Old King Coal: Alcúdia’s power station

In passing yesterday I mentioned that GOB is wishing to have the power station (Es Murterar) in Alcúdia closed. It isn’t so much the closure of the station as putting an end to carbon emissions. The power station runs on a mixture of coal and oil.

GOB has a strong case. By any environmental standards, including those of plain, layman common sense, the power station is something of a nonsense. While the environmental arguments have raged for ages regarding the building of a golf course on one side of Albufera, they are as nothing compared with what goes on on another side, i.e. at the power station.

If you drive along the road to Sa Pobla, past Murterar, you will see the grass verges stained with coal dust. To the back of the station are whole “fields” of ash which is used, decreasingly, in the making of cement. Lorries that move the ash and the coal from the port are in regular motion. There is something that is particularly absurd in having these filth-generators shuttling along the roads of Alcúdia every three minutes.

GOB is calling for, and is apparently getting some support from industry, the elimination of the coal and oil firing and for its replacement by renewables, wind farms most notably. It is not the only ecological power that has been attacking the power station and the use of coal. Greenpeace have, in the past, tried to disrupt the shipping of coal to the port.

Whether the wind alternative makes economic sense will doubtless be open to scrutiny as will the feasibility of changing the generating source. What it might all cost and who might pay for it are other questions. But, for once, GOB are likely to be able to call on widespread support, politically, from business and from anyone who believes that the emissions can make little sense, especially given the location of Murterar.

More on ducks
Well, pity a poor old duck in Albufera which finds itself covered in coal dust. It needs to go and have a swim in the clean waters of Can Picafort. The fallout from Sunday’s shenanigans continues, “The Bulletin” drawing attention to the fact that Can Picafort council is not taking the actions of the illegal duck tossers lightly. Unfortunately, there is no Can Picafort council. Ho hum. But what of Santa Margalida council?

While it is obliged to set plod off in pursuit of the miscreants, it is open to question quite how determined Santa Margalida town hall is. “The Bulletin” would have it that its actions are “another example of how the local authorities are cracking down on local custom involving animals”. Of course they are. The same actions that inspired the sympathetic Power Rangers poster for the 2008 fiestas, that prompted the head of fiestas to declare, after this year’s tossing, that “there always have been ducks and always will be” (and he wasn’t referring to rubber ducks) and that suggested to the town hall’s delegate in Can Picafort that he should be photographed with duck supporters.

The town hall opted for rubber ducks only reluctantly and only after it had been fined for allowing the live ducks to continue to be used. Its attitude now is equivocal. “The Bulletin” devotes little attention to matters Can Picafort or northern, and it’s a shame that when it does it can manage to get things wrong and to fail to understand what the situation really is. Poor.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Dirty Duckers: Alcúdia corruption and Can Picafort mischief

If you had been inclined to think that all the corruption hoo-ha had gone quiet because of the summer hols, you would have been incorrect. Investigations are ongoing and they have just got very much closer to home. Home, in this instance, being Alcúdia town hall. There was I saying that, Can Ramis apart, Alcúdia was a less turbulent administration than others. I should know better.

As part of the IBATUR (Balearics tourism agency) case, there is a sub-investigation, one that involves a company called Trui. No, not TUI. Trui. You don’t need to know the ins and outs, and you are probably not interested anyway, but there may be some painful truths coming out of the Trui troubles. Painful, that is, for the town hall, the Unió Mallorquina party (yep, them again) and ex-mayor Miguel Ferrer, himself a leading figure in the UM.

To cut to the chase, as reported in “The Diario”, anti-corruption prosecutors suspect that money from the town hall was used to fund the UM’s electoral campaign in 2007. Fingered in all this – potentially – are Ferrer, who was mayor at the time, and his right-hand man, Francesc Cladera, who – it is being alleged – could have arranged for payments, in black, from the town hall’s coffers.

Coming on the back of the opposition Partido Popular’s desire to re-open the case into alleged irregularities in respect of the Can Ramis building, things have suddenly become murky in what had been, so we had thought, the clearer waters of Alcúdia politics.

And while on the subject of water, and moving on from yesterday’s swimming pool fiasco, the annual mischief in Can Picafort duly resulted in a few live ducks going for a dip in the sea during the duck toss on Sunday. Did we ever expect that they wouldn’t?

The local press found both residents and the head of fiestas “surprised” by the level of police vigilance for the event. Not sure they should have been surprised. The naughty boys have been extracting the Miguel for a few years now, and the Guardia seemed determined to prevent any more Carry On Quacking. The police presence was at a level, so it was said, for the royal family putting in an appearance. Helicopters, a sub-aqua team plus the beachside patrols. And still they let some ducks go.

It is all utterly ridiculous. The event has always been ridiculous, but the ban was and is ridiculous, as is what has replaced it, i.e. rubber ducks. The thumbing of noses to authority is ridiculous, but so is the response. What can we expect next year? Submarines rather than a sub-aqua crew? Might be right given that subs used to launch dummy torpedoes at the towers on the beach, such as the one in Can Pic on which the naughties had graffiti-ed a “pope”, announcing their intention to flout the duck law again. Maybe they should just ban the whole thing. Or stage it in a swimming pool instead. Assuming one can be found that’s not been closed.

I asked a born-and-bred Can Picafort resident whether he would be attending the “suelta”. No, he said. He used to, and used to be one of those who swam after the live ducks. But what was the point now? He’s right. There is no point. It’s plain daft, but it always was plain daft, which is why of course it should continue.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

White Elephants: Can Ramis in Alcúdia

Of the local town hall administrations, Alcúdia tends to enjoy greater harmony than the others. There are not the shenanigans that arise in Santa Margalida, not the controversies of Muro, such as the golf course, not the close to fist fights of Sa Pobla and not the seemingly daily criticisms of Pollensa’s poor mayor Cerdà. However, there is one matter in Alcúdia that stubbornly refuses to go away and which has returned as a brickload of contention.

To remind you, Can Ramis is the new building by the market square. It cost, in the end, a whacking great two and a half million plus euros (a figure I think I’m right in saying includes the cost of redoing the square next to it). It was meant to have cost more than a million less. To say that the building is unattractive is an understatement; it is an abomination. When it finally opened towards the end of April, there was a singular lack of fanfare. You could understand why. A rotten building, delayed, vastly over-budget and not doing what it was intended to. A grand, official opening was the last thing that was needed, except as a way of exposing some sheepish and embarrassed expressions. There was no grand opening.

The opposition Partido Popular has been on the Can Ramis offensive for some time. In 2008, the party issued a “denuncia” in respect of what it claimed were irregularities. The accusation was “archived”, but the PP, as reported in “Ultima Hora”, intends to get the case re-opened.

Other than relocating the tourist office, which was envisaged under the original plans, the building has two exhibition areas which are of questionable value given other display areas in the town, and an office for the town hall’s markets and fairs department. The town’s service agency, EMSA, is meant to be moving in at an additional cost of 30,000 euros. Can Ramis is therefore ending up as overspill accommodation for the town hall. The main feature of the construction, some sort of bus station, along with a waiting room and a café all failed to materialise. In the case of the café someone came to the conclusion that it wasn’t necessary, given the number of bars nearby. Why it was ever thought necessary, who knows.

The thrust of the PP’s accusations centre, one understands, on what happened to the original budget, which was spent even before the actual construction of the building started. There are other questions that arise in respect of Can Ramis. Who approved the design? When was it clear that there would be a change of use? And was there consideration given to a re-design when this became clear?

Can Ramis, you would have hoped, would have been a symbol of civic pride. It is anything but. It is unlovely and, as the PP point out, under-utilised; not quite a white elephant but a sickly elephant calf. It was a mistake, and a ridiculously expensive one, to boot.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

History Repeating Itself: Sant Crist

It rained yesterday. Quite heavily. Miraculously even. The coincidence was even noted on Facebook. For yesterday was the triennial celebration of the miracle of Sant Crist which delivered the poor sods who lived in Alcúdia at the start of the sixteenth century from a period of drought, pestilence and all manner of privations of biblical proportions. On Sunday evening there was a special Via Fora street dramatisation of Sant Crist in the old town, one that featured a good friend of all things to do with the publications I’m involved with – Xisco at Sunwing. “Ultima Hora” described it as portraying the “leyenda” of Sant Crist: that word again – legend. For, as with many of the religious celebrations, there is a degree of, how can one put it, licence as to the reality of their origins, as there also is with their dating. Sant Crist shouldn’t occur in July, as its date is in fact 24 February. Though even this might be open to interpretation.

In 2007, the town celebrated the 500th anniversary of Sant Crist. Three years ago. How time flies. While I get a distinct sense of history repeating itself when the annual fiestas roll around, a three-year lapse might be thought long enough to forget the previous occasion. Not so. I remember it well. And it was on this blog. There is something rather satisfying about the chronicling of events over a period of time. Three years seem like a long time, but they’re not. Here is what was said about Sant Crist back then, and when I went back and located it, I was startled to find that the same piece had a photo of Mike and Jane Lynham at their leaving do. Was that really three years ago? It was.

From “The History Man”, 21 July 2007*:

“In 1507, Alcúdia and indeed the whole of the island was enduring a time of famine, plague and warring between competing dynasties. To add to this, Alcúdia had a threat of drought, which, in turn, threatened the harvest. In order to try and combat this, the local clergy and justices, organised a procession. It was to be a form of begging or pleading procession, the centrepiece of which would be an image of Christ on the cross, crafted from wood. The hope was that an adoration of and pleading to this image would lead to some form of deliverance from the misfortune that had befallen the local people.

The image was taken from the cave of Sant Martí, which is at the foot of the Puig (hill) Sant Martí, which overlooks Alcúdia. On returning to the cave, it was noted that the image oozed water and some drops of blood. This was subsequently confirmed by the religious men. The upshot of all this was that the next harvest was one of the best for many years, thus cementing the miracle of Sant Crist into local history, tradition and folklore. Whether you believe it or not (and as with most of these alleged miracles, they are implausible at best), is not really the point. The fact is that it is part of local history, mythology one might even venture. And it gives the clergy a chance to dress up and walk through the streets and for there to be a bit of a do.

And as to why every three years. In 1697 the then rector of the Sant Jaume church decreed as such. Moreover, they shifted the actual date from 28 July to 26 July, which also happens to be the date of Santa Anna.

So, now you know.”

* From the original version of this blog – http://www.alcudiapollensa.blogspot.com

De Abarca
Following on from yesterday … You can all sleep easy in your beds. He has been caught. And no, he wasn’t in Albufera. He was found near Selva, quite some distance away.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Eyeless In Alcúdia: A cave, a ranch and some apartments

If you take the right turn by the traffic lights close to the auditorium in Alcúdia, the road heading past the cemetery and down to the horse roundabout, as you negotiate the bend there are various signs. Some of these are billboards, Wind and Friends, Bulldog Clothing, but there is also a much smaller road sign, its pink or purple or whatever colour washed out by the sun, in rather similar fashion to the way in which the sculpture of the horse on the roundabout has been beaten by the weather, turning it a salmon colour, thus adding to the debate as to whether it really is a horse or not.

This smaller sign I had never noticed. Until yesterday. It is for the “Cova de Sant Marti”. The Sant Marti cave. Positioned quite some distance from the cave, a good four kilometres or so, I wondered if there were further ones to advise the driver as to the trail of the cave with its icons. There weren’t. None that I could see, anyway.

Why direct people to the roundabout? Because that’s about as far as you would get before giving up or winding down the window and asking a cheery local for directions, one who would – in all likelihood – have no idea what you were talking about. If there is one sign, then there should be several. Especially as the cave is meant to hold such importance in Alcúdia’s heritage. But the absence is indicative of the half-hearted, impractical nature of promotion, as opposed to that which may find its way into local tourism literature, and even with this I’m not sure that the cave does actually get much of a mention.

For many, its existence is unknown, including those who live locally. This may have to do with where it is. Middle of nowhere in truth, stuck between Bellevue and the bypass by the mountain. Its unknown presence is nothing new. When I spoke with Jan at the Jolly Roger about the “good old days”, she mentioned that the girls – Joy and Julie – used to go and play at the cave and that few others, at that time, seemed to know that it was there.

By coincidence, I was later at the ranch in Puerto Alcúdia – Rancho Ses Roques. A place, a bit like that road sign, I had been unaware of in terms of what lies behind the entrance building and stables. A small zoo, a magnificent white stallion, cows which look like they are advertisers-cartoon moo-moo’s promoting butter and full-fat milk. Hayley said that they take riders on a horsey excursion past the Sant Marti cave, hence the coincidence. It would probably be the only way these riders ever become aware that it is there.

Unlike the cave, the ranch is well-publicised. Therefore, it’s a mystery to me why it is such a mystery – to me. Not quite so much now, though. Its rural ambience, lying by the old “cami” road, and close to the karaoke and lager of The Mile, seems a peculiarity of juxtaposition. But there was something else about this short visit to the ranch. As I walked towards the entrance buildings, I happened to look across to my left. It was a stunning sight. Nothing particularly beautiful. Quite the contrary, really, but impressive nonetheless. The Siesta 1 apartments building. The sight stopped me in my tracks because I had never seen the apartments from this angle or distance. The impression, close up, is of a tower with arms off; it’s an illusion. My familiarity with the apartments is such that I have always classed them as only slightly better than hideous. But this new view changed all that. The different perspective was magnificent, and reinforced the impression, when speaking with Jan, as to the dramatic changes to the landscape that had occurred almost forty years ago. From where once was nothing came the Siestas and Bellevue. And their brooding imposition, today, only serves to remind us of what once was but now seems to be being taken away.

There are things that you have never seen – in Alcúdia, Pollensa, wherever. And some of these things can still astonish. Small signs, stallions and Siestas. Just one day, once more.

(The photo shows the Siesta 1 apartments, taken from Ses Roques.)

Alwyn – Gavin’s At The Port
Just a note to say that the mightily well-liked Alwyn, Gavin’s dad, is doing well after his heart attack a few days ago. Gavin reports that he is “ok”, which is a relief. Speedy recovery, Al.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Child’s Play: Football and bouncy castles

I am reluctant to say that it was a case of the ridiculous to the sublime, but it was a case of what I have a habit of packing into not just an afternoon but an hour of one afternoon. The last day of the Premier League season, and I stop off at Foxes for a coffee. I am en route elsewhere. The bar is – to use the vernacular that it appears we must now do – rammed. The boozerists of Manchester United, Chelsea, Stoke, Wigan or no team in particular. “Jamie’s throwing knives,” says Lee. Leicester have lost.

This is the English at play. Pints, boisterous, laughter, tattoos, lots of white skin having gone red, “come on, you’s”. You couldn’t, in all honesty, ever describe it as refined. A substantial frame heaves into view. “Oi,” I shout, with my best lack of refinement. I need a word. Grizz, aka Minty, is on foot patrol back to the hotel. Along with Pater Minty. I think to suggest that pater looks younger than offspring, but he can read about here instead. A somewhat, how can I put it, bulky child with a pink face asks Minty about later entertainment. “Statues.” It seems to do the trick. Child’s play and the English at play. Refinement is the word that has lodged into my mind as I depart the lager laager. It may be elsewhere.

I have an appointment. Have camera, will spend some time on a Sunday afternoon pointing it at a bouncy castle and a small child on a space hopper. This is the Mallorcans at play. Child’s play and older. There is beer, but it is being served in more dainty receptacles. There is boisterousness, but it is that of children hurling themselves on the bouncy. The tattoo-ing is hidden. The only obvious body adornment is the white clown’s face paint of three “chicas” whom I take to be play leaders.

This is Sa Romana, the impressive Romanesque pile on the road from Puerto Alcúdia into the old town. They have opened a children’s play garden. It seems like a good idea. There is a deficiency of such places. The beer, and the Coke and the juices, come from the “chiringuito”, also a new development. In the evenings it becomes a sort-of chill place. It is the domain of Luis, formerly of the now-defunct Mestizo. The play garden is large, large enough to accommodate a small football pitch as well as all the brightly-coloured paraphernalia and plastic of a Toys ‘R’ Us display area. And as it is all grass, it has a natural safety factor.

The Romana clan is there in force – from Mosquito and Cas Capella as well. The tourist office is represented, though not necessarily in an official capacity. Other restaurateurs are, too. Juan from Varadero, for example. I wander about the garden, photo here, photo there. A large and multi-coloured Swiss ball affair, minus the Swiss as it appears insubstantial, rolls up against me. I’m sure I can hear air escaping, so I ignore it. Slowly deflating oversized beach balls are not my job. Mine is … . Well, what is it? I do at times wonder. The English at play, the Mallorcans at play and earlier I had written the longer story of the Jolly Roger and the piece about tribute acts. Easy. A Sunday afternoon. Child’s play.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Early Doors: Shut on the first day of the season

Yesterday was the first day of the season – I think I might have mentioned this in the previous entry. First day of the season and the first day when tourists flock in. Or so one might hope. But even if they do or don’t suddenly descend on the resorts en masse, the instruments of tourism should, you might also hope, be fully functional.

It’s a Saturday in Alcúdia, the old town. I am passing what was the tourist office near to the town hall building. It has closed and will re-open some time as a health centre, or so I am told. There are notices informing visitors that there is a new office. This doesn’t prevent one set of tourists and then another, a few moments later, trying to get into the silent office. I am in full being-helpful-to tourists mode. I may not actually hug them, but I am on hand to give them a hand. Lucky them. There is a new office, I explain, and give directions, even if they are also on the notices. Thank you, say some Germans. Thank you, say some French. And off they go. I’m the tourists’ new best friend. I wish I hadn’t bothered.

I remembered that I had to go to the horror that is the redeveloped Can Ramis building, the one that houses the new tourist office, and take some photos. So off I go, thinking that I’ll have a word with the tourism folk while I’m there. Can Ramis may be a disaster in terms of architectural misplacement, but as I near it I think that the tourist office looks quite impressive. Big I’s in blue making it clear what it is. Lots of glass showing its interior. This is a good idea. Not intimidating. However … It’s the first day of the season, and the office is shut. To be fair, it does say, on another notice, this one on the door of the new office, that it is closed on Saturdays, but surely, I also think, they could have made an exception on this, the first day of the season.

Having taken a couple of snaps of the rotten building, having been startled by an art exhibition in one of the display areas that looked like it was stuffed full of merchandising for sports companies, having gone upstairs to another exhibition that might just as easily have been housed in a potting shed – given the number of pots that were the exhibits – I head off towards the auditorium. I walk past the reception to the Roman ruins. A group of Swedish tourists are trying the gate. They shouldn’t have bothered. There is, after all, a bloody great padlock on it. First day of the season, and Alcúdia’s main tourist attraction is shut. To be fair, there is a notice saying that it is closed on holidays, and the first of May is one such, but I can’t help but think that they might have made an exception on this, the first day of the season.

It has been remarked before now that at times an impression is given that Mallorca does what it can to put off tourists. This would be unfair to the Pollentia site and especially to the Alcúdia tourist office, but why close on this day, of all days? But them’s will be the rules. Working hours, union regulations, the stiff arm of bureaucracy. Yet here, with this closed office and this closed attraction, you have everything that isn’t quite right with attitudes towards tourism.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Going Underground: The ancient Roman port of Pollentia

It is now two and a half years since work on building houses in the centre of Puerto Alcúdia was suspended after remains were found which suggested that a site of archaeological importance had been accidentally unearthed (27 October, 2007: Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect).

The site, on the corner of Coral and Mar i Estany (opposite the Coral de Mar hotel), is believed to be evidence of the spread of the Roman inhabitation of what was then Pollentia. Of greatest significance is the fact that it may well be in the area where once was located the “great gate” of the Roman port. So much interest has been raised by this site, and by other discoveries and theories, that – as reported in “The Diario” yesterday – a survey from the air using sonar-detection equipment is to be commissioned by the heritage department of the Council of Mallorca. This will aim to reveal the nature of the ancient port’s structure, beneath both the sea and land.

The main line of thinking appears to be that there was a marine connection that crossed or went to the side of what were then the Albufera wetlands. The old coastline went as far as a kilometre or so inland from where it is today; the Roman theatre was, if you like, an ancient attraction by the sea, as it – more or less – marks the spot where the sea encroached. The name of one of those streets – Mar i Estany – has its own significance. This is still sometimes used as the name for the port area of Alcúdia: sea and lake.

The extent of the Roman city is really only now beginning to be appreciated. While the Roman ruins and excavations in the old town of Alcúdia have been worked on for over half a century and are the most obvious manifestation of the Roman settlement, Pollentia was far bigger than just the site of the ruins. It stretched from the current port area, across the old town and to the bay of Pollensa. There is meant, somewhere, to be a “small gate” which looked across at what is now Puerto Pollensa.

Historical documents reveal that the great gate was referred to in mediaeval times, while other documents delve further back in time to indicate that not only was Pollentia an important maritime stopping-off port between Italy and Spain but also that there was – in all likelihood – a lighthouse during Roman times. The excavations in the old town have now also uncovered the outline of various streets and of an urbanisation that itself had been originally – and unknowingly – opened up as long ago as the 1930s when a trench was dug which had been intended to allow the building of a railway line – yes, the train was meant to have come to Alcúdia that long ago.

The ongoing discoveries, the air survey and the occasionally fortuitous side-effects of construction all do, however, lead to a question as to how much more by way of development Alcúdia can have, if some of the archaeology of Roman times is not to be lost completely. There seems little doubt that underneath the current port area there are all sorts of historical treasures. They’re not about to knock anything down, or you would think not, but whether they can risk putting anything up is another matter.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Shake Yer Booty: Oil exploration in Alcúdia

All the talk of the need for there to be diversification away from tourism, and the last thing you might expect is that not only could there be some but also that it will be in the form of oil – as in oil exploration and drilling. According to researchers at the Spanish oil giant, Tonto S.A., there are huge deposits of oil waiting to be tapped under the seabed in the Bay of Alcúdia between Alcanada, at one end of the bay, and Cap Ferrutx at the other. So much oil in fact that it could totally transform the Mallorcan economy from one reliant on tourism into one akin to Saudi Arabia.

The questions are when drilling might start and what, before the oil might flow, it might all mean for the tourism industry on the bay. Tonto could be erecting the first rigs as soon as this year’s tourism season finishes at the end of October. Local hoteliers and restaurant-owners are, you might imagine, aghast at the news. It is predicted that it would take at least three years before any oil could be extracted; three years of the rigs and no discernible benefit and only potential harm to the tourism industry. Moreover, there is talk of a refinery being built near to the commercial port in Alcúdia, which will need to undergo massive redevelopment – on top of that which it has recently experienced – to cope with super-tankers. The idea for a science and technology museum, which we believed was to be rising from what eventually will be the ashes of the old power station, would be scrapped, and in its place would be Alcúdia’s own Milford Haven.

As a response to the possible blights on the horizon and all the upheaval to the port area, some humour is already surfacing. Someone said that they could refine the oil for use in Pa amb Oli – oil fresh from the bay; something new for restaurants to advertise in addition to fish from the bay. There are also suggestions that the boats from the port could stop off at the rigs; doubtless, there will be some concessions for a café or two in the middle of the sea. Rather than Can Pedro or the like, the café-restaurant could be Petrol Can Pedro – ho, ho. The much-vaunted “estación náutica” (nautical station), which is a branding exercise that Alcúdia is meant to have been undergoing but which seems to have been forgotten about, will be abandoned in favour of “Alcúdia – nautical petrol station”. With a nod in the direction of both the Arabic overtones of oil and the vast sums that are likely to be made from the new exploration, someone else has suggested a new nightclub – Shake Yer Booty. An old joke, it must be said, and Frank Zappa once did an album with a more obvious Arabic name (Sheik Yerbouti), but they don’t know much about Zappa in these parts, unless it’s the national president – José Luis Zappa-tero.

There again, some doubt has been cast as to whether the oil rigs will ever appear; huge colossi beyond the yellow buoys, the area of water currently reserved for boats and watersports. Tonto, it’s said, have a reputation for making these sorts of claim. And mysteriously, there seems to be some reluctance in governmental circles to confirm or not the exploration. The regional government’s minister responsible for maritime matters was unavailable for comment yesterday as he had taken himself off to Menorca for the Easter break and to enjoy what, in Menorca, is the “día de engañar”, something which is not celebrated in Mallorca – usually.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Quiet In My Town

Alcúdia old town. Towards the end of March. Not long before Easter. It is late afternoon, kids are kicking a ball near to the tourist information office, which is closed. A dog is on the terrace above El Limón. It barks at every passer-by and then scrapes the green shutter door, which is closed. There are people around, but not so many. Manuel at Sa Caseta says there’s no-one, but he is at least open. And so he should be, the pizzas are to die for.

People stand out because there are not so many of them. This was once his town. What happens when you cease to – in effect – run the place? What happens when you head off to another post? Elsewhere. In Palma. And then suddenly you don’t have that either. Not that it was your fault. You did it because it was a career move, I suppose.

He looks tanned. Maybe this is what you do. Go away on holiday. Get away to some warmer sun than Mallorca has to offer in February or March once you’ve lost your job. How does it feel though, do you suppose, knowing that this used to be your town? Someone stops him and has a brief chat. Everyone knows him of course. For many, he still does run the town. Or so they might think, but then remember that he doesn’t. Perhaps they feel a bit sorry for him.

He’s walking with his daughter, at least one presumes it’s his daughter. There is a little dog, a puppy that races up and sniffs my shoes. I say hello. He knows he knows me, but can’t quite place me. I want to stop and actually ask him how it feels, but somehow that seems tactless. I walk on. It’s possible that it doesn’t bother him, but you wonder what he’s doing, other than strolling in the streets of Alcúdia on a late March afternoon.

I go into the Constitution Square. I’m waiting and just looking. Staring at the tops of the pink and orange buildings, at the brown shutters and at the coffee and cake board for the German late-afternoon in March tourists. I watch. He walks past the chemists, down what we would call the high street. The town hall, the Casa Consistorial. The doors are closed.

Who is he?

Miquel Ferrer, the former mayor, the former tourism minister, strolling past the shut-tight doors of the town hall building of the town that he used – in effect – to run.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.