The Murder Mystery

A holidaymaker is found dead in his hotel room. All the guests and the staff seem to have alibis. Was it one of them whodunnit or an intruder? Call for the police? Yes, but in the shape of a mustachioed Belgian detective. Step forth Hercule Poirot.

What is all this about, you may ask. There is a front-page story from yesterday's "Majorca Daily Bulletin" that gives a clue. The image of Agatha Christie is to be used to promote Puerto Pollensa. The famous and very dead crime writer is to be resurrected as, it says, her "image fits the area (Pollensa) best". I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Who on Earth comes up with this stuff? Well, I can tell you - the town hall and the Mallorcan tourism wallahs.

For the record, Christie did holiday in the town. She once wrote a short story entitled "Problem At Pollensa Bay". And for this, she is deemed to be the "perfect promotional image for the British holidaymaker". What next? Will someone discover that Enid Blyton once summered in Alcúdia, and so will suggest that The Famous Five become the "faces" of the resort. "Lashings of ginger beer, Dick." Hoorah! And now watch the British flock to the town.

Problem at Pollensa Bay. I'd say so. A problem of marketing. Christie may be ultra famous and may have had some sort of minor connection with the resort, but this, by itself, is no reason for her to become the "face" of Puerto Pollensa. The connection is not quite in the completely tenuous bracket, but one conjures up the idea of a meeting of marketing so-called professionals passing straws around and clutching at them. These may well comprise the same marketing people who came up with that daft c-cedilla image for Pollensa. How many "images" does a place need anyway?

Dead people from the world of the arts are already disinterred to form the island's marketing mix. Deía is known for Robert Graves, and Valldemossa makes much of Frédéric Chopin, which is a colossal cheek given that he was there for such a short period and that the damp atmosphere was not quite what his doctors had ordered when recommending Mallorca for his lung condition; he became ill over the four months of one winter and he left, though he did compose prolifically during this short period. Nevertheless, Chopin - and Graves - have a certain romanticism. The same cannot be said for Agatha Christie. What can, unquestionably, is that she is the most popular author of all time, has an enduring fame, and has a name, if not a face, that is instantly recognisable to the British and to an international audience. But this does not mean she is the perfect image. It's not as if there is the equivalent of an Anne Hathaway's cottage that would mark her out as someone with a distinctive or special Puerto Pollensa background, though I daresay there are those who will rush to claim that she stayed in such and such a place, and look to charge a pretty centimo to have a gander at what may or almost certainly wasn't her writing desk. She did not base her works - her Poirot, her Miss Marple - in a local setting, except that one story. Otherwise, all she did was have the odd holiday. Like a lot of people have holidays.

This is marketing opportunism. Apart from the name of Christie itself, what does she represent? Murder mysteries. How do these relate to Puerto Pollensa? "Come to Puerto Pollensa and get murdered." At least Chopin had the good sense not to hang around before it became terminal, while he was and is indicative of a cultural aspect of Mallorcan tourism that the authorities are keen to promote. But think of Christie as a person, and what image might come to mind? I knew exactly the image, even before reading a quote by her biographer Laura Thompson from the "International Herald Tribune" talking about tapes she had left. "Nobody sounds like that anymore. She's old England. She sounds like an Edwardian, like a gentlewoman, like a lady. It's as though she's suspended in an early-20th-century world where the social order is intact, and murder is only conducted in a socially acceptable arena - arsenic in the crumpets, or something." (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/17/arts/christie.php.) Is this really the image that the marketing people have in mind? A crusty old trout from a long-past era. There are some who might like to still think of Puerto Pollensa as something from a lost world, but I'm afraid that it's no longer true.

Recently (28 November: The Face), I spoke about Rafael Nadal as the image for Mallorcan tourism promotion. He is right for the reasons I outlined in that piece. Apart from being Mallorcan and alive, he is also youthful. Unless there is someone with an obvious historical connection, not the case with Christie, celebrity promotion - for tourism - is likely to be effective if it conveys an image that is living, vibrant and, as is so with Nadal, appealing across the generations. Or does Puerto Pollensa not wish to be seen in this way? Does it want to be portrayed as somewhere set in the past? He may not be in the same class as Christie or Nadal when it comes to fame, but Bradley Wiggins has connections with the port through cycling training and may well be buying a house locally. Would he, or someone of his ilk, not be more representative of a contemporary tourism for the Brits? (To be honest, when I first glanced at the headline, I thought it was going to be about Linford Christie.) It's not as though Puerto Pollensa suffers from a lack of British visitors, or indeed residents. Oddly, Christie might be a more potent symbol for other nationalities which are under-represented in the resort.

But this all begs the question whether it is necessary; whether such icons and images, certainly those no longer with us and from a different time, are needed to promote a resort, be it Puerto Pollensa or anywhere else. It also begs the question as to whether it does any good. Will the fact that knowing Christie once holidayed in Puerto Pollensa make more Brits descend on the town? I find it hard to believe. It may open up the opportunity for hotels to stage the odd Christie murder mystery weekend, but otherwise? Apparently, there are also likely to be Christie memorabilia and Christie meals. The mind boggles. A Poirot miniature with a sombrero? Murder on the Orient Express in a bun? Don't for God's sake anyone mention all this to Grupo Boulevard, the Dakota tex-mex-ists, or there will be an outbreak of Agatha's theme pubs or, more likely, Christie's Grills, vaguely designed like the train and with a menu offering Miss Marple's traditional barbecue steak and chips. And then there is a question as to gaining permission and, in all likelihood, having to cough up for the Christie image. Have they gone into that? Presumably they have. Chorion is the company that holds the rights to Christie's works and there is also the Christie estate which is active in preserving her image. How much, I wonder, might this end up costing?


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Police (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SojAZ0X1e0). Today's title - now, if this lot were to be used to promote Puerto Pollensa - or anywhere - then I'd be on the plane. American, mates of Andy Warhol.

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