20th August 2009

A Chaplain’s Diary

Mid August

 

Friday 14^th August

 

One of the organisations that the Anglican Church here in Palma supports is Christian Aid.  This year we sent off a cheque for £4,000.  The charity not only provides basic necessities to communities in the Third World but it’s also a campaigning organisation.  They are running an excellent advertising campaign at the moment in both the print media and on television.  It’s primarily educational and is trying to persuade the richer nations in the north to write off Third World debt which is so debilitating on health, educational and feeding programmes in poor countries.  Its theme is to respond to the ignorant assertion that ending Third World poverty is too big a task.   Christian Aid claims that for every excuse not to end poverty they have ten good reasons to counter them.  They argue that ending poverty is no bigger than eradicating smallpox.  It’s no bigger than liberating Europe from the Nazis.  It’s no bigger than putting a man on the moon.  It’s no bigger than bailing out the banks.  It’s no bigger than abolishing slavery.  It’s no bigger than ending apartheid.  It’s no bigger than bringing down the Berlin Wall.  It’s no bigger than creating the internet.  It’s no bigger than digging a tunnel to France.  It can be done.  We are humans, we do big tasks!

 

Sunday 16^th August

 

It has not been easy for students to find vac jobs on Majorca this summer.  The downturn is certainly hitting the bars and restaurants as this newspaper reports regularly.  Having scoured York for a job, “son” has returned to Majorca in the hope of finding some work here.  Together we have traipsed around the English bars of Palma, trawled the restaurants of Magalluf and Palma Nova to no avail.  He has littered the eateries with his C.V.s and dished out his mobile telephone number as though there was no tomorrow.  Then it came.  A call on his mobile from the Palm Beach Bar right on the front overlooking the sea at Magalluf.  It’s a place where my eldest son worked a few years ago, and the owner is a very fair and good employer.  He could offer “son” some part time work.  There were sighs of relief on all sides, particularly from my wallet as I did not relish the thought of subsidising his vac and keeping him in beer money for the next two months.  So I am taking a quiet delight in watching my vegetarian son working in the kitchen of the Palm Beach, where they serve mountains of “steak on a stone” to ravenous Brits.  Even he comes home at midnight with tales of huge, succulent sirloin steaks and Cajun chicken that he won’t allow himself to eat but which still make his mouth water.  For the last year we have been treated to political and environmental lectures over our family meals about the virtues of vegetarianism, but even he is now fearful that he may well succumb one evening and fall off the self-righteous wagon.

 

Monday 17^th August

 

For a while, after we moved here in 2001, we kept the family car going back in the U.K.  In some ways it worked well because we saved on hire cars, but it never seemed to be in the right place and I would also spend every summer leave getting it MOT’d and serviced.  It did mean that my daughter had a car to get to work in, but then it meant her driving it to us every time we went home.  Eventually it died.   We waved it goodbye and leapt into the arms of the hire car companies.  It’s actually quite liberating because now there’s always a car waiting at the airport that we fly into, it’s usually almost new, and having kept a note of what we spent on hire cars over the last few years, it doesn’t seem to work out much more expensive than keeping a car on the road.  Admittedly my wife did write one off in January but perhaps the circumstances were extenuating as she was chasing up to the hospital when my daughter was due to have a baby.  Europcar were marvellous and provided a replacement within a matter of hours and as we had taken out an excellent excess insurance policy with insurance4carhire.com, we didn’t even need to pay the £600 excess.  All of this is a far cry from our experience this week of trying to hire a car for my daughter and son-in-law whilst they have been staying with us on Majorca.  Most companies laughed when we phoned up to see what was available, whilst I was not surprised that some companies did still have cars for rent when one heard what they were charging.  The prices were absolutely laughable and I wouldn’t have used them on principle.  Their names will be remembered! 

 

Tuesday 18^th August

 

We have friends staying at our flat in Camp de Mar.  It’s Stephen’s birthday today and we have pulled his leg mercilessly about being 62.  One of his presents was a rather interesting book with the title “Ghosts of Spain”, written by Giles Tremlett, the Madrid correspondent for The Guardian.  One chapter caught my eye titled “How the bikini saved Benidorm”.  It seems that as that huge seaside resort slowly took off during the Franco era, there was a total ban on women wearing bikinis.  Strangely the edict did not emanate from Franco but from the Roman Catholic Church.  The Mayor of Benidorm turned a blind eye to the young British women frolicking in the surf sans their bikini tops.  The local archbishop went mad and demanded that something be done to prevent such brazen behaviour.  Excommunication proceedings were started against the mayor who in high dudgeon got on his Vespa motorbike and drove all the way to Madrid to see Franco.  That in itself was no mean achievement, but when he explained the situation to Franco all Franco did was persuade his wife to go on holiday to Benidorm and stay at the home of the local Mayor.  The unspoken message was understood and topless bathing became almost de rigueur.  The resort went from strength to strength and produced much needed jobs and currency, so that it eventually became the brash, busy but popular resort that Benidorm is today.  So it was indeed the bikini or perhaps the lack of it that saved Benidorm.

 

Wednesday 19^th August

 

I have a quibble.  When I collected my hire car at East Midlands Airport on 17^th July, and handed over my bank card details, they took a deposit of £250.  “Fair enough” you may say.  The car was returned on 6^th August and I fully expected the deposit to be returned within a matter of days.  On 14^th August I phoned their customer relations to find out what was happening as my bank account showed no details of it having been credited back to my account.  They assured me that there were no extra charges and the deposit usually took seven to ten days to be credited to the hirer’s account.  Today is 19^th August and as yet I’m still £250 short.  I have e-mailed customer services and await their reply with interest, but 13 days to give me my money back … come on!

 

Fr. Robert Ellis is the Anglican Chaplain of Majorca.

C/ Nunez de Balboa 6, Son Armadans,

Palma 07014.

Tel: 971 737279 

e mail: anglicanpalma@gmail.com

www.anglican-mallorca.org