And A Packet of Crisps Please

You can tell when the season is drawing to a close. The Eroski supermarket lets its stock (admittedly limited) of foreign products dwindle. The true state of grocery xenophobia - Spanish and Mallorcan products alone - returns to the supermarket shelf. And no product typifies this more than the crisp. The summer months' variety pack of crisps augments the voluminous but dull array of Spanish crunchy snacks in a bag. The German-sourced Crunchips paprika flavour, a prince amongst the paupers of the local crisp world, packs up its seasonal court and winters in the obscurity of its Lorenz headquarters in Neu-Isenburg, a town notable for having the highest number of restaurants per head of population in Germany - not all of them serving only crisps. The Spanish crisp can't even do paprika, as it can't do most things, flavour-wise.

Despite the voracious snacking habits of the Spanish and the vast amounts of shelf space devoted to the crisp and its off-shoots, the Spanish are ill-served by their local producers. The Lays packs offer an appeal in the uniformly attractive look of their contents, but an obsession with the Iberian ham flavour as a staple results in potato-slice ennui as does the sheer number of the non-flavoured crisp. I have long since failed to see the point of a potato crisp that tastes only of potato. Crisp eating for the Spaniard is an act of habitual indifference as opposed to one of taste sensation and surprise. Worse still are the crisps that provide the equivalent of munching through a brick of Trex. Grease may be an essential ingredient of the crisp, but there's no need to boast about it. The Spanish crisp is all too often the junk of the junk world. Where is the diversity of a Walkers or a Marks and Spencer? Last time I was in England I was introduced to a sweet Thai (or something like that) Walkers. It was crisp heaven, or hell perhaps if one has personally just nosebagged an entire family-sized packet.

The one concession to crisp internationalisation that survives the late-summer stock purge lies with the Pringle, the pretentious wave in a cylinder that can't quite admit to being a crisp and indeed lawyers, for VAT purposes, argued successfully that it was not. However, its very packaging (in addition to it being unquestionably moreish) gives the muncher the pleasure of realising that, even as the contents of the tennis-ball-style container dip well below the halfway mark, there are still many more crisps awaiting than might have been imagined; it's a clever trick of packaging illusion. The Pringle is the Tardis of the crisp universe.

Unfortunately, no such cleverness exists in the world of the Spanish crisp. The one positive of its almost unrelenting awfulness is that offered to the waistline through crisp abstinence. As the Crunchips head for the snow of Germany, so items of clothing will begin to once more gradually become winter-wearables.


ELDERLY TOURISTS
The late-season tourist is a mixture of economy class, small infants and earnest senior citizens, many of whom are readily recognisable from their kit of backpack, khaki shorts and knobbly-knees. These are the walking tourist seniors of autumn, blessed with a hardiness of constitution that defies wild, windy and wet weather - as was the case yesterday. Among the ranks of this older October market is also the ex-colonial who insists on a Panama hat even under a weakening Mallorcan sun. One of the wonders of this Saga-ist invasion is its unfailing courtesy and good manners. The very numbers may make driving a slower than normal procedure owing to the less-than-sprightly tackling of main road crossing points, but stop for a group of oldsters and you will always get an acknowledgement and a smile, after there have been minutes of will-they, won't-they cross as they are unsure as to whether a car that has actually stopped does mean that they can use the crossing rather than be then callously mowed down.

I have great sympathy for this older market and for the at-times downright rudeness that it attracts. It's another Eroski moment. The other day an ex-colonial pair with his 'n' hers matching Panamas were getting into an awful tangle at the checkout. Yes, the store was quite busy, but it was not their fault that the pack of meat didn't have a bar code. "Not possible to pay. No price," chanted the checkout girl, indicating, not that they understood, that they should go and get an alternative pack with a code on. It was also not their fault that they failed to realise the need to weigh and then price their fruit and veg. I've said this on more than one occasion before. If there is no obvious sign - in a language other than Spanish - to advise as to the procedure, or no assistance, what can the store expect. It is especially tough on the elderly who get seriously flustered, as did this couple. Finally when it came to paying, the old boy neither understood the amount nor the coinage, so there was more faffing about and undisguised frustration on the part of the checkout girl. And amidst all this confusion, he had left his wallet down on the counter. This is a store not unknown to suffer petty theft.

The couple went and had a drink at the supermarket bar. I felt I had to talk to them. I explained what had been going on, because they still didn't really get it. I also advised the old boy to take better care of his wallet. I could have seen him being pickpocketed otherwise; he was a walking victim.

Whether it likes it or not, Eroski, a main supermarket chain, is still part of the tourist market. Not all of its staff are rude or unhelpful - some are quite the opposite - but it is unacceptable that polite but uncomprehending elderly tourists can be treated in such a poor fashion. They deserve much better.

And finally on Eroski, the one opposite the Platja d'Or in Alcúdia, that is. It is a year now since I spoke about the hole, the one of the broken bricks as you exit the car parking. Why is it still there?


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Mothers of Invention. As Terence rightly got it - "Frank Zappa's ironic analysis of the 'Laurel Canyon set' ". Today's title - Two whats of what and a packet of crisps. Who was it?

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