Consuming Interest
Local Lore
By LESLIE ADRIAN
Two years ago Greece moved into a Regent Street frontage with a relief map of Hellas and a permanent exhibition of indigenous products (not for sale, although temptingly price-tagged). Here the would-be traveller may expect copious if rather vague advice and instructions, with the usual openhanded distribution of colour- ful but not always relevant leaflets.
France has moved recently into palatial Piccadilly premises, but the service is rather less lavish. One Saturday morning when I called a solitary, harassed girl was trying to cope with a queue of nine or ten; the following Monday, at lunchtime, the same girl faced an even longer line-up. The impression was that she had been there all weekend. But, if the service is still slow, the quality of the information has improved. I remember inquiring about holiday- ing in and around Paris at the turn of the year. To every question the reply was the automatic dispensing of a leaflet. The dispenser herself showed no sign that she had ever visited Paris, and regretted that the weekly guide to events in her capital city was due to arrive at the office the day after the last recorded event had taken place. The same stricture applies to the invaluable ESSI guides, those admirable booklets published by local Syndicats d'Initiative. Because the British plan their holidays in January (thanks to /the seasonal downturn in newspaper advertising revenue and the willingness of the travel trade to fill the gap), and the French think about holidays in the spring, there is a three- or four- month hiatus. But be comforted, a friend of mine has just arranged a Rome holiday in September and has not been turned down by a single hotel—and he wrote to ten.
What, however, ought one to expect from a national tourist office? Apart from enthusiasm and a warm welcome, I would say knowledge borne of experience rather than books and pamphlets.
Though the Spanish tourist office in Jermyn Street do not seem to get the backing from the Direction General del Turismo in Spain that they deserve, the London staff seem to know and love the land they are trying to persuade us to visit. The last time I spoke to their director he had just returned from motoring all the way from Irun to Santiago and he was as honest about the state of the roads and the Englishness of the weather as he was about the glories of that part of the world. Perhaps I shall never go to Japan, but the friendliness of the Haymarket office would draw me on to a plane over the Pole tomorrow. The information they hand out is up-to-the-minute— bus and train times, car-hire, hotel bookings. climate, and detailed local lore.
This is seldom offered by official tourist agencies (not, by the way, to be confused with
those privateers who sail under false national colours as the Ruritanian Travel Agency; they have no official standing at all, and should be avoided in most cases). What would be the point of a detour to Lascaux if the caves are still shut (they are)? Or of going to Yugoslavia to visit the Byzantine churches if they are unattainable (they are not)? Or planning to explore the Palladian villas along the Brenta if they are not open to the public? 'We have not received any information since 1961,' said the man at the Italian office, 'and there are no maps. I am going to write a nasty letter this afternoon.' It is helpful, again, to be told objectively what to buy and where. The Swedes provide an exemplary seventy-four- page guide to Stockholm's shops. services and local customs.
And the literature should be carefully chosen. Too often it is gaudy, coy and downright comical —'and still today a representation of this Holy Man' (who turns out to have been a mythical fourteenth-century cobbler) 'cann be seen fixed up above the town wel.' Let us have timetables, please, such as the Germans supply; and maps of the kind provided by the Swiss, with every street, in Geneva clearly named and cross- indexed by a simple code to an alphabetical list; not to mention the catalogues of hotels which more and more countries in Europe seem able to furnish. And could the staff be persuaded to work all day on Saturdays, when most of us would like to discuss our vacation plans? If they closed all day on Mondays it wouldn't matter.
Built-in redundancy, that panacea for over- productive economies, was always one of the inherent advantages of being a glass or pottery manufacturer (it is also a good reason for making children's clothes). The head of the British Pottery Manufacturers' Association was very rude last week about the British habit of eating off an assortment of odd plates and drinking out of chipped cups. The inference was that we are a nation of skinflints who would rather spread our table-tops with a multi-coloured assortment of clashing china than splash a pound or two on an entirely new set.
Assuming that we are all agreed that plastic tea services do not meet the case (except in the nursery), whose fault is this? I say it is the potters', who would rather sell us a complete dinner service for twenty guineas (probably including two soup tureens we don't want) than provide replacement pieces for a few shillings. How many readers of this column have laid out a substantial investment on a dinner service only to find out that after a few years of family use it' was no longer possible to make good the breakages? If the potters are going to take pot- shots at us, I think we should shoot back.
Being one of those people who work from and at heme a good deal, I've been looking for a desk which would be so self-contained that you wouldn't know that I did work at home. Dentists, doctors, farmers and writers will know what I am talking about—and so will their wives, who hate the untidiness that a man may revel in and even find necessary and unavoid- able. (Wives may also hate the fact that their husbands do work at home—'I married you for richer, for poorer, but not for lunch'—but that's another story.)
There are plenty of desks around, new and second-hand, but what I really want is a very small office that will fold up and become, literally. part of the furniture. I think I've found it Whether you would like it or not depends on whether you think it could be part of your furniture, though, if you have the space. this may not matter that much.
Badenia (77 New Bond Street, WI; MAYfair 0863) sell a Norwegian-made miniature office which, folded up, .measures 451 in. high, 32f in. wide and 211- in. deep. It comes in mahogany (£68), light oak (08) or teak (£75) and is only obtainable from Badenia. It would be more ex- pensive if it were sold through shops and dealers. When open, it becomes three-sided : a centre desk with two wings. As a piece of de- sign it is well built and beautifully functional, with plenty of movable shelves, drawers, filing space, trays, space for a small or a large type- writer and its own adjustable electric light.
They have gone to the trouble of packing it properly so that it won't be damaged when being delivered. The packing was designed by the Norwegian Packing Institute. And Badenia are honest and open about delivery dates. At present delivery is three to four weeks (less in the London area)
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