Necessity For Change: Tourism

Remarkable. Firstly, that I’ve got a good word for the Partido Popular; secondly, that it is displaying some uncommonly common sense. Where tourism is concerned, the PP have it over the other parties. They try not to obstruct where others do try. They make enemies along the way, and they are nowhere nearer striking a sensible balance between the needs of the established tourism industry (primarily the hotels) and those of the non-established, such as the holiday let business. But praise where praise is due.

A caveat. It was the hoteliers, in the form of the Mallorca hoteliers federation, that staged a conference entitled “Tourism, The Necessity For Change”. Change, where the hotels are concerned, is change that’s good for the hotels. Nevertheless, the outcomes of this conference are generally positive.

Amongst them is the likelihood that Meliá Hotels International will create a new “megacomplex” of four-star accommodation out of existing hotels (the Royal Beach, the Antillas Barbados and Mallorca Beach) and that this complex will be themed. The exact nature of this theming is not yet clear, but the wish to do so is one to be welcomed.

One hopes that the themes won’t be of the Flintstones variety; please God, anything but this. What one does hope is that it might be of a “theme” that Mallorca is crying out for, an all-year, all-weather complex; the theme would be akin to the Center Parcs concept. One fears that it might not be, in which case it would be a huge missed opportunity, but we will see.

Another outcome is that the tourism minister Carlos Delgado is minded to go ahead in permitting hotels to stage concerts. He could hardly say that he wouldn’t, having more or less single-handedly granted Mallorca Rocks its licences both as mayor of Calvia and now as tourism minister. He’s made his concert hotel bed, and now he has to lie in it; in different hotels. But good for him.

A further move, and one well heralded, is that the time when the tourism law is changed to enable condohotels seems to be drawing ever nearer. But one detects the first rumblings of division and self-interest amongst different hoteliers. There needs to a minimum size for apartments that can be converted to residential use (90 square metres), or there needs to be a stipulation that they are from existing three to four-star stock, or there needs to be provision to make sure that condos aren’t simply a “refuge for the obsolete”.

One would have thought that a refuge from the obsolete was a very good reason for allowing condos, always assuming investment were forthcoming to make them of sufficiently good standard. If the condo does go ahead, and it seems unlikely that it won’t, then this could be good news; residential apartments in hotels means that they won’t be all-inclusive.

The other side to this is that the condo idea, around for some years, is being exposed as blatantly self-serving when you take into account the fierce opposition of the hotels to the holiday-let sector. Forget all the other spin, this is the real reason for that opposition; one that allows the hotels to have the cake of conversion and of a lucrative residential tourism market and eat it, too, to the point of their gorging themselves.

And then there is something else. The PP government’s finance and business minister José Aguiló is flagging up an idea that is so sensible that is one that even ordinary Joe Soaps, who are neither members of governments nor anything in particular to do with the tourism industry, have thought up; and this is the idea of social-security breaks for businesses which lengthen the season, i.e. the likes of hotels which would stay open over winter.

The idea is such a no-brainer, one wonders why it has not been introduced and not even really discussed. One reason why it hasn’t is because of the debilitating culture endemic among many Spaniards and Mallorcans (and indeed other nationalities that have come to live in Mallorca) that you work for six months and then live off the state for the other six. It’s time for a cultural change and for an incentive for hotels to keep open, even on reduced staffs.

There is much to be positive about what the government has been saying these past few days. There is a “necessity for change”. The necessity has existed for years, but complacency, lack of will, lack of strategic thought have all prevented it. We might just have reached a stage when everyone finally understands the necessity and will actually do something about it.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

1 In A 184: Fun 4U

The concept of a “tourist day” is a rather peculiar one. Of a season that lasts from 1 May to 31 October, one day is for tourists. What about the other 183?

Alcúdia’s tourist-day celebrations have been held for a few years now. The pattern has become established. Like other celebrations, it has acquired a format which, by dint of its repetition each year, becomes a “tradition”. The tradition of the day means an evening of musical entertainment, a market-ette and a mini-disco that follows a morning of fun and frolics for all the family on the beach. All the family that’s still around in September, that is; a few German or Scandinavian stragglers plus Brits whose kids have bunked off the first week of the new term.

The reasons for holding the day in September are that it isn’t quite as hot (a moot point) and that there were it to be held in, say, August, things would be too crowded. With tourists, that is. The last thing you want to do is to hold a tourist-day event with loads of tourists cluttering the place up.

This tourist day of football, food and fabulous Robbie Williams mirrors to an extent the tourist experience. But only to an extent. Missing from its schedule of events are the squabbles over the sun loungers, the getting lagered-up, the projectile vomiting and the all-comers’ balcony-diving contest. There are perhaps certain aspects of holidays that are, however, best left uncelebrated and certainly not sanctioned by a responsible town hall. Which is what Alcúdia is. It does tourism rather well. The tourist day may be just one day in the long season, but it’s better than nothing.

The hug-in of tourists has a positive benefit in that it brings those closeted away in all-inclusives out for the day. Oh, look, there’s a beach! Who’d have thought? However, going by a Facebook comment regarding the beach events, the all-inclusive mentality would appear to demand that little trips out are accompanied by the services being left behind in the hotel.

It was suggested that a certain all-inclusive, well-represented by beach footy teams, should have made provision for a free bar. So, Mister First Choice, he who believes that little trips out will benefit local businesses, think again. You can lead an all-inclusive tourist to the water of a beach, but you can’t make him drink something that he has to pay for out of his own pocket.

Inevitably, an occasion such as the tourist day doesn’t come entirely without a commercial element. Consequently, there was some “marketing” going on. I say this, but I only became aware of one bit of marketing when I looked later at some photos. There they were, some signs for Alcúdia’s estación náutica, the brand title the resort has been lumbered with and which no one understands. I had, however, completely missed the signs despite having been standing right next to them. Another triumph of branding and marketing, therefore.

Then there was the keep-fit dance routine staged by a certain hotel chain. This all seemed reasonable enough until I realised what I was listening to – the hotel song. This was a happy-happy, clappy dance-along of image and word association neurolinguistic programming. Arrange touchstone words such as celebrate, free, good time into no particular order, and bingo, you’ve got yourself some on-beach, tourist-day advertising.

Alcúdia’s tourist day isn’t the only such day that is held in Mallorca. The Palmanova and Magalluf hoteliers put one on as well: “special events to pay tribute to the tourists staying in the area”. A tribute to those staying in the area at the end of September, that is. Even later than Alcúdia’s, there is, however, a possibly wider context to this occasion. 27 September each year is the United Nations World Tourism Day. Mercifully, Magalluf doesn’t look to follow the UN’s example when it comes to its programme. This year, for example, you could enjoy “tourism linking cultures” (to be held in Egypt). Last year’s, in China, sounded a real barrel of laughs – “tourism and biodiversity”; just the sort of topic that would go down a storm in the bars of Punta Ballena.

No, forget the World Tourism Day, and stick to the tourist days of Alcúdia and Magalluf. As the legend on Alcúdia’s tourist day T-shirt says – “Fun 4U” (a T-shirt I am wearing with pride as I write this). And fun it is, if not necessarily for all the family. But hats off nevertheless. Just a shame it’s only one day.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Join Our Club: Youth tourism market

Lloret de Mar is a Spanish resort synonymous with the growth of mass and packaged tourism. It occupies a place in tourism history alongside Torremolinos, Benidorm and Arenal (Playa de Palma) as being where it all really took off. In the late sixties, when my family swapped Hastings and Bournemouth for the newly exotic and cheap Spanish resorts, it was Arenal and Lloret that, probably through the pages of a Clarkson brochure, offered promises of a holiday experience alien to that of the south-coast end-of-the-pier variety.

Lloret has never shaken off its image. Try as it might have done, and like other resorts in Spain and Mallorca, it is still considered to be essentially naff. What it has also acquired is an image for trouble, one that it shares with resorts such as Magalluf.

This summer there has been disquiet among hoteliers, businesses and town hall representatives regarding the portrayal of Magalluf on Spanish national television channels, and specifically what goes on along the “strip”. The head of the tourist businesses association Acotur has voiced his concern that Magalluf has been depicted as a lawless town.

Magalluf has had its share of trouble this summer; even a US marine managed to get himself hauled in following a fight. It has not been alone. In Arenal a bunch of German skinheads engaged in a spot of what was quite clearly racially motivated bother.

But the trouble in both resorts has been nothing compared with that in Lloret.

Earlier this month there was a battle involving some 400 tourists, French and Italian. A couple of nights later there were further incidents and twenty arrests, none of them, by the way, of British people.

The indignation felt by businesses in Lloret has led them to go further than those in Magalluf. The federation representing businesses offering recreational musical activities (which, one assumes, partly or totally means clubs) is considering asking a judge to look at whether tour operator publicity has in some way contributed to the incidents. The federation considers that this publicity, and also that of “intermediary agencies”, has branded Lloret as a destination for drunken tourism.

It is not clear which tour operators or intermediary agencies the federation has in mind, as it is also not clear what charge might actually be levelled against them, but if it is the case that tour operators have in some way contributed, then what does this say about their responsibilities?

If you are going to pitch a resort to a youthful market, you are unlikely to portray it as tranquil and sedate. Which doesn’t mean to say you have to describe it as somewhere you can go out, get off your face and have a good old bundle.

The tour operators do, when it comes to the youth tourism market, tread a fine line. It would be a strange tour operator indeed who didn’t know what the priorities for a goodly part of this market would be, and these don’t include “doses of local culture and scenery that gives you that serene feeling”. Don’t take my word for it, as these are the words of First Choice on its 2wentys holidays to Magalluf page: “not that we’re really interested in that side of things”.

Further down the page is a list of what things cost. Four items. A full English but otherwise a pint of beer, spirit and mixer and a bottle of wine. The 2wentys section on the website is headed with the advice to “join 2wentys for some serious party antics, with bar crawls, booze cruises and more …”. No suggestions of any drinking there then. And none at all on its Facebook page; apologies, Magalluf, but Gumbet in Turkey is apparently the place to get totally off of it this summer.

But what does anyone expect? What indeed do the good people of Lloret expect? They might not expect pitched battles with 400 tourists, but if your resort has a clubbing and youthful reputation, then I’m sorry but you are going to get people who like the odd cold drink or a hundred.

Ever since Club 18-30 first burst on the scene – its initial destination in its old, very much less raucous Horizon days was in fact Lloret – there have been “issues” surrounding the youthful, clubbing market. Yes, the tour operators do have to assume some responsibility, but they have also been responsible for a growth in resort supply, such as the clubs. In Lloret, to which neither 2wentys nor Thomas Cook’s Club 18-30 go, why exactly is there a federation representing clubs? Who are these clubs for? Senior citizens?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

I Know My Place: Magalluf

It was some time since I had been to Magalluf. Coming in along the coast from Palmanova, was to realise that it still has the power to, depending upon your perspective, inspire and overwhelm because of the towers of hotels and the claustrophobic tight roads with bars that seem to topple from the pavements, or to horrify, for much the same reasons.

Depends upon your perspective. This about sums it up. How you look upon Magalluf, how you look upon other resorts. The first time I went to Magalluf, I thought the place was mad, a modern bedlam that made no sense. The most powerful initial image I had was turning a corner and seeing Benny Hill in front of me. You still expect Fred Scuttle to appear at the doors, offering a salute and wearing a lascivious grin as scantily-clad 18 to 30-ers (the female variety) hare towards the beach in speeded-up motion. Like the rest of Magalluf, Benny Hill, if only by name, is completely and compulsively crackers.

But of course, Magalluf makes perfect sense. As with other resorts, its sense is one of being fit for purpose, this purpose being the one it has chosen for itself. It knows its place in the order of things. Yet, it is this order which deals it a death by a thousand cuts and criticisms, many of them delivered by those who barely know the place or who don’t know it all, and occasionally by what is unfortunately highlighted by the media.

Who among you remembers the sketch on “The Frost Report”? The one with John Cleese and the two Ronnies. “I look down on him.” “I look up to him.” “I know my place.” If Mallorca’s resorts were comedians from a 60s’ review show, then somewhere like Puerto Pollensa would be Cleese. Magalluf would be Ronnie Corbett. Alcúdia would probably be Ronnie Barker, essentially lower middle-class but with aspirations towards something greater.

But even this metaphor is inaccurate. It makes an assumption not only about the resorts but also about the people who go to them or indeed live in them. Just because you’re Ronnie Corbett and are endlessly saying “Sorry” doesn’t mean you are barred from Puerto Pollensa. A cat can look at a queen and all that. But there are plenty of cats knocking around the bins of Pollensa, and rather more queens in Magalluf. Probably. So, that’s another metaphor that doesn’t really work.

A metaphor, or more a simile really, is that Magalluf is like Blackpool. Unfortunately, for the ones who would make this comparison, so too is Alcúdia. Or at least, this is how the criticism goes. It is one of a kind of collective presumption of prejudice, a conspiratorial knowingness of condemnation. Oh well, we all know what Magalluf is like, when of course we don’t. We think we do, and it is Blackpool.

For all the Blackpool shorthand, strangely enough, neither Magalluf nor Alcúdia is like Blackpool. And what, pray, is meant to be wrong with Blackpool anyway? No, Magalluf is like Magalluf, even if Alcúdia is sometimes reckoned to be like Magalluf, but never the other way round. You see, that Ronnie Barker place in the scheme of things is not so completely inaccurate.

Recent events in Magalluf merely conspire to confirm what is believed. But stuff happens. What conclusions do we, for example, draw about Pollensa from the fact that an octogenarian allegedly deliberately drove over his wife or that another eighty-year-old, a female, was attacked in her home? I’m not sure that we draw any. With Magalluf, though, it’s a different matter.

The resorts of Mallorca are highly diverse. Their differences add to an overall diversity on the island, of landscapes, towns and of people. But one feels there is a desire to somehow standardise Mallorca and to do so along some idealistic lines. Where does Magalluf feature, for instance, in a coffee-table-style advertising for Mallorca? It doesn’t. And it doesn’t for the very good reason that it doesn’t conform to an image. Yet, by neglecting it, a major aspect of the island’s diversity, and its tourism, is shunted into the background, shunned even. It is a neglect that says to Magalluf, and it is not alone, that you should know your place.

Well, it does know its place. It’s there on the coast in Calvia, resplendent in its hotelmania, gloriously bar crazy. It may be nuts, but all power to it for being so.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Think For A Minute: Getting killed in Mallorca

Of course, you never quite know what really happened, but you can imagine. It only takes a minute. Far less in fact. A second? A little more?

When Ross McWhirter was shot by the IRA, a fellow contributor to a university magazine penned an ode to the co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records. “The time of death, an expert doctor reckons, was little more than one and one half seconds … Remember, you’re the record holder for being the quickest dead.” He wasn’t, because he died later in hospital, but it can be as little as one and a half seconds.

It all happened in seconds in Magalluf. It all happened very quickly, said witnesses. It doesn’t take long. It wouldn’t have taken long for the cyclist on the road between Inca and Manacor to have collided with a lorry and been killed on Monday morning, as it wouldn’t have taken long for the cyclist in Can Picafort last year to have lost his life, or as it wouldn’t have taken long for the two Thomson reps to have died when they were knocked down in Puerto Alcúdia a few years ago.

The little floral tributes to the reps will reappear in a few days time, as they reappear each year. They last a few days, longer than the less than a minute that it took. It can take longer, as with Gabriel Marquet who was in a coma for several days after being attacked in Puerto Alcúdia in 2009. It wouldn’t have taken long, though, for the blow to have been delivered that was to prove fatal. But bear this in mind, and think for a minute; Marquet was not British, and nor was his attacker, while the background to Marquet’s death was the street-drinking botellón.

Think for a minute, or a moment, before acting and hopefully you won’t have acted. Assuming you can think and you are not desensitized and insensible through drink. That’s where the blame will lie, of course. Groups of lads and the not-so lads on the lash in Maga. What can you expect? There’s one thing you would hope not to expect, and that’s bleeding to death in a street.

It’s bad for the image of Calvia, complains the tourist business association. It’s an awful lot worse for the one who is no longer with us, and for his family. Think for a minute before uttering the insensitive. Perhaps like some who put comments to the news stories should think for a minute. Who is the image really bad for? Calvia or Britain? The commentators on the news story in “Ultima Hora” say that the “English tourists who come to Magalluf are the low class of the country”, “the English tourism is the most ‘unpresentable’ that there is in England”, “the British in Magalluf are basically those which are unemployed”, “the good English of the 70s no longer want to come to Mallorca”, “the hoteliers and politicians should reflect on whether these tourists are what we want in the Balearics”.

There are probably Britons who think the same and who also rush to let the world know their thoughts, without really knowing or without stopping to think. From one horrific incident, whole conclusions are swiftly drawn in the time it takes for the brain to formulate them. Seconds. And they are sticks or broken bottles with which to beat and stab Magalluf and a sector of British society, whichever that might be, because you don’t know. And nor does it really matter. All that does is that someone is dead.

Think for a minute or for less. Think about that cyclist. Had a moment’s thought been taken, he might be alive. You don’t know for sure, but he might. You’re in a hurry of course. You are impatient. There’s a cyclist in the way. It takes considerably less than a minute. But why does it matter, if it takes a minute rather than thirty seconds to make that bit of road? Because it doesn’t matter. It does matter to a body dead on the road and to you if you are the one who has put the body there. How long does it take? Seconds. Life changes and ends. Bang. Gone.

They’ve calculated how much longer it will take taxi drivers to make certain journeys because of the reduction in motorway speed. A minute here, and a minute there. What do they matter? They don’t.

What do you think when there is a cyclist in the way or a car that is moving too slowly for your liking? He’s taking the piss, he’s annoying me, angering me, I’ll show him. Is that how the thinking goes, with or without the aid of drink? Yes, it is. And without really thinking, it takes only seconds.

One person, left in a pool of blood on a Magalluf street, can no longer think. Another person can and will. For a long time. He will think how life changes and ends. In seconds.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Between A Dog And A Hard Place: TV and film in Mallorca

June 1969. Some of you will be old enough to wish you couldn’t remember. But you may well do. It was 7 June to be precise. The day when Blind Faith first took to a stage.

Blind Faith were, from the word go, a deeply unsatisfying creation of rock super-groupism. From a healthily organic lineage of The Yardbirds, Cream, the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic and Family emerged the manufacturing of something cynical. So unsatisfying were they, that they fell apart within a year.

Throwing together talents, well-known ones, can bring success. But it can be success achieved, you fear, with an eye merely on the box office or the ratings and without an essential soul. So it is with “Mad Dogs”, a Blind Faith of the marrying of names without the substance of the slog of a rock band of old or a TV series that either grows from nowhere or is built on a repertory group in which even relatively star names are subordinate to the ethos of the TV show itself.

“Mad Dogs”, not, it must be said, without merit, is nevertheless, and notwithstanding some of its content, safe, middle-of-the-road, middle-class, focus group-shaped telly. The safety of its roster of stars makes it a “Daily Mail” of broadcast exploitation, though don’t say this too loudly to Rupert Murdoch. Its exploitation goes beyond that of an indulgent audience, seeking clues as to Mallorcan sites and scenes; it is one that comes also from Mallorca’s tourism officialdom who hope for some star dust to rub off, having helped with its funding, despite its not being a travel promo.

Contrast the build-up and the fawning media space granted to “Mad Dogs” with the news of the filming of “The Inbetweeners”. The movie version of the comedy series will involve a month of shooting around Magalluf and in particular along Maga’s “strip”. It is barely getting a mention.

Yet here is a series which has enjoyed the success that comes from organic development and which is also bollock-breakingly funny. A difference with “Mad Dogs” lies with the fact that the show is not star-based. The actors may have achieved some stardom, but the strength of the series resides in the sum of its parts and the symbiosis between the members, a lesson which Blind Faith ignored.

There are further differences. The show isn’t safe. Its characters, such as Will who would like to be “hard” but who spends much of the time tackling issues to do with his tackle getting hard, are embarrassing, cringe-worthy and awkward, much like teenagers are meant to be, despite all the actors being far too old for their roles. It is also to be filmed, not in brochure-beautiful, coffee-table locations around Pollensa, but among the down-and-dirty, lager-glass-ringed bar tops of Maga. The contrasting images and the contrasting image of tourism that the locations present are between the Crufts-coiffeuring landscapes of a “Mad Dogs” and the rock-hard place that is the intoxicated full-on-ness of Magalluf.

The excellent shagalluf.com has made the point that it should be worth being in Maga for the filming, but its is pretty much a lone voice in highlighting a reason to visit in what is of course the off-season. And you have to wonder why. The reason, you feel, is snobbery and condescension being shown to the resort and also, by comparison with “Mad Dogs”, to “The Inbetweeners”.

Locations and filming do have the power to attract tourists, either at the time of shooting or as a consequence of broadcast. The experiences of both “Passport To The Sun” and “Sun Sea and A&E” prove that visitors will either come simply because of programmes or to seek out locations and indeed individuals featured in shows. But both these documentary-style programmes were explicit in terms of what and where they were portraying. “Mad Dogs” isn’t. Nor will be “The Inbetweeners”, as the film’s setting is Crete, as is some other filming.

One series that has been explicit is “Benidorm”. It couldn’t be anything other than explicit, given its title. In between “Mad Dogs” and “The Inbetweeners” in terms of having some recognisable but not necessarily star names (in its earliest days at any rate), one of its great achievements has been to simultaneously poke fun at but also be affectionate towards its location and its typical clientele. Far from turning people off, it has made them want to visit and, moreover, to visit in order to coincide with off-season filming.

The repertory, ensemble nature of “Benidorm”, one that has prevented it being simply a vehicle for its better-known actors, adds to a sense of viewer empathy. Not all of its characters might be said to be typical holidaymakers, but, in Benidorm terms, the Garvey family members who bind the show are.

The shame, for Mallorca perhaps, is that the show’s creator, Derren Litten, chose Benny and not Maga. Had he opted for the latter, though, you wonder as to how well received the proposition would have been. Benidorm seems to be unabashed in revealing itself for what it is. Mallorca, on the other hand, has dual personalities, one of which it prefers to try and pretend doesn’t exist, and which results, therefore, in promoting the safe artificiality of the star system “Mad Dogs” over the unsafe, true-to-life, unknowns of “The Inbetweeners”.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Pros And Cons: Whoring in Magalluf

Pros and cons. Not many for, plenty against. Pros and cons. Prostitutes and to-be or ex-convicts, about to be again. Magalluf is suffering an invasion of bodysnatchers and snatches; the snatch snatches the body of a pink pot-bellied pig of a tourist, lagered and vodka-ed up, egged on by a whip-round of scrunched-up notes from his braying companions. The con pockets the cash; the wretched whore, dragged out of a slum in Senegal, has to mop up more than just the vomit. There’s a further snatch, too – the wallet.

Magalluf. Shagalluf. It’s always been a place for tarting. Paid or unpaid. The streetwalking of the resort has, though, become street running and hassling. The tarts are terrorising tourists, so it is said. Residents have had enough. They’ve begun attacking cars “associated” with the prostitutes.

The mayor of Calvia (Magalluf is a part of Calvia, in case you didn’t know) is being criticised for being on holiday at this time of moral crisis. What’s he going to do? Open a mission for fallen women? The police have been doing their best, but there’s only so much they can do. Like the lookies, detain a prostitute and try and fine her, and see where that gets you. She won’t be able to pay and there’ll always be another one to offer business.

The prostitution problem is, apparently, causing tourists to “boycott” Magalluf. Are they really? According to “The Bulletin”, they are. “British families are staying clear.” It may not have meant to have done so, but in reporting that this so-called boycott is “fuelling a rise in demand for package holidays in the north east of the island”, there was a sense of its being pissed off that elsewhere on the island might derive some benefit from the presence of slappers on the Maga strip. The north east, let’s call it Alcúdia shall we, gains, while the paper’s southern heartland of interest suffers. The paper’s lamentable insouciance where matters others than the incestuousness of what we should really call its home market is exposed yet again. Would there be the same level of reporting or indeed concern, were the reverse to be the case?

If demand for holidays in the north has indeed increased because of Maga’s whoring, then it should be encouraged. But let’s not indulge in this schadenfreude for too long. Magalluf was successful in getting rid of the timeshare scratch-cardists, and they shifted their attentions to the north, resorting – at times – to an aggressive form of hassling employed by the prostitutes. There is little to choose between them. The scratch-cardists may ultimately mug you of thousands if you happen to get sucked in, but that’s your decision; you’re a willing if unwitting victim of pickpocketing. It’s not quite the same with the prostitutes: they aren’t all on the game, they’re just gangs of muggers. It doesn’t matter if you have your trousers down; they’ll lift regardless. “The Bulletin” wants plod to run the whores out of town. Good for it, but rid the Magalluf streets of prostitutes, and they’ll find somewhere else to go.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.