Bad Omen

This is a kind of part two to 14 September (Jennifer, Alison, Philippa, Sue). A couple of days ago, “The Sun” listed the top ten names – male and female – that would stop those monikered thus from being asked for a date. If you happen to be called Judas or Adolf, you should be a tad concerned, though the good news is that you only feature at five and six in the list. There again, how many people called Judas have any of you ever encountered? I would guess that there are exactly no people so named in the whole of the United Kingdom, unless they have been named after a dreadful heavy-metal outfit. There are probably a few nutters in the US who’ve changed their name to Judas by deed poll, but otherwise … . And as for Adolf. Not even in Germany is anyone called Adolf. Well not for some sixty odd years. 

 

Betrayal and genocide appear not to be the worst sins associated with names, nor is it essential that names, such as the two above, come from real people, because in at number one on the list, with a staggering 90% of the vote, is Damien. Not because of Hirst’s calf in formaldehyde, but because of a made-up character. From “The Omen”. Sorry, but if you’re Damien, the chances of your being picked up are almost as likely as there being a Judas in the whole of the greater London region. You’d have a better chance as an Adolf. Or why not go the whole Schwein and call yourself Hitler. 

 

Despite the Damien-Omen connection, there is one greater Damien horror that finds the name worsting that of a one-time mad dictator, and that is … “Only Fools And Horses”. Priceless was the moment when Rodney was introduced to his newly born nephew. Priceless indeed was the whole Trotters’ oeuvre. Until, that is, it became the comedy from which there can be no escape. I once parked by the strip in Magaluf. If there is a hell, it is a bar with episodes of Del Boy on a constant loop. Or several bars, all with the inhabitants of Nelson Mandela House. And I say this as someone who thought the shows some of the finest of all sitcom writing. For Maga, read also places in Alcúdia. I have to presume that Trotters bar itself has its own dedicated Del and Rodders channel. Endless repeats with Grandad, Denzil, Uncle Albert, Boycie, Marlene, Trigger, Cassandra and of course Damien. Endless repeats endlessly repeating themselves. Perhaps that list of names should also include Derek and Raquel.

 

But true bar hell would need more than just ancient John Sullivan output, it would also require Keith Floyd. Or someone approximating to him. A.A. Gill, while acknowledging Floyd’s undoubted qualities on the screen, considered him to be very different away from the box. Referring to an interview he did with the finally dead former TV chef: “I found him in one of those sorry Costa del Sol pubs at 10.30am, necking pints, leaning on a bar with half a dozen hacking, pasty-faced, nicotine-fingered taxi drivers and nightclub bouncers, flicking through ‘The Sun’ while complaining about the football and the price of Marmite”. And not just the Costa del Sol, Gilly. Floyd would not have been of a similar snivelling state as Paul Whitehouse’s master-class of the pathetic in a pub – his sad git Archie. Far too flamboyant, one assumes. But Gill’s estimation of him in “The Sunday Times” as “boorish, bullying, opinionated, abusive and drunk” could just as easily apply to a character it might be your misfortune to encounter. In, for example, an Alcúdia bar. Or a Pollensa bar. And the chances of doing so at present are greatly increased. As the rain continues to deposit the equivalent of the Mediterranean on an hourly basis, where else is there to go than to a bar. What else is there to do than get drunk? And then offer all and sundry views on all and sundry. Who might this Floyd-alike be? “Oh, by the way, my name’s Damien. I was named after the kid in ‘The Omen’ “. 

Travellin’ Light

More inspired by “The Sunday Times”. I was reminded of a recent email correspondence on Sunday morning. A.A. Gill was lauding a new television series by Jonathan Meades. In that correspondence, I had, by coincidence, lumped Gill and Meades together as the finest examples of travel writers with whom I am acquainted. That Gill sees fit to praise Meades suggests that there is at least one side of a possibly mutual admiration duality.

 

The point I had made about the two authors was that, when they are writing ostensibly travel pieces, it is not necessarily obvious that “travel” is their theme. Both have an eye for the surreal and bizarre, and in Meades’ case the bizarre is heightened by a fascination with low-life. But they also bring together in their writing a range of the arts, humanities and science. Travel writing is literary polymer, a combination of language, culture, art, music, society, people, history, politics, food and drink, geography, geology, topography, agriculture, archaeology, architecture, town planning, engineering, natural history, botany and meteorology – to name but some. Above all, and Gill and Meades are masters of the art, it is a process of observation and of de- and then re-construction of the familiar with imagery composed of influences often far removed from the subject. (And just to explain, even when one is not directly familiar with, for instance, a particular landscape or building, one is nevertheless familiar with the notion of landscapes and buildings.) Gill’s role as a TV critic can inform his descriptions with the everyday of soaps and reality shows. A background as an architectural journalist guides Meades in the performance of such re-buildings of images. Both also, naturally enough given their preferences for the bizarre, have a penchant for seeking out the odd, and it is the odd that can give rise to the richest of written picture-painting.

 

Travel writing, and it is obvious to say so, needs to paint pictures without the aid of pictures. But it is the superficiality or the depth of this painting that distinguishes the mundane from the lively. Much good travel writing also draws on the novel – the story telling of a Bryson or a Theroux, for example. And these authors share with Gill and Meades the essential quality of ferocious wit. There may be an apparent excess of cynicism, sarcasm and satire about the output, but these are all vital in presenting a view of a subject that runs contrary to the blandness of much travel writing. And it is wrong to assume that such styles do not at the same time embrace affection. It is often a very affection for the subject that enables the alternative “take”, be it sarcastic or surrealistic.  

 

Where am I going with all this? To Mallorca naturally enough. And that is because much of what one ever encounters about Mallorca in the written form is stripped of any depth, of any challenging imagery, of any alternativism. It is writing that suffers from prejudice in that the writer is too blinded by what he or she believes should be the accepted norm or by his or her own attachment in order to attempt to paint pictures that are more than just light, first touches of the brush on the canvas. To return to the notion of familiarity, one is familiar with mountains or with seascapes, even if one has no first-hand experience of the Tramuntana or the bay of Pollensa. To simply apply standard adjectives or metaphors to either is far from sufficient, but that is what one usually gets – the default setting of limited imagination, creativity and personal thesauri. There is a form of fascism when it comes to Mallorca which has it that if the words “beautiful” and “lovely” are not repeated in every paragraph, then the author is being unfairly critical. And such fascism occurs not just in travel writing but in pretty much any writing about the island. 

 

Gill or Meades on Mallorca. Now that would be something.