Finding it is a bit like going to a rave. First, you need to know a local hombre to get the number. On tinkling, you are directed to another telephone box to wait for a call. Then, like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn, a taxi appears to pick you up from Alicante town centre and you are driven 20 minutes up the coast, blindfolded.
This sort of experience excites the hell out of me and has my salivary glands pissing like a Dutch dyke.
Every now and again, someone leaves a comment on this blog that makes me laugh. Recently, I nearly wet myself when this comment appeared on my post about the Costa del Crime:
Hola, por si entiendes español, te mando esto, deberias elegir otros vinos en España, los que eliges ( valga la rebundancia ),aquà se utilizan para desatascar el inodoro y el cava freixenet para lavar al perro. Saludos
As it happens, Spanish is a language that avoided me at school, so it is not technically true that I wet myself when Lorenza left the comment. Fortunately, my mate Paul, who learnt Spanish on a beach near Barcelona whilst variously selling deckchairs, running a water skiing school and generally bumming around for several years, was able to assist. Here is his translation:
Hello, in the case of you being able to understand Spanish, I am sending you this. You should choose other wines in Spain, the ones you choose, here we use them to get rid of smells and Cava Freixenet is for washing the dog.
Thoughts of massaging Cava into Bonzo’s furry skin got me to wondering whether Spanish dogs are exported to Korea as a canine take on wagyu beef?
I was idling through my Google Analytics stats wondering who on Earth (other planets are available) reads this website and how they stumble across it?
Clearly many use Google, and compose some search string or other that chances upon a random thing I have written. It amused me to see that the most commonly used search string (2.1% of total visitors) to find Confessions of a Wino in the last month was “Freixenet pronunciation”. It proved that Google was quite clever to read my text to at least some degree semantically. Perhaps more important, though, was the marketing lesson….or maybe not.
Does it help to have a brand that 90% of people cannot pronounce? Does that make people go to the trouble of finding out? Or does it just inhibit them from asking for your product, if for example, like many sparkling wines, it is behind the counter?
For the record, my mate Paul, who can speak Spanish having spent 7 years there, says it is pronounced Fresher-Nett. And if you don’t want to ask for it, cases of 6 are available from your local Costco. Fill your trolley…
Exactly how many quarters has Manchester got? Can a city have more than four? I hear tell in the press of the latest campaign to create an “Irish Quarter” which is bringing England’s second city to the point of fractional incongruence.
Personally, I like the Spanish quarter and one of my fave tapas places is on Deansgate two forward rolls from the new Beetham Tower – Evuna.
Did you know that the Beetham Tower at 47 floors is the highest residential building in Europe. Has anyone told the residents on floor 36 that the fire brigade can only reach the fourth floor? Food for thought!
Stumble It!