Going To Waste (25 November)

Between the two town halls of Alcúdia and Sa Pobla, the company Tirme, which provides rubbish-treatment services on Mallorca, is owed in the region of 4.6 million euros. The amount is divided roughly evenly between the two administrations, a difference lying with how much interest they both owe (Alcúdia more than Sa Pobla).

This is not the first time that Tirme has gone in pursuit of outstanding debts from town halls. At the end of May, Inca got a demand for not far off two million. Just one strange aspect of the non-payments is that they relate to the period from 2008, in the case of Alcúdia, and from 2009 where Sa Pobla is concerned. How many other town halls are similarly in debt to Tirme? And if there are others, but even if not, how does a company operate when it is not being paid such vast sums?

Alcúdia and Sa Pobla are both negotiating payment terms, and the respective administrations are of course blaming the previous administrations. Which seems fair enough, but, just as one wonders how Tirme copes with not being paid, one wonders how it is that town halls can apparently just not bother paying. Sa Pobla is also in for about 1.35 million to three other service providers, including the rubbish collectors.

One gets the impression that the whole business world in Mallorca – that which has anything to do with the town halls or other public bodies – is surviving on the promise that they might one day actually get paid. But promises don’t amount to a great deal and they certainly don’t amount to cash flow or reassurances to lenders, if they are applicable.

Tirme, though, isn’t quite like other businesses. Most would find 4.6 million plus the couple of million from Inca and whatever else might be outstanding rather too much debt to bear. Tirme doesn’t. Or doesn’t appear to. This may be because of who owns it – Endesa, Iberdrola, Urbaser and FCC. Tirme is also a monopoly, and its concession for waste treatment lasts until 2041.

Tirme’s monopoly position is understandable in that its operations do demand heavy investment, so it has every right to be able to expect to have a period in which it can make a return on its investment. But not everyone is happy with this monopoly nor with how Tirme prioritises its investment and its operations.

A key part of Tirme’s remit is recycling. Mention the R word and you can be sure that one organisation will prick its ears up: GOB, the environmental pressure group. In August, GOB issued a statement attacking Tirme for what it claimed was the company’s concentration on incineration as opposed to recycling. GOB maintained that recycling plants were operating well below capacity, while the ovens were going full pelt in optimising as swiftly as possible the investment on incinerators at the Son Reus plant in Palma. Moreover, reckoned GOB, the incineration was allowing for the generation of electricity that was being commercialised.

GOB has accused Tirme of engaging in misleading marketing where its operations are concerned and has accused the Council of Mallorca, which, and truly bizarrely, has managed to extract a reduction in the cost of waste treatment for 2012 of slightly less than two centimos, of complicity.

But then, the story of waste management and treatment is far from straightforward; you wouldn’t expect it to be, because nothing ever is in Mallorca.

In January this year, the anti-corruption prosecutors embarked upon the so-called “Operación Cloaca”. This had to with allegations of false accounting centred on waste management operations sanctioned by the Council of Mallorca. Of those detained at the time, and I would make it perfectly clear that Tirme was not implicated in the Cloaca investigation, was an executive with FCC-Lumsa, one of the companies with a concession for recycling collection; FCC, which is a shareholder in Tirme.

Cloaca highlighted the dual system of waste collection (door to door as well as from green points) which had resulted in effect in payment for recycling doubling. Cloaca also revealed that town halls had been pressurised by an individual at the Council of Mallorca into adopting this dual system.

What Cloaca also highlighted was the sheer complexity of arrangements for waste management on Mallorca. Perhaps town halls simply don’t understand what it is they are meant to be paying for. Now, though, Alcúdia and Sa Pobla accept that they have to pay Tirme. But you wonder how many other town halls owe the company and whether the reason for non-payment has been more than just an inability to pay.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Don’t Just Book It … (24 November)

Mr. Thomas Cook does not quite fit with the image of the current-day tourism industry. A follower of the Victorian temperance movement, Mr. Cook organised trips for fellow abstainers (or those who did in strict moderation). His first excursion was from Leicester to Loughborough, which must have been exciting.

Mr. Cook will probably have long been turning in his grave. Though by no means all the tourist descendants of the Loughborough excursionists are on the extreme binge-drinking wing of the tourism market, some are and are therefore very much not adherents to the concept of temperance, even if they knew the term or understood it; for example, Club 18-30 is part of Thomas Cook.

More than just the devils of drink, Mr. Cook would doubtless be alarmed to learn that his name is associated with a company that finds itself in dire financial straits. Moderation in everything, money matters included, would have been the Cook mantra.

The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, as a prominent Victorian didn’t say in that he didn’t first come up with the expression but most likely did declare it, repeatedly, from a pulpit of the times. And money has been the root of Thomas Cook’s contemporary problems. It owes a mere one billion quid to lenders. Remarkably, only four years ago, the company could brag that it had nearly four hundred million sitting in the bank.

The tour operator has had a number of issues to confront, so its problems are not solely down to financial imprudence, but a lot of them are. A share buy-back and a series of acquisitions have helped to push the company to the brink. It is hanging on through the largesse of banks, which it hopes will continue to stump up around a hundred million a month, if current financing requirements persist.

One of Thomas Cook’s more recent ventures into expansion was the protracted merger with Co-Operative Travel. Finally agreed to earlier this year by UK competition commissioners, the combined operation now finds itself having to plan the likely closure of some 200 travel agency shops.

The name which regularly crops up in discussions of Thomas Cook’s troubles is that of its former chief executive who left in August: “Super Nova”, Manny Fontenla-Novoa, often described as “colourful”, which is shorthand for all sorts of things. Super Nova had raked in only 14.5 million quids worth of salary and shares in the four years prior to his somewhat sudden disappearance.

There is no small amount of schadenfreude among some elements of the Mallorcan tourism industry at both Thomas Cook’s woes and the downfall of Super Nova. This stems, in part, from a dislike of the power that one of the Big Two tour operators wields, which can manifest itself in different ways, such as the way in which Thomas Cook decided that it would apply a so-called discount to hotels’ invoices in late summer 2010; the discount was in fact a reduction by 5% on what was due.

The schadenfreude is misplaced, however. The power of the Big Two may not be liked by all, but the local tourism industry would be in a fine mess without them. So if the Big Two became the Big One, and Thomas Cook went under, where would the industry be then?

It’s unlikely that this would happen. Thomas Cook does operate profitably. Special financing arrangements are normal in the winter period for tour operators, so there is nothing unusual in Thomas Cook seeking loans. The problem is the accumulated debt.

It is the uncertainty that its financial woes arouse that is troubling. Despite its operating profit and reassurances from the company, holidaymakers are likely to think twice about committing themselves to booking with a tour operator whose troubles are being given such a public airing. This may just slow down bookings to Mallorca for next season, while it might also be noted that a loss of consumer confidence caused by the Euro crisis has been one of the very recent and uncontrollable factors that have affected Thomas Cook.

In the circumstances, therefore, it wouldn’t be surprising were holidaymakers disinclined to “book it ” with Thomas Cook. Not just yet anyway. This might be good news for other tour operators, but, and schadenfreude notwithstanding, it isn’t particularly good news for Mallorca.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Mariano And The Mess (23 November)

Who on earth would want to be a Spanish prime minister? Well, Mariano Rajoy for one, though why is anyone’s guess. It says much for political ambition that you would willingly enter the lions’ den unprotected and smelling of dinner. Deficit, highest unemployment rate in Europe, virtually no growth. Presumably, in the words of the election song of a certain former prime minister, things can only get better. Actually, they can’t; they can only get worse, and they already have.

Surprise has been expressed that the markets have reacted with a massive thumbs-down. That’s not how it’s meant to work. Good, right-wing, slash-and-burn politico takes over, and the markets are supposed to cheer at the fall of the squandering, bumbling incompetents from the left. They might have done were it not for the fact that Rajoy has to wait a few weeks before getting his backside onto the prime ministerial seat. There are procedures, you know, post-electoral ones, and the markets are being blamed for not understanding that it takes weeks for the Spanish to sort these procedures out. Perhaps Spanish politicians should try understanding how markets work, though they have shown little evidence that they do.

The hiatus following the election is just one reason why the markets have reacted so negatively. Another is that they really don’t have much confidence in Rajoy and the Partido Popular as they know full well that there is precious little that Rajoy can actually do. Yep, it’s a great time to be taking over as prime minister, knowing that you are totally emasculated and are dead meat even before you start.

If he were allowed into the prime ministerial office now, he would be flashing into the night sky over the Gotham City of Spain the distress image of the Euro and getting Angela and Nicolas racing from the ECB Batcave. “There are only 24 hours to save Spain, Robin.” Which isn’t too far from the truth, as each day brings with it ever more woe. Or perhaps he would be sending out an SOS and hoping that Thunderbird 5 picks it up. “Brains, any ideas as to how we can rescue Spain?” “Er, er, well, er, Mr. Tracy, we’ll have to dig very deep. Cut very deep.” “Right, Brains. Virgil, take Thunderbird 2’s austerity mole pod.” “F.A.B., father.”

Oh that it was as simple as sending out a distress signal and International Rescue comes and makes everything all right. What am I saying? This is pretty much how it is. The IMF or the European Central Bank buying up Spanish debt as quickly as it can be issued in order to give Rajoy some breathing space to stutter his words of reforms before they cart him off to the Papandreou Home For Distressed European Leaders.

There’s the deficit and then there’s employment creation. It’s not going to happen, because JP Morgan says so. Yes you can always rely on what banks say – they got everyone into the mess and now they can gloat at everyone’s misfortune; JP Morgan reckons unemployment in Spain will rise to 27% next year. Rajoy, if and when he can get his scissors out, is going to have to cut so deep that unemployment will continue its upward march and growth its downward slump. Here comes another recession. Not that the first one ever really went away.

In an ideal world, and you may have noticed that the world currently isn’t ideal, Rajoy would set in motion much-needed plans to restructure Spain’s economy and not just its finances. Investment in new industries to break the dependence, certainly in some regions of Spain, on construction and tourism has been demanded for years. But where would the investment come from now? Even if the banks weren’t suffering liquidity problems or weren’t applying a squeeze and even if the government had spare pots of cash lying around, the results would take years to bear fruit. And Rajoy hasn’t got years. He’s barely got days.

Some proposals like tax cuts for smaller businesses could help with stimulating the economy, but what really might would be lowering the burden on social security payments. A reduction in IVA for the tourism industry, however, would be senseless. Tax receipts have gone up this year, thanks in part to the rise in IVA, and they are likely to be up again next year.

Rajoy has inherited a God awful mess. He should demand our sympathy, but then he wanted to be prime minister. So he should get on and sort it. But he can’t, not yet, because procedures don’t allow it. Incredible.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Going Benalup: Unemployment and easy credit (22 November)

There is a town in the province of Cádiz in Andalusia that has the worst unemployment rate in Europe. It is called Benalup (or Benalup-Casas Viejas, to give it its full name). In an article by Giles Tremlett in “The Observer” on Sunday, the collapse of what, for a brief time, had become a boom town is chronicled, and the story of Benalup tells you mostly all you need to know about why Spain is in such a mess and is going to have one hell of a struggle getting out of it.

Benalup is by no means unique, even if it can lay claim to that unwanted unemployment crown. Spain is full of Benalups, and Mallorca shares its problems. To summarise Tremlett’s main points, the Benalup belly-up effect was founded on excessive credit and on a glut of construction jobs that paid well and took teenagers out of education.

It won’t sit well with the La Caixa bank, known also for its Obra Social good works programmes, that it gets fingered as having triggered a lending war among the banks that flooded into the town in search of mortgage customers, many of them young and having turned their backs on school in the knowledge that they could earn handsome wages in the construction industry.

Construction was the first and most obvious victim of economic crisis, and it took its labour force down with it. In Benalup, those who had left school at sixteen and who had embarked on a side career of avaricious material grab are just part of the almost 50% of Spain’s under-25s that are unemployed. This material grab has left Benalup, as Tremlett remarks, “plastered with ‘for sale’ signs”, those of La Caixa’s estate-agency arm, which has been forced to repossess.

Much of the construction was centred on the coastal area. The Benalup story, therefore, is a not unfamiliar one of the two heads of construction and tourism that is the economy of much of Spain, Mallorca included. But Benalup, some kilometres inland, doesn’t have the luxury of the fallback position of tourism. Without the construction on the coast, it doesn’t really have anything.

The dependence on construction and tourism in different parts of Spain is just one factor that has undermined Spain’s economy. Subject to the vagaries of economic cycles, both industries also contribute to a devaluing of the general skills base and of the education system. Easy money can be had, or could, and the state would provide some assistance in the winter for those less inclined to slog around a building site.

The education system is not that great anyway, and in Mallorca it is particularly poor. But through a combination of the system’s inadequacies, a lack of incentive to stay in education and the promise of riches from humping bricks about (now gone), general competitiveness is also undermined.

One solution to the unemployment in Benalup is a state­-funded training course, assuming you can get on it. Not that it necessarily opens up subsequent employment opportunities, as the course is for graphic design. In Mallorca, there are any number of young graphic designers. They are two a penny. Many are good, but where’s the work? Economies do not generate wealth or growth through graphic design. It is a pitiable non-­solution.

The Zapatero administration presided over the end-game of the great Spanish boom. It deserves to be criticised, but it is not alone. Successive governments have perpetuated an aspirational dream for a country that was in the economic dark ages only half a century ago. One mistake, aided by the banks, was to break with a traditional cash­-based society and replace it with one based on credit, and very easy and loose credit at that. The country’s richness, as evident from a lofty position in the IMF GDP league table, obscures a reality of over­dependence on certain industries and a lack of competitiveness.

There is fortunately some realism coming from the newly elected government, an acceptance that Spain isn’t that rich and that the mechanisms for granting the population the trappings of aspirational wealth were largely built on sand. Within a framework of this new realism, how, though, can Rajoy set about realising his election promises, such as that to reduce unemployment?

I’ll have a look at that in a further article. But for now, and notwithstanding the fact that the Spanish electorate does appear to “get it” where the country’s parlous position is concerned, I’ll leave you with a piece of history. In 1933, Benalup was the centre of an anarchist uprising and a police massacre. Thank God it’s not 1933.

The original “Observer” article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/20/spain-benalup-unemployment-euro-crisis

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

State Of Independence: Tourism strategy (21 November)

There was one revealing quote from the interview with Esteve Bardolet* (“The Bulletin”, 20 November). Well, two, but I’ll come to the second later. Bardolet, one of the rare people it is worth listening to regarding Mallorca’s tourism, said, in the context of working with the Mallorcan Tourist Board: “I was totally independent. Neither I nor anyone in my family had any business interests in the world of tourism, so I was able to be totally impartial”.

Totally independent, totally impartial. This is not how you would normally describe different players in Mallorca’s tourism industry. The Mallorcan Tourist Board would claim to be independent, but it isn’t, given that it comprises representatives with their own specific interests, and this, pretty much, was what Bardolet was implying.

An independent and impartial perspective on the tourism industry is almost impossible to achieve. In theory, the government should have such a perspective, but it is beholden to powerful voices from within the industry. Think for a moment about how, before the regional elections in May, the hotels were saying that they didn’t want Carlos Delgado as tourism minister. He might just have proven to be a bit too independent of mind. Now, however, all is sweetness and light, and the hotels are having the industry served up to them on a plate. “A word in your shell-­like, Carlos,” might well have been words whispered in a quiet corner of the tourism ministry, along with “side”, “knowing”, “bread” and “buttered”.

The government, perhaps recognising the impossibility of being immune to influences from the industry, is trying instead to involve all sectors of the industry, bringing the various associations as well as airlines and tour operators into the tourism agency. It’s a bold move and one that makes a lot of sense, as a collective is formed of those who understand the tourism industry. The trouble is that they understand it in their terms. Whatever good words airlines or tour operators may utter, they do not consider Mallorca in isolation. They ultimately do what is good for them. If that includes Mallorca, then fine. If not, well, that’s business.

Bringing together the great and good of the tourism business world does not automatically mean that everyone sings from the same hymn sheet or that noses aren’t put out of joint. Palma town hall, in doing something similar to the tourism agency, has managed to dislocate restaurant snouts, but what the restaurants are really upset about by being excluded is the fact that they can’t voice their own interests.

Meanwhile, there is the government’s inter­departmental tourism committee. I have long advocated that, in the government’s organisational structure, tourism should be at the top of the pyramid, if only notionally, and that other departments function in a support capacity. This committee goes some way to achieving this. While it may not result in independence or impartiality, it may just prevent the sort of governmental turf wars breaking out that have been detrimental to the interests of the tourism industry.

There was no better example of this than during the last administration. Faced with his government collapsing, Antich handed out key posts to the Mallorcan socialists. One of them, environment, resulted straightaway and with total predictability in the paralysing of the Muro golf course. It wasn’t the government as such which stopped the development, it was one department. But Antich was in no position to argue.

Not having coalition partners that require pandering to does help, but government departments have a tendency to work to their own agendas, neglecting the common good. The government’s committee will not eradicate this and nor will it remove the influences that specific departments are subject to from outside government, but it’s a start.

What would really make a difference would be were tourism given a true dose of independent thought, a meeting of minds with the sort of impartiality that Bardolet has displayed. A tourism technocracy, if you like. And more than just impartiality, there might also be some realism, which is where that second quote comes in. Though Bardolet suggested that the north European market needed to be looked to in the winter (though isn’t it already?), he said: “the winters, I fear, will never work”.

Is this just defeatism? Possibly, but possibly it is an understanding, which is what Bardolet has in abundance. Facile prescriptions for Mallorca’s winter tourism that emanate from all quarters, issued through a myopic insularity and parochialism and through constant reinforcement of a groupthink style, often fail to take realism into account. It’s a painful truth, but Bardolet may just be right. We could do with more such independent thought.

* Bardolet is a former vice-president of the Mallorcan Tourist Board and was awarded a gold medal last week in recognition of his contribution to tourism.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Secret Technocrats (20 November)

These are good times to be a technocrat. It is the one job that currently offers good employment prospects, and not any old employment. Not that a technocrat is technically a job. You don’t apply for a position as a technocrat, you become one because someone says you are and because you have whatever the technical ability required at the time might be.

There is something alarming about all the technocrats who, like meerkats looking out for impending economic catastrophe, have been poking their heads up from under university desks and elsewhere. The new European government of Frankfurt has appointed them. In Italy, they have become the Full Monti, a whole puppet government of their own, Angela’s economic angels; Merkel and the Meerkats.

What is alarming is that the mere mention of technocrat has come to be accompanied by a contemptuous spit, the title uttered in the same breath as the names of European leaders most of us would rather forget.

Technocrats are not politicians, but they have fulfilled political functions and have also filled political positions. But strictly speaking, a technocrat has no interest in politics; all that concerns him are the number­-crunching of economics or the plans of production and productivity. Technocrats are of an age that we thought had long gone. They are the political incarnation of the one-­time mass producers; Henry Fords, and each one uniformly the same shade of black.

They are of the old scientific management era before the softer and more humane principles of management kicked in. They are from a dark age and are something of the dark. Stalin did not devise economic and production plans, nor did Hitler and nor did Franco. Technocrats did.

Though not ostensibly political, the technocrats of Europe’s dictatorships would never have got where they did without being as one with the prevailing political philosophy. Technocrats bend to the rules of politics, those set by others, such as the Frankfurt Group, while apparently seeming to make the rules.

As Mariano Rajoy contemplates the trophy that is his, might he just have a concern that he might find himself surplus to requirements? It’s not impossible. There is a difference, though. Greece had a lame­-duck premier and Italy had Berlusconi. Rajoy is neither.

There is also a hint that he might just pre­-empt any technocratically­-driven putsch. Gone largely uncommented upon prior to the election was his statement that he was considering bringing “independent” figures into his government. In itself, this is not unusual. Blair had independents. One of them, a former journo, more or less ran the Labour government. Alastair Campbell wasn’t a technocrat, though, unlike Sir Alan Walters, Thatcher’s own mini­-Milton Friedman. Neither, however, was formally a member of the government.

Independent has become a more acceptable description than technocrat, but technocrats, in a contemporary guise, is what many independents brought into assist governments are. Which brings us to Rajoy, his independents and whoever they might be.

Spain’s economy after the Civil War and before Franco’s death can be divided into two periods: the catastrophic era of post­-war autarky; and the boom from the start of the sixties, inspired in part by the Stabilisation Plan of 1959 and by technocrats who were brought into to oversee the modernisation of the Spanish economy.

The technocrats took much credit for Spain’s transformation, though it has been widely argued that they just got lucky and cashed in on a period of rapid growth in Europe as a whole.

Whether or not the technocrats really were that instrumental in Spain’s subsequent success, they were always sure of Franco’s support, and that is because the technocrats shared a common background: Opus Dei.

The Opus comprised an elite from business and industry and one with the same rigid Catholicism that Franco adhered to. But it is the shadowy nature of Opus Dei, questions as to what influence it may have, its technocratic past and also its potential political links that make Rajoy’s mention of “independents” intriguing at best.

The Partido Popular, transformed as it has been from its unsuccessful origins as a party created by Franco’s former tourism minister (albeit with a different name), has nevertheless failed to totally shake off these origins and all the baggage that goes with them, which includes Opus Dei.

As Rajoy is considering introducing independents to his government and as there are lingering suspicions as to what and who lurks within the recesses of the Partido Popular, he needs to be clear as to who it is he plans to appoint. And as importantly, what associations they might have.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Death Of A Sporting Hero (20 November)

A rare thing for this blog, but for once something that has nothing to do with Spain or Mallorca.

Basil D’Oliveira has died.

Why, among other deaths, should D’Oliveira’s passing demand that I indulge in a spot of obituary writing? He wasn’t, after all, that great a cricketer. He was a good one but no more than that. The reason lies in his story and in the way it affected me.

A South African Cape coloured, D’Oliveira was denied the opportunity under South Africa’s apartheid system to play cricket at the highest levels. He came to England, took British citizenship and qualified for the test team. His inclusion in the England side set off two momentums – one was the later selection of other South Africans but without the same moral justification; the second was the eventual abandonment of apartheid.

As a nine-year-old, I didn’t appreciate what apartheid meant, but it was as a nine-year-old that I first saw D’Oliveira play. It was the Hastings festival match against the touring Australians, and he was in a team – A.E.R. Gilligan’s XI – with another South African (Eddie Barlow, who was to become a fierce critic of apartheid) as well as a Pakistani, Mushtaq Mohammad.

What stood out from this match was the fact that, in the days when six-hitting was a rarity, D’Oliveira hit two, both out of the ground. For a nine-year-old, he was an exciting and unusual player; only Gary Sobers or Colin Milburn hit sixes.

It was my great uncle, who took me to the match, who explained the situation with D’Oliveira. I’m not sure he particularly approved of “Dolly” possibly playing for England, but for me it was hard to get my head around why he couldn’t play for South Africa. But when he first appeared for England, two years later, I was ecstatic. I had, in my own small way, discovered D’Oliveira at the Hastings match; he was “my” player.

It was a further two years on when the full implications of D’Oliveira’s England test place were to surface. He hadn’t had a particularly good season, but he was chosen for the final test of the summer when Roger Prideaux was declared unfit. I was at that Oval match, one famous for its storm and Derek Underwood bowling England to victory against Australia on a badly rain-affected wicket.

D’Oliveira scored a hundred. 158 to be precise. There seemed to me no reason why he wouldn’t now be selected for the winter tour. To South Africa.

I recall my shock when listening eagerly to the radio as the tour squad was announced. D’Oliveira wasn’t in it. Tom Cartwright, a better bowler but not in D’Oliveira’s league as a batsman, was chosen ahead of him. There could only have been one explanation, as far as I was concerned: politics.

What happened next was either fortunate or unfortunate, depending on your point of view. Cartwright developed an injury, couldn’t tour and so D’Oliveira replaced him. It was then that all hell broke out. The South African government claimed it was a political selection, which was a bit rich, the tour was called off, South Africa’s own tour of England in 1970 was cancelled, and eventually sporting sanctions were imposed which did have a profound impact on finally ending apartheid.

What wasn’t known, but now is, was the part that the English cricketing establishment had played in seeking to keep D’Oliveira out of the squad. The journalist and commentator E.W. Swanton was to the fore in doing so, as was Colin Cowdrey, the England captain at the time. On purely cricketing grounds, Cowdrey might have had a reasonable argument, while it also came to be known that Dolly did like a drink. But the politics had initially overriden both D’Oliveira’s credentials as a player and any question as to his fitness.

A further two years on, I sat my English O Level. The exam included the option to write an essay on a sporting hero. Afterwards, I asked a friend, who I knew would have taken the sporting option, who his subject had been: Tommie Smith, the American sprinter who had given the black-gloved fist salute at the 1968 Olympics. I had written about D’Oliveira.

From different sports, we had both come to write about similar things. Through sport, in addition to music of the time as well as the not infrequent news of race issues in America, we had been exposed to the injustice and absurdity of racism. Our education was not that of the classroom but of the sports arena. It was the lesson as to the grotesqueness of racism and apartheid and the effect it could have on one man, not a great cricketer but a good cricketer, that affected me, and one I have never forgotten.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Reflections Of … (19 November)

“The way life used to be.” Ah, those were the days. Diana Ross and the Supremes and all that 1960s malarkey. Happy times. Not that back in the ’60s they had to worry too much in Mallorca or Spain about having a day off for reflection prior to an election. Old Franco knew a thing or two. In addition to being a dictator, he reckoned the Spanish population was either too thick or too apathetic to bother with things like democracy and voting.

If they were apathetic then, they still are today, if predictions as to abstentions in tomorrow’s elections are anything to go by. But, I should hush my mouth. I’m not meant to talk about the elections today, as today is the day of reflection. Well, sort of. What is really means is that campaigning cannot take place, but there are certain limits also as to what can be said journalistically. Theoretically, no one is meant to pronounce on the day of reflection one way or the other or to be seen to be somehow influencing voting.

I don’t for one moment imagine that anyone would be the slightest bit influenced by what I might or might not say on this blog when it comes to the elections, and that’s for the simple reason that I imagine no one who reads it is in fact entitled to vote. But, as one is meant to remain silent on such matters, I shall do, which is why an article that I had written for today will be held over until tomorrow – it has to do with technocrats, but with a particularly Spanish angle; I’m sure you can’t wait.

The day of reflection is reasonably well adhered to. Spanish TV was following yesterday’s campaigning until the very last moment, just before midnight, and then promptly put on a ridiculous Jean-Claude Van Damme film; time for bed. The press today does report the campaigning but stops short of editorialising.

I know that had I editorialised and sent something off for today’s “Bulletin”, it wouldn’t have been included. Fair enough. But I wonder why, therefore, there is a different column in which there are references to the election. I won’t, for fear of the day of reflection police coming down on me, repeat what was said, but I fancy – know for sure – that had I written such things for today’s paper, they wouldn’t have gone in.

I suspect I know the reason why this other column was acceptable, and that’s probably because had the “offending” part of it had to be removed there would have been a ruddy great white space. Or maybe it wasn’t paid overly much attention to.

It is revealing that certain of my articles get vetoed by the paper. A recent one about Lidl was. I don’t think it was critical; in fact I’m sure it wasn’t. But no, too sensitive; might upset the commercial department. And too sensitive was one about the Bishop of Mallorca. Way too controversial and likely to offend staunch Catholics. There have been others. I am compiling a list of off-limits subjects.

There are tensions between editorial and marketing/sales. They occur in all areas of the media to differing degrees, but there is, or appears to me, a hyper-sensitivity locally. And this isn’t solely down to tensions caused by commercial realities. There really are only two subjects that are off-limits in terms of expressing criticism or disrespect, and those are the royal family (quite unlike Britain therefore) and the Guardia. But a certain censorship does apply, as in, for instance, why the former employment of a particular local mayor is never spelt out. You do wonder why.

There is too much sensitivity and it occurs at what is seemingly the most trivial levels. One only needs to go back to the fuss that the “John Nelson” column in “Talk Of The North” caused to know how something written without any apparent wish to offend can be blown completely out of proportion.

The local communities and indeed the island are small, so there is a perhaps not unreasonable restraint shown, but this hyper-sensitivity does also place a restraint on vibrant and at times important discourse. The day of reflection is a rather different case, but it is nevertheless indicative of an understated tendency to censorship or self-censorship that has never been quite forgotten from the days of when Diana Ross was topping the charts.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Taking The Pi: Mallorca’s capital (18 November)

You really would think there were more important things to worry about, like making sure the bus drivers get paid or having enough spare cash lying around to meet repayments to banks. But no, Palma town hall has found something infinitely more pressing with which to concern itself. It wants the city to be officially called Palma de Mallorca (and, by the way, this would be Mallorca and not Madge-orca).

The town hall says that the name was shortened by the last government which didn’t follow the right procedures in doing so. It also believes that the previous town hall admin should have engaged in a spot of denouncing as a result. It hopes to be able to negotiate and thus avoid taking the whole matter to a tribunal.

The naming of Palma is by no means an isolated case. And it is certainly not unknown for high legal authorities to have to adjudicate. The Balearics Supreme Court, no less, once came down on the side of Porto Cristo as opposed to Portocristo and other contenders for the name of the resort. And over in Menorca there is another carry-on.

The lady mayor of the capital there wants it known officially by its Castilian name of Mahón but also wants to reactivate a Catalan spelling of Mahó, rather than the current Maó. Why? No idea. She might just end looking a bit foolish and with egg mayonnaise all over her face. Perhaps she should go further and insist on Mahón or Mahó de Menorca. There are currently no noises emanating from Ibiza that Ibiza Town will become Ibiza de Ibiza or, just to confuse the tourists, Eivissa de Eivissa.

But to come back to Palma. Why is the town hall in such a flap over whether there is officially a “de Mallorca” or not, especially as there is disagreement among the scholarly fraternity and those of a more pedantic bent as to whether it ever officially had been “de Mallorca” in the past?

It wouldn’t be an argument over a city’s name or indeed anything in Mallorca if there wasn’t some political colour to it. The “de Mallorca” bit, or so it is said, is all a tad “foreign”, as in Palma de Mallorca is how the city is known abroad. We’ll have to take the word of those who say it is, but I’m not sure that in Britain, for instance, it is. However, it is fair to say that, in addition to the local post office, “de Mallorca” is used by the likes of airlines in their drop-down menus for airport departures and arrivals. It’s designed to eliminate confusion.

More than this, though, the argument appears to be based on little more than a desire among the left (anti-“de Mallorca”) and the right (pro-“de Mallorca”) to have a bit of a barney. And because the last government, and Palma town hall administration, was of the left and because the last government didn’t follow the correct procedures, the current administration, of the right, wants to do something about it.

One line of argument against the adoption, or is it re-adoption, of “de Mallorca” that might just have some credibility is that, by doing so, everywhere else on the island is made out to be merely satellites of the sun that is the capital city. It’s a reasonable point, but only up to a point. There is unquestionably a Palma-centricity and a Palma civic arrogance, but this is pretty normal for a capital, and in Mallorca everything does revolve around the sun that is Palma, whether people in other towns like it or not.

Though the anti-“de Mallorca” camp seems to equate the town hall’s wishes with some form of imperialism through nomenclature, Palma de Mallorca does have a fair bit going for it; a greater gravitas that Palma on its own doesn’t. When all said and done, it is a capital city named after a tree.

But as tree it is, then Palma faces a potential crisis. The palm-­consuming beetle that is on the rampage could leave Palma minus any palms. Where would it be then? Not so arrogant, I would suggest.

The town hall should be thinking longer-term. When the last palm in Palma succumbs to the beetle and has its head chopped off and is left as a grotesque and impotent phallic symbol, a completely new name will be needed. And there would be one prime alternative. The pine. The city already has Portopí, so why not go the whole arboreal hog now. The new capital of Mallorca. Pi.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Not Being Paid A Complement (17 November)

The title of this article contains a deliberate mistake. Complement is wrong; it should be compliment.

The so-called complementary offer, by which one normally means bars, restaurants and clubs, is a complement to the primary element of the tourism industry, the hotels. It completes the industry, but by perception, if not by definition, it comes down the industry food chain and is considered subordinate. As a consequence, it fails to be paid a proper compliment, or so it claims.

Palma town hall’s efforts to up its tourism game by bringing together different bodies from the industry haven’t gone down well with the restaurant associations of either CAEB, the Balearics business confederation, or PIMEM, the small to medium-sized businesses association. They feel as though have been ignored.

The fact is that they probably have been ignored. And ignored for different reasons. One is that they don’t sing with anything like a unified or co-operative voice, and not just in Palma. Two, and following on from this, they don’t have a collective organisation with the clout that demands to be paid attention to and which can command some lobbying space of the type that the hotel sector can. Three is that other parts of the industry, the hotels in other words, look upon the restaurants, to put it bluntly, as parasitic and incapable of or unwilling to actively involve themselves in promotion efforts. Four is that, as a group, they simply lack the financial muscle to make themselves important players in helping to drive the tourism industry.

CAEB and PIMEM are doing something about the first two, combining their respective associations for restaurants, bars and entertainment in order to try and give themselves a voice which will be listened to. But why haven’t they done this before?

Firstly, because the different associations themselves have their own agendas. CAEB and PIMEM aren’t the only ones. There is also, for example, Acotur, the tourism businesses association. These organisations occupy similar territory, duplicating or contradicting each other as the case may be. Secondly, restaurants in mostly any town or resort you care to mention function with their own interests to the fore. Co-operation has generally been absent, except where powerful and small groups of owners work together for their own benefit. Thirdly, and this is the unpalatable truth, the hotels have a point; the restaurants have been parasitic. They have done well simply by being there, but now, thanks to all-inclusives, heightened competition, economic crisis, the rules have changed, and the restaurants have been marginalised.

This sounds like a damning indictment of the complementary sector, but the lack of compliment paid to them stems also from a peculiar ambivalence shown to the restaurants.

The Spanish hotel confederation wants the new national government to make changes to help the tourism industry. One of these is a reduction in IVA, and the example is cited of how such a reduction in France has helped the restaurant sector. Not the hotels, the restaurants.

So, what has this to do with attitudes towards Mallorca’s restaurants? Something very significant, and that is that the French tourism industry is very different to Spain’s. France doesn’t have anything like the concentration of resorts that Spain and Mallorca have. It has resorts, but there is little that is comparable. It does have all-inclusive hotels but not like Spain or Mallorca do.

A reduction in value added tax to boost French restaurants was not simply a case of being helpful. It was a recognition of the central role of restaurants within the tourism industry. France’s restaurants are not complementary. It’s the other way round; the hotels are. The French don’t need to bang on about gastronomy, because everyone knows about the cuisine, and given the nature of the French tourism industry, the restaurants are absolutely essential.

A reduction in IVA might make some difference to Mallorca’s restaurants, but not much. What would make a difference would be were they not treated as the tourism industry’s doormats. But because they have never had that position of centrality, as they do in France, they are in a position of weakness, which is why they get ignored and why there is an ambivalence towards them.

Yet, gastronomy is meant to be one of Mallorca’s strengths. Maybe it is, but without an attitudinal shift on behalf of other players in the tourism industry, it won’t be. The restaurants have brought much of this ambivalence on themselves, but while the hotels continue to dominate the industry, a situation that will not change, they can’t expect to ever be more than complementary or to be paid their rightful compliments.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.