All In A Day’s Lack Of Work

On one day last week, three things happened which, while they may initially seem to be unrelated, aren’t. One was the closure of TV Mallorca, the second was an announcement by the government that financial support for various fairs would not be forthcoming, and the third was a protest by musicians.

TV Mallorca’s demise was inevitable. It was arguably unnecessary and superfluous given the existence of IB3, so the Partido Popular had targeted it for the chop, and chopped it has now been.

But TV Mallorca went beyond being just another broadcaster. It was a source of contracts, employment and encouragement for those in the audiovisual industry, one of the very few areas of activity in Mallorca that has had anything like some sort of growth recently.

At the same time as Microsoft and the local audiovisual industry are demonstrating that they can be innovative in coming up with solutions for other parts of the economy, i.e. tourism, it seems somewhat perverse to be undermining this very industry. The government will argue, of course, that it is the private sector, in the form of Microsoft or whoever, which should be the impulse behind innovation and growth, but it does also require governments to stimulate industry. Quite how Josep Aguiló, minister for both finance and business, squares the competing demands is unclear. Or rather, it is clear enough. Finance, or lack of it, wins.

The government’s spokesperson, Rafael Bosch, has hinted that the government has a cunning plan for investment in the audiovisual industry, so those at TV Mallorca who now find themselves on the dole plus the production companies that have lost business can presumably breathe a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, what this cunning plan is, is also unclear.

Within Aguiló’s wide remit is responsibility for fairs and congresses. The body which oversees these has made it clear that events have to be self-financing and that the government is not prepared to lose money on them. Among the fairs is the Palma Boat Show, scheduled to take place from 28 April to 6 May next year. The chances are that it won’t.

The viability of the boat show is open to further question, the government suggests, because the boat show in Barcelona hasn’t, in its words, “worked”. It’s taken a long time to figure this out, if it is the case. 50 years to be precise.

It may be legitimate to question the benefits of the boat show in direct economic terms, but in a wider sense, that of the kudos that comes from a show and its contribution to the reputation of Mallorca’s nautical industry and nautical tourism, one has to wonder whether the government’s attitude isn’t somewhat short-sighted.

Then there are the musicians. Eleven music associations and groups, some of them familiar names at fiesta times and on other occasions, have lobbied the Council of Mallorca over cuts to financial assistance. The Council’s now administration has said that the cuts are all the fault of the previous administration and that it will bring back the funding for traditional Mallorcan music performers in 2012 without, however, being specific. Given the parlous state of the Council’s finances, it is probably wise not to commit to anything.

With the musicians, it is a case not of jobs but of the contribution to local culture which, by extension, means or should mean tourism. It is rather more nebulous than the audiovisual and nautical industries, but an economic case for the musicians can just about be made. As part of the, if you like, “fiesta industry”, which faces even more cuts next year, there is a concern that an erosion of the fiestas may just have a negative impact on tourism.

There is financial support for the musicians from non-governmental sources, as there is finance and sponsorship available for fairs, plus the private sector to fund the audiovisual industry, but this funding isn’t infinite. Understandable it is that the government is seeking cuts where cuts can be made, but it runs a risk of abrogating responsibilities for industries it would wish to develop and for culture it should be supporting.

There again, maybe this is all just a case of realism finally taking hold, a recognition that money, for all sorts of things, was handed out almost willy-nilly without questions being asked as to whether it was wise or not and without any real control. Possibly so. But on one day last week, you had the impression of the seemingly diverse but ultimately interdependent industry and culture of Mallorca, which in turn feed into tourism, just grinding to a halt. Cuts yes, but you can only cut so deep before the bleeding becomes terminal.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

When Joe Met Arthur

Can politicians ever just be friends, or will there always be more to the relationship? What was said between José and Artur when they took themselves off for a spot of lunch at Palma’s Bar Bosch? Did they pledge undying fraternal togetherness, and if so, what language did they use?

“When Harry Met Sally” posited the question about being friends. At one stage, disagreement as to the question and differing philosophies, following what Sally had taken as a pass by Harry (at an American diner take on Bar Bosch), led to them not seeing each other for several years.

José and Artur, respectively President Bauzá of the Balearics and President Mas of Catalonia, met in Palma the other day. They are more Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau than Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. The odd couple. They share certain things in common, but they don’t quite fit.

There is the Catalan thing. They both speak it, though José would prefer not to call it Catalan and would prefer that they spoke Castilian. There are the politics. Both the Partido Popular and Artur’s Convergència i Unió occupy some similar political terrain, but the PP is further to the right than the CiU. And then there is the independence question. It is here that they have very different philosophies. Though the CiU manages to downplay its separationist tendency, Mas is all for Catalan self-government; Bauzá most definitely isn’t.

What everyone of course wanted to know was what Mas made of Bauzá’s attitude towards Catalan. Everyone wanted to know, which is why he sidestepped the issue, other than to say that Catalan is our “common language”. Common to whom exactly?

Bauza’s Catalan is one of dialect and his argument is one that is dialectic; he and Mas agree to disagree as, for Bauzá, Castilian is the common language and the dialects of Catalan are specific to the individual Balearic islands, but ne’er should enter the language of Catalanism and independence.

Mind you, they probably didn’t discuss the matter in quite such terms, as they bit into an austerity-correct Catalan bread roll at Bar Bosch. Yet they were able to agree that the cultures of the Balearics and the language, or should this be languages, will be jointly promoted through the Ramon Llull Institute, and lent their support to the exhibition of the artist Joan Miró, a native of Catalonia but a resident of Mallorca, as it travels next year to London and Washington.

Far more important was that both Mas and Bauzá had the opportunity to slag off their respective predecessors. None of any of the current mess is our fault; here was some common ground, along with the dirty great holes full of debt and deficit in the ground beneath the Balearic and Catalonian presidents.

There was a chance for a touch of celebration. The Spanish Government and the European Union had just announced that they are going to pump God knows how many millions or billions into the so-called Mediterranean Corridor, a new high-speed rail link to connect Algeciras with France. Not that it is entirely clear quite how beneficial this will be for the Balearics, despite Bauzá having been firmly in favour. He says it will mean a reduction in the cost of imports. Possibly, though he might also want to have a word with maritime operators.

Odd couple they may be, but they are similar in having similar concerns. And odd it may be if a Catalonian government, albeit one that is of a conservative political bent, should offer a model to both Bauzá and his commandants at Partido Popular central office. Catalonia’s health service, as broke as that of the Balearics, is undergoing what amounts to a partial privatisation, though Mas rejects a system of “co-payment”, one that Bauzá’s master, Mariano Rajoy, has been accused of planning to introduce (paying to see a national health doctor, for example).

Of course, one doesn’t really know what Rajoy plans because he either doesn’t have any plans or, more likely, he’s keeping them firmly under wraps before unleashing them on an electorate that will have willingly voted for the slaughter. One doesn’t really know the full extent of Bauzá’s plans either. He had been asked (pressurised) by central office not to announce the Balearics budget until after the national elections, but he now will – on Monday.

When Joe met Arthur was a pleasant diversion before the pain is delivered. It was friendly enough. Maybe they will remain friends, but they will never agree on Catalanism, and when Rajoy wins, what might this mean for Catalonia? Friendly for now, but disagreement will not be far away.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Feeling British (In Mallorca)

“The Guardian”, not the first newspaper you would associate with rampant nationalism, is running a series on what it means to be British and how British its readers feel. It is asking for videos to demonstrate one’s Britishness. Being “The Guardian”, you would probably not expect a Union flag waving behind a gathering of tattooed gentlemen (and ladies) tucking into plates of fish and chips while a Chas ‘n’ Dave CD plays in the background.

This Britishness thing raises its head periodically and leads absolutely nowhere. Gordon Brown, if one remembers rightly, once proposed that there was a British day. Whatever happened to that? Indeed, whatever happened to Gordon?

Mere mention of the former Prime Minister gives the game away when it comes to feelings of Britishness for those who no longer live in Britain. Feelings of Britishness among the expatriate community are an interesting area for study, and they can also be important in ways over and above simply how one feels.

Gordon Brown, or now David Cameron, would, for most expats, be more relevant than José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Most, you would assume, would know who Cameron was. How many, by comparison, would know that Zapatero was the Spanish Prime Minister?

Knowing that Cameron is Prime Minister isn’t a feeling of being British, but it is an example of identity with Britain, and feelings and identity equate to much the same thing. More than just identity, it is also an expression of where interest lies. I would hazard a guess that ninety-nine out of a hundred expats, were they interested at all (a moot point), would say that they knew more about and took greater interest in British politics than Spanish. Just as they would know more about and took greater interest in the Premier League and British soaps.

“The Guardian”, one supposes, as it is that sort of a newspaper, would be angling for Britishness feelings and assimilation among the world’s diaspora that has ended up in the UK. But what of Britishness that has gone offshore (to Mallorca) and its related topic, that of the big I – integration?

An enormous amount of garbage is spoken about integration, largely by those who labour under the misapprehension that they are integrated and insist on telling those unfortunates who aren’t that they are.

To be fair, the garbage stems from the fact that the term itself is illusory and almost impossible to define. It is also a state of being that is increasingly difficult to achieve. A point I have made on several occasions is that the ease of contemporary communications in different forms (allied to a sizeable British community) militates against integration far more forcibly than might once have been the case.

It is not sufficient, for example, to be able to speak the native. In itself, this proves nothing, other than an ability to speak a different language. Speaking Spanish (and/or, far less likely, Mallorquí) does not amount to integration. Language and culture go hand in hand and are indivisible, but only for those steeped in the culture, which generally means having been born into it. Integration is, therefore, a largely bogus concept, and as such raises the question as to why it is felt to be important.

Well, it can be important, if only in terms of perceptions by the locals. The more Mallorcan one appears to be, the easier things can become. Why? Simple. It means less discrimination, which officially may not exist but most certainly does.

Then there are feelings of Britishness among the second generation, those largely or wholly raised in Mallorca or Spain. And they are feelings which are, for the most part, absent. They ultimately manifest themselves, in practical ways, by a Spanish bar being preferred to a British one, by the reading of a Spanish newspaper and the watching of Spanish telly. Gradually and eventually this results in a lack of cohesion, a dis-integration of whatever the British community might have once been or thought that it was.

But it is also testimony to a British acceptance of integration. Unlike some other cultures, the British do not generally speaking assert their culture (probably because they can’t define it). This may sound peculiar if one considers Brit bars and other examples of Britishness in Mallorca, but it is the case. The second generation is allowed to slip easily into Spanishness. There is no cultural proscription which prevents this, and so the second generation loses its Britishness, despite being British. Does it matter? No. Just as integration for the first generation also doesn’t matter.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Coughing Blood: The bullfight

AnimaNaturalis is not popular. Animal rightists, it offends traditional animal abusers, other animal-rights groups and a fair chunk of what you might think would comprise its natural support, the youth. Its modus operandi of strident agitprop and public protest, be it against the correbou, the circus or the bullfight has failed to garner significant popular support.

Last year AnimaNaturalis staged a protest in advance of the bull-run correbou in the village of Fornalutx. It was most revealing that to the fore among those hurling insults in its direction were the young.

A curious and ill-formed philosophy, if one can use such a word, exists among Mallorcan youth, especially that in more rural areas. Catalanist, Luddite in a hankering for a return to the values of the land and in rejecting mass tourism, politically right-on in being eco-conscious, it is also largely politically incorrect in respect of animal welfare.

Whereas this youth philosophy coincides, to differing degrees, with the values of certain political parties and campaigning groups like the eco-warriors of GOB, it diverges on the matter of animals and animal tradition. It is cultural fundamentalism.

AnimaNaturalis is not popular because it poses difficult questions. In attacking traditions to do with animals, it also attacks an insularity of Mallorcan society by confronting it with issues that this society is ill-equipped to deal with; ill-equipped because a not untypical Mallorcan response to individual or collective attack is to adopt a haughty and petulant righteousness. Mallorcans are argumentative, but they are not great at argument or with dealing with confrontation.

The unpopularity of AnimaNaturalis extends to other animal rights groups who prefer, they say, greater diplomacy. A reason for these other groups distancing themselves from AnimaNaturalis in Fornalutx was that they believed their approach would have brought about greater concessions from the village mayor in amending the correbou. Instead, the mayor, though he did make some changes, was pushed into a corner in siding with those who lobbed the insults at AnimaNaturalis. Or so it was claimed.

There is another way of looking at this. AnimaNaturalis is not passive. As much as fierce defence, passivity is what symbolises attitudes towards animal rights and most obviously the bullfight. It was once explained to me that there would be greater public displays of protest against the bullfight were it not for the fact that people do not wish to be seen or cannot afford to be seen to be protesting. This is cultural fundamentalism of a different order; it is one with echoes of a style of Mallorcan feudalism, the passing of which was only relatively recent and which thus remains within society’s consciousness as well as within some of its current-day mores.

Though opinion polling has shown that the popularity of the bullfight has declined in Spain as a whole, the lobby for its continuance is strong, as is the social dynamic which appears to neuter protest. In an uppity and liberal part of Spain such as Catalonia, the dynamic operates in reverse, so much so that legislation was driven by popular petition to ban the bullfight. Yet a Catalanist sympathy among some of Mallorca’s youth does not extend to what has been nuanced as the real reason for Catalonia’s bullfight ban – anti-Spanishness.

In Mallorca the numbers that have gathered to protest at the annual bullfights in Alcúdia, Muro and Inca have been small to the point of irrelevance. In Inca AnimaNaturalis couldn’t have anticipated what might actually prove to be a turning-point in both its fortunes and the whole bullfight debate in Mallorca.

One of the bulls was on the rampage. No matador was to be seen. The bull was unscathed, it was being taunted from the safety of the wooden barrier and the terraces. Until, that is, the promoter of the event took it upon himself to act as matador, thus, so it is claimed, breaking a regulation that only those listed, i.e. the matadors, can participate.

There is a video on You Tube which has gone not exactly viral but which shows what happened. I have been to the bullfight and I have witnessed similar scenes, but I had a sharp intake of breath when I saw the bull cough blood and stumble having been struck with the sword by the promoter-matador. I am neither for nor against the bullfight, for the reason that it is not my argument, but this was sickening, and the power of the video might be to persuade those whose passivity has been the norm and those of a culturally fundamental bent to recognise that perhaps AnimaNaturalis has a point.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Zoo Time: El Clásico

It was El Clásico on Wednesday night. Again. You couldn’t avoid it or the boards that were chalked up outside bars. If there is one Spanish football match that tourists would know about and might want to watch, it is Real Madrid and Barcelona.

The regularity with which the two sides are meeting at present does not diminish the status of the match. Rangers and Celtic may play each other every other week and may also be able to command the attention of far more than just regular football-goers, but they do so because of absurdities far removed from a football pitch.

Barça and Real Madrid are also both an awful lot better than their Glasgow counterparts. They are, along with certain other clubs, such as Manchester United, a fashion item, and not just because of the wearing of a Messi or a Ronaldo shirt. They are football accessory, one to be worn on the chest like a famous brand name, a sporting superficiality for the marketing-manipulated, the johnnies-come-lately of soccer sophistication that brandish boastful awareness of major teams, or worse still, allegiance, as they would brandish a Gucci mark.

When did El Clásico become El Clásico? For the British, at any rate. It never used to be, but now it is, to the extent that Barça and Real merge into one. They are not separate teams, but a combined entity, and it is classic. They are distinguishable only by red and blue and white. Which isn’t of course true, but they may as well be.

The marketing of El Clásico has now informed the previously uninformed as to the historical significance of the match and of the two clubs. Barça has long claimed to be more than just a club, but so also is Real Madrid. They are more than just clubs, because the marketing says so.

The classicism of the contest, that which it has now unavoidably assumed, is in the tradition of football puffery, one that Real itself did much to elevate to the heights of hyperbole with its galácticos. Like El Clásico, the term seeped into and then burst out into the consciousness of the distant football fan or nouveau fan, thanks to the compliance of a media that, with the fashionista pretension of a foreign word here or there, granted the match and the two teams an exoticism for the brigades of Roy Keane’s prawn-sandwich eaters.

Barça v. Real Madrid has assumed a position of football tourism. Even for the tourist with only passing interest in the game, to be present at El Clásico, in a bar, and especially a Spanish bar, has become an attraction in its own right. It has become de rigueur. The match itself can be unimportant, a largely irrelevant blur of action on a large plasma screen with a commentary that is unintelligible. What is important is the being there. And the being able to say that you had been there.

It may happen that Spanish tourists to England have desires to seek out a pub and sample the atmosphere of a Premier League equivalent, but I somewhat doubt it. Certainly not to the extent that El Clásico would be sought out by a British visitor. But were that Spanish tourist to do so, one would also doubt that there might be quite the same propensity for patronisation, voyeurism, the visit to the zoo; watching the locals wrapped up in the match and smiling inanely and uncomprehendingly at a new best friend who has just exploded as the ball hits a post. “Oh, it was amazing, so passionate, so atmospheric.” El Clásico is the new quaint.

But of course, it is passionate. Despite the marketing, despite the pretensions, it does mean a great deal. And there is no Premier League equivalent. Not really. In Scotland, Rangers and Celtic might be, but what it and any major English match does not possess is a quality that makes it culturally correct to be a bar witness not just to the match but also to the natives as they shout, scream and hug each other. And this is the real point about El Clásico. The marketing has reinforced and emphasised its cultural importance. It is more than just a football match, and the clubs are both more than just clubs. The football match as culture.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

More Old Bull: Culture and the bullfight

Bullfighting has a mystique. It is one that captivates even politicians. “The bullfighter is an artist like a painter, a poet, a composer or a sculptor.” “The bullfight has artistic expression, ritual, historical and cultural value, popular tradition, a feeling and an emotion.”

These are the words of the Partido Popular’s leader in the Spanish senate. The words sound disingenuous when set against the treatment of the bull – described as a “mythical animal, a symbol of strength, courage and fertility” – but they serve to explain why, beyond the spectacle, there is an intangible quality inherent to the bullfight. It is one of, if you like, Spanishness.

A motion in the senate, brought by the Partido Popular, sought to establish that the bullfight was of “Bien de Interés Cultural” – of such cultural interest that it requires legal protection as part of the historical heritage of Spain.

The motion was defeated, mainly on a technicality. The opponents, the PSOE socialists and other parties, argued that the state cannot rule as to whether a “fiesta” such as the bullfight can be subject to a BIC protection, as this is something which only the autonomous regions can do. By the same token, the regions can decide not to protect this “fiesta”. In Catalonia, they decided not only not to protect it but to ban it, as also did the Canary Islands many years ago.

The language of the senate debate, though, spoke of the depth of tradition, but it is a tradition subject to an ever-increasing growth of opposition within Spain. It is one of popular, organic growth, fertilised by pressure groups. In Andalusia, there is an attempt at initiating a ban along the lines of how the Catalonian one came about. Driven by a so-called popular legislative initiative and inspired by the animal-rights movement, a ban in Andalusia, were it to be introduced, would be seismic in the way that the Catalonian one is not.

Despite the flowery language and its implication of a cultural certitude, bullfighting’s popularity has waned, or at least opinion polls would suggest that it has, while the level of support varies according to age and to regions of Spain. The Catalonian ban, political dimension or not, was not so difficult to decide in favour of; bullfighting simply isn’t that popular there. Andalusia is quite a different matter.

But if one accepts that polls reflect the Spanish population as a whole, then bullfighting has become very much a minority interest. (A poll some years ago found those who had no interest in it to be over two-thirds of the sample.) For the Partido Popular to attempt to protect bullfighting as being in the interests of culture is contrary, given that interest has dwindled as much as it would appear to have. However, the party is not wrong; it is of cultural interest, but whether it is in society’s interest is a very different question. To now grant it some sort of legal protection would be a step too far and one that would be out of touch with much popular sentiment.

It is no coincidence that it should be the PP that has sought the adoption of this measure. As a conservative party, a good chunk of its constituency is representative of an old Spain, one that has been confronted by the socially liberal policies of the current Zapatero administration. Bullfighting is not in the category of issues, such as abortion, that have brought Zapatero into conflict with the Catholic right, but it is in a broader category that has embraced environmentalism and now also animal rights and which challenges the old order.

Bullfighting is a political issue, whether one likes it or not, and the PP has attempted a pre-emptive strike against any national ban, the sense of which might be questionable in any event. Fox-hunting legislation in Britain has been invoked as an example of how a “civilised society” can, through the force of law, turn its back on tradition. But apart from the fact that the legislation backfired, fox-hunting was an Aunt Sally and a superficial inconsequence in cultural terms, certainly by comparison with bullfighting, despite the declining popularity.

Rather than nationally, the matter is probably best dealt with at regional level. Perhaps other regions will follow Catalonia’s lead, creating sufficient impulse to embolden a future government – a socialist one – to go for a national ban that currently would be fraught with difficulty. Or perhaps the hope is that, through a process of society’s opposition, the point arrives at which bullfighting fades away through a lack of interest – cultural or otherwise.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Personal Touch: Culture of service in Mallorca

Vince Cable is interested in introducing a plan for employee share-ownership at Royal Mail, when or if it is ever privatised. It’s all about instilling a change of culture in the organisation. Cable sees John Lewis as a model. It sounds fair enough, but it isn’t as simple as handing over some share certificates.

The John Lewis Partnership can be traced back to 1919. The company’s culture of service and participation is that historical and ingrained that it is, in effect, what the company is. To give an example of the challenge at Royal Mail, I heard a radio discussion about the plan in which the courtesy of a John Lewis van driver was compared with the two-fingered snottiness of a Royal Mail driver. The point is that the John Lewis “spirit” penetrates every last bit of the company’s operations.

Giving out shares is, in truth, an artificial way of trying to engender a different culture. It’s almost like a bribe, a financial incentive to create success without the bedrock of inner strength and values – a bit like Manchester City, without a culture of achievement, looking to usurp Manchester United, which has, with the promise of riches. It shouldn’t be necessary. A rotten culture is rarely the fault of staff; the blame nearly always lies at the top.

Not long after he became the head of the Fomento del Turismo (aka the Mallorca Tourism Board), Pedro Iriondo spoke in “The Bulletin” about bygone days of a personal touch and smiling, happy people greeting tourists. What he also spoke about was that this personal style, this culture, had to start from the top of the tourism trade and cascade downwards. He was not wrong.

Much is sometimes made of indifferent service and attitudes by those in Mallorca’s tourism frontline. We can all cite examples of the good or the bad. Just to give one of the former, I happened to go into the Sis Pins hotel in Puerto Pollensa the other day. I was not a guest, but the beaming and charming greeting was enough to convince me that did I wish to be a guest, then I would be so with full confidence. And this was not forced, it was totally natural, suggesting an atmosphere, a culture if you prefer, of Sr. Iriondo’s personal touch. There are plenty of other examples, just as good.

But then there is the bad, made worse by a propensity for those suffering the “bad” to rush off to the internet and tell the world. To suggest that poor service or attitude can be totally eliminated is a nonsense, but perhaps Mallorca has indeed, as Sr. Iriondo has suggested, lost some of its personal touch, lost some of a culture of welcoming. Unlike Royal Mail, which starts from base camp, Mallorca is still well up the mountain, just that it needs to get back to the peak.

Part of the problem may well lie with simple terminology. “Tourists”. A generic term and a sometimes pejorative one, which implies a breed apart, one that is a part of Mallorca and yet is separate from it, one that is removed from the process of Mallorca and yet which is fundamental to it. “Tourists” cease to be individuals and become resources moving along a production line, causing it to be forgotten that they are holidaymakers, with all this term implies in respect of the “fun” of holiday, and also guests. Forgotten not just by some businesses and their staff but by everyone.

In Alcúdia, there is an annual tourist day. It is a good idea and a successful event, but it is inherently contradictory. Is every day not a tourist day? When Sr. Iriondo referred to the “top”, he wasn’t completely right, in that – in organisational terms – it is the tourist who should be at the top of the pyramid; everyone else is in a support role, and by everyone I mean everyone. It is the John Lewis culture writ large, even down to courtesy by drivers.

Of course, embracing everyone in such a culture is an impossibility. It could only be achieved were there an authoritarian regime, commanding the populace to smile nicely and hug a tourist. Yet there used to exist something of that type of regime, at a time in the past to which Sr. Iriondo has alluded. Along the way, something got lost, the result of familiarity, routine, a greater politicisation of the tourism issue and increased wealth. It might also be a consequence of tourists themselves, or some of them; those who do not apply their own responsibilities as guests. Patience can be stretched to the limits at times.

Nevertheless, for the majority of visitors, things do need to come down from the top, be it in bars, restaurants, shops, hotels or wherever, or from the tourism ministry and organisations. Perhaps just a bit of the spend that is made on promotion could be diverted to some “internal” marketing to the staff, as in everyone in Mallorca. A reminder that each tourist is a guest and is unique, and deserves a culture in which he or she is made to feel welcome by all. Mallorca is not the Royal Mail, but were it to be John Lewis then whatever shortcomings the island may have compared with its shiny new competitors would be compensated for – through the personal touch.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Read You Like A Book: Literature, culture and technology

A week or so ago there was some navel-gazing going on. It was at a literary gathering known as Conversaciones de Formentor. Book publishers, Spanish and Mallorcan, were bemoaning what they see as the impoverishment of culture and lack of demand for more serious literature.

Books and their reading do not escape the obsessiveness with which statistics are presented on almost every aspect of Mallorcan life. Suffice it to say that reading is down, this in a wider Catalan society that can produce something as massive as the Sunday book market in Barcelona. There are all sorts of explanations as to why, one of them being media companies which contribute to what the publishers perceive as the increasing banality of local culture.

The publishers accept that new technologies can be enriching, but they worry – as many others worry – about children not growing up being “imbued with the experience of the book”. But are they right to be so concerned? They might be right in being uneasy at the proliferation of the inane, an X Factor winner’s fascinating autobiography for example, but technology might actually be the saviour of the book – serious or otherwise – and of children’s (and adults’) reading. At least this is what Amazon and Apple would like us to believe. When the publishers argue that “educational reform should not be limited to facilitating children’s use of a computer”, they overlook the potentially powerful symbiosis between technology and literature.

A recent book, assuming anyone’s read it, has advanced the theory that the internet is changing the way we think. Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows” has provoked a debate as it argues that the net has altered how we read and use our memories. Carr himself has said that “the deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle”. I can sympathise, when it comes to reading online. A mistake newspaper publishers are making in hoping for a mass migration to paid-for online newspapers is that they neglect the distractions of the internet. You can be reading something and suddenly the urge takes you elsewhere. Where do you want to go today? Why pay for something if you realise you’re not going to read it?

Apple, with its iPad, offers a potentially whole brave new world for book reading. The iBooks application is but one part of the iPad, which, by coincidence or perhaps by design, an official video from the company described as feeling right “in the same way it just feels right to hold a book or magazine or newspaper”. But the iPad is sold on the basis of its multiple applications; the distractions to go somewhere else, other than the book, are enormous. Amazon’s Kindle is more straightforward. A promo video for the latest Kindle features a far from unattractive young lady sitting on a deckchair on a sunny beach, tucking into what may or may not be Jane Austen. Go anywhere, download anywhere, read anywhere is a seductive argument, but just how popular is it? Amazon claims millions of sales; an independent estimate suggests they are not as strong as the company would have them. Nevertheless, there may be more than just wishful thinking to Amazon’s advertising which portrays the product’s coolness for youngsters and for those who had never previously read a book.

But you still come back to the banality that the publishers were complaining about. The iPad or any computer hooked up to the internet doesn’t overcome the greatest banalities of all – those sometimes perpetrated in the name of social networking via the likes of Facebook, recently described by the president of the Balearics’ division of the Spanish consumers assocation FACUA as – and I am quoting him out of context – “the greatest evil that has been invented in the world”. It isn’t that (he was specifically referring to some more unpleasant aspects of Facebook), but it does contribute to a growing sense of abbreviated communication, part of a wider issue of a failure to concentrate, which is the product of what Carr is saying.

Mallorcan literary heritage is hardly a thing of international acclaim, but book reading locally has long been taken seriously. Whether what is being read is serious or not, if the publishers are concerned as to a decline in reading (and the statistics would bear this out), then they should perhaps be embracing, if they haven’t already, the new technologies. Whether these really work though is still very much an unanswered question.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

How We Got Here: Mallorca and literature

Before the unexpected scorched earth policy a few days ago abruptly interrupted my train of thought, I had been reflecting – as you do while lying on the beach – on Great Works. My companion, literary-wise, was Jonathan Meades, a favourite of mine, as some of you will know, as he has been name-checked here more than once. Though not for the faint-hearted or for one disinclined to drag a dictionary and thesaurus to the beach, I had come across an old essay by Meades in which it was possible to decipher the names of great authors in the English language. It was these, the manufacturers of Great Works, which began to make me wonder.

Mallorca, and don’t we just keep being reminded of it, proclaims a prodigious cultural heritage, one exaggerated often enough that we might start to believe it to be so. The poetry of the island might be said to support a literary culture, but it is parochial, a tradition continued via the pompous poetic introductions to most local fiesta brochures. And one says pompous, assuming anyone other than a local can understand them. Mallorcan poetry does not cross linguistic barriers. Indeed within the island’s whole literary oeuvre, few names, let alone their works, have crossed into anything like a wider consciousness. And of these, one, Ramon Llull, was born almost 800 years ago. With one or two exceptions, such as Llorenç Villalonga who probably does deserve wider recognition for his twentieth-century novel on the decline of the Mallorcan nobility, one great author every millennium or so doesn’t exactly constitute a rich tradition.

The literary heritage, and indeed other aspects of the arts culture of Mallorca, owes as much to non-Mallorcans as it does to those native to the island. But even here, it is a heritage by association as much as it is by work that is Mallorcan by content, if at all. As a refuge for the arty, the island, certain parts of it at any rate, is a matter of record, yet Mallorca has not lent itself to Great Works. And it was this absence that started to make me wonder.

Perhaps the two best known foreign literary figures with a clear Mallorcan identity are Robert Graves and George Sand. Graves, though he lived on the island on and off for nigh on sixty years, was too busy paving the way for Derek Jacobi to find international acclaim as Claudius to attempt a Mallorcan Great Work. Sand, holed up with Chopin in the shivering, tubercular hell of Valldemossa, gifted the world a winter in Mallorca, a book slavishly read by inquisitive Germans and largely ignored by everyone else. It is the very paucity of writing that has given rise to prominence being given to a minor thriller-ette by Agatha Christie and the absurd notion of invoking her as a promotional tool for Pollensa.

Into this barrenness has emerged pop literature. One hesitates to describe it as a movement; it is more of a crawl, with just a hint of the opportunist, a nod in the direction of Peter Mayle here, Ruth Rendell there, TV rights and a production unit somewhere else. If it has a cultural veneer, it is one polished to reflect the superficiality that can too easily be assigned to Mallorca. This is but one problem with the island and any pretence to the Great Work. The lack of depth is analogous with the lack of history. The joke with the cultural heritage is that Mallorca doesn’t have a history, outside of its own insularity. In European terms it hardly merits a footnote. Nothing of note has ever happened in Mallorca or to it. Jaume I, you might argue, but he was a part of a process that climaxed in Granada 263 years later. The Civil War, you might say. Well, you might, but so you could about anywhere in Spain. Other than aspects of the period that would rather be forgotten, such as the Guernica-bombing Condor Legion being based in Puerto Pollensa, Mallorca’s Civil War was not out of the ordinary, while Great Workers – Hemingway, Orwell – have done the subject of the war rather well.

But hang on. Go back a bit. Insularity. Mallorca may not have the potential for romanticised violence as other Mediterranean islands – Sicily and the Mafia, Corsica and its terrorism – but what it does have is an obstinate remoteness. Historical events may not lend themselves to a Great Work, but historical context most certainly does, and moulded into this context are the poets, artists, the polymath Llull, the families and the landed tradition.

Great Works are also great stories, of which the Spanish language has spawned translated crossovers with worldwide appreciation – Cervantes, Marquez for example. Villalonga wrote in both Spanish and Catalan; there is no reason why his epic “Bearn” should not be better known (it is available in English). Just as there is no reason why Mallorca shouldn’t lend itself to current-day Great Works, in Catalan, Spanish or English. It is the nature of a land apart that holds the key, a land that today finds itself caught in the conflict of internalising, as symbolised by those fiesta poems, and a Europe, Spain even, it once had little to do with. That’s the Great Work. Just one. How it got here.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Beautiful Myth – One Europe

Are you a European? If you are, could you define what this means? I, for one, haven’t a clue. Perhaps I should. I was once, several years ago now, approached about the post of communications director with a pro-Europe lobby group. I met one of the movers behind this at a gentlemen’s club in London, and promptly heard nothing more, either about the post or the group. Best intentions possibly, best intentions dashed. ‘Tis often thus with groups and associations.

Back then, it all seemed idealistically sound. Unification of peoples under a common banner for a common good. I was sold on the idea – then. But it was, and largely is, illusory. A dissonance exists between political intent and psychological and social acceptance; one that is all but impossible to bridge. Nevertheless, people keep trying.

Last summer, a new group emerged in Mallorca. “Europeos por España”. There was a bit of publicity hullabaloo and then silence. At the time I suggested that it might sink “into the obscurity of indifference”. Maybe it has, for all that one hears anything about it. Politically non-aligned, it was hard to understand what its purpose was, given that another European group already existed. Though these groups profess political neutrality, and most probably are neutral, one cannot help but have the sneaking suspicion that the odd individual may view them as a springboard to established political career-making.

The “Ciudadanos Europeos” (European citizens) group has been going for several years. It is being given a new lease of life, or seems to be, by having a regular monthly page in “The Bulletin”. We’ll see how long that lasts. And this may sound rather cynical, but these things do have a habit of just disappearing. The aims of this group are fair enough – breaking down barriers, cultural exchange, information about participating in local elections – but in its activities, one forms the impression of some sort of über-national social society.

In the group’s column, we are told that “Europe is a cultural unity with a history dating back more than 2,500 years”. Really? What is the basis for such an argument? Common linguistic roots where most European languages are concerned, yes, but otherwise? European “unity” has been predicated, down the centuries, on empire-building, wars and religion, and not all of this has been in the pursuit of a common culture, certainly not where the Ottomans were concerned. In today’s Europe, the objections to Turkey’s membership of the European Union are founded on the gap between secular Islam and Western Christianity, the latter itself a thing of division that goes back centuries. Where “unity” might be said to have been established from later mediaeval times, it was one formed through marriage and kingdom combination, often a recipe for later disaster and one far removed from everyday experience and identities with local networks of the village or town. This unity was such that it gave rise to the First World War, the consequence of inept monarchical competition. Even at the national level, the after-shocks of marital alliance still reverberate, despite the alliances being hundreds of years old. Spain is a prime example.

Europe as a philosophy or as a psychology is a myth. It is a beautiful myth, one that one would like to believe in, but it is myth nevertheless. “Ciudadanos Europeos” wishes to bring different nationalities in Mallorca together. This is laudable, but the nationalities will persist in pursuing their own association, be this an actual association or simply normal social interaction. The British, for example, extract from the local community what local cultural elements they want, and that’s as far as it goes. This is the old “integration” debate, but anything like complete assimilation is a further myth. The British are no more “Mallorcan” than they are “European”. They are British. And this is not an argument in favour of nationalism, simply a recognition of identity and – dare one say it – cultural unity; unity at the national level in the sense that even this can be said to exist.

Language is at the heart of any cultural unity. Despite those common linguistic roots, divergence in the practical use of language is so extreme, so representative of different values, experiences and heritage to make impossible one unified entity. At a facile level, think of the Sid Lowe-Real Mallorca contretemps. When Lowe said the club had “no fans”, an English reader would have known that he didn’t mean this literally. But this was how it was interpreted by non-English native speakers. Lowe was making a joke, and humour is possibly the most difficult concept to translate because of its cultural and linguistic nuances. And misunderstandings across the English and Spanish (or Catalan) divide are just some. Add on all the languages and dialects of Europe, and where does that get you? Cultural or indeed social unity? One Europe. Sorry, it’s a beautiful myth, and myth it is and always will be.