Blue Flag Beaches & Marginalised Slums

by i mac d. Sat Jun 11, 2005 14:00

Let us reflect ;-) that in the length of time since Terry Wogan left our shores and Cliff Richard sang his tunes of mild youthful rebellion and summer holidays, things have changèd.

Going on holidays is cheaper now. If you can afford a complete set of michael jackson records, you can afford the purchase of a package holiday. Though many destinations now having embraced democracy and the common market no longer offer an escape from VAT.

The fleet of boats at the disposal of the Irish holiday-maker have undoubtedly improved, and represent a continuing investment in capital, which was made possible through reduced expenditure on staffing.

Filipinos and polish workers are glad of a job, and in the case of one looking forward to the one tier europe of opportunities & worker security "lisbon" and the other hoping their papers come through and the homeland gets "debt relief".

In addition, world class budget airlines now abound, some pushing the meaning of outsourcing and precarity to the limit happily shuttling in hundreds of poorer people from formerly poorer countries to formerly poorer countries with yet still poorer people. "ireland is proud".
The competing airline has chosen its route to world status, not by expanding destinations but by offering the all-round budget package: internet café, flight, hotel room and car.

We are all it seems "going on our summer holidays". And the dermotological statistics confirm it, Irish people are proving yet more and more succesful at growing melanomas.

But!

There are still problems in barrowboy land. Teddys, Rockers and Mods might have given way to hoods and baseball capíns, but the aggression of young urban slumdweller remains, and not all of it may be easily channeled into anti-globalisation political activity, leafleting for the "FG/Lab/Green in your fucking dreams" coalition, or the optional ska-stomp hate-gig celtic cross circuit which will be kicking off, you sociologists, in a cemetry down south come school holidays.

What are we to do?

Well, we could try reasoning with them. Or instead we could send our own "armed with a stick" Garda Al out on holidays, to sort out the mediterranean gurrier. This surely is the best solution. Minister Mc Dowell could organise budget flights "of slum-control as part of a pan-European tourism is parasitic and social balance destruction maintenance joint action plan".

After all, Lisbon needs the euros that Irish, British, German and French (heck they're so poor) even Spanish tourists provide. It is just a saddening side-effect that so many non-portuguese want to buy the picturesque streets where no-one goes. It is just the tragedy of the free market, that the other outlying areas of these cities do not provide temporary short contract outsourced precarious workers to the tourism industry.
"I'm sorry lad, you're very pasty, we want a latin on the beach selling cocacola and you don't speak english/french/german".
But someday, enough holiday makers will have come, to so sully the beach it loses its blue flag, to have disturbed forever the fine social and communal balances that give any urban area its character and more than any "Garda Al" its' peace,
and then when they've finally integrated at their retirement age, these new citizens will worry about the unemployment, ethnic balances, extremism, drug addiction, lack of structural resources, marginalisation in those "deprived areas".
- ("I looked for the deprived areas on my map and in the guide but i couldn't find them") by which stage those 500, teenagers of the Lisbon beach will have grown up, and left all the petty crime behind them and be raising kids, paying tax, saving for private pensions, voting for liberals, and naturally thanks to the church of today the homosexual ones will be married to africans, sterile and not wearing condoms.

In short, the XXI century will be wonderful, an endless holiday from reality where the only imposition of the grim desperation is on your indymedia news-screen.

Let's go on holidays, there's a world to conquer.

This was stencilled on the wall, along with "alert mugger" messages in various languages., They are removed for tourist economy clean up requirements.

by Observer Sun Jun 12, 2005 04:46

This IS the last century, don't you know? Youth in sights to become THE enemy. Hormonal rebelliousness stoked to a frenzy and hate by corporate masters Intergenerational warfare coming to a city near you. All part of a necessary purging commanded by Mother Nature to protect the crown jewels. "Now, you evolutionary mistakes really didn't expect to cram six to 10 billion down my throat without a peep from me, did you. It's not nice to fool Mother Nature."

For Clockwork Orange fans, the next score of years will be titillating at first, then even you will vomit. Living will envy the dead, turn those nukes on US for cripe's sake, and the rest of it follows itself downward.

by toneore Sun Jun 12, 2005 08:25

Tourists are NOT Terrorists? How the fuck can someone come up with logic like that? The only case this is know to be true concerns the so-called "foreign fighters" in Iraq - those "tourists" really are terrorists and the sooner they are on their knees in orange, enjoying the nice weather in Guantanamo Bay, the better.
.
To write horseshit like Tourists are Terrorists is an insult to the hundreds murdered by the Islamofascists in Bali.
On a related point, if it were not for tourism, the world wouldn't have given a damn about the victims of the Tsunami.

Indymedia - tear down these walls of ghetto-chic criminality and terrorism!

by - Mon Jun 13, 2005 13:55

international pick-up has been low, only one paper in Chile carried the story outside of Spain, and none carried it in english outside of the BBC. but the 400-500 maruading beach thieves are now described as being gyspy and lusoafrican, which means they had tans.
They are described as using the same tactics of robbing en masse as have been familiar in Rio de Janeiro for some time. Portuguese authorities have declared they will guard their beaches more carefully.

by (holiday links) Thu Jun 16, 2005 10:27

"how to shit in the forest" is a guide to "natural methods for nature's neccesities" for all those who go on holidays far from the loo, and has been published in french for a french audience by author Kathleen Meyer with Edimontage.

And you can see a little photo montage thing on today's Le Monde which will last for a while-
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/portfolio/0,12-0@2-3238,31-660363,0.html
which is just the problem
it lasts. & the average tourist poo is not good fertilizer.

by io Sat Jul 30, 2005 23:12

If you go to the Leopold Museum in Vienna Austria naked or in a swimwear or dirty old ripped underwear
YOU GET IN FREE.
If you got the Vatican, you must cover your arms and legs.
YOU GET IN FREE.
If you goto Venice and are male you must wear a t-shirt to avoid the "torsonudism" fine of 45€.
YOU GET IN FREE.

The Leopold Museum in Vienna Austria wants attention and has offered free entrance to people with less clothing. This really is quite disgusting, all art galleries ought be free in all the time no matter if you're wearing your breakfast in your beard, a plastic bags on your fetid feet and nothing on your head.

Its interesting seeing how different countries and new agencies and papers reported this one, becuase it deals with naked people.
The BBC set the tone for british press and chose to display a photo of two women with dyed blonde hair.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4731531.stm
suffice to say on the mainland of europe nude behinds were seen!
http://www.leopoldmuseum.org/
The Spanish right wing press couldn't resist the same BBC photo but closer to the ground and noted that in 1899 not only would a naked head but naked body cause consternation in museums.
http://www.abc.es/abc/pg050730/prensa/noticias/Cultura/Arte/200507/30/NAC-CUL-113.asp

But the Austrian (homeland) reaction is really the best.
http://www.nachrichten.at/apanews/apak/375831?PHPSESSID=8ec5d9009177d34a953438c48841a251

http://www.kleine.at/nachrichten/kultur/artikel/_713890/index.jsp
http://derstandard.at/?url=/?id=2126058
http://www.rundschau.co.at/artikel/00/03/53/art35323.html
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And then you realise you're not on holidays.
don't fret, you can download images of Klee and Klimt the two vienesse painters featured in the exhibition, and then take off your own clothes and recreate the experience in your internet café though do be mindful of the general cultural vibe.
http://www.kleine.at/nachrichten/kultur/artikel/_713890/index.jsp

the 4 seasons. depicted as 4 naked women. being appreciated by a naked man and a woman in a bikini. This is Our Culture & Civilisation .:.

by holliers Tue Aug 02, 2005 12:16

Since last friday 40 people have died attempting to go on summer holidays in the Spanish state *alone*.
Just Yesterday 11 people died. 20 more or in hosptial in "critical condition".
17,000 cars are still in a queue to cross the straits on a ferry to North Africa, a large percentage of the cars on the "spanish side" are from France, Portugal, Germany. More Europeans die going on, or coming back from holidays than in war or due to terrorist activity.

& now the "other side" :-

a semi-rigid boat of 6 metres in length was intercepted yesterday with 29 souls on board heading from North africa to Europe. 10 babies, 16 women ( 1 pregnant) and 3 elderly and infirm.
they were brought to the beach near Cadiz all people were of african sub saharan origin the pregnant mother is now in hospital.

by Eoin Thu Aug 18, 2005 19:46

The Blue Flag project was supposed to be about excellence in public bathing water quality and coastal zone management. Today it's mostly just about tourism, and rather than becoming harder each year, has actually become more lax, standards-wise.

by giggle. Thu Aug 18, 2005 19:58

was supposed to be about putting poor people out of sight and out of mind and forgetting about them completely, but rather than just accept ghetto life, they've got ideas now and want to see the world.

by tom o'd Fri Aug 19, 2005 10:05

"was supposed to be about putting poor people out of sight and out of mind and forgetting about them completely, but rather than just accept ghetto life, they've got ideas now and want to see the world."

Please explain this pathetic platitude. Don't we all want to see the world, especially those of us who bother to read about whats going on in the outside world.

by iosaf Fri Aug 19, 2005 19:21

Anyway, neither Israel nor Jordan have blue flag beaches yet, the blue flag has yet to be awarded to the states of the levant, which is one extra draw for tourists to Turkey and Cyprus who between them have 252 blue flag beaches!

The jordanian beach tourism revolves around the Dead Sea, which they share with Israel and with the highest salinity of any body of open water in the world, would fail the blue flag test, but at least there are no jellyfish, but the tourist could have a good time floating about and relax looking for lost papyrii in the caves, or visit the impressive and historic military installations and if a day trip is practical the nearby refugee camps where many hundreds of thousands of palestinians have lived since before northern ireland got a uk secretary of state.

As a result, the jordanians are hoping to develop aqaba beach "with its clean sandy beaches and transparent waters, is an ideal location for both relaxation and water sports.
Sunbathing, Swimming, para-sailing, water skiing and jet skiing, are just some of the activities to partake in. [Sure it's] famed for its preserved coral reefs and unique sea life, this Red Sea port city was, in ancient times, the main port for shipments from the Red Sea to the Far East. It also claims to have the oldest church in the world.

It is of course on the Aqaba gulf, which opens out onto the Red Sea, And was the casus beli of the 6 day war in 1969 which saw all those palestinians move.

And just next door is Aliat. Israel's fuel port.
Ah! you see the 6 day war wasn't about jordanian tourism it was about the port from which oil was imported. (or was it?)

But today someone fired rockets in Aqaba at 2 at US naval vessels, and the third at Israel.

you'd be better off camping and shitting in the woods.