surely to God they will reverse this vote.
PUERTO POLLENSA PEDESTRIANISATION
Well, it's started - as of yesterday. After all the uncertainty as to what would be pedestrianised and when, the first phase of the trial sees a closure between the calles Elcano and Temple Fielding; the part from Temple Fielding to the Avenida Paris appears to still be open in the Alcúdia direction. Buses can still use the road, but taxi drivers cannot and there is also some question as to use by the Guardia Civil whose local HQ, it should not be forgotten, is right by the Avenida Paris. Makes one wonder - did they talk to the Guardia and the police about all this?
THE UM MINISTERIAL ISSUE
The head of the Unió Mallorquina, Miquel Nadal, has come to the aid of the party. He will replace Francesc Buils as tourism minister. So I am sure we are all relieved at this news.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Re-Flex. Today's title - this was an album by one of the greats of British folk music.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Index for September 2008
Alcúdia Fair 2008 - 20 September 2008, 22 September 2008
Animal welfare - 10 September 2008, 28 September 2008
Architecture - 13 September 2008
Balearic Government - 18 September 2008, 29 September 2008
Banks - 30 September 2008
Bars - 17 September 2008
Binissalem - 20 September 2008, 22 September 2008
Blogs - 11 September 2008
Catalan - 12 September 2008
Climate change - 20 September 2008
Debt - 9 September 2008
Driving licences - 22 September 2008, 23 September 2008
Economic crisis - 18 September 2008, 28 September 2008, 30 September 2008
Expatriates - 23 September 2008
Fairs - 15 September 2008, 20 September 2008, 28 September 2008
Feria del Mar 2008 - 15 September 2008
Fines - 26 September 2008
Flags - 1 September 2008
Flies - 5 September 2008
Football - 3 September 2008, 6 September 2008, 10 September 2008
Franco - 1 September 2008, 7 September 2008
Hills - 21 September 2008
Hotels - 3 September 2008, 16 September 2008, 22 September 2008, 28 September 2008
Iberian ham - 22 September 2008
Immigration - 8 September 2008
Integration - 23 September 2008
Languages - 12 September 2008, 14 September 2008
Mallorcans - 27 September 2008
Media - 23 September 2008
Mountains - 21 September 2008
Open-water swimming - 2 September 2008
Pedestrianisation - 11 September 2008, 14 September 2008, 24 September 2008, 30 September 2008
Pickpocketing - 2 September 2008
Political parties - 29 September 2008
Pollensa town hall - 6 September 2008
Processionary caterpillars - 5 September 2008
Property market - 3 September 2008
Railways - 13 September 2008
Ramón Llull - 12 September 2008
Real Mallorca - 3 September 2008, 6 September 2008, 10 September 2008
Reps - 17 September 2008, 30 September 2008
Road signs - 11 September 2008
Roads - 11 September 2008, 14 September 2008, 18 September 2008, 19 September 2008, 24 September 2008, 30 September 2008
Schools - 14 September 2008
Scratch cards - 8 September 2008
Seasonal workers - 17 September 2008
Show cooking - 15 September 2008
Small town mentality - 27 September 2008
Social tourism - 5 September 2008
Son Real - 6 September 2008
Storms - 12 September 2008, 14 September 2008
Street drinking - 26 September 2008
Street names - 7 September 2008
Street selling - 25 September 2008, 26 September 2008
Sunwing Resort - 16 September 2008
Tour operators - 12 September 2008, 30 September 2008
Tourist behaviour - 16 September 2008
Tourist days - 11 September 2008, 15 September 2008
Tourist spend - 30 September 2008
Town halls - 6 September 2008, 19 September 2008
Trains - 13 September 2008
Unemployment - 3 September 2008
Unió Mallorquina - 29 September 2008, 30 September 2008
Vermar 2008 - 20 September 2008
Violence - 15 September 2008
Walls - 4 September 2008
WiFi - 1 September 2008
Wine - 20 September 2008
Winter tourism - 5 September 2008, 25 September 2008
XL Leisure Group - 12 September 2008
Young adults - 9 September 2008
Elsewhere, reps are being allowed to go home early as there simply aren't the people, and from next year there is to be a trimming of rep staff for the season as a whole; at least, that's the word coming out of First Choice mouths. This is not necessarily a reaction to economic circumstances, though they may hasten a strategy for more remote forms of guest assistance, one which I heard that TUI had in mind. Phone services, be they helplines or via mobile phones, are likely to be the de-personalised reps of the future.
Reps may get a bad press, but they are far from all bad. One of their problems is a lack of information, something I referred to recently in respect of the rep giving the wrong advice for a bus to Palma. But how much information can they truly be expected to assimilate if they don't know a resort? There may be the resort "bibles" for them to digest and learn on arrival, but - as with anything - if you don't use what you learn, you forget it. Reps that come back for the following year may find themselves allocated to a different resort. Where's the sense in that? They have to do the learning all over again for somewhere else. However, in future it is likely that there will be fewer of them. Bad press or not, I would reckon most tourists prefer the personal touch, even if it is misinformed. Rather than turning to the telecoms services, chances are the guests will rely more on hotel receptions, which may not be what hotel receptions want to hear. And somehow I can't see some old dears needing a chemist texting a request for information.
BANKING CRISIS
The banking crisis continues its claim on victims and now it has branched out from its epicentre of Anglo-Saxon capitalism; a Belgian bank does not fall into this category. The Spanish bank, Santander, is a white knight for a British bank, which all sounds as though the Spanish system is bearing up where others aren't. Up to a point, this is the case. Spanish banks, for example, didn't have great exposure to Lehman's, but loss of confidence knows few boundaries, be it among consumers or financial markets. The real danger for Spain lies with its debt; the country ranks alongside the UK in this regard, and much of this debt is the result of reckless mortgage lending. There is also a concern regarding Spain's reserves, which the Bank of Spain sold off to finance the country's current account deficit, meaning that that if there were to be a banking crisis, the national bank might be stretched as the lender of last resort, notwithstanding Spain's place within the European monetary system. Recently, the head of the Sa Nostra bank on the island offered reassurances that the financial sector was strong, but there have been plenty of mumblings to the contrary. Spanish banks may not have had the buffeting of those in the UK or the US, but don't be sure that they won't. This sucker may not be going down, or anything like it, but this sucker could yet get sucked. The perversity of the House of Representatives' vote is only likely to add to the potential for collapse in countries and banks as yet unaffected, though surely to God they will reverse this vote.
PUERTO POLLENSA PEDESTRIANISATION
Well, it's started - as of yesterday. After all the uncertainty as to what would be pedestrianised and when, the first phase of the trial sees a closure between the calles Elcano and Temple Fielding; the part from Temple Fielding to the Avenida Paris appears to still be open in the Alcúdia direction. Buses can still use the road, but taxi drivers cannot and there is also some question as to use by the Guardia Civil whose local HQ, it should not be forgotten, is right by the Avenida Paris. Makes one wonder - did they talk to the Guardia and the police about all this?
THE UM MINISTERIAL ISSUE
The head of the Unió Mallorquina, Miquel Nadal, has come to the aid of the party. He will replace Francesc Buils as tourism minister. So I am sure we are all relieved at this news.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Re-Flex. Today's title - this was an album by one of the greats of British folk music.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Index for September 2008
Alcúdia Fair 2008 - 20 September 2008, 22 September 2008
Animal welfare - 10 September 2008, 28 September 2008
Architecture - 13 September 2008
Balearic Government - 18 September 2008, 29 September 2008
Banks - 30 September 2008
Bars - 17 September 2008
Binissalem - 20 September 2008, 22 September 2008
Blogs - 11 September 2008
Catalan - 12 September 2008
Climate change - 20 September 2008
Debt - 9 September 2008
Driving licences - 22 September 2008, 23 September 2008
Economic crisis - 18 September 2008, 28 September 2008, 30 September 2008
Expatriates - 23 September 2008
Fairs - 15 September 2008, 20 September 2008, 28 September 2008
Feria del Mar 2008 - 15 September 2008
Fines - 26 September 2008
Flags - 1 September 2008
Flies - 5 September 2008
Football - 3 September 2008, 6 September 2008, 10 September 2008
Franco - 1 September 2008, 7 September 2008
Hills - 21 September 2008
Hotels - 3 September 2008, 16 September 2008, 22 September 2008, 28 September 2008
Iberian ham - 22 September 2008
Immigration - 8 September 2008
Integration - 23 September 2008
Languages - 12 September 2008, 14 September 2008
Mallorcans - 27 September 2008
Media - 23 September 2008
Mountains - 21 September 2008
Open-water swimming - 2 September 2008
Pedestrianisation - 11 September 2008, 14 September 2008, 24 September 2008, 30 September 2008
Pickpocketing - 2 September 2008
Political parties - 29 September 2008
Pollensa town hall - 6 September 2008
Processionary caterpillars - 5 September 2008
Property market - 3 September 2008
Railways - 13 September 2008
Ramón Llull - 12 September 2008
Real Mallorca - 3 September 2008, 6 September 2008, 10 September 2008
Reps - 17 September 2008, 30 September 2008
Road signs - 11 September 2008
Roads - 11 September 2008, 14 September 2008, 18 September 2008, 19 September 2008, 24 September 2008, 30 September 2008
Schools - 14 September 2008
Scratch cards - 8 September 2008
Seasonal workers - 17 September 2008
Show cooking - 15 September 2008
Small town mentality - 27 September 2008
Social tourism - 5 September 2008
Son Real - 6 September 2008
Storms - 12 September 2008, 14 September 2008
Street drinking - 26 September 2008
Street names - 7 September 2008
Street selling - 25 September 2008, 26 September 2008
Sunwing Resort - 16 September 2008
Tour operators - 12 September 2008, 30 September 2008
Tourist behaviour - 16 September 2008
Tourist days - 11 September 2008, 15 September 2008
Tourist spend - 30 September 2008
Town halls - 6 September 2008, 19 September 2008
Trains - 13 September 2008
Unemployment - 3 September 2008
Unió Mallorquina - 29 September 2008, 30 September 2008
Vermar 2008 - 20 September 2008
Violence - 15 September 2008
Walls - 4 September 2008
WiFi - 1 September 2008
Wine - 20 September 2008
Winter tourism - 5 September 2008, 25 September 2008
XL Leisure Group - 12 September 2008
Young adults - 9 September 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
The Politics Of Dancing
Unless you happen to live here, and perhaps even if you do, you might have missed the fact that there is a little local difficulty for the Mallorcan national party (UM - Unió Mallorquina). In brief, the UM's minister for tourism in the Balearic Government sacked two aides (both also, as it happens, from the same party) without getting the ok from his party bosses. Quite why a minister, who one assumes to be responsible in various respects, has to have clearance from a higher authority over his own hiring and firing, I'm not sure, but be that as it may.
Given the coalition nature of Mallorcan politics, the sacking issue has caused something of a rumpus; the UM is part of the Balearic Government headed by the PSOE socialist party. This rumpus, apart from the internal aspect within the UM, has been placed in the political crisis category; at a time of economic difficulty and tourism uncertainty, the politicians should be focussing on these matters rather than their own positions - so it is argued. It is not a crisis; it is nothing of the sort. What it is, is a not untypical occurrence in politics, of an unexpected event then having political capital made out of it by opposition politicians and elements of the media who either have an alternative agenda or simply have nothing better to say. The tourism minister, Francesc Buils, seems to actually enjoy a degree of confidence within the industry he represents; and that is fairly untypical for many politicians, not least Mallorcan ones. For the time being, the minister and the aides have kept their posts (the aides having been bailed out of the dole queues by the party machine which had its collective nose put out of joint by Buils' action). Nevertheless, there is some justification to the argument that the UM should be pulling together rather than apart in helping the government during the present mess.
But what is the UM exactly?
Spanish and Mallorcan politics require coalitions to form governments. These do not always lead to natural bedfellows. The UM is the reason for the PSOE socialists holding ultimate power in Mallorca and the Balearics, yet its philosophy is to the right of centre. The UM is also a fractious band. When a new leader was being sought some months ago, there were three candidates, each representing a different sub-philosophy and - in general - a different region of the island. One of these candidates, Miquel Nadal, even took his bat home at one point and abandoned his candidature, only to make a comeback and finally become the party leader. His now second-in-command is another of those candidates, Miquel Ferrer, the mayor of Alcúdia, who, having failed in his leadership bid, was then to be photographed with a gritted smile through his gap teeth. The two Micks are not necessarily bosom buddies. Ferrer, it's not hard to imagine, looks to drop bombs from the north onto the southern Palma heartland of Nadal who could thank the outgoing leader for being her "boy" in securing the gig. The leadership election, though it may have been partly an ideological scrap, was as much about local power bases on the island; it was rather akin to warlords vying for mastery.
It is the case that any political party represents different strands of thinking - the "broad church" cliché - and these strands cause internal conflicts. But these are no more apparent in parties whose very existences are open to some question. What actually is the point of the UM? The simple answer, as implicit in its name, is that it is a national party - Mallorca for Mallorcans, or something like that. However, the UM does not possess a central rallying cry. It is not like, for example, the SNP in Scotland which has long held independence as a core objective. There is no independence movement in Mallorca or in the Balearics. The island has traditionally been conservative with both a small and a large "c". All the more surprising, therefore, that the socialists made gains during the last national elections. Perhaps this was a blip or perhaps it was an indication of a greater acceptance of more liberal social policies across the country that the PSOE represented. If so, it leaves the UM in even more a state of political vacuum than it already was.
The main raison d'être for the UM is one of preservation, that of small-c conservatism; this is preservation of language and tradition. It's a kind of politics of dancing; keep the ball de bot and the other folky stuff and the rest can look after itself. But for any political party in a modern-day economy, these are marginal matters. More important is the preservation of the island, and here the conflict of the inner mindset of the party causes the party's potential atrophy. By inclination, it may be pro market developments in advancing the island's economy but it is hamstrung by its disinclination to sanction anything that is seen to detract from the island "way of life" (define and discuss!). It tries to tread a balance between these competing objectives and ends up motionless.
In what is essentially a two-party democracy, which Spain, like the UK, is, other parties, including the regional ones, of which there are many, need an overarching sense of purpose. Though conservative, the Mallorcan people are not, as a majority, overly exercised by some of the marginal interests of the UM; the language debate, for example, is far less important to the average Mallorcan than it is portrayed by politicians. Yet the UM manages, at local level, to set an agenda through language that is both parochial and even in contravention of what is meant to occur. I was told a story about a complaint to the mayor of Pollensa regarding official documents being produced only in Catalan, as opposed to both Catalan and Castilian. This was met with the response that it was done this way because of nationalist pressure. It was a curious response in some ways, as the mayor, Joan Cerdà, is himself a UM member; he was a supporter of Ferrer's nomination as party leader. Maybe Cerdà is a realist, but he appears to bow to his party's myopia. Such things as the use only of Catalan may play well with a minority, but ultimately it appears rather petty and typically insular. Again, one comes back to the absence of some form of nationalist narrative that would make the UM a meaningful party, in the style, say, of the SNP. But this is beyond the UM as there is no demand for it, and the party knows that.
In a way, the UM is a political party by "me-too" default. It has been in existence since 1982, created, in part, as a result of the then collapsing national Union of the Democratic Centre (the shortlived post-Franco coalition that formed the initial democratic government) and also as the consequence of regional autonomy for the Balearics. It was as though, because there was regional government, it was felt there had to be a regional party. That it has had success is more the result of its merely being there as opposed to its serving any real need. The UM has not been a party of extremes, yet it has not been unknown to the occasional xenophobic outburst. "The Bulletin", in Ray Fleming's often interesting trawl through the paper's archives, refers to a comment nine years ago by María Antonia Munar, then head of the Mallorca council, now speaker of the Balearic Parliament and the former leader of the UM who supported Nadal's accession. She complained then of an "invasion of foreigners", and she seemed to have more in mind tourists than the more recent wave of immigrant workers and those from the expanded European Union.
The danger of a nationalist party that always lurks is of a shift further from the centre. Current economic problems, allied to issues regarding immigration, can be the fertile breeding ground of extremism. This is not to say that the UM would, as a party, countenance such a move - it is a party coloured by moderation - but it remains a possibility and would also address the apparent absence of an obvious narrative. The good news perhaps is that Mallorcan politics, like Spanish politics, does not tend to breed charismatic politicians. Nationally, since Gonzalez, there have been none. Locally, there are none. But it only takes one with a populist agenda.
For the time being, the UM acts as an alternative in local politics. As such, this is no bad thing, while it makes politics more homely for those who perceive the PSOE and PP as remote Madrid-based leviathans. It is also no bad thing that it seeks to defend things like the language, albeit that it can do so in a cack-handed fashion. There is nothing at all wrong with a local, nationalist party if its purpose is progressive and if it offers an agenda with which the franchised majority can empathise. But the Buils affair makes it look silly, as did the divisiveness of the leadership election. One is tempted to conclude that, at a time when the party should be pulling with rather than against, the very nature of the economic crisis consuming Mallorca demonstrates the party's inability to effect anything meaningful, save for its own wrangling.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Who (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0i7c8tjlIs). Today's title - one-hit wonders.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Given the coalition nature of Mallorcan politics, the sacking issue has caused something of a rumpus; the UM is part of the Balearic Government headed by the PSOE socialist party. This rumpus, apart from the internal aspect within the UM, has been placed in the political crisis category; at a time of economic difficulty and tourism uncertainty, the politicians should be focussing on these matters rather than their own positions - so it is argued. It is not a crisis; it is nothing of the sort. What it is, is a not untypical occurrence in politics, of an unexpected event then having political capital made out of it by opposition politicians and elements of the media who either have an alternative agenda or simply have nothing better to say. The tourism minister, Francesc Buils, seems to actually enjoy a degree of confidence within the industry he represents; and that is fairly untypical for many politicians, not least Mallorcan ones. For the time being, the minister and the aides have kept their posts (the aides having been bailed out of the dole queues by the party machine which had its collective nose put out of joint by Buils' action). Nevertheless, there is some justification to the argument that the UM should be pulling together rather than apart in helping the government during the present mess.
But what is the UM exactly?
Spanish and Mallorcan politics require coalitions to form governments. These do not always lead to natural bedfellows. The UM is the reason for the PSOE socialists holding ultimate power in Mallorca and the Balearics, yet its philosophy is to the right of centre. The UM is also a fractious band. When a new leader was being sought some months ago, there were three candidates, each representing a different sub-philosophy and - in general - a different region of the island. One of these candidates, Miquel Nadal, even took his bat home at one point and abandoned his candidature, only to make a comeback and finally become the party leader. His now second-in-command is another of those candidates, Miquel Ferrer, the mayor of Alcúdia, who, having failed in his leadership bid, was then to be photographed with a gritted smile through his gap teeth. The two Micks are not necessarily bosom buddies. Ferrer, it's not hard to imagine, looks to drop bombs from the north onto the southern Palma heartland of Nadal who could thank the outgoing leader for being her "boy" in securing the gig. The leadership election, though it may have been partly an ideological scrap, was as much about local power bases on the island; it was rather akin to warlords vying for mastery.
It is the case that any political party represents different strands of thinking - the "broad church" cliché - and these strands cause internal conflicts. But these are no more apparent in parties whose very existences are open to some question. What actually is the point of the UM? The simple answer, as implicit in its name, is that it is a national party - Mallorca for Mallorcans, or something like that. However, the UM does not possess a central rallying cry. It is not like, for example, the SNP in Scotland which has long held independence as a core objective. There is no independence movement in Mallorca or in the Balearics. The island has traditionally been conservative with both a small and a large "c". All the more surprising, therefore, that the socialists made gains during the last national elections. Perhaps this was a blip or perhaps it was an indication of a greater acceptance of more liberal social policies across the country that the PSOE represented. If so, it leaves the UM in even more a state of political vacuum than it already was.
The main raison d'être for the UM is one of preservation, that of small-c conservatism; this is preservation of language and tradition. It's a kind of politics of dancing; keep the ball de bot and the other folky stuff and the rest can look after itself. But for any political party in a modern-day economy, these are marginal matters. More important is the preservation of the island, and here the conflict of the inner mindset of the party causes the party's potential atrophy. By inclination, it may be pro market developments in advancing the island's economy but it is hamstrung by its disinclination to sanction anything that is seen to detract from the island "way of life" (define and discuss!). It tries to tread a balance between these competing objectives and ends up motionless.
In what is essentially a two-party democracy, which Spain, like the UK, is, other parties, including the regional ones, of which there are many, need an overarching sense of purpose. Though conservative, the Mallorcan people are not, as a majority, overly exercised by some of the marginal interests of the UM; the language debate, for example, is far less important to the average Mallorcan than it is portrayed by politicians. Yet the UM manages, at local level, to set an agenda through language that is both parochial and even in contravention of what is meant to occur. I was told a story about a complaint to the mayor of Pollensa regarding official documents being produced only in Catalan, as opposed to both Catalan and Castilian. This was met with the response that it was done this way because of nationalist pressure. It was a curious response in some ways, as the mayor, Joan Cerdà, is himself a UM member; he was a supporter of Ferrer's nomination as party leader. Maybe Cerdà is a realist, but he appears to bow to his party's myopia. Such things as the use only of Catalan may play well with a minority, but ultimately it appears rather petty and typically insular. Again, one comes back to the absence of some form of nationalist narrative that would make the UM a meaningful party, in the style, say, of the SNP. But this is beyond the UM as there is no demand for it, and the party knows that.
In a way, the UM is a political party by "me-too" default. It has been in existence since 1982, created, in part, as a result of the then collapsing national Union of the Democratic Centre (the shortlived post-Franco coalition that formed the initial democratic government) and also as the consequence of regional autonomy for the Balearics. It was as though, because there was regional government, it was felt there had to be a regional party. That it has had success is more the result of its merely being there as opposed to its serving any real need. The UM has not been a party of extremes, yet it has not been unknown to the occasional xenophobic outburst. "The Bulletin", in Ray Fleming's often interesting trawl through the paper's archives, refers to a comment nine years ago by María Antonia Munar, then head of the Mallorca council, now speaker of the Balearic Parliament and the former leader of the UM who supported Nadal's accession. She complained then of an "invasion of foreigners", and she seemed to have more in mind tourists than the more recent wave of immigrant workers and those from the expanded European Union.
The danger of a nationalist party that always lurks is of a shift further from the centre. Current economic problems, allied to issues regarding immigration, can be the fertile breeding ground of extremism. This is not to say that the UM would, as a party, countenance such a move - it is a party coloured by moderation - but it remains a possibility and would also address the apparent absence of an obvious narrative. The good news perhaps is that Mallorcan politics, like Spanish politics, does not tend to breed charismatic politicians. Nationally, since Gonzalez, there have been none. Locally, there are none. But it only takes one with a populist agenda.
For the time being, the UM acts as an alternative in local politics. As such, this is no bad thing, while it makes politics more homely for those who perceive the PSOE and PP as remote Madrid-based leviathans. It is also no bad thing that it seeks to defend things like the language, albeit that it can do so in a cack-handed fashion. There is nothing at all wrong with a local, nationalist party if its purpose is progressive and if it offers an agenda with which the franchised majority can empathise. But the Buils affair makes it look silly, as did the divisiveness of the leadership election. One is tempted to conclude that, at a time when the party should be pulling with rather than against, the very nature of the economic crisis consuming Mallorca demonstrates the party's inability to effect anything meaningful, save for its own wrangling.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Who (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0i7c8tjlIs). Today's title - one-hit wonders.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Sunday, September 28, 2008
I'm A Substitute
For once a bit of animal sense, and it has come from an unexpected source - in terms of sense, that is - Pollensa town hall. The council's assembly has rejected a proposal to substitute, with replicas, the cock of the Pi de Ternelles fiesta and the lamb of Corpus Christi. (The Pi de Ternelles occurs in January as part of the Sant Antoni fiesta; the "pi" is the pine that gets soaped up and some nutters try and climb it; the lamb is not actually slaughtered, as, in accordance with the old tradition of Corpus Christi, it once was.) The Mallorcans may be showing hitherto hidden sensitivity towards animals, but there is a point beyond which the artificial replacements in the name of animal welfare all become rather silly. The Can Picafort rubber duck lunacy is an example. The notion that, for instance, an imitation lamb on wheels perhaps might be rolled through the streets of the town rather than an actual lamb is only sensible in its sheer nonsensicality; it would be an hilarious act of surreal comedy to do so. Perhaps they should substitute the live lamb on second thoughts. Indeed why stop at the animals? How about a Teletubbies version of the Last Supper at Easter for instance? Rather than an actual pine tree, environmentally destructive as it clearly is, how about one of those tinselly fake Christmas tree things? And as for the cock, please don't anybody start getting ideas about imitation cocks. Just stop it and behave yourselves.
But as I've mentioned before, the animal crackers that Pollensa town hall haven't pulled out notwithstanding, how is it that bulls can still be killed? The town hall has agreed that no animals will be killed on its patch; there again, it doesn't, unlike Alcúdia and Muro, have a bullring, or anything quite as obscene as the Fornalutx bull run. Surely a bull substitute could be introduced. Something like those souvenir bulls with a sombrero, but in large scale. Put it in the middle of the ring and let the matador accost it with the comfy chair and cushions.
Winter has come early this year. Early, that is, in respect of hotels being closed. I got quite a surprise yesterday morning. The Rio Mar in Playa de Muro. Shut. And it's not even October. What with the Lagomonte packing up next weekend, and the Viva Sunrise just a bit after, the situation in Alcúdia is not much different. The season is collapsing in on itself. Meanwhile the director-general of Iberostar says that there will be fewer hotels (not just his, but all) open this winter and the occupation will be lower. So much for all those social tourists and for that announcement (who was it made it?; politician probably) which reckoned the tourist industry would help this winter to take up the unemployment in the construction industry. They really haven't got a clue, have they. Into all this strides the editor of "The Bulletin" who says that, on top of the economic crisis comes the likely acquisition of the island's main football team by a foreigner and the resultant cry among Mallorcans as to what's happening. I can tell them exactly what's happening. It is the sound of the walls of the island's complacency tumbling around them together with the wails of politicians who have lived off that complacency and are now exposed as not only having little to turn to but also as being inadequate. It's going to be a long winter.
ISLAND FAIRS
I have been talking about the fairs that occur on the island in autumn. Today is the climax of the wine fair in Binissalem and this coming weekend is Alcúdia's fair. At this time of the year, the whole of Mallorca seems to get in on the fair act, and many of them tend to be disregarded by the visitor. However, they afford the opportunity to experience something with a touch of authenticity and to visit places that might not otherwise be on the normal visitor trail. To this end, No Frills are offering trips to two such fairs - one in Lluc and the other in Esporles. The information for the mountain fair (Lluc) and the sweet fair (Esporles) is on the WHAT'S ON BLOG - http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Bronski Beat (www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7-q1WRaKNg). Today's title - should I even be asking "who"?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
But as I've mentioned before, the animal crackers that Pollensa town hall haven't pulled out notwithstanding, how is it that bulls can still be killed? The town hall has agreed that no animals will be killed on its patch; there again, it doesn't, unlike Alcúdia and Muro, have a bullring, or anything quite as obscene as the Fornalutx bull run. Surely a bull substitute could be introduced. Something like those souvenir bulls with a sombrero, but in large scale. Put it in the middle of the ring and let the matador accost it with the comfy chair and cushions.
Winter has come early this year. Early, that is, in respect of hotels being closed. I got quite a surprise yesterday morning. The Rio Mar in Playa de Muro. Shut. And it's not even October. What with the Lagomonte packing up next weekend, and the Viva Sunrise just a bit after, the situation in Alcúdia is not much different. The season is collapsing in on itself. Meanwhile the director-general of Iberostar says that there will be fewer hotels (not just his, but all) open this winter and the occupation will be lower. So much for all those social tourists and for that announcement (who was it made it?; politician probably) which reckoned the tourist industry would help this winter to take up the unemployment in the construction industry. They really haven't got a clue, have they. Into all this strides the editor of "The Bulletin" who says that, on top of the economic crisis comes the likely acquisition of the island's main football team by a foreigner and the resultant cry among Mallorcans as to what's happening. I can tell them exactly what's happening. It is the sound of the walls of the island's complacency tumbling around them together with the wails of politicians who have lived off that complacency and are now exposed as not only having little to turn to but also as being inadequate. It's going to be a long winter.
ISLAND FAIRS
I have been talking about the fairs that occur on the island in autumn. Today is the climax of the wine fair in Binissalem and this coming weekend is Alcúdia's fair. At this time of the year, the whole of Mallorca seems to get in on the fair act, and many of them tend to be disregarded by the visitor. However, they afford the opportunity to experience something with a touch of authenticity and to visit places that might not otherwise be on the normal visitor trail. To this end, No Frills are offering trips to two such fairs - one in Lluc and the other in Esporles. The information for the mountain fair (Lluc) and the sweet fair (Esporles) is on the WHAT'S ON BLOG - http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Bronski Beat (www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7-q1WRaKNg). Today's title - should I even be asking "who"?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
