MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 15 July 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (6.00am): 23.5C
Forecast high: 31C; UV: 10
Three-day forecast: 16 July - Sun, 32C; 17 July - Sun, 29C; 18 July - Sun, 29C.

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

Though sun prevails, there may be some light cloud at times. Still no sign of the dip in temperature that the met office had forecast for Thursday.

Evening update (20.30): Coastal high, 31.5C; Inland high, 33.7C.

No Frills Excursions

Rise To The Occasion: In-store music

Eroski's a strange old shop. Not just one. They all seem to be at it. I mean, when were they transported back in time to the days of ooh, Gary Davies and converted into 1980s' radio stations circa the era of Gary or Bruno or Simon Bates? What will they do next? Have the shoppers weeping in the aisles not because they've run out of stock but because of "Our Tune"?

There aren't actually any what were once called disc jockeys as such (they're now presenters, a job title with far greater gravitas), but you never know. Wasn't Chris Moyles discovered as the in-house DJ at Top Shop in Leeds or something like that? And look what happened to him. What has happened to him?

There has to be some method to the Eroski 1980s music madness, though I am blowed if I know what it is, why it is and who's responsible. What thought process is applied in order to come up with Climie Fisher's "Rise to the Occasion" while one is helpfully trying to explain the intricacies of weighing your own fruit and veg to a disorientated British tourist, rendered even more disconcerted by straining to recall what the song is and so completely incapable of taking instruction. "Look, see that picture. It's an apple. And its number is?" A complete waste of time.

There is, as with most things shopping, a psychology to all this, but what it is in Eroski's case is anyone's guess. I posed myself this very conundrum the other morning when attempting to figure out the point of Tears for Fears' "Advice for the Young at Heart". A pleasant tune, but was it having any discernible influence? Apart from making me tarry longer, simply because it is a pleasant tune and I wanted to listen to it, then no. The same Gouda slices as usual were launched into the bottom of the new, extra-deep, extra-non-customer-friendly trolley thing they've introduced, bouncing off the familiar iceberg lettuce, bunch of green bananas and bottle of moderately priced vino tinto. Was I inclined to draw on the inspiration of the music of the two largest egos known to the history of popular music - Roland and Curt - and indulge in an impulse purchase? Was this the thinking? Well no. Besides, who actually makes impulse buys in supermarkets? Oh, it's Tears for Fears, I must acquire that toaster or half a ton of mangoes.

There again, tarrying may have something to do with it. Find yourself propelled back to a nostalgic time when men turned themselves into wimpish extras from "Star Wars" (as with, for example, A Flock of Seagulls), and you are motivated to lurk and linger (possibly), and the longer the lingering, the greater the embarrassment that you aren't actually buying anything: only listening to the music. Oh well, might as well get some toilet rolls: you can never have too many anyway.

Yes, there is a great deal of psychology, and some of it which isn't total Horlicks (not that Eroski sells this). For example, it has been found that playing classical music can induce a tendency to spend more (this was from a study in a wine store): all to do with an implication of sophistication. Some of it does make sense. No music at all, and the store is unwelcoming. Hence, you would spend less because you want to get out quicker, though not as quick as if thrash metal was being played at high volume.

But while accepting there is this psychology, I still struggle to understand it in the Eroski context. Why 1980s music? Why all English? It has occurred to me that maybe the music is not for the shoppers but is to make shopworkers' lives more agreeable, but then wouldn't they benefit from selections by Enrique Iglesias and other Spanish hitsters? Probably not, as all Spanish hitsters sound exactly like Enrique and only have one song between them.

No, I don't get it and indeed I'm inclined to believe that it has nothing whatsoever to do with shopper behaviour or making workers' days more pleasant than the constant grind of having to ask for "Tarjeta Eroski" and try to flog you an almond cake or deodorant that's on special offer. It's all to do, I suspect, with DJs. Not Gary Davies or Bruno Brookes, but the DJs down the local fiesta, the ones who insist on putting DJ in front of their names just in case you hadn't realised they were DJs. (No self-respecting "producer" with a USB stick and a Mac armed to the hard-drive gunwales with mixing software would pitch up at, say, Magalluf's BH with DJ in front of his name.) No, the fiesta DJs are in thrall to Climie Fisher and the 1980s. It is from them that Eroski has taken the lead. Or is it the other way round?

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 14 July 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (6.45am): 23C
Forecast high: 31C; UV: 10
Three-day forecast: 15 July - Sun, 31C; 16 July - Sun, 32C; 17 July - Sun, 29C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): West 2 to 3 veering North-Northeast 3 to 4 around midday.

Well, according to Aemet, the national met office, things are supposed to cool down for a few days from Thursday (i.e. until Sunday when the heatwave will return). Looking at the forecast, it doesn't look as though there's going to be much in the way of cooling down.

Evening update (20.00): Coastal high, 32.7C; Inland high, 34.1C.

No Frills Excursions

Why Does Mallorca Not Love Flamenco?

When Paco de Lucía passed away in February last year, the association between Mallorca and the world's greatest exponent of the flamenco guitar died with him. A few years before his death, but already a resident of the island, he became the last in a line of celebrity faces that the regional tourism ministry felt might help with promotion. Famous though he undoubtedly was, the choice seemed a little odd, though not perhaps any odder than there having been a German model (Claudia Schiffer) or a Russian tennis player (Anna Kournikova) as faces of Mallorca. Nevertheless, what did a flamenco musician have to do with Mallorca or the Balearics? Flamenco isn't Mallorcan music.

When de Lucía decided to uproot and move to Mallorca, he did so because he was looking for somewhere to enjoy peace and quiet. In Toledo, where he had been living in a six-storey mansion, he had tired of Japanese tourists flashing their cameras at the impressive gate. His house had been featured in tourist guides and on tourist routes.

Toledo lies not so far south of Madrid, a city which, despite being a fair old distance from the birthplace of flamenco in de Lucía's native Andalusia, was and is a centre of the flamenco tradition. It is said that Barcelona is also such a centre, which might seem a little surprising. Flamenco is synonymous with Spanish culture, even if it is a culture largely of Andalusia and of the capital: when Madrid was being promoted for the 2020 Olympic Games, the video featured flamenco strongly.

Away from Toledo, away from Madrid, de Lucía was able to enjoy the quiet life he craved. He would go with his family to the occasional village fiesta. He might play. But he had no interest in drawing attention to himself. He was content with being part of a community, mingling with the local people, unmolested by them.

That someone of his fame was able to achieve this says much for his humility, but what did it say of flamenco? Of course he was famous, enormously famous, a global superstar. He had been able to pack the main hall at Palma's auditorium in late 2010, but otherwise, what was the island's relationship with this music, with this tradition?

Take yourselves back to the days of early mass tourism in Mallorca, and there was a culture to be promoted which was pretty much mandated from Manuel Fraga's ministry for information and tourism. It wasn't a Mallorcan culture but a Spanish one. From the ubiquitousness of souvenirs to the bullfight to the music, it was Spanishness that was for sale, and flamenco was one of the products.

Flamenco had suffered badly because of the Civil War and its aftermath, not because it was proscribed but mainly because it was being lost amidst the poverty in Andalusia. It wasn't until 1956, when a "cante jondo" contest was held in Cordoba, that its revival started. The Franco regime was to cotton on to its renewed popularity as a tourism money spinner, and what was good for the Costa del Sol was also good for the Costa Brava and Mallorca.

Come forward fifty years to the current day, and flamenco in Mallorca, while it still has its place in the tourism scene, is a quite different beast. It is everywhere in its more serious guises - its music and its dance. Consult what's on pages, and you will find, especially in summer, flamenco seasons, flamenco nights, flamenco as part of music festivals (those of a classical nature), flamenco and dinner events. Mallorca appears to be almost drowning under the sheer weight of flamenco, further bolstered by Andalusian cultural fairs that have sprung up in many a town.

Yet despite all these events appearing in what's on listings, despite there being a significant Andalusian population in Mallorca, promoters of flamenco are bemoaning the fact that it simply isn't capturing the general public's imagination. They attribute this partly to a lack of promotional visibility, but how can this be? As I say, flamenco seems to be everywhere, and be it somewhere like the Embat beach chiringuito at Es Trenc or the Santanyi International Music Festival, promotion seems anything other than invisible.

Flamenco in a different, more of-the-moment guise - flamenco chill - is undoubtedly popular, but this genre differs quite significantly from more traditional flamenco and in one very important way: the singing, which is all but absent. There are various forms of singing, such as the "cante jondo", but it has to be said that it is an acquired taste. Vocally, flamenco can grate.

Is this a reason for not capturing the public's imagination? Maybe it is. Or maybe it is a memory of how traditional Mallorcan music was sidelined by the Spanishness of early tourism. And maybe, quite simply, because it isn't Mallorcan music.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 13 July 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (6.15am): 22C
Forecast high: 31C; UV: 9
Three-day forecast: 14 July - Sun, 32C; 15 July - Sun, 30C; 16 July - Sun, 32C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): East-Northeast 2 to 4.

And still it keeps coming - sun, that is, along with hot temperatures and moderate breezes. General outlook: no change.

Evening update (20.00): Coastal high, 31.6C; Inland high, 33.4C.

No Frills Excursions

Days Of The Seagull

"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea." Last week was a good week for seagulls. Take, for example, poor old Henry "Blowers" Blofeld, a man who single-handedly has done more for pigeon and seagull life than any other commentator in the history of sport. And what happens? Having been prosaic in his admiration of seagulls at the Swalec in between Joe Root putting Mad Mitch to the sword, he steps out of the stadium and Jonathan Livingston promptly deposits his lunch over him from a great height.

Metaphorically speaking, they were waving their hankies at Palma's dockside to wish José Ramón bon voyage, he having been splattered upon from a less than great height, before they - thankful for his departure - turned their attention to a celebratory sardine barbecue. Bye, bye, Bauzá. Off to Madrid you go. The seagulls followed the trawler with its forlorn traveller but could dine out on no more than the scraps of a political career shredded and cast to the seven seas. Would Eric Cantona play JR in the story of his rise and fall? Doubtful. Eric is a man of social conscience and besides JR never aimed a karate kick at anyone, not even Mateo Isern. The pathos might appeal to Eric though. Sent into exile in the senate where former presidents of the Balearics go to be forgotten: José Ramón and Francesc Antich, politically divided but united in their memories of failure.

The denouement, the final act of airbrushing, save for the seat in the corner of the senate chamber, was the Partido Popular's conference in Madrid. JR had hoped to go there still able to puff his chest out as regional leader, to be able to announce to the party faithful that it had been he who had turned the Balearics into the motor of Spanish economic regeneration. He wasn't allowed to. Yes, he did say this at a forum but not at the main event. PP high command didn't want him anywhere near the stage. They were aware of the pestilence that had left the Balearic PP enervated, rudderless, flapping around like seagulls desperately hunting for a temporary leader on which they could swoop, spying one who would then hurriedly bury himself in the sand. No one seems to want the job, not even the regional secretary-general, Miquel Vidal, to whom high command afforded the honour of centre stage rather than Bauzá.

Consequently, JR was not able to join in the celebrations at the great unveiling. When all else fails and it has, except for the bribery of tax cuts, it's time for a new logo. Revival for the PP prior to the general election comes in the form of less seagull than previously. Ever since the party was formed in the late 1980s, it has symbolically soared but dive-bombed like a seagull, floated on the thermals of alternating fortunes. Now, the seagull has been deprived of the tips of its wings next to the word "populares", which is admittedly better than "unpopulares", but experts on such matters consider the new look a "disaster". Apart from anything else, the two colliding Ps are of a typography very similar to the P of Podemos.

The new logo would have been of minimal interest to JR. Madrid had tried to avoid his humiliation and they succeeded only in heaping more on to him. His Carnival is over. Like the sardine of Shrove Tuesday, he has been buried and consigned to the eternity of a Lent in the senate. His political fasting has begun.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 12 July 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (6.00am): 22C
Forecast high: 31C; UV: 9
Three-day forecast: 13 July - Sun, 31C; 14 July - Sun, 31C; 15 July - Sun, 30C.

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

31, 31, 31; Sun, Sun, Sun. No more needs saying.

Evening update (21.15): Coastal high, 30.9C; Inland high, 32.5C.

No Frills Excursions

Fiesta Time: Uapidubi!

What, you might well ask, is a uapidubi? Well, it is not an "a" but a "they", and how indeed could you not know Uapidubi? Or how could you not know Cucorba? Wherever a fiesta takes place, one or other of them is there. And if not one of them, then another. No fiesta is complete without one - or more. Gainful employment is assured the length and breadth of fiesta-time Mallorca. Uapidubi is a children's entertainment group, and any fiesta worth its salt has to have a kiddies' entertainment group.

It is comforting to know that there are these troupes. Fiestas haven't always been as diverse as they now are in providing entertainment, attractions and activities for all members of the family. Nowadays though, you can't go near a fiesta without being confronted by a clown, an enormous array of inflatable bouncing things and entire squares given over to an "aquatic festival", the climax to which is the now almost obligatory foam party. Kids, in fiesta terms, have never had it as good, and they aren't presented solely with opportunities of a totally unserious nature. There are kiddies' workshops for making them good recycling citizens, workshops for absolutely everything. And then there is tradition, as in, for example, demons. Yes, there are even kiddies' gangs of demons, learning the art of creeping around menacingly and then terrifying the life out of you. Which all sounds like a recipe for later-life disaster but which, exposed to the island's culture from an early age, is probably the exact opposite.

Uapidubi, it's probably fair to say, don't conform to any known tradition, though as an act this foursome, typically kitted out in different coloured, silken boiler suits with accompanying hats, specialise in bringing popular songs from the Balearics to its mini audience. Dances, games and songs, the Uapis (as they are known for short) keep the little ones amused and entertained for an hour or so while parents can indulge in more adult fiesta pastimes: those involving a bar, for example.

Cucorba is probably the better known if not the best known of the kiddies' groups. And they have also been around for a fair old while: since 1977 in fact, when the troupe was formed in Muro. There are now Cucorba DVDs, a Cucorba book, Cucorba songs and a bunch of awards in recognition of their cultural contribution. In 1988, for instance, they received one from the regional government "in recognition of their extraordinary work in the promotion and development of the Catalan language and culture of the Balearic Islands". Then, in 2002, came perhaps the grandest honour - the Ramon Llull prize "for 25 years of dedication to children's theatre ... always in Catalan". So, even with kiddies' entertainment groups, or perhaps most importantly because of them, the politics of language seem never to be too far from the surface.

The omnipotence at fiesta time of the "animación infantíl" does probably owe quite a deal to Cucorba. Such a galaxy of entertainment didn't used to be on show, but now fiestas can almost seem as if one of their principal reasons for existence is so that children can sing songs in Catalan and smear each other with foam.

If one is, however, looking for the origins of children's involvement in fiestas, then one can go back to the Crown of Aragon where a tradition of children's participation came to rival that of the heartland of Spanish religiosity, Santiago de Compostela. As a consequence, when Jaume I conquered Majorca in 1229, this tradition was to become established. In Jaume's "llibre dels fets" (book of deeds), there is mention of how children were part of ceremonies that were part political, part religious but in which children symbolised the purity of the word of God; and Jaume was under the impression, as kings tended to be back then, that he was from divine origins. There was later, by the end of the fourteenth century, a system by which municipalities in Mallorca had to have elections for seven-year-olds to participate in certain fiesta activities. (This was in fact a law for Mallorca of 1384.) This notion of election might be said to still exist with, for instance, the election of La Beata in Santa Margalida, which takes place this evening, albeit the "girls" are now older.

Anyway, so much for the past and back to the present. Uapidubi won't be worrying too much about what happened six or seven hundred years ago. They'll be entertaining in Puerto Pollensa's church square. Fiesta time: Uapidubi!

* Photo: Uapidubi from www.uapidubi.blogspot.com.es

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 11 July 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (6.00am): 22.5C
Forecast high: 29C; UV: 9
Three-day forecast: 12 July - Sun, 31C; 13 July - Sun, 30C; 14 July - Sun, 30C.

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

And more of the same. Perhaps a degree or so cooler today. Absolutely no sign of any change to the hot and sunny conditions.

Evening update (23.00): Coastal high, 30.3C; Inland high, 31.4C.

No Frills Excursions

Tourist Tax On Hold?

Those fearful that a tourist tax is about to be suddenly applied need not be too alarmed. This, at least, is the implication of what Balearic vice-president and tourism minister Biel Barceló is saying. He first wants to introduce proper regulation to the non-hotel accommodation sector before such a tax is introduced.

There is a great deal of sense in this. Firstly, such regulation would go some way to ameliorating hoteliers' concerns that it will be they who bear the brunt of a tax: under its previous incarnation, they bore all the brunt. Secondly, if more properties come to be registered, then the regional government will be able to raise greater revenue from the tax. This would mirror the situation in Catalonia, where a more permissive regime in terms of which types of property could be registered as private holiday accommodation was driven at least in part by a desire to maximise revenue.

Essentially, therefore, two of the great controversies of Balearic tourism will coalesce and form one massive controversy. The hoteliers, while they might be reassured of a determination on behalf of Barceló to be as inclusive as possible when it comes to the application of the tax, will not take kindly to a system which may establish a register of holiday accommodation that they have, for years, sought to prevent.

In practical terms, as far as tourist tax implementation is concerned, if it is to be dependent upon the registration factor, then this will now occur some way down the line. Legislation for accommodation regulation will take time, and even greater time will be needed for it to be into effect. Property owners, one would imagine, would be given a reasonable period of grace in order to comply with whatever this legislation might entail, and if it were to also include a quality system - akin to Catalonia's - which identifies the standard of accommodation and its services, then this would add further time.

The heat being generated by both issues has been increasing in line with the temperatures of high summer. Exceltur, a body which represents some pretty exclusive hotelier interests, has been going full frontal with its propaganda against private accommodation. While some of what it and its researchers - Ernst & Young among them - have to say is perfectly legitimate, but the animosity towards alternative accommodation and especially P2P services such as Airbnb doesn't do it total credit, and there is research which takes issue with its apocalyptic (for hoteliers) vision. Still, Exceltur does accept the need for proper regulation and a further need to eliminate the confusion that surrounds private accommodation rental, something that is heightened by the lack of standardised regulation across Spain as a whole.

Exceltur's latest broadside is to report that Palma has the highest level of illegal rental in the country, something exacerbated by the sheer lack of inspectors. In this regard its report is not wrong and it exposes one of the great fault lines in governmental desires (those of the previous government) to get tough. The new government faces exactly the same issue, and whether it is regulation on private accommodation, tougher standards for all-inclusives or whatever, the sheer impossibility - on cost grounds - for there to be an army of inspectors will always render much legislation all but redundant.

Given this, it is more urgent than ever to introduce some pragmatism to legislation. By reducing through more sensible regulation the amount of accommodation deemed to be illegal, then the accommodation which remains genuinely illegal would be easier to monitor: all things being relative.

Barceló will have doubtless taken note of opinions expressed by mayors of some of Mallorca's principal tourism municipalities - Alcúdia, Andratx, Santanyi among them - who advocate new forms of regulation for apartments. He would do well to sit down with these mayors and counsel their views. It is no longer the case that certain towns, e.g. Pollensa, have a disproportionately high amount of private accommodation: P2P and economic crisis have widened the supply across all towns.

Arriving at something like satisfactory regulation will not be straightforward, making a delay to the introduction of a tourist tax potentially even longer. And one hopes that as and when regulation is drawn up it isn't as woolly as the thinking currently being applied to the tourist tax and how it would be collected. Basically, the government doesn't know what sort of mechanism would be best and whether it might have to rely on the agreements of authorities like AENA in order for the tax to be levied on arrival, a mechanism which, for a variety of reasons, would in any event be undesirable.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 10 July 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (6.30am): 22C
Forecast high: 31C; UV: 9
Three-day forecast: 11 July - Sun, 30C; 12 July - Sun, 29C; 13 July - Sun, 31C.

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

The cloud of yesterday morning is not around, so a clear-skied day expected. And a fairly hot one, breezes shifting around with some southerly possible later in the day.

Evening update (20.15): Coastal high, 30.7C; Inland high, 32.2C. Good day, reasonable little breeze. Pleasant.

No Frills Excursions

Family Relations Are Good For Your Health

Well, it was hardly unexpected. For new members of the regional government, there was the potential pitfall facing the health minister, Patricia Gómez. And blow me, she has tripped up in precisely the fashion that had been suggested. It is, therefore, wholly to have been expected that the Partido Popular - minus a leader but being represented in parliament by the presentable Marga Prohens - should shout nepotistic foul. When you, as newly made health minister, go and appoint your husband as director-general of the IB-Salut health service, then you should anticipate that some flak might come your way. The surprising thing is that there isn't more of it.

Juli, otherwise known as Julio, Fuster is Mr. Gómez. He had been in the running for the health minister's job, but the missus got it instead: it would have been less likely that she, had Juli secured the ministerial post, would have got the IB-Salut post. Marga has described the appointment as "unacceptable", "neither transparent nor good government" and "an insult to the intelligence". She might also have added that it looks like a bit of a carve-up.

President Armengol insists that there are now two people who are "professionally magnificent and exceptional" in terms of their CVs in situ at health. Patricia, meanwhile, does not consider there to be any conflict in the appointment when the "director-general has a brilliant professional career" which rises above his personal background.

I'm not for one moment doubting that either of them is anything other than professionally magnificent and exceptional, but no conflict? Come on, of course there is. Marga's accusation of lack of transparency might be said to not hold much water when Fuster's name is there for all to see on the government's website, but the allusion she makes to transparency is perfectly understandable. What were the criteria for the appointment and who else had been in the running? Anyone?

But even assuming that Fuster matched the criteria perfectly (which I'm sure he does) and was a superior candidate to others, Marga's transparency charge cuts deep into what we believed we would now be getting from governments. Open ones, free of suspicions; transparent ones with no hints of anything conducted behind closed doors. Transparency is code for being against corruption, of which there is absolutely no suggestion in this instance, and I'm most definitely not saying there is, but in the murkiness of all that brought Podemos (and now others) to the conclusion that the time was right for a "new politics", there often lay allegations of nepotism, of favouritism, of "amiguismo": more than just allegations; they were fact.

It was nepotism and cronyism that went a good way to bringing Spain to its knees. This was because of the appointments to boards of banks - mainly smallish, local savings banks - of those with no banking experience and seemingly no ability to ensure good governance or to not succumb to the occasional temptation.

There is no reason, let me stress again, for believing that the appointment has been made for anything other than perfectly sound professional reasons, but the merits of Fuster are not, in the current climate, what matter above all else. What does matter is perception. If the public (and opposition) perceive negativity because of a suspicion of nepotism, then I'm terribly sorry, Patricia, but there is conflict.

When, during the lifetime of the previous administration, the tourism minister Carlos Delgado appointed his girlfriend (later his wife) to a post as adviser to the ministry (on a salary of some 50,000 euros), PSOE and Més demanded that he resign. Carlos defended the appointment, saying that Lourdes, the girlfriend, was highly qualified for the role (something to do with communication at the ministry) as she was a journalist and spoke five languages. No doubt she was perfectly qualified, and the PP leadership at the time didn't, despite Bauzá's mission to preside over a government minus any hints of sleaze, see anything amiss, until the story blew up in the leadership's and Delgado's faces: he was forced to withdraw the appointment.

The circumstances may be different, but is the principle not the same? And where, one has to ask, are Podemos in all this? As they seem to have poked their noses into mostly all parts of the new government's organisation, does Fuster's appointment not strike them as being maybe contradictory to what they avow?

Fuster is eminently suited to the post. He was previously the IB-Salut director during the first PSOE-led government from 1999. So yes, he's surely the right man and, yes, the health service will be in good hands. But. The new politics. What's changed? Ada Colau in Barcelona has appointed her husband to her team. The co-ordinator at the Madrid mayor's office is the husband of the niece of Manuela Carmena (the new mayor). Podemos types both.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 9 July 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (6.30am): 23C
Forecast high: 29C; UV: 9
Three-day forecast: 10 July - Sun, 30C; 11 July - Sun, 29C; 12 July - Sun, 30C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 4 to 5 backing North 3 to 4 around midday. Swells to two metres.

Settling into a pattern of more typical temperatures with the northerlies giving a degree of freshness, particularly by the coasts. Rather turbulent out at sea, especially across the channel towards Menorca.

Evening update (19.30): Coastal high, 28.2C; Inland high, 30,2C. Some cloud for much of the day as well as plenty of sun. 

No Frills Excursions

A Summer In Mallorca: Heat and novels

According to one particular website, the highest temperature ever recorded in Spain was in Murcia on 29 July 1876. It was 47.8C. After this is another high in Murcia, a slightly lower 47.2C on 4 July 1994. Then come Badajoz in Extremadura on 26 June 1864 with 47C and three positively shivering recordings of only 46.6C at Moron de la Frontera (Seville) on 19 July 1967 and on 23 July 1995 in both Cordoba and Seville. Palma, which for the purposes of these records appears to mean the whole of the Balearics, is quite a long way off the pace: 40.6C at Son Sant Joan airport on 30 July 1983.

You do have to be careful with these records though. The Murcia 1876 temperature is considered unreliable as indeed are ones which have been pretty well discarded from meteorological history - the 51C and 50C of Seville in 1876 and 1881. The Murcia 1994 temperature, however, is reliable. Officially, it is the highest temperature ever recorded: 116.9 in old Fahrenheit money. It is important in the context of Mallorca's weather, too. At the time of that particular ultra-heatwave, the highest temperature in Mallorca was registered, and it was 44.2C in Muro: the Palma high eleven years before didn't even come close.

When the temperatures get as high as they do, though not as high as 1994, they are treated as unusual events and so evidence of something or other. They may indeed be evidence of something or other, or they may just be relatively common. Those unreliable highs back in the nineteenth century will have had some basis in meteorological fact and they would have doubtless coincided with exceptionally high temperatures in Mallorca, though what these might have been is not possible to say as there are no records.

As I write this, the thermometer not far away inland is - according to AEMET - nudging the 40 mark. It nudged it and passed it three years ago at roughly the same time of year. Evidence of something or other. Which may just be that this summer will bear a great deal of similarity to that of 2003: Spain's hottest in terms of duration if not specific records. For almost three months, nighttime temperatures didn't fall below 20C, while daytime highs were not under 30C. If this summer does turn out to be a virtual mirror of 2003, then expect an almighty great storm as 31 August becomes 1 September, which is what happened that year.

It would be nice, mainly because I have a like of unearthing less than well known anniversaries, to be able to apply an anniversary to this summer's weather, but there isn't one which suggests itself. Instead, and because the high temperatures will inspire some to wax lyrically or more likely in clichéd terms, there is a summer literary anniversary which should be remembered. The year in question was forty years ago, so 1975. It was the year when a novel appeared entitled "A Summer in Mallorca". Or more accurately, it was "Un estiu a Mallorca", as its author was Majorcan, and his name was Llorenç Villalonga.

For the uninitiated, Villalonga is generally regarded as Mallorca's greatest novelist. As such, and because he was mightily influenced by the likes of Proust, he wasn't the sort to be inclined to pay overly much attention to the accuracies or otherwise of weather records (which had, by the time he wrote the novel, been systematically kept for some years by then). Instead, he devoted an entire novel - his last - to what was in essence an ironic refuting of George Sand's "A Winter in Mallorca", or "Un hiver à Majorque", given that she was French.

It's a curious novel in which Sand herself is referred to and blended with an of-the-times female writer, a character called Sílvia Ocampo, whose resemblance to the real Sílvina Ocampo (note the distinguishing "n") is only passing, other than that the character is a writer.

Villalonga based his novel forty years before he wrote it, and so the Mallorca of his summer wasn't vastly different to how it would have been had Sand spent a summer rather than a winter in Mallorca: a hundred years hadn't really changed Mallorca fundamentally.

It would have been more instructive, for those of us in contemporary tourism times, had the novel been based in 1975, but then it couldn't have been because in effect Villalonga was placing Sand in 1935, a time when more aristocratic women were still to the fore, which wasn't the case by 1975. So his summer in Mallorca is only partially (very partially) a reflection of a Mallorcan summer as it now is, and so, as with other aspects of modern Mallorca, there is a great work about the summer waiting to be written. Until such time, we'll have to content ourselves with descriptions of how hot it is.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 8 July 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (6.30am): 23.5C
Forecast high: 30C; UV: 10
Three-day forecast: 9 July - Sun, 28C; 10 July - Sun, 29C; 11 July - Sun, 29C.

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

Due to be fresher today - all things being relative - but the suffocating southerly air is being replaced by northerly, so not as hot.

Evening update: Coastal high: 29.3C; Inland high: 32.5C. 

No Frills Excursions

Armengol: The First One Hundred Days

Certain numbers carry significance for the suspicious and the commemoratively inclined. 111 is English cricket's number of suspicion: its Nelson. 666 is the Devil's number or the number of the beast from Chapter 13 - unlucky for some - of the Book of Revelation. 100 isn't associated with superstition or bad luck, but it has acquired a mythical status in politics. The first 100 days. Why the fascination with 100? For a kick-off, it's a nice round number. It is not 111. It's also reasonably short in temporal terms. 666 would be far too long, even if - with many a governmental administration - its beastliness would offer a more insightful analysis of performance.

Judging when 100 days start is a ritual of its own. In Mallorca, thanks to the procrastinatory nature of installing a new government, it isn't immediately obvious which day is day one, or day zero if you prefer. However, with reasonable certainty, we can take 3, as in 3 July, to be the day of commencement, the day when Francina Armengol held her first cabinet meeting and announced that it was Day Zero for the symbols of Bauzáism: out went the Law of Symbols, trashed was trilingualism (TIL).

On this basis, we can assume that 11 October will commemorate the first 100 days of Armengolism, a useful day as it will be a Sunday and so afford newspapers the opportunity to bulk up their weekend copy with First One Hundred Days specials. It is further useful in that the day after is Spain's National Day, the Day of Hispanidad (Spanishness). Travel agents will be especially happy because of the "puente" weekend, but how happy will others be? How much Spanishness might by then have been dispensed with?

There again, travel agents might have reason to be less than happy. Might the first 100 days witness the arrival of the eco-tax, the 666 devil's work of the horned demon of tourism vice-presidency Biel Barceló? He has said that he will work from the outset for a tourist tax.

Surprisingly, a survey - by the Mallorcan research organisation Gadeso - has found that only a slight majority (51%) of businesses in the tourism sector reject the idea of the tourist tax. Admittedly, only 23% actually agree with it, leaving a further 26% undecided, but one might have anticipated there being greater hostility towards it. Barceló might just be able to take some reassurance from the finding.

It is being said that the tourist tax will be the key legislative item for this government. Possibly it will be, though its passage through parliament shouldn't detain deputies too long, unless PSOE get cold feet, in which case the Més pact (and Podemos support) will collapse rapidly. PSOE's feet will stay warm, especially if Barceló is true to the implication of what he says and seeks to establish at least the legislative framework within the first 100 days. Armengol couldn't afford a falling-out so soon.

What else, apart from the tax, will the specials of Sunday, 11 October be obsessing over? There are already clear signs and not just the abandonment of TIL and the Law of Symbols. One has to do with land, a subject which is vitally important to Mallorca yet which tends to be overlooked in favour of the headline-grabbing of controversies such as the eco-tax. So important is that, even more so than education and language, it is subject to constant political revision which creates the legalistic chaos which surrounds rules on land, on its categorisation and on its use.

Armengol has indicated that another piece of Bauzá legislation - the Ley de Suelo (Land Law) - will be repealed in removing the amnesty that was applied by this law to predominantly rural properties that had been illegally built and which were more than eight years old. The law may, for many, have appeared to have been overly generous, but the fact that so many properties were involved (some 20 odd thousand if I remember rightly) did require some form of pragmatic resolution of their status. Now, the likelihood is that in addition to ever more confusion, the courts will come into their own in arbitrating between two opposing pieces of legislation.

This is an example of Mallorca's politics at its absolute worst. Continuity in legislation is rarely sustained, but when it comes to land, the disruptive legislative tendency causes constant uncertainty. Hence, all the endless cases that do indeed end up in courts. And into this mix comes what may be one of the most important changes during the first 100 days, the confirmation of far greater responsibilities for the Council of Mallorca and so its redefinition of the Mallorca Territorial Plan with all the implications this has for tourism, among other things.

Land law, tourist tax, Catalan linguistic immersion. The first one hundred days will be busy days. Just as well that no one's superstitious.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 7 July 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (6.30am): 23C
Forecast high: 38C; UV: 9
Three-day forecast: 8 July - Sun, 29C; 9 July - Sun, 27C; 10 July - Sun, 30C.

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

Southerly breeze followed by virtually no breeze is probably why today is likely to be especially baking. Amber alert with highs set to be at or over the 100F mark.

Evening update (19.45): Coastal high: 37.4C; Inland high: 39.2C.

No Frills Excursions

Christopher And Simon: Fiestas in July

As the deep heat of summer takes over, the fiestas' season moves on from Saint Peter as one of the chief saintly focal points to Saint Christopher. Maybe some thought should be given to his being made the patron saint of Mallorca's tourists. He is, after all, the saint of travellers, while he has saintly responsibilities for a specific aspect of tourism - driving. The car-rental agencies of Mallorca should offer replicas of Saint Christopher medallions to their clients on Friday this week.

10 July is the day of Saint Christopher, otherwise known in Catalan as Sant Cristòfol, a saint around whom there is some historical confusion. Was he martyred as a result of his death during the reign of Emperor Decius or Emperor Maximinus Dacian? Was he in fact also Saint Menas? Does his name of Christ bearer imply someone more of mythical origin than factual? It is often the way with saints. Doubts surround their stories.

Despite Saint Christopher being one of the better-known saints, he isn't universally celebrated by the Catholic Church. His place in the liturgy was removed in 1970, as it was felt that he was not to be fully in the Roman tradition. Being dropped from the liturgy doesn't, however, prevent his commemoration where it has long been a tradition - the Church is flexible in such matters. In Mallorca, there has been such a tradition, and so Cristòfol is the featured saint this week in Arenal and the tiny village of Biniali, some eight kilometres outside Binissalem but actually in the municipality of Sencelles.

This unassuming village and its fiestas have, curiously enough, created something of a flashpoint in past years. Its night parties, of which there are two this week, attract many visitors from outside the village and one of them has been the occasion for a spot of bother between youth and forces of the law. In fact, it was a minor clash between some members of the Arran sort-of-revolutionary group with plod. Things are now calmer, however. If you go to Biniali, you certainly won't miss the fiestas, as there isn't exactly a great deal to the village (couple of bars, a tabacs and not a lot besides), but in terms of Mallorcan small community rural authenticity, it doesn't get a lot more authentic than Biniali, except perhaps when the night parties are in full swing.

The day of Sant Cristòfol does require an explanation. His feast day isn't 10 July, which is when it is celebrated locally and elsewhere in Spain. It is in fact 25 July, but Christopher was shunted to 10 July because otherwise he would have clashed with one of the most important, if not the most important, of all Spanish saints, James the Apostle, aka Sant Jaume in Catalan.

More widely celebrated than Christopher is the Virgin or Mother of God of Carmel, known locally as the Virgen del Carmen. The fiestas' title is often abbreviated to simply the Carmen (or Carme) fiestas. Her day is 16 July, but her fiestas tend to be movable, so that the main days fall over a weekend. There are several places in Mallorca which recognise her - Cala Bona, Cala Figuera, Cala Ratjada, Capdellà in Calvia, Porto Cristo, Portol in Marratxi, Puerto Pollensa.

Her story is one that owes almost everything to an English saint by the name of Simon Stock. Simon, who was around from the mid-twelfth century to the mid-thirteenth, joined the Carmelite Order and in 1251, so the story goes, he had a vision of several invocations of the Virgin Mary. And the date when he had the vision was 16 July: hence, the fiestas.

Another saint muscling in on the fiestas' act is Santa Margalida (Margaret of Antioch). She, like Christopher, has a questionable backstory. Indeed, it is even more unlikely than Christopher's as it involved being swallowed by Satan masquerading as a dragon and surviving. Anyway, she lived long enough to, for instance, give her name to an entire town, as in Santa Margalida, and they'll be having a demons' fire-run in her honour this Saturday.

Other saints looming on the July fiestas' horizon or already present include Victoria (not female) in Campanet, plus of course Praxedis, the unknown patron of Petra, and the biggy - good old Saint James, who is all over the place - Alcudia, Calvia, Sa Pobla, to name but three.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 6 July 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (7.00am): 24C
Forecast high: 34C; UV: 9
Three-day forecast: 7 July - Sun, 37C; 8 July - Sun, 28C; 9 July - Sun, 27C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Variable 2 to 3 increasing East 3 to 4 by midday.

Getting hotter by the look of the forecast, though due to cool down somewhat from Wednesday.

Evening update (20.15): Coastal high, 35.9C; inland high, 37.9C. Amber alert for tomorrow for high temperatures.

No Frills Excursions

Lessons Of The Magus: Cinema tourism

Calvia's come up with a new wheeze for tourism. As everyone knows, Calvia isn't only world famous for its beaches and Magalluf's strip, it is also famous for its relationship with the cinema. No, hang on, there's something wrong with this. The first bit's ok. But the second? World famous, no, but the culture department wishes to make a modest association with the world of film something of a tourist attraction. There are going to be cinema routes.

Now, before you start thinking this is something dreamt up by the new lot, the idea goes back to the time of the previous lot, though it doesn't seem to have a great deal to do with either lot as such, as the culture department appears to exist in a vacuum of splendidly non-political isolation. So, no need for the department to run the cinema routes concept up the flagpole with the new lot and create an old-lot, new-lot polemic of flagpole proportions: oddly enough, Calvia would appear not to have a councillor with responsibility for culture as such.

"Calvia es Cine" is a concept that has been knocking around for a few months now and would seem to have been inspired, at least in part, by this year being the fiftieth anniversary of the film "Trampa bajo el sol". No, I confess I hadn't either: or its French title "Train d'Enfer". Calvia can, though, boast some better-known films, one of which had a location not so far from the flagpole of Palmanova. The beach featured in "The Damned United"; well it did, according to one source. But wasn't it Santa Ponsa? "Calvia es Cine" would doubtless know.

If the link with the Cloughie film isn't that strong - filming only took a couple of days - it is much stronger with the cove that was declared the first nudist beach in Calvia. Yes, the route would take tourists to the Playa del Mago, aka Playa Portals Vells II, where some might need to avert their eyes. The cinema's association with this cove is so strong that it was renamed after a film that was partly shot there in 1967 - "The Magus". Starring Michael Caine, Anthony Quinn and Candice Bergen, it was a box-office and critical disaster. Caine said of it that it was one of the worst films he was ever involved with as no one had a clue what it was all about. Still, even rotten tomatoes can carry some cachet and have a beach named after them.

More successful was "Evil Under The Sun", a Peter Ustinov as Poirot, Agatha Christie romp. And Calvia's claim to fame here is? Cala d'en Monjo near to Paguera. But then there are several locations which can claim some fame, none of which are in Calvia - Cala Deya, Cala en Feliu in Formentor, Cala Blanca and Sant Elm in Andratx, the Raixa estate in Bunyola and, above all, the island of Sa Dragonera. And joining "The Damned United" in more recent years, there was "The Inbetweeners Movie", which had some location scenes shot during - if I recall rightly - a fairly miserable March in Magalluf a few years ago. The film wasn't of course set in Mallorca but in Crete.

To these silver-screen triumphs and bombs need to be added the name of Errol Flynn, who never made a film in Mallorca, merely drank it. But then Illetes wasn't and isn't Magalluf. Hence, a plaque to his heroic alcohol consumption would be something of a high point of the touristic cinema route.

In theory, it's not a bad idea. Cinema can bestow great benefits on tourism, but only so long as films are clearly identifiable with locations, which typically means more than a few minutes' footage here or there. When Calvia's head of culture, Catalina Caldentey, refers to the tourism advantages that have come New Zealand's way because of "Lord of the Rings", she isn't wrong, but here we are talking something of a totally different nature and magnitude to Timothy Spall and Michael Sheen arguing for a short while off the Calvia coastline.

Mallorca, and not only Calvia, has a habit of periodically being in thrall to the cinema industry. Its celebrity-obsessed heritage allows it to fall at the feet of Hollywood, even if it doesn't cough up the 150 grand it should have to the producers of "Cloud Atlas". Mallorca can't be held responsible for total turkeys, though "The Magus" should have provided ample warning, but it can be responsible for thinking that there is some advantage to be gained from glimpses of Sa Calobra or wherever amid movie mayhem that many would rather forget. There is no advantage, unless the world can readily identify locations. Otherwise, they are just locations, lost in the swirl of post-production and lost forever because the movie turns out to be a stinker.