Magaluf XL

PalmaI spent my Erasmus year in London denying I was Italian and answering the same questions about the pub where he worked: no, he didn't understand what my Prime Minister to the photo of the Azores; the euro had made everything more expensive for us (they nodded proudly); Aserejé was just the phonetic adaptation to English of a disco-rap song and – to their disappointment – it meant nothing; and no, he didn't frequent Magaluf. To the clients he served beers and shots, pronouncing Magaluf lit up their faces. For me, it was just a place that was very far from all the nightlife areas of Palma and whose appeal was to take ecstasy pills on a Saturday night at BCM. I would say I had never even set foot there. Therefore, I just nodded with a smile as I returned their change in pounds of their Foster’s or Carling. He didn't want to add another disappointment to that of the Ketchup, famous at the time at the level of Tony Blair.

I like British people. I must confess. It amuses me that they adore the monarchy and devour the headlines with which the tabloids ridicule its members; the uniform aesthetic baroque of the middle class (eyelashes of drag for them; a profusion of tattoos for them) and a carefree life attitude in which, if they go out partying, they give it their all.

After years without setting foot in the United Kingdom, on Saturday I walked through the port area of Bristol: stag parties; mothers with daughters holding hands, staggering with smudged mascara; gym specimens clinking beers with guttural shouts, and everyone dancing to that wonderful music they have shared with the whole world. It was then that I became aware that the Magaluf model – no, we are not swallowing the elitist sentimentality of Calvià Beach – is not a tourist invention. We have not created drunken tourism out of nothing; we have simply imported its uses, customs, and way of having fun, so that they feel at home while we bill. It would be another debate what interest there is in traveling to find the same thing you have every weekend in your own city, but the secret perhaps is that it is an extended version, in "extralarge and much more economical. They can indeed say that spending a week in Mallorca is cheaper for them than staying in Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds. They drink garrafó happily, pay without looking at the bill and adore The Strip, a Punta Ballena that smells of vomit and revelry; an improved franchise of their leisure and, for them, a win-win absolute. Salut!