And so, here I am a little down the road from
Heraklion. The weather is good, hot and
sunny, and I am turning a rather fetching shade of brown. I am certain this will make me look extremely
suave when I go to the IBC TV Technology trade show in three weeks’ time, and
business will boom as a direct result. Oh yes…
Not much has happened over the past few days, just relaxing and
finding our way around. The resort is nice and the food ok, although the
internet sucks badly. It honestly seems like there is a 10MB limit per hour,
and its cable access only in the rooms. Luckily I brought my spare WiFi
router with me. I have daily attempts from the people around the pool to log
on, so I have changed the network name to 'sodoffmybandwidth'. Always
gets a laugh when someone nearby comments on it.
The all-inclusive booze is also acceptable and not quite the
battery acid those who have visited Egypt may have experienced. Sadly
here, we don’t have Jonny Wolker, Gordoon’s gin, Fineland vodka, or other such
rip-offs, whose similarity to the brands they are aping goes no further than
the reasonably faithful facsimile labels and a nod towards bottle shape.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about, courtesy of Bartosz Lewicki’s post
on the Multi Communications' blog:
As Bartosz observes, these drinks
usually do not boast the flavour of the drink they are
copying, but the aroma. This means that within minutes of
leaving the bottle, you are left with a small plastic cup filled will
industrial-strength solvent topped-up with a splash of the local version of the
mixer of your choice.
While the bars around the complex
limit their selection to local beer (had better, had a LOT worse) and wines,
the [I wanna take you to a] Day Bar and it’s cunningly-named
counterpart, the (wait for it) Night Bar, do serve such bastardisations and go
the extra mile to combine them into brightly coloured pseudo-cocktails with
only a passing resemblance to their autographically-altered, universally-known
namesakes. And as I sit, supping an Ouzou (sic) Sunrise, I’m reminded of
Sundays at Bromley Market as a kid, staring in awe at the gamut of Fila, Sergio
Tacchini and Ellesse fakes (now known as 'replicas' - imitation being the
sincerest form of flattery, after all) flying out of the back of a white
Transit as the seller blasts early House music from his Panasonix boom-box.
Good Times…
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