Swine Flu / In A City That Never Sleeps

The swine flu situation in Mallorca is gathering some momentum. The first death attributed to “Gripe A H1N1” was recorded last week on the island, though the number of cases remains relatively low. There is a belief that, because of the degree of mobility in Mallorca, the likelihood is that it will register more cases than some other parts of Spain. Perhaps. There are plenty of regions, however, that have high levels of mobility – the major cities and of course all the tourism centres. A British tourist from Birmingham is in hospital on the island and apparently responding well.

 

The reports that started coming out of Germany last week, led by “Bild”, have insinuated that Mallorca is something of a hotspot for the virus. This is overstating the case, but the actions of the police (national and local in the case of Calvia) in taking to wearing masks have not exactly lessened a certain sense of unease. It is being left to individual officers’ discretion as to whether they don the masks or not. But if there are police roaming around with masks on, the rest of the population is quite likely to ask, then why not us. The health department thinks they are unnecessary. Nevertheless, well over 200,000 masks are being made available in the Balearics. The Partido Popular opposition in the Balearics has accused the health minister of having contributed to a “general alarm”. Meanwhile, the ministry says that there is a reserve of more than ten million antiviral treatments – in Spain. 

 

Of course there is alarm, but much of it, as in the UK, is overblown. The effects of the flu virus are not necessarily that harmful, but all that Mallorca needs right now is a dose not just of swine flu but also bad publicity. And images of police officers wearing masks do not exactly inspire confidence, even if there is sense that the police, and especially the police, take what precautions they can. But the same applies to other sectors. They may as well issue masks to everyone.

 

The regional government has issued its own advice to citizens. Its information provision is not that brilliant. Go to the website – http://www.caib.es – and you will see there is an announcement to click on. Try the Castellano or English pages, and what do you get? The same default information – in Catalan. Only the menu to the side of the page changes language. How useless is this? Well, one of the pieces of advice is that the transmission of the virus is the same as for any other strain, hand contamination being one means. Given the amount of handshaking that goes on in local society, one measure might be to give that a rest for the time being. 

 

Oh, and there’s one other thing health-wise. Temperatures are hitting 40 degrees in parts. Stay home, stay out of the sun, keep cool, and you probably won’t get heatstroke or swine flu.

 

Patrona 2009

There must, you imagine, be a point in the early morning of the second of August when DJ Enigma or Pako passes by a group of worthy pollencin ancients who look aghast at the ponytail and eyebrow piercing and who are weary from the noise of a night of endless partying in three whole squares of the old town, but determined to be there at five am for the traditional alborada. Fiestas are all about the old meeting the new, but not necessarily in the streets as one lot gets up and the other makes its way to bed. Except, that is, in Pollensa. Why anyone feels the need to get up for a tradition that was invented at the end of the nineteenth century in order to herald the final day of the fiesta week is lost on me. They could just as easily, you would think, pack it all in to thirty minutes at some sensible hour, like ten o’clock; time enough for a decent snooze and a lump of lard and sugar together with a stiff hierba for breakfast. But not with Patrona. 

 

The locals have to suffer for their fiesta art, and that may well mean not having had any sleep ahead of a day that features make-believe Christians and Moors rampaging through the streets and a bloody great fireworks do at midnight. It might not be so bad, but the night before there was another grand party – the marxa fresca – that techno-ed across the Plaça Major. Actually, techno may not be accurate. There is a youtube of last year’s marxa and that’s got Madness playing. So much for traditional Catalan house or whatever the flavour of the dance world is these days. At least on the night of the Wednesday, the provocatively entitled “Decibels Pollença 2009” is confined to the footy pitch. No sound limiters there, one supposes. God forbid that an unsuspecting tourist booked his family of toddlers into the Hotel Juma on the Plaça Major in anticipation of a quiet few days of cultural tourism at the end of July and start of August. He’d get culture alright, Pants Breakers on the stage in the square and DJ Full-Attack larging it within easy sleep-shattering distance in the Monnares plaza. 

 

Pollensa town hall, strapped for cash as it has been for several years now so much so that it is running a regular deficit in the region of a million of your European Euros, was meant to have been cutting its fiesta budget this year. Not that you would think that were you to take a look at the schedule for Patrona. It’s like a mini-Glastonbury, replete with sound, Quakerist, saving-the-world enviro children’s parties and benefits for Rwanda and the like. All that’s missing is the mud, which is a shame as it would allow the Batley Townswomen’s Guild to re-enact the Moors and Christians. 

 

The simulation, Pythonesque or otherwise, is – in its billing – something of a curiosity, given that the Moors were anything but Moors. They were Turks, intent on turning the inns of Pollensa into kebab restaurants, but Moors is how we must call them. The term “moro” is one commonly used in the local languages; indeed Patrona features a comedy (ho-ho) called “No Hi Hara Moros A La Costa” which translates, more or less, as the coast is clear, i.e. there are no Moors on the coast. It will be one of the events that attracts rather fewer tourists than others, one would guess. Another more obscure feature of this year’s Patrona is a “return to the sixteenth century” with music and entertainment of the period. 1550 was the year that the so-called Moors attempted their invasion. At Patrona they’re making music to repel Moors by. They’re making rather more music than that – 14 DJs, 20 groups of different sorts, plus some Mallorcan traditional music and that stuff from the 1500s. 

 

Patrona – the fiesta of the sleepless.

 

Information on Patrona 2009 is on the WHAT’S ON BLOG – http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com.

Firestarter

A second fire at Bellevue. Following the incident earlier this month in the Minerva 1 block, there was another, this time in Minerva 2. The fire originated in a lift shaft. Word is that the first fire also originated in a lift and not the laundry-room. Seems a bit of a coincidence. Whatever the situation regarding the alarms, one cannot help but be a little sympathetic. Bellevue gets it in the neck for all sorts of reasons, but if it has a problem with some deliberate fire-starting then that’s not its fault. Of course, they may not have been deliberate. But the circumstances seem too similar for the conclusion not to be drawn.

It should be stressed that, notwithstanding some distressing reports left on internet sites following the first fire, there have not been serious casualties as a result of either fire. But what if there had been? Or worse. God knows what impact that would have had on Alcúdia, to say nothing of the effects on the hotel and its directors. The tour operators might have been unnerved as well.

Without going into the circumstances of the incidents, and saying again that there should be sympathy for the hotel, what they do is once again to highlight the significance of Bellevue. The hotel is vast. Its vastness is what leads to so much comment on the internet – good and bad. It is also, for a not insignificant number of tourists, synonymous with Alcúdia. Rightly or wrongly (and it is wrong), that is the reality, and you can read it for yourselves if you are minded to trawl through all those sites – which I have. It is for this reason that the hotel needs to be far more aware of its PR and of its obligations to the town. Does anyone there take any notice of those sites? And if so, what do they do about it?

Catalan music festival
There is to be another Catalan festival. This one will take place on Saturday in Pollensa. It is the tenth “Trobada de Músics per la Llengua” (meeting of musicians for the language). The event takes its name from an organisation devoted to the promotion and recognition of music in the Catalan language and artists – DJs, bands etc. – who perform in the language. Unlike the “Acampallengua” event in Sa Pobla, about which it was possible to express some disquiet as to the political overtones of a Catalan festival aimed largely at a youth audience, there should be no such concern with this. Quite the contrary, except among those who are determined to oppose manifestations of Catalan promotion. This is about music in a certain language in the same way that Scottish, Irish and Welsh artists perform in their own languages. Does anyone seriously suggest that they shouldn’t? Probably.

(More information on the “Trobada de Músics per la Llengua” is on the WHAT’S ON BLOG – http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com.)

Playa de Muro’s market
The market in Playa de Muro is now taking place on Mondays in the late afternoons and evenings. Hats off for some common sense. When the market was shifted from a Saturday, it was in the hope of generating more traffic, given that Saturday is a big transfer day. It was always going to be a forlorn hope. By definition, Playa de Muro exists because of its beach, and that is where most tourists go, rather than to a market that, in any event, lacks a certain something because of its unauthentic nature, in other words it is not staged in an old town or a market square such as Puerto Pollensa’s. Despite its lack of atmosphere, the move to the evenings is positive. It will be more likely to get tourists out of their all-inclusive bunkers and hopefully generate more business not just for the market traders but also for the shops and restaurants. Yep, good.

(For a previous piece on Playa de Muro’s market, see 21 August 2008: Things That Make You Go Hmm …)