Any Old Iron: The triathlon

“You look neat. Talk about a treat. You look so dapper from your napper to your feet.”

The words of Harry Champion’s music hall song, “Any Old Iron”. There will be any old number of athletes looking neat, from their nappers to their feet, in their helmets, vests, speedos, shorts and shoes when three thousand of them take to the waters and streets of Alcúdia and other parts of northern Majorca in just over a week’s time. The first Ironman 70.3 triathlon will be staged on 14 May.

Three thousand participants, 1500 helpers, 20,000 visitors. Of these, perhaps only the first will be accurate. They are having trouble attracting helpers, and as for the visitors. Well, possibly. But if there are 20,000, where will they come from? Day-trippers from elsewhere on the island, one imagines. Assuming they can get anywhere near the place.

The triathlon will last from eight in the morning till five in the evening. The professionals will not need anything like this length of time, but some will. As a result, for much of the day the town and resort of Alcúdia will be in virtual lockdown. The main roads will be closed, as will be the back streets of residential areas. Very little will be able to move unless it has two feet or a bike and looks dapper in its any old Ironman attire.

For a week leading up to the event, one part of the main carretera into the port of Alcúdia will also be shut. They need to prepare, in order to house the athletes and their bikes, in order to put up temporary structures, such as showers. Getting around Alcúdia in the lead-up to the day and on the day itself is going to be difficult, which is putting it mildly. And on the day, with so many roads closed, how are these visitors meant to make their way in?

The Ironman is a huge boost for Alcúdia, not necessarily because of tourists coming to watch the event itself, as these, in any number, would seem unlikely, but more because it puts the resort on the map of sports tourism, an ambition the town, together with adjoining resorts on the bay of Alcúdia, has harboured for some time. In terms of publicity alone, it is a thoroughly worthwhile event.

The downside of it is the level of disruption and inconvenience. But does this matter? It’s only one day, after all, unless you include that bit of the main road that is affected for several days.

In the scale of sporting events that require some streets, the Ironman is a drop in the bay of Alcúdia. It is hardly a London Marathon or a Monaco Grand Prix. But complaints there will be and complaints there are.

In strictly productive terms, any disruption to road systems is negative. When you have a town to all intents and purposes shut for a whole day, even if it is a Saturday, then there is a loss of productivity. Whether gains will be made from those visitors who do manage to break through the cordons and which compensate for any losses, real or imagined, we will find out. But the moaning is less rational than this. It is just a case of being put out.

The Ironman is not the only sporting event to disrupt local traffic. Two cycling races in the space of three weeks caused roads to be closed. But not for long. The delays were perhaps half an hour at most. An inconvenience, yes, but unless it’s a matter of life or death (and there is admittedly an issue with this), it should be tolerable in the wider scheme of things.

Alcúdia, Playa de Muro and other resorts want the type of sports tourism that Ironman brings. If they want it, then there has to be an acceptance that there will be some disruption. You can’t have it both ways.

The key issue, though, is whether such tourism does in fact translate into more business for local bars and restaurants in addition to hotels which will accommodate athletes. And there will be plenty who will say that it doesn’t. For the longer term, however, the first Ironman could be the start of future opportunities that will be real enough. Then they might be talking about a treat.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Time Of Day: Working hours and productivity

Did you know that there is a national commission in Spain dedicated to the rationalisation of timetables (Comisión Nacional para la Racionalización de los Horarios Españoles)? Well, you do now.

The title is a bit misleading. This commission isn’t concerned with the “horarios” of buses or trains but with working hours. It wants, among other things, to bring the Spanish working day into line with most of Europe. In other words, the siesta would go.

The commission does not seek to make working days longer (the Spaniards already, contrary to what might be thought, tend to work longer than most Europeans). What it does seek is greater productivity, and Spain’s productivity is one of Europe’s lowest. Longer hours do not mean more productivity, as anyone, bar the most macho of managers, can tell you.

If it has its way, the commission would apply greater conformity to the working day, with 9-5 becoming more of the norm insofar as it can be said to be the norm anywhere nowadays. It would also like Spain to switch back to Greenwich Mean Time (some sixty years after abandoning it), a move, it reckons, that would aid productivity. Not that it does in Portugal where productivity is lower still.

There are a number of reasons for low productivity, not all of them to do with the siesta and the afternoon break, but some specifically are – phone calls not being taken; erratic schedules for appointments to fit around the break; too much commuting (in effect, four rush hours a day); too much food and potentially too much sleep.

To these can be added more general problems of higher levels of absenteeism than in other countries; lack of punctuality; too much time spent on meetings which aren’t necessarily meetings just excuses for a chat and often in a café; and too little sleep (although some might nod off into a deep sleep in the afternoon, which is not a good idea, most don’t but also don’t sleep enough at night).

While there may once have been a sound reason for the siesta, and still is for those engaged in farming or labouring, there is less justification for it in what is now an advanced economy. Within the public sector there has been some attempt to move towards a 9-5 regime; the Ministry of Public Administration, for instance, has encouraged these hours. But there has been only limited success, and there is also the fact that many public offices which close at one or two o’clock then don’t re-open later.

Coming into line with how business operates in other European countries would not be the only advantage for a realignment of the working day. Another would be that it would meet the demands of changing lifestyles. It isn’t only the British, the Germans and other northern Europeans who get frustrated by the afternoon break, so also do increasing numbers of Spaniards. A further advantage would be to attack what is still something of a bureaucratic culture within business, as opposed to an entrepreneurial one.

Playing around with hours and time is, however, something of a challenge for a society that treats time with such disregard. This is no more than the case than with “mediodía”. Just as lunch is literally a movable feast – any time you want it to be really – so also is midday. The vagueness of Mallorcan and Spanish time is probably the greatest culture clash that a northern European has to contend with. Midday is hardly ever twelve o’clock, but an appointment may be made for “mediodía”, the exact time of which is anyone’s guess. And whether the appointment is actually met is another matter; often it will not be because one man’s one o’clock is another man’s two-thirty.

This vagueness also leads to the almost unknown concept of punctuality. The word exists – “puntualidad” – but few have ever learnt what it means. I once turned up for an appointment bang on nine in the evening, as had been the arrangement. “Muy puntual,” was the surprised comment. “I am English,” I responded only half-jokingly.

For nine to five to become normal practice would require a pretty major shift in behaviour and culture, and, as with everything else, there is a tradition to be preserved, the siesta most obviously.

The commission for timetables faces opposition, such as that from the National Association of Friends of the Siesta. And yes, there really is one, and in October last year it held its first siesta championship. Seriously, there was a competition to judge the best siesta-ist. The commission may want to rationalise hours, but it will never be able to rationalise the irrational.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.