A Real Farce (28 November)

Put the words “real” and “farce” together and the potential references are all but endless. What’s today’s real farce? Iñaki Urdangarín perhaps. A real, as in royal(ish), Brian Rix character, and now presumably, thanks to the farcical goings-on at Palma town hall, referred to as the Duke of Palma de Mallorca, where he had been merely “of Palma” until a few days ago.

If not dukey, then what about Real Mallorca? So committed to farce, it’s the only thing the club’s any good at. They can’t even manage to find themselves caught up in a decent bit of old-fashioned fan hooliganism; only an accident.

Real and farce could apply to a host of things in Mallorca. Every day of every year. Not all, though, have real inscribed onto the farce. But there is one other which does. Just what on earth is going on at Son Real near Can Picafort? Or maybe we should call it Son Unreal.

If you have never been to Son Unreal, and the chances are that you haven’t, as I’m none too sure many people actually go there, you may be unaware of the fact that it is arguably the single most important historic site in Mallorca. It isn’t just any old bit of finca, and at getting on for 400 hectares you probably wouldn’t expect it to be.

Its provenance either is or almost prehistoric. And just part of this prehistory, the necropolis burial site, is under threat from nature, i.e. the sea, and from man, who tramples over it (those men who do in fact go there), because there is a lack of preservation and a lack of control.

The necropolis isn’t the only part of Son Real that is suffering. With the exception of the restoration of old houses and the creation of a visitors’ centre, the story of Son Real has been one of neglect for years.

The finca was acquired by the then government nine years ago. Prior to the acquisition and then for some time afterwards, Son Real was paid scant attention to. So little did it seem to register that there was a serious proposal to turn the finca into a golf course. Yes, really, a golf course. When common sense prevailed and the proposal was ditched, leaving Santa Margalida town hall making somewhat ambiguous statements, as it seemed to be in favour of the course, some attention was finally paid. And it cost three million euros.

This was the price tag put on the restoration and the visitors’ centre. A whole bunch of dignitaries turned up at the start of September 2008 to celebrate the spending of three million, partook of the tapas and wine and, like any freeloader who goes to a restaurant inauguration, promptly forgot about the place, along with everyone else.

Among those who forgot about it, or so the town hall reckons, are the local hotels, which do precious little or nothing to publicise Son Real. The town hall isn’t much impressed by the efforts of the tourism ministry either, though the ministry is finally putting the Foundation for Sustainable Development, which supposedly runs the place, out of its misery and scrapping it.

The town hall wants to knock heads together in making improvements to the maintenance, management and promotion of Son Real. It represents something of an about turn for an administration, admittedly of a different make-up, that not so long ago quite fancied the necropolis being turned into a series of bunkers.

Its enthusiasm in wanting to see something being done may not be completely without some other motivation. For sure, it would like there to be more tourists coming into Can Picafort in order to visit Son Real, but it has had its spats with the foundation and so may see the opportunity to join in with kicking it while it is down and on its way out, to say nothing of perhaps eyeing up a possible involvement in running the finca, despite the fact that it is meant to now come under the environment ministry.

Whatever the motivation, the town hall isn’t wrong to highlight the problems at Son Real, and these aren’t simply confined to deterioration to the historic remains; rubbish, broken signs, these are just other examples of the lack of care.

The real story of Son Real and its neglect, though, is one of questions arising as to quite how serious are the desires to preserve Mallorca’s heritage and to promote it to tourists. Tourism bodies bang on about heritage and culture, everyone bangs on about it, but at Son Real no one does much about it. Farce? Really, it is.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Getting Into A Flap

Good weather for them. Ducks that is. The rain that has been about has been well-timed. We are entering the duck season, or we would be were there any ducks. And in Can Picafort of course, there aren’t. Not officially anyway. In a rare display of unity, however, the warring political parties of Santa Margalida are as one in demanding the return of the ducks.

The town hall is calling for a change to animal-protection law that would legalise the release of live ducks during Can Picafort’s August fiestas. Under this law, or so it would seem, traditions that can be shown to date back more than 100 years from the time of the law’s enactment in 1992 are allowed to continue. The great duck-throwing event of Can Picafort isn’t that old. Consequently, Santa Margalida wants the threshold reduced to 50 years; ducks were first let go into the sea for locals to swim after them and capture them in the 1930s.

The town hall has never truly bought into the law and the banning of live ducks. It was persuaded to comply with it when it was fined for not having complied. Ever since the live ducks were replaced by rubber ones, the town hall has only grudgingly gone along with the law. And by town hall, one means all the parties, whether ruling or opposing.

The unified front that is now being displayed has, though, not always been evident. The former administration proposed a similar change to the law late last year. The opposition didn’t go along with it, yet it, now in power, has made the proposal. Even in unity, the parties can’t avoid having a dig at each other. You didn’t support us, say the Partido Popular. It was our measure. We didn’t support you, respond the combined forces of the Suma pel Canvi and the Convergència, because it wouldn’t have done any good; the former regional administration wouldn’t have approved it.

Though a national law, there would seem to be flexibility for a regional parliament (the Balearics one) to amend it. As the Partido Popular is now in power at regional level, the town hall would reckon that it might get a more sympathetic hearing.

The banning of live ducks, and Santa Margalida finally got round to complying with the law five years ago, has turned the tradition into a new one. The event attracts way more publicity as a consequence of the law being flouted than it ever did when ducks themselves were being released.

That said, before the ban there was the annual ritual of the animal-rights activists getting into an argument with the pro-duck-throwers, a ritual that has now become one of the animal rightists trooping off to make a “denuncia” when the law is broken. And the poor police, who surely have better things to do, have been caught in the middle, both the local police under the command of a town hall whose attitude has been ambiguous, to say the least, and the Guardia who have had to resort to bringing in divers and boats to try and prevent the throwing of live ducks and to try and apprehend the miscreants.

Last year, one town hall official said the police presence was more akin to security for the royal family or an ETA threat. The law may have been likely to have been broken, which it duly was (and no one was caught), but the publicity and the security were absurd for what has always been an absurd occasion, one that became more absurd as soon as they started to use rubber ducks instead. They should have scrapped the whole thing rather than allow it to become the farce it has.

The duck-throwing saga of Can Picafort can be considered an example of what happens when you mess with tradition, but how traditional really is the duck throwing? Establishing a time frame, be it 50 or 100 years, seems pretty arbitrary. Indeed, it seems ridiculous. If it is felt that something requires outlawing, then so be it, regardless of how long it has been going.

The ducks only came about as a bit of sport. Wealthy landowners would make a gift of some ducks, and the young men of the village would compete to capture them. Do 70 or 80 years represent a “tradition”? Maybe they do, or maybe they represent the history of something basically frivolous. Whatever the case, there are enough people, on both sides of the argument, who get into a flap about the ducks. And they will continue to do so, whether the law is changed or not.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Lead Us Not Into Temptation

What every girl dreams. If she lives in Santa Margalida. At the weekend, Francisca Oliver Fornés was chosen to be La Beata, the saint Catalina Thomàs. Requirements for being selected include having participated as an attendant in previous Beata ceremonies, being church-going, single and eighteen. To be nominated as La Beata is quite some honour. The fiesta in September is often referred to as Mallorca’s most traditional, La Beata herself acting out the refusal to be tempted by the devil.

Single, eighteen, not necessarily church-going and not necessarily inclined to turn down temptation. The contrast between a weekend ceremony to select the current-day embodiment of a saint and a weekend ceremony of unsaintliness is stark. At a similar time to Francisca’s selection, the Districte 54 party in Sa Pobla was rumbling. The mayor of Sa Pobla has been forced to apologise to the people of the town. Mess, noise, lack of respect, excessive drinking. What on earth had he expected?

The mayor had wanted the party reinstated as part of the town’s fiestas. It was largely his doing that it took place this year. It was he who had criticised the previous administration for not staging it last year. It was he who said that it brought economic benefits and a load of people from across the island.

He was not wrong in respect of the numbers attending. But the numbers, as with other fiesta parties, are swelled by those who, thanks to social networks, know full well that there’s to be a botellón. The street-drinking parties are happening everywhere. Organised through Facebook and what have you, they are creating attendances at the parties so large that villages and towns cannot cope. They are being overwhelmed by people, by drunkenness and violence. I ask again: what on earth had the mayor expected?

Districte 54, more than most of the parties, is a magnet for trouble. It’s why it was banned last year. Nevertheless, the town decided to go ahead with it again, with the result that the police had to respond to numerous complaints and the medical services were needed to treat those who were totally off their faces.

Mayor Serra says that there will not be a repetition; that if the party happens again, it won’t take place slap bang in the centre of the town. It might find a convenient finca somewhere in the countryside, which is what they have done in Maria de la Salut, and the parties there pass off without much incident.

Whether it happens again or not, the trouble at Districte 54 is further evidence of the degree to which the fiesta parties have grown in size to the point at which they are out of control. The wishes of town halls to limit street drinking botellóns, as in Pollensa, are not being met because the social networks enable people to find ways around whatever controls might be put in place. The town halls seem to have failed utterly to comprehend how modern communications work.

The traditional Mallorcan fiesta has broken down and has been taken over by DJs and cheap booze. And this breakdown in tradition isn’t simply one that can be styled as being down to the generation gap. There is a division also within generations. Which is what Francisca represents. While she was being named Santa Margalida’s Beata, the Santa Margalida herself was being defiled in Sa Pobla; Districte 54 was part of the Santa Margalida festivities.

The coincidence of this is one thing; the contrast another. Over one weekend in July, two separate happenings highlighted the way in which Mallorcan youth has split. The requirement for a Beata aspirant to demonstrate her good Catholic credentials seems almost quaint now. The church has lost much meaning for and support among the younger generation.

If you had to choose between the two, you would opt for Districte 54 and its attendant troubles as being more representative of Mallorcan youth than Francisca and La Beata. And if you do opt so, it kills, once and for all, the myth of Mallorcan (and Spanish) youth being unlike their British counterparts. You might recall that some while ago a report established that the level of alcohol intake among Spanish teenagers was as high if not higher and the frequency of drinking greater than that of British kids.

Of course, you can’t and shouldn’t tar every Mallorcan teenager and young person with the same alcoholic or violent brush, just as you shouldn’t the British youth, but what can be said with some certainty is that a societal shift isn’t underway; it has already happened. Temptation has been taken. And no amount of saintliness will put the devil back in the box.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Our Man In … : Resorts’ delegates

Puerto Alcúdia has now got itself a delegate. Lucky old Puerto Alcúdia. The post-election re-organisation at Alcúdia town hall has deemed a delegate to be necessary, when previously it hadn’t been. Does the port need a delegate? Maybe it does, but it has done well enough up until now without one.

Having delegates for towns’ coastal resorts hasn’t exactly been a great success elsewhere. They have been viewed as being toothless or simply lackeys of the mayor. This was the case in Can Picafort, for example, while in Puerto Pollensa the ex-delegate was considered, not to put too fine a point on it, to be a joke. The lack of respect that Francisca Ramon commanded came to a head when she addressed demonstrators in June last year. The volley of abuse that came back made it clear that she was thought to be “stupid”.

The delegates for the resorts are at least a recognition by town halls that their resorts do have specific needs. Unfortunately, what has happened is that the very existence of delegates has raised expectations that they might actually do something, when they are hamstrung by having no real authority or responsibility. In Puerto Pollensa the call has long been made for responsibility and also for a separate budget.

The logic of such a call is that the resorts should become their own administrative units. Because of the specific needs, there would be some sense to this, but any sense soon evaporates when you consider the added bureaucracy, costs and potential for duplication.

Were the electoral system to be such that councillors were voted in on the basis of wards, then there would automatically be voices for different parts of a municipality, but this is not how it works. The creation of delegates for the main resorts reflects the absence of such a mechanism, but it is also discriminatory. In Alcúdia, for example, what about Barcarès, Alcanada and Bonaire? Don’t they count?

The lack of geographical representation exacerbates discontent, such as that in Santa Margalida. Son Serra de Marina lies some seven kilometres away from Can Picafort and even further away from the town. Residents have complained that the village has been all but abandoned, and there have been examples – inadequate police presence, the deplorable state of the sports centre – which don’t help to refute their complaints.

At a more general level, there is an issue as to what councillors are responsible for. Depending on its size of population, each town hall is obliged to take care of certain services. These obligations are not mirrored by what councillors are charged with.

Up to a point this is reasonable enough. The towns have a wider responsibility for general welfare than those stipulated by law. There is no legal requirement, for instance, to take responsibility for tourism, but it would be distinctly odd if they didn’t.

Responsibilities such as those for public works and maintenance are clear enough, but some are less so, while the way in which these other responsibilities are jumbled together to form an individual councillor’s portfolio leads you to wonder what process is ever used for arriving at what can seem contradictory.

In Muro, for instance, there is a councillor in charge of education and culture and the town’s music band. Another looks after environment, youth activities, radio and television (what television!?) and transport. Yet another oversees sport, the police and traffic, and relations with the church. Go through this little lot, and there isn’t always a pattern. Is radio and television not culture? Might sport be a youth activity?Would traffic and transport not have some common ground? Indeed, what is meant by transport anyway? School buses? Public transport is not a responsibility of small authorities such as Muro.

It is not as if the responsibilities mirror those higher up the political administration food chain. Regional government has combined agriculture with environment. In Muro agriculture is lumped in with tourism. In Alcudia there is still responsibility for language policy, the regional government having scrapped a specific directorate for it. But what is most evident from the Muro portfolios is what isn’t evident. Unless the mayor has taken on personal responsibility for just about everything the town is really meant to look after – services, building works, finance etc. – and has a particularly hard-working governing commission, then no one appears to be in charge.

You are left with an impression, therefore, that town halls find things for councillors to do. Some are important, some aren’t. But where they all fall down is in the fact that their chief generators of income and employment, the resorts, get, at best, a delegate and not a councillor with real clout.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Magic Wand

The “vara”. Wand, rod, pole. Take your pick. A magic wand. Spare the rod. Poles apart. They all seem somehow appropriate in the aftermath of the game of pass the parcel to see who ends up unwrapping the mayoral wand.

New mayors may hope that they can wave their wands and make all the problems disappear, but the problems are only just beginning, and are mainly those of fractiousness.

The municipalities of Alcúdia, Pollensa and Santa Margalida highlight how fractiousness consumes the operations of town halls. In Alcúdia’s case, it will be new; for Pollensa and Santa Margalida, it will be business as usual.

The tensions that will now exist are only partly to do with party politics. They are more personal than this. And no more so than in Santa Margalida where Miguel Cifre has been handed the baton of mayoral office once again, fourteen years after a motion of censure resulted in his being kicked out of office.

Santa Margalida is a town of mutual dislike among its leading political lights. It’s why Cifre and his party of change couldn’t attract any other party with which to coalesce. He’ll run the town hall, if run is the right word, with a minority three short of that which was required. He’ll be a lame duck (aptly enough for a town which stages the annual nonsense of the duck throwing), and one despised by the Partido Popular in particular.

Another lame duck is now the second in command at Alcúdia, despite the fact that she abstained from giving any candidate for mayor her support. Carme Garcia’s decision to cosy up to the Partido Popular, one that went against the wishes of her party, the Mallorcan socialists, has unleashed a tsunami into what had been a rare oasis of calmness in the politics of local towns.

At every opportunity, at every meeting of the town hall, she can now expect to be hounded, attacked and vilified. And she will have brought it on herself. Photos of the councillors in Alcúdia, taken after the meeting to select Coloma Terrasa as mayor, were very revealing. Terrasa was smiling, wand in hand, ex-mayor Llompart was grinning and PSOE’s Pere Malondra was laughing. Garcia looked even more frumpish and put-upon than usual.

Llompart and Malondra further exposed her decision to side with the PP as an act of opportunism. It was rumoured that they would try something, and so they did. Malondra was nominated to be mayor. Had Garcia voted for him, a natural political ally for someone who claims to be of the left, then Malondra would have become mayor. She didn’t. The boys of the Convergència and PSOE were laughing at her, and so it will be for four years.

Pollensa doesn’t have a lame duck, it has a Tommy Cifre installed as mayor. Two Tommy Cifres, there are only two Tommy Cifres. Thankfully. It’s confusing enough with two of them. One Tommy Cifre, there’s only one Tommy Cifre in the PP. The new mayor, and not the one Tommy Cifre from the Mallorcan socialists. Cifre, together with the La Lliga lovely, Malena Estrany, will hope to restore some order to Pollensa town hall. They surely can’t do any worse than what passed for administration under Joan Cerdà.

Fortunately, both Cifre and Estrany are respected, which was not the case with Cerdà who lost any semblance of respect as a result of the fiasco over the aborted pedestrianisation in Puerto Pollensa. It was this which turned him into a lame duck for much of his period of office. The charge of lack of consultation that was levelled at him (among other charges) is to be addressed by Cifre. He has promised “citizen participation”, and a system of monthly meetings with associations across Pollensa is meant to come into being.

The PP-La Lliga coalition, one short of a majority, will be praying it can rely on the support of the one Unió Mollera Pollencina councillor. If not, and despite what respect there might be for Cifre and Estrany, then the fun and games in Pollensa are likely to continue.

But fun and games are what we want. They are what makes Mallorcan politics the theatre of the absurd that it so often is. A stage for illusionists who in every town conjure up a generally misplaced sense of their own importance. They wave their wands on new regimes and in a puff of smoke the old ones disappear. That’s magic.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Quackers In Can Picafort

It is the fate of certain places that they get lumped in with larger ones nearby or are thought to be a part of these neighbours. So it is with Can Picafort. It’s part of Alcúdia, isn’t it? No, it isn’t. It isn’t even a direct neighbour. Playa de Muro intervenes. But that’s part of Alcúdia, isn’t it? Wrong again.

Can Picafort suffers a fate twice over when it comes to what it is a part of. “It’s part of Santa Margalida!?” ask some, incredulously, who do nonetheless know that it isn’t part of Alcúdia. “Well, I never knew that. I always thought it was its own place.”

It’s a simple mistake to make, though. Can Picafort. Santa Margalida. Where’s the name link? There isn’t one. The resort is several kilometres away from the town that owns it: a once wealthy town, birthplace of Franco’s banker, Joan March, he of the Banca March. Its one-time affluence was what led a poor boy of the town to up sticks and find some then more or less worthless coastal land on which to build a home. Mr. Picafort. How he would be laughing nowadays.

The reversal in fortunes of town and resort is not dramatic, however. Can Picafort is, with the greatest respect, the poor man of the tourism-centre trinity of the bay of Alcúdia (you can pretty much discard Artà as a fourth member). Santa Margalida, if not a poor man’s town by any means, is not wealthy in the way that Alcúdia is.

Arguably, Santa Margalida should be better off than it is, if only because of the sheer volume of hotels in Can Picafort. For reasons that are not entirely clear, the benefits of the resort’s tourism have never quite rubbed off on the municipality. It could all simply be down to two quite different cultures that have never found a way to work with each other.

The meeting of these cultures was a feature of the town’s mayoral candidate debate. At present, the Partido Popular (PP) holds the whip-hand in the town. It governs in alliance with something called the CPU. Not a computer’s central processing unit, but the Can Picafort Unit.

One of the candidates, representing an amalgamation of the PSOE socialists and independents under an umbrella party called Suma pel Canvi, lambasted the CPU. It was responsible for “nonsenses” and “sins of management”, said Miguel Cifre. (How many Miguel Cifres are there, do you suppose, in Mallorca? But that’s a side issue.)

The PP and CPU are not responsible for all the sins of Can Picafort. One, the quite appalling state of the marina, has required a judge to arbitrate, giving the company which is meant to look after and develop the marina its marching orders. But the marina is symptomatic, despite an upgrading of the resort’s promenade, of what is widely felt to be neglect.

The bad blood between opposition and town hall government has never been far from the surface over the past four years. At times, it has come pouring out of the wounds inflicted on the PP, such as when the what is now the Convergència published a news-sheet with a front cover showing mocked-up 500 euro notes with an image of mayor Martí Torres. The squandering of public money was the accusation, which you might think was a bit rich coming from what was then the pre-corruption-charges Unió Mallorquina (UM).

The sheer pettiness of Santa Margalida’s politics was no better summed up than by what appeared to be a retaliatory gesture. The CPU’s Can Picafort delegate vetoed the handing out of trophies donated by the UM for a football tournament a day after the news-sheet appeared.

Back at the election debate, though, there was one issue which didn’t get a proper airing. It should have, because in the bizarre world of local politics, there is little more bizarre than the row that has been going on over Can Picafort and its August duck-throwing fiesta.

Can Picafort may be mistaken for being a part of somewhere else or for being a town in its own right, but its greatest claim to fame is that it’s the place where the burning issue is whether live or rubber ducks should be lobbed into the sea. If you think local politics and issues are mad elsewhere, they are positively sensible compared with those of Can Picafort. Absolutely quackers.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Oh Well (Or Not): Bienestar Activo and Ironman

Three months are a long time in tourism promotion. 20 June – “All Being Well”. Now – all’s not so well. Strategies are meant to be long-term, but not if they don’t even get off the ground.

“Bienestar Activo” is – was – the brand name for a four-year strategic plan unveiled back in June. The plan was for the municipalities of Alcúdia, Muro and Santa Margalida, together with the local hotel associations and the tourism ministries at both central and local government levels, to promote various sporting activities in the resorts as a means of bolstering off-season tourism. The plan envisaged the spending of a tad under 4.5 million euros over the next four years. Annually, the central ministry would have provided 371,000 euros, a sum matched by the local ministry and also by the three town halls between them. The scheme has collapsed.

Soon after the plan was announced, I contacted the Alcúdia-Can Picafort hotel association, looking for an interview. There was an email exchange, Alcúdia’s tourism councillor was also contacted, a date provisionally established, and then nothing. At the time I found this slightly strange. As it turns out, maybe it wasn’t.

What I wanted to know was the exact nature of the plan, given that the activities – cycling, Nordic walking, hiking, canoeing – were already established. What was the 4.5 million meant to be spent on? I guess that I – we – will never find out. There are no funds to be forthcoming from the ministries.

There was some inkling as to how the money would have been doled out – in general. There were four, vague elements – organisation, specialisation of the destination (whatever that meant), improvement of competitiveness and marketing. But at the presentation which “launched” the project, amongst those attending – mayors, councillors and those as ever hoping for some benefit without actually putting their hands in their pockets, i.e. hoteliers and restaurant owners – there were no representatives of the ministries. The absence of government may tell a story. Had the ministries actually signed up to the whole thing? Or maybe they were going to, and then thought, as I had done, well, what is this all about? Those four aims seemed ill-defined; they may well also have been ill-conceived.

Of course, another explanation is more straightforward, namely government cuts, both nationally and local. Three months in tourism promotion isn’t a long time when it is already known that money is tight, so much so that the tourism ministries at regional and central levels have been merged with others as a way of saving money. Was this plan ever a goer or was it just some sort of PR stunt, and a poor one at that, given that it was unclear what it actually entailed?

The mayors, explaining the plan’s abandonment, say that they will look at it differently in the hope of bringing it back, which is probably a euphemism for saying that it will be quietly forgotten about. Maybe it should be. And maybe it would have been better had they never gone public, because this is a further embarrassment, certainly where Alcúdia is concerned, in terms of grandish tourism promotional schemes. The estación náutica concept has been quietly forgotten about, despite the fanfare that was blown when it surfaced a year and a half ago.

Fortunately for Alcúdia, something rather more concrete has emerged. Some good news with which to hopefully bury the less good news of the bienestar debacle. Thomas Cook and the regional tourism ministry have announced that an Ironman 70.3 triathlon is to be staged in Alcúdia on 14 May next year and also in 2012. Apart from some 2,500 anticipated competitors, the tour operator reckons the event will attract 20,000 visitors. I’m sceptical, but I’ll bow to the company’s knowledge. Nevertheless, the triathlon could well prove to be positive, and perhaps its potential does have something to do with the bienestar falling by the wayside. If you want to attract sports tourism, then better to go with a flagship-style event, rather than the vagueness of what was on offer. Relief for Alcúdia then, but what Muro and Santa Margalida make of it, who knows.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Pirates Are Here – Again: Fiesta elections

The annual voting season has been and gone. Did you miss it? Had you been in the old town of Pollensa last Friday you wouldn’t have. Had you been in Santa Margalida on Sunday at the Augustine nuns’ convent you wouldn’t have.

The people of the two towns have had their votes. In Pollensa, some 3,500 of them took part in the election. Joan Mas and Dragut in Pollensa; Santa Catalina in Santa Margalida – Christian and Moor; la Beata. The Patrona battle between Moors and Christians will kick off, as normal, on 2 August; the procession of Beata will take place on the first Sunday of September. One Joan Ramon Armengual will be Joan (which seems appropriate – a Joan as a Joan): one Joan, there’s only one Joan. Oh not there isn’t; there are thousands of them, even in a small town like Pollensa. A Jaume Oliver will be the pirate Dragut, and Antònia Socies, la Beata. So now you know.

As usual, the victors can’t quite believe it. It’s the stuff of dreams, as usual. And not just for those heading the cast lists. Joan has his mates, Dragut his co-invaders, Beata her attendants. In Pollensa, there is even voting for members of the “old” town hall. There are any number of jobs for the boys and girls in the two towns, all part of the street theatre that is the battle and the Beata.

One of the unsuccesful Draguts was our old friend Toni, he of the Store Formentor at the Bellesreguard complex in Puerto Pollensa. He and his compatriots came halfway in the voting. He didn’t seem too unhappy with the result. Not that fearsome though. If you’re going to be part of some street theatre, you have, I suppose, to look the part. But simply racing around the old town, engaging in a bit of a bundle is not all there is to it. Joans have some lines to learn. One hopes they never fluff them: “Mare de Déu dels Àngels, assistiu-mos. Pollencins, aixecau-vos, que els pirates ja són aquí.” How many times will the latest Joan be reciting these words over the next few days, in advance of the big moment? One trusts there’ll be no stage fright.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Tapping Up – Water supplies

You’ve just put the shampoo into your hair and the shower suddenly dries up; you’ve set the washing-machine going and then it suddenly stops; you’ve used the loo and when it comes to flushing there is that awful moment of low or no pressure.

Water supplies. There is an argument that the utilities are equally important, but without water … ? Pity the poor people of Campanet who have been long-suffering where it comes to water supply and have recently been subject to as many as three cuts in a week. Think about the impact not only in homes, but also in bars, businesses and schools. They’re worried that there will be inadequate drinking water as the weather warms up.

In Campanet the problem has been with tap supply, and it is one of ancient pipework that badly needs overhauling. The schoolchildren of Campanet can always bring their own water, and it is inexpensive to buy (70 centimos for five litres for example), but it’s still 70 centimos multiplied many times over and above the water rate. And don’t let’s even start on the cost of having a water supply switched on.

Campanet is not the only town that is subject to unannounced cuts to water supplies – far from it; not the only place where something unpleasant is left to lurk under a hastily lowered lid. And wherever one looks, there is an issue with water. In Santa Margalida there is a demand for a report into why the public swimming-pool is losing twenty cubic metres per day, something that adds to accusations in the town of leakages in public money; a different sort, but the pool’s water is ultimately funded by the taxpayer. In Sa Pobla a water-processing plant was established two to three years ago and has proved to be useless. Part of the solution for the town is to use water from desalination plants, notably one near Alcúdia. It has not been that straightforward, owing to the nature of the negotiations, but supply does now seem guaranteed via a mix of desalinated water and that from the island’s network. In Playa de Muro there remains a question as to the quality of drinking water that dates back some years. Nitrates. The local water company in Playa de Muro (Fusosa) is a strange affair. It cannot be contacted by landline telephone after the morning. You have to know the emergency mobile number. The company has only recently established a skeleton website. At least it includes an email address. Public service? It sucks. Against all this wet utility provision, hats off to Alcúdia where there is now the bold initiative to recycle waste water for garden irrigation. It’s something.

There is plenty of water in Mallorca, or rather beneath it. Huge underground reservoirs are what supply much of the island’s water. They benefit from the regular soakings from September to April and even from the mountain snow. Occasionally, when the winters are exceptionally dry, there can be concerns, but nature seems to have a knack of making an adjustment, even if it means rain throughout May and into June. The availability of water isn’t really the issue. It’s what happens with it and what it contains – the product of the limestone on which Mallorca is largely built: the “cal”, as the word has past into British usage, the cal that affects everything – from kettles to boilers to toilets to taps. Hard water. Very hard water.

Water, water everywhere. An island the size of Essex surrounded by the stuff. It hangs in the air, drenches terraces because of the dampness and humidity, infiltrates walls. Everywhere water, except from where you might most want it. Taps for instance.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Playing Silly Games – Santa Margalida Town Hall

Politics in Santa Margalida has gained a reputation for the playing of “silly buggers”. Last year, we had, for example, the episode with the fake bank notes with the mayor’s face on them, a joke designed to highlight the alleged frittering of council money. There is more than a slight element of the playground about the town’s politics and relationships at the town hall. To coincide with the festive season and the day of the three kings, three “kings” took some presents for members of the ruling administration. These “kings” were leaders of the independent group in Santa Margalida, their presents aimed at exposing what they believe are town hall deficiencies. The mayor was duly presented with, among other things, a toy school, as this, so say the independents, is the only way that Can Picafort will get a new college. Other “ironic” gifts served to demonstrate the destruction of certain public areas, such as the Beata garden which is undergoing re-development, and the lack of street lighting in Son Serra de Marina.

This is all pretty harmless, knockabout stuff, but there is a more serious side to it; well, two sides. Firstly, there is what may be legitimate criticisms of the town hall administration, and as often, one doesn’t really know quite how legitimate these are. And secondly, there is what seems to be a breakdown in the political process in Santa Margalida. While opposition jibes and barbs are to be expected anywhere, in Santa Margalida there appears to be an almost total absence of co-operation between the parties and an almost total absence of mutual respect. What this leads to, and has led to, is a bit juvenile, to be honest, even if it’s also great sport to observe from the sidelines.

While Pollensa town hall has rightly also acquired a reputation for daftness, Santa Margalida’s farce is superior. It is the full Monty, a Brian Rix with trousers around his ankles racing around the stage at the Whitehall or Garrick Theatre. In honour of this, therefore, I feel that I should grant a special annual award – for town hall of the year, the one that gives us most amusement. And it is of course Santa Margalida.

Elsewhere in Santa Margalida, the finca of Son Real to be exact, there has been an unwelcome visitor. No foxes in Mallorca? No, there aren’t, or weren’t. The body of a fox has been retrieved from the finca. It had been involved in a fight and would seem to have attacked dogs. How did it get there? Good question. Someone almost certainly let it out into the finca, possibly some months ago. It’s doubtful that there are any more, but you never know.

SANT ANTONI 2010
Programmes for Sa Pobla and Pollensa town are now available on the WHAT’S ON BLOG – http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com