Cultural Guides

I suppose that travel is what you make it. The problem is that so many people conspire to make it as unpleasant as possible, from Ringtone Joe on the train through Fastlane Fuckwit on the roads to, possibly more seriously, terrorists in the air (or malicious baggage handlers, they’re about on a par).

I was on the motorway this weekend, travelling to see my family and as usual my wife saw the opportunity of our being trapped together in a speeding metal box for two hours as an excellent opportunity to discuss our relationship in circumstances that make my trying to step out the door deeply inadvisable.

So that was time well used, but it’s not always the case. A lot of the time travel is limbo, you’re in hiatus as you travel from point to point. A good example were the airport cabs I saw, travelling from Gatwick to Heathrow, ferrying folk from one airport to another, presumably to make a connecting flight. The journey is about an hour, which is a short time in terms of air travel, but a long time to waste. Which got me thinking.

More and more cars these days have these in-car DVD players, to make sure that the kids get in-car DVT rather than getting exercise and entertainment through the traditional routes of squabbling, fighting and violent bouts of travel-sickness. Most travellers are curious about the country they are visiting or about to visit - so why not have a ‘cultural guide’ DVD in the car. No segment longer than two minutes, talking about all the things you really need to know about in a country; tipping, how to avoid being roped into folk-dancing, how to greet the chap standing at the urinal next to you, that sort of thing. You can use the DVD menu to navigate the various categories and geographical areas and, of course, you can listen to it in the language of your choice (note to manufacturer, always get the translation checked, you don’t want what you think is an Armenian translation of your piece about the canals of Birmingham to actually being a bloke saying: ‘visiting Birmingham? Then make sure to visit Jeff’s knocking shop, only two minutes from the station’).

Of course the real place for this sort of programme is on YouTube as a cultural guide channel. Every programme is a maximum of two minutes, talking about one feature of your town and the thing is, you can make stuff up! I’d love to see some proud local strolling through the pretty but unremarkable graveyard of his village church pointing out the burial places of Shakespeare, Dickens, JFK, Elvis and Frodo Baggins.

Everybody must have one feature of their home town they are proud of. I’d like to see somebody standing in front of a kebab van extolling the virtues of chilli sauce with the sort of brio you normally associate with a travel journalist doing a spot in front of the Taj Mahal. Or got an area where you want to advise visitors to avoid? How about a dispatch from Dog Shit Alley wearing a BBC approved flak-vest.

On the plus side, a balanced an honest view of the off-beat delights of an area may be refreshing, the only drawback is that after seeing a few cultural guides, the tourist may well ask to tell the cabbie to turn the car round and head for home.