LEE!P_L_2_UD D
CONSUMING INTEREST
Lest We Forget
By LESLIE ADRIAN
Most souvenirs would be better lost. But, I understand, they are big business, even in Britain, where traditional, national objects have disappeared, except, perhaps from Scotland. They are for the most part badly-made rubbish on which the `muckatricians' make a comfortable living in every country.
A good souvenir, to my mind, is an object that is traditional, useful, good to look at and sold anywhere but in a souvenir shop. My best is a Portuguese peasant blanket from Santarem (or perhaps a set of Breton pottery). A souvenir does not even have to be useful, like a Sicilian Wooden wine-bottle I found in a Palermo junk- shop, or the wood carving from a piece of drift- wood I bought from a sailor in Finisterre.
But these are not contrived objects in the sense that scale models of the Eiffel Tower with a thermometer up the front are. Or a clock with a Union Jack face, one of the prize- winning souvenirs in the Council of Industrial Design's competition. There were 51 awards out of 227 entries, and I would hate to see some of the losers. The winning group are dominated by 'pop art' conventions, like the enamel Britannia tray in 'hot pink,' blue and white. And the Union Jack is predominant in the designs, most of which are a great improvement on the usual run of tourist take-home trash. The bottom is reached in places like Stratford-on-Avon, where you can unload anything so long as it has Shakespeare's head on it or is shaped like Anne Hathaway's cottage. By some miracle, not much Shakespeariana seeped through to the Design Centre. The now numerous commemora- tive gold medals scored one home run—Battle of Britain. Did the Mint enter their five-shilling piece? Or the GPO their stamps?
My favourites (if anyone cares) are the pillar- box hanging bag, for children's clothes or toys, a London folder of cut-outs and miniature news- papers, again for children, and a pair of gonk- like Highland cattle. In fact, it seems that the souvenir for children comes off best, unless it is something quite ridiculous, like the 'twenty- °nester' designed by Valerie Goad and described
as 'sheepskin animal with twenty-one I'd call it a long-felt want, myself, probably from Outer Space or Inner Mongolia.
In case you were wondering why your news- paper was bulging with travellers' tales and travel agents' advertisements, the reason is that
January is a thin time for other kinds of paid publicity, and a long time ago that pioneering firm Thomas Cook came to this amicable arrangement with some leading dailies and the habit has stuck.
Almost as long ago, the papers began to publish their accumulated holiday hints in book form. The Observer has a series of 2s. 6d. pocket books, soon to be supplemented. The Sunday Telegraph man on the move, Nigel Buxton, laboured valiantly to produce a fat Penguin on Europe (excluding Britain, like General de Gaulle). And now the Sunday Times, which was first in the field fifteen years ago, has put a distinguished trio, Vincent Cronin, Elizabeth Nicholas and Leonard Russell, on to a new edition (Nelson, 30s.).
It is thorough and comprehensive, but, like all such compilations, does not respond to every wish. Nothing on car hire abroad, for instance. And a useful phrase list without pronunciation guidance. How would you pronounce bilhete, the Portuguese for ticket, unless you know that all but the last syllable is said like the Italian biglieuo? Also, the rate of exchange for sterling is given in Egyptian piastres as 1,560, which is the rate for notes. For travellers' cheques it is only 1,200.
But it is good value. So thorough that it hints on how and where to buy a map of the, officially unmapped Pyrenean walking country. And lots more really practical knowledge offered by'people who have been and done it.
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