12/01/2002 00:00
TW
0

Dear Sir,
The century is not a year old, yet it can boast a blunder that may not be excelled in all its life to come. I speak of the EURO. I do not mean that the EURO is necessarily a mistake in itself - it will undoubtably have advantages but that the reason for inventing it stems from a fallacy almost monumentally self-evident, but also somehow monumentally missed: the belief that because the EURO will make life more uniform it will make it more unified. Let me spell it out - this mistaking uniformity with unity.

One has merely to look at nature to see that every step up the ladder in the heirarchy of being implies a decrease in uniformity and an increase in unity. A plant is far less uniform than a stone but far more complex and unified. An animal is more complex still but such a unity that if you cut off its head it dies. When it comes to us human beings we enjoy maximum complexity manifested through maximum unity. The law is universal and unalterable: diversity increases as uniformity decreases. Or, put it in other words, uniformity and unity have nothing to do with each other; in fact they are opposites. That is what our betters, in foisting a thing called the EURO on us, seem not to have realised. One could reduce this lack of thought to a “reductio ad absurdum” and ask: “Why are not all the trees the same? Or why are we not all required to speak the same language? That would be a catastrophic reversal of the natural order but, given the belief in fallacy, perfectly logical.

Paul Roche
Soller

Palma airport security, or rather lack of it

Dear Sir,
The recent “Viewpoint” on Palma airport security, or rather the lack of it, only touches lightly on that problem.

As regular readers will know, “Circulla Europa” has been organising the collection of coins of EU nations that with the introduction of the Euro will be worthless, but are now being used for various charities.

A number of these collection boxes are placed at the airport, and recently it was found they were being taken from their places at night, to be smashed open in the toilets. No-one saw or heard anything, which is strange, as they are sturdily built, and to smash them to pieces with a hammer would be sound effective.

Apart from the boxes costing more in some cases than the coins left there, and the despicable individuals who would rob a charity box, the resulting investigation showed that Palma Airport only had one, that's right, one security camera and it was left invariably switched off - this only added to what would be a complete farce, if it did not deal with such a serious subject.

Barcelona has 90 cameras, Madrid 200, but Palma with its one non-functioning unit, still manages to induce a travelling housewife to remove (and return to car park) her small scissors from her sewing kit! Then, shortly after this charity box break-in, all the 25 police lockers were opened/broken into overnight and again, no-one was seen or apprehended.
Someone had better get their act together at the airport, which is obviously at present, very much a “soft target.”

Yours sincerely

Graham Phillips.
Palma

Bin the paper work

Dear Sir,
As I drive up and down the roads of Majorca I can't help but notice that there seems to be a rise on half decent cars being left on the side of the road, just lately I've noticed there are quite a number of normal vans and motor homes being dumped on industrial sites and carparks.

I've had my eye on two particular vans that are parked on an industrial site in Cap de pera, they are not in the best of order, but woudn't take too much work to put them back on the road.

I've asked around and as far as I can gather the original owners have dumped them there, due to the fact the paperwork has expired and it would be too difficult to sort it out in this country.
(I think we all know what they are talking about on that note). I've also seen some nice vehicals parked in and around Magalluf and it seems such a shame to bin all these cars just because of the paper work, so I've come up with an idea that would help the Mallorcan goverment to clear the roads.

A new rule should me made (remove a little bit of red tape). If you leave a vehicle in the same spot for over twelve months without a valid itv sticker, the Police should have the right to remove that vehicle to a compound, where it should then be taken to an auction. If some one decides to buy it, all the papers from the past should be destroyed, a new registration should be made for the new buyer and take it from there.

I know it would never happen, but it's an option.

Yours sincerly

Neil Hutchison