Happy Easter!

Easter is open us which normally means the start of the Summer season. We’ve been open in Pirates for 2 weeks now and we are pleasantly surprised at how busy we are. If this is the sign of things to come then hopefully it will be a 

good summer. With Brexit now probably delayed until October 31st(Halloween, you couldn’t make it up!) this may relax more people to start booking holidays. 

I’m currently away in Salou where my eldest Son Jake has a football tournament. Tournaments of these type are big business and I know there are quite a few on the island at the moment. The Santa Ponsa Cup for under 10s and under 12s features teams from Manchester City, Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, Sevilla, Real Betis, Villareal and local teams from the island. This is a very well organised tournament that we went to watch a couple of years ago as it featured my friend from Ibiza Martin and his sons team. The finals attracted over a thousand people. The East Mallorca Cup is the previous named MECUP which has been transferred over from Menorca. This was the tournament my eldest played in last year and because of the problems encountered last year with the lack of hotels it has been brought over here. Menorca’s loss is Mallorca’s gain as this is a big tournament with teams from the under 15s, under 13s and under 11s age groups. Teams featured are Barcelona, Espanyol, Manchester City, Brighton & Hove Albion, Inter Milan, Schalke, lots of local teams and other teams as far and wide as Australia, Russia, Ecuador, Brazil, Japan, Mexico and India. It’s great for the local hotels, bars and restaurants with the influx of so many teams and their supporters plus an amazing opportunity for the Island to showcase itself to all these people too. If you get a chance do go and watch a few games as these are the stars of the future from different parts of the World. Professional players who have played in the tournament previously are Trent Alexander Arnold, Phil Foden, Jadon Sancho, Neymar, Coutinho and Casemiro. 

Getting back to Easter.  Eggs have been associated with the Christian festival of Easter, which celebrates the death and resurrection of Christ, since the early days of the church. However, Christian customs connected with Easter eggs are to some extent adaptations of ancient pagan practices related to spring rites. The egg has long been a symbol of ‘fertility’, ‘rebirth’ and ‘the beginning’. In Egyptian mythology, the phoenix burns its nest to be reborn later from the egg that is left; Hindu scriptures relate that the world developed from an egg.

With the rise of Christianity in Western Europe, the church adapted many pagan customs and the egg, as a symbol of new life, came to represent the Resurrection. Some Christians regarded the egg as a symbol for the stone being rolled from the sepulchre.

The UK chocolate Easter Egg market is worth in excess of £220 million with sales growing every year as the choice of chocolate eggs in the shops expands with tempting new Easter delights being added to the range.

Cadbury Creme Egg is the most popular and over 500 million Creme Eggs are made every year with about two thirds of that number being enjoyed in the UK. 

Cadbury dominates the market with a more than 50% share and one in every three shell eggs sold is made in the Cadbury’s chocolate factory in Bournville, Birmingham.

Nothing for me beats a good old chocolate button Easter egg and hopefully I’ll be enjoying one(only one if my trainer is reading this) over the weekend. 

This is a great story and certainly brightened up my day when I read it. 

Britain’s dullest man has been voted for and was won by a man who collects beer cans. Nick West from North Somerset has over 9,000 unusual and rare tinnies and started collecting his prized possessions when he was just 16-years-old.

Others who were in the frame and apparently weren’t dull enough, which in most cases, in fact all cases isn’t true were. 

Stan Hardwick from Yorkshire collects lawnmowers and now has a 500-strong collection.

Tim Barker from Cumbria has amassed a mini army of more than 12,000 toy soldiers.

Kevin Beresford from Worcestershire is busy going round the bend – as he travels the country photographing roundabouts. Kevin, who is president of the UK Roundabout Appreciation Society, uses his pics to make calendars and books.

Neil Brittlebank is an avid collector of bricks. He has over 1,000, dating back to 1892.

Archie Workman, from Cumbria, is a drain-spotter! ‘I find drain covers so interesting. There’s a lot of history behind them. It’s interesting to observe the geometry of drains and how they interconnect.” He said. 

Retired doctor Simon Barley, from the Lake District, has an unusual handsaw hobby, and is a world authority on them, having collected 1,500 handsaws, completed a PhD and authored a book on the subject.

David Morgan from the Cotswolds must find the traffic cones calming as he has the world’s largest collection.

Maths teacher Andrew Dowd, from Manchester, has added up all the train stations in England, Scotland and Wales, and visited every last one of them! It took Andrew four years and 36,000 miles of driving to complete his visit of all 2,548 stations.

Please let me know if you know of anybody duller. 

Last weekend from a sporting point of view was certainly a good one. Lots of great football as usual but the F1 and the Golf eclipsed that. Lewis Hamilton won the Chinese Grand Prix which made waking up early on Sunday morning slightly more bearable than having a lie in. But probably one if the greatest sporting comebacks happened on Sunday evening when Tiger Woods rolled back the years to win his first major championship since 2008. Great for us in Europe who didn’t have to stay up too late as they’d started a lot early because of worries about the weather. 

Real Mallorca snatched a last minute equaliser at Numancia to gain a vital point in their promotion push. They currently lie in 5th place with 8 games to go and have a home game today, kick-off at 20.00 at the Son Moix. Atlético Baleares cemented their place at the top of Segunda B grupo 3 after beating 4th placed Cornelia by 2-0. Top of the league 7 points clear and 5 games to go with an away game this weekend against Levante. It’s looking good for them to finish first and have 2 cracks at the play-offs. 

My eldest Jake played Friday night last week and a 1-1 draw against the team in 6th place was a pretty good result. But even better for my youngest Jude whose team won 4-0 and a clean sheet put a big smile on his and DadTaxis face. 

Wishing you all a Happy Easter and enjoy your weekend!

Richie presents the Radio One Mallorca Breakfast show Monday to Friday 07.30-11.00am on 93.8fm in Mallorca and 102fm in Calvià, online at www.radioonemallorca.com on mobile through their free App for IPhone & Android, The Tunein Radio App, iTunes, the Spanish TDT TV service and all smart speakers. . If you can’t hear him on the radio then you’ll find him working at Pirates Adventure the islands number one night out and every now and again he may make an understudy appearance! 

Feel free to email him at rprior@globobalear.