Simon Jenkins, chairman of the National Trust as well as a former editor of "The Times", wrote about beauty in this week's Sunday version of the paper - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5907426.ece. Beauty as in scenic beauty, that is. Not a Renault style of beauty but that of the natural world. Beauty is something to be avoided; at least, the use of the word is avoided. That's his argument. You wouldn't know it: the adjective from the noun is not avoided hereabouts. It is positively over-used; in brochures especially. While Jenkins claims, rightly to a great extent, that the word beauty "borders on the politically incorrect", there is not the same sense of embarrassment among those who stuff local promotional material with the exaggeration of beauty and beautiful as there may indeed be among those responsible for the "catalogues of beauty" that Jenkins has "combed". Here a landscape, there a restaurant terrace: all is beauty and beautiful.
Though the word may have been proscribed in the UK, it is in the top ten of the thesaurus for the Mallorcan propagandist. So much is beautiful, that it can't all be. There again - in the eye of the beholder and all that. According to polls, states Simon Jenkins, 45% say that "natural surroundings" constitute beauty; 33% views. But there are natural surroundings and there are natural surroundings; there are views and there are views. The nature park of Albufera is natural - the map in "The Bulletin" even said so the other day ("the natural park"). Beautiful? I wouldn't have said so, and I live opposite. The point with Albufera is that it is flat and that there are whole loads of rushes; you can't actually see a great deal in order to determine whether it's beautiful or not. And if you look in the wrong direction, there's a dirty great power station coming into view. Some find beauty in industrial scenes, but industry is not what most would have in mind for Mallorca. The view across the bay of Alcúdia. Beautiful? In the distance, there's the other power station - the old one - that suggests otherwise, and then there is the occasional hulk anchored near to the port.
There's drama and then there is beauty, and I wonder if we don't confuse the two. Up in the mountains of the Tramuntana would be drama, but are the "natural surroundings" and the "views" beautiful? Ruggedness does not beget beauty. Or does it? Do beauty and beautiful always have to be refined, honed, shaped, richly-coloured? Can they be angular, chipped, grey? Jenkins observes that the National Trust opts for "chocolate box" shots for its photographs, and the reason it does is that they are "beautiful". The chocolate box top is saturated in the four-colour system, displays hues of vibrancy and regularity of scene: somewhere like Stourhead in autumn would qualify for the National Trust definition.
In official circles, beauty may be frowned upon, but it is still something that is easy to slip in. "Beautiful" is a default setting for those who peddle brochure talk. I'm wondering if it is possible, just conceivable that a brochure or a website could be written or constructed without beautiful or beauty, or also without pretty, awesome, lovely, wonderful, awe-inspiring, dramatic, perfect, splendid, extraordinary, exquisite ... .
Will the R-word cause the bottom to fall out of the Elvis market? It was once calculated that, at the then rate of growth, by 2019 one third of the world's population would be Elvis impersonators. What this, whatever it was, didn't establish was where most of them would be. I can. Most of them are in Mallorca. Just as well that the Elvii aren't in Las Vegas because it is there that the Elvis market is going arse-up.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - JoJo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FY8hl6b54A). Today's title - oh dear, how could I have done this?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Showing posts with label Elvis impersonators. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elvis impersonators. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Thursday, August 09, 2007
There’s A Guy Sings Down The Bar Swears He’s Elvis
Oh no, we are but a week away from an anniversary. Normally I might set this as a quiz, but I can’t wait.
16 August 1977. Elvis. As a board.
First it was a celebration of 40 years ago, now it’s 30. I remember it well; an initial moment of shock and then a concern about what punk band was playing the Greyhound in Fulham and were we having a curry.
You might ask, why bring this up. Well, Elvis is deeply engrained into the local psyche, or at least into the local how-do-we-get-the-punters-through-the-door psyche. I don’t have a problem with bars drumming up business, nor with drumming it up with some dodgy doppelganger lip-curling his way through “Are You Lonesome Tonight”, nor indeed with the artists themselves earning some euros (not all of them are dodgy; indeed some are quite good, but that's not the point). What I do have a problem with is this Elvis thing, period. I wonder whether Elvis would have thought - back in Nashville in the ‘50s - that it would be pretty cool for some cabaret act in 2007 to be impersonating him in a hotel entertainment area or bar in Alcúdia or Pollensa. No, I don’t reckon he would have. Nor, I suspect, would he have thought this once he himself had become an average cabaret artist, nor when he was lying on his bed in Graceland taking his last barbiturates.
Doubtless that arch Elvis and Elvis-impersonator apologist - Lash, R. - will celebrate all this. ‘Fraid I won’t. I won’t repeat it, but if you want to look back at 3 October last year, you can read why.
Following the huge success of the Indian Palace restaurant review (3 August), Seamus returns in our new feature - CULLEN’S CULINARY CORNER. Today - GOLF CLUB ALCANADA:
“There were two of us for lunch and we thought we would try something nice. The golf club has a nice terrace and also an air-conditioned dining-room when it is too hot. It was a bit cloudy today but we ate inside anyway. There is also a 180-degree view of the bay of Alcúdia, from Alcúdia to Betlem.
“They have an a la carte menu which is quite expensive by Alcúdia standards and also a snack menu that looks of a very high standard and reasonably priced. They also have a menu del día (daily special menu). They have a very good chef as all our food was of a really high standard and well-presented.
“I had foie gras to start, which was excellent, and a home-made lasagne that was for sure home-made, as the pasta was 100% fresh and tasty. My girlfriend had a ricotta cheese mousse salad and goulash soup, both were excellent. We had a half bottle of wine, a rioja. The bill came to 74 euros, expensive for Alcúdia but worth it I think.
“This is a nice place to eat and the staff were very friendly and spoke in English to my girlfriend and in Spanish to me. I also noticed a group of Spanish grannies and they had menu del dia; it looked great - bacalao (cod) and a white wine sauce. It came very quickly as well.
“This is a very nice place to enjoy a nice lunch. Don’t go in a rush and enjoy it.”
QUIZ
Well done to all who got Carole King. Today’s title is based on whose hit record?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
16 August 1977. Elvis. As a board.
First it was a celebration of 40 years ago, now it’s 30. I remember it well; an initial moment of shock and then a concern about what punk band was playing the Greyhound in Fulham and were we having a curry.
You might ask, why bring this up. Well, Elvis is deeply engrained into the local psyche, or at least into the local how-do-we-get-the-punters-through-the-door psyche. I don’t have a problem with bars drumming up business, nor with drumming it up with some dodgy doppelganger lip-curling his way through “Are You Lonesome Tonight”, nor indeed with the artists themselves earning some euros (not all of them are dodgy; indeed some are quite good, but that's not the point). What I do have a problem with is this Elvis thing, period. I wonder whether Elvis would have thought - back in Nashville in the ‘50s - that it would be pretty cool for some cabaret act in 2007 to be impersonating him in a hotel entertainment area or bar in Alcúdia or Pollensa. No, I don’t reckon he would have. Nor, I suspect, would he have thought this once he himself had become an average cabaret artist, nor when he was lying on his bed in Graceland taking his last barbiturates.
Doubtless that arch Elvis and Elvis-impersonator apologist - Lash, R. - will celebrate all this. ‘Fraid I won’t. I won’t repeat it, but if you want to look back at 3 October last year, you can read why.
Following the huge success of the Indian Palace restaurant review (3 August), Seamus returns in our new feature - CULLEN’S CULINARY CORNER. Today - GOLF CLUB ALCANADA:
“There were two of us for lunch and we thought we would try something nice. The golf club has a nice terrace and also an air-conditioned dining-room when it is too hot. It was a bit cloudy today but we ate inside anyway. There is also a 180-degree view of the bay of Alcúdia, from Alcúdia to Betlem.
“They have an a la carte menu which is quite expensive by Alcúdia standards and also a snack menu that looks of a very high standard and reasonably priced. They also have a menu del día (daily special menu). They have a very good chef as all our food was of a really high standard and well-presented.
“I had foie gras to start, which was excellent, and a home-made lasagne that was for sure home-made, as the pasta was 100% fresh and tasty. My girlfriend had a ricotta cheese mousse salad and goulash soup, both were excellent. We had a half bottle of wine, a rioja. The bill came to 74 euros, expensive for Alcúdia but worth it I think.
“This is a nice place to eat and the staff were very friendly and spoke in English to my girlfriend and in Spanish to me. I also noticed a group of Spanish grannies and they had menu del dia; it looked great - bacalao (cod) and a white wine sauce. It came very quickly as well.
“This is a very nice place to enjoy a nice lunch. Don’t go in a rush and enjoy it.”
QUIZ
Well done to all who got Carole King. Today’s title is based on whose hit record?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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