Teething problems.

It’s strange how you have the same kind of conversation with dentists as you do with hairdressers. You know the kind of thing: where you go on your holidays, what you plan to do later in the day and so on. Maybe it’s because both recognise that visiting them can be quite traumatic and so they want to set you at your ease. I mention this because this afternoon I had an emergency visit to the dentist here in Magaluf.

At breakfast time I bit into a crusty piece of bread and managed to dislodge a crown. Fortunately I didn’t swallow it or try to chew it up but I did end up with a rather gap-toothed smile. So, slipping the offending item into a tissue packet for safekeeping, I went along to reception and asked for directions to the nearest emergency dentist. And off I went at the earliest opportunity, 3.30 this afternoon. That scuppered our plan to walk to the other end of Palma Nova and try out a restaurant that had been recommended. So we went once again to the Italian restaurant Pizza Venezia and tried yet another of their very acceptable pasta dishes.

My dentist was very chatty. We had a strange conversation where I spoke to him in Spanish and he responded in English most of the time. I imagine he gets so used to addressing many of his patients n English that it becomes second nature. It was only after the treatment was finished that he continued in Spanish and then I discovered he was, in fact, French. International dentistry!

During our chat about this and that he told me he could never live in Galicia – too rainy (after some of the trombas we have had this week!) – but then I could never live here in Magaluf with its oh so elegant buildings!!!

My dentist did admit that the food is better in Galicia. In fact he was extremely scathing not just about Magaluf restaurants but about Mallorca in general, the main problem being, in his opinion, that they serve awful food but think it is great because they don’t know any better. “¡¡¡¡Nunca salen de la isla!!!! he told me.

His receptionist then went on to charge me 105 euros. Just for sticking a crown back on? Maybe that explains why the Englishman who struck up conversation in Pizza Venezia at lunchtime had such bad teeth; in seven or eight years’ residence here he has obviously refused to pay for dental treatment!!

Onto other things. Here is a cartoon I found in yesterday’s paper in the midst of all the general rejoicing about getting all the Chilean miners out safely.


Over the last year a television “personality” by the name of Belén Estebán has been in and out of the gossip news for marital problems, plastic surgery and almost anything else you could think of. Inevitably she has appeared in numerous reality TV shows. I suppose that in some ways the rescue of the miners turned into the ultimate reality show, but this time genuine reality watched by viewers all over the world, so it was to be expected that someone might ask the question posed in the cartoon: "But where is Belén Estebán? She’s not come out.”