Driving round the bend at the Porto Pi section of the Palma harbour last month you would have spotted the numerous moored warships from a number of nations, who were obviously on a NATO exercise. I was particularly interested to see that a Turkish ship’s pointed end was right “up the arse” of a Greek minesweeper…they just can stop themselves can they!
Whilst a certain executive director of a northern Mallorcan Fairline dealership should be congratulated for trying to get recognition for the Brits’ involvement in the local yottie industry, may I humbly suggest that if he’s trying to emphasise the professionalism angle, the photo in the Daily Bull**** of a British consular official strutting around on the teak aft deck with stiletto heels somewhat blew his dock cred.
How do you getter better seats in cattle class flying? Well, many airlines now, with online booking, offer you to choose seats. You have to be pretty quick to bag the good uns but firstly however you need to know the aircraft seating layout.But now you can go to www.seatguru.com and all will be revealed.
Well I’m glad to hear that the Palma council have now decided to get rid of the low-lifes that try to get a tip from you when you park. If they get spotted by Snr. Plod they get fined 90 Euros (which I doubt if many will have)!
Oh Oh! Look out; Palma council have decided that if you don’t cough up the dosh for fines and road tax in the “voluntary period” they will slap an embargo on your bank account- you have been warned!
Well, that’s it then. If you want to read anything with a balanced view about what’s happening in Calvia council don’t bother with any of the Serra stable media. This includes, Última Hora, Diari de Balears, M7, Última Hora Radio, Mallorca Magazine and Daily Bulletin. It appears that the councillors have had enough of what they describe as disinformation because of a personal vendetta between the media company’s owner (Pere Serra) and the mayor, Carlos Delgado and have all refused to talk to anyone from the Serra group. Things, you might say, came to a head recently when, at a trade fair in Berlin, Serra allegedly called Delgado an “hijo de puta”. Obviously a man of charm and eloquence and just the sort of chap you’d expect as boss of a media empire!
According to the local councillor, Juan Flaquer, 1.927.690 turistas arrived in the Baleares in the first quarter of 2006. A 10.8% increase on last year thanks to 10 % more by air (1.822.463) and 27,2 % more by sea (105.227). Throw in the stats that 80.9 % more Swiss arrived (47.040 turistas), Italy´s tally was 13.411, 43.2 % up, a Dutch increase of 39.8% (15.679) and Ireland, a 24.3% increase (5.603), whilst France was down 38.2%, Portugal -30,2% and Norwegians down 20.3%.
All seems pretty good news with what appears to be pretty specific figures. But hold on a minute; if you take the figures from a survey conducted and published by the Spanish central government and issued on the same day as Flaquer’s announcement, the figures show that 1.3 million foreign tourists visited the Balearics in the first four months of the year, some 8.9 percent less than in the same period in 2005, due to a fall of 5 percent in the British tourist market and a 1.1 percent fall in the German tourist market. The number of tourists coming to the whole of Spain during the first four months of 2006 was 14.5 million, some 5.8 percent more than in the same period last year, according to the “Tourist Movements across the Frontier Survey” from January to April. Then add into the equation that the Balearic hoteliers say that they had a 20% increase in rooms booked in April, year on year plus there are 19 less “all included” hotels operating this year. However, I think I might have the answer because the revealing figure from Flaquer is the 52.6% rise in Spanish visitors , some 500.617 people!
If Magalluf was anything to go by in the first couple of months they were practically all “Zimmer frame tourists” and diddly squat use to the economic livelihood of the infrastructure or the tourist trade. In future I’ll ignore all these lies, damned lies and statistics and ask White’s and Webb’s transport companies, at the end of the year, how many “gone bust” bar owners etc they took back to Blighty this year for a true reflection of the local tourist business.
Well it looks as if the Port Authority are casting their net wide and word gets to me that a couple more Brit and German flagged boats and have received a threatening letter from a local (UK & German) lawyer to cough up back taxes.
One view is that it could be on a “no win, no fee basis” and a scare tactic to collect some of the dosh. Will they take everyone to court? Where do they intend to see you in court? Has a court precedent been established? With these (and other questions) the Guv (Peter Franklin) and I had a beer with The Islander’s marine lawyer, Carlos Espinosa. Informed opinion says that they can go back to demand T5 and T0 fees from 2000! However anything before that is very iffy to collect. In fact Carlos told us that a number of people have taken the port authority to court for collecting any dosh before 2000 and have won! So if I’d paid any port taxes before 2000, and still had the receipts I’d be onto Carlos to rattle their cage. What a golden opportunity to get some folding stuff from a taxman- what fun eh?
Word gets to me that a new regional tax is being imposed by the governor of Sardinia on boats over 15m (49ft). Apparently they are going to be levied annually- which is OK..ish if you’re there most of the season but makes it bloody expensive if you’re there, for say, just a week or so! If you’re up in that part of the Med and you hear some strange noises off the coast of Corsica don’t be alarmed- it’ll be guffawing locals, ecstatic with the prospect of the exodus to them!
And here’s another bloody cheek. Word also gets to me that down in Puerto B. anus if you drop your hook within1 NM of the port the bast***s charge 70% of the daily berthing rate! Has anyone had any experience of this one?
Here’s one for the ladies. One morning the husband returns after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap. Although not familiar with the lake, the wife decides to take the boat out. She motors out a short distance, anchors and continues to read her book. Along comes a game warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman and says, "Good morning, ma´am. What are you doing?" "Reading a book," she replies (thinking isn´t that obvious?) ... "You´re in a restricted fishing area", he informs her.
"I´m sorry officer, but I´m not fishing, I´m reading. "Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I´ll have to take you in and write you up." "If you do that, I´ll have to charge you with sexual assault," says the woman. "But I have not even touched you," says the game warden." "That´s true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment."
"Have a nice day ma´am," and he left.
Moral: Never argue with a woman who reads. It is likely she can also think.
Gentlemen, you can buy me a glass of amber nectar for this one. Next time you say, “Just off to the pub for a quick one” and ‘er indoors says, “I’ll come too” you can now, with all sincerity say, on six days out of seven, “I’d love to but for your sake, better I go alone to talk ****ocks with the lads”.
A recent piece of Danish medical research shows that not only does a daily tipple reduce a man’s chances of heart problems by a staggering 41%, in women, the research found that the risk of heart disease fell by a third with a weekly drink but did not fall further in daily drinkers.
Have you seen Ken and Barbie’s latest Blingbo Monthy magazine? No less than 16 snaps of Barbie in it- talk about vanity publishing!
I shall finish the sermon for this month with the announcement of a new award, “The Carloss”. First the story and then the award winner. Not wanting to be pulled by the fuzz, our hero decided that after a skin-full of amber nectar to leave his car neatly parked in Son Caliu next to a hotel. The next day, with, as he described it, “A minger of a head” he was driven back to Son Caliu, to collect said coche. Er…. Can’t find it! Down to the cop shop to report it stolen. 10 months later our intrepid winner (having bought himself another jam jar) got a call from the boys in blue. On arrival at the station he was told that they did not have the car but showed him a photo, asking him if that was his car. Er…si..um…Gracias adios. The Photo showed his car parked on the other side of the hotel! Nil points for the fuzz and guess who the winner is….ta….raaaaaaaaaaaa….. Carloss King pictured on this page sporting his “Carloss” cap. If you have any similar potential “Carloss” winners please send the details in.
Saludos
Bates