Sometimes it's hard to feel sorry

The torrential rain last week brought misery to many on the island last week, including parts of the Matutes Group of companies. Anybody who knows the island at all well will be familiar with the name "Matutes" through Señor Abel, the former foreign minister in the Spanish government and his company that owns a large part of the business on the island including construction companies and the Fiesta Hotels group.

Abel Matutes was seen very much as the guiding hand behind the massive and controversial road-building project on the island. The fact that his daughter Stella was head of the council committee responsible for the construction didn't do much to allay the suspicions. There was, however, never any evidence that the Matutes family would benefit financially from the road-building project.

There are other construction activities where Matutes definitely has an interest. One of those was a golf course planned for Playa d'en Bossa. Again there's been opposition on the island. The argument for golf courses is that they'll attract more high-spending tourists to the island year-round. Those against are concerned by the huge amount of water and chemicals needed to keep the courses green. They also wonder if golfers are really the sort of tourists Ibiza needs especially as there are loads of other places for them to go.

Anyway, one of the problems with Ibiza's new motorways is they can't cope with rain. All of them have had sections closed during last week's storms. The airport road has had particular problems and its construction has turned the area round the proposed Playa D'en Bossa golf course into a quagmire. And this is pouring mud into the Fiesta hotels near Space. The land for the golf course and the Fiesta hotels are owned by the Grupo Matutes...

DC10 is not a disco

A list has just been published of the various bars and nightclubs that have been prosecuted for breaches of various regulations. At the top is DC10 which has collected 18,000 euros in fines mostly because it has a "cafe concierto" licence. This sort of licence is intended to allow bars to provide musical entertainment, not including dancing. Bit of problem for a disco.

Rumours have abounded this summer from "well-informed sources" that this was definitely the last summer for DC10. I just went to see if there was a DC10 website. There isn't. But I did find the Circo Loco MySpace page. It says:

Jan 1 2008 8:00A circoloco@dc10 Ny special event! @ Ibiza (baleares)

Quick round-up of other Ibiza news

The long-running saga involving the illegal construction of Michael Cretu's hill-top mansion finally seems to be coming to an end. The high court has ruled that an amnesty on illegally-built properties doesn't apply and it's going to be demolished.

I find that I now live in the most expensive area for property prices in the Balearics. That's the municipality of Sta Eulalia, followed by Calvia in Majorca and then Ibiza Town.

The government´s published a slightly confusing set of figures showing that emergency drug admissions to Can Misses, Ibiza's main hospital, increased by 41.3% in 2006. The figures are for people who've been admitted after taking drugs not prescribed by a medical professional. It's the breakdown I don't understand - cocaine (31.7%), followed of amphetamines and designer drugs (26.2%) and alcohol (23.3%). That doesn't add up to 100% and I'd be surprised if a large proportion of the cases didn't involve multiple consumption. Still 824 people is a lot, whatever the technical reason for their admission.