Just Do It

And thank you for the thoughts regarding the toe. The toe also sends its thanks.

To alleviate the boredom of hanging around the printers, waiting for the next sheet to come off the machine, there is - I'm discovering - a wealth of stuff to to an eye endlessly acquisitive of material on which to impart some story.

And so ... Now those paper "mats" that you get in restaurants here. The ones that usually have a map of Mallorca. The ones that always insist on staring up at you and inviting you to ... inviting you to what? If you happen to be Catalan, then it's "bon profit"; for the Spanish, it's "buen provecho", the Germans are greeted with a "guten Appetit". The British? Well the British don't have a salutation for eating. At least, we never used to. We used to accept "bon appetit" in a display of reverse-French acceptance that the French are often reluctant to reciprocate. But, Americanised as we have become, we are now invited to "enjoy our meal" or to "have a nice meal". It looks totally out of place against the brevity of the other languages; it also doesn't really exist, but because - largely foreigners and Americans - feel that bowing to the ease of the French expression is surely some error, we have the "meal" invitation. To an extent, you can understand this. There's your local Spanish restaurant confronted with the new paper mat, a vast English-speaking market to greet, and no actual greeting. Enjoy your meal it has become or, in the case of Garden Hotels (whose paper mats I saw at the printers), it is the "have a good meal".

The Garden's mats are a joy of marketingese. Not only are we (or rather they, the Garden clients) enjoined to have that good meal, we are also told that "you've got to live it". Why? Indeed, what? There it is, in suitably motivational, sophisticated but informal script type (someone's been reading his manual), this command. You have got to. No debate. You have got to. Moreover, you have got to live it. What the Hell is it? We're back on slogans of course. At first look, this is not a bad slogan - the "live" (as in the verb as opposed to the adjective) is a strong word - but when you stop and think, it becomes less good. Apart from the obscurity of it (both it, the word, and it, the slogan), there is the cross-linguistic issue. Garden has its bon profit and the rest, so what do Catalans and Spanish and Germans etc. make of this command? Not much I imagine. I could maybe live with having to live it were this a general corporate slogan, but, as far as the company's website is concerned, this is not general. So, having to live it would seem to be the hotels' meals. Sorry, don't understand.

Elsewhere at the printers is a bookcase of samples of books. Books and journals. One in particular intrigued me. I was, until now, totally unaware of the fact that there is a learned journal devoted to Alcúdia. All in Catalan. All very worthy and boring-looking, like all learned journals. But boring it is not. Far from it. Here, in the one issue I spent a good hour or so poring over, were articles and research material on, amongst other things, the origin of fiestas in Alcúdia (Sant Jaume apparently comes from the late fourteenth century) and why there was such strong emigration from Pollensa to Alcúdia in the nineteenth century. Superb stuff. But it is only in Catalan. Shame.


QUIZ
So, back to normal. Chain thing - Rodgers and Hammerstein have a strong association with Anfield. What is it? Today's title? Ok, so slogan time. Which company's is this?

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