Set Me Free

Astute observers amongst you might have noticed that I do, from time to time, make reference to the “Diario de Mallorca”. To be more accurate, it is to the paper’s website, a well-designed, well-archived facility, the only irritant of which is an occasional tendency towards intrusive adverts for the likes of SEAT. The “Diario” has been blowing its own internet trumpet, revealing traffic figures which would seem to establish the newspaper’s site as the premier (Spanish) news site on the island, itself not a hugely difficult task, given the small number of competitors, but an achievement nonetheless. The paper would appear to have made the announcement at least in part as a response to a claim – “fictitious”, it says – by the Balearics part of the “El Mundo” site that it was the leader in terms of visits etc., a claim rebutted by OJDinteractiva, the online tracking version of the OJD press circulation audit body. 

 

The figures show, for instance, that the “Diario” claimed over 350,000 unique visitors in August, a number boosted to some extent by those following the news of the bombs. The degree, of course, to which anyone much of a non-Spanish background uses the site I wouldn’t know, and nor presumably do they, except by geographical location, which, in itself, wouldn’t mean a lot. 

 

One of the things the “Diario” has going for it, in its internet incarnation, is a pleasing enough design and appearance. Compare this with, for example, the site for “Ultima Hora” and also “The Bulletin” (the same stable as “Ultima Hora”), and there isn’t really a comparison. The “Diario” is the premier site, not just in terms of appearance but also content, far outstripping “El Mundo” for local news. 

 

Good though the site is, it is, like most newspapers’ websites, just a digital version of the actual paper. The site clearly comes into its own at times of breaking news, such as with the bombs (as do other media sites), but the volume of traffic is not, in itself, necessarily a cause for massive celebration. As with other newspapers, the “Diario” faces the same challenge of generating revenues from something that is free-to-air, so to speak. Of the 350,000 unique visitors in a month (the average daily circulation of the paper is around 22,500 – OJD audit), a question is, how many of those visitors also see the newspaper or only go to the site, and as importantly how many of them take any notice of the ads. You can’t always avoid them, but click them away as quickly as you can physically move the cursor. There are ways and means of evaluating effectiveness of advertising via the internet, which are far more robust than many for print, but quoting numbers of visitors demonstrates potential and little more. This said, it is evident that advertisers with the budgets to do so are investing increasing amounts in techniques to evaluate internet advertising effectiveness, diverting these budgets from more traditional channels, be they print, radio, television or direct. 

 

The good news for the newspapers should be that advertisers are willing to make such investments, but a further question is – and has been since the internet really took off – how to be viable financially and to offer excellent copy if there is no cover charge. They have made a rod for their own back by being free in the expectation that ad revenues would roll in. With the exception of mixed-model sites like the “Financial Times”, newspapers are free and where they are slimmed-down versions of the actual paper – as with “The Bulletin” – they are barely worth the effort. Newspapers cannot avoid the internet, but once the free genie was let out of the lamp can it be put back in again? News International, for one, believes that it can be, but will others follow? Only perhaps by differentiating the content of the print and online versions can such a policy succeed. 

 

The internet has the power to subvert, in many ways, and one is to disrupt the normal business process of customer purchasing. The democracy of the internet has largely demanded that stuff be free. It’s a lousy model if it undermines, for example, journalistic integrity and investigation for which there is a resultant insufficient funding. In the same way as file-sharing has attacked the returns of record companies and artists, so free-to-air newspapers threaten to attack good journalism and therefore good newspapers. The analogy, though, is not strong. The newspapers have sanctioned the free use.

 

I see no reason why one shouldn’t pay. To cite another example – the BBC. Overseas, notwithstanding streaming for sport that cannot always be obtained, the BBC is free. No licence fee. Why don’t they charge? Yet even here, it would be a case of charging for something that already exists, despite innovation that makes it one of the best of all websites. And it is in innovation that the future lies, as does the possibility for generating new or additional revenue streams. But this comes back to those figures – the ones for visitors and so on. As soon as a charge is made and therefore a password needed, Google cannot set its robots to work. Bingo, the rankings optimisation goes to pot, or even to bot. A challenge is to work around the Google tyranny and the misguided notion that numbers of visitors is the be all and end all. It isn’t. Content is. It so happens that the “Diario” wins on both counts. But so long as the branding is strong, and most newspapers benefit from this, then the opportunity exists to create niches of content and therefore readerships within the framework of the newspaper and its website. And to charge, regardless of what Google might have to say in its rankings. 

 

I could go on. It’s a huge subject, and one that I am involved with in working up something new – of which more at some point in the future no doubt. Meantime, I shall continue to visit the “Diario” and add to its traffic numbers. Also meantime, I will pay not a centimo for the privilege and nor will I take any notice of the adverts.

Captain, I Said What

Let’s say you are Welsh. At Cardiff airport two policemen come up to you and ask you, in English, to produce your papers. You comply with the demand, but reply in Welsh. One of the policemen insists that you speak English. You do so, but the policeman then says that you must speak in a clearer fashion, to which you ask what he said. The police then, behind closed doors, attack you, hitting you on the head, in the mouth and the stomach and then charge you. 

 

This, in essence, but substituting Catalan for Welsh and Castilian for English, is what is alleged to have happened to one Iván Cortés at Palma airport on 7 August. The police were Guardia Civil officers. The case has been taken up by the Obra Cultural Balear (OCB), an organisation that defends and promotes the use of Catalan. It has obtained a meeting with the director general of the island’s Guardia to ask that “aggression” towards Catalan speakers ceases, the Cortés incident being the springboard for this request.   

 

Cortés was allowed to make his journey, to London as it happens, where he was seen by a doctor whose report would appear to confirm injuries. The OCB adds that security cameras at Palma airport could also confirm what is alleged to have taken place. 

 

This incident first came to light at the start of this month. A report in “The Diario” (3 September) listed what I have above. It also carried a photo from a press conference of Cortés, together with Tomeu Martí, the co-ordinator for the OCB. Cortés would probably be in his twenties. He has long dark hair and a beard with a longish, thin goatie. He has a dark complexion, suggesting mixed race or possibly one particular race.

 

Accusations against police happen everywhere, not always with justification. One has to bear in mind that the incident took place a few days after the Palmanova bombing. The police would have been on high alert, though one thing one can probably say is that Cortés does not look like how one might expect an ETA terrorist to appear. A question might be, however, why the officers demanded to see his papers in the first place. They are within their rights to do so, but the question might still be raised.

 

Guardia officers speak Castilian. Only Castilian. It is not the first time that one has heard of an incident, assuming the Cortés one to be accurate, in which there has been something of an issue with someone speaking Catalan. Guardia officers speak Castilian because it is the language of the state. And the Guardia is very closely associated with the state, the Spanish state. It is a defender of the state. Whether that means that it should be a defender of one language is another matter. In Mallorca, Catalan and Castilian enjoy joint official status.

 

One does not of course have the other side of the story. Nevertheless, an alleged attack on a defenceless man, whose only apparent “crime” was to speak Catalan and to seek clarification of what was being asked of him, is deserving of investigation, especially as it involves the schism of language and regionalism. There is, though, more to all this. Go back a bit. That other name. Tomeu Martí. Remember him? Probably not. Remember the “Acampallengua”, the pro-Catalan gathering in Sa Pobla in late May? Remember that a senior figure in the OCB was arrested for “disobedience” by the Guardia? That was Martí. He was recently fined for refusing a request to show his papers, the cause of his arrest. Why he was asked to do so, I am unsure. But asked he was. 

 

The OCB is not a party, but it has links to the political establishment locally. You may recall that back in December there was the campaign to speak Catalan over a coffee in the local bar. The OCB was behind that. It followed hard on the heels of the campaign to promote wider use of Catalan in bars and restaurants, one funded at a not insignificant cost by the Council of Mallorca. Both campaigns were innocent enough, but the “Acampallengua” did have an undercurrent of youth radicalisation, and then there was the demonstration in Palma during the summer in favour of Catalan (and indeed another in support of Castilian).

 

The Cortés case cannot be seen just as an isolated incident of possible police aggression. It has to be seen in a wider political and social context. At a press conference held two days ago to announce that request for a meeting with the Guardia, a representative of the republican left in the Balearics shared the platform with Martí, and a link was made to the fact that José Bono, president of the national congress of deputies, had been prohibited from speaking Catalan in the congress. Moreover, Martí has accused the Balearics delegate to the central government, Ramón Socias, of a failure to respond to “acts of discrimination against Catalan”. 

 

If it hasn’t already been, the Guardia risks being dragged into some murky political waters, some, given its past reputation, it would do well to avoid. As a defender of the state, the whole state, it should not become the clarion call for political opportunism and polarisation in Mallorca, which this has the danger of becoming, and with the forces of the law set against elements of the political establishment, themselves supported by elements of a spot of “agitprop”.

 

 

* To see the original “Diario” article and photo, go here: http://www.diariodemallorca.es/mallorca/2009/09/03/joven-afirma-agentes-guardia-civil-le-agredieron-hablar-catalan/499821.html

In Another World

All the fun of the fair. Candy-floss, woven sugar sticking to the hair; no bumping, but there always was, and the sound of The Kinks from a tinny speaker at one end of the dodgems track; a rare exotic fruit, the coconut, knocked down in the shy and smashed open at home to provide a slug of its sweet milk. There was also something dark and sinister about the fair. Not just the ghoulish apparitions of the ghost train and the screams as a luminous skeleton with a lascivious smile sprung up from the floor. Not just the crossing of the palm with silver, Gypsy Rose and her powers of the afterlife and future. Not just the itinerant lowlife, the travelling bands travelling at the edges of conformist society. It was the otherworldiness of the fair. The annual transformation of the local rec or park. When the fair came to town, the promise of all the fun hinted at something unseen and mysterious. It was an alteration, a disturbance to the normalcy of suburban living. The arrival of a certain brutishness. It was also long before health and safety, zealous revenue inspectors and the Benefits Agency. Gypsy Rose probably has to register for VAT nowadays. And issue a receipt. It was also before “love” and “mate”. It was a time of “missus” and “squire” and “young man”, the latter intoned as if by a bleating sheep. The fair, the circus and the panto. These were our altered states, and they had all been passed down along a time continuum dating back decades. The fair was partly the bastard child of the Victorian freak show, yet it was also the distant descendant of the fairs of both rural and urban life. It was the very intangibility of the past that lent the fair its air of otherworldiness. 

 

At some point the fair had diverged, had taken different turnings, and one was given the Jack the Lads from sarf London with their carousel transporters and the real squires, the squirarchy that presided over the country fair, an altogether more genteel affair of fairy cakes, the local Roundtable, horsemanship and agricultural workers shovelling the droppings into bags of manure. 

 

The fair in Mallorca never underwent such a divergence. It is a collision of fairground and trade fair. All the fun and all the commerce of the fair. Dodgems there are, trampolined into contemporary proximity to the bouncy inflatable. And a bit away, the stands for farm machinery rubbing shoulders with wine and herb drinks and local ministries issuing recycling propaganda. And so it will be next weekend when the fair comes to town in Alcúdia. It is the season of the fair – all over again. And the programme betrays a familiarity. A possible concession to economic hard times lies in the absence of a full-on thrash on the Saturday night, replaced by a karaoke “show time” for local amateurs. As with reality TV, reality party nights cut the costs of production, even taking into account that a winner can hope to trouser 300 euros. 

 

There is not the same sense of unseen darkness about the local fairs. They have their past, as will Alcúdia, in the form of the “caparrots” (the giant heads), the giants themselves and the pipers. As ever, tradition outs, even among the shiny agro-technology. But the tradition, this past, can be seen. It exists. It moves along the streets of the town, the giants lumbering from the town hall while the bag-pipes screech. The figures themselves may have an appearance of mystery, of the bizarre and surreal, but they are real enough, depriving the fair of that unknown menace, that untouchable otherworldliness. All the fun of the fair. It was what you could never see that made it so.

 

 

(The programme for this year’s fair is now available on the WHAT’S ON BLOG – http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com.)

Pig In A Poke

Pig in a poke. Strange expression. Any ideas what a poke is? It is in fact a sack or bag. The whole expression is to buy a pig in a poke, which translates as buying something without seeing it or knowing its value, especially a pig presumably. The current-day version might be to buy a bar in Mallorca – ok, it might have been seen (sometimes) but whether the true value is known is an entirely different matter. (Incidentally, the Spanish equivalent is buying a cat instead of a hare, apparently.)

 

But be that as it may. Bars are not the theme of the day. Pigs are. Or rather buying a pig in a bar. Or slices of the pig. It’s that time of year again, one to which everyone looks forward with negligible anticipation. The ham circuit, “circuito jamón serrano”. Alcúdia’s annual pig in a bar traipse across the breadth of the municipality, sampling pieces of serrano in whichever bar or restaurant it happens to be on that day. It all starts today in Sa Vall in Bonaire. I know you can hardly wait.

 

Yet of course jamón serrano is actually pretty damn fine stuff. Whether it quite justifies its own circuit is another matter. But this ham is not the pink plastic variety also available in Mallorca and more obviously in British supermarkets. It is of superior quality, so much so that it is controlled in a way akin to wine. I don’t as a rule take great chunks of archive pieces, but I’ll make an exception just this once. This was how I put it two years ago:

 

“Whereas the British palate and visual eating sense are generally programmed to ham that is pink and often shrink-wrapped, there is a diversity of local ham in terms of its visual presentation, taste and colour. The British visitor will often retreat to the security of pinkness that comes as jamón york, but the more revered Spanish hams are jamón serrano or jamón ibérico which possess a more exotic depth of colour. The purpleness of these hams hints at a wilder taste, curing and preservation. And wilder is an apt description, jamón serrano literally meaning mountain ham.”

 

The purpose of the “circuit” is not just to promote the ham but also to give a leg up to participating local restaurants, the thinking being that one cuts along for some free nosebag in the form of some ham and then moves onto a main course. More ham probably, but for which one pays. Given a local tendency to freeload, I do wonder if this laudable enough aim is actually achieved. Moreover, it’s not as if jamón serrano is a rarity. It’s hanging around all over the place – restaurants, delis, supermarkets – very often indeed hanging from the walls or ceilings. The consequence of the freebie ham is that, however unintentionally, you do end up with something of a pig in a poke. Yes you can see what you’re eating but because it’s free you don’t know its real value. There again, go and buy a whole ham and you will soon find out.

So Natural

You may have missed the news, but something momentous occurred in Mallorca three days ago. No, it wasn’t yet another letter about prices, nor was it a story about the litres per square metre of rain that have swamped the island. It was about some cubic metres – those of natural gas supply. 

 

Work on a pipeline from Dènia on the mainland started at the end of 2008. The first gas is now flowing into Mallorca. Initially, it will serve Palma and the immediate area. One day, you never know, it might be available across the island. There are infrastructure issues to be factored in, not least those to do with domestic supply, but the resultant advantages are clear – lower bills, cleaner air and greater safety. It is a significant development, yet one wonders why news of the arrival of the gas was not given greater prominence.

 

Gas supply in Mallorca is largely confined to butane and propane. This is about to change. And not before time. Butane can be dangerous – explosions are not unheard of. There is a danger with any gas supply, but with butane the risks are greater. Poorly maintained connections and installations; out-of-date tubing and heaters; ill-fitting mountings. Moreover, the reliance on butane makes domestic life akin to living in a permanent camp-site. There are the bottles, and there is the constant likelihood of the gas giving out during the cooking of a roast chicken, followed – nearly always it seems – by the hunting of a torch to go and disconnect the empty container while someone holds an umbrella over you or the wind batters the gas house door shut. There is also the sheer effort involved. Butane bottles are heavy. Expect the incidence of hernia operations to decline as a result of natural gas. The chiropractors of Mallorca must be cursing its arrival. Pity the poor bastards who live on the fifth floor and don’t have a lift. It’s like camping, but it’s also energy by Heath Robinson and from the manual of poor back health.

 

Butane is neither much cop when it comes to general health nor for the state of domestic walls. There is little less suited to Mallorca’s winter climate of dampness and humidity than butane, given the watery vapours that appliances pump out. The use of natural gas to also generate electricity will see a lowering in demand for that electricity as the dehumidifiers can be turned down to their minimum settings. 

 

The remoteness of Mallorca has been an issue, but the fact that it has taken until 2009 to get a pipeline functioning is a reminder of what, only relatively recently, was the inadequacy of infrastructure. Spain is still playing catch-up after the years of economic and civil engineering neglect. It is easy, though, to be critical of this johnny gas-come-lately. Britain has enjoyed natural gas for years. I can, however, still recall the strangely cosy, stale smell of my great aunt’s house with its boiler, fired by Calor. 

 

The arrival of the gas also signals what will eventually be the demise of the “butanero”, the gas man. And signal the end of the truck clanging its load and hooting its horn to announce its weekly appearance. Mallorca still has its quaint deliveries and domestic services – the whistling tin dustbin on wheels of the bloke who sharpens knives and garden tools is one, the wine-dispensing vendors of towns like Sineu another. In Britain, there used to be the knife-sharpener with his stone, the Corona man, the fish man, the laundry man, the paraffin man. Maybe there was also a butane man. Not that I remember one. But they have all been consigned to a history dump caused by shopping centres and supermarkets, efficient domestic appliances and central heating. That’s progress. And the butane man is likely to be looking for a new job.

Bad Omen

This is a kind of part two to 14 September (Jennifer, Alison, Philippa, Sue). A couple of days ago, “The Sun” listed the top ten names – male and female – that would stop those monikered thus from being asked for a date. If you happen to be called Judas or Adolf, you should be a tad concerned, though the good news is that you only feature at five and six in the list. There again, how many people called Judas have any of you ever encountered? I would guess that there are exactly no people so named in the whole of the United Kingdom, unless they have been named after a dreadful heavy-metal outfit. There are probably a few nutters in the US who’ve changed their name to Judas by deed poll, but otherwise … . And as for Adolf. Not even in Germany is anyone called Adolf. Well not for some sixty odd years. 

 

Betrayal and genocide appear not to be the worst sins associated with names, nor is it essential that names, such as the two above, come from real people, because in at number one on the list, with a staggering 90% of the vote, is Damien. Not because of Hirst’s calf in formaldehyde, but because of a made-up character. From “The Omen”. Sorry, but if you’re Damien, the chances of your being picked up are almost as likely as there being a Judas in the whole of the greater London region. You’d have a better chance as an Adolf. Or why not go the whole Schwein and call yourself Hitler. 

 

Despite the Damien-Omen connection, there is one greater Damien horror that finds the name worsting that of a one-time mad dictator, and that is … “Only Fools And Horses”. Priceless was the moment when Rodney was introduced to his newly born nephew. Priceless indeed was the whole Trotters’ oeuvre. Until, that is, it became the comedy from which there can be no escape. I once parked by the strip in Magaluf. If there is a hell, it is a bar with episodes of Del Boy on a constant loop. Or several bars, all with the inhabitants of Nelson Mandela House. And I say this as someone who thought the shows some of the finest of all sitcom writing. For Maga, read also places in Alcúdia. I have to presume that Trotters bar itself has its own dedicated Del and Rodders channel. Endless repeats with Grandad, Denzil, Uncle Albert, Boycie, Marlene, Trigger, Cassandra and of course Damien. Endless repeats endlessly repeating themselves. Perhaps that list of names should also include Derek and Raquel.

 

But true bar hell would need more than just ancient John Sullivan output, it would also require Keith Floyd. Or someone approximating to him. A.A. Gill, while acknowledging Floyd’s undoubted qualities on the screen, considered him to be very different away from the box. Referring to an interview he did with the finally dead former TV chef: “I found him in one of those sorry Costa del Sol pubs at 10.30am, necking pints, leaning on a bar with half a dozen hacking, pasty-faced, nicotine-fingered taxi drivers and nightclub bouncers, flicking through ‘The Sun’ while complaining about the football and the price of Marmite”. And not just the Costa del Sol, Gilly. Floyd would not have been of a similar snivelling state as Paul Whitehouse’s master-class of the pathetic in a pub – his sad git Archie. Far too flamboyant, one assumes. But Gill’s estimation of him in “The Sunday Times” as “boorish, bullying, opinionated, abusive and drunk” could just as easily apply to a character it might be your misfortune to encounter. In, for example, an Alcúdia bar. Or a Pollensa bar. And the chances of doing so at present are greatly increased. As the rain continues to deposit the equivalent of the Mediterranean on an hourly basis, where else is there to go than to a bar. What else is there to do than get drunk? And then offer all and sundry views on all and sundry. Who might this Floyd-alike be? “Oh, by the way, my name’s Damien. I was named after the kid in ‘The Omen’ “. 

Double Dutch

Do you get embarrassed by double letters in embarrassment? Are you harassed by  wondering whether it is one or two r’s in harassment? Do you accommodate one or two c’s or m’s in accommodation? Spanish poses a similar dilemma. The Spaniards follow a dirección where the English take t. For the Spanish it is possible to allow only a posible, which would be impossible in English. 

 

Double letters or to not double letters? That is the doublespeak question. You can take a bet on doubles. Try it. Double your money, double or quits. Either way it’s likely to cause double trouble. Where’s this all going? Does it sound like double Dutch? 

 

It is the tyranny of the double letter. And the inverse double. Take the town of Binissalem. There is another place in Mallorca. It’s called Binnisalem. At least it was in “The Bulletin”. Again. The battle of the grapes took place in Binnisalem, said it. Must be somewhere near to another battle of grapes. In Binissalem. The Arabs eschew n’s coming in two by two. Actually they don’t, because the alphabet is different, but you get my drift – hopefully. Arabic is the source of the prefix. Think Bin Laden and not Binn Laden. Mallorca’s bin home to bins for centuries – Biniali, Biniagual, Biniaraix. The island may not have been laden down with bins, but they’ve bin there nevertheless. In their n-singularity. But Binissalem poses the double problem of potential inverse doubleness. And so it proves. It’s writ large in “The Bulletin”. Wrongly.

 

Away from all this doubling up, the great grape battle of the Binissalem Vermar festivities took place on Saturday. Harlequins wingers would love it. The blood of red grape is closer to an outpouring of Group A than a joke-shop capsule. Let Tom Williams eat Merlot in future. 

 

A grape battle may hold all the Inquisitorial threat of the Pythons’ cushions and comfy chair, but in its messiness it is supremely stupid and therefore enormous fun. It is like paintball minus the faux-militarism. A question, though, is do they have changing-rooms and showers? Or do participants drive home and suffer the smell of stale red for several weeks after? Presumably they walk. It is as well that the grape harvest has been abundant. Otherwise the battle might cause a wine shortage. It is also as well that the weather was fine on Saturday. Otherwise the grape battle would have brought new meaning to the term wine lake. 

 

Daft it may be, as daft as tomato battles that take place elsewhere, but daftness should be a pre-requisite of fiestas. There is little dafter, after all, than the rubber ducks in Can Picafort. And talking of that, together with the street theatre of Pollensa’s Moors and Christians, I would submit for your consideration that the Binissalem battle and the Picafort ducks register as the three great fiesta events. 

 

And following the battle came the treading. On Sunday they trod and they trod during the great grape-treading contest, the winners producing 5.6 litres of juice and trousering 240 euros into the bargain as well as – along with all the teams – taking home bottles of vino partly made from the juice produced last year. And they would have enjoyed their collapso and possibly have been seeing double, though it’s doubtful that even with drink they would have spelt the name of their town with two n’s and one s.

Take A Chance

Someone left an IKEA catalogue in the post box. A postie Patricia possibly, or an Iker direct from IKEA. Whoever it was would have been conspicuous in her or his rectangularity. Everything about IKEA is rectangular, like its brochure, though to be more accurate it is a rectangular cuboid and has the substantiality of a robust chopping board. 

 

I once ventured into an IKEA store. Or rather I was persuaded by the promise of an in-store café. Once inside the aircraft hangar along Hanger Lane, aka part of West London’s North Circular Road (that particular part is not circular but linear), the prospect of a coffee from a square cup lost its allure. Marketing may be all, but not when the cafeteria masquerades as a kitchen showroom. The coffee was probably ground from polypropylene. I have an aversion to kitchen showrooms, which is why I avoid entering Genestar in Alcúdia, the facade of which has always intimated that behind it reside aluminium multi-level ovens and rectangular, bleached-white sinks. Maybe I have an aversion to the rectangle as well. 

 

Walking around an IKEA takes several weeks. It is a maze from which there is no obvious escape. One could do with a course in orienteering prior to tackling the IKEA labyrinth, such is the level of disorientation, for within it I experienced serious hyperventilation, induced by a combination of agoraphobia and claustrophobia, surrounded, hemmed in as I was by the unremitting blocks of furniture. IKEA is interior Stonehenge before the erosion set in. Worse still, I experienced an awful desire to want to buy stuff, lots of it. Ocular perception overcame me. Primary colours demanded the attention of my wallet. When finally I did manage to effect my release, I emerged with nothing more than a sweat. Then I rationalised it. I had been subjected to too much information shopping. Soft furnishing overload. No-one buys anything from IKEA because they can’t see the table wood for the wall-unit trees. It’s like a Chinese restaurant. Hundreds of pages with thousands of dishes, and you end up meekly opting for the set menu. Except in IKEA there is no soft option. Just all that soft furnishing left unbought. 

 

The Swedes, since they stopped being part of the Viking hordes, have carved out a European niche as sensible, well-mannered folk with an overwhelming blondness. They have bequeathed to Mallorca a tourist with generally well-funded pockets, Abba and of course IKEA. Functional and practical. Not two words one commonly associates with anything in Mallorca. IKEA has been home-decoration culture shock to a society that grew up with heavy woods dominating the living-rooms and the sound of woodworm chewing through the chair legs like a slowly churning hand drill. 

 

The vibrant colours aside, IKEA is the Swede made inanimate. The products have a blond vigour, a healthy swim in a pine-encircled lake, the softness yet strength of snow, a pragmatism of line and form. There is air and freshness. From the typical human Swede and the typical Swedish landscape and weather came the philosophy of furniture. Contrast this with the darkness of Mallorcan quasi-antique colossi that compete for every centimetre of space, expressions of olive skin turned burnt ochre by the sun, and of bodily expansion, the result of hefty menus followed by the inertia of siesta.  

 

But they still managed to make the store a pine forest of density. In the desire to extract the optimal benefits of volume, they neglected that very essence of lightness, of airiness. Maybe it’s different now. It is some years since the nightmare on the North Circular. I should take another chance on them. Or perhaps you can just phone them up and place an order.

Remember My Name

Are you a celebritist? I’m not sure if I am using the word as it is meant to be, but as it is a word of recent invention (indeed I thought I had invented it until I googled it and found that I hadn’t) it can probably mean what you want it to mean. I’m going for this meaning: one who has a fascination with celebrities. It sounds better than a celebrophile, the reverse of which would be celebrophobe. I guess I’m one of the latter. There must be grounds for there being such a state as “celebridiction”. “Celebridict”, one with an addiction to celebrities (Oxford English Dictionary); and before you go and check I have indeed made that up. At least I think I have.

 

Someone should start celebritist tourism. In Mallorca. Come to the island and see the celebrities at play. There are thousands of them, seemingly. Great hordes of them at charity golf days or shopping for donkeys with sombreros. How many have I ever personally seen? Er. I did once see who I thought was Pauline Quirke in the old Tango, but maybe it wasn’t her or was a Pauline tribute act out for a chicken supper. The perils of being Pauline, or not as the case may be. I quite like Pauline Quirke, in a quirky way. Had I been a celebritist, though, I would have rushed up with a paper Tango place mat and insisted on an autograph and bored her rigid by reeling off my favourite episodes of “Birds Of A Feather”. I might even have been a Pauline celebridict, convinced of Pauline’s part in my past life. Remember that Little Britain character? The one David Walliams played who was obsessed with the late, lamented Mollie Sugden and who ended up killing Mollie with a knife hurled across a restaurant? I wouldn’t wish that on Pauline.

 

The name of  the Quirke-meistress has cropped up – once again – in our favourite local newspaper. Her academy hosted a couple of celebrities. Who they? No idea. But they are celebrities because it said they were. And then there were some others, one of whom was Steve Wright. Steve Wright? Sid the Manager and Voiceover Man in tow? Em, well no, because it wasn’t that Steve Wright. Indeed it wasn’t any Steve Wright. It was a Steve wrong. From his photo I wouldn’t have had a clue. That was given by the text. “Steve, a drummer with Style Council.” Steve White, not Wright. Such is the fame of celebrity that no-one gets your name right. Or wright. Or wrong. But I still wouldn’t have known who it was, not from the face anyway. Paul Weller yes, a twenty-odd-years-removed Mick Talbot possibly, but the bloke who played the drums? Not a chance. Maybe it wasn’t him at all. He just said he was, and got his name wrong, or wright.

 

All these soap stars (so-called), all these children’s show presenter stars (so-called), all the never-were pop stars (so-called). Do I care? What do you think? Now Clarkson, that was a different matter. He’s funny and he’s interesting. Unlike some totty from “Hollyoaks” who might pitch up at some Calvia-based charity thrash, he is someone you might wish to pay attention to. (Actually you may wish to pay attention to the Hollyoaker, but for different reasons.) James May as well. I could of course say that I went to university with James May, which would be rather economical with the truth. He went to the same university as me – at a different time. I had no knowledge of the chap until he started tagging along with Jezza. At university I had a mate who used to do tricks on his moped, like riding through hoops of fire. He was the son of a celebrity, but I’m not telling you who. 

 

But maybe I just move in the wrong circles. The chances of encountering Michael Winner are remote, about as remote as him ordering a full English at the likes of The Foxes Arms or Yummy Yummy. “The fried egg was historic.” Nevertheless, celebrity tourism would be a winner, with or without Michael. They could gather all the celebs in a Celebritarium and run excursions. Watch the stars eating a three-course meal. See them sitting around. Be amazed at them having a drink and going for a slash. And there would be musical accompaniment to this spectacular of the celebrity mundane. The drummer would of course be Steve Wright, or even White. 

 

Fame? They’re going to live forever at the new Mallorca Celebritarium.

Blind Faith

The Germans go big on Mallorca. Watch German TV and most evenings there will be something about the island, even if it’s just the weather forecast. And most evenings there will be an announcer referring to the “paradise island”. This comes from the same lexicon of blind faith that gives us all those “beautifuls” and “lovelys” to which I referred the other day. There’s nothing wrong with blind faith, except blindness. It’s another day for you and me in paradise. Paradise lost, paradise to be regained – some time. Sir, can you help me? Or help others. Those in unparadise. 

 

The economic crisis was always likely to cause some tensions. It’s just a question of how tense. The CCOO union puts an estimate on the number of workers unlikely to qualify for benefits this winter – 80,000, more than half of them from the hotel sector. That’s getting on for ten per cent of the population of the archipelago, to which can be added a similar percentage on the dole. The union is concerned that there will be a winter of discontent, or one of social conflicts, to use its words. 

 

The crisis has also made even more apparent the deep flaw in Mallorca’s economy, that of seasonality. Generally it works, just about, but when the season is shorter and workers do not have employment long enough to qualify for winter payments, the flaw, the fault line grows ever wider. As does the gap between the haves and have-nots. The gap becomes a gorge, a vast canyon. And there is no bottom to the canyon, no cement to fill this great gap of unemployment and societal disconnection, especially as the construction industry is right down in the hole as well.  

 

One can overstate the situation, and the union might well be guilty of exaggeration, but it may well also be right. You can also take into account the fact that citizens of the Balearics have slipped from a prosperity in the ’90s to one of being poorer than the Spanish average in terms of disposable income. This may be across the board, but that board is broad. One man’s lower spending power on luxury items is another one’s breadline. 

 

The truth is that many workers receive not a great deal more than subsistence wages even during the summer. At least the paradise delusion of hot days and nights can divert attention from impoverishment. And the safety net of the state has, until now, been there for the colder days and nights of winter. It won’t be for many this winter.

 

The deep flaw in the economy is mirrored by the deep flaw in island society: the extremes in terms of wealth or not. Few societies are immune from such a gulf, but the compactness of Mallorcan geography makes it more apparent, more inescapable, unless you retain that blindness of blind faith. 

 

The lateness – the 1960s – with which an industrial revolution arrived in Mallorca, at a time of a regime only starting to come to terms with true economics, provided little or no preparation for greater diversity. And that revolution was predicated on an industry far removed from the grit of manufacturing. The Mallorcan economy is something of an unreal economy. Rightly so perhaps. Paradise is a state of unreality. Unparadise, however, is the reality confronting many. And some of the wealth that was and has been accrued has an unreality as well. It was as if it was magicked, the consequence of being there, of luck, and of the benevolence of tour operators and visitors from the first days of mass tourism. 

 

One can overstate the situation, and I hope I am, and that the union is as well. But the ingredients for discontent exist, and I keep in mind the actions of those Sardinians, around the time that the crisis broke, who bombarded luxury yachts with wet sand in disgust at displays of ostentatious wealth. There might be more than wet sand this winter in Mallorca. Paradise, anyone?