Five Golden Rings

Well, well, well, what have we got here? ‘Tis the season to be merry, ’tis the season for corruption allegations. Hard on the heels of the Matas affair (Matas the ex-president of the Balearics), comes another bombshell. Five leading members of the Unió Mallorquina nationalist party are facing accusations of having “diverted” hundreds of thousands of euros. The case, known as Caso Son Oms, relates to payments allegedly made to two media companies – those hundreds of thousands. More than just five golden rings for the infamous five.

And this five could hardly be more impressive in terms of their prominence in the UM. Heading the list is Maria Antònia Munar, matriarch of the party, its former leader, the former president of the Council of Mallorca and now the president (speaker) of the Balearics parliament. She has recently been hauled up before the beak to answer questions relating to another case. Following her are: the already implicated tourism minister and ex-leader of the party, Miquel Nadal; the current leader of the party, Miquel Flaquer; the former councillor for territory, Bartomeu Vicens and … and Enviro Man, yes, Miquel Grimalt, the current environment minister in the Balearics government.

All those named held responsibilities in the previous Council administration, presided over by Sra. Munar. They are only accused, but stuff has a habit of sticking, while it doesn’t look great if such prominent politicians are being cited. This was a point made by the current Balearics president when Sra. Munar had her previous day in court. She said that it was normal for someone in her position to be asked to give evidence when the case had happened on her patch, as it were. Which is probably fair enough, but Antich (the president) is also right to say that it looks bad. And unfortunately, it does look bad, regardless of whether there is any truth to the accusations or not. 

The consistency with which these cases emerge leads one to the conclusion that virtually no project is unsullied. Someone said to me the other day that a number of projects are basically unjustified; there is no real need for them, except as a means of some money being “diverted”. And who’s doing the diverting? 

Oh, and when I said the other day (20 November: Conde Nasty) that the UM, with seven cases of alleged corruption hanging over it, could do better, I was only joking. I hadn’t expected that the party might actually be about to boost its rankings.

On The Street Where You Live

Courtesy of “The Diario”, here’s a strange little story, though it isn’t all that strange for Mallorca. It concerns a street in Palma that used to be called Capitán Salom. That was its name until June of this year when it was changed to Alfons el Magnànim, who apparently was the king of Mallorca from 1396 to 1458 (an explanation that appears under the new street sign). That sign has been defaced and the old name has been written in above the new one.

The change in name has to do with the law on historic memory, the one that is concerned with eliminating references to and symbols of the Franco era. Capitán Salom was, presumably, associated with Franco. Palma town hall had identified a number of streets that needed a name change, in accordance with this law. 

One day in June, along came the town hall workers and put up a new sign, that of Alfons. It was then that things started to get interesting. The residents say that they were not notified as to the change, though the town hall and the post office say otherwise. But since June, there have been problems with post, letters being returned no known address (for Capitán Salom), cheques for payments being returned, and so on. The paper spoke to a number of businesses, and they all say the same thing – that they had not been told of the name change and that they were all suffering because of non-receipt of mail. Moreover, if one googles these two street names, it is the captain’s that comes up, meaning all that information is out of date. So who’s right? The businesses and residents of the street or the town hall and the post office?

The answer is probably that neither is right and neither is wrong. The greater issue lies with the law itself. It is one thing for the government to wish to eradicate Francoist symbols, quite another when it is likely to cause practical problems, and the Capitán Salom case would appear to be one such practical problem. Perhaps the Captain was a well-known Franco thug. Then, well, one could understand the name change. But if he was just any other Franco follower, does it really matter? How many people might know who he was, in any event? It’s a street name, not a statue to the glorious nationalist revolution and the repression of republicans and others.

But they do this sort of thing – changing street names – even when there is no law on historic memory to influence the change; it’s just done, as has been the case in Can Picafort – a street name disappears to be replaced by one of a street a couple of streets down, which in turn is replaced by another one. Or that is how it seems, because street maps don’t keep up with the changes and were wrong in the first place. Even the one being issued by Can Picafort tourist office was out of date for a year or so. And how well town hall and post office communicate is anyone’s guess. 

The postal service can be somewhat haphazard, but it’s not altogether surprising. Post codes are subject to change (which occurred when parts of Alcúdia were re-coded), while not everyone knows what their code is. It should be very simple. Unlike the complicated post-code system of the UK, in Mallorca there is a five-digit code per town or per area of a town. It should be simple, but isn’t, because of a lack of clarity and communication. There’s an example. Playa de Muro’s post code is? Well, maybe it’s the same as for Muro town, maybe it has its own, or maybe it’s the same as for Can Picafort because the local post office for Playa de Muro, though it is in Playa de Muro, actually falls under Can Picafort. 

Confusion reigns, post doesn’t always get delivered, and then, on top of everything else, they go and change the street names. Fortunately, not everywhere has a Capitán Salom or even an Alfons el Magnànim.

On The Banks Of The River Nile

The Balearics may still be the leader when it comes to Mediterranean holidays, but this position is under threat. Tell us something we didn’t know, and “The Diario” did just that yesterday, but it set out quite why this threat exists.

Turkey, Egypt, Croatia – these are the three countries that most exercise the minds of Balearics tourism authorities, or they should be. The competition they represent is now well-understood, but it is still a relatively recent phenomenon. Yet, this very recency has been one of the things that have caught the Balearics on the hop. The catch-up that has been played in these countries has been swift. In the case of Croatia, it has occurred in a short period since the turmoil that was the former Yugoslavia. I went on holiday to Croatia in 1984. I say “Croatia”. You didn’t refer to it as such back then; it was still Yugoslavia, and it was crap. We stayed on a holiday complex which had some what could only be described as “communist” elements: a vast refectory that served inedible food and a so-called entertainment building which didn’t have any – entertainment that is, except for morose local youths looking to pick fights. The beach did not exist. One stretched out on what was like a car park, a series of huge concrete slabs from which one walked down steps into the sea. It was popular with Germans who could drive there, and there were even holidaymakers from the old communist bloc – Hungarians most obviously. The complex was soulless, what there was by way of bars, restaurants and shops was of a poor standard. The best thing about it was that you could buy reasonably good fresh food and have your own barbecues, because you certainly didn’t want to be dining out. Oh, and it was incredibly cheap.

But that was 25 years ago. The war intervened, and then Croatia undertook its tourism birth, while Turkey and Egypt began to plan more aggressively for the future. 

Though both Turkey and Egypt have experienced slight falls in the number of tourists this year, the decline has not been as great as that in the Balearics. The islands still hold their dominant position, but they are in retreat, faced with the competition of the eastern Med. This competition is founded on new and often superior hotel stock and cheapness. There is also a bit of unfair competitive advantage. Governments can subsidise an industry in a way that the Spanish cannot, unless they wish to bring down the wrath of Brussels on their heads. These governments can also influence exchange rates – to their benefit – in ways that Euroland Spain cannot. 

“The Diario” itemises the pros and cons of the Balearics and of its competitors. The paper admits that the so-called “complementary offer” (i.e. bars and restaurants etc.) is costly, but it is also vastly superior to that available in the competitor destinations. However, it is the hotel element that speaks volumes. The current-day holidaymaker seems less interested in that complementary offer. Egypt and Turkey may suffer from inferior infrastructures, but what do these matter when the holidaymaker can stay in relative luxury on an all-inclusive basis? Outside bars and restaurants hold less appeal for a growing number of tourists, and so it also is in Mallorca where the all-inclusive offer has had to increase in response to what is happening elsewhere but where the hotels are not always as good.

There are cons in Egypt and Turkey in terms of, for example, terrorism, but this is a more questionable card to play following the summer bombs in Mallorca. There are cons in terms of low-quality bars and restaurants, but this is a questionable card to play if the holidaymaker isn’t interested. There are cons in terms of limited travel possibilities, which constitute one definite pro for Mallorca which is better served by air and sea and which is also closer for northern Europeans. There are pros in terms of government intervention; the Turkish government supported financially an 18% shareholding in Air Berlin by the Turkish airline Pegasus, thus, at a stroke, opening up a wider German market to the Turkish Riviera. There are pros in terms of governmental priority; tourism is the industry in the eastern Med and responsibilities of those at the heads of government reflect this. I suggested a while ago that the Balearics president should also be the tourism minister. Maybe I was right to have done so.   

In Mallorca and the Balearics, they continue to bang on about the strength of the brand (Balearics, erroneously), about professionalism, about sustainable environments, blah, blah, but much of it is whistling in the dark. It will continue to be so not only because of the growing competition but also – a point “The Diario” neglects to make – because there are too many competing self-interests in Mallorca, be these in government, within associations or in the tourism sector. The eastern Med countries are far more single-minded, far more focused on an overarching strategy led by government. They, the Turks, the Egyptians, the Croats, have adopted coherent and intelligent strategies of competition, and it is these, more than anything, that they have used to challenge Mallorca and the Balearics, because similar strategies, if they really exist, are obscured from view.

Shut That Door!

Now, here’s a potential little treat, courtesy of the Spanish Government. Once again, thanks to Ben for giving me the heads up on what, this time, might just have some important ramifications for bars and shops. I say might because, as ever with some law in Spain or Mallorca, things are not exactly transparent. Maybe they are just not reported well, or maybe no-one really knows. Anyway, to cut to the chase. 

As part of its broader law on a “sustainable economy”, the cabinet agreed a measure at the end of last week that would impose certain temperature and humidity requirements on establishments such as bars. Moreover, this measure would also mean that doors which open on to the street (and presumably also a terrace) cannot be left open. This would require the installation of automatic doors that open and shut as customers and staff pass through. The point of this would be to maintain mandatory temperatures inside, and these are – no higher than 21 degrees in winter and no lower than 26 degrees in summer. 

Firstly, just read those temperatures again. The winter one seems ok, but the summer one? 26 is 79 in old money. That is fairly warm. Clearly, this all seems designed to cut back on air-conditioning use. While this measure would not make AC units obsolete, the investment that may have gone into them would now be open to question. And what is meant by summer? If the temperature inside is below the 26 degrees – naturally – in, say, May, do they have to crank the heating up? There are also any number of bars and restaurants that make a virtue of air-conditioning as part of their publicity. Not at 26 degrees they won’t be.

The confusion about what this all might mean is not helped by different references in reports. There is one suggestion that it may only apply in certain instances – administrative centres and cultural venues have been mentioned – but “El País”, for example, refers to the splendidly vague concept of “public spaces”, which can be interpreted as meaning anything and anywhere. There is also the reference to opening onto a street, so does this include terraces or doesn’t it?

If one assumes that this is intended to apply across the board, terraces, streets, whatever, you can begin to imagine the implications. Surely the government does not plan to have every single bar operating automatic doors. Or does it? Bars have enough on their plate without having to fork out for such systems. And then there is the ambience angle, ironically, as the measure is all designed to control ambient temperatures. Bars, restaurants, shops want their doors open. It shows that they – the bars – are open and that the interior and exterior are seamless.

Just think about the practicalities. Imagine a bar packed with sweaty boozers during a big football match. Doors closed, the temperature at least 26. They’ve got to be kidding. Maybe they really don’t mean every bar and in every situation, but you can’t be sure they don’t, and you can’t be sure that, in the pursuit of saving the planet and meeting a 20% target of reduced carbon emissions, they don’t intend it. But one has got used to legislation which is not as it may seem. The definition of evenings and noise in Mallorca, that law from the summer; well that seemed to mean one thing and then they said it didn’t, or more likely someone realised it was absurd and so they quietly put it to one side.

This measure does not yet have royal assent, but that’s a formality. As to when it might be implemented, don’t know. But if it is as broadly based as it might be, then I think you will be hearing quite a bit more about it.

Wings Of A Dove

They’ve been putting up Christmas decorations. It would suit my purposes, i.e. those of a little jolly, yuletime joshing, were I able to say “decoration”, but despite festive austerity stalking the corridors of the local town halls and cuts being made, the decorations and lights have not all been left in their boxes in the town hall attics. No, there are some, but not as many. One of the decorations, a “Bones Festes” sign strung across the main road in Playa de Muro has been there for some weeks. Maybe they didn’t bother taking it down last year. I can sort of understand such inertia. I once had a girlfriend who kept her Christmas tree up until June, by which time passers-by, seeing the fairy lights on, might have believed that it had been put early for the next Christmas, albeit that the tree itself had been somewhat denuded of needles. 

There is now also in Playa de Muro a dove. A Christmas dove. The crane chaps seemed to be having a bit of a problem getting it attached. “To me. No, to you,” or something like that. It remains to be seen whether it is in fact the Christmas dove as opposed to a dove and therefore one of a flock. (Do doves go in flocks? It’s a flight of doves, isn’t it?) And “seen” is appropriate as the length of time it will be illuminated has been reduced. They should issue dove lighting-up times. Nine to nine-thirty every evening, except Sundays, and the locals can troop along and stare at it, or drive along and stare at it and hammer into the car in front. But why exactly is there a dove? Was there one flapping around by the manger? I don’t recall that there was. And had there been, it would have caused a rare old flap amongst the assembled Josephs, Marys, shepherds, donkeys and the rest. “The baby’s trying to get to sleep. Can someone stop that bloody dove flying around.”

In Alcúdia, on the Hidropark road to be precise, there are now six Christmas bells attached to lamp-posts. There were only four. Four that took an inordinate amount of time, per bell, to be placed onto the lamp-posts. The bell crew, having eventually got one in situ, would then clear off. It would appear that they were putting them up one at a time, one per day, like an advent calendar in reverse. Or maybe they were just idle and spinning out the job creation opportunity. It would have made better sense for them to have not bothered at all. Alcúdia town hall is meant to have rather more dosh floating around than most of the councils, but they’ve seen fit to only commission an ancient Christmas episode of Blue Peter as the guideline for the local first school to avoid using their mums’ best tables in creating the non-chiming bells. Here’s one I made earlier. Indeed they look as though they were made earlier. About thirty years ago. 

I’m afraid that Christmas will not be like it normally is, which is to say that it will be more like it used to be when the Mallorcans didn’t really bother with any of it. They didn’t really bother with it, not because they don’t do Christmas, because they do, but because Christmas is but one of a whole series of “bones festes” that take up a good month, starting with the Immaculate Conception and ending with Three Kings, followed swiftly by the January fiestas and then Carnival. You know, I reckon that that “Bones Festes” sign has been up all year.

* Bones Festes. The “Bones” is not pronounced as in Dr. McCoy “Bones”, it is bon, as in “bon appetit” plus an “us” as someone in Yorkshire might pronounce it.

The Coffee Culture Club

“This cultural tourism stuff,” I’m saying. “If there were to be a company that brought aspects of it together, created a package, Cultural Mallorca Tours or some such, it would work in winter, wouldn’t it? Offer some genuine chance of tourists coming for this “alternative” stuff in the off-season? It’s not happening at the moment, so why not?”

“It’s a good idea, but … There’s always a but. Who would be your market? I’ll tell you, the better-off, independent and independently-minded. They’ve got money, but to make it work, you have to charge high. Think of those things like wine tours of the Dordogne. What do they cost? About a thousand a time. Ok, this market may be able to afford it, but you know what they’d do, they’d take a look at the offer, the places where the “tour” would go, and think: ‘I can do this myself. And for less’. That’s the but, that’s the problem. Well, just one. Then there are the costs of marketing and selling it. And for this, for the coaches or mini-buses and all that, you need numbers, you need volume. It would never make money otherwise.”

“So, what you’re saying is that all this cultural tourism can only ever be somehow passive, passive on behalf of the tourism authorities, as no operator would think it worthwhile.”

“No, they wouldn’t. Certainly not the big tour operators. Culture in Mallorca? Why? There’s culture everywhere, and everywhere wants to sell it. Why here? It’s not as if the history is that remarkable. I can tell you about places where it is, but not here. Look, ok, I admit, I’m no tourism expert …”

“Maybe not, but maybe yes, maybe you, me and some others actually know more about all this than the tourism authorities. We look at it from the outside, we don’t have that inward-looking mentality. Maybe we have an idea as to what people want.”

“True. We’re not politicians …”

“They’re not all politicians.”

“But a lot are. They peddle this stuff because it’s the right thing to do – politically. They want something other than the sun, sea and beach, because that’s not great for the environment.”

“But that’s what people do want. I’ve said it time and time again. Said it the other day. Why do the Brits, the Irish, the Germans and the rest come to Mallorca? For the sun. And the authorities just confuse the issue by trying to promote something else, something else that’s not going to work because no operator will make it work. There was that professor, applied economics, at the university, saying that sun, sea and beach is ‘outmoded’ “.

“Well, he’s not totally wrong.”

“Perhaps not. Ok, people’s horizons may have broadened, but you still come back to what it is that they come to Mallorca for. And that’s the sun.”

“And entertainment.”

“Ah yes, entertainment. Have you seen this thing about the Ibiza Rocks place opening up in Magaluf? Five or six big rock acts during the summer. Don’t know which hotel they’re taking over.”

“I think I do. Yea, it’s not a bad idea. It’s what people want. That sort of music.”

“Not the ball de bots and all that then?”

“No, certainly not that. Live music, international.”

“They had Keane apparently. That’s pretty serious stuff. But it’s Magaluf. Always the south. Not in the north.”

“No, because the north is family tourism. Wouldn’t be the same.”

“Hmm. No, it wouldn’t. Fancy another coffee?”

Say I’m Your Number One

More demolition. What was that bar called? Did it have a name, or was it just British Pub? I know, it was the No. 1 Pub, wasn’t it? You were able to still see remnants of Union Jack signs, but little else. Three workmen, one on a mini-dozer, the other two attacking stubborn fittings and bits of concrete. It is, was, around the corner from Café Paris and the tobacconists in Can Picafort, on the beachside extension of Josep Trias. Workmen, for some reason, always seem to look suspicious when someone stops and takes more than just a passing interest in their destruction. I moved on. To the front itself. On the low wall that forms the barrier between promenade and beach was a man of ideas, dishevelled, lost in thoughts, waiting for a drink. He moved on as well, shambling back up Josep Trias, past the wreckage of the No. 1 Pub. 

The beach has been partially taken over by the seaweed of winter. The promenade itself was empty, empty of people. Is it here that they are meant to be upgrading the front, or is it further down? There was no evidence of any work, except the bashing in the pub and the endless digging up of side roads, adding new cables, taking away old ones, laying new pipes, taking away old ones. 

All the units on the promenade are wide. As wide as they are cavernous inside. All are shuttered down in winter, not with shutters, but with vast glass panels or perhaps they are of perspex, bending against the wind. The prom has a uniformity of reflection when the sun is still to the north and glowing as it continues to do. The buildings behind and above are blocks placed at angles with balconies, antennae and dishes. There is little of any charm, anything vaguely unusual if you study the low sky line from the Can Picafort paseo, save the muddy, purple-blue of what’s it called? Why can one never remember the names of bars and hotels in Can Picafort? No, I know, Blue Bay Hotel, or something like that. Yes, I’m sure it is, but it’s less a hotel, more a hostel with its own cave-like bar leading onto the vacant promenade. 

Can Picafort in winter may be quiet, but it is not without some life, most of it German. Gutteral voices can be heard above the pounding of a Kango drill. There is a billboard advert for a German publication, “available in your book shop” it says in translation. The best restaurants in Mallorca. Nine euros, eighty. Does anyone actually ever buy these things? Presumably they do, if they’re German. 

Along the Paseo Colon that runs parallel to the promenade, shops are open – some of them. A souvenir shop seems forlorn. Who is there to buy souvenirs? Why would they? Four taxis are lined up by, what’s the hotel called. Gran Bahía? In the fourth cab on the rank, the driver is listening to the radio and reading a newspaper. And if one were to return in an hour or so, he would probably still be doing so. In Café Paris, the only bar you can remember the name of, owing to its longevity, there is a German with a half-eaten croissant reading a copy of “Bild”. There is no-one else at one of the few street terrace tables, yet it is a fine day, despite the breeze. 

There is, though, other life, it’s just that much of it is passing through, along the main coast road that they are also meant to be improving – finally. They put up new lights some time back, but the town hall threw a hissy fit because the road itself was not earmarked for improvement, unlike the sections in Playa de Muro and Alcúdia. Now, some time, they will do, so it will be easier on drivers who stop at Mercadona or who are heading either for Artà or Alcúdia, encountering the familiar traffic control at the Capellans-Eroski roundabout. The officers seem disinterested. Nothing much happens in Can Picafort in winter, even the patrol checks.

The Wall

There is a Wall in Staffordshire, a Wall in Northumbria; there is also a Wall Bank and a Wall Hill. There are Walls with additions, such as Wallasey, others that have lost one of their doubles, like Walmer, and which are not walls but Welsh – respectively, island of the Welsh and lake of the Welsh, curiously enough, given that Walmer is in Kent. Not all Walls that have been similarly added to or stripped of an “l” are Welsh; Walsall is Walh’s valley, Waltham, an estate by a wood. The Walls of Staffordshire and Northumbria are specific walls – Roman. 

The town of Muro is also a wall. The name means “wall”. It is not Welsh or Walh but also Roman, or so it is believed. There seems to be some debate. The Arabs kept the name, nonetheless, and in the process of their occupation also granted the name of Albufera to the wetlands that stretched further than they now do. Albufera was once Al Buhayra, but is still, primarily, a piece of nature that belongs to Muro. The resort of Playa de Muro sounds exotic with its Spanish title, less so when one translates it as Wall Beach. Yet it is, of course, Wall Beach that most people – tourists – know, except those who believe that Wall Beach is part of The Hill, or Alcúdia to give it its currently correct name; the Arabs were responsible for that as well.

Travel from The Hill along the coast road, pass through Wall Beach, turn right at the Home of Picafort and head off to Wall, and you pass the woods that conceal what will become the Wall golf course and also pass richly terracotta brown earth that grows potatoes and other vegetables and which provides, together with the earth of Sa Pobla, the country kitchen of northern Mallorca. Take this road to Wall, and you eventually arrive at a roadside industrial estate, a garage and a Pepsi distribution centre. Like other towns of the north – Pollensa, for example – in which the outskirts are non-resplendent, the entry to Wall is misleading. It threatens drabness, a lack of scale, functionality rather than grandeur. But unless you turn your back on Wall and drive off through the agricultural lands towards Sa Pobla or take the road of broken tarmac for Palma, you cannot avoid going into the centre of Wall. And you need to really go into the centre, to the square to which, on one side, lies the town hall and, on the other, the parish church.

How inadequate parish church sounds. It is reminiscent of demur English countryside and understated small scale. Because if the entrance into Wall hints at little of scale that lies within, you cannot miss, once in the centre, the colossal presence of the Muro parish church. It is the most forbidding, impressive, massive of the local town churches. In Pollensa, on the Plaça Major, the church there is a vertical elevation of Gothic Hammer horror. It should, you feel, topple on top of you. Its sudden rise from the town’s main square is the Munch scream of a shock that accompanies its appearance and encounter, but it is town house church by comparison with Muro’s, wrapped in the surrounds of the Plaça. Alcúdia’s Sant Jaume can only truly be appreciated from a distance, from the ruins of Pollentia or from further away, a colossus on the landscape. In Muro, the church assails you in its isolation and with its sheer leviathan magnificence. It is a beast of religiosity. 

People – tourists – don’t go to Muro, much. They should. If only to be dwarfed by the church. The sadness of the centre and the square with no cafés between the church and the town hall is that they concreted it over. It needs to still be dust. Were it to be so, it would complement more colourfully the sandstone of the huge blocks that constitute the church. In hottest summer, as the temperatures nudge a hundred, this square, given back to dust and sand, with the brooding threat of the church, would be man with no name land, spaghetti western Mallorca. They may have spoiled it, placed plastic chairs around the edges of the square, on which old men sit and talk away the odd hour, but the centre, because of the church, is still an astonishing manifestation of unexpected scale. You should go there.

You Are What You Are

You know all that guff about what it is to be English or British. “To be English is to get blind drunk and hurl abuse at foreigners.” That sort of thing. You must have come across it. You may even have read the books. Paxo and the rest. There was even Gordy Brown and his Britishness kick a few years ago. Don’t know what happened to all that, though he’d now have to add claiming expenses for buying a box of Hobnobs or building a moat around an Englishman’s castle that is his home (and note that it is an Englishman’s home and not a Scotsman’s or a Welshman’s, as they presumably don’t have castles in Scotland or Wales). He would also have to add being the country with the most surveillance anywhere in Europe and having a financial sector that has led the rest of Europe to describe all Brits as a “complete bunch of bankers”. John Major once lent his considerable insight into Englishness – old maids on bikes drinking warm beer, or something like that, and prime ministers with oversized blue underpants. I wonder what Gordon wears. No, sorry, actually I don’t wonder. It’s a deeply disturbing image, and I’ll stop it.

Wherever one turns, though, there is now a country, an island, a province, a town or city conducting a highly anal and collective exercise of navel-gazing (which is quite a feat of anatomy). “What’s it like to be …? (Add as applicable.) What’s it like to be an Alsatian (if you come from Alsace)? What’s it like to be a Maltese? And no, the answer does not include being round and having a honeycomb centre or being made to be cross. What’s it like to be from Leicester? Pass.

Into this rich vein of social self-research now wade the Mallorcans who I should really refer to as Mallorquíns because that is what they are, and don’t they just let you know it, because getting the language spot-on is as important to the inhabitants of Mallorca as practising a perfect cover drive is to an Englishman. “The Diario”, bless it, had this thing at the weekend that was entitled “¿Qué es ser mallorquín?”, which will probably have brought forth a considerable amount of nationalist opprobrium because it was in Spanish. It’s all about the language, you see. That, and the culture, the beautiful land, the fiestas … . God knows, it could have been the tourist board offering the answers, or some drippy brochure. Given that Messrs Brown and Major have had recourse to pronounce on matters British or English, Balearics president, Francesc Antich, should be given prominence for his views on being Mallorquín, or rather what Mallorca is: “A land that has its own distinctiveness in terms of language, culture, traditions and marvellous natural resources.” Fantastic. He’s been reading the tourist board’s website as well. Nothing about political corruption, greedy landlords and unreliable opening hours.

Does it matter, though, if you were not born in Mallorca? Can you be Mallorquín, having come from West Bromwich, let’s say? Well, it would appear that you can be, as several respondents to the “Diario” question reckon so. On noting this, I turned, as has been the case previously, to the book “Beloved Majorcans”. In its opening pages are some quotes, one of which says: “One doesn’t belong to a place for having been born there; one belongs to the place that captivated your gaze.” The article in “The Diario” mentions the opinion that many foreigners can appear to be more Mallorquín than the Mallorquíns, which may come as a bit of a surprise to those gathering in a Brit bar for a game of bingo. But then of course, the Mallorquíns play bingo as well. Nevertheless, there may be some truth to this opinion, but only because some foreigners in a foreign land take a more active interest in seeking to understand and embrace where they live because they don’t know it intimately and, more importantly, don’t just take it for granted. And that is the crux of all these debates about what’s it like to be. It just is, because that’s where you grew up. Unless you are an academic, are wanting to sell a book or are John Major, you don’t, as a rule, go around the local Tesco’s thinking about the meaning of Englishness. You just are, unless you are not. And so it is with the Mallorquíns. When they’re shouting their heads off in a bar or in the street, they may be offering – at high volume – a clear indication that they are Mallorquín, but do they stop and think why? They shout, because that’s what they do, and with an impenetrable accent that sounds like a cat being strangled whilst simultaneously eating the entire annual potato crop of Sa Pobla.

Nevertheless, if you are going to have this debate, then something a bit more incisive than the language and the culture is demanded, as language and culture are the two intermingled essentials for any notion of what’s it like to be. But let’s finish this piece with the words of Gertrude Stein, again from “Beloved Majorcans”. In response to a question from Robert Graves as to whether Mallorca was a good place to “settle down”, she said: “Yes, it’s paradise, if you can stand it.”

 

John Hirst – a further footnote

Setting up a dodgy Ponzi scheme is not indicative of having become Mallorquín, despite what some might say about a certain trait of alleged dishonesty that some Mallorquíns are prone to. But this is what Mr. Hirst seemingly did. He is now co-operating with the SFO who will be keen to know where the moolah is. Some ideas about this have been floating around. It may be that the combined journalistic forces of “The Sunday Times” and “The Sunday Telegraph” (especially the latter) know. The story is unfolding slowly. The Allied Dunbar connection was known last week but was only confirmed by the Sunday press at the weekend, which does emphasise the fact that when it comes to serious stuff like the Hirst case, it is probably best left to journalists with the resources and muscle of the Sundays to do the digging to really verify claims. Much though I was tempted to have used the stuff I was being sent last week, I couldn’t be sure. But now I am, because the Sundays say so. If you missed it, here is the Telegraph’s story:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/6622169/Majorca-based-British-financier-investigated-by-SFO-convicted-of-offence-in-1990s.html

Push Pineapple

You know the confession game; the sort of thing you might get on radio. Phone us now with one thing you have never done that mostly all adults would have been expected to have done. Never driven a car!? Never been to a pub!? Never watched X Factor!? 

I cannot claim any of the above, but there is one confession I have. And it is this. Until yesterday, I had never attended an ESRA event. Ever. There. I feel cleansed. I have come out as being ESRA-phobic. But now I am ESRA-phile. Possibly. 

ESRA, the English Speaking Residents Association, held its “mediaeval fayre” in the cloister of Pollensa’s Sant Domingo yesterday. A place more reverentially associated with the sophistication of the classics of the Pollensa Music Festival and less obviously and most absurdly Tony Hadley. From outside the cloister, there was a dreadful sense of foreboding: a Middle Ages and middle-aged Frank Sinatra giving it large with a full “My Way” treatment. From the old courtyard that this past summer staged Joanna MacGregor, the London Gospel Choir and cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic, there came the sheer horror that is “Agadoo”. Push pineapple. Except there weren’t any pineapples to push. There was, though, a pig on a gas spit, someone with a tea towel on his head and some very mediaeval stands devoted to security systems and currency transfer. It needed some inquisition, a touch of “auto de fe”, but the only “tormento” was a set of stocks and a bloke being assaulted by small children with wet sponges; oh, and Black Lace, who were frequently to be found at the court of Edward III, even if Edward – it has been revealed in historical documents – did have a preference for Russ Abbot and his fabulous mediaeval madrigal, “(Oh What An) Atmosphere”.

This was a peculiarly English weekend. On Saturday, there was the car boot sale without any car boots at Puerto Alcúdia’s Jolly Roger. Not that this is an exclusively English/British occasion, just that it is something of a weekly rendezvous and gossip-exchanging point for old Britannia. The two events, the Roger’s and the fayre, were worlds apart, and not just in terms of location. One cast one’s eyes around the cloister of Sant Domingo. How many were there from Alcúdia? Hard to say, but only a very few who were recognisably so. One cast one’s eyes around the Roger’s terraces. How many were there from Pollensa? None, or none who were recognisably so. 

Two towns divided by a common language and by a few kilometres. Rarely do the twain meet. It is not only the British. Many a Mallorcan rarely ventures in either direction, but at least the Mallorcans will, usually, be aware of what exists outside of their own domains. How many of the British do? How many in Alcúdia know of Cala San Vicente? Or how many in Pollensa might know of Mal Pas? 

Two towns divided by a perceptual gulf, one of supposed superiority beaten back along the coast road by suggestions of supposed snobbery. Alcúdia is Corrie, karaoke and the Roger’s boot sale; Pollensa is Howards Way, harmonics and ESRA. Two communities in non-alignment, except. Except there is always Black Lace. Could have been Alcúdia – allegedly.

 

John Hirst – revealed

Well, I had chosen not to use the comments, but now … Perhaps I should. “The Sunday Times” has come clean where others might have preferred not to. It says: “Hirst was sentenced to five years in prison in 1992 for ‘obtaining deception’ while working for Allied Dunbar”. And this, pretty much, is what those comments all said.