Majorca’s half hidden gem: the idyllic honeymoon hotel of Joan Miro

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Hotel Illa D'Or, Puerto Pollensa Majorca. from the jetty.Picture by me

Hotel Illa D’Or, Puerto Pollensa Majorca. from the jetty.Picture by me

Almost a year after Margaret had her devastating stroke on the Isles of Scilly we took  courage in both hands and took our first holiday.

We returned to a particular tranquil spot in the Majorcan resort of Puerto Pollensa on the North West coast.And to a particular hotel , the Hotel Illa D’Or, on the outskirts of the town overlooking the bay.

Now the centre of Puerto Pollensa – though at my age thankfully no Magaluf- is bustling and busy with a yacht harbour. Where we were is much quieter but the brilliant thing is you can walk ( or cycle ) all the way from the centre to the hotel on a traffic free promenade with outstanding sea and mountain views.

 The luxury hotel itself is still owned by the same family since  it opened 85 years ago in 1929 and one of its first guests was the Catalan surrealist artist Joan Miro who spent his honeymoon here. I am not surprised. The hotel itself is now much bigger than in 1929 but it has not lost its personal touch while providing all the facilities you might need from swimming pools to tennis courts and a superb terrace overlooking the sea. The food supervised by an Argentinian chef is  superb and creative without being flashy or indigestible  and the choice at the breakfast buffet is stunning – from Serrano ham to a cooked grill and fresh fruit to pastries and even chocolate gateaux.

But this time what we really appreciated was the courtesy and facilities the hotel provided for the disabled. We had an adapted room with a walk in shower and its own terrace accessible by a ramp. it was near the lift and the entrance to the restaurant and the front terrace were level – easily negotiable by a stroller or a wheelchair – and we soon dispensed with the use of a wheelchair. The hotel could not have provided better facilities.

Margaret resting along the promenade

Margaret resting alomng the promenade

Margaret was able to use a stroller and walk in part unaided along the front – gradually increasing the distance until we achieved our objective of getting to the centre and having lunch!  The ground shaded in part by pine trees can be a bit uneven but as the physios would say it was good rehab.

It was also our first experience of using an assisted flight – and I have to say the outsourced company at Birmingham Airport and the staff at Palma Airport were superb is getting us to and from the plane.

The one blackspot: the flight on Monarch Airlines

The one blackspot: the flight on Monarch Airlines

The one black spot was Monarch Airlines who did seem to confirm their lowly ratings in Which? magazine by ignoring all our requests via Sovereign Holidays for an aisle seat and to be near the toilets.This led to a dispute with another elderly passenger when Margaret took an aisle seat – as he had booked and paid for it. Only after protests  to a rather badly disabled aware air crew and the fact the flight had some spare empty seats at the rear  was it solved amicably.

But if you want a week away in four star luxury, sun and some the taste of some rather superior Catalan Rioja stocked by the hotel I would recommend it, disabled or not.

 

 

 

Phone Hacking Trial: Coulson’s PA printed out e-mails days before Goodman pleaded guilty to phone hacking – Martin Hickman

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Another person who can’t remember and has to be reminded by lawyers that she paid out money to sources. Amazing lack of recall among Murdoch’s people.

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AndyCoulsonDay 99, Part 2: Andy Coulson’s former PA printed out emails stored in his drafts folder days before one of his reporters, Clive Goodman, pleaded guilty to phone hacking, a court heard yesterday.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Andy Coulson denies knowing NOTW Prescott story had come from phone hacking – Martin Hickman

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Another example of Andy Coulson knowing nothing about stories coming from phone hacking.

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prescott30-415Day 99: Andy Coulson today denied knowing that a spoiler story in the News of the World about John Prescott’s affair with his diary secretary had come from phone hacking.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Coulson denies hearing voicemail hacked from Sienna Miller’s phone – Martin Hickman

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So Dan Evans was wrong when he said he played the hacked voicemail from Sienna Miller’s phone says Andy Coulson who can’t remember anything else that happened.

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Sienna-Miller-012Day 98, Part 1:  Andy Coulson today denied hearing a voicemail that had been hacked from Sienna Miller’s phone by one of his reporters, Dan Evans.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Coulson received £600,000 pay-off, but remembers little of Dowler story – Martin Hickman

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Wow !Andy Coulson gets so much money he can’t even remember his salary at the News of the World but he did walk out with £600,000 before working for David Cameron. Wonder whether his memory of life in Downing Street will be as lucid as his time editing Murdoch’s paper. He certainly won’t be writing a diary like Alastair Campbell!

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Andy CoulsonDay 96: Andy Coulson left the News of the World with a £600,000 pay-off, but with little memory of what turned out to be one of its most important stories: the disappearance of Milly Dowler, the phone hacking trial heard today.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Coulson tells jury of “irony” over exposing Blunkett affair – Martin Hickman

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So love cheat Andy Coulson says he knows he made a mistake exposing the David Blunkett affair by hacking his love messages – while engaged in an affair himself with Rebekah Brooks. But he can’t bring himself to admit he is a hypocrite.

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Coulson BrooksDay 95, Part 1: Andy Coulson today told the hacking trial he was aware of the “irony” of his newspaper exposing an affair by a senior politician while having a long-running extra-marital affair himself.

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Richmond child sex abuse trial postponed

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The trial of John Stingemore and Father Tony McSweeney – due to start on May 6 at Southwark Crown Court – has been postponed.

Southwark crown court today  said that there will be no hearing on the 6 May and that it is due to make a fresh announcement on future court dates on 13 June.

Exaro understands that 71 year-old Stingemore, the former officer in charge of the Grafton Close children’s home in the London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames, is suffering from ill-health and was recently admitted to hospital.

Privately, sources close to the case have expressed fears that Mr Stingemore may not be fit enough to stand trial unless his health improves significantly.

Mr Stingemore’s solicitor was unavailable for comment this afternoon.

John Stingemore, of Stonehouse Drive, St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, faces five charges of indecent assault, once count of taking an indecent image of a child, and one count of indecency with a child. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Father Tony McSweeney, a 66 year-old priest, faces two charges of indecent assault, three counts of making an indecent image of a child, one of taking an indecent image of a child, and a further count of possessing indecent images of children. Father McSweeney, of Old Brighton Road North, Pease Pottage, West Sussex, has also pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The charges had been brought following the Met police’s Operation Fernbridge. There is a back catalogue of stories explaining the Fernbridge operation on the Exaro website.

Phone Hacking Trial: Andy Coulson: Palace mole supplied NOTW with information for cash – Martin Hickman

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Ah, Coulson admits he paid source for Royal stories from Buckingham Palace

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Buckingham PalaceDay 94, Part 2:  Andy Coulson had a palace mole who supplied the News of the World with information about the Royal Family in return for cash, he said today.

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Exclusive: How the French are squabbling over the spoils they can make by privatising and removing jobs from Britain

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Steria, the French IT company favoured by Whitehall and the NHS

Steria, the French IT company favoured by Whitehall and the NHS

An extraordinary battle is under way across the Channel between three big French IT companies who have a massive interest in British government contracts over the privatisation of Whitehall, town halls and the NHS including removing jobs from Britain to India.
Atos,hated by the disabled in Britain for its harsh policy in implementing Iain Duncan Smith’s policy of getting the disabled back to work, has made a hostile bid to take over Steria, the company chosen by the government to privatise NHS and Whitehall jobs and remove some to India.
Steria is trying to merge with Sopra, another French IT company,in a ” sweetheart deal ” to make big profits by combining new technology with removing jobs from Europe to India.
Steria is furious with Atos for what it calls ” disturbing ” its talks with Sopra. But Atos has left its lucrative offer on the table to tempt Steria shareholders
All this is revealed in a small report from the Paris reporters on the influential Bloomberg website over Easter.
For Atos the deal is simple. It a double whammy – they make money from Iain Duncan Smith’s privatisation of benefit medical tests and more money by offshoring jobs from Britain to India.
For the disabled not such good news, they are forced back into the job market say in Sheffield just at the point when jobs are being moved to India by the same company.
The deal merging Steria and Sopra is equally as good. the game is given away in a press release on Sopra’s website which reveals that it will create a three million Euro company, which could rapidly grow to four million Euros by economies of scale, more jobs shifted from Europe to India and a big jump in profit margins.
It says:”Sopra brings the power of its organisation in France, the strength of
its banking, human resources and real estate products and its effective application management model.
For its part, Steria brings its international reach (Europe and Asia) with a strong
positioning in the United Kingdom.”
“Industrial-scale production capacity would be significantly reinforced with an array of offshore and nearshore service centres representing a workforce of approximately 8,000 people,including over 6,000 in India.”
The company would be 35,000 strong with 8000 jobs in India and other offshore sites.
It also adds that “Steria would be able to leverage Sopra’s offshore capacity in India for its French clients.”
These include the Department of Work and Pensions, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the NHS. Soon,no doubt to be joined by the Home Office and Ministry for Justice.
It predicts profit margins – currently 6.8 per cent for Sopra in the UK will soon top 10 per cent.
For ministers like Francis Maude, Jeremy Hunt and Iain Duncan Smith, this must be bliss – the French squabbling over the best way to make loads of money from their privatisation programmes. It is a global capitalist’s wet dream with even the prospect of a few non exec directorships for retiring Tory politicians when they leave office.
For the disabled, civil servants and those who believe in and want good local services with a public service ethos, it probably can’t be worse. How long before a disabled claimant denied benefit by Atos is told there is a good company vacancy in Pune, India so go and get the job.

Phone Hacking Trial: Coulson did not volunteer information to Met Police, jury hears – Martin Hickman

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Amazing how helpful Andy Coulson was to the Met police when they came to arrest Clive Goodman for phone hacking .Not!

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CoulsonDay 94, Part 1:  The editor of the News of the World did not “volunteer” any information to the Metropolitan Police investigation into phone hacking, he told the Old Bailey today.

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