Are You Being Served? – Two restaurants in Alcúdia

Old town Alcúdia. Friday evening in February, not exactly buzzing with huge numbers of diners, albeit that it is only twenty past seven. Half five, the Germans had originally suggested. “Half five!?” We settled on seven. Nothing’s likely to open before seven. Even this is early – for the Spanish. For Germans it’s closer to midnight.

There’s a restaurant we’re going to. We think. No naming and shaming. Not a big place. Old town. Quiet. Intimate, the publicity would probably say. There is a menu on a stand in the street. Lights on. No-one in. We wait a moment. A “chico” comes in. For four, we’re about to say. But the words never come out. The kitchen is not ready, he says. 7.30, he says. It’s 7.20. Am I hearing this correctly? Are we all hearing this correctly? Do we hear, would you like to have a drink? Do we hear, sorry we need just a few minutes, but please take a table, and I’ll be with you? We hear nothing of the sort. Nor do we offer a suggestion that we could have a drink and wait a little while. The chico would evidently rather not hear such a suggestion.

The German language has some cracking words. “Wahnsinn” is one such. It means madness, insanity. It is pronounced with a maniacal, elongated first-syallable emphasis, and so has an onomatopeic, nonsensical quality. Did we hear this correctly? He basically asked us to leave. For the sake of ten minutes, he asked us to leave. On a Friday in February in the old town of Alcúdia. Not exactly buzzing, albeit that it is early. But he has declined custom. He wouldn’t know for sure how much. And now he’s not going to find out. “Wahnsinn.”

In the square, the Constitution Square, it is quiet. No, make that dead. The café Llabres, the pizzeria and … and Satyricon. This seems ok, it’s said. I gulp, but then I’m not paying. I’m also wary of “concept” restaurants. I prefer unpretentious. But I’m always game. At least it’s warm. The space heaters are roaring, filling the interior air with butaned heat. I’ve never quite got it with the name. Satyricon. Orgies, cannabalism, the everyday lives of everyday Roman folk. There again, some of the novel concerns a meal, an extravagant occasion with several courses. Oh, and a touch of everyday debauchery. I suppose we skip the latter and just go for the food.

It’s an impressive place of galleries. Costs more if you go upstairs, I suggest. Ho, ho. Better down in the one-and-nines. Appropriate. It used to be a cinema. And the space heaters seem confined to the stalls. Heat rises though. It would need to. The ceiling seems miles away. You could imagine a Michelangelo with a pot of Dulux. Or maybe not. Oh, and no-one says we’re not open. No, no.

Water comes in a jug and is poured into metal goblets. I feel a Michael Winner moment coming on. Tastes metallic – unsurprisingly. Tap, I’ll be bound. Not historic. The maîtresse d’ is too hard-faced. She should lighten up, like the charming waitress who is receptive to requests for taking photos. Nevertheless, the service is prompt, pleasant, helpful, not overbearing. The “menu” is opted for. 42 euros a head. Gulp. But then I’m not paying. Why not go for the Can Vidalet Sauvignon, I venture. A Pollensa bodega. Ah, ja, very Mallorcan, very near to Alcúdia. Good, I think. I must tell them at the bodega next time I’m there. The menu novella includes a photo of the head chef. Chefs come close-cropped or shaven-headed nowadays. Very Heston. Very Blumenthal. I fear we might all be attached to oxygen cylinders and be force-fed bacon and egg ice-cream via a catheter. I know the dishes are going to be poncey. I don’t mind poncey, so long as it doesn’t mean stopping off for fish ‘n’ chips on the way home. When nouvelle first took London, we did poncey in Chiswick and left starving. The Indian chippy take-away on Acton High Street did roaring business back then.

The Vidalet is most acceptable and highly fruity; light for a Cabernet and not over-powering. The four courses are preceded by a couple of small tasters. What’s this? Looks like a small toffee-apple upside down. A type of ricotta painted red. Superb. Give me more. Not so. Everyone else has eaten theirs. And then on, and on. There’s sufficient time between courses for digestion purposes. It’s all timed to perfection. Not too quick, not too slow. Spot on. The two “girls” remain pleasant, smiling (the waitress anyway), helpful. The dishes are brought and their silver lids are lifted in synchronisation. It is all absolutely magnificent. The turbot, the solomillo – outstanding, mega-historic – the needlework twines of paprika, the purées, the sweet with a cream of some ambrosia. More, more, more; please, more. An almond liqueur. I’ll take the bottle. And what do you know? I’m full. No KFC for you on the way back, young fellow m’lad. Full. Not belt-undoing full. But sated, satisfied, and served well.

This is a fine restaurant. Ostentatious, yes; tries a bit too hard, yes; but the kitchen is supreme, the service just about delicate, courtesy of the the waitress, rather too matronly where the maìtresse d’ is concerned. Not economy class. But for treat purposes… . Go on, do it. On the stroll back we pass the other restaurant, the one that had been intended. Don’t know if there’s anyone in there. Lights on. No-one in. I do know they lost out on something like 200 euros. On a Friday in Alcúdia. Not exactly buzzing. For the sake of ten minutes and a touch of service. Satyricon got the gig and did service; did it well. The other place? The unnamed place? Hmm. Or rather, “Wahnsinn”.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Tall Guy (Miquel Llompart)

Miquel Llompart was formally voted in as Alcúdia’s new mayor on Saturday, confirming what had been, for some weeks, the formality of his ascent to the mayoral throne. As is normal, a mayor is selected by council members, and not directly by the electorate. In Alcúdia, this means the combined muscle of the Unió Mallorquina (UM) and the PSOE socialists, the pact that controls the town hall. Llompart has promised continuity in working with “integrity, humility and transparency”, attributes sometimes in limited supply in Mallorcan politics. There is no reason not to believe him.

The act of voting for Llompart took place in the town hall meeting room, wherein were other mayors from the UM, such as Joan Cerdà from Pollensa, who heard the new mayor say that “on behalf of every citizen, it will be an honour to serve as town mayor”. This echoed a point he made when I met him. Yet for all that he, or indeed any mayor, might declare himself a servant of all the people, of whatever nationality, a question remains as to quite how much interest there is, among these different nationalities, as to who actually occupies the mayoral seat. I happen to believe that there should be an interest, not that non-locals necessarily take an active role in local politics, but that they at least know something about the man at the top. It is as important to know the person as it is to know what his politics are. Mayors in Mallorca are, or should be, very close to the towns’ residents. A further question, though, surrounds how well these mayors actually communicate with their diverse populations.

Towns such as Alcúdia have become increasingly cosmopolitan, yet there has been a retrenchment into communicative ghettoes, in which Mallorquín-Catalan is the de facto standard of communication. Understandable though this may be, it does not, however, reflect the nature of the population. The town halls cannot be expected to communicate in every language, and it can be argued that it is up to those living in the towns to make themselves capable of understanding the standard language, but that doesn’t reflect reality. Just as the town halls are ham-fisted in communicating information of a tourism nature, so they usually fail to make any compromise in general communication. English – at least English, as the international language – could, indeed should, be used on the town halls’ websites (and not the tourism ones, but those for all residents of the towns). German also. This might be seen as pandering to incomers from other countries and as being at variance with the politics of Catalan, but it would be a more realistic approach and would achieve the ambition – of the likes of Miquel Llompart – to be close to all citizens. It really should not be difficult to establish full English and German pages on the town halls’ websites. One might even add that this could offer an educative function for what the university in Palma has exposed as weak standards of English.

It will be interesting to see how “different” Llompart might be. Not only is he highly popular in Alcúdia, partly because of his basketball background, he also has a reputation for rankling more conservative elements within his party. He will also be one of the youngest mayors on the island, to say nothing of his being the tallest – a point that “The Diario” was keen to highlight the other day. At 1.95 metres, or 6′ 4″, he’s going to dominate Alcúdia politics, in more than one sense of the word.

Miquel Llompart – new mayor of Alcúdia

The soon-to-be-new mayor of Alcúdia, Miquel Llompart, is a big bloke. He is and has been something of a leading light in Mallorcan basketball for several years, having played for different teams including Alcúdia. Other than the odd run-out with mates, he’s not likely to get much chance to do any slam-dunking for a while. (I wonder what slam-dunking is in Catalan? Or maybe they bow to the Americanism.)

Anyway, I met him yesterday, and spent rather longer with him than I had expected. The result of the meeting is an interview piece that should appear in “Talk Of The North” next week.

It is often salutary to actually meet these chaps. Impressions can be formed which are not always accurate without such first-hand contact. And some of the issues also take on a different perspective. Take the old rail extension controversy. At no point did he hint at the fact that the town hall didn’t actually want the train, which I confess was something that had occurred to me. Of course, one has to read between lines, but in this instance, the line was pretty clear – they wanted the line, but not to go to the old town. This was the stance that was publicised, but the stress on the benefits to tourism of siting the terminal by Es Foguero or Magic was far more evident when he explained the town hall’s position. And in this, one did come away with a feeling that the town hall’s attitude – and that of the Unió Mallorquina locally – was far broader than that of the transport ministry. This also served to question any notions that the UM, as a nationalist party, is somehow antagonistic towards tourists or indeed “foreigners”. One doesn’t quite know where this impression ever arose from, as it has been the UM that has, for example, been to the forefront of golf developments.

Indeed when I brought up the idea that there was some antagonism, he was quick to point out that the UM’s “nationalism” is not quite as one might think. He admitted that even in other parts of Spain there can be a view of Mallorca as rather parochial, something that the UM might be said to reinforce. But it is a false impression.

There again, it does rather depend on individuals, and Llompart does not strike me as a little Mallorcan (physically not so, that’s for sure). He is highly focussed on Alcúdia, which is fair enough, but he seems to have a breadth of vision as well and comes across as being quite dynamic. In all, I would have to say that he falls into the category of being a decent bloke. We’ll have to wait and see, but my guess is that he’s going to be a popular and good mayor, and that higher office might well yet await him. At 40, he’s got time on his side.

SANT SEBASTIA – PALMA
I know it’s not a local event to the north of the island, but it is a great event and any number of folk from the north do make a trip for the festivities, so main events on the programme are available on the WHAT’S ON BLOG – http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com. Important to note is that, though the music night of the 19th is a week day, the fire spectaculars will take place on the 23rd, Saturday.

The Heavenly Stars – Again

Ok, everyone, that’s me done for this year. I hope it’s alright with you, but I’m going to have a two-week break. The plan is that I’ll be back on 4 January. That’s the plan. As some of you know, the plan didn’t quite work out as I had intended last Christmas. I trust there will not be a repeat.

No review of the year this year; well yet. Maybe there will be or maybe not. And no songs of the year, except the one that caused the greatest response of all of the “quiz” songs. It’s three years old, so not new, but it is the blog’s song of the year and probably video of the year – the weird and wonderful “Hunter Green” by The Handsome Family that dates back to the entry of 4 May (As I Cross The Empty Road). And here also is the link to what is now the official blog Christmas song, as it was last year. Not that it has anything to do with Christmas as such, just the heavenly stars.
Laura Veirs, “To The Country”:
http://stereogum.com/mp3/Laura%20Veirs%20-%20To%20The%20Country.mp3

The only other “of the year” for the moment is the award of Man of the Year to Miquel Ferrer, mayor Alcúdia, scourge of the train, and now minister for tourism. To be honest, he only gets the award because the photo is priceless, and the exact origin of this was when he was gathered before the press back in March and had to stifle the product of a throaty cough. Nevertheless, he looked as though he was dreaming, dreaming of trying to explain to the hoteliers’ association why he put the mockers on the train … . One can only hope, for Ferrer’s sake, that the shaky coalition government stays in place till end-term in 2011. Relinquishing mayoral duties in Alcúdia, if an early election had to be called in the not-too-distant future, he might have wished that he had stayed on in Alcúdia.

To all of you who follow this blog regularly, to those of you who are new, let’s forget this year and look forward to better times in 2010. This was my sign-off last year. It still sounds good, I think:

“At night the sky is a magician’s show. The heavenly stars glow and vibrate. It is close to freezing, and one can almost imagine snow, the saw-teeth of holly and a choir of all is calm, all is bright. As the evening becomes tomorrow, the road is silent. The pines at the edge of Albufera appear as genial fluffy clouded puff-monsters silhouetted in the darkness. A night bird calls. And the power station throbs, a lowing cow by a distant manger. There goes a late plane across the speckled blackness and now a shooting star. It races from nowhere and disappears as quickly as it arrived. And once again it is silent, a silent night, and the heavenly stars twinkle on, and maybe that shooting star was something, someone, else. Who knows? Maybe it was him, a bearded man with large boots.”

Happy Christmas, everyone.

Toy Story – The Can Ramis Building

There was I suggesting yesterday that Miquel Ferrer’s period as Alcúdia mayor has been relatively successful, and forgetting of course the slight blip of the fiasco that was/is the Can Ramis re-development in the old town.

This involved the demolition of the old Ramis houses by the car parking and the creation of something new. It has been a farcically tortuous process. Firstly, the budget was too low, most of this going – in advance – to the building firm which then went bust, the money itself being eaten up, not by the new construction, but by the new plaza by the market. Secondly, there was the collapse of part of the building last March, there having been a hiatus to allow further funding to be put in place. Thirdly, there is what we now have. Not quite finished but close to being so. A piece of Legoland in Alcúdia. The new Can Ramis looks as though one is invited to take it apart and re-do it in a different shape, just like Lego. What do you get if you take some large blocks of wood, attach a load of glass and put it all inside a great slab of concrete in one soulless oblong? The Lego Can Ramis. Maybe Lego is an official sponsor, and the town hall will sell naming rights. They should do in order to re-coup the budget overspend. It’s not as if it’s going to do all that it was intended to. Buses were meant to use it as a station. There was a change of idea, so I am told. Shame, the buses might have managed to knock it down.

No doubt some sap will come along at the official opening, whenever that is, and announce that it is “emblematic” or some such rot. Emblematic yes. Of a Danish toy company. It may well be that it falls to the new mayor to make an announcement. Another Miquel, always a Miquel. Once one Miquel, Ferrer, finally divests himself of the mayoral gown and slides his feet full-time under the tourism ministry desk, another is likely to be mayor: Miquel Llompart.

What will be going into the Lego Can Ramis will be the tourist office, a bus waiting-room and a café; this much we know. Getting on for one-and-half-million euros (the later budget, that is) to house something that already has a house, something that is useful but did not require such a lavish spend and something that is utterly unnecessary. Perhaps there will be more. Something a bit more emblematic. We will have to wait and see. Admittedly, though, the tourist office will be better sited in the new building, but it didn’t need the expense that it has involved.

But more than anything, there is the architectural barrenness and pointlessness of the new building. Situated just outside the walls, it was not covered by the heritage law that protects Alcúdia. They could, therefore, do what they like, and so they have, thanks to Lego. There is not one iota of context to the building, a functional-only rectangular series of blockheaded building-blocks of an edifice with more than a hint of British 1960s town-centre architectural vandalism; all that’s missing is the graffiti. Give them time.

Perhaps Ferrer has timed his run perfectly. He won’t have to be the one pretending that this is any good when it comes to the opening ceremony. Unless they drag out the tourism minister.

You Cannot Petition

You might have thought that the decision to take no decision in respect of the rail extension to Alcúdia during the remaining period of the current governmental administration would have been the end of the matter. You would of course have been wrong. One of the more glaring omissions following the no-decision decision was any word from Alcúdia’s mayor, he who was so committed to not allowing the northern route. Finally, he has broken his silence and has announced the results of the petition that the town hall launched against the proposed route. There were 1300 signatures against. The mayor believes that these represent a significant expression of local views. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he. The numbers registering their opposition amount to some way short of 10% of the town’s population. What of the 90% who didn’t sign the petition? (And I know, I know, you have to take account of minors and all that, but you get the point.) 

 

See any photos of the so-called mass protests against the route and it will invariably involve a tractor with a sign strung to the front bearing the legend “Per Son Fé” (and indeed there was such a photo in “The Bulletin” yesterday). It was the area of Son Fé, as one enters Alcúdia along the road from the motorway, that was most affected by the proposed route; the area of the tractor boys. Small wonder that it should create the most vocal opposition. Of those who signed, one could well imagine that the majority had some connection with Son Fé and with the immediate area in the old town where a terminus might have been sited. The rest were probably Luddite fanatics opposed to anything that smacks of a period after around the early twentieth century and political fellow-travellers, ones who are not, though, going to be travelling on a train any time soon; well not one starting from Alcúdia. What about those on the other side of Alcúdia, in the port, in Mal Pas and so on? What also of people in Puerto Pollensa, Playa de Muro and maybe also Can Picafort who might have liked a say? The rail extension was never the sole preserve of Alcúdia, much as the town hall has acted as though it were. 

 

The extension is not a complete dead duck. Of those who placed their signatures against the northern route, 85% were happy for there to be an alternative route, i.e. the southern one favoured by the town hall. No great surprise there. All that NIMBY stuff, as ever, and stuff the fact that the southern route may genuinely not be an environmental plus and that the odd dead duck in Albufera may be the result. The petition is part of a process of objections to be presented to the regional government, despite its decision to take no decision, other than the decision to not go ahead during the current legislature. The railway could still happen, but whether central funds would still be forthcoming, given the debacle this time round, is quite a different matter. 

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.)

The Town That Didn’t Want The Train – A Fairy Tale

The transport fairy gives and the transport fairy takes away. On the day that they came to officially open the as yet unfinished new terminal at Alcúdia’s port, some other they were in the process of killing off the Alcúdia train – for the time being at any rate. At the cost of some twenty odd million euros the new port will be totally shiny and new later this year when the walkways have been finished. But they made sure to get it officially opened just in case and before the transport fairy could wave her wand and make it all disappear, which is what the malevolent and spoilt little brat was up to in the islands’ parliament yesterday. “You shan’t go to the Alcúdia station,” said she. Or something like that. And I know, I know that was the fairy godmother, but she was still a fairy. 

 

The money spent on the port was a drop in the bay of Alcúdia compared to the close on 100 million euros that was earmarked to churn up local finca land and run a ruddy great rail track through the auditorium. It would have been money well spent, but Alcúdia town hall played hardball – and lost in all respects. One member of the parliament said that the administration will pass into history as having been from the town that didn’t want the train.

 

The report on the parliament proceedings was such that I confess to having lost the will to live when trying to make sense of what the various political parties wanted or didn’t want in respect of Alcúdia, Manacor and any other tram or train. A plague on their various houses. The upshot is that the Alcúdia train, if indeed it ever is to see the light of a tunnel, will not be doing so as a result of the workings of the current legislature. So much for President Antich’s “age of the train”. 

 

The transport fairy has been busy these past few days. She sprinkled some magic dust in Barcarès where there had been the little local difficulty regarding the development of the marina that no-one seemed to know about. Surprising to report, therefore, that over 2,500 signatures appeared on a petition against the development, which is over 2,500 more people than knew about the development when I went there (except the bloke in the office) and roughly 2,500 more than live in the larger Barcarès area (I do exaggerate here of course). But it was all something and nothing, as indeed I had discovered. The environment minister has said that there are no immediate plans to do anything and indeed nothing might well happen as the chaps from the ports authority have to weigh up priorities for the island as a whole. 

 

The transport fairy looked down on the little port in Barcarès and smirked. “Why would you give priority to this?” And with a whoosh of the wand it was gone. Far, far away to the place with the magic finca land with no train. 

Go Now

So, returning to yesterday and the breaking news that occupied the top of yesterday’s entry. 

 

The regional government’s threat to go elsewhere with their train money seems not to have been an idle one, even if the location of that elsewhere has probably taken a lot of people by surprise, including – one hopes – the mayor of Alcúdia. The central funds earmarked for the rail extension to Alcúdia now may well end up finding a solution to a bit of local difficulty in Manacor where there has been all manner of opposition to the redeveloped route to Artà. That the regional government would appear to have lost patience with Alcúdia town hall is perhaps understandable, but the diversion of funding to Manacor means the worst of all worlds. There remains just the germ of a thought that such a diversion may be a ruse to flush out Alcúdia town hall which will now face its own backlash if the train does not arrive there – ever. Nevertheless, the central ministry in Madrid that ultimately oversees such projects appears to have accepted the changed use of the funding.

 

The Manacor-Artà redevelopment (there used once to be a line between the two towns) has, unlike the Alcúdia train, been dogged by significant popular opposition. Many people argue that it is unnecessary. If one takes the tourism angle (which has been a plank of the Alcúdia town hall argument in favour of the southern route), this does not apply in the Manacor case. Apart from anything else, Artà has hardly any tourism industry worthy of the name. It is nowhere town, where no-one goes. Only if the line were to be extended on further, to Cala Ratjada (which is the intention), might the tourism factor become consequential, but even then to nothing like the degree that a train to Alcúdia might. When the mayor of Manacor referred to the “outcry” in Alcúdia, he was being disingenuous in two ways: there has not been the sort of popular outcry in Alcúdia that he suggests, yet there has been in his own municipality as well as elsewhere. 

 

The case of the rail lines is a farce. It is a farce for different reasons. The regional government can be seen as being petty by not seeking a rapprochement with Alcúdia; the transport ministry can be seen as having wished to foist a route on Alcúdia that it did not want; Alcúdia town hall has been petty by not being willing to back down; the use of funds for the Manacor line will be for something which does not have popular support; the Manacor line will not serve tourism; the Alcúdia line would serve not only tourism but also residents of the town, Puerto Pollensa and the playa region of Muro; the Alcúdia line would be more widely beneficial in terms of the island economy; the political fighting will have bitten Alcúdia’s mayor who stands above all other parties as being responsible for the loss of the rail line. All assuming that the diversion of funds does indeed get ratified. If it is, then Mayor Ferrer should either resign or be booted out. Whatever spin the town hall will try to put on the loss of the rail line, it will have been the obstructive nature of the town hall’s opposition to the government’s preferred route that will have been the cause of this loss, to the detriment of Alcúdia, its immediate neighbours and the island as a whole. Though it can be argued that the transport ministry sought a fait accompli when it announced the northern route, the alternative southern route – that which the town hall wants, especially were it to end up at the Es Foguera ruin – has no great advantage, if any, over the northern route. But this will serve also to expose the absurdity at the heart of this farce – that a town hall can effectively block an important infrastructure development. The fault in all this lies at one level with political pettiness but at another with the political system, to say nothing of possible self-interests that may or may not have played a part in Alcúdia’s obstructionism. 

 

It could be that the Alcúdia line is not doomed, if this is a ploy by the government. But for Ferrer to now back down would mean an enormous loss of face. He has a choice – loss of face or loss of support from people in Alcúdia who were in favour of the train, wherever it might have been sited. There is only one choice for him – he should go. 

Head Bangers

The piece below has been rather overtaken by events – the government is set to divert the funds set aside for the extension to Alcúdia to other rail work on the island and in particular work on the “boulevard” which is part of a solution to issues surrounding the Manacor railway. Or is this just a cunning ploy by the government? More on all this to come, no doubt.

 

 

 

No, not something about Status Quo and their geriatric rocking all over the Darby and Joan Club in Palma the other day, but ever more on the Sa Pobla-Alcúdia train, an ever more which just goes to show how what you read and where you read it can give a less than complete picture of the situation. In “The Bulletin” we learn, thanks to the mayor of Manacor, that there has been “wholesale opposition” to the proposed northern corridor for the rail extension into Alcúdia and that the regional government has “heeded the outcry from Alcúdia” whilst not heeding one in Manacor regarding the rail extension from there to Artà, work on which is due to start shortly.

 

This is not quite accurate. There has of course been opposition to the northern route, but it is not as great as is being made out. Recently Alcúdia town hall, which has invited “allegations” against the proposed route and which has also extended hours of opening in order to present information, received – on the first day of these extended hours – fifteen people who asked for information. Moreover, the town hall received only a few “allegations”. Asking for information does not mean wholesale opposition; it means asking for information. A few allegations do not represent wholesale opposition. 

 

It is not accurate to suggest that the government has “heeded the outcry from Alcúdia”. What it, or more specifically the transport ministry, has done is to suggest that if there cannot be agreement to the northern route, it (the ministry) would consider siting the rail extension elsewhere. Heeding the outcry actually means getting hacked off with the apparent intransigence at the town hall. The outcry itself is more one of political statements from the town hall; it is not a great public demonstration against the northern route. Yes, there have been protests, such as signs against the extension some months ago, but the Manacor mayor is overstating the situation. And those protests were essentially NIMBY in nature as they related to finca land that would be needed for a line into the centre of Alcúdia town.

 

In contrast to the report in “The Bulletin”, which deals only with what the Manacor mayor has to say, one from “The Diario” presents a rather different picture. And it is this. The president of the government, Francesc Antich, has met with the leader of the Unió Mallorquina party, Miquel Flaquer, in order to try and gain some sort of consensus to present before the regional parliament. It should be noted that the Alcúdia town hall mayor, Miquel Ferrer, is from the same party as Flaquer. On Tuesday next week, responding to a demand from the Partido Popular, which is in opposition at the regional government, there needs to be some sort of definitive statement from the parliament about the Alcúdia railway. What one concludes, from what “The Diario” is saying, is that the whole issue has now gone over the heads of the main protagonists in the saga – the transport minister and the mayor of Alcúdia. Going over their heads and banging their heads together. And not before time. 

 

The words of Manacor’s mayor, himself from the Partido Popular, are essentially political posturing, certainly where Alcúdia is concerned, as the extension there has nothing whatsoever to do with him. But they sum up what this story is all about: political point-scoring. The real issues of environment, convenience, boost to local economy, population density and all the rest have been put to one side while the politicians from differing parties adopt their stances. ‘Twas ever thus, you might say, and you would be right, but the fact that Antich has seen it necessary to get involved – overdue some might argue – is indicative of the inconclusiveness of the local political system and of political fighting. It should be remembered that Antich came into power with his “age of the train” declaration. Railways were his “big thing”. He should have been more intimately involved long ago.

 

Personally I don’t give a damn where the train goes, so long as it goes to Alcúdia which is the only sensible option in the north. Hopefully Antich can now, through the boss of the Unió Mallorquina, get Alcúdia town hall to accept the northern route, as quite clearly the transport ministry is not prepared to budge except to go to a different and less satisfactory municipality. 

 

 

Places that are closing

Chances are that this might become a regular slot on the blog in the coming weeks. One place that is going is Mulligan’s in Puerto Pollensa. Unfortunately, we can probably anticipate that there will be a number of others.