Seven Days

Gordon Ramsay Advice
 The front-page news on Friday that the celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay will be visiting Majorca for a new series of his BAFTA and Emmy award winning UK Channel 4 series Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares may have been met with mixed feelings in the tourism business. The show’s producers say they will be looking for “British-owned restaurants, hotels and B&Bs that are struggling to make ends meet and would benefit from Gordon’s help and advice”.
But might the show give the impression that there are a lot of not very good British-owned restaurants etc on the island? In his TV series which began in2004 Ramsay works with a chosen restaurant for about a week and returns a few months later to see how useful his advice has been.

Troubled Waters
The possibility of oil prospecting in what are being called “Balearic waters” has quickly become one of those local issues which gathers momentum in the Bulletin’s pages.
 The week began with news that the professional Federation of Balearic Fisherman had joined the campaign against commercial oil exploration already started by tourism and environmental interests.
 The Federation’s members generate some 21 million euros annually for the local economy which would be seriously affected by oil prospecting.
By the end of the week the campaign had been joined by the yacht-owning community who were urged by the Majorcan-based Associacion Ondine to “blow their horns” yesterday as a march of local organisations which are  involved in the marine environment began in Palma.
Another recruit to the campaign was UNESCO which expressed concern over the seagrass meadows within areas protected by World Heritage recognition.
 The political dimension of Mediterranean oil and gas exploration was given a boost when Xavier Pastor, the Executive Director of Oceana in Europa, pointed out that while he was with French President Nicolas Sarkozy he had cancelled all exploration permits in its waters because “the Mediterranean is the heart of our identity”.

Balearics Poverty
Information from two different sources on successive days led to disturbing headlines, “Poor forced to live in caves” and “Rate of Balearic poverty trebled in five years”. Reports from the local social services showed that at least thirty families are living in caves and further fifteen in shacks and tents.
Typically, they are receiving about 500 euros per month which is enough to buy food and essential items but not to rent a flat or house.
The second report came from the national Foundation of Savings Banks and showed the extraordinary escalation of poverty in the Balearics between 2007 and 2011 as long-term unemployment rose by 938 percent.

Satellite TV Latest
After a couple of weeks of uncertainty it became fairly clear that the most densely populated part of Majorca -- the coastal strip from Sa Rapita to Andraitx, taking in Arenal, Palma and the Calvia complex -- had survived from the switch of satellites by BBC and ITV.
Elsewhere, and particularly in the North of the island, there were various reception problems including a complete wipe-out of BBC programmes in some parts. A variety of solutions have been suggested of which the most popular was headlined on Thursday -- “Surge in demand for bigger satellite dishes.”
In a Viewpoint entitled ‘No Right of Complaint’ editor Jason Moore advised a British resident who had contacted the British Embassy in Madrid to ask the Ambassador to protest to the BBC about the loss of its signal that any such intervention would be pointless because legally the BBC and ITV programmes are for UK audiences only.

Inca Hospital Station
Not many hospitals can claim to have their own railway station but Inca’s hospital which opened in 2007 and depends on a bus service from the main Inca station is likely to be able to make that claim after a decision by the Inca council.
However, the Bulletin’s report included a statement by the Mayor which provided an interesting insight into local red tape: “The government has to build the new station, the local council has to provide the land, the department for roads has to take care of a new access road from the station to the hospital and the health service has to create a new entrance.”

In Brief
The front-page news on Friday that the celebsome details began to leak about Princess Cristina’s recent appearance in a Palma court to answer questions about her knowledge of her husband’s financial operations.
During an all-day questioning by Judge Jose Castro the Princess apparently replied “I don’t know” or “I can’t remember” more than 500 times.

 The weather has been kind for the annual harvesting of the sa Pobla potato crops destined for consumers in Britain and Scandinavia.
 This year’s Lady Christl potatoes are of a high quality but the exporting company is also optimistic about a new variety known as Jazzy which is said to have a more distinctive flavour.

The President of the Balearic Port Authority, Alberto Pons, and the Mayor of Palma, Mateo Isern, presented the 2014 cruise liner programme which is predicted to show an increase of three per cent after the ten per cent increase achieved in 2013. The Mayor said that the Port of Palma is now the second busiest in Spain, after Barcelona, the fourth most popular in the Mediterranean and the twelfth busiest in the world. A highlight of 2014 will be twenty-two visits by Allure of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise liner.

 The Bulletin columnist Frank Leavers was elected chairman of the Majorca Cricket Club in succession to Paul Heaton who had retired after 25 yeas service to the Club.
Frank said the standard of cricket at the Club was improving and visiting sides from the UK had come to expect tough opposition. He thanked the Club’s principal sponsor, Globo Balear Entertainment, and Calvia Council for its support.

“It finally happened. After a quarter of a century and ending with a sparkling swansong performance of Aladdin the Bay Entertainers packed away the greasepaint and stored the props for the last time.” -- from Wendy Peters’ report on the fall of the final curtain of “an era of entertainment and generous fundraising” by the company.