A recent email survey run by a local paper asked their readers to decide on the question, “ Do you believe that Mallorca has as much corruption as Marbella?”
I’m sure it will not surprise you one teensy-weensy bit that the vote was 71% yes against 17% no. Then, as if to prove them, spot, bloody, on, the top dog in the local Guardia Civil has been given the bum’s rush and is up on charges of trousering some dosh with dodgy invoices to the tune of 10,000 Euro drinking vouchers!
The tales from the Marbella corruption cases are starting to seep out but this one is a beauty!
The municipal Rolls Royce, acquired by Jesús Gil y Gil in 1992, also has a part in the story.
For several years the car had a number of uses, from receiving VIP visitors to transporting Jesús Gil from his Club Financiero to the courthouse, a route he got to know well.
Then one day, after Gil had passed away, the car quite simply disappeared. No one at the Town Hall seemed at all worried although the car was municipal property, having been acquired in exchange for municipal land.
For several months the whereabouts of the vehicle was a mystery. All the information the traffic councillor Victoriano Rodríguez gave was that the Rolls was being repaired in a Madrid garage. Then on March 26th, three days before the stories broke out, would you believe, the car mysteriously appeared at the local Police headquarters.No explanation was given.
The police investigations have revealed that the car was used to calm the anger of Ismael Pérez Peña who, in exchange for the municipal tow truck contract, had given money to Roca and Yagüe (councillors) and had provided the Mayor and her deputy, Rodríguez with vehicles for their personal use. However the Town Hall owed Pérez Peña money and he had even threatened to tell the whole story to the television. So they gave him the Rolls Royce.
The businessman made use of the vehicle for several months until one day he panicked. “I’m sending the Rolls Royce back because it has been seen and there’s bound to be a photo”, he told Victoriano in a recorded telephone conversation.
By that time the investigation was under way and what Pérez Peña did not know was that his Madrid estate was indeed already under surveillance. Therefore when the Marbella Local Police officer, under the orders of Local Police chief Rafael del Pozo, was sent to “discreetly” fetch the car, he was followed all the way by the National Police.
Oh Gawd, yet another local glossy out to grab your advertising money!
This time it’s called “Mallorca on the move”.
Nice production, but it’s the same old stuff.
Pictures we’ve all seen before. Text, that we’ve all read before, hotels, restaurants, a list of local markets, a page of “useful numbers”;ho-hum, nothing really new.
And…it’s got the omnipresent Bill Blevins with his financial gloom and doom show.
The question is of course, will folk buy it?
Perhaps, out of curiosity, the first issue will sell a few but will people shell out €3.50 for number two? My guess is not many.
Two old ladies are outside their nursing home, having a drink and a smoke, when it starts to rain. One of the old ladies pulls out a condom, cuts off the end, puts it over her cigarette, and continues smoking.
Maude: What in the hell is that?
Mabel: A condom. This way my cigarette doesn´t get wet.
Maude: Where did you get it?
Mabel: You can get them at any pharmacy.
The next day, Maude hobbles herself into the local pharmacy and announces to the pharmacist that she wants a box of condoms.
The pharmacist, obviously embarrassed, looks at her kind of strangely (she is, after all, over 80 years of age), but very delicately asks what brand of condom she prefers.
"Doesn´t matter Sonny, as long as it fits on a Camel."
Now then, you may remember in one of my previous sermons quoting Alan Sugar with his warning to never own a boat (because, amongst other things, the crew will rip you off) with his advice to always charter a yacht if you feel inclined to take to the briney.
Well, in the first issue of a new mag, “The Yacht Owner”, a certain Andreas Liveras takes Sugar’s opinion’s even further.
I quote, “For a new owner who buys a boat for charter, my advice is to run it yourself or just don’t get involved at all. If you leave it to your captain, you have lost, I have no doubt of that”.
Taking that further, he adds, “The captain’s responsibility is to drive the boat, he doesn’t even interview the crew.”
I can imagine now that some of you, reading this, sporting bars and scrambled egg saying, “who’s this to bloody slag us off”?
Ah well, like Sugar, Liveras has his own impeccable “rags to riches” credentials and experience to comment.
Coming from humble farming stock in Cyprus and having owned such yachts as, Albacora, Princess Tanya, Princess Lauren, Rosenkavalier and Altair he is now building a fleet of custom charter yachts, two of 85 metres that are already completed and are chartering, with another two (110 &120 metres) on the drawing board!
It’s almost obscene! I’m talking about Fairline Boats plc in a record-breaking Southampton Boat Show smashing all previous sales records. They sold an astonishing 58 boats, worth in excess of £31 million.
At their peak on Saturday 23rd September they sold a new boat every 28 minutes!
Where the Hell are all these plastic fantastics going to live I ask?
And is there an Elephant’s graveyard of these almost indestructible composite things somewhere? Perhaps the lads down in Santa Ponca can give us some answers?
Margarita Dahlberg, who is president of APEAM (local marine-trade association), on returning from the Monaco boat show, has appealed to the powers that be that there should be more room for 50-60 metre yachts.
“Mallorca’s missing out on a lot of business”, she tells us!
Hello? Excuse me! What have many of us “Giris” been saying for bloody years?
Then, hey presto the local council for public works announces a massive restriction on the size of yachts that can moor in Portals!
But wait a second, hold up lad, uno momento senor; could this be the typically local, Machiavellian style of campaign to press for the extension of Puerto Paranoia?
We’ll have to wait and see, but remember, your read it here first!
Talking of Puerto Paranoia and the revelation that all port concessions are limited to 30 years from their conception they are not alone. By my reckoning this will effect Adriano, Santa Ponsa, Pollenca, and Arenal. It will probably be applicable to Santa Eulalia in Ibiza too.
This of course, will also effect the offices and apartments within the concessions.
The financial knock-on effects of this are almost incalculable!
Surely it would be more just to change the ruling slightly to say that “from the end of the current concession”, 30 years will be the maximum allowed.
This seems to me, to be daylight robbery by the government.
I know that there is a strong lobby of high rollers, movers and shakers that will take this to the absolute end, probably ending up in Brussels. There is far too much dosh in this to just roll over and be f***ed by the bureaucrats!
Well, one cloud of dust seems to be settling in the Boatyard of the Vanities story; the president of the port authority has been cleared by the Spanish State Lawyers and a top Madrid university bod of any jiggery-pokery antics regarding the awarding of the concession.
This of course will trigger the start of the welcome cloud of dust of the refit of the new extension to the yard. I have it on very good authority that this will not effect the current area and it will be business as usual for a while.
Then, when the new area has been completed, this will be used whilst the “old” part will be brought up to scratch.
At the completion of this second phase Palma will be the jewel in the Med, refit and repair scene.
Perhaps one of the reasons why so many Britons want to live in Spain is that they are the direct descendents of Iberian fisherman who landed on those happy isles some 6,000 years ago.
They liked what the saw so much that they decided to stay. At least that was the conclusion reached by Professor Bryan Sykes of the University of Oxford after analysing DNA samples from 10,000 people in the UK and Ireland.
In his book, Blood of the Isles, published this week. The study revealed that the Iberians were one of the six main tribes who lived in the British Isles before the Norman invasion.
The others were Celts, Vikings and immigrants from north Africa, the Middle East and Rome.
Prof Sykes told a leading UK newspaper: "The majority of the current inhabitants of the direct descendents of the Spanish.
If only Nelson and others had known, Britain might have been able to avoid all those wars with Spain!
I had a Skype call (bloody good system-chat for nowt- if you haven’t got it- get it!) the other day from Larry Powers, who was a frequent visitor here, particularly for the Pinmar golf; he send his regards to all and regrets that he can’t make it this year.
Lastly this month, it’s congrats to Bobby Cooper of Varadero Palma who (with a little help from Cheryl) has added to the clan with the arrival of Robert, John, Arthur, Muir on the 23rd of last month.
And, whilst on the subject of planning a family, I leave you with this gem….click on "Family Planning" top right of this page.
Toodle-pip,
Bates