WikiWorld: Spain, Wikileaks and World Cup

Wikileaks and World Cups. They tell you much about a nation’s diminished role in the scheme of things. A political leader considered to be pretty much useless by the Americans and humiliation by the quasi-nation that is FIFA.

But so much for Gordon Brown and England. Another nation has to cope with its own minor role in the scheme of things. So minor it had to combine with a minor-minor nation to try and prise the World Cup out of the clutches of the Russian mafia that has made the country one of its favourite offshore bases.

Spain is not a world power. Centuries ago it was. It has had to adjust to being an also-ran, which doesn’t stop it trying to reclaim some one-time glory and importance. But when it does, it ends up looking a tad silly. As with the presidential predecessor José María Aznar. “My friend Tony” were the words put into the mouth of Aznar when he was being savaged by the satirists. The little man of world politics like a mini David Steel sitting on the shoulders of the really powerful and his lackey.

This was Iraq. Aznar stood shoulder to shoulder – well, slightly lower than shoulder to shoulder in fact – with Bush and Blair, desperate for some international kudos that had long since deserted Spain. Aznar’s back in the news, thanks to the splendidly cringeworthy revelations from Wikileaks.

In 2007 Aznar confided in the American ambassador to Spain who, praise be, then broke the confidence. He was thinking of a return to frontline politics and all because he doubted that his successor as national leader of the Partido Popular, Mariano Rajoy, was up to the job. There are many who would have agreed with Aznar then and would still do so.

Poor old Rajoy. If, and it really isn’t much of a choice, he were to succeed Zapatero as national president, it would be a case of trading in Mr. Bean for Mr. Grey, the uninspiring, uncharismatic bearded blunder of the PP. For one who aspires to great office, to a place on the world stage (sort of), he has an unerring capacity to come over all Bush-like, as was the case when he pooh-poohed climate change because his cousin had said so. It was only slightly better than taking the word of the bloke in the pub. Admittedly his cousin was a physics academic, but going on the say-so of one person, a relative, is a rather worrying trait for a potential national leader.

While we have been bombarded with information of seemingly rather greater importance, Spain, appropriately enough, has been relegated to the footnote category of Wikileaking. In the world scheme of things, matters Spanish are not exactly earth-shattering, but “El Pais”, a sort of “Guardian” of the Spanish media left, has nevertheless been informing the Spanish public about not only Rajoy but also US pressure to stop Spanish High Court investigations into matters such as alleged war crimes in Iraq and about the use of Palma airport for rendition flights.

Wikileaks, Spanish style, doesn’t make for easy reading if you are a Spanish politician, as US officials don’t seem to be overly impressed. The King, on the other hand, is approved of by the Americans. And then there’s Zapatero himself. He has not enjoyed great relations with the US, who doubtless see him conveying a rather bemused, bumbling, if genial, persona. Just as he was when to everyone’s surprise, including his own, he snatched the presidency from Aznar. But this doesn’t stop him turning up at events like the World Cup vote. Not that it did much good. Nor did the vain attempt by the president of the Spanish football federation, Ángel María Villar, to butter up the FIFA voters with his grovelling declaration that: “FIFA is clean and does things with honesty. You are all honest and hardworking and worry about football”.

The Spanish, and indeed President Zapatero, do have rather more pressing issues to worry about than the failed World Cup bid, but there has been some anger regarding the decision to hand the 2018 tournament to Russia. One commentator has suggested that “we (the Spanish presumably) should emigrate to another planet”.

Ah yes, to another planet, another world, where there would be no Wikileaks, Spain and England would still rule the waves and have their empires and there would be no “clean” FIFA to prevent Spain and England from forever more sharing the hosting of the World Cup between them.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Waving Flags

So there I was, thinking that maybe I’d do something about it being the fourth of July, as in making the observation that there aren’t so many Americans hereabouts, save the incoherent, Riki Lash, the scuba-Mallorca-ing, Mick and Jessie, and the Hollywooding, Michael Douglas. I was thinking about something for independence day, something about flags being waved perhaps, something about national pride, and then … along came the Germans.

Suddenly, German flags have started to appear where German flags had previously not been. Outside Spanish bars, for example. How bizarre, except as a flag of economic convenience. Flags were waving and flying from cars along the main road through Alcúdia and Playa de Muro yesterday. Horns were blowing. Deutschland was über alles; Germans were over all, especially the Argentinians. Then Nobby (Linekers) phones. All kicking off down in the port. Shame, I’ve gone in the opposite direction. Shame, might have been nice to have seen the plod cordoning off the road around the Alcúdia Garden while Argentinians and Germans piled into each other. 200, 300 mass brawling, suggests Nobby. What great sport in the name of sport. Flags waving and punches flying. But take note. Argentinians and Germans. Nary a hint of trouble when Germany beat England. Just a load of very drunk people, too embarrassed to do anything about it, other than to want to attack a plasma screen and get at the ref.

In the port the other day, I happened to look up at flats. All the flags were hanging. From the balconies. Brazil, Spain and Germany and Argentina. Two have probably been taken down now. You wonder, though, what might happen when the flags fly when Germany meet Spain or if Germany meet the Dutch. If there is one nation that has more reason to dislike the Germans than the British, then it is the Dutch. All historical, and all nonsense, but there you go.

As for the Americans. Well, no American flags have flown during the World Cup and you are unlikely to see one. But how Mallorca would love it were you to. When they talk about seeking out new markets, there’s a pretty old one that has never been tapped. Palma airport needs to have transatlantic flights, then a greater state of Mallorcan independence might follow.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Oh What An Atmosphere: Football on holiday

Football on holiday. There is this thing that baffles me slightly. Chanting support for our boys. In bars. Outside bars. Does it somehow permeate the plasma and filter across global satellite communication systems to be relayed above the noise of the vuvuzelas in a South African stadium? Probably not.

“England till I die.” At the clinic next to Foxes, the lady in charge was getting anxious. The noise was such that she couldn’t hear someone on the phone. So she said. “England till I die,” and someone on the end of the phone gagging his or her last. Maybe she should be grateful that the clinic is not next door to a Spanish bar, though possibly she was unnerved by the raucousness of those feared English footy fans – and their ancient reputation. A police car passed, just as a Rooney was launching himself into a one-man Peter Kay conga. “Are you on your way to Yellow, sir?” The police might have asked. “Yellow?” He was English, after all, and a Rooney, to boot. The clinic Oberführerfrau, arms sternly crossed, watched as the police car kept going and watched as it came back and kept going.

Rooneys, Gerrards, the odd (very odd) Crouch, the occasional, nostalgic Beckham, an absence of Heskeys. England versus Slovenia. I felt possibly under-dressed in a sky-blue Man City reminiscent Karl Hogan. Not a red or white for me. “I am the only Slovenian in Alcúdia,” said I in my best Slovenian accent. I used the gag, if you could call it such, once. Unlike the gag from the Rooneys and Gerrards. “Well held,” every time James caught the ball. Ho-de-ho-ho.

Then there are the pints. Hundreds, thousands. Has anyone ever measured the peaks of pint purchase as a game progresses? A graph with game time on one axis and pints on the other, superimposed by another – pints purchased in the immediate aftermath of an England goal. Someone should. I will, if I’m given the grant to do so.

Around The Mile. A party on the Goodfellas terrace, or what looked like a party. Some mascoty beings, wrapped in St George, a white with red cross sun shade over a baby buggy. The passage way by Linekers packed like Wembley Way. Wayne with a mini-Gazza blond look, lacking only a lob, a goal and a dentist’s chair. And a multitude of Rooneys; a potato field of Rooneys.

Football on holiday. Football on holiday in the afternoon sun in Puerto Alcúdia. “Oh what an atmosphere.”

And it was only Slovenia. And it was brilliant.

* Some photos on the HOT Alcudia Pollensa Facebook page.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Accentuating The Positive: Friendly Alcúdia

Once more “The Diario” has gone out talking to tourists where other papers sit in the air-conditioning and pen pieces about the cost of a coffee. Tourists the paper spoke to were in Alcúdia. The impetus for doing this was the visit of the representatives of 25 tour operators who came to Alcúdia (and Can Picafort) on Friday and an observation that was being made during that visit that greater friendliness needs to be shown to tourists.

A lot is said about friendliness (or lack of it). But it is not a factor that has ever struck me as being much of an issue; only if someone wants to make it so. As always one can pull out an example of poor service or surliness, but generally speaking … ? I’m not convinced. Nor are the holidaymakers to whom “The Diario” spoke. Friendliness, helpfulness were the positive aspects of the paper’s investigation. Less positive were prices (more expensive than Malaga or the USA, according to a family that was spoken to) and the absence of good transport, i.e. the absence of a train to Palma. Some American visitors had expected that there would be one. Many people in Alcúdia had expected that there would be one – before the politicians proved themselves incapable of arriving at a compromise. Another visitor said that she thought that taxis were expensive and not always easy to find. The paper does point out something which most visitors would be unaware of, and that is that taxis in the different municipalities along the bay of Alcúdia – Alcúdia itself, Muro and Santa Margalida – cannot pick up outside of their municipalities. One can understand that this might cause some frustration. An empty cab goes past and keeps going past. Maybe the issue needs to be addressed, and not set aside only when Muro taxi drivers are called in as reinforcements by an Alcúdia taxi brigade which gets overwhelmed by demand on market days.

But overall the paper was pretty positive, albeit that it spoke to less than a handful of visitors. So, proves little, but at least it was trying.

Also positive is the word that business appears to be on the increase in bar world. The past week seems to have witnessed a significantly higher level of trade, and not just because of the football, although this has had an impact, an impact that does make one wonder. One bar, Mile-based, reports that Saturday last week was the second best day in ten years. Ok, England were playing (after a fashion), but so they have also played over the past ten years (when not failing to qualify). So, what of those fears that the hotels would gobble up the Sky footy trade? And moreover, what of all-inclusives and their effects down The Mile? The protests against all-inclusives seem to have been forgotten amidst a burst of recent good business.

* The Diario article is here: http://www.diariodemallorca.es/part-forana/2010/06/15/amabilidad-problema/578954.html

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.