Holiday Blog – Day 2 Today marked my favourite part of the holiday – the Welcome Meeting. It used to be my least favourite but now, rather like a Lib Dem on Question Time, I have done a complete U-turn. The Welcome Meeting marks my first major opportunity to assess how good, or bad, the writing opportunities are going to be, as well as a chance to watch grown people humiliate themselves in the hope of selling an overpriced trip. The meeting was advertised as being in the Reception area at 10am. To entice any holidaymakers that may be undecided whether to come or not, the poster proudly boasted that free drinks would be provided. Tempting as this might sound, the promise of a free drink in an all inclusive holiday complex is somewhat hollow. As I arrived at the allotted time, I was warmly greeted by the Hotel Manager, Jose, who, informed us was in the first week of his new position and out to make a “Lasting long imression”[sic]. Despite his Spanish name, Jose, it transpires is German, standing about 6 foot tall and impeccably dressed. He wore a pair of chinos with a knife-sharp crease ironed into each leg, a Ralph Lauren shirt with a silk tie and a beautiful sports jacket, clearly expensive, which was just a little too large for him. He bore more than a passing resemblance to Peter Bowles playing Richard De Verre in the 1980s sitcom “To the Manor Born”. He was very business like although it was clear that he had not dressed appropriately for the 27 degree early morning meeting as beads of sweat were forming on his forehead, slowly dribbling down his face, joining at his chin to form a slight, but constant drip of sweat landing on the floor in front of him. His hair was an unusual combination of grey to the side and rear with a strawberry blonde top, which was slightly disconcerting as was the fact that the top appeared to have a life of its own and move randomly as the fan blew. After studying this for some minutes I came to the conclusion that it was in fact a toupee, which had been secured in one place only. The morning was definitely looking promising. Jose told us he was somewhat of a linguist, speaking five languages and that he has “honouring [sic] to be our host”. He then went on to welcome us with what he described as a traditional Spanish welcome at which he declared, “Your house is My House”. Now whilst I’m not a grammar fanatic, it would seem to me that when making such an emphatic statement you would be well advised to make sure that your possessive determiners are the right way round or risk turning a warm welcome into a sinister threat, especially when delivered in a German accent that would not have been out of place in the epic film, The Great Escape! Clearly undeterred by the sea of bemused faces he went on to explain that in the Canaries they have the great pride in their hospitality just as “an Englishman’s castle is his bungalow” before finishing his welcome speech with “lovely Jubly” that most frequently used phrase in common parlance! This was enough to confirm my suspicion; his linguistic skills had been entirely learnt on Google’s Babelfish and UKTV Gold satellite TV. After his warm welcome, Jose, chin still dripping sweat, handed over to the Sun Care team. And am I glad I listened to these. Had I not, I might have never realised that the sun was much hotter in the canaries than we are used to at home (I resisted the urge to remind him that the temperature at East Midlands airport was actually 2 degrees warmer than the Canaries) and that we were very close to the Gobi Desert! He recommended that we don’t use just any old sun cream, but buy it from him at a ridiculously inflated price. Not wishing to mock the geographically challenged, I asked him to confirm which desert we were close to and he repeated “the Gobi desert” with some air of authority. I nodded sagely, desperately wanting to point out that not only were we not close to the Gobi desert, but in actual fact we were on a different continent to the Gobi desert. Further, according to my Tom Tom Navigation app, the Gobi Desert is some 12551 kilometres from Gran Canaria, taking 167 hours to get there by car and ferry! I was disappointed to see that Tom Tom wanted to charge me £18.99 to include the Mongolian road map upgrade! Guess he will eventually figure out it is the Sahara Desert we are close to here! The rest of the presentation was as bad as I had hoped with a rap from the “flog the trips to the punters team”. This started well enough with a blonde 20 year old rep doing an excellent human beat box. Snare, base and synth drums featured as she held the microphone close to her mouth and made her way round the stage, moving with attitude to the beat of the music. One of the other reps was rapping away as if he was born in the ghetto, albeit using some tenuous rhymes such as “come and join us in the luxury taxi, it will make you enjoy your trip to the maxi!”. Then the inevitable happened; the two reps collided causing beat box blonde to drop the microphone. To our amazement despite her not holding the microphone, the human beat box continued without missing a beat, at least until Manuel turned the music off at the back. The rep turned red, looked acutely embarrassed then let out a laugh, which was identical to Boycie from Only Fools and Horses. The only other moment worthy of note was as they, totally inappropriately, promoted a transvestite review show “not for the under 16s as they simulate bumming on stage” in a room full of families with young children. After hearing about about how talented the “Trannies” were, a 10 year old boy asked “what’s a Trannie” to which his father, who, apparently has been untouched by political correctness or tact, replied “men what dress as birds son, like your Uncle Jim”. Feeling the need to clarify the situation he said loudly to the shocked looking family to his right, “he’s on his mothers side of the family… not mine” as if that made everything all OK. I wonder where they get the reps… and the holidaymakers! There is no hope. Next it was the turn of the entertainments team, but there talent is such that they deserve a whole blog on their own.
Posted on: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 22:18:44 +0000
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