Exasperated.com

I had thought to go off on one, to launch into a diatribe, to sound off, to engage in a rant. But then I thought better of it. I could have gone off on one by announcing the fact, because this is how going off on one is. It requires a topping or tailing - "I'm having a rant" or "rant over". Why does anyone do this? If it is a rant, then is it not obvious?

The reason lies, at least I suspect it lies, in a conspiratorial alliance with the reader. Rant announcement equals pay attention, or the promise of revelatory riches, even if there are none, or an expectation of empathetic appreciation of the ranter's subject matter by an unseen, reading interlocutor whose part in the ranter's conspiracy is heightened by the tricks of involvement as set out in the bible according to Littlejohn - the "you couldn't make it up" clichéd standby of the ranter that brooks no suggestion that actually, yes, you could make it up or that the subject matter is in fact of no consequence to the reader or is totally opposite to the reader's views. Which would make the conspiratorial alliance fall flat on the page.

What I had been thinking that I would go off on was what I had earlier in the day indeed gone off on, at the end of a drink (non-alcoholic) with some people from a well-known attraction (and no, I'm not mentioning which one). What this involved was a declaration of exasperation. Not so much with the subject but with the illogic, exaggeration and disregard for an alternative perspective.

The subject was the Mallorca hoteliers' federation thing about 40% of tourists arriving at Palma airport who head off to stay in illegal accommodation (or, more diplomatically, accommodation which is not registered by the tourism ministry). It was exasperation because - and I even used the words "until I'm blue in the face", which I would never do in the written form but now have - nowhere is there any clue as to where all the tourists who arrive at the airport are in fact meant to stay. I have said it before. On more than one occasion. The illogic of the hoteliers' argument is plain to see; at least it is to me. There are way more tourists at the height of summer than there are hotel (registered) places. If you want the figures, I refer you honourable ladies and gentlemen to articles I have written before; I'm not going to repeat myself.

Further illogic lies with the hoteliers' justification for the government's stance against this illegal offer (by which they mean the stance they have told the government, Delgado in particular, that it must adopt). For the president of the federation to say that some illegal accommodation is not up to scratch and so therefore would give a poor image of Mallorca is illogical because it recognises a reason for regulating and monitoring accommodation which is illegal in any event. By the same token, it suggests inadvertently that some accommodation is up to scratch. The argumentation is, therefore, flawed.

Having gone off on this, I thought afterwards, why did I? The subject is of no personal interest to me in that I do not have accommodation that I am making available either legally or illegally. Why should I care?

The discussion had touched on some other issues, one of which was marketing. It was putting this together with the hoteliers' propaganda (and the 40% is surely an exaggerated headliner) that made me conclude that what I do care about is misrepresentation, is stupidity, is mediocrity, is myopia, is the unchallenged dogma that springs from groupthink.

Blimey, where the hell do I start with this lot?

Frankly, I'm disinclined to start with any of it, because to do so would amount to going off on one. I could embellish the above, I could give chapter and verse, I could dissect the minutiae of the inadequacies of much that passes for tourism marketing in Mallorca, of what passes for an understanding of who tourists are (which isn't a great deal), of what is a blind adherence to tourism product that misses the point entirely, which is that the great unwashed majority of tourists want only to spend a couple of hours in a plane, get shipped to a resort, get extraordinarily red and get extraordinarily pissed.

I could do all this, but I have done it many times. Therefore, I'm thinking of changing the name of this blog to exasperated.com. But then I would need to be constantly exasperated, and I'm not; only when I go off on one.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.