Sunday 11 March 2012

Why go abroad in 2012?

I went to see the enjoyable The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel last night, a John Madden film which seems to be inviting us to live life to the full, far from our normal comfort zones, in an 'exotic' environment such as India. I can't think of any hotels quite like that in Corfu.

One of the advertisements shown before the feature film was this one (addressed to UK-based TV and cinema audiences), exhorting us all to stay at home in Britain in 2012. Fine, up to a point, given that it's the year of the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics- and that we are apt to forget what stunning beauty spots there are to be discovered all around us in the UK.

Stephen Fry, Julie Walters and the others did a good job, but did the National Tourist Boards of England, Wales and Scotland need to target tavernas and holidays on Corfu, Crete, beaches in the Med and Bondi Beach etc, as part of the campaign? Wordsworth may well have wandered around the Lake District  rather than into a Greek taverna, but for those who can afford it, there is something to be said for enjoying the best of both/all worlds.

Some quotes and reasons given for not going abroad this year:

"It's just not worth it!"

"Why on earth would anyone want to go abroad in 2012?"

"Wordsworth didn't wander into the nearest taverna"

Do watch the advertisement!
"NO PASSPORTS, NO JABS, NO VISAS, NO EUROS!"


Update May 2012, from The Corfu Blog

As a bonus, Thomas Hardy's West-of-Wessex Girl  (on Casterbridge.blogspot.com)
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4 comments:

  1. sibadd11 March 2012 at 10:40

    Πέρα δόθε

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jim11 March 2012 at 11:48

    Does this refer to your "to and fro" posting from 2009?

    http://democracystreet.blogspot.com/2009/05/she-finished-half-roof.html

    I share your enthusiasm for transhumance or at least a semi-nomadic lifestyle

    ReplyDelete
  3. sibadd11 March 2012 at 22:34

    Yes. Keeping errands and projects on the go in different places means your need helpers and friends to continue them while you're away, so it's the more important to be embedded in those separate pastures.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jim19 March 2012 at 10:33

    On the subject of nomadism, did you ever read my poem "Vitsa Nomad" in Corfu Blues (the book)?

    "I'm a new kind of nomad...
    Four months in the mountains,
    Five months by the sea,
    The rest of the time in some city..
    Self-exiled, xenitemenos."

    It hasn't worked out quite like that, but I still feel for the nomads of the Horn of Africa, cf my song The Nomad:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA9UYJ3QNAg

    ReplyDelete

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