Keep your vibes to yourself!

 At the end of the 80s, I went to Acapulco. A cheap and cheerful package trip with a friend. We attended the obligatory “welcome meeting” and got talked into coughing up for a couple of excursions.

They were both a disaster. I remember a river, the banks of which were lined with rotting dead fish. I have blotted out other details.

The next week, my friend was keen to attend the welcome meeting for a second time.

Why the heck do you want to do that? Hear about the bloody picturesque white houses nestling on the clifftops again, and get roped into more rivers and dead fishes?

No, we ignore all that. We take the cocktails and listen carefully to what she told us NOT to do. 

And so it was - a fantastic second week, riding down to the Old Town in the forbidden blue (non tourist) bus, eating real Mexican food, discovering a deserted 1950s hotel possibly with the ghost of Elvis in residence, being chased down the street by Russian sailors ...

I am naturally wary of what others might think I’d enjoy on holiday. So I don’t know why I pressed the button for the AI assistant on Trip Advisor at the weekend when investigating a Greek island I haven’t visited yet. I blame a glass of wine too many.

I could hardly shut the wretched thing up. I think it had swallowed the whole of Instagram.

... nails the “holiday rhythm”, laid-back vibe, anchor pick, prime for that lively, waterfront “boats and clinkung glasses” vibe, harbor-adjacent, strong pick, that easy combo, pairs perfectly, the most “you” option ...

Almost put me off considering that island at all. It may be unspoilt in reality, but it’s definitely been a little sullied now in my perceptions by a non-sentient bot which has certainly never had a glass of Retsina, let alone one too many.

I know I should prompt these things with a bit more info, but when I said “no serious hiking”, I meant I didn’t want to walk uphill in 40°C on a goat track for 4 hours, not that more than “200m gentle level walking” is beyond me.

I think I’ll stick to my tried and trusted approach as expressed by Stefan Zweig:

All the strangeness, all the distinctiveness of a country will utterly escape you as soon as you are led and your steps are no longer guided by the real god of travellers, chance.

Or maybe ask the Trip Advisor bot where not to go and what not to do.

 

Love, peace, piss-ups and brass music

 

Ten years ago, if you’d told me the gin market would shortly explode and still be gaining sales in 2023, when young people are allegedly drinking less alcohol, my head would have been surprised. 

But not my heart. I’ve always loved gin and know that it's a damned good thing. It just needed the right time, the right conditions and some clever marketing to get it back in vogue.

I came across something that reminded me this a few weeks ago, on a late summer holiday to Baska, on the island of Krk in Croatia. Something I had always loved given a bit of reinvention, a bit of borrowing from popular culture - and being lapped up like crazy by people young enough to be my grandchildren.

The event in question was Brass Palmas . This is the beach party event associated with the Woodstock der Blasmusik  . The experience was quite surreal. At one end of the beach at Baska there’s a nudist resort.

At the other there are trumpets, tubas, trombones, saxophones.

Buckets of beer and cocktails.

Dirndls, Lederhosen and plenty of Skipton Alfie-style loud beach pyjamas.

Imagine the slightly staid world of oompah music given a large shot of festival/club/Ibiza atmosphere, and there you go.  The kind of mix that sounds ridiculous on paper, but just works in reality - and how!

There’s a party boat, a pool party, and non-stop music, dancing and drinking from stupid o’clock onwards.

 

And behind it all is some very neat marketing - brilliant brand name and logo ... and of course all the merchandise you could possibly want.

It’s a blast!

RETROWURST: Greece August 2005

 

Retrowurst was in holiday modus in August 2005, full of the many and varied joys of Greece. Food, football, holiday fun - but was this a short-term infatuation on the part of the Germans, following the Greeks’ Euro 2004 success?

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The news is official- in Germany; at least, Greece is the new Italy. While that may sound historically incorrect (wasn’t it the other way around in the old days?) there does seem to be a gathering body of evidence here that Greece is taking over Italy’s pride of place in the Germans’ minds, hearts, stomachs and suntans!

 

It all started about a year ago with football. The surprise winner of Euro 2004 were the Greeks, who, from the opening game on surprised the crowds in the stadiums and in front of the TVs. While critics continued to point out that the football that the Greeks played was uninspired and ugly and others muttered about luck in a sort of sour-Retsina-grapes fashion, the Greeks progressed through the first round, the quarters and semis to the final itself. Now, criticism for playing ugly football and muttering about good luck are well-known to any supporter of the German football team and, if this wasn’t enough to get the Germans behind Greece once their own luck was (uncharacteristically early) up, a quick glance at who was on the sidelines was.

 

Otto Rehhagel, a not uncontroversial veteran of the Bundesliga as player and trainer, coached and trained the Greeks to victory. Rehhagel has often been criticized for his “old-fashioned” methods in his home country. He famously answered his critics with the reply “winning is what is modern.” Herr Rehhagel has not only gained a couple of name changes since the tournament (“King Otto”, Rehakles”) but also is now an honorary citizen of Athens and was voted “Greek of the Year” by a leading Greek newspaper.

 

The drama of Euro 2004 was followed closely by the excitement and pageant of the 2004 Olympics, the Opening Ceremony of which also featured Herr Rehhagel/Rehakles. Two weeks of surprise, scandal and achievement under the Greek sun certainly continued to whet German appetites for the country.

 

Some rather less culturally mighty events also saw Greeks triumphing. In the first German series of “I’m a Celebrity- get me out of here”, Costa Cordalis was crowned Jungle King. Costa Cordalis is a German-adopted Greek singer who had a couple of hit records in the 1970s which are still played at Karenval when people are too drunk to care how cheesy they are. For Costa Cordalis, you need to think Demis Roussos minus the kaftan and a few kilos. And, on the subject of tacky Europop, the Eurovision song contest was won this year by none other than Greece.

 

On the holiday destination front, many people in Germany, scared-off by terrorist activity in Turkey and Egypt or by natural disaster in the Far East are booking up holidays in Greece. Even the recent Helios plane crash has not much dented the impression that Greece is a “safer” holiday destination than many. Greece has never been associated with the sort of Club 18-30 excess (as in Kardemena for example) in Germany that certain Greek islands and resorts are known (and avoided) for in the UK. While Germany spawns just as many undesirable holiday-makers as the UK does, most of them tend to congregate in certain unsavoury bars and resorts in the Balearics. For historical reasons, the Greeks are probably more prepared to tolerate drunken Brits than drunken Krauts.

Greece has always been a little overshadowed by its two Mediterranean neighbours, Italy and Turkey, from a German point of view. Italy has long been a popular travel and holiday destination for the Germans from Goethe’s time onwards. After all, it’s just over the Alps and these days you can drive there in a day from all but the northernmost areas of Germany. Italy is to the Germans as France is to the Brits - the epitome of the desired lifestyle, food, drink and culture. Turkey is a more recent influence but a very noticeable one with the presence of a large Turkish community within Germany. Turkish shops and restaurants are widespread and popular with many Germans and Turkey itself is a well-loved holiday destination.

 

This year, however, tourism to Greece has really taken-off. It is almost impossible to get a flight at this stage of the season to any of the islands and many tour operators seem to be booked-out. At least every second person amongst friends, neighbours and colleagues seems to be holidaying in Greece this year.

 

The discount retailers have really picked up on this trend with Greek-themed offers throughout this summer. For example, Plus (www.plus.de) have a wide range of Greek products on offer this week. There is Imiglykos wine for €1.49 (you’d probably be prepared to sing-along to Costa Cordalis songs after this!), Eos Ouzo for €4.99 (ditto), Olive Oil from Krete, Zeus Zaziki and all manner of stuffed and marinated olives and peppers. It’s not just consumables on offer either: Plus also have a mosaic garden chair and table set, olive and pistachio trees, special dishes for the stuffed and marinated olives and all manner of table linen with an olive design on offer.

 

The other discounters such as Aldi and Lidl have also had their Greek ranges with everything from cookbooks to garden statues. So it certainly seems as if those that are unlucky enough not to have booked their flights to Greece early will never-the-less have ample opportunity to create their own Taverna in the back garden, sit back in their mosaic stools, slug back a bit of Ouzo and sing along to Costa Cordalis. For my part, I’m off to Paros at the end of September although it may well be that we’ll have had enough of Greece by then!

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Sometimes, looking back at Retrowurst, I wonder where to start, as the changes are so fundamental. But, I can safely say that the German passion for Greece is still very much alive and kicking like a mythical winged horse. The discounters are still celebrating Greek weeks with regularity, offering Mythos and other goodies.

Fifty friends of ours celebrated a 25th wedding anniversary in Matala recently, and the Greece newbies were every bit as enchanted as those who’d been visiting for decades. And last Sunday, our local band managed a rendition of Griechischer Wein just before the heavens opened and rain stopped play - and Fest.

Yamas!

RETROWURST: Public Holidays May 2005

 

Here we go on another trip back in time, to my reflections on the merry month of May in Germany, with its glut of public holidays. Off I went, following the tipsy processions through the fields and woods, slurping down Maibowle on the way.

I must have got bored of that topic as the article then lurched into the subject of greeting cards in Germany. If my memory serves me correctly, I had a project on the go on this theme.

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It’s May and that annoying time of year again, if you work in the UK, when every time you call your colleagues in Germany or other continental countries, they seem to be having yet another public holiday or, worse still, they had a public holiday yesterday, which was Thursday, and are having the Friday off for good measure.

 

Public holidays come thick and fast after Easter here in Germany; there’s the first of May, of course (although we don’t move this around if it inconveniently falls on a weekend as it did this year; it would be most un-German to call the third the first, or whatever) and then we’ve just had Father’s Day and Mother’s Day in quick succession. Mother’s Day is understandable enough; this is the same as in the UK (on a Sunday) except that it’s in May instead of March, possibly to provide a better fresh seasonal flower selection. Father’s Day is a little more difficult to understand- it is actually Himmelfahrt or Ascension Day in the Christian Calendar but has been hi-jacked somewhere along the way to celebrate all that is manly and fatherly. Typically, it is a good excuse for men to go out for a long walk through the woods and fields, pulling a little cart heavily stocked with beer and Schnapps. These expeditions start fairly early in the morning and the progressively drunken procession lurches from one beer garden to the next, occasionally topping up in-between from the little cart. Sons are often included from a relatively early age, usually as an insurance measure to pull the cart or find the way home once the fathers become incapable. All this is rather different from the genteel coffee, cake and flower arrangements that constitute the typical Mother’s Day. So much so, that, recently, in the spirit of equality, groups of women can now also be observed on Father’s Day, crashing through the foliage to enjoy the odd glass of Prosecco.

 

No sooner are Father’s and Mother’s Days over than is Pfingsten or Whitsun and another long weekend (elongated even further in Frankfurt with the celebration of Waldchestag, or Woods Day on the Tuesday- yes, you guessed it- more drunken lurching and frolicking in the woods!) upon us. Sometime in late May or early June is Fronleichnam (or Happy Cadaver as I once heard it charmingly referred to; actually Corpus Christi) then that’s the lot in most of Germany except a few extreme Catholic strongholds until the frightening-sounding Tag der Deutschen Einheit in October.

 

You would think, what with Christmas and Easter and birthdays to add to all this, that the greetings card industry in Germany would be huge, but there you’d be wrong. Whereas, in the UK, Hallmark and their ilk have capitalised on the North American willingness to celebrate or commiserate every possible event or non-event of human life’s rich tapestry in card format, the greetings card market in Germany is under-developed which may be a good or bad thing depending on your perspective. 

 

Starting with Christmas, the card selection is rather sparse. Maybe the Germans think that they are being damaging enough to the environment by insisting on real Christmas trees for all without then wasting the paper that’s involved in Christmas cards to every distant relative and acquaintance, including the dustmen. There are certainly no “bumper boxes” of 50 cards with the only nod to bulk-buying being packets of six postcards of snow scenes or candles. What cards there are have a very traditional flavour- you won’t find anything with “cool yule”, smutty poems about drunken reindeer or retro photos with 21^st century captions here. And these cards are mostly sold singly.

 

When it comes to birthdays, there is a market but it’s somewhat limited. Your choice tends to be amongst “funny cards”, which resemble those “funny cards” you used to get in the UK in the 1970s- tall and thin with very thin sub-Carry-On humour, cards that even most grannies would find too twee or the pre-teen girl selection featuring either Diddl (a mouse with oversized feet who I think hails from Austria) or those grey patchwork teddies who look like baby seals waiting to be clubbed. For younger children, there is little sign of the whole character merchandising industry anyway and especially not on birthday cards. Whereas you’re confronted by Bob, Postman Pat, the Tweenies, the old Disney favourites and the latest Disney/animation heroes from the first birthday onwards in the UK, you would be very lucky to find a birthday card that even has an age on it in Germany (unless it’s an age over 60 - as I’ve said before, Germany is a very old-friendly country where seniority is a badge to be proud of!). 

 

For other occasions (with the notable exception of condolence cards), the choice is very narrow indeed: even those “no text all purpose” cards are rather hard to come-by. In addition, what there is tends to be very bland and generally inoffensive, verging on twee. Cards for new babies, for example, are almost never funny but show, instead, rose- or baby blue- tinted symbols and images of unrealistic infant perfection. No jokes about stinks or embarrassing noises here!

 

Perhaps the reason for this under-development stems back to the German dislike of superficiality. Many of the card-giving occasions themselves (those that are not traditional German celebrations) are regarded as another ugly and blatant attempt for the US capitalist machine to squeeze more money out of us. Halloween and Valentine’s Day are two examples of occasions that have been “pushed” in recent years and are treated with increasing cynicism. Furthermore, the thought process in Germany tends to go- if you really care about the person who is celebrating, then put some time, money and effort into doing something personal and relevant to them- giving flowers, picking up the phone, making a card yourself and so on, otherwise, don’t bother. Card-giving tends to send out signals here of a “halfway house”; you’re doing the simplest, cheapest thing out of duty more than anything else.

 

In a way, they do have a point. Anyone who has suffered a deluge of those corporate Christmas cards signed in a rush by people who neither know nor care about you or has wondered how many two-year-olds really appreciate the full cast of the Teletubbies, Tweenies and Balamory in cardboard form may well wonder if we wouldn’t all be better off forgetting the card and enjoying the celebration instead, even if it does involve trees, rain and some very dubious Schnapps.

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Greetings cards are still pretty low-key in Germany, although there are loads around at the moment for Konfirmation. I wonder if the generation being confirmed at the moment (born around 2010) are a little bemused by these analogue relics. A popular alternative to cards for birthdays and the like seem to be those rather gaudy helium balloons. 

Fests are, thankfully, back on the calendar following Covid. Out here in the country, it’s not just Public Holidays, but almost any form of local produce, flora or fauna, from asparagus to apple blossom to potatoes that gets its own Fest.

I think I’ll give the Grillfest at the rabbit breeders’club a miss, though.