MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 14 June 2014

Stefanos

Morning high (7.00am): 23.5C
Forecast high: 31C; UV: 9
Three-day forecast: 15 June - Rain and sun, 29C; 16 June - Rain and sun, 23C; 17 June - Rain, 24C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North 2 to 3 veering Northeast 3 to 4 during the morning.

Very warm overnight and a warm morning. Hot and sunny today, but from tomorrow things don't look that good for a few days, rain around until later next week.

Evening update (20.45): A high of 32.6C. Some cloud at times. Likely to be more tomorrow.

No Frills Excursions

When Mallorca Had A Pop Festival

Summer, we can safely say, is here. When the temperatures hit the thirties, everyone hits the beaches and the summertime hits start to pump out from speakers, radios and I-things. If music be the ice-creams of summertime love, then play on. Music goes together with summer as much as bucket meets spade and sun shines over beach. And this music comes in many a Mallorcan mode. It is played back, karaoke-ed and tributed and it is also live, rock, dance, jazz or classically vibrated on a violin. The Bellver Festival has been reawaken from its estival hibernation of 2013, Mallorca Rocks rocks, The 1975 ensure cars smell like chocolate, Sa Pobla will syncopate a jazz August and David Guetta will raise the Titanic in Palma in the same month. All musical life is to be found in Mallorca.

But one thing that Mallorca doesn't have - more's the pity - is a true music festival. One like they have in Benicàssim on the mainland where, for four days next month, the headlining acts will be Tinie Tempah, Kasabian, The Libertines and Paolo Nutini. Yet, go back to those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summers past and there used to be a festival. The first one took place fifty years ago in July 1964.

One says festival, but it wasn't what we now think of as a festival. Newport may have had its jazz and folk and Dylan being booed, but Monterey, Woodstock and the Isle of Wight had all yet to happen. The Mallorca Festival of Song did not boast a line-up of major international artists. Franco's lot were ok when it came to the non-threatening likes of Cilla Black, but they were unnerved by long-haired young Britons with guitars, sharp suits and anarchic lyrics which declared that she loved you. They relented and admitted Los Kinks to Mallorca in 1966, but otherwise they wanted predominantly homely, happy, Spanish acts who could be guaranteed not to engage in Dylanesque protest.

The Mallorca Festival featured, therefore, acts local to the island and artists from the mainland as well as "safe" performers from other countries. Who, for example, can forget the Italian Tony Dallara and "E Colpa Mia" who stole first prize in 1970, fending off Pedro Luján with "Cocktail Mallorquín"? Well, pretty much everyone can forget, it would seem. The festival is one of the great forgottens of Mallorca's musical past, yet it ran for seven years until 1970 and it took place slap bang in the tourist land of Playa de Palma.

The festival was in fact a contest. The first one in 1964 was spread over six days from 7 to 12 July, and the winners were Frida Boccara and Luís Recatero with a song in French, "Quand Palma Chantait". Frida, those of you with long memories and a sad knowledge of Eurovision might recall, went on to be one of the four co-winners in Madrid in 1969 (one of the others having been Lulu). In 1966, Tony Dallara - yep, him again - stormed to victory with "Margarita", though this particular festival is apparently better known for what was the most popular song of the festival: "Vuelo 502" by Los de la Torre. (I'm not quite sure what the difference between most popular and winner was, but there clearly was one.)

By 1967, the sentiments of the songs were clear. They were firmly touristic. Lea Zafrani and Los Dogers warbled the praises of "Las Chicas de Formentor", which was something of a change from the poetic praising of a Formentor pine tree, and Los Dogers (dodgy name) teamed up with Los Stop to give the world - a small part of it anyway - "El Turista 1,999,999", which was either a sort of dig at the number of tourists coming to Mallorca by then or, more likely, a celebration of the number. Either way, Loses Dogers and Stop were not pre-empting Prince and multiplying him many times. They were not partying like it was one million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine.

The last festival was the one held in 1970. One might take Tony Dallara at his word and blame him for its demise, but the fact was that, after the great enthusiasm with which earlier editions had been greeted, later ones suffered from dwindling interest. The point was that, despite the best attempts by the Franco regime to limit the foreign musical invasion, it had invaded. A revival was planned later in the 1970s but nothing came of it. Fifty years on from that first festival, with a very, very different musical environment, might it not just be time to consider reviving it again? There is, after all, a very much larger potential audience nowadays. El Turista 9,999,999.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 13 June 2014

Stefanos

Morning high (6.30am): 21.5C
Forecast high: 31C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 14 June - Sun, 31C; 15 June - Sun and possible rain, 24C; 16 June - Sun and possible rain, 23C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northwest 2 to 3 veering Northeast 3 to 4 during the morning.

Another sunny and hot day to come, but there's a bit of a breakdown in the weather expected by Sunday, with showers possible from then and into next week.

Evening update (19.45): A big high today. 33.9C.

No Frills Excursions

The Environment Ministry Is Not Interested In The Environment

In 2009 I invented a term. It was a "lagola". It was an expression for a considerable sum of money, 750,000 euros to be precise, the amount that had been ploughed into making the La Gola wet zone in Puerto Pollensa presentable. The "lagola" (and there was to be a further half-lagola as well) went on cleaning up the water, putting in some nice pathways, some lights, the odd sign and a visitor's centre. It was all part of a scheme to create what was referred to at the time by the regional government environment ministry (under the Unió Mallorquina) and the town hall (under Joan Cerdà of the UM) as a "green heart" in the resort.

Periodically, I have cause to go to the La Gola area. I was there a week or so ago. I had a look. It was in a bit of a state. Grass hadn't been cut, there was rubbish in the water, the visitor's centre was shut, as it has so often been shut. Pollensa town hall, now under the PP of Tomeu Cifre, has also been at La Gola to take a look. What has been observed has led it to declare that the wet zone is a disaster area in the making.

What the town hall is specifically concerned about is the water and the need to keep it from silting up. Some of you may recall the incident a few years back when a whole load of fish died. They had suffocated. Mayor Cifre says that, if needs be, he will order dredging to be undertaken. It is not meant to be the town hall's responsibility. It is the responsibility of the environment ministry. Cifre has accused the ministry of not being interested in maintaining La Gola adequately.

The story of La Gola is far from an isolated one. The money spent on it was not as great as had been the case with other areas of environmental importance in the north, but the "lagola" is, in a way, not what matters. It is what has happened since the initial amounts were spent. Or rather, not happened. La Gola is small compared with these other areas - Albufera, Albufereta, Son Real. Its size is such, one would think, that it should be easier to maintain than the vast acres elsewhere on the bays of Pollensa and Alcúdia, but it has rarely been maintained adequately. The agreement between the coalition of environment ministry and town hall back in 2009 was supposedly clear enough. The ministry would run the visitor's centre and keep the water clean. The town hall would tend to the small parkland. This was a simple division of duties which, almost straightaway, did not work as it should have done. Two months after the new, improved La Gola was opened in the summer of 2009, there was an outcry about the mess and the graffiti.

The town hall has to take some criticism itself, but it is nonetheless right in pointing the finger at the environment ministry. It has failed in other areas as well. In Albufera, the visitor's centre there is also shut. Son Real has been a scandal of neglect by government for years, and a very expensive one too. Santa Margalida town hall has, in the past, had to take it upon itself to undertake maintenance which it is not meant to. A similar situation to La Gola, therefore. And then there is Albufereta, where such is the lack of initiative that guests at the Club Pollentia Resort are invited to make donations. I am all in favour of tourists contributing to the environment, but for goodness sake.

La Gola is, unfortunately, a metaphor not just for three-quarters of a million euros, it is also a metaphor for the various grand environmental projects that have been embarked upon without adequate provision for their subsequent maintenance. It seems too easy to simply blame economic crisis and austerity for this inadequacy. Cifre's probably right. The environment ministry isn't interested.

* Photo of La Gola from 2009.

What's On Around Alcúdia And Pollensa - Muro Sant Joan Fiestas

The first of the summer's fiestas in the north of Mallorca, the actual feast day of Saint John The Baptist is 24 June. This is the saint who lends his name to Muro's stunning church and who is the town's patron. Sant Joan is very big stuff in Menorca, rather more so than in Mallorca (which is why a load of Mallorcans head to Menorca from Alcúdia's port for its festivities), but as it's the first summer fiesta of the season, Muro's celebrations are greatly looked forward to. The fiestas start this evening, but thunder into life tomorrow night with a demons' fire-run. Things to watch out for are the two horse shows and, on the day of Sant Joan itself, the procession of floats and the closing pyromusical fireworks spectacular. English version of the programme at: http://thehotguide.blogspot.com.es/2014/06/muro-sant-joan-2014.html

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 12 June 2014

Stefanos

Morning high (6.15am): 21C
Forecast high: 29C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 13 June - Sun, 31C; 14 June - Sun, 28C; 15 June - Sun and possible rain, 24C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 2 to 3 increasing 3 to 4 during the morning.

More of the same today, i.e. hot sun. The weekend is likely to see a change with showers possible on Sunday and the temperature down.

Evening update (20.00): A high of 32.5C. Fabulous.

No Frills Excursions

World Cup Years: From Surrey to Mallorca

It was, I think, a Bush. It was a large wooden type affair that commanded a sizable amount of the lounge floor. Home entertainment units of that era were all large wooden type affairs. Stereograms on legs (was ours a Ferguson?), the size of coffins, would occupy similar acres of space. The stereogram had appeared on the scene a few years before. The Bush, if that indeed was what it was, was a later arrival. One day in 1970 it was manouvered into the living-room with the aid of a crane and several pack horses (I exaggerate, no I lie, of course). The moment had arrived. A knob the size of a door handle was turned, and the Bush sparked into life. And life was suddenly very different. Colour TV.

There was one very particular reason for the ceremony of the Bush's entrance. The World Cup. It seems that every household in Britain (well, England anyway) bought, rented or obtained on HP a colour TV for that summer. For the first time, we would be able to appreciate that Brazil played in yellow and blue and not in varying shades of grey and, as things were to turn out, that England also played in red, as they had done four years before. With a different result. Colour transformed telly-watching, but not even colour could obscure the fact that Alf cocked up the substitutions and Bonetti had a mare. Defeat. And four days later, Harold Wilson lost the election. 

The four-year World Cup cycle is such that it is a life event. You can break down your time on Earth, where you were and what you were doing, according to the World Cup and the dramas that have been played out at the various tournaments.

I have virtually no recollection of 1962, except, oddly enough, the game between Hungary and Czechoslovakia. It was played in a country far, far away and it took two days for matches to be shown on British TV. Sadly, I did not see the Battle of Santiago. Of course, and also sadly, they don't make football matches like that nowadays. They went some way to making them like that in 1966 - Rattin and all that - but all that was forgotten, including Nobby Stiles kicking Frenchmen, amidst the tension of was it over the line or not and Kenneth Wolstenholme's they think it's all over. In our little bit of suburbia, life couldn't have been much better. England were world champions and there were still five weeks or so of summer holiday to go.

The 1974 tournament, one of two successive World Cups for which England failed to qualify, was my first World Cup away from home. It was university time. In 1978, it was getting used to the realities of working-life time; realities which, nevertheless, were punctuated by reliving the excesses of university. Argentina also relived many excesses. There was the match against Hungary, a glorious throwback to the kick-and-kick days of Rattin - watched after one highly indulgent evening in Brighton - and the dubious business of the 6-0 win against Peru. 

1982 was Spain's year, a recognition that the country had truly entered the modern world and no longer had a regime which might try and ban the Soviets from playing on Spanish soil. 1986 was Maradona, and 1990 was Gazza, Pavarotti and the inevitable defeat on penalties. It was also the year when I watched England play Ireland in a bar in the south of France. It was dreadful. The French pundit described the match dismissively as "le football primitif". 1994 was when FIFA, pandering to its US audience, first really tried to make football a non-contact sport. It wasn't quite the same without the violence we'd grown to love, and, to make matters worse, we had to endure Bebeto and the baby-rocking celebration. In 1998, Zidane did his best to revive the good old days by stamping on a Saudi, Beckham didn't stamp on Simone, Ronaldo had a fit, and Zidane went from villain to hero. Which brings us to 2002, and it is 2002 where the story really starts. The Mallorcan years of the World Cup. This year's tournament is my fourth.

The Mallorcan years are marked by the absurdly early time in a bar to watch Owen score, Ronaldinho lob Seaman, stamp on Danny Mills and still see Brazil win, by Rooney being sent off in 2006 and by the celebrations in 2010. Spain were world champions. They are marked also by the trappings of living in tourist resort land:  the England flags draped from balconies, the England fans bellowing their heads off in Brit bars. Wrong? Not a bit of it. The World Cup's back in Mallorca. Come on, England.  

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 11 June 2014

Stefanos

Morning high (6.30am): 20C
Forecast high: 29C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 12 June - Sun, 30C; 13 June - Sun, 28C; 14 June - Sun and cloud, 28C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 3 to 4 easing occasionally Variable 2 to 3 by the evening. Some fog early on.

A lovely morning. Hot again today, though the current high temperatures are due to fall by the weekend to more normal ones in the mid-20s.

Evening update (19.00): A high of 31.4C.

No Frills Excursions

From "El Balear" To The "Oasis"

One hundred and eighty years ago, in 1834, the first steamship arrived in Palma. Its name was "El Rey Don Jaime", but it was nicknamed "El Balear". For Mallorca, totally reliant on shipping, it marked the dawn of the modern era of maritime transport. It meant speedier connections with the mainland - "El Balear", which operated once a month between Palma and Barcelona, could take just fifteen hours to complete the journey - and so a revolution for merchant and passenger shipping. Before the steamship belched and billowed out of Barcelona and made its way to Palma, a sailing ship doing the same journey could take up to twenty days.

With the arrival of the steamship came a further innovation - a new one, a tourist one. A year after the first steamship came to Mallorca, an announcement was made of a tour of Scotland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands to be made by steamship. Two years after this, the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company was founded. It was to become better known as P&O.

"El Balear" had its origins in a request made by a Joan Reynals to the board of commerce in Barcelona in 1829 to import "a steamship of new invention to Spain". It took until 1834 for "El Balear" to make its maiden voyage. It could carry a maximum of forty passengers - not many therefore - but the speed at which it could travel meant that it could be pressed into serving other regular routes, those to the south of France and to Cadiz. Despite there being these other lines, the venture was not a great success. In the first year of operation the losses amounted to over 7,500 pesetas - a fair old amount then.

In fact, it wasn't to be until the 1880s that steamship companies operating out of Mallorca were to truly to come into their own, and by the following decade there were two principal shipping concerns based in Mallorca. One of these was Isleña Marítima, and it was to play a crucial part in the subsequent development of the island's shipping.

Isleña Marítima was an early diversification into legitimate business by the Santa Margalida-born Joan March, who acquired the company. On 1 January 1917, a new company came into being. It was Trasmediterránea, a shipping company whose history is inextricably linked with Mallorca and with March. But the founding of Trasmediterránea is not as it is often reported. March, through Isleña Marítima, took control of Trasmediterránea the year after it started operation. Of the four original founders, none of them was actually Mallorcan. But once March had control, the company came to be seen as Mallorcan (though it was headquartered on the mainland) and came to have a virtual monopoly for decades, thanks to March's close relations with various politicians, one of whom of course was General Franco.

Though Trasmediterránea more or less ran merchant and passenger shipping, there were other other shipping concerns, and they were ones which, almost one hundred years after that tourist ship had journeyed in the North Atlantic, introduced the cruise ship to Mallorca.

Depending on which opinion you prefer, the role of cruise ships in inter-war tourism in Mallorca has either been totally overlooked or greatly exaggerated. It's true to say that it is often neglected, but it is also true to say that its significance hasn't been overstated. In the twelve months before the outbreak of the Civil War, over 5,000 passengers arrived in Palma on 360 ships. The routes included a direct one with New York, this line having in fact been established some twenty years previously.

And it wasn't only North America which sent cruise passengers. South America did, too. Just after Christmas 1925, the "Conde Verde" arrived in Palma with 450 passengers on board. The newspaper "ABC" carried a short news item about this ship, one that related an incident involving customs officials in Valencia before the ship set sail for Palma. Brushes with customs were a regular source of complaint by cruise passengers in those days. 

One aspect of tourism from those times which has been overlooked was that which involved North Africa. Indeed, the whole relationship between Mallorca and Algeria is one that has been largely forgotten. Packet ships operated between Palma and Algiers, and they brought back Algerian visitors to the island. A shipping route from Marseille via Palma to Algiers was to be mirrored by a seaplane route that Air France ran (bringing French and Algerian tourists to Mallorca) before the Civil War intervened.

But to come back to the cruise ships, when the passengers arrived, they were, thanks to the better roads and new coaches, taken off on their excursions. And where did they go? They were taken to the likes of Valldemossa, the Caves of Drach, Pollensa. The same places to which cruise passengers are now also taken, which just goes to show that not a lot has changed apart from the sheer volume of cruise passengers and the type of ship. In September, the largest cruise ship in the world, the "Oasis Of The Seas", with a passenger capacity of 6,360, will arrive in Palma.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 10 June 2014

Stefanos

Morning high (7.00am): 20C
Forecast high: 29C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 11 June - Sun, 29C; 12 June - Sun, 27C; 13 June - Sun, 28C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): East 2 to 3.

Another cracking morning. Not much to say other than sun and pretty hot.

Evening update (19.45): A high of 30.9C. Warm.

No Frills Excursions

When Cars Flew To Mallorca

They staged the second Summer Tour of the Island at the weekend. Fifty classic cars took part and among them was the car that transformed Spain. The SEAT 600. Spain's economic boom of the 1960s was a miracle of tourism, but it also owed much to the SEAT, a car that was cheap enough to be in the reach of many Spaniards and to also become an export success. It may have been no more than a Fiat 600 with a different name, but it was Spain's Fiat; the Spanish economic miracle was powered by a 633cc engine.

Unplanned-for symbiosis it was, but the motor industry, i.e. primarily the 600, piggy-backed on the tourism industry. Car hire went into overdrive. In Mallorca this meant the expansion of existing companies and the creation of new ones. For example, Autos Roig, centred on Cala d'Or, which had started life in 1953 when Rafael Roig acquired a Citroen B10 taxi, moved into car rental, featuring the by-then ubiquitous SEAT. In Alcúdia, a farmer from Llubi, Jaume Vanrell, bought a plot on the front line in the port; the 600 was prominent in the original small fleet of vehicles.

Images of transport are among the most powerful in sparking off nostalgia for the early, innocent and uncomplicated days of mass tourism and in highlighting how things have all changed totally. The SEAT 600 is thus accorded the status of a classic, which for nostalgia's sake it is, but it was from a time when tourist car hire wasn't quite as innocent and uncomplicated as one might like to remember; especially not if it broke down on a mountain incline or was hired out under Ts & Cs that were rather less than fully i-dotted and t-crossed.

Tourism, and it's an obvious thing to say, is a function of mobility. As I pointed out yesterday, the impulse behind infrastructure for mobility within Mallorca that was developed in the 1920s and 1930s, i.e. roads, largely came from tourism, and it was tourism which brought with it the need for means of being mobile. Bus coaches, acquired at the end of the 1920s, were required for taking tourists on excursions, while there were also ways in which tourists could get around on their own or in small groups. Hence, the vehicle-hire sector was born.

Before that inter-war road development there were hire cars. In 1914 the first regulation of prices was introduced. The setting of tariffs and other conditions drew on experience with the mode of vehicle hire which had existed before the motor car, namely the horse-drawn carriage. It had been so subject to abuse and malpractice that in 1906 measures were taken to regulate the hire of carriages, and by 1908 all carriages had to display their tariffs. 

The need for mobility brought with it some curiosities and the outright weird. Nothing was weirder than the giant mobile balneario bathing machines from the late nineteenth century and so from a time when the taking of waters as opposed to swimming was why anyone would go to the seaside. Less weird but curious nonetheless was something which, in Mallorcan terms, has its fiftieth anniversary this year.

Though car hire had existed for fifty years before 1964 and despite the emergence of agencies such as Roig and Vanrell, the availability of cars for hire was strictly limited. As a sector, car hire was in its infancy, and so, in 1964, something curious landed at Palma's Son Sant Joan airport. It was an Aviaco ATL Carvair, a flying car ferry.

The Carvair (standing for Car Via Air) was the brainchild of Freddie Laker. Flying car ferries already existed, but Laker, through his company Aviation Traders, created a new model which was capable of carrying five cars plus 25 passengers, which was an improvement on the three cars and 20 passengers that the old Bristol Freighter plane could hold. The Carvair was an adapted DC-4, and Aviaco, a Spanish airline which existed between 1948 and 1999, saw its potential in bringing tourists with their cars from the mainland and from Nimes in the south of France.

As things turned out, the routes from Barcelona, Valencia and Nimes to Palma lasted only until 1968. They were costly to operate and so not particularly profitable, the capacity was of course low and, as importantly, the island's car-hire sector moved on at rapid speed, as did sea ferry services, thus making the flying car ferry redundant.

While the Carvair proved to be a shortlived oddity in the history of Mallorca's tourism mobility, the SEAT 600 went from strength to strength until it ceased production in 1973. But there is one other curious part to the Carvair's story, one that involved SEAT. It was also used to export 600s.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 9 June 2014

Stefanos

Morning high (7.00am): 20C
Forecast high: 29C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 10 June - Sun, 29C; 11 June - Sun, 26C; 12 June - Sun, 27C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Variable 2 increasing East and Northeast 3 by midday.

Fine morning, a bit hazy out at sea. The mini-heatwave continues today and tomorrow, getting a touch cooler by midweek. Outlook - sun all the way.

Evening update (20.15): Fine day. A high of 31.6C.

No Frills Excursions

Built For Tourism: Mallorca's roads

They like their anniversaries in Sa Pobla, even if the anniversary isn't what typically might be thought to have special significance. One hundred years of electricity in 2012 were significant, 135 years of the train in 2013 were less so, as also are 90 years of the first bus this year. But, significant or not, centenary or not, they're all an excuse to look back to times when infrastructure was shaky and partial.

The first bus rolled into Sa Pobla from Palma ninety years ago. It was a further step, one separated by 46 years, in connecting the town and capital, the north and the south. The arrival of the bus was a welcome addition to a public passenger transport system that otherwise relied on the train. Yet, for all that 1924 marked an important development in public transport and 2014 marks ninety years of the Sa Pobla service, buses don't carry the same weight of history as the stories of Mallorca's trains, trams and indeed ships. Buses are less romantic. They are the neglected part of the island's transport history.

There was, however, an "omnibus" service in late nineteenth-century Palma some years before motor buses, those powered by an internal combustion engine, might have been available. The omnibus was a mule-drawn tram, and the service connected city with port. It wasn't until 1958 that Palma actually got a bus service; this was the year when trams were withdrawn.

But to go back further - to the 1830s - it was then that Mallorca began to have anything like regular road-based public transport; the first stagecoach service between Palma and Inca was established in 1837. In order to get anywhere by stagecoach, though, there had to be roads, and in the first half of the nineteenth century, those visitors which Mallorca used to get then were particularly critical of its transport network; roads were poor, very poor or non-existent. New roads did start to appear from 1845, but the road system was never more than rudimentary. It was the realisation at the turn of the twentieth century that tourism offered Mallorca an economic future which helped to bring about some improvement, the Fomento del Turismo (Mallorca Tourist Board), founded in 1905, being instrumental in persuading whoever it could of the need for such improvement.

It was, in no small part, the "excursion" which was the impulse behind the development of new or better roads. The tourist board invested in this infrastructure, as did town halls and private individuals, and they all augmented funds made available by the provincial administration. As an example, the road between Andratx and Estellencs was built with the help of one thousand pesetas from the tourist board and 1350 pesetas from the town halls of Andratx, Estellencs, Esporles and Banyalbufar.

Getting public money for infrastructure projects was far from straightforward. The state generally didn't pay for railways, other than through discretional grants, such as one which helped with the construction of the otherwise privately-funded Sóller train. The state did pay for roads, but getting authorisation could be a tortuous process and was not made any easier by constant political upheaval. One such upheaval led to the first dictatorship, that of Primo de Rivera, but this government proved to be heavy investors in infrastructure. In the year that the Sa Pobla bus service started, the government, noting the representations made to it by the tourist board, gave the go-ahead for a number of road-building projects on Mallorca. They were all projects with tourism in mind and so with tourist excursions in mind. Public transport was secondary. Or at least this is the impression one has.

There doubtless is information about early bus services out there, but if so it's not immediately apparent. What is clear is that by the 1930s bus services and road transport in general were genuine rivals to rail services. But where the bus services went and when they commenced operations is hard to say. 1924, therefore, may have been more significant than simply being ninety years ago. The service to Sa Pobla may well have been, at that time, the furthest by distance.

The projects that Primo de Rivera's government authorised certainly gave Mallorca a more coherent road network than had been the case. One road was that between Fornalutx and Lluc, which was the final part of the mountain road that started in Andratx and ended in Alcúdia. The road from Palma to Manacor and then to Portocristo received special funding for being a "national tourism circuit". And by the end of the 1920s, with the road system in some sort of usable state, the tourist board offered financial support to operators so that they could acquire large-capacity buses. The day of the "excursionista" had truly arrived. On roads built, not for public transport, but for tourists.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 8 June 2014

Stefanos

Morning high (6.30am): 19.5C
Forecast high: 29C; UV: 9
Three-day forecast: 9 June - Sun, 29C; 10 June - Sun, 28C; 11 June - Sun, 28C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southeast 3 to 4.

Warm night, temperatures to 23 degrees at 1am, and warm morning. Sun all the way and the highs will be higher than the conservative forecast high. If similar to yesterday, and Mallorca is experiencing its first heatwave of the summer, then highs will be into the mid-30s.

Evening update (19.00): Significant difference between coastal and inland highs. Sa Pobla registered 35.2C today, but on the coasts the high was just under 30C. Hazy cloud for much of the day.

No Frills Excursions

Potions, Lotions And Alcohol

Some fairs and fiestas in Mallorca are branded according to their antiquity or style. Inca's Dijous Bo fair in November is the oldest (and the biggest). Santa Margalida's La Beata fiesta in September is the "most typical". But which fair is the most magical and mysterious? A fair dedicated to herbs might not seem to be one which merits such an accolade, but this is precisely how Selva's Fira de Ses Herbes has been branded. The six plants of Selva which are held in such magical and mysterious regard are the olive, rosemary, orange flower, "estepa joana", fern and arrayan. Two of these need a bit of explanation. Arrayan comes from the Arabic "reyhan" which means aromatic plants, basil or, in Selva's case, myrtle. An alternative word for it, and one more commonly used, is "murta". The scientific term for "estepa joana" is "Hypericum balearicum", and the hypericum genus is also known as St. John's wort, hence the "joana" in the Balearics variety.

What might have become apparent is that "herbes", though it does mean herbs, has a broader meaning. Of the six Selva plants, only rosemary is a herb as such. But what the plants all have in common is that they have traditionally provided what we might in general terms call herbal remedies. Use in cooking or for food is almost incidental. The olive may offer all sorts of benefits, but the benefit of the olive leaf is firmly medicinal, while rosemary has numerous medicinal advantages, such as aiding digestion.

Selva has been staging its fair since the year 2000, but the townspeople have been using plants and herbs for centuries. Situated where it is, right by the Tramuntana mountains, the folk of the town have long been used to trekking up the slopes to gather the likes of estepa joana, which grows in abundance, and myrtle. And indeed myrtle takes pride of place at the fair.

In common with certain other celebrations, one thinks for instance of the ritual of the pine that is cut down and then transported to Pollensa for the annual pine climb, Selva has its own ritual, which is the bringing of the myrtle. And this grand occasion takes place at 10am this morning. With all the normal accompaniment of pipers, giants and what have you, the myrtle ceremonially arrives in the town's Plaça Major, and at half twelve there is further ceremony - the distilling to make myrtle water. The significance of the still and of the making of myrtle water is that it was traditionally sought out by pilgrims en route to Lluc monastery. And there is more ceremony, at half past ten this morning, in the form of the "herbes" dance, which involves characters from traditional folk tales who are associated with the plants.

If Selva's fair is about herbal potions and lotions, Mallorca's herbs will perhaps (no, not perhaps, certainly) be better known for alcohol. Stills have been put to different uses other than the purely medicinal, and Mallorca has several distilleries engaged in the making of herbal liquor: "herbes" or "hierbas" and "palo". Yet these alcoholic drinks had their roots in medicine as well. Both hierbas and palo originate from the sixteenth and seventeenth century, hierbas having been a digestive aid and palo having been a remedy for malaria. Nowadays, hierbas is primarily a digestif, while palo is an aperitif.

The hierbas which will be most familiar is "Túnel". Its origins date from the very end of the nineteenth century, which was when Antonio Nadal Muntaner first started to commercially produce liquor. The original distillery was in Bunyola (it is now based in Marratxí), and the name "Túnel" came from the Sóller tunnel, constructed in order to build the railway line that was opened in 1912. But there are in fact older concerns which have been engaged in producing liqour. Moyà in Artà started up production of its hierbas in 1890. Jordi Perello in Llubi has been around since 1882.

Doubtless goodly amounts of liquor will have been taken on board yesterday evening in Selva, which culminated in the midnight fire with giants and little demons, and doubtless there will be more liquor available today. But it will of course only be for medicinal and health purposes.

Cheers. Or should that be "salut"?

MALLORCA TODAY - Mallorca survive the drop

Cordoba 0 : 0 Real Mallorca
Last round of matches of the season in the Segunda, Mallorca scrapping to avoid the drop away at Cordoba who are looking for a play-off spot. A defeat on the cards and so relegation? Depending on other results, Mallorca could lose and stay up. A draw would otherwise surely be enough.

Mallorca came out strongly, Hemed having two good opportunities within the first ten minutes. Mallorca continued to create more chances, but Ximo had to clear off the line to prevent Cordoba going ahead, and Cordoba began to take over as the half wore on, only for Hemed - again - to waste a chance just before the break.

The second half became tense. Matches elsewhere were going in such a way that were Cordoba to score and win, then Mallorca could indeed be relegated. With under 20 minutes left, one of those other matches - Lugo v. Mirandés - eased Mallorca's worries; Lugo taking the lead. On the pitch, Aouate saved to prevent Pelayo putting Cordoba in front, but Cordoba - desperate for a winner to put them into the play-offs - couldn't convert their pressure into a goal. Nil-nil, Mallorca safe. Now what matters is the financial state of the club. And the future of its management, its appalling mismanagement.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 7 June 2014

Stefanos
Morning high (7.30am): 19C
Forecast high: 29C; UV: 9
Three-day forecast: 8 June - Sun and partial cloud, 29C; 9 June - Sun and partial cloud, 30C; 10 June - Sun, 26C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southeast 2 to 3 increasing 3 to 4.

Fine, bright sunny morning, apart from the smoke coming up from behind the Sant Marti mount in Alcúdia. Fire. And heat is becoming a real factor. There is an alert today for high temperatures.

Evening update (19.15): Well, it's been warm indeed. A high of 36.6C. The fire was stabilised by the early afternoon. Some 16 hectares were affected. There was never any real risk - it was a zero level-risk fire.  

(Photo of helicopter water bomber over Sant Marti, shot at 7.15am.)
No Frills Excursions

The Temporary Monarchy

Kings don't abdicate every week. For once, therefore, the seismic event merited the Richter scale font sizes that occupied special second-edition front pages. The King is not quite dead. Long live the King. It also unleashed a journalistic earthquake of historical and futurist analysis, doubtless one that had been written in advance. Seismic, yes, but unexpected, no. The tremors of abdication had been felt for a good while. But though the shocks of hunting in darkest Africa and of one of the in-laws being hauled before the beak might have been deemed reasons for the royal resignation, an explanation that it was all about the handing of the Bourbon baton to the younger 46-year-old generation seemed genuine enough. Juan Carlos deserves credit for his foresight in succession planning. Some monarchs go on and on and on. One Spanish wag, and there are such beings as Spanish wags, tweeted that Isabel II (aka Elizabeth II) had announced that she too would be abdicating. In 2064.

Stability. The abdication was also about ensuring stability. But no sooner had the announcement been made than an impression of anything but stability was given. Uncertainty certainly. They were gathering here and there, calling for a new republic. The last thirty-nine years had only been temporary. A provisional monarchy. Time to move on, everyone, and the moving on should mean that the British media can stop referring to the likes of Mariano Rajoy as a prime minister, as even for the British he would genuinely be what he already is in Spain - a president. Head of state of a republic.  

Rajoy, in a rare act of comradeship, thanked Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba for not subscribing to the republican fervour. Socialists can be royalists too, you know, and PSOE are, generally speaking, good Spaniards. They don't want Catalonia going it alone and they also don't want to have to worry about what to do with the various royal palaces if there are no royals to occupy them any longer. One of these palaces is the Marivent in Palma. What was to become of it, future monarch or no future monarch? Francina Armengol, head of PSOE in the Balearics, appeared to suggest that she preferred its return to Balearics ownership. Going against national PSOE sentiment, she insisted that there should be a referendum to decide between monarchy and republic. President Bauzá attacked her "ever more extremist discourse" that is "more left than the left and more nationalist than the nationalists". A correspondent to "The Bulletin", in a superb letter, described her as "an opportunist of the worst kind", styling this opportunism as a means of trying to regain the loss of the left vote to other parties. Precisely.

It has been interesting to note reactions of the non-Spaniard and especially the Brit expat to the abdication. Opinion appeared pretty much evenly divided into the royalist and republican camps. Support for republicanism was the reason, I would guess, for a further observation in "The Bulletin" to the effect that because Juan Carlos is not a Briton's King, he or she should be excluded from expressing an opinion. How would the same Briton like it if a Spaniard was making a judgement on the future of the British monarchy?

This was something with which I couldn't disagree more. If an expat has lived in Spain for any length of time, he or she surely has every right to express an opinion on the monarchy, just as he or she has every right to express an opinion on any subject. Expats are sometimes styled as being indifferent to matters in Spain. They should be encouraged, not told to pipe down.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 6 June 2014

Stefanos

Morning high (7.00am): 17C
Forecast high: 28C; UV: 8
Three-day forecast: 7 June - Sun, 29C; 8 June - Sun, 30C; 9 June - Sun and partial cloud, 29C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): East 2 to 3.

Light early morning cloud with cloud likely to be around at times today, especially this afternoon.
Evening update (20.45): Quite a bit of cloud at times, only light though. A high of 32C inland in Sa Pobla; coastal highs around 29C.

No Frills Excursions

This Is Not Magalluf

Puerto Alcúdia. Puerto Pollensa. Can Picafort. Playa de Muro. What do they have in common? If you answer that they are all resorts in the north of Majorca, then you would be right but you would also be wrong. The real answer is that they are not Magalluf. In just the same way as Port Sóller, Cala Millor and Cala d'Or are not Magalluf.

The Mallorca world revolves around a sun of Magalluf obscured by darkness that stalks the night and only around this sun. Am I right or am I right? You would be right, too. Magalluf, always Magalluf. Never here, there or everywhere else. The body of Magalluf is picked over by a scavenging and voracious press endlessly hunting for the bones of a story, one that is preferably sordid, sensational, sad or all three. A plague on both the houses of Magalluf itself and the media it fattens.

I am right but I'm not right. You would be right but you would not be right. The northern resorts, as with more or less all other resorts in Mallorca, may have little more than walk-on parts as extras in the tragi-comedy that has been playing to packed media audiences in Magalluf, but there is something to be said for playing a bit part: no spotlight turned on means no blemishes to be noticed, real or imagined, minor or rather more than minor. Be careful what you wish for by way of attention.

The prostitute thing is not a phenomenon in the northern resorts. Thank God for that. But Magalluf serves as a warning. As perhaps do solutions to its troubles. If not Magalluf, then where? The prostitute thing would be unlikely to gravitate north because of logistics. Where are the women based? Palma. Distances are short to the places of their violence. Besides which, the north's resorts are unlike Magalluf and parts of Playa de Palma that offer fertile drunken, youthful pickings for the women of the night mugging patrols. But there again, it isn't only the drunken and the youthful who fall prey. And also there again, it isn't accurate to suggest that northern resorts are solely "family", a branding which somehow seems to imply that they are spared the worst excesses that Mallorca can offer.

Things do gravitate though. Remember the problems caused by the scratch-card touts? The story went that they had been hounded out of Calvia and so switched operations to Alcúdia, which also meant the other northern resorts. Which year would it have been? 2008 maybe? The office in Puerto Alcúdia suddenly closed towards the end of July. They all disappeared. There was never an adequate explanation as to why, though it was believed to have been because the fines had reached such a level that they had to shut up shop (fines for illegal street touting, that is). A new operation appeared the next year but the worst had passed. There was no longer quite the harassment and the abuse that tourists had been subjected to, and what there has been by way of touting in the past couple of years has been low-key compared to what it once was. But though there were supposedly the fines, it wasn't really police action that stopped the worst of the scratch-card operators. It was more because the level of business wasn't good enough.

The looky-lookies are something else. They have been a feature for years, and complaints against them, as in Magalluf, are increasing. And just as in Magalluf, there are occasional police actions, and they're back on the streets in no time. There are bar owners who are sick and tired of them, but there are some bar owners who have to look at themselves. Those ones who have encouraged the lookies. And we all know that it is not just fake goods that they sell. They've been selling other stuff for years as well, and if a tourist doesn't happen to know what else they sell, there is always someone on hand to tell that tourist. I shan't identify the shop, but let me just say that I overheard its owner telling a couple of Swedish lads the other day about the lookies. "The black guys?" asked one of the Swedish boys. "They sell gear?" "Yes." It's always nice to be helpful to tourists.

We may feel in the north that it's all about Magalluf, but then we have to ask why that is the case. The concentration on Magalluf may offend as much as the negative nature of the reporting offends and so doesn't reflect all that is positive, but again one has to ask why. There are serious issues in Magalluf. Be thankful that it is Magalluf which gets the attention. But also wish Magalluf well.