I'm perfectly happy with seven days of four star hotel, sand and sun .. providing I've got my laptop and good WiFi. Clare says she wants nothing more than sunshine, a good book and a beach recliner (but I know she'll be bored after a couple of hours). Alex is inscrutable.
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| Clare fronting the island restaurant - from the hotel's beach |
Monday breakfast
I say to Alex, " Name the social class here." He replies without hesitation, "C1."
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| Things are quietening down at breakfast |
"Yep, not many university lecturers here, or C-level execs .. or lawyers 😉."
Breakfast is a buffet served in an aircraft hangar. Of the 200 Brits milling around the stainless steel racks of sausage, bacon, eggs, .. and donuts (!), 95% are on the wrong side of 16 stone, the average plate is carrying 1,500 Calories and never has the 'spherical cow' model seemed more appropriate.
Tuesday morning on the hotel terrace/beach
Aqua-fit in the pool. Sixty-something women lumpily filling their swimwear, up to their shoulders in water, waving their arms to a disco beat. The holiday rep in blue uniform star-jumping poolside.
Alex noted an enthusiastic oldie joining-in beside the rep.
Ah, as I type I hear the call for beach boules in fifteen minutes!
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| Boules on the beach |
In the afternoon we took the bus to the adjacent port of Peguera.
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| Peguera: this beautiful flower |
Judging by the shop signs, Peguera mostly caters to Germans with the English second and then a smattering of Russians.
Tuesday evening entertainment
We arrived to the final strains of "Hey Ho, Silver Lining" as the warm-up act finished, having signally failed to warm up the elderly audience in the subterranean hall. More accurately it was under the hotel pool - just think of the weight of all that water overhead. I have just realised that our hotel is actually a stationary cruise ship.
The venue was full for 'Gala Night' and the guests were dressed up (within the limits of their baggage allowance). We occupied the few remaining seats at the bar, right at the back, without a view.
"Thank God!" I thought.
The star now appeared. She was forty-something, glamorous in a sequinned, sparkly knee-length dress (don't overexcite them, some might die). She was over-amplified, she was raucous, she was a younger version of Julie Walters with a Midlands accent.
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| Our Tuesday evening star: 'Divine' |
She was professional, with an excellent singing voice, smart and feral.
I imagined her state of mind: 'What a dump: this utility box of a room, this home for failing corporate conferences, this barely-sentient audience.
She flattered them, she killed them.
"Which part of England are you from?"
With this audience, she knows it's England, not Britain.
"London? What do you think of when you think of London? Crime!" (Laughs all round).
"Essex? What do you think of when you think of Essex? White socks!"
She panders to provincialism, slays them with stereotypes.
Then she got round to that man in spectacles in the third road (audience-baiting has a special role in stand-up; I don't know why I find it particularly loathsome).
"Yes, you sir. Look he's nervous. You're afraid of me aren't you!"
I couldn't see the victim. Perhaps he was doing that deer in the headlights thing. I would've been.
I turned to Alex and said, "Aren't you glad we're not at the front."
As she segued into Dolly Parton and "Nine to Five" - performed brilliantly, by the way - I made my excuses and left.
Thursday
We've been to Port of Andratx this morning for a walk-around. It's very pleasant.
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| Andratx: Alex and Clare walk down to the harbour |
This afternoon, we did our regular check on the two cakes in the chiller cabinet in the downstairs bar. We've been watching them with increasing fascination day by day, as they gradually diminish a slice or two at a time, bought by the unwary.
When we first arrived we were tempted, but as the week has gone by they've become curiously less appealing .. . Update: they were changed on our last day. So that would be a week, then.
Friday breakfast
As we came down the steps to a very early breakfast this morning (at 7.10 am), we observed a queue in beachwear, clutching their towels, waiting for the 7.30 unlocking of the glass doors to the beach.
Yes, aligned with national stereotypes, it was eine Gruppe von zehn Deutschen!
At this early hour, the breakfast display was rudimentary. Chiefly those mini-sausages so beloved by the Germans ..
Palma
Today was our excursion to Palma - hence the early breakfast. Here are two puzzle pictures.
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| Myself, Clare and Alex in the old town of Palma |
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| Our return to Grupotel Playa Camp de Mar |
The band, shown below, lightened our tour while from the king's high summer palace you get a view of Palma and the bay.
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| The band near the Cathedral |
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| The king's view of Palma from his summer palace (back in the day) |
Poolside trivia quiz as an IQ estimator
Alex nearly won the twenty trivia questions poolside quiz. He got 16 right, leading to the three-way tiebreaker: "When was Walt Disney born?"
Alex bid 1898 and was second to 1900 (correct answer 1901).
We reckoned the median number of correct answers amongst the 50-60 players was 12. So think of this as an n=20 binomial distribution. The mean, np, equals 12 so p=0.6. The standard deviation, sqrt(npq), is ~sqrt(4.8) or around 2.2.
So Alex's score of 16 is 1.8σ above the mean (assumed 100). If we interpret this as a test of crystallised intelligence, our little team demonstrated an IQ of 127. If only we'd known that Barbie's full name was Barbara Millicent Roberts.
Based on the cost of this holiday and quiz self-selection, the average group IQ was probably nearer 105. I guess that makes us smarter yet. If only I could work out the distribution (std. dev.) of that IQ estimate .. .
The Reps also entertain
On our last evening, after dinner, we took a circuit of the beach and were distracted by the sounds of entertainment coming from the submarine cavern I already mentioned ( 'Divine', above).
We popped in to be met by this (video). We'd seen the singer having dinner with his visiting family at the next table to ours a little earlier. He'd came across a bit Sheldon (the blue trousers!) but on stage he was in his element - especially if you like Wonderwall crooned.
His next number was Lennon's dirge "Imagine", that paean to neoliberal political correctness. I was rapidly forced back to the beach - never had the warm, balmy Balearic air felt so clean.
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I may have made the odd criticism of our hotel, but be assured, the room was excellent and the food outstanding. Here's my favourite picture, by the way, taken by Alex.
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| We're on the bus returning from the Port of Andratx |
Our 1am flight (meant to be landing in Bristol at 2.30am) was delayed due to intense thunderstorms over the Mediterranean. We finally landed at 6.30am and then had an interminable wait for baggage.
Air travel, huh?
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