Torrevieja Twinned With Karaokeville

Hi
It is Wednesday, another morning on board the splendour of the seas. It was my night off last night, so I went to dinner late, took in a show, had a wonder around the ship watching music in the other bars. One bar The top hat lounge had a trio. Keyboard Girl singer and a bass player who also doubles on trombone. I noticed that most of their music was tracks which disappointed me. Then when they finished, the bass player went round all the tables trying to sell CD’s. What on earth are they selling I thought. A midi track with some body singing on. Karaoke really. I thought I so could not do that!

After that I went down to my Schooner Bar. The quiz had finished and Karaoke was just starting, I sat at the bar, and immediately there was a Jack and Coke, in front of me. Then I got to thinking about my business. My business is being taken over by people who do what I do badly. Musicians don’t actually play any more. You don’t need to learn to play an instrument any more, just buy karaoke tracks or midi files. And if you can’t sing either, no problem just run a Karaoke. What is hard to take on is that these bastardisations of my business seem to have become more popular than the real thing. Public expectations have been dumbed down to such a degree that artistic interpretation means nothing. If it sound exactly like the record, who cares if they are listening to a live performance, or actually to the record itself.

This is when I got thinking about whether this culture of complete professional inability was being rewarded in other walks of life. It was at this point that, after some consideration, that I came to the decision that perhaps Torrevieja could be renamed Karaokeville.

It would appear that the whole town is populated by people who do their jobs badly. People work their early years in Britain, get a bit of money behind them, and decide that they are going to chase the dream. Move to Torrevieja open a bar, and run it badly.

Or builders. If a builder is really successful in Britain. He will make enough money to retire in Spain. It is only the unsuccessful ones that need to continue working. And if they were unsuccessful in Britain. Then they are going to be a double disaster in Spain.

Why do people who would never have considered such a job in Britain, time and time again imagine that they could run a successful bar or restaurant in Spain. Torrevieja is now littered with commercial areas which are over populated by bars and take aways which are scratching a living. Every now and then there is a success story. But they are going to have to share their market with the continuous stream of incompetent hopefuls, who follow in the footsteps of previous failures in lemming over the cliff like fashion. Cheap food in badly run establishments is readily available to the public, subsidised by, and this is the sad part, the hard earned life savings of these people who are misguided enough to imagine that earning a living in Spain is easy.

If you have a lot of capital. making money in Spain is easy! I have been in Spain long enough to witness this. Acquire an attractive venue. If it is a total white elephant more the better. Lease it out to one of these hopefuls. They will proudly invest a proportion of their capital on the premises of their new venture, then one of two things will happen. By some miracle they will make a go of it, in which case they at some time will want to buy you out. You make money. Or they will run it into the ground and after all the money has gone will abscond. You will be left with the venue now improved to re let at a higher rent to the next hopeful. And you make money.

People come to Spain for their much looked forward to annual holiday, see expats “Living the dream” and based on the two weeks of bliss on holiday, allow themselves to become seduced by the thought of upping sticks and moving out here.

Fifteen Twenty years ago. Expats were pioneers. Embracing a foreign culture. That was the dream. Oh how different it is today. We need to introduce new Japanese words to describe the new wave of amateurism engulfing Torrevieja. Simply you just put “aoke” on the end of the name of a noble profession. Builder-aoke, Mechanic-aoke, Estate Agent-aoke, and don’t forget Karaoke-aoke!