The Size Of A Cow: The early-season German tourist

Ah yes, spring. It seems so long. Warmth, that is. The snow and cold have been consigned to the dustbin of the wettest Mallorcan winter since the UK had one of its most severe winters - 1947. The birds are singing, all the other normal twaddle that gets waxed cliché-lyrically at this time of the year is twaddling, and the armies of the north are engaging in early-season Lebensraum. All of a sudden, great hordes have emerged, commandeering the space that is the local Eroski supermarket. These are not, or don't appear to be, the cycling Saxons; they're wearing normal clothes and when they walk they don't make a noise like comedy horses with coconut shells. But they are noisy, gutturally so, and vast. At what point in recent history did the Germans transmogrify into human high-rises? (And the same might be asked of the Dutch of whom there are also any number.)

Concentrate an invasion force into a confined area, e.g. a supermarket, and one is all but overwhelmed not just by its unexpected appearance but also by its sheer size, or rather their size - individually. The Germans, and the Dutch, are bipedal skyscrapers. Even the pre-secondary school ones could pass as England fast bowlers - of the Finn and Harmison variety, as opposed to rotund shortasses like Gough. Hovering high above the typically diminutive Mallorcans, they hoover up a month's shelf-life of sausage stock in a matter of minutes. Well they'd need to in order to fuel such giantism: the German economy runs not on engineering but on meat consumption. Which is all rather good news, so one would think, for the hard-pressed Mallorcan restaurant sector. Unhindered by the negative impact of a depressed currency rate, the Germans can seamlessly swap a ton of schnitzel in Stuttgart for the size of a cow in an Alcúdia or Muro eating-house.

Well you might think this would be the case, but there are those who would beg to differ. Tourists, or tourist nationalities to be more precise, are often defined according to how extravagantly or not they hand over hard cash in exchange for some marinaded and charcoal-grilled Porky or Ermentrude. For reasons that have long escaped me, the Germans are often viewed as bad spenders. It does, however, depend on what is being sold.

Which brings me to another tribe that has suddenly become quite evident. It would be falling into the stereotyping trap to assume that all the newly arrived Africans are "lookies" (aka "luckies"), but this might not be an unfair assumption. Like tour reps gather pre-season for what is comically referred to as "training" in venues such as Alcúdia's auditorium, so the lookies convene for their own learning experience - motivational speeches, sales techniques demonstrated with the aid of some ancient John Cleese Video Arts training videos (pirated of course), and so on. Or maybe they are programmed with some bird-like homing instinct to simply flock in a week or so prior to Easter. But some training aid might not go amiss. Approach a German woman at a café table and wave in front of her a CD compilation from the Spanish "X-Factor" equivalent is only likely to result in reinforcing the notion that Germans are not big spenders. It should all be about target marketing. The lookies should invest - or rather not invest, as I'm sure you see what I mean - in some Roger Whittaker downloads and they would be euros-in with a German market that has an unfathomable penchant for the weird-bearded-one's warbles. Possibly.

Ah yes, warbles. Warblers. Birds singing. Spring is here. And so are the first German tourists and illegal street-sellers of the phoney season. It's starting again.


QUIZ:
Yesterday: The Box Tops, "The Letter". The singer with the group, Alex Chilton, died three days ago. Today: which group sized up a cow?

Alex Chilton - RIP:





Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.