MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 17 December 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.30am): 13C
Forecast high: 17C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): Southeast 3 to 4 with swell of one metre.

Cloudy and warmer morning. Rain possible later and also possible for the rest of the week with the temperature falling by the weekend.

Evening update (19.15): Not too bad a day, a high of 16.4C.

The Modern Christmas Carols

Ah yes, it's that time of year. Chestnuts roasting on an open butane-gas heater and the sounds of a traditional Spanish Yuletide in Mallorcan supermarkets - a Phil Spector Christmas collection ronetting over the public address systems - punctuated only by the Gregorian drone of the El Gordo lottery children, an interminable monotone almost as jolly as the Apocalyptic lyrics of the ancient Sibil·la chant.

The Mallorcan, and Spanish come that, Christmas musical tradition is not as strong as that which was born in Tin Pan Alley by Jewish songwriters indulging in heavy doses of sentimentalism and which ultimately became a Transatlantic and essentially Anglo-Saxon phenomenon - the Christmas hit. Spain, as a rule, has kept to the older Christmas song tradition. It has stuck with its "villancicos", with its "El Burrito Sabanero" or "Noche de Paz", occasionally veering off into the wider popular music market by José Feliciano-ing "Feliz Navidad" in both Spanish and English or by committing some truly unforgivable acts of musical vandalism by borrowing an English song and making it Spanish. Raphael's "La Ultima Navidad", a version of Wham's "Last Christmas", is such a sin. It serves as a good example of why the Christmas song is best left to others and why therefore Spanish supermarkets opt for Phil Spector or indeed Wham.

The Christmas carol, where the English are concerned, was first popularised by wassailers in the fifteenth century. The Spanish tradition of the "villancicos", which have come to mean carols as well as other songs at Christmas, is the product of a similar time. But it wasn't until the nineteenth century - Prince Albert, Dickens and all that - that the carol really took off and when, eventually, it was also sung in church. The English carol of late mediaeval and then Victorian times was, in a sense, a folk song. Though there may have been some liturgical origin, it was secular and it was also, as evidenced by itinerant wassailers, a form of street music. The communal, outdoor experience of singing carols has a long, long history.

So the carol was the musical staple of Christmas until Irving Berlin and others popped up in the US and created the Christmas hit, and in Spain, "Blanca Navidad" eventually found its way into the Spanish consciousness and into a list of all-time "villancico" classics.

The Spanish, despite not having embraced the Christmas hit in the same way as the British or the Americans, make no real distinction between a Christmas song and a carol. "Villancico" can apply to either and, in this regard, the Spanish may have been one step ahead of the pop world in Britain and America. The Christmas hit was something different. It wasn't a carol. But now, it is reasonable to place the Christmas hit alongside the carol. The Christmas hit has become as much a part of musical folklore as the carol. It is, therefore, as symbolic of Christmas as its very much older antecedent.

There is a point at which any popular and enduring song passes from being or having been a "hit" song into being folkloric. It's impossible to identify when that point in time occurs, but it occurs nonetheless. And Christmas songs, with their associated nostalgia, sentimentalism and messages, are the most obvious candidates for entering into this folklore tradition. "Let It Snow", another product of that mid-40s Jewish Christmas song production line, is, as with "White Christmas", as much a part of the Christmas tradition as "Silent Night", and "White Christmas" and "Silent Night" were both found on the album which did more than any other to create this tradition - Phil Spector's. It was an album which, as with the "villancico", juxtaposed the carol and the Christmas song.

That album didn't truly become popular until the early 1970s, but once popular, it unleashed Roy Wood's Wizzard, who aped the wall of sound, and Noddy Holder, who wrote the lyrics for what has every right to be considered a song in a folk tradition. In one line alone, and Holder knew he had a hit when he had written it, Slade simultaneously captured the mood of an everyman family Christmas and the nostalgia for the Irving Berlin era - "Does your granny always tell you that the old ones are the best".

So now, and it is no different whether it is a Spanish supermarket or BBC Radio One, the Christmas song is established as part of Christmas. Slade, Wizzard, John and Yoko, Wham and The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, they are all later additions to the 1940s tradition and the older one of the carol. Being more recent, it might be said that they don't have the longevity demanded in order to qualify for folklore, but their place in Christmas tradition and their popularity is vastly greater than it might otherwise have been because of popular technology - the download. And they, the Christmas hits, are the modern Christmas carols.

If you can bear it, Raphael's "La Ultima Navidad"

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 16 December 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.30am): 9.5C
Forecast high: 16C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): East 2 increasing Southeast 3 to 4 by the end of the afternoon.

Better morning than the forecast had predicted and should be a better day than had been predicted too. Sun's out in other words.

Evening update (18.30): A high of 18C. Decent enough day.

The Pardon Game

At the end of September, the journalist Antonio Alemany presented a plea for a pardon to be considered. He was seeking this pardon as a way of avoiding serving a prison sentence of two years and three months that was handed down at the end of a trial which also involved former president of the Balearics, Jaume Matas, and which resulted in Alemany having been found guilty of having received irregular payments, made from public funds, for speeches and articles he had written for and about Matas. The pardon plea was presented to the "Audiencia" in Palma, the court which had heard the case. As his sentence was for less than three years, the court had to accept that Alemany's entrance into prison would be suspended, pending the processing of the pardon plea.

Three weeks later, the court had to agree to his not entering prison because there was a possibility that he could serve his sentence but then receive the pardon. The fact that this was a possibility serves to highlight quite how slowly the judicial process can move. The court, in acceding to the plea, laid down certain conditions. One was that Alemany would have to report to police once a month, another was that, if the pardon process had not been resolved by May 2018, the case would go back to court in order to establish whether or not Alemany should indeed enter prison. By May 2018. Over four and a half years later.

It is not for the court to decide on the pardon plea. Its processing is undertaken by the national Ministry of Justice. It gathers all the information relevant to the case and this is then given to the Cabinet (of Mariano Rajoy) to make a decision. There is a minimum period that this processing requires. Approximately one year. As far as there being a maximum period, perhaps May 2018 gives an indication as to how long this might be.

Alemany is not the only defendant to have been found guilty to seek a pardon from the Prime Minister. A former colleague of Mariano Rajoy's in national government is also seeking one. Jaume Matas. He had initially been sentenced to six years for the same case as that involving Alemany. The sentence was reduced to nine months.

There is something of a convention that sentences for first offences of under two years mean that a spell in prison is avoided. Where Matas was concerned, it had looked as though this would be the case, but the court has insisted otherwise. Once it seemed as if he would have to enter prison, the pardon was sought.

In July, the former president of the Council of Mallorca, Maria Antònia Munar, went to prison to serve a sentence of five and a half years. In October, her lawyer, responding to confirmation of the sentence by the Balearics High Court, indicated that he might seek either a "recurso de amparo" or a partial pardon for his client. The "amparo", which would, in this instance, be granted by the Constitutional Court, is a legal remedy akin to habeas corpus. The word means protection, and its purpose is to protect citizens and to guarantee that basic rights are not being violated.

It would be unlikely that the Constitutional Court would uphold the amparo plea, as to do so it would need to establish that a fundamental right had been breached. Munar continues to argue her innocence, but her sentence has been upheld and she indeed faces, like Matas, other possible sentencing. Were a pardon to be considered, this wouldn't mean that she could leave prison. Once there, she stays there until or if it is decided she has been there long enough (less than the five and a half years in all likelihood). 

It has emerged that, prior to going into prison, Munar sought the help of three leading politicians with the PSOE party. They were the leader of PSOE and former national Interior Minister, Alfredo Rubalcaba, the former president of the Balearics, Francesc Antich, and the one-time director-general of the National Police and Guardia Civil, Joan Mesquida. Help was also sought from a fourth person, the Balearics chief prosecutor. In a letter to Rubalcaba, she pleads with him to intercede on her behalf.

These requests for help amount to requests for influence to be used. As such, they go to the heart of what lies behind corruption - the wielding of influence and the use or abuse of position and power. Are requests for pardons, directed in Matas's case at a former government colleague, not in a sense similar? To be met, they require those in power to not just wield influence but to make the decision.

What justifications are there for pardons? If convictions are wrong, then there are plenty. Have these convictions been, as Munar alludes to in her letters, the result of political persecution? If the convictions are right, then there are surely no justifications.

MALLORCA TODAY - Mallorca stumble in Andalusia

Real Jaén 2 : 1 Real Mallorca
Mallorca away at Jaén in Andalusia, Real Jaén four points behind Mallorca and hovering above the relegation area while Mallorca are just below the play-off slots (showing how tight the league is).
A bad start for Mallorca, Juanma putting Jaén ahead on seven minutes. Mallorca responded well enough but Jerez added a second for the home side after 38 minutes. Mallorca, as they have done previously this season, came out strongly in the second period, Alfaro getting one back four minutes after the break. Moreno hit a post with three minutes to go, but Mallorca were unable to get back on equal terms. Not a great result for Mallorca who fall to eleventh spot but still only one point off a play-off position.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 15 December 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.00am): 9C
Forecast high: 17C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): West 2 to 3.

Mist lifting to give a sunny day. The week's forecast suggests rain coming in by Tuesday and the later part of the week looking poor with rain and the temperature down.

Evening update (20.15): A really good day with a high of 19.9C, but it's downhill for the rest of the week.

Pride And Avarice: The collapse of Eurovegas

Avarice, also known as greed, is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Its broad definition is well enough understood, but there is a bit more to it than just the pursuit of material possessions. Avarice can inspire, so theologians would argue, a manipulation of authority.

Though avarice is addressed in The Bible, gambling is not expressly discussed. Nevertheless, and again taking guidance from writers and thinkers in such matters, it can be interpreted as being contrary to The Tenth Commandment, the one that has to do with covetousness. Moreover, it can bring on sloth, a further Deadly Sin, because it destroys the work ethic. In broader, non-religious terms, but ones nonetheless raised by theologians, gambling can be seen as bad governmental policy. It undermines morals and invites corruption**.

The Spanish newspaper "La Razón" headlined its article about the Eurovegas project in Madrid being dropped thus: "La avaracia de Adelson trunca Eurovegas". Literally, this means Sheldon Adelson's avarice truncates Eurovegas. A better verb than truncate might be sink, but whether truncated or sunk, the consequence is the same: 30 billion dollars will now not be invested in Eurovegas and complementary "integrated" resort projects in the Spanish capital.

The reason why "La Rázon" (which means "reason") has spoken about avarice is that demands which the Las Vegas Sands Corporation had made on the Spanish Government in return for its 30 billion dollar largesse were unacceptable. In financial terms, they were the payment of lower gambling taxes and guarantees of financial compensation in the event that future governments alter legislation which proves disadvantageous to the company. Even had the government been willing to consider the latter, it would have run up against a problem with Brussels. The compensation clause was a non-starter.

The demands were apparently non-negotiable and had also been introduced late on in negotiations. It seems almost inconceivable that the company wouldn't have been aware of European competition law which would have made the compensation demand impossible. Maybe it was unaware, but a conclusion that might be drawn from this demand is that the company either got cold feet about the Madrid project or saw less restriction elsewhere. Las Vegas Sands is looking at Asia as somewhere to pursue its "integrated" gambling resorts, and in Asia there might also not be a similar problem to that in Spain regarding smoking. The company had wanted the smoking ban not to apply to Eurovegas, another demand that was always going to pose a potential problem.

Or had it been the case that Las Vegas Sands would have thought that Spain was that desperate for investment that the government would simply roll over and say yes? It's doubtful. The project would have meant huge money but even Spanish governments have to abide by some rules and to be seen to be at least partially even-handed; it couldn't start making a massive exception on smoking without raising an equally massive objection from all sorts of business sectors across the country.

But, and here one comes back to the Deadly Sin, there is what avarice can inspire, i.e. a manipulation of authority. Perhaps "La Rázon" had adopted a rather more philosophical attitude to its definition than just plain material gain. The demands, it could be argued, were an attempt at manipulation. Then there is the notion that gambling can invite corruption, and here the Eurovegas story gets that bit murkier. A judge, José Manuel Gómez Benitéz, said some time ago that Eurovegas would be a "source of corruption", and let's face it, the last thing that Spain and its government need right now is any further whiff of that.

There were rights and wrongs associated with the Eurovegas project, some of the latter expressed by the Church. It may not have gone down the Deadly Sins line or even invoked The Tenth Commandment, but it is not exactly well disposed to gambling. One does have to wonder if the Church, and the ruling Partido Popular has sought to shift Spain back to more traditional Catholicism, might have been bending some ears at government level.

Even if it had, 30 billion dollars weren't to be sniffed at. Projects of such scale do not come along every day: 11 million tourists annually, most of them well-heeled you would think, 250,000 jobs. These are a lot to lose, though it had been argued that most of the jobs would have been low-paid. Maybe they would have been, but then jobs in the tourism industry tend to be low-paid; they are still jobs and they are still paid.

Las Vegas Sands may have sought to extract pounds of flesh, but one fancies there is more to the project truncation than this alone, and some of it will be on the government's side. The media will blame Sheldon Adelson and his alleged avarice, but has there been a different Deadly Sin at play? Pride perhaps.

** Kirby Anderson from https://bible.org/question/why-gambling-wrong

Photo sourced from "La Vanguardia".

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 14 December 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (9.00am): 13.5C
Forecast high: 16C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): North 2 to 3; 4 at intervals during the morning.

Touch of mist again, clearing to be mostly sunny. Staying fine for tomorrow.

Evening update (18.00): Clouded over somewhat in the afternoon. A high of 17C.

The 781-Year-Old Professor: Ramon Llull

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been fortunate in being entertained by political daftness and political cock-up. In the town of Porreres, the Més leftist grouping wanted to impose a charge on any householder who hung a Santa Claus up on the front of the house (it was a means of tackling what Més considered to be a "plague" of Santas in the town). Then there was the gift which keeps on giving, namely the estate agent education minister Joana Maria Camps, who gave us the international tread-on report into educational performance (the "trepitja", meaning tread on, versus PISA translation muddle). Now, and proving that daftness and ignorance aren't confined to Mallorca, we have the case of some advisor or other at the national education and culture ministry who has rung up the university in Palma to enquire about a salary.

The university, as is common with many universities, has a Chair, and a Chair, in university parlance, means a professorship. The university may have several Chairs for all I know, but it is one Chair in particular that has come to the attention of the national ministry. The Ramon Llull Chair.

Those of you who have followed my writings over the years may well remember my having mentioned Ramon Llull. He is a not unimportant person in Mallorca's history, but I have wondered about how important he is considered to be elsewhere. By which I have meant other countries. I have assumed that Llull would have been considered important and well known elsewhere in Spain, especially to someone who works for the national education and culture ministry.

Llull, in case you need reminding, was alive in mediaeval times. He was born in 1232 and died either in 1315 or 1316 (more on this below). As such therefore, it is unlikely - nay, impossible - for him to occupy the Chair at the university that is named after him. And this, the naming, gets us to the point of the story. The advisor at the ministry wanted to know what salary this Ramon Llull person was receiving. The Chair, or the director of it anyway, is in fact someone called Joan Antoni Mesquida who is also the director of Catalan philology at the university and so is not Ramon Llull, who died almost 700 years ago and who was born getting on for 800 years ago. The advisor was informed of the name of the director, and his interlocutor decided it wasn't worth spending the time trying to explain to him who Ramon Llull was. One trusts that the advisor doesn't now confuse this Joan Mesquida with the one who was once national secretary-general for tourism and national director-general for the National Police and Guardia Civil. For if he does, the hilarity factor will be raised higher.

Of course, this all been meat and drink to those of a Catalanist tendency (and even to those who aren't). It is indicative of a lack of appreciation of all things educationally and culturally Catalan by the anti-Catalanists in Madrid and those in particular in the department of national education minister José Ignacio Wert (though he, one rather suspects, would know who Ramon Llull was; or would he?).

It could be said it was a simple enough mistake, but then this could have been said of Joana Camps translating PISA into tread on. It was a mistake which shouldn't have been made, and political capital has been made out of it by the same political grouping, Més, which is bothered about the plague of Father Christmases in Porreres. Its spokesperson at the Council of Mallorca made a point of pointing out the mistake, accusing the national ministry and therefore the Partido Popular of being insensitive to Catalan cultural matters. This was done at a Council session to declare the years 2015 and 2016 as the years of Ramon Llull.

Years? Why should the old boy have more than one? Well, for a kick-off the Bishop of Mallorca had proposed some twelve months ago that there be more than one year, and it was a proposal, one imagines, to get round the arguments as to when Llull actually died. The Bishop suggested the "year" should cover two years - from November to November - which would mean from and to 27 November, which is Ramon's feast day. But the starting-point in November will be five months after when it is normally thought that Llull died. i.e. on 29 June, 1315. One says normally thought, but there is a good deal of evidence which suggests that he died quite a bit later; in 1316 in fact.

Anyway, whenever he died or didn't, he will be getting two years to his name, and one hopes that his name will become better known than it currently is, especially among advisors to the national education and culture ministry. "Hello, can I speak to Ramon Llull, please ..."

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 13 December 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.15am): 9C
Forecast high: 16C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): Variable 2 to 3.

A bit misty again this morning, should clear and give another decent day. The forecast has improved somewhat. Temperatures may be down a touch over the next few days but the chances of rain have reduced.

Evening update (19.00): Reasonable enough day, a high of 18.4C.

9/11 In A Catalonian Style

9/11 is about to take on a new relevance. The Spanish love of reducing dates to numbers and/or letters will mean that 9 November is suitably abbreviated. It may be 9-N but 9/11 might, for its potentially seismic consequences, be more appropriate. The president of Catalonia, Artur Mas, has announced that on 9 November next year, there will be a referendum on independence. There will be two questions posed. Do you want Catalonia to become a state? Do you want this state to be independent? Yes or no?

Mas, whose party is the CiU, has been supported in the referendum call by a rag-bag of other parties which represent varying shades of the left and Catalonian nationalism. One of these, the ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia), became a significant force in Catalonia following elections last year. Mas, who thought he was going to enjoy an increased majority for the CiU, misinterpreted a massive demonstration in Barcelona in favour of independence. This wasn't, as things turned out at the polls, necessarily an expression in favour of the CiU leading the march to independence. The CiU lost twelve seats and had to cast around for a partner. It found one in the ERC. In so doing, any possibility that there might have been of Mas, whose party isn't radical, adopting a more softly-softly approach on independence was blown out of the water. The ERC is a fervently pro-independence party. Mas was left with little option but to go full steam ahead on independence, even if there are plenty of commentators who would argue that he has never really been in favour of it and still isn't.

There is by no means total political support for the referendum among Catalonia's numerous political parties. The third strongest party, PSC, the Catalonian branch of the PSOE socialists, is against it. As are the fourth strongest PPC and the sixth strongest C's. Yes, there really are a lot of political parties in Catalonia. Pere Navarro, who is the leader of the PSC, has urged that there be dialogue and negotiations with Madrid and that there is also a dispensing with constantly looking to the past.

But it is this past which forever catches up with politics of a Catalan nature, be the location Mallorca or Catalonia. Navarro has avoided attending a symposium called "Spain against Catalonia: an historical look (1714-2014)". The implication of the symposium's purpose is clear. 1714 marked the start of Catalan repression under King Philip V after the fall of Barcelona in that year which brought to a close the War of the Spanish Succession. Catalonia was never the same again.

Navarro has made a plea for history to be something for historians, but it is a forlorn hope to believe that the past will be consigned to history. 1714 and subsequent repressions make this impossible and so colour the present day and present-day politics.

It has to be remembered, though, how the latest move towards independence came about. It was because Mas failed to secure any change to Catalonia's financing, a change which would have meant it keeping more of the revenues it raised which are then handed over to Madrid. As Mariano Rajoy was not interested in perhaps granting Catalonia a similar status to that of the Basque Country and Navarre (the regions which keep tax revenues but hand over instead what is almost like a management fee to national government), Mas opted to play the independence card. And this has brought us therefore to the 9/11 announcement.

There is of course one major problem with the referendum. It wouldn't be legal, and Spain's Justice Minister has said that it will not be held. But what if it were to be or were to be going to be? What would happen? Rajoy has made some dark mutterings about doing anything to prevent the referendum occurring. Anything?

If Mas had hoped that pressing for independence would extract some changes from Madrid, he has thus far been disappointed. And now that the date has been set, even were Madrid to offer discussions on financing (with a genuine aim to changing it), it is hard to see how the date could be un-set. Mas is in too deep.

The timing of the referendum may well have in mind the independence referendum in Scotland shortly before. If there were a rejection of independence by the Scots, this might influence how the Catalonia referendum would go (polls tend to suggest there is a pretty even split between those for or against independence). Inevitably, there will be, as there already have been, comparisons between the Catalonian and Scottish votes, but there is one very big difference. One is sanctioned, the other isn't. If Catalonia were to vote in favour of independence, assuming it is able to, then things could get rather difficult.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 12 December 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.15am): 9C
Forecast high: 17C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): South 2 to 3.

Any rain threat for this morning seems to have gone. Looks like being another decent day, but the forecast is a bit dodgy over the weekend.

Evening update (20.00): Quite warm today, a high of 19.6C.

The Non-Existent Lands: Balearics and Catalonia

Cliché it may be but there is some truth to the notion that certain things can only happen in Mallorca. They could also, theoretically, happen in Ibiza, Formentera and Menorca, but in practice they couldn't, as none of those islands can boast having a Balearic Parliament. Only Mallorca can boast such an institution, and so it could indeed only have happened in Mallorca.

You will be delighted to know how wisely taxpayer money is spent on parliament and parliamentary debate, because this week the Balearic Parliament has been considering where or to what the Balearics belong. On the face of it, the answer to the question is pretty simple. For quite a number of years now the Balearics have belonged to Spain. Once the British were finally booted out of Menorca, over 200 years ago, there hasn't been much argument about the fact that the Balearics, all of the islands, are Spanish.

But hold on, what am I saying? Arguments there are, and arguments there were among our honourable friends in Parliament. And these arguments centred on the pretender to Balearics' possession. Which is? No, not is, but are. The Catalan Lands. Yep, Parliament has been debating whether or not the Balearics belong to these Lands and presumably not therefore to Spain.

Just one of the problems with this debate was a fairly crucial one. As some honourable friends - you won't be surprised to learn that they were from the Partido Popular - disputed the very existence of the Catalan Lands, it was difficult to hold a debate. How can one debate the claim that the Balearics belong to the Catalan Lands when there is no such thing as the Catalan Lands? There again, there are any number of people who are prepared to argue that God doesn't exist but will still insist on debating this non-existence rather than saying that because they don't believe in God's existence, there isn't a great deal of point arguing about it.

While the Catalan Lands may in fact only be an abstract or mythical concept, the fact that they are nebulous is no obstacle to wasting time in Parliament discussing something which doesn't exist, especially when there are others who believe in the God of the Catalan Lands. All the parliamentary deputies, more or less, who are not with the PP are, at the very least, prepared to countenance the possibility of the Lands' existence. So, there they were, debate lines drawn between Catalan Lands atheists, some of an agnostic tendency and others who follow the faith.

In purely linguistic terms, there are - and even the PP have to concede this - certain regions where Catalan or a variant thereof is spoken. The Balearics form one such region. (I don't know why I'm telling you this, as I would presume you realise this, but whatever.)  Speaking the lingo or a type of the lingo isn't quite the same thing as there being a "Catalan Lands" though, because as a concept this has a political and historical background. And it was the politics that went to the heart of the debate. Eventually, Parliament (i.e. the PP because of its majority) decided that the Balearics did not belong to the Catalan Lands.

The PP's spokesperson in Parliament, Mabel "The Lonely Goatherd" Cabrer had consulted her history texts in being the prime mover behind the atheists. The Catalan Lands didn't exist, she maintained, because Mallorca was once a Kingdom and because Catalonia was once just a part of the Crown of Aragon. No one has ever really put forward the case for the Aragon Lands, mainly one presumes because the Aragonese aren't that bothered. In a way of course, she is right. Mallorca was swallowed up by the Crown of Aragon as well until it was finally and definitively made an Un-Crown under the Nueva Planta of the early eighteenth century, a move which has meant that Mallorca and the Balearics (save for the times when the British were in residence on Menorca and also, one might add, when the French were occupying) have, for three centuries, been Spanish and nothing but Spanish.

The debate about the Catalan Lands, daft though it might seem, does have a serious side to it. If the Parliament were to decide that the Balearics do indeed belong to the Catalan Lands, then, if only in theory, the Balearics might find themselves part of a greater Catalonia, assuming that Catalonia were to become independent. This, the claims of Catalonia, is one of the reasons why President Bauzá and others have such a big downer on Catalonia and therefore Catalan. But such a parliamentary decision would fly in the face of popular opinion. As pointed out previously, a sense of identity with the Catalan Lands among the Balearics' people is all but non-existent. About as non-existent as the Catalan Lands themselves. Possibly.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 11 December 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (9.00am): 9C
Forecast high: 17C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): East 3 veering Southeast by the afternoon and South by the evening.

Early mist. Light cloud. Sun should come out later, though there is an outside chance of a spot of rain during the morning. The forecast points to things going downhill from Saturday.

Evening update (19.15): A high of 16.8C. Reasonable sun at times.

An Evening Down The Club: Holiday rentals

The Diario de Mallorca newspaper empire is headquartered on the Llevant industrial estate in Palma. This is one of those industrial estates with no industry, its layout and roads having taken an inordinately long time to have been re-done three or so years ago. It is an estate which is testimony to the bizarre priorities of urban planning. Spend time and money re-developing something that no one has any interest in using. Except the Diario, whose HQ has been there as long the original estate; longer perhaps. Maybe they built an industrial estate around it. Who knows.

You can't miss the Diario HQ, certainly not when it's dark. Its titles - "Diario de Mallorca" and "Mallorca Zeitung" - shine brightly above the desolate nothingness of the Llevant estate. Beacons of life and industry. The newspaper industry. I had been there before as I had once used its print works: if you need something printed with newsprint, then you use a newspaper printer. I had not been to the Club before. This is a theatre to which the great and good and the less than great and the bad are called to offer their views on matters of importance. The matter of importance yesterday evening was that of holiday rentals, an issue which has somehow become a Mastermind subject where I am concerned.

It was to have been a debate, which in fact it wasn't. The director-general from the tourism ministry had initially been billed but had probably realised that he had a longstanding engagement to wash his hair - not that he has much. So instead a lady called Margarita came along together with a translator. The debate was to be in English. Much of it wasn't. I was told that no one of any significance at the ministry speaks English, which probably says something. I also learned that the director general is in fact an architect by profession, which is useful for tourism and for studying the layout of unused industrial estates. It may not have mattered that he was washing his hair after all.

Margarita spoke, at length, about the Balearics tourism law. The words "permitted" and "not permitted" were uttered often. She was talking specifically about what can and what can't be rented out as tourist accommodation, which was relevant to the debate (such as it was) and which confirmed that the overriding concern of the tourism ministry is to blind everyone with bureaucracy. A lawyer, Javier, spoke, at length, about what was permitted and what wasn't. And in case anyone had fallen asleep, he then repeated all this during what was meant to have been a one-sentence summing up which lasted roughly five minutes. He knew his stuff, though.

Alvaro Middelmann, the former boss of Air Berlin in Spain and Portugal and the one-time president of the Mallorca Tourist Board, spoke with great common sense not about what is or isn't permitted but about tourism, which is rather more important than the intricacies of property law. As he normally speaks common sense, this was not surprising. He is one of a very few people in Mallorca who appear to actually understand tourism. The ministry doesn't; that became abundantly clear.

So, what did we learn? Not a lot. Or rather, I didn't learn anything I didn't already know. But if there was one strong message above all it was that the loophole provided by the tenancy act is a crook's charter. So long as there is a contract with the renter which expressly says there is no service being provided, then the rental is ok. Also assuming the property hasn't been advertised as a holiday rental, which does kind of beg a question. If a property is advertised for rent in a tourist area, regardless of how it is described or isn't, then the chances are that it will be rented by a tourist.

This loophole is useful in another regard. Rent out in this fashion and there's no IVA (VAT) to be paid. Hence, there is a situation which is being abused. Services do get provided, but the owner will make out that it is the tenant who has obtained them, not he. It is a loophole which adds to confusion rather than reduces it, and it is a loophole which is no use to those owners who wish to be up-front in advertising their apartments as a holiday let and in providing services. It is a typically Spanish double-speak legal loophole.

That, therefore, was pretty much it. A debate which didn't address the role of holiday rentals for a diverse tourism market, one which didn't really address tourism at all, despite my attempts to do so and those of Alvaro Middelmann. And what will come of it? Nothing, one imagines. Nice theatre, though.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 10 December 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.30am): 9.5C
Forecast high: 16C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): Variable 2 increasing Northeast 3 by the afternoon and veering East by the afternoon.

Another good enough morning, a mix of cloud and early sun. May cloud up overnight and bring a spot of rain into the morning.

Evening update (24.00): A morning high of 17.6C. Went down about after that.

The Decline Of Brand Spain

"A strong brand has become a defining feature of success in the current economic climate. Worldwide hyper competition for business, combined with an increasingly cluttered media environment, means that the clear message carried by a properly managed brand can provide the crucial leverage needed to thrive. The financial uplift provided to a product or corporation from a strong brand is well known, and companies invest heavily in protecting their brands. Nations can adopt similar techniques to capitalise on the economic growth that comes with proper positioning of a nation brand. All nations should working to actively realise this potential."

So says David Haigh, chief executive officer of Brand Finance, a global business which advises on the maximising of value through the effective management of brands and intangible assets. It is a company which produces different reports, and just one of them is its report into "nation brands". The 2013 report has just been published, and it is not one that will spread joy among those who promote the "Marca España" (brand Spain).

Great emphasis has long been placed on the "Marca España". A year ago, a whole new website was launched in its name. At the time, it wasn't available in English. It now is and it is quite an impressive exercise in promotion. But what does "Marca España" mean and entail? According to the website, it is a "state policy, whose efficacy will be proven in the long term". The objective is to "improve the image of our country" in seeking to boost exports, attract foreign investment, support internationalisation of companies and raise tourism. It is a grand objective, but will this "state policy" be proven in the long term?

In the short term, it is not being proven. Spain has, over the past year, lost 20% of brand value, says the report. It is lumped in with nations such as Morocco, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania which have lost similar values. It is still reckoned to be A+, a distinction shared with Turkey, Brazil and India, but it has slipped from thirteenth position to eighteenth in the international ranking, one position ahead of Turkey.

In order to arrive at this evaluation of countries, Brand Finance applies a framework showing internal and external factors for four key segments - investment, tourism, products and services, and people and skills. It is when you look at what these factors are that you begin to appreciate why brand Spain might have suffered the fall it has.

In some respects, Spain is doing quite well. Foreign tourism is most certainly holding up and has indeed been increasing, even if the tourism is uneven because of a dependence on summer tourism (and it certainly isn't only Mallorca which has such a dependence). The export of brands has been instrumental in helping to bring about what slow economic recovery there has been. Inward investment is beginning to increase, although this is not necessarily investment which can be described as productive investment; not yet anyway. Unemployment remains way too high and will stay way too high; it is unlikely to ever come down to the 8 or 9% level that it was before crisis.

It is in other areas, though, where brand Spain has problems. Take domestic investment, i.e. encouraging "local commerce to invest domestically as opposed to investing overseas". In the tourism sector, as is well enough known, leading hoteliers are investing overseas; greater growth prospects exist in foreign markets for Mallorca's big hotel chains. On domestic tourism, encouraging "citizens to explore domestic destinations rather than vacationing abroad" is not being realised in the likes of the Balearics; the domestic market slumped markedly this summer.

When it comes to people and skills, this is the segment where brand Spain probably faces its biggest single challenge. Encouraging "citizens to study and work locally, rather than going overseas, i.e. avoid the brain drain" is not happening. There is an exodus of talent, one caused by lack of opportunity and too often by the absence of systems based on merit; this is the malaise brought about by "amiguismo", to which I have referred before.

The report doesn't say anything specifically about Spain and it doesn't include factors such as corruption, dealt with by the Transparency International report last week, but as noted in the introduction, a "cluttered media environment" requires a clear message. If this clutter includes a load of negativity, then getting a clear message across isn't easy. Though not included by Brand Finance, this negative publicity surely cannot help to portray the "Marca España" in the best light. Other than this, though, perhaps the strongest message for Spain that comes from the report is that to do with people and skills. The country needs talent. It cannot afford to lose it.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 9 December 2013

No Frills Excursions


Morning high (8.15am): 9C
Forecast high: 16C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays): North and Northeast 2.

Mix of cloud and blue bits this morning. Very calm, the winds at sea showing just how little the wind is a feature. Should remain fine today, while the forecast for the week hedges its bets somewhat. Likely to stay mostly fine and mild.

Evening update (18.00): High of 18.1C. Quite a bit of good sun.

Forty Years Of Conservation: GOB

On the first of December, a fourtieth anniversary was celebrated. It was one to mark the founding of the Grup Ornitològic de Balears, better known as GOB, an organisation which nowadays wields enormous influence in Mallorca and which has come a long way from its origins in 1973.

The organisation was founded in what was still the Franco era. The regime may have been on its last legs but it was still a time when censorship prevailed along with repression. It would have been impossible to have founded an organisation of the type that GOB has become in 1973.

Originally therefore, it was, as its name implies, a group of nature lovers and especially bird lovers who came together in order to promote knowledge of birds and other wildlife and to also promote what was a nascent sense of natural conservation in the Balearics in face of the environmental impact of tourism. In fact, the original group comprised a mere six people whose principal interest was in the island's vultures.

1973 is often referred to as the year when the first tourism boom ended. There is a good reason why. 1973 was the year of the Yom Kippur War and the year that the oil crisis arose. Tourism, for some three to four years, was affected. Numbers of tourists to Mallorca declined, and the oil crisis was to bring about a change in attitudes on the island both in terms of external relationships with tour operators and airlines and in terms of the environment. GOB's founding was coincidental, but it was extremely prescient.

With the passing of the Franco regime and the move towards democracy and regional autonomy, which was formalised thirty years ago, GOB grew and started to change its character. By the 1980s, it was organising campaigns of a much wider environmental nature. They all had the philosophy of conservation and they were directed initially at ensuring protection for natural areas, such as Albufera, and then at developments, be they roads, hotel complexes or other building and infrastructure. One of the landmark schemes in those early years was the acquisition of the La Trapa biological reserve in the Tramuntana mountain. Public support enabled the acquisition. In 1980, GOB took over La Trapa. The destruction caused by the fire this summer resulted in a new wave of public support to raise funds; La Trapa and so therefore GOB has a position in the Mallorcan consciousness which goes deep.

Though the first regional government might not have admitted it, GOB's influence on it was evident. Along with the first tourism plan came the first real legislation aimed at environmental matters. This wasn't only needed in order to balance the impact of increasing tourism numbers, it was also needed to address the effects of population growth and so therefore resources; between 1960 and 1980, the population of Mallorca had increased by almost 200,000 to over half a million in total.

A more openly political Mallorca, courtesy of regional government, began to mean a more political GOB. In a sense, it was only really taking a lead from other environmental movements, but this political edge is summed up in a dossier that was drawn up only a few years ago. The organisation listed four key objectives. Three were to do with conservation, biodiversity, education about the environment, actions against environmental destruction and in favour of sustainable development. The fourth was to do with facilitating society's participation in a better democracy.

GOB's relationship with governments has, especially in the past few years, been somewhat strained. Yet, in 1997 the national environment ministry of the government of José Maria Aznar (Partido Popular) awarded it the national prize for the environment. Less surprising in political terms perhaps was the awarding of the Balearics Gold Medal by the PSOE-led Balearics Government in 2002.

More recently though, GOB's activities have led to political opponents saying that it should put up or shut up and make itself an official political entity. It does, as an organisation, appear to be close to the Mallorcan nationalist left-wing, represented by the PSM (Mallorcan socialists) now in alliance with others, including the Greens, in the Més grouping. GOB's campaigning has moved away from the purely environmental. It has, for example, been involved with pro-Catalan initiatives and with the effort to prevent the closure of TV Mallorca. Back on firmer environmental ground, GOB staged a protest against the current government's environment policies at the Berlin Travel Fair earlier this year. One of the main issues it wanted to highlight was the planned hotel development near to Es Trenc beach.

GOB has been accused of being anti-tourism. There might be some truth to the accusation, but forty years on from its founding, the issues posed by tourism and also by population growth have changed only in terms of their scale. From tourism numbers in the five millions in the 1980s to the eight to nine millions now; from a population of 550,000 in 1980 to one that is now some 300,000 greater. It may have moved a long way from its original remit but its relevance is stronger than ever.

MALLORCA TODAY - Ten-man Mallorca play out dull draw versus Numancia

Real Mallorca 0 : 0 Numancia
Mallorca at home to Numancia (from Castile and Leon), both teams pressing for the top six. Not much between the two until Thomas was shown red for a second yellow in the thirtieth minute, reducing Mallorca to ten men. Numancia took control for the final part of the first period, but Mallorca came out in the second looking lively, Nsue blowing a clear scoring chance just after the break. Though Numancia then dominated for periods, a poor game yielded little by way of excitement and few opportunities for either team, though Numancia looked as though they might have broken the deadlock in time added-on, only for Geromel to save things for Mallorca. In the end, all a bit of a bore draw, Mallorca, for now, in eighth spot.