Taking To The Streets: The royal wedding

When the Great News was announced, one’s first thoughts were: ah, yes, the street party. That rare and strange event when the British indulge in some old-time knees-up. Chas ‘n’ Dave, the hokey cokey, Union Jack hats, triangular flags hanging across the road, plates of banana and cucumber sandwiches, family-sized bottles of lemonade, lashings of ginger beer, huge urns of tea, standing and singing the national anthem, comments as to how beautiful she is and how handsome he is, comments as to what a shame she is not there to see it, comments as to how proud she would have been of him, comments as to why is she there, the other one, comments as to how drunk will the brother get later, comments as to it’s the sort of thing the British do well, comments as to do you remember other street parties …

1977. The Queen’s Silver Jubilee. A recreation ground in the north of England. Beer tents, a brass band, whippet-obedience competitions. A group of university sorts has been taking the waters. Many of them. Another group, of local sorts, squares up. Oh what fun. How to celebrate Her Majesty, with the echoes of the Sex Pistols’ “God Save The Queen” somewhere in the background along with an ailing British economy, a rocky pound and a handout from the IMF the previous year.

1981. Charles and Diana. It is the end of July. You have returned from holiday, having been shocked at the sight of a shaky television broadcast on a Greek island in which Thatcher is addressing the nation. You have returned to expect to find the streets ablaze and houses razed to the ground. How to celebrate the heir to the throne and the greatest marital sham of all time. And somewhere in the background is the sound of The Beat’s “Stand Down Margaret” and The Specials’ “Ghost Town” with its gloomy prescriptions of economic and urban decay, violence and racism.

Thirty years on and it’s the turn of Kate and Wills. Or Kate and Guillermo as the Spanish press insist on referring to them. With Enrique doing the embarrassing speech, filling the Bentley’s hub-cabs with nails and attaching empty Heinz cans to the rear bumper, and Carlos probably giving not a moment’s thought to thirty years previously. Isabel will be there, too, thinking ahead to the street parties for fifty golden years.

The parties of little Englands and little Britains on the streets of Mallorca. Trestles and tombolas. Special deliveries of John Smith and Tetleys. Someone has to organise the catering. Someone has to organise it all. There will be a committee, as there always is a committee. The British are masters and mistresses of forming two things – queues and committees. There will be a jazz band, as jazz bands there always are. But there will be no sound of the Sex Pistols. Posters of Kate and Guillermo will have been despatched from blighty. Grinning and loving big hair and a lack of hair adorning walls of the streets, held in place with sellotape. Something will have been arranged for charity because the British can’t gather without arranging something for charity. Speakers will be turned up to hear the words spoken. A hush will descend. I do, and we all do. We British.

Tears will be shed, isn’t she lovely, isn’t he handsome. Once more the comments will be made. And some special Spanish friends will have been invited. Smiling and altogether confused by the fuss and not knowing whether they should stand when the national anthem is played yet again. The Tetleys will have been flowing sufficiently for some raucous, football-terrace-style, passionate belting-out of “The Queen”. The day will have become warm enough for the singers to have discarded t-shirts and to display bellydom and body designs. Spanish neighbours will rest themselves on balcony railings and stare down blankly. The local police will hang around, observing through their sunglasses and starting to get agitated as they check their watches, the rules for permissions and the distance that the trestles are from the walls.

As the day turns into evening and as the tables are taken down and packed into the back of a white van and the drunks head off to the curry house or to the all-you-can-eat-for-six-euros chinky, the street party will be hailed as a great success. The newly-weds will be preparing for their luna de miel in wherever it is that they are celebrating it. The toasts for them will die away, but a warm feeling will persist. Of little England and little Britain in the warmth of Mallorca, while back in blighty there is the chill of an ailing economy and a rocky pound and where the streets fill with different types of event, like a quarter of a million heading for Hyde Park.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Adventures Of Alice In Mallorcaland

Alice was sitting by the canal’s edge in a dingy English town. It was drizzling, as it always seemed to be drizzling. Alice was day-dreaming. Of a summer away from the greyness of her unremarkable town. Of a place far away, where the sun always shines, where the drink is cheap and the boys are plentiful.

Suddenly, she was jolted from her thoughts by the strange sight of a White Rabbit. Was it Comic Relief, wondered Alice. She followed the White Rabbit who was muttering to himself: “Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late”. “What shall you be too late for, Rabbit?” asked Alice. “The plane of course. The plane.” And with this, the White Rabbit disappeared into a travel agency into which Alice also ventured, only to find herself falling, falling, gliding and then touching down. Touching down where?

Alice looked around. She could see a small terrace and a sign that said “Drink Me”. Wicked, thought Alice. A Red Bull with a cough medicine and vodka mix. She became first very small; small enough to pass through the keyhole and then very large.

“You’re a big girl,” said the Mat Hatter. “There’s no room, no room for you here.”

“There’s plenty of room,” replied Alice. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Maybe he’s he or maybe he’s not he. But he is from Luton,” declared the March Hare.

“Why are you talking in riddles?” inquired Alice.

“We always talk in riddles. We talk complete gibberish. All the time.” And the March Hare started to cackle a lunatic cackle.

“You’re mad,” said Alice.

“Not as mad as the Mad Hatter. He’s from Luton.”

“Why is he here? Why are you here?” asked Alice.

“We’ve no idea. Have some wine.”

“There isn’t any wine.”

“Then have some tea,” said the March Hare. “It’s always tea time. We sit around all day and it’s always tea time. Time for tea. Time for tea.”

“Is this all you ever do?” Alice wanted to know.

“Sometimes we get up. Sometimes we sit down. Sometimes we come here. Sometimes we go there. There’s always time for tea.”

“Who’s that you’re resting your feet on?”

“That’s the Doormat. We slag him off all day. Oh, that’s what else we do.” And the March Hare and the Mad Hatter cackled together.

“You might just as well say that you run me down when I’m here as I’m there when you run me down,” murmured the Doormat.

“Now he’s talking in riddles as well!”

“Yes, rubbish. That’s what we do.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” said Alice. “This place is so, like, oh my God, total pants. No wine. I’m off to The Queen of Hearts. To look for a job. And I will, unlike you, do something.”

“Do something!? Do something!? Off with her head! She’s off her head.”

Next time: Alice finds herself at the Croquet and Golf Ground where there are more strange characters not doing anything.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Through A Glass Darkly

“Returning to England feels like journeying back to the 70s”. So ran the headline of a piece by Hadley Freeman in “The Guardian”. What a difference three months can make, because that was all the time she had been away. Spies, snow and student protests. When you’ve been away an awful lot longer, there is something reassuring about the protests; reassuring that the clock can be turned back to show that students, indeed the British, haven’t lost their capacity to protest.

In the 70s we fought the cuts, marched in solidarity behind our student leader, he who went on to become “Two Pizzas”, i.e. Charles Clarke. It was peaceful enough. Not all protests were. Brutality was pretty much to be expected by police for whom there was an almost total absence of trust. Gene Hunt was accurate in every way, bar one; he wasn’t bent.

Protest seemed to be abandoned after the Poll Tax. Apathy through complacency took over, so much so that Iraq caused just a dribble of demonstration. The good old days have returned. But …

Despite the ease of communication and access to information, not being over there, as in not being in the UK, makes it somewhat unreal. It’s as though you are watching a documentary; it’s somewhere else. You’re a part of it but not. It’s fascinating to observe, but that’s all you are – an observer, and from a distance.

You look at it as through a glass darkly, without the benefit of the reality of being there. In a way, it mystifies. Mystifies that protests in London can seem to be so important; can be written about or spoken about. Why do we care, over here, about what happens over there? Not being over there, we have no ownership of the issue, just as we have no ownership of Cameron or Miliband, of Kate and Wills, even of Man United or Spurs or what the rotters of the remove at FIFA do to England’s bid.

It’s a false being. One of “Corrie” and “Eastenders”. Over there is a soap as much as it is a documentary; it is no longer real, but we pretend that it somehow is. We talk about it, write about it, argue about it. But who cares over there what is thought over here? Why, in truth, should anyone over here care what anyone over here thinks about what happens over there? The answer probably lies in the fact that no one over here much cares about what happens over here, so over there retains its importance.

The false being is such that neither over there nor over here is real. Over there is through a glass darkly and over here is through Alice’s looking glass, stepping through a mirror to an endlessly sunny garden but which is, in reality (if it exists), just a dream. Or so it sometimes seems. Over here is where it is forever paradise, until reality bites.

When you are away for a time and you go back over there, what do you encounter? There is the order of the landscape, the enduring beauty of the English countryside, the politeness. And other things endure. Everything changes, well, no they don’t. Take That are still there, or rather are back again. Phil Mitchell’s puffy face is still there. Aggers and Test Match Special are still there, replaying the legover, schoolboy giggles with Johnners.

Amidst this order, this unchanging over there, shifts have occurred. You only have to land at an airport to be aware of them. The machine guns, the ominous signs as to it is against the law for this or that and the even more ominously monikered Border Agency, the sense of underlying paranoia.

And it is like journeying back to the 70s, when there was the paranoia of The Cold War and The Troubles and also that created by the protests of students and at Grunwick and which paved the way for battles with the “enemy within”. The focus of the paranoia is what has changed, and it is breeding something nastier than the Gene Hunts ever were. Or at least this is how it seems. Because without being over there, you cannot truly know. It is all through a glass darkly.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Only The Lonely

I was in a bit of a hurry. But I wasn’t in that much of a hurry. I could have stopped, spent fifteen or thirty minutes. He’d suggested a coffee. Sorry, got to get off, work to do; that sort of thing.

He’s not someone I really know. The sort of person you see around, bump into now and then. It was only as I was driving off that I realised I should have hung around. What’s the scale, do you suppose, of loneliness in Mallorca?

Many years ago now, my mother once confided in me that she was lonely. Initially I was surprised. She was outgoing, a life and soul of the party East End girl; we used to duet in the local pub when I was a kid. But then I became less surprised. Moved house, family gone, a not unusual tale of social breakdown.

That was in England though, where the familiar surrounds you, where things are easy. They can be easy enough in Mallorca, but there isn’t quite the same familiarity. A while ago, before she moved back to England, someone who had lived on the island for some years, told me that it wasn’t quite the same. Yes, you had friends, but they weren’t friends like the old ones. There is a convenience of friendship, she was implying. Those you know wouldn’t necessarily be ones you would really choose. But isn’t this true of anywhere that you might move to?

The point is though, I guess, that you can know people and still be lonely. And there is a sense in which expat communities are indeed a convenience. Without them, the potential for loneliness would be increased through exclusion by language and culture. But where this convenience exists, there is the risk of the sort of superficiality that the “Daily Mail” sought to expose a couple of years ago (in Portals), one based on what is an erroneous perception of expat lifestyle centred on doing lunch and yacht parties – erroneous where most are concerned, but not all.

In April last year, The Royal British Legion published an outstanding report – “Caring In Spain”. (The full report and the accompanying “knowledge bank” are available online at http://www.britishlegion.org.uk.) While primarily this looked at health care, the report also dealt with issues such as the importance of social networks and of clubs. Convenience maybe, but what came through, clearly enough, was that without clubs and associations the lives of many would be intolerable.

However, not everyone is “clubbable”. The most obvious club is ESRA. It does much by way of good works, but it also comes in, with the greatest respect, for criticism. It has an image problem that turns people off. Perhaps the fault lies with its being seen as being too “expat”. I really can’t put my finger on it. But maybe some research into what this image problem is might not go amiss, as it has the power for immense good, along with the expansion of the efforts by Age Concern España.

The issue of loneliness, though, is not exclusively one that might affect the elderly. It can be seen around and about. Just one stereotype is the person clutching a drink at a bar. When the TV critic of “The Sunday Times”, A.A. Gill, savaged the dead Keith Floyd, he did so by referring to the sadness of the expat in a Costas bar in mid-morning – and staying there for several hours. Paul Whitehouse’s cringingly embarrassing Archie is not too far removed from a type you might be unfortunate enough to encounter. Alcohol dependence and being the bar bore are, nevertheless, or can be, symptomatic of a state of loneliness.

And loneliness can be a step away from more serious conditions. The Legion’s report looked also at psychological problems, of which depression or suicidal tendencies can be a part. As far as I am aware, there is no Samaritans service in Mallorca, but there is on the mainland, on the Costa Blanca (http://www.costablancasamaritans.com). The presence of the Samaritans in Mallorca might well be something to be explored. One wonders how well depression is tackled, even where it might be admitted, when the potential for language problems with a local doctor is concerned.

This might all sound as though I am overstating the issue. Perhaps so. But I come back to the question I posed. What’s the scale of loneliness in Mallorca? I have no idea as to the answer. Under a Mallorcan sun, however, there are social issues that seem as though they can’t or shouldn’t exist. They do. And under a Mallorcan sun is a sparsely populated karaoke bar. Up steps a performer to the confessional mike. Behind the dark glasses. Only the lonely.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

21st Century Schizoid Man: Multiculturalism

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel has pronounced. Multiculturalism in Germany isn’t working. It’s a big step for a leading German politician to take in a country where there is understandable reticence to engage in discourse that smacks, even vaguely, of racism and where there exists a worrying underground of neo-Nazism.

German multiculturalism can be traced back to the early ’60s and the system of the “Gastarbeiter”, primarily Turkish workers but also those from other countries, which included Spain. The Turks were the most obvious though.

It is the start of the 1970s. A curious ceremony is taking place, and I watch as Turkish Gastarbeiter board a train in Stuttgart, one or two beaten-up suitcases in hand. They are heading back to Turkey. The Gastarbeiter were meant to be temporary. Many did return, but by no means all.

Wind forward to today, and the situation in Germany is like other countries: diasporas, some members of which assimilate, some of which do not. Even the Turks of Germany who have become “German” are probably among those who regularly vote in sufficient numbers to give Turkey “douze points” from a German Eurovision audience. German multiculturalism, to use the word of Frau Merkel, has “failed”.

Multiculturalism, either through intent or accident, is an idealistic state. It can function, insofar as diversity and the implicit non-integration of the concept can be said to function, so long as something doesn’t come along to ensure that it doesn’t. Tensions arise not directly through the existence of multiple cultures but through the cumulation of factors which makes their existence less than tolerable.

21st century schizoid man, he of indigenous origin, has been turned paranoid through such factors – economic dysfunction, terrorism, Islamophobia, for example – and by having to contend with the way they compete with his identity. He would rather, in disturbingly large numbers, even in countries with traditional tolerance like Sweden and the Netherlands, rid himself of the cultures. Or if they stay, they should conform to his monoculture. Speak the language. Eat sauerkraut or, more of a challenge for some, pork wurst. Put a towel out on the sun-lounger at six in the morning.

Frau Merkel believes that immigrants should make greater efforts at integrating. By learning the language, for instance. Hers is hardly an original view. It is one that has been expressed in Britain and in Spain. The leader of the Partido Popular, Mariano Rajoy, is one who has made such a call.

Immigration in Mallorca is regularly an issue which appears at the top of the list of social concerns as discovered through polls. In March, a poll found that seven out of ten Balearic islanders believed that there were too many immigrants. Press reports merely serve to reinforce a perception of immigrant criminality. Moroccan drug dealers in Sa Pobla. Latin American gangs in Palma. Nigerian prostitutes in Magalluf. Senegalese lookies all over the place. A judge once sentenced a Senegalese gentleman to learn the language.

Immigration goes hand in hand with multiculturalism and therefore with a lack of integration. Yet we are selective with what we mean by multiculturalism, or rather to whom it applies. The British in Mallorca are no less representative of one of the island’s multiple cultures than Moroccans. But the British are seen, and see themselves, as excluded from this definition. They are part of the illusory and faintly absurd notion of a “European culture”. I am a European. Define and discuss. They are nothing of the sort. Anglo-Saxonism is alien to Mallorca, as are the English language, “Coronation Street” and the full English. As with those from other cultures, cultural separatism and non-integration are a breeze when you can switch on Sky or pick up a copy of the “Mail”.

Multiculturalism doesn’t work. Or rather, it works very well in a free-market way. You can cherry pick from the “new” culture if you so wish, while not having to “go native”. Which is how most like it. And why shouldn’t they? What’s the point of learning the language? Only so you can make sense of watching the telly. Therefore, there is no point when you can tune in to Ant and Dec.

Our meaning of multiculturalism is a pejorative for anything that veers too far from the cultural norm, and in Mallorca this norm has come to be broadly interpreted, as it is in the UK and in Germany. This norm isn’t simply a question of learning the language, most certainly not. It’s what falls outside of the norm that defines the anyone-but-me multicultural, with all the baggage of issues such as colour, religion and ethnicity that it brings. This broad interpretation excludes the British in Mallorca from the multicultural category, but lumps them into an alternative one – that of mini-cultural. Different but non-threatening. Mini-cultural maybe, but before we cast too many stones in the direction of the body with its head poking out of the sand of multiculturalism, we might bear in mind that we are all multiculturalists now.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Mobile Homes: Residency and Spanish voting

Go on then, you’re a British citizen, resident in Mallorca and therefore in Spain. National elections in Spain are looming. Would you vote, if you had the right? Would you know for whom to vote? Would you actually care or be interested?

The absence of voting rights for non-Spanish citizens, for our purposes those from the UK, is a matter that can stick in the craw with some. Tax me and let me vote. But you can’t. Paying tax does not confer rights to participate in a political process. End of story.

Setting aside the apparent contradiction of being disenfranchised when it comes to electing parties which might, you hope, be less inclined to burden you with more tax, the issue of voting rights is a far broader subject, one that embraces nationhood, mobility, integration and whether you can actually be bothered.

An editorial in “The Bulletin” yesterday made a plea for the right to vote in national election. I pay tax, therefore I vote. Turn it around. You’re Mallorcan, a Spanish citizen, resident in the UK, paying UK taxes. Can you vote in a general election? No you cannot. The right to vote at national level, as opposed to local or European elections, is an expression of nationhood, the domain of citizens of the individual country. If you are not a citizen, then you are not a national. Thus, you cannot vote. I find no contradiction in this.

Where the issue has become complicated, however, is through freedom of movement and rights to residency within the European community. The theoretical breakdown of discrimination against foreign nationals, enshrined in European law, has led to a wish to push the barriers back further – to exercise ever more practical applications, such as national voting.

European citizenship bestows rights to vote for a European parliament, not a national one, save for the parliament of your own country. For British citizens, this means Westminster; it doesn’t mean Madrid. Where this does become discriminatory is a British matter, the fifteen-year rule effectively breaking European treaties that allow for voting in British general elections. This in itself isn’t an argument for conferring rights to vote in Spanish elections; the national citizenship rule remains fundamental.

A quirk of the British voting system is that there are indeed those from other countries who can vote in a general election – those from Ireland and the Commonwealth. This, though, brings with it the whole baggage of integration and assimilation, one that applies just as much to expatriates in Spain.

Integration is a largely mythical state. It is a word bandied about without an appreciation as to what it might actually mean. Having a few “Spanish friends”, eating tapas or knowing some of the lingo do not equate to integration. It’s ludicrous to suggest otherwise. Mobility, and its convenient modern-day fellow-travellers, ease of communication and exposure to media, ironically militate against integration. Language and the nuance of language, culture, and, yes, politics remain the stuff of “back home”. In the same issue of “The Bulletin” there was a yes-no interlude regarding Ed Miliband. Would there be a similar one regarding Mariano Rajoy and a pretender to his leadership? If you don’t know who Rajoy is, you’ve probably answered the question. British politics 1, Spanish politics 0; for most expats anyway.

The editorial concluded by asking: “could it be that central government simply does not credit non-Spaniards with the intelligence to understand the issues at stake in a general election?” It isn’t so much a question of intelligence as, for the most part, interest in or even inclination to understand the issues. Making non-Spaniard Brits part of the political process, i.e. granting them the right to vote, might spark an interest, but you might equally encounter a double whammy of apathy: a natural apathy to vote in whatever circumstances combined with an apathy to come to terms with political issues that aren’t those of Britain. This is hypothetical though; the situation doesn’t apply.

Nevertheless, freedom of movement within the European Union does raise an issue in respect of citizenship, in a broad sense as brought about by residency, just as European laws have raised issues regarding absolute parliamentary sovereignty. It is the mobility encouraged by the single market that has inspired demands for national voting. The European Union has created the situation, only it can resolve the voting issue, which it partly addressed in the Maastricht treaty when making provision for voting in local and European elections. But the right for non-nationals to vote in a general election would be a political pill that would be hard to swallow, and it would be unlikely to happen. Or would it?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

This Expat Life: AlcudiaPollensa.blogspot* and perceptual gaps

“I’m surprised anyone talks to you.” Eh? What?

It’s a perception thing, you know. It’s what people think you write or think what you might write. I wouldn’t talk to me if I did write what people thought I wrote or might write. But the above was said to me the other day, if joshingly, by a local bar-owner.

This blog will be five years old in a couple of months. There have been over 1500 entries. I’m struggling to think of any occasion when I have slagged off a local individual or business, except obliquely; or any occasion when I have broken a confidence. There are things I know, but they won’t appear here.

No. One moment. There has been the odd occasion, like with the “Sun, Sea and A&E” lady, but there was that perception thing again, as in had it been read carefully it would have been clear that it was a piss-take, hardly for the first time, of “The Bulletin”. I have no reticence in rubbishing something which affronts me with its Palmacalvia-centricity, mistakes and rotten English. And it’s the media. Like politicians, political parties and town halls, it’s there to be shot at.

I’ve known this perception thing before. When I was at university I became the one who was most closely associated with a scurrilous publication that was eventually banned when the local police threatened an obscenity charge (and this was just a few years after the “Oz” trial). The only reason why I was thus associated, and I was neither a member of the particular college from which the magazine emanated nor one of its editors, had to do with a higher profile on campus than others. I was personally responsible for only one of the many controversies that the magazine spawned.

The perception thing was also evident when this blog was commended in “PC Advisor”. “Thoughtful and witty descriptions of the expat life.” The quote needs to be seen in context, but I don’t know that the blog has ever been about expat life, other than occasionally specific pieces. And the perception thing blends into the profile thing. You might take that quote, you might take that surprise at anyone talking to me as evidence of high profile, of hanging around bars and hanging on all the gossip and then churning it out – here. Both the perception and the profile are inaccurate. What can also surprise is when I say that I am an habitué of very few bars, and certainly not for the evening piss-artisting, have never been inside many and have never met or had anything to do with so-and-so expat who does, on the contrary, have a high profile.

The perception thing is wrong because the blog is detached. It is this very distance that creates a diversity of subject and an absence of pressure to somehow act as reportage of this “expat life”. It is, essentially, observational. A part of but also separate. It is the observation and the diversity which, despite times when I have wondered about stopping, keep the blog going. There simply is no end to what you can write about. Were it about “expat life”, were it about the local who’s doing this, who’s doing that, then it wouldn’t have legs, not long-running ones. People would not only not talk, they would also, in all likelihood, be somewhat aggressive. But more fundamentally, I have, despite that perception thing, no interest in being a conveyor of tittle-tattle, a slagger-off of who’s been slagging with whom. That said, there is a file of what I presumptuously call the blog’s basement tapes: stuff that has been written but which has never appeared. Even these pieces don’t name (though it might be possible to assign a name), but they are very much darker or more off-the-wall.

There have been recently, as there have been in the past, some highly satisfying compliments both of the blog and of HOT!. I even received a letter, remember them, from someone who had enjoyed the newspaper. Sometimes, though, I wonder if I don’t become self-indulgent, such as with yesterday’s piece. I had thought of consigning that to the basement tapes. And then I got a compliment about it (Glen’s), as similarly I had one a couple of weeks back from Derek who referred to the more poetic stuff being inspiring. But the danger is I end up taking myself seriously, which would never do. And I might end up understanding who the hell it is I’m writing for.

It’s this very unknown, among all the thousands of you who come to this blog, that make it as worthwhile as the compliments. The unknown also as to which pieces might interest more than others. The unknown as to who will be in the inbox on a given day, saying they have been following the blog for this or that length of time. The blog is self-indulgent. By definition, I suppose, most blogs are. But as to people not talking to me, I don’t think so, because I guess most don’t know what the blog is about, other than by some fault of perception. And I couldn’t help. Because neither do I.

* Please note that this version of the blog is a back-up to the original – http://www.alcudiapollensa.blogspot.com.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Pax Bulletinis: British community and newspapers

The British Ambassador to Spain has been visiting Mallorca. You could hardly have missed this if you had read “The Bulletin” on Saturday; not one, not two, not three, but four pages devoted to Giles Paxman – Paxo Minor, he is the younger brother of Jezza. How to fill space and fail to influence people.

The ambassador pitched up at the offices of “The Bulletin” to hand over a commemorative letter, albeit that it is two years early; the paper celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2012, but this didn’t stop a small orgy of self-congratulation, the always beaming British Consul on hand to enjoy a toast. Oh, that he might venture northwards to meet British businesses. He could take a leaf out of his boss’s book: Paxo the younger will apparently be meeting such businesses in Benidorm. But that’s not what I want to talk about.

The letter commends the paper on its achievement and on playing a “very important role within the British community”. It will be an achievement, but you have to wonder for how much longer.

According to the audited circulation figures supplied by OJD (Oficina de Justificatión de Difusión), the paper’s average net circulation declined by 11% from 3,839 copies in 2008 to 3,405 in 2009. Economic hard times may partially explain this, but there surely are other factors, such as ease of buying British papers and the internet.

When the paper started in 1962, and for many years thereafter, it was not only a visionary move to publish it but it was also “very important”. British papers could not be bought easily, and there were few alternative sources of information, especially for the Brit who resolutely refused to learn or read Spanish.

None of this obtains now, other than the Brit still steadfastly avoiding the native. What actually is the point of the paper now? One that uses translated pieces from “Ultima Hora”, stuff from the internet (sometimes verbatim), can verge on the unintelligible (we all know what) and is rarely if ever contentious or provocative, except to a few who engage in arguments regarding British or arcane international politics or when a letter-writer raises a vaguely controversial point. The word “lightweight” too easily comes to mind.

Perhaps when the paper’s nickname is used – and I assume everyone knows this – there is a sense of unfairness; too high a level of expectation. Look at those circulation figures, and work it out for yourselves. This unfairness also masks genuine affection for the paper, despite its idiosyncracies. But this affection stems in part from the fact that it is something of a bygone age. In the same stable as “The Bulletin”, the Catalan paper “dBalears” has been commended for its visual style. It, “Ultima Hora” and the German weekly, “Mallorca Magazin” all have decent websites, replete with additional advertising possibilities. None of this applies to “The Bulletin”.

And is it genuinely “very important” within the British community? I would like to say that it is. It was, but I doubt that it now is. Too often, for example, one hears the gripe that it neglects parts of Mallorca away from Palma or Calvia. Some of you will know that I did have a brief association with the paper. It was intended to create more of an emphasis on the north of the island. I also spoke to them about how to enhance the brand name of the paper, and it’s a strong name, despite the mickey-taking nickname; nigh on fifty years lend the brand enormous credibility, or should do, but they fail to in a way that commands real respect. I came to realise I was wasting my time. There was seemingly little interest in either the northern community or in something a bit more innovative. It’s a great shame. It could still be “very important”, but it’s hard to see how without a radical re-think.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Beach Is The Only Place To Be

There are probably those who live away from Mallorca who think enviously of those who do live on the island and of their heading off to the beach on a daily basis. It is a rather false impression.

While there are those who do make the beach a daily ritual, and those for whom the whole day at the beach is the ritual, there are plenty for whom the beach is a rare event and some for whom it is an alien place. And not just those who live away from the coast.

When some first come to Mallorca, as in a permanent way and even if they are meant to be working or running a business, it can be easy to fall into the trap of feeling that life is just one long holiday. Legion are stories of those whose business went belly-up because they were toasting their bellies on the beach while packing away a cold Saint Mick or several – day after day. Life may be a beach in Mallorca, but it is also a bitch, if the beach becomes all-consuming.

Look around in some bars, restaurants and other establishments, and you may well see some pasty faces. How can this be, you might think. All that sun, and little by way of a suntan. The other day, the delightful Swedish girl at the Laberinto maze said that I didn’t have much of a tan. “I haven’t been to the beach yet this year,” I replied. It’s not as if it’s far away. More or less just around the corner.

Well, I did go – yesterday. For about an hour. Old blogotees among you might recall my reminiscing about a previous career as a beach bum and about beach life as it once was. You can never take the beach out of the boy, but is the man who is tired of the beach, tired of life? No. Just gets restless. And it’s not holiday, after all.

Perhaps that’s it. Go to the beach, and there are loads of people on holiday. And you’re not. It seems like a bit of a fraud, something to be a bit guilty of. There again, the beach, as the heat really kicks in, as it now is, is the only place to be in the afternoons – for a while at any rate. But as a place to get some freshness. The beach becomes functional as opposed to romantic; it’s like having an air-conditioned room that you can take yourself off to when the atmosphere, only some metres inland, becomes stifling.  

Perhaps also it’s the case that familiarity breeds familiarity. The same old beach. I need to re-connect with the beach, re-discover the beach, which may well mean not going to the same beach. Yesterday was quite alarming. I recognised some who are there every year, some who I know. A German family, for example. It’s quite disconcerting to note the way that the children have grown. But they’re still the same, as they were last year, two years ago, the year before that.

That is almost certainly it. So many beaches and so little time to go to them. But like all the other attractions of Mallorca, the natural ones, that is, the tendency is to just slip into the familiar and the easy. And there is another impulse to break the familiarity trap. Not going to the beach is as much of a crime as going to it every day, all day. In my book, anyway. I had this awful feeling a couple of days ago. Summer’s been here for some time, and I’d not been to the beach. I got that line from the Style Council – “the long hot summer’s just passing me by”. That would never do. I’d thought so much about it, that I dreamt about it. October was here and the beach had gone.

No, you don’t spend your days on the beach, but to not go to the beach … Why be here?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Silly Season: British election and the new tourism season

There was a long article in yesterday’s “Diario” which was its introduction to the new season. I’ve linked it below. For many of you it will probably make no sense, but just a look at its length will indicate the significance of the start of the tourist season. Tourism is not only news in Mallorca, it is the inspiration for comment, letters, angst, anxiety, hopes. The prominence given to tourism in the local press is deserved. It is just a pity that it isn’t necessarily mirrored at governmental level. However, in one municipality, Calvia, the mayor, Carlos Delgado, has assumed responsibility for tourism. Calvia, remember, is the home to Magaluf, Santa Ponsa and other resorts. After Palma, it is the single most important tourism town in Mallorca; it might be argued that is more important than Palma.

While Delgado has taken on the tourism brief in an act of politicking – stripping the British-born Kate Mentink of the duty, given her support of his rival in the recent election for leader of the island’s Partido Popular (a contest that Delgado lost) – the grafting on of tourism to his mayoral role makes much sense. I have argued, on more than one occasion, that tourism should be firmly in the office of the regional government’s president. Delgado may have done something along these lines in Calvia for the wrong reasons, but he is still right to have done so.

Turning to the “Diario” article, there is stuff here about the prospects for “new” markets, most significantly the Russian one. To this end, you may (or may not) be interested to learn that there is now a Russian bar/restaurant in Puerto Alcúdia. It might be a tad more sophisticated than a cult Russian restaurant I used to frequent years ago in Kensington: no alcohol licence so you brought your own, and when you asked the waiter what “red sauce” was, the reply would come: “it’s red.”

Also buried within the article is a reflection on the British election. See, British politics spreads its tentacles far and wide. There is some optimism for a recovery of both the German and Spanish tourism markets this season, while there is also hope that a change of government in the UK – from Brown to Cameron – will result in a strengthening of the British market on the back of a further strengthening of the pound. This hope might be misplaced, while a hung parliament, so we keep being told (by the Tories if no one else), could be detrimental in terms of markets, the pound more than anything.

It’s hard to imagine there being much interest in the UK where an election run-off between Zapatero and Rajoy is concerned, but in Spain, British politics (and French and German) is followed keenly, and not only by some expatriates. It is curious to observe the election from a distance, but it is no less fascinating, even if it seems to matter less than it does to a disillusioned electorate in the UK. Oh, the memories of that glorious spring day of 1 May 1997 and the equally glorious 2 May when one had a skip in one’s step despite the hangover. What a shame that we were sold such a pup.

I know what I’ll be doing on Thursday night, hoping for a Portillo moment, a Goldsmith-Mellor moment, or something equally as delicious. Bye, bye, Gordy. Hello, Dave. Now, there’s a good name for a comedy channel.

The “Diario” article:
http://www.diariodemallorca.es/mallorca/2010/05/02/queda-inaugurado-verano–recuperacion-dicen/566700.html

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.