Going To A Go-Go

Any scam will do. Any way of extracting some moolah. The Unió Mallorquina in Santa Margalida, reports “The Diario”, has denounced what it says is an illegal excursion that takes tourists in Can Picafort to two discos in Cala Rajada for the princely sum of 50 euros a pop. Those who are mad enough to fork this out (there are, after all, perfectly decent discos in Can Picafort and Puerto Alcúdia) get no receipts or guarantees from an operation that changes its departure point and coach company, meaning that it is difficult to track down. The whole thing smacks of a scam. There has been something similar cracking off in Puerto Alcúdia, involving transport to Magalluf, which may be legit but seems to rely on “ticketeros” doing the beaches and selling the trips, which almost certainly isn’t.

 

 

Meantime, the Palma bombs continue to be a talking-point and a fantasy-point. There was meant to have been a bomb in Puerto Alcúdia the day before yesterday, but of course there wasn’t. Understandable though it is that people start seeing bombs where none exist, there is also a fantasy element on behalf of those who want there to be bombs. It’s a curious psychology, but one predicated on the fact that some see themselves somehow as police or potential heroes, imagining the reports in the press of how they saved etc, etc. It is a psychology also that actually wants the unusual. Any bag has a bomb, anyone getting up from a table, even for a moment, and leaving a carrier-bag is a bomber. Of course they are. Bombers do usually just walk in to a bar, order a beer and then ask if they can leave a bomb behind. And here it is: a black ball with two wires sticking out and bomb written on it in big white letters. 

 

“The Bulletin”, bless ’em, had its four or five pages of reporting and tourist vox-pop. The bombs are a godsend, at least it’s news for once rather than front pages devoted to Top Gear or to Michael Douglas. You would hardly expect them to not devote a fair amount of space to them. But this just adds a certain tension and a sense of unreality and of disproportion. No-one was hurt, the devices themselves were not powerful, warnings were issued, even if one relating to the Italian restaurant in Portixol was misinterpreted as the voice was disguised. The bomb there did go off with people still in the restaurant. That wasn’t the intention. Reporting may just fuel the publicity that it is the intention, but to be fair the media would be damned if it didn’t as much as it is damned for doing so.   

 

The police seem nowhere nearer to having a definitive idea as to time frames. The bomb in the Plaça Major in Palma may have been planted on the Saturday or even the Sunday morning; the security cameras seem not to have been working. But there is a counter-theory that all four bombs, and the fourth has now been confirmed, were left some time in advance before perhaps the Palmanova ones. Though given that there is no definitive statement as to when they (the Palmanova ones) were planted, one doesn’t really know. 

 

A poll conducted by Euronews reveals that 32% would change their plans to visit Mallorca following the bombs. No they won’t.

Mr. Boombastic

How do you suppose you get the gig as the travel editor of “The Sun”? Rock up at the interview with a CV that says you once went on an away-day from London to Brighton or a hen weekend to Riga? “You’ll do.” 

 

I suspect there’s more to it than that, but you do wonder. Perhaps the travel editor was disturbed from a long Sunday lunch with a desperate demand for a hundred words about the Palma bombs. “Anything’ll do.” 

 

What we got was that the bombs could spell the end of tourism in Spain and that tourists will avoid Mallorca. Just read that again – the end of tourism in Spain. And this comes from the travel editor? Had it been some dolt on a forum somewhere, you might have understood it (well even then you wouldn’t have), but a travel editor? The press may be taken to task for being irresponsible, not least in its reporting of the bomb incidents in Mallorca, but there is a big difference between irresponsibility and complete, undiluted garbage. There will be no end of tourism in Spain, tourists will not avoid Mallorca. The incidents have been small beer set against the bottles of 70 plus per cent proof spirits that went up in the likes of Egypt and Turkey. Has tourism in these places come to an end? I ask again, this comes from the travel editor? 

 

One has also to consider that the bombs were in Palma, two in the Portixol area. Had they been in, say, Magalluf or Alcúdia, one could understand a greater level of hysteria. But they weren’t. Portixol is something of a place of new chic; it was being bigged up in “The Sunday Times” (travel section) a couple of weeks ago, but it is not a significant tourist destination in the same way as Magalluf is.

 

 

Still on the press and indeed the News International stable, I have had occasion to mention Michael Winner in the past. He is an absolute favourite, a deliciously acerbic, bombastic and cantankerous critic who really doesn’t give a damn. He should be a national treasure. Maybe he is. Well, he’s been back in Mallorca, spurning the offer of being a house guest at Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s pile in Deià in favour of a stint at La Residencia, the hotel that used to be owned by Richard Branson. (Incidentally, I had a dream the other night in which Virgin, in Spain, had been re-branded as “Branson”; curious what one dreams about, but I digress.) Winner was in full vitriolic-pen mode. “Most sloppy management ever.” A bellboy who doubled as a chauffeur who was “incompetent”. A broken sun lounger. A water menu that was not shown to guests and which failed to feature Evian. Anyway, I daresay you can read all this on the “Times” website. Not for much longer for nothing though, if the Murdochs go down the subscription route. Fair enough, and given that five euros a pop for a slimmed-down edition of “The Sunday Times” in Spain is exorbitant, it may well work out advantageously, albeit that it will not be as advantageous as free.