I am happy to report that in almost 25 years of living in Mallorca I have never suffered from any lawbreaking.

Which is actually not quite true. I had my car broken into, windows smashed, some 20 years ago, on two occasions. Once an expensive leather jacket was stolen, and the other time, a cheapish car radio. Then, we had our country house broken into, again on two occasions, also some 15 or 20 years ago. But none of these burglaries or break-ins brought any serious material losses with them; the emotional damage might have been a different matter each and every time.

Yesterday was different, though. I suffered, or rather my female companion suffered, a pretty cold-blooded robbery attack, bang in the middle of  the Palma suburb of Es Molinar, on a relatively busy street, not too late at night. The assault made us feel as if we were in a bad movie, a bit unreal really, a bit like in the Twilight Zone.

What I wanted to tell you about, though, is how the law dealt with it, and this is the good news about an otherwise unpleasant experience. First, we went back to our car. Then we proceeded to the nearest Guardia Civil station known to me. There were three guards at the entrance to the post, a male and two female, all uniformed and armed to the hilt. We were not invited in but told that we would have to make our way to the Policía Nacional as the Guardia Civil would not deal in such criminal matters. When I inquired about the nearest Policía Nacional station there was quite a bit of humming and hahing, as if the officers were unsure as to where to send us. Eventually we were directed to the Paseo Mallorca. That’s were we went.

We were not allowed into the main building there but were redirected to a separate entrance dealing with Denuncios. We were dealt with in a friendly and efficient manner, although I have to say that we spent the best part of two hours reporting the juvenile bag snatching. We were given telephone numbers and a free phone line to cancel the stolen credit cards and mobile phones. We were given competent advise and a courteous treatment. My companion could not present identification as all that was stolen together with passport, mobile phone, laptop computer, camera and whatnot, but hey, her Spanish residence number came up on the screen in no time and, presto, the rest was easy. Two documents were fashioned with five copies each, a total of 20 signatures between the Denunciante and the police officer, and some 20 stamps were impressed upon the papers.

Halfway through the lengthy procedure I need to go to the toilet. There were, apparently, no such facilities in the building. I was directed to a bar some way away, as all the closet ones were closed at this time of night (23h00). When I found the bar, a group of youngsters, not older than 21 or 22, was cheerfully assembled in there, all seemingly tattoo embellished. On second glance I spotted from their t-shirts that they were in fact all CNP officers (Cuerpo Nacional de Policía), albeit of the Motorbike Brigade, and quite obviously off-duty by now.

If you ever needed to have your handbag and/or laptop stolen, it might not be less painful here in Spain but it would seem more relaxed, more human and more colourful. And the bag snatchers, three youngsters of no more than 15 or 16 years of age, seemed full of canny, street-wise chutzpah. In a way I admired their astute temerity.

If you are offered a newish Mac Book Pro with a French keyboard at a knock-down price here in Mallorca, any time soon, please let me know.

The photo was taken in Palma, Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: December 8th, 2011. The time was 23:03:49.

I went to the theatre in Manacor last night, to see Acorar by Toni Gomila. It was a bit like The Vagina Monologues but instead of sexual tribulations it was about Mallorca’s favourite pastime, the Matança (slaughtering the pig). I liked the one-man monologue performance very much even though it was in colloquial Mallorquín and not always easy to absorb. But the show was very well acted and well set-en-mise. The house was packed; apparently Manacor has quite a long-established theatre tradition. If you should happen to like the native idiom and favour a passionate discourse about some essential Mallorcan character traits, you can line up for tickets in Capdepera (January 27th), Santanyí (January 28th), Manacor (January 29th), and soon in Lloseta, Artà, Porto Cristo, etc. (February dates to be confirmed). The author is performing the clever script himself.

I was disappointed though for a different reason. I had imagined that the performance would be given at the new auditorium in Manacor, inaugurated only recently. I am feverishly up in arms against the idiocy of building a new theatre cum concert hall facility in a place like Manacor when the very town has a superbly equipped and well-functioning theatre with four salas of different sizes and capacities, only built some 20 or 30 years ago. Apparently, the new auditorium has cost 6,000,000 €, not including the usual cost overruns, and excluding the technical installations. It may be for this technical deficiency that The Matança Monologues had to be put on at the old theatre. Now Manacor has a multi-million venue which they can’t use until La Crisis is over and done with. Politicians are very good at wasting the taxpayers money and in getting their priorities wrong, again and again. Idiots.

The photo was taken in Manacor, Mallorca, Spain. The date: January 25th, 2012. The time was 21:12:19.

This may or may not interest you. I am writing about it because things like the following interest me.

There is a small village between Felanitx and Cala d’Or with probably the world’s highest concentration of fashion designers. The pueblo is called Calonge; it belongs to the jurisdiction of Santanyí. Calonge has no more than perhaps 980 inhabitants, but, hey: Calonge is home to two of the more eminent fashion designers that the world of Haute Couture fashion has seen over the last 20 years or so.

The older one is called Miquel Adrover (1965). He went to New York in 1995 and started designing his own woman’s fashion collection in 1999. Between then and 2004, he presented eight collections in NYC (see photo above). He was nominated for the Vogue Fashion Award in 2000 as the best avant-garde designer of the year. Some of his fashion designs are held in the V & A Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Bellevue Art Museum in Washington and the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía in Madrid. In the aftermath of 9/11, Miquel Adrover abandoned the US market and returned to Europe. He currently works and designs for a German fashion label, Hess Natur.

The younger one’s name is Sebastian Pons (1972). He went to London in the 90s to study at the Central Saint Martins College before he started to work for Alexander McQueen. In 2003, he joined Miquel Adrover’s team in New York, where he debuted in 2004 with a collection during the New York Fashion Week (see photo bottom). Later this week, Sebastian Pons will travel to New York where he will present his latest designs, all hand-tailored in Calonge by friends and family members. My wife and our younger daughter were shown some of his latest creations yesterday. I wasn’t there and no photo of the recent designs can possibly be published until after the NYC presentations.

Both photos shown today are of fashion designs from the 2004 and 2005 collections, respectively. The images were borrowed from the Internet, courtesy of migueladrover.com (top) and thefashionspot.com (bottom).

Thank you very much, and

moltes gràcies.

I don’t know whether this is relevant to you but let me tell you that I am interested in this kind of Mallorcan snippet.

Shortly after we arrived in Mallorca in 1987 to make our permanent home in the south-east of the island I was surprised to hear about a political party making wind in local municipal affairs here in Felanitx, a party called Coloms a la Sala. You can imagine my surprise. What was that supposed to mean, Pigeons at the Town Hall?

The party was officially founded in the Autumn of 1990 and inscribed into the Registro de Partidos Políticos del Ministerio del Interior de España (Register of Political Parties) December, 1990. I knew a few of its founding members; one of them was an architect who I was in contact with. I imagined they were rather left-leaning in their political views. I was even more surprised when I learned that the party made it into the town council of the Ajuntament de Felanitx with first two seats in 1991 and later with one councillor, in 1995. I seem to remember that in 1999, the party was not elected into the town council and thus, formed part of the opposition. I am not quite sure but CALS, as they were called for short, did not stand for municipal elections after 2003. My wife and I are listed in the local electoral register and I think we gave them our vote at least once.

What’s interesting about all that is the fact that there are a total of 9,111 political parties registered in the register of the Ministry of the Interior in Madrid. I am not sure how many parties there are registered in the UK or in the States, but if anything I would have thought that number to be in the hundreds (UK) or dozens (USA) at the most and certainly not in the thousands. This may go to show that democracy may well be much deeper enshrined here in Spain than us Northern Europeans would ever imagine.

The town hall in Felanitx, shown in the photo, has been extensively rebuilt and renovated over the last two or three years. Building work was completed a while ago; the last eight months or so were used to install electricity, telecommunication and other services. In November, the new Ajuntament, or La Sala, as the locals call it, was re-inaugurated. I don’t think the Coloms a la Sala were there for the ceremonial act.

Next Friday, the Consell de Govern will hold a meeting in Felanitx where the President of the Balearic government will be present. Felanitx en Moviment, a faction of local dissidents, has launched a page on Facebook alerting us of the upcoming event and inviting us to make our voices heard with regard to the new government’s current linguistic policy. The spirit of the Coloms a la Sala is seemingly still there in Felanitx. I wouldn’t be surprised if Felanitx en Moviment was composed by the offspring of erstwhile members of the Coloms a la Sala.

The photo was taken in Felanitx, Mallorca, Spain. The date: January 12th, 2012. The time was 12:51:21.

As we enter a New Moon phase today, I took a good look at the winter night sky last night. I am not equipped with a telescope nor with a particularly good camera and I don’t much trust my eye sight any more. But I loved the clear sky image with trillions of stars. I even spotted a constellation that I think might be the Ursa Major (Greater Bear) but I do not know enough about the stars to be sure. You may know better.

We are blessed in Mallorca with some extraordinary skies throughout the year. At different periods of the seasons, we can ravish the stunning Milky Way, discover the Pleiades, can observe Jupiter and Mars, spot shooting stars galore and see some of the best moon images one can imagine. We are also blessed with a unique observatory and Planetarium in Costitx, the Observatorio Astronómico de Mallorca. You should make your way there if you want a better look at the January night sky.

The photo was taken in Felanitx, Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: January 22nd, 2012. The time was 23:43:16.

Sometimes blogging is an endless accumulation of irritation and annoyance. To me anyway.

For a couple of months now I have been meaning to take a photo of the lighthouse of Cala Figuera in Calvià. I went there in December but somehow missed the turning on the new motorway to suddenly find myself in Andratx. No lighthouse there. Nothing unpleasant about Andratx, though. I took some photos of the Castell de Son Mas instead and had a coffee. That was rewarding enough.

Yesterday I had another go at finding the lighthouse of Cala Figuera. Try as I did and ask as I would, I simply could not find it. I was told that I was near, it was just around the corner so to speak, but I simply could not locate the access to the Faro or find the coastal stretch opposite the bay. I must have driven up and down the area of El Toro and Can Ferrer, Sol de Mallorca and Magaluf for at least three hours to no avail. I was told that the lighthouse is situated on land that is designated for military purposes and thus, not accessible to the public. I was prepared to have a sneak anyway, if only I could have found the access. Eventually I ended up in a wooded area with heavy shooting going on. First I thought it was hunters; it is the hunting season now and only until the end of this month. But no. I seem to have ended up near or actually on a Finca assigned to Clay Pigeon shooting. I hastily made my retreat.

The reward for my odyssey was a secluded playa, the Caleta des Portals Vells, a beach that I had never been to before. It was perfect. The weather was blissful, I was in good company, the sea was quiet, the air was fresh and clean, the island was completely quiet and peaceful, and there was no shooting anywhere near. There were perhaps 20 people dotted about. The beach bar was closed. It may be hell here during the summer but in January, this fortuitous outing was a real delight.

The lighthouse will have to wait. Third time lucky, I hope.

This is what the lighthouse in question looks like from the bird’s-eye view. Not that I have ever seen it myself.

The photo (top) was taken near Magaluf, Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: January 21st, 2012. The time was 13:13:27. The photo (bottom) was borrowed from the Internet, courtesy of farsdebalears.org.

Moltes gràcies.

After the Jewish New Year (September 28th, 2011), the Islamic New Year (November 14th, 2011), the Gregorian New Year (January 1st, 2012) and the Berber New Year (January 13th, 2012), we will now celebrate the Chinese New Year, or rather, Mallorca’s Chinese population will. January 23rd is the date according to the Lunar calendar and the New Moon, but, our Asian friends will, for practical purposes, hold their celebrations today and tomorrow. An estimated 8,000 Chinese nationals live amongst us, here in Mallorca, and a few hundred (or a few thousand?) Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indonesians, Filipinos and Malaysians will join in the festivities.

The Chinese New Year is dedicated to the Dragon, one of twelve animals making up the Chinese calendar. In Eastern philosophy, the Dragon is said to be a deliverer of good fortune and a master of authority. Our Chinese friends have high expectations of the Year of the Dragon. In mainland China, the Chinese New Year is also known as the Spring Festival. There, the holiday spans two weeks until the next Full Moon but, not here in Mallorca.

The photo was taken in Manacor, Mallorca, Spain. The date: January 15th, 2012. The time was 14:05:26

We are being cheated. Not many of us seem to care.

First it was music. The vinyl records and audio music tapes were replaced by the Compact Disc and, more recently, by Digital Audio Encoding and compression. Then it was film and the movies, going from 36 mm and 16 mm to magnetic Video Cassette Recording, before going to Digital Cinematography. The computer revolution, almost 30 years ago, brought us all the wonder-world of digital excitement. Now we could listen to music on our computers and iPods, watch movies or clips on our PC and YouTube. Then came the new era in photography.

Analog photo material used to be sold in rolls of 35 mm and for professional users, in large imaging formats. Now it is all digital cameras, digital photography and digital photo editing. What used to be done in the darkroom and manually is now being done in PhotoShop or LightRoom and keyboard and mouse.

The truth is that the digital format in music, film and photography gives us an inferior result. The analog music recording gives us better sound of a much higher quality. The analog film production gives us better grain and much better skin tones. The analog photography gives us better photos by far, and yes, thank you very much, Mr. Eastman. I’m sorry to hear that only yesterday, Eastman Kodak Company had to file for bankruptcy protection. I am sorry to see photography on film material disappear, just as much as I regret that black and white photography has little hope of surviving as a craft due to increasing scarceness of negative film and paper material. I do miss Polaroid instant photography. I do miss quality.

Today’s photo may not be the best example for analog photography, especially as I used LightRoom, a digital photo editing programme, to import the image onto my blog platform. But still, the photo was taken on 35 mm Kodak negative film material, and all I can say is that I cherish my negatives, just as I cherish my old 8 and 16 mm films and my vinyl record collection. Surely, I must be indecently old if I prefer quality over convenience, any time.

The photo was chosen from my archive. It was taken in Palma, Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: October 10th, 2002. The time was 12:16:49.

When the MS Costa Concordia suffered a tragic accident in Italy last Friday, a Friday the 13th at that, one did not immediately see any implications of the calamity on our island, Mallorca. Well, it happens that this gargantuan cruise ship was scheduled to arrive in the Port of Palma yesterday, and of course she didn’t. She simply couldn’t this time and she won’t ever again. A total of 52 visits of that ship to Mallorca had been scheduled for 2012, and only 2 have materialized so far, and no more will be forthcoming. MS Costa Concordia was the only cruise liner that called on Palma during the winter months. Now there won’t be any, unless Carnival Corporation, the world’s largest cruise ship operator and owner of MS Costa Concordia reschedule some other vessel to take the popular Savona-Marseille-Barcelona-Palma-Cagliari-Palermo-Civitavecchia route.

The vessel had first docked in Palma on July 26th, 2006, and has passed through Palma since then on 188 occasions, of which there were 39 in 2011 alone.

Let’s not forget to mention Guillermo Gual, one of the fatalities confirmed so far, a native of Mallorca.

The photo was borrowed from the Internet, courtesy of lemonpage.de.

Vielen Dank.

The Mallorcan folks are really quite clever people. They certainly were some time ago, let’s say, a hundred years ago. Then, school education was a matter of the upper class and land owners only. Girls did not even enjoy the benefits of a school education. So, people and in particular, country folk were illiterate. They could barely write, and reading, well I think, not so much. They were church goers, though.

In church, the Neules (paper doilies) Christmas decorations were used to simply tell the faithful how many weeks were still to go, plus how many days, until Cuaresma (Lent). As a matter of fact, this Neules calendar is still being used by a large number of Mallorcan parish churches even though most people nowadays are educated and literate. Some of the older ones Pagesos may still find it difficult to read or write anything more elaborate than their own name but there you are.

The way it works is to use larger Neules for the number of weeks left until the first day of Lent, and smaller Neules being used for the additional days. As the ecumenical year progresses towards Cuaresma, Neules are removed one by one to give the congregation an idea of the remaining period getting shorter by the day. Clever, isn’t it?

Cuaresma will start this year on Wednesday, February 22nd, and will continue for 39 days until Saturday, March 31st. Easter Sunday will be April 1st, 2012.

The photo was taken in Felanitx, Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: January 15th, 2012. The time was 16:30:13.