Bingo! There’s no uncertainty

A listener to “Test Match Special” last year came up with the idea for a game called “Boycott Bingo”. This entails calling out “bingo” every time the great man – Sir Geoffrey – utters one of his regular and predictable clichés, e.g. “corridor of uncertainty”, “we used to play on uncovered wickets” or “my mum would have caught that in her pinny”.

Mallorca has its own version of Boycott Bingo in that bingo illegality crops up as regularly and as predictably as the Great Yorkshireman states that his gran could have “hit that with a stick of rhubarb”. One moment it’s outdoor games at fiestas being banned because minors are in attendance – bingo!; the next it’s some old dears having their games interrupted by the sound of heavy boots – bingo!; then it’s a hotel being raided because it’s conducting games that it shouldn’t be – bingo!

When day centres for the elderly were being raided by plod who suspected – correctly – that the oldsters were up to no good in playing bingo for which there was no licence, all manner of indignation was released. How insensitive. Why stop a little bit of pleasure for the old folk? It was accepted that perhaps it had been a bit heavy-handed. However, it turned out that behind certainly one of the illicit bingo games was something a bit fishy that proved worthy of further investigation.

There is no real uncertainty regarding the playing of bingo. You need a licence. The absence of one may have something to do with plod having pounded down the corridors of a hotel in Sa Coma to put a stop to its bingo. I could always tell you which hotel, but I won’t, because it’s not been reported elsewhere, so I’d rather not say. But rest assured, keep checking Sa Coma hotels on “Trip Advisor” and there will doubtless be some entry referring to a bingo raid. “I was just about to call ‘house’, and this policeman took my card away. I shall be complaining to the tour operator.”

One difference between the relatively small cerveza of the old folks’ day centre bingo games and those in the hotel has to do with the amount of money the latter raise. Two and seven? Twenty-seven. Twenty-seven thousand euros. A month.

If you were to go and look on “Trip Advisor” and choose a hotel on Mallorca, you might well find mention of bingo among the entertainment on offer. Most hotels have games. And are they all correctly licensed? I couldn’t begin to answer that question. But the two bingo associations – AESBI and ASBA – have been making repeated representations to relevant authorities regarding the need to “eradicate the large number of illegal bingo games that proliferate” on Mallorca and the other islands.

A couple of days before the raid in Sa Coma, the two associations had in fact presented a proposal for the establishment of electronic bingo terminals in hotels as part of their drive to stamp out illegal games. The proposal may well be greeted favourably, as a “win” would involve a ten per cent tax finding its way into the coffers of the Hacienda.

It will be instructive to see how this all pans out, as Mallorca’s hotels, anticipating the likely change of national government, are putting together various proposals of a legal nature for the new Partido Popular administration to chew over.

One of these is to do with the law on intellectual property. This has an impact on the “complementary offer” of entertainment in its widest sense within hotels (of which, incidentally, the electronic bingo terminals would be a new addition, say the bingo associations). It doesn’t have to do solely with any rights from musical performances. It also covers television.

Decisions by both the European Court of Justice and the Spanish Supreme Court have led to interpretations that television broadcasts in hotel rooms constitute “public communication” and are therefore liable to rights payments. This is because, for the most part, a cable or satellite signal is re-transmitted by the hotel to the rooms. Were signals to go directly to the rooms (far more costly to set up), then the communication would be private, meaning no broadcast rights payments.

On these two matters, the bingo and the broadcasting, I am with the bingo associations and the police but not with the public communication interpretation; charges are probably passed on for what is made public but is consumed in private. As for bingo, though it is harmless fun, it is fair to ask what actually happens to money that is raised. There is no uncertainty, or shouldn’t be. Gaming is either licensed or it isn’t.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Revolution Is Televised

The riots have claimed Mallorcan victims. Bar Brits. The cancellation of the international footy has deprived them of an important date in their calendars; those, that is, for whom the “season” revolves around the peaks of the football season and England internationals in particular.

Rather than cries of “England till I die”, Bar Brits reverberate to the calls of “shoot ’em” and not “shoot, come on Rooney, shoot”. These calls mix with demands that the army be brought in, that water cannons be used, that the birch be brought back along with National Service and, for good measure, hanging. Enoch is invoked, as Enoch tends to be invoked at such times.

There isn’t a whole load of sympathy as Sky plays over and over scenes of unrest, looting, burning cars, burning buildings and fights with police. The Bar Brit punter doesn’t want any of this; he wants to be able to watch the telly in order to vent his frustration at another dismal England performance and to shout abuse about Capello.

Sky though, along with the rest of the media, have played their own part. Social media may have been significant (why should anyone be surprised by this?), but rolling 24-hour news and constant images are also significant. They fuel greater disturbances as the hoody class seeks to find itself captured on camera.

This is, after all, the happy-slapping generation, one brought up on actual and personal depictions of unruliness and violence and on its self-aggrandising glorification. Being seen, albeit with a face masked or covered by a hood, is what counts. Being caught on digital film is the esteem maker for those without esteem. Attacks on reporters are not attacks to prevent filming, but attacks for attacks’ sake. To prevent filming would undermine the ethos of riot in 2011; these have been riots by media and not social media. They disprove Gil Scott-Heron’s poetry of  the revolution not being televised.

And in Bar Brits, as in bars in Britain, the public is served its media diet and only too willingly regurgitates it. Words on the lips of Bar Brit occupants are “pure” and “criminality”, a curious juxtaposition of adjective and noun, but one spouted as the on-message spin-bite by police, the Home Secretary and a Prime Minister forced to leave his tennis kit behind in Tuscany.

In 1981 the revolution was televised, too. A difference, however, was that there wasn’t the cachet attached to being at the end of a lens. It was a televised revolution which gave an incomplete and at times false picture. Ealing, where I lived then, was caught up but not to anything like the way the trouble was represented. Unlike this time.

The revolution is televised not only on Sky and the BBC but also on Spanish TV. Riot by media is a global event, and the whole world can have its say. Spanish telly and press are lapping it all up, as are the chatterers on news sites. Spanish explanations for the riots cover easy access to benefits, Muslims, British imperialism, Conservative governments, a British mob mentality dating back to the Mods and Rockers, and the absence of a middle class in Britain. Some will be the same explanations of Brits themselves; others will make no sense, like the belief that there is no middle class and only rich and poor.

The Mods and Rockers one initially seems odd, but may not be as the riots are only partially a race thing. Whitey is engaged as well, finally finding a cause about which he can riot, one that The Clash called for as long ago as 1977. And the cause is a pair of Nike trainers.

Buried among the Spanish prescriptions on the internet, which have expanded into a free-for-all aimed at Magalluf and Benidorm tourists and demands for Gibraltar and the Malvinas to be returned, are the occasional voices who wonder if the same thing might happen in Spain. But as Spain has a middle class, and Britain doesn’t have, then presumably it won’t. You do get some pretty weird and distorted views, as you do from the Brits themselves.

Everyone knows what the causes of the riots are; or rather, they reckon they know. I have my own views as to the causes, but why should you be interested in knowing them? They might be right, they might be wrong. However, unlike 1981, when I lived in a part of London that was caught up in the riots, albeit to nothing like the extent that the media suggested, and lived in a city where I knew well enough the issues in Brent, Brixton, Southall, what do I know now?

Perhaps I know far more, however, because these are riots by media and the revolution is very clearly televised.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Out In The Midday Sun: Mad Dogs

In Mallorcan climes there are certain times of day
When all the expats repair to switch their TVs on and conspire
It’s one of those things these greatest fools obey
Because Sky is making publicity though Sky in Mallorca’s not a strictly legal way

The expats fawn when the actors take to bars having finished their cuts
Because they’re obviously, definitely, Nuts!

Mad Dogs for Englishmen with copies of their daily Sun
They take to the forums, pore over the press
I saw Simm, ah but I saw Max, and Glenister, he’s the one
For Englishmen sights of celebrities are something with which to impress

In London town they have presented Mad Dogs in full media glare
The Mallorca tourism foundation, several thousands of euros of support, was happy to be there
The expats swoon at news of the excitement this has done
Mad Dogs for Englishmen with copies of their daily Sun

It’s no surprise for the expats eyes to see
That the press will eat this hype and sycophantically treat
When the great Rupert rides, proportion there will not be
Because the simple expats are deflected from phone hacking and Richard Keys

It’s the usual rot showing beautiful Mallorca off that gets trot from tourism board and press lackies too
And the expats do agree as to not do simply would not do
In Mallorca any dissenting is seldom if ever done
For it’s Mad Dogs for Englishmen
With copies of their daily
Copies of their daily
Sky box strangely
Copies of their daily Sun

(With due acknowledgement to Noël Coward.)

* “Mad Dogs” will be on Sky from 10 February.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Dubbed: Television and language

Come on now, admit it. How often do you ever watch a television programme in Spanish? If you don’t live in Mallorca or Spain, you’re forgiven, but if you do … . There is one very good reason for not watching Spanish telly, apart from the language issue, and this is that, for the most part, it is unrelenting garbage. Better that you stick to “X Factor” or “I’m A Celebrity”; altogether more culturally enriching.

I’m not going to be holier than thou. I don’t watch Spanish telly much. I used to, before I realised just how bad it was. What limited diet I have is largely confined to football. I should make more of an effort as there are some gems of the bizarre, such as the channel which seems to be devoted to a woman reading Tarot cards or human towers competitions replete with slow-mo action replays of a small child slipping and crashing onto the bodies below.

Foreign programmes are usually always dubbed, and there are an awful lot of them. Yes, you can view some in the original language as well, but for the Spaniard the voiceover (VO) is preferable. The Germans do it as well to films and telly programmes. It is so ridiculous that I once saw an interview with the boy who was the German “Harry Potter” and who had become a star in his own right. In Spanish I have watched “The Shawshank Redemption” with a Morgan Freeman who probably comes from Madrid and who almost certainly isn’t black.

Dubbing, as opposed to showing programmes in the original language (almost always, therefore, English) with subtitles, may lead to the madness of an actor’s personality being stripped away by a VO artist, but it can also have a serious aspect, in that it inhibits the learning of English.

However, the experience in Germany is quite telling. Though German TV dubs, the standard of English in Germany is high, far higher than it is in Mallorca or Spain. Television does have a role to play in teaching English, and no more so than in the Netherlands where, together with an educational system which promotes English from an early age, the watching of shows in English has been established practice for many years, given that the BBC has long been available. But television can’t overcome an instinctive problem, one to do with the sounds of language.

There is an article by Nick Lyne about Spanish television, dubbing and language acquisition on the qorreo.com website. It’s interesting, but what is even more interesting is a comment about the article. This makes the point that the Spanish language has a “particularly not-rich set of sounds in its register”. This means that it can be difficult to pronounce, speak and therefore learn other languages, such as English.

The contrast is made with, for example, Dutch which is a much richer language in terms of sounds. I would guess that the same applies to German. The greater the range of sounds in a native tongue, the easier it is to acquire other languages; or so the theory seems to go. Without getting too technical, Spanish has comparatively few spoken sounds compared with English. A linguist at the Spanish equivalent of the Open University has made the point that Spanish pronunciation of English is poor because the greater number of English sounds are reduced to the few of Spanish. (Incidentally, Catalan has a few more sounds than Spanish which should, in theory, make things easier.)

The imbalance in sound recognition has major implications for the teaching of English in schools. The same linguist has said that no one seems to be bothering to make the acquisition of new sounds a key element of English. The extension of English use in teaching in Spanish and Mallorcan schools is all well and good, but how good are the teachers themselves at speaking it correctly? Despite the number of years of English instruction, the professor of language psychology at the University of Navarra is concerned that pupils leave school still not knowing how to speak English.

Earlier this year, a survey of students at the university in Palma discovered that 68% admitted to not understanding English. It may not be essential for all of them in their future careers that they do, but given the importance of English in international business and in local tourism the deficiency is somewhat startling. By a remarkable coincidence, a survey of foreign language use by students and adults in different European countries by the Eurostat research organisation at the European Commission revealed that 68% of secondary school pupils in Spain learn one foreign language – English. Learn, but can they use?

The same Eurostat survey placed Spain in the bottom three of countries in which adults speak no foreign language. And no, the UK was not behind Spain; in fact the UK does pretty well in this respect.

But to return to television. Much recent debate surrounding language and whether English originals should be shown on TV was kicked off by Fox’s decision to broadcast “House” in English with subtitles. So, you’ll be able to watch it in English if you want to. The question is: will the Spanish?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Reflections Of …

The way life used to be. Sort of. I confess though that I had never, until a few days ago, ever had a conversation about the smell of washing powder. Go to England, and one of the first topics for discussion centres on the odour of a sweatshirt. Is it Ariel, is it Fairy or Persil? Who knows? Who, quite honestly, cares? But the conversation took place, nevertheless. Welcome to England, welcome to detergent dog days in reverse – the coldest weather for years, and slap bang over the Christmas period. Slip, sliding away. You don’t get that ice or snow on an average December morn in northern Mallorca. Ever. Or talks about the competing merits of Procter & Gamble and Unilever.

Oh to be in England, now that winter’s here. Rip-off England people say. Ripping off whom? And with what? Ah, you know, Mallorca’s so expensive. Funnily enough, it is. We have been lulled into false senses of financial security, false beliefs about how England is more expensive. No it isn’t. And it works better, despite nothing moving when there’s some snow. Where’s there an Argos catalogue in Mallorca, for example? Or a Primark, an Original Factory Shop? Fully clothed for twenty quid. Not in Mallorca, unless by means of a charity shop. Ok, so six quid for parking for three hours in the centre of Windsor is a bit steep, but someone’s got to pay for Her Majesty.

Yea, but there’s the corruption. Of course there is, but that corruption – you know the variety, that involving MPs’ expenses – it’s not the same. It’s not in a Mallorcan premier league of nepotism and utter disregard for any sense of morality. At least ducks can get a bath in England, courtesy of a touch of fiddlery-pokery. And there are also the mass cultural experiences, shared by all via the startling array of different technologies with which numerous outlets entice consumers with even more startling arrays of offers – genuine ones, lower-cost ones. David Tennant, David Tennant, David Tennant. Wherever you were, David Tennant via the magicking of those cut-throat pricing schemes. David Tennant, Gavin and Stacey, Larry Lamb dead in one place and on a Barry Island beach for one final man-boob fling in another.

And on grey, endlessly grey days that drift into darkness and night by three in the afternoon, there is still all that landscape. From the snow fields of the Chilterns to the dips and inclines of the Mendips and Cotswolds, the sweeps of greeny-brown, an ancient church of Saxon origin, the gargoyle water ducts monstrously staring down on shivering visitors, Japanese students with a constant snip and snap of a digital camera. The enduring politeness and manners of a bakery-caff with jars of flavours secured with gauze, the lady serving in an Upstairs Downstairs bonnet. But there is one thing – the coffee. It never tastes right. It looks strong enough, but isn’t. The English can’t make coffee, even if the Mallorcans go too far in the other direction, unless you ask them not to.

They know their context though. In England. The Mallorcans don’t always know it, or recognise it. They too often destroy it. Like the Can Ramis building in Alcúdia. Yet in Bath, huge amounts have been spent on a new shopping area with sharp-chiselled and finely-finished Bath stone. It is in keeping, it knows its place, albeit that to walk through it is to feel as though one is in a computer simulation. The virtual shopping centre of an architect’s brief has become real virtuality, right there in the centre of the city.

The grim reality though is there to be witnessed close up. The machine guns of the police taking a quick coffee at a coffee shop with weak coffee in Stansted. Someone talks to them, asks them about the guns. Somehow you can’t imagine asking a Guardia officer about his hardware. These coppers, young, really they were young – and I know all that guff about getting old when coppers look young – but they were. The guns are heavy they say. And they look it. A bit later, one stood guard, the gun held ominously across his chest, whilst his mate went for a leak. What do you do with a weapon of less than mass destruction when you need a slash? “Excuse me, mate. Couldn’t hold this Heckler & Koch while I get Percy out, could you?” The grim reality of travelling. Of the infuriation that is RyanAir, or the hour plus queue for checking-in EasyJets all scheduled at around the same time. Want to know why it’s a good idea to check-in online? Try a red-eye queue with eight other sleepy-faced flights replete with their freaky surfies having traded in their boards for skis to Innsbruck and whole displaced populations of Poland getting the hell back to Krakow.

But more than anything it’s all that landscape and indeed townscape. It doesn’t matter that there is so little colour, so much apparent meteorological drabness. It still amazes you, its reflections of the way things used to be. There’s this thing about the paradise island, you know what it is. Mallorca, all that dramatic scenery and even some which isn’t, some which is overblown, hyped and puffed, like the spoken-by-rote, sycophancy-through-groupthink eulogies for Pollensa’s pinewalk. Does it really compare? No really – does it? Someone said that when people go on holiday, it’s the only time they take time to actually look at things. In England, they don’t look at things, only the telly. They don’t stop to marvel, and so when they come away they see things and make of them a spectacular scenery, which there may well be – the Tramuntana mountains for example. But they have been entranced by an enchantment of the different, of the exotic, and assume a superiority of landscape in terms both of this difference and of their own reflected superiority. Yet they have failed to see the spectacular that surrounds them and so create icons of foreign vistas and views because they (these vistas) are foreign and because they – the visitors – may stop for once and actually look. It is this assumption of superiority that makes them not look and reflect on their own country, its drama and theatre, its curved or carved order, its mystery and legacy.

Oh to be in England, now that winter’s here.

Flim Flam Man

Something of a follow-up day today. Follow-up to two stories, one about Columbus, the other about “Sun, Sea and A&E”. Both stem from comments received. 

To Columbus first, and the piece on The Columbus Industry. The author of the comment describes much of the evidence that seeks to establish Columbus’s place of birth as anywhere other than Genoa as “flim flam”. A rather good expression. I must use it myself some time. Intuitively, I cannot go along with the non-Genoa hypotheses, while factually there is, as the commentator points out, much which does uphold the Genoa argument.

When the book by Estelle Irizarry and its findings were being reported, it was being said that it had been proved that Columbus was Catalan. The book has done no such thing. Had it been irrefutably proved, then there would have been one hell of a song and dance. But there wasn’t, because it hadn’t been. What the book has done is to advance an important contribution to the Columbus debate, one that underscores previous work that has sought to make the Catalan link. And it is genuinely important as it has addressed Columbus’s use of language, one that has baffled historians and also baffled his contemporaries, such as Las Casas. Irizarry may have established a Catalan element and also established that Columbus spoke Catalan (or a Ladino variant) before Castilian, but this, in itself, does not mean that he might not have acquired this somewhere other than Catalonia or Aragon. Until it can be proved, indisputably, that Columbus was born somewhere other than Genoa, the debate will continue, and the Genoa argument will continue to hold sway. 

 

Mallorca on the telly

And so to “Sun, Sea and A&E”. I think I have upset someone, namely Gill Bucklitsch, the lady who works at Muro hospital, is featured on the programme and who was interviewed by “The Bulletin”, something that inspired an earlier piece. She found it “rather insulting”. In which case I apologise. It is not my intention to offend. 

Moving on, the piece was one about the celebrity that comes from reality TV and also TV’s portrayal of Mallorca, one that I described as “telly froth”. I’m afraid that I don’t buy the argument that reality TV is somehow promotion for Mallorca. That “Sun, Sea and A&E” shows local health services and staff in a positive light is commendable, but do people choose their holidays on the basis of medical provision? Perhaps they ought to, in which case they wouldn’t go to Egypt if they heard of the story of the eight-year-old girl who was whisked away from her parents, suspected of having landed with swine flu. 

When Clarkson and the boys came to do their “Top Gear” show, it was also said that this would be good for Mallorca. Why? It was a programme about cars and a rally, not a travelogue. The interest for some would have been heightened as they would have known the location, that I can see, but it would not necessarily result in a sudden rush of bookings from those who didn’t. That there is now talk of a new race-track for Mallorca may be beneficial, though don’t let’s expect an Abu Dhabi and Button and Vettel haring around a Mallorcan F1 circuit any time soon. Nevertheless, with the sun shining, Mallorca did look pretty good during whatever it was the Top Gear trio were doing, and I can’t pretend to understand what, other than the fact they were driving cars – some of the time.

Otherwise, what would make for good TV for Mallorca? Travel shows, yes, a decent drama series, yes. A soap might even do it. And then there might be historical dramas. Chopin’s winter in Mallorca wouldn’t do, as a truthful telling would reveal how much he disliked Valldemossa. Robert Graves possibly, though I’m not sure what. Or how about the Moors and the Christians? Shot on location around Pollensa, though the chances of a British production team doing it would be remote, on the grounds of religious insensitivity. Shame, it could make a rollicking good drama. The story of the reclaiming of Albufera? Shot on location around Alcúdia, Sa Pobla and Muro. There are probably any number of possibilities that would be genuinely meaningful.