Happy Birthday Ma'am etc

As a politically aware but not very active person I am a lukewarm monarchist. As a tourist guide, I am a rather more enthusiastic supporter of the institution. Of course, any position which relies on heredity is a little absurd 'in this day and age' (a phrase I irrationally hate). However, guides rely on the outsider's love of the monarchy as a way of staying in work. Most people are fascinated with the insitution and often have very strong feelings - on Charles and Camilla for instance. I often tease the Americans who established a republic as a way of shrugging off the tyranny of George III over two hundred years ago and now come over here expressing opinions on how we should run the royal family. This is potentially dangerous - I sometimes unintentionally cross the line which divides good natured ribbing from anti-Americanism. You can generally be as rude as you like to Australians and they know you are winding them up - Americans can be a little more touchy, however.
I have a certain residual fondness for an organisation that has survived for over a thousand years (the length of time, incidentally, that Hitler intended for the Third Reich) and has adapted to changing circumstances, staying just far enough behind the times to avoid appearing too trendy and opportunistic. My main objection to republicanism is that it depends on a view of life which demands uniformity, logicality and rationality. At its worst this is just boring - want to live in a world in which every country has the same system of government? - while at its worst it leads to tyranny. The French Revolution wanted to start from year zero and sweep away all of the old world and most of its people. This led to people being executed for what they were rather than for what they did - the epitome of tyranny.
In contrast our Glorious Revolution, almost exactly a hundred years earlier, was more akin to a shareholder's revolt - the replacement of an out of date chief executive (James II) with his more enlightened successor and son-in-law (William of Orange). Forty years before that in 1649 Charles I had been executed and we had established a short lived an unsuccessful republic under Cromwell, unmourned when the monarchy returned soon after his death. As all schoolboys know, Christmas was abolished along with the monarchy as was dancing around the maypole and no-one had any fun under the Stalinist rule of the puritan commonwealth.
So, if people want us to have a republic they have to convince us that life will be fun under the new system - would we have street parties to celebrate its establishment or its silver and golden anniversaries? I doubt it, somehow. Would we have a better chance of winning the World Cup if the players sang God Preserve ther Republic rather than God Save the Queen? I doubt it somehow. In fact, I cannot think of one significant way in which our lives would be better under a sensible republic rather than an irrational monarchy.
And we would not even have the Changing of the Guard to take people to...
So Happy Birthday Ma'am and two cheers for the monarchy. Just don't take it too seriously.

MEDALLION MAN?

"Do you have a medallion?" a group leader asked me recently. I beg your pardon? Me, wear a gold chain and St Christopher - how naff, I almost replied, until I realised she was talking about my blue badge, the sign of qualification for guides. It was nice that she knew about the badge, which many tourists don't, although she had got the terminology wrong. Opinions aare mixed on how prominent the badge should be. One guide starts his tour by telling people about it and how important it is to have a qualified guide. Others wear it sdiscreetly or not at all and never mention it, preferring to let their work do the talking. I incline to the latter poicy although I always wear the badge if I am doing work in the London area (never on extended tours, when I do not usually bother to take my badge, having been told early on - in no uncertain terms - that it was not appropriate to wear it outside the area it covers). If you promote the badge too much you are setting yourself up for a fall - you are inviting people to say that "He may be qualified but he was not much of a communicator" or some such.
Anyway the eight o'clock bleep has just gone and I need to get to work. A blue badge guide should be in position fifteen minutes before tour is due to start...

THE SEASON STARTS
Traditionally April Fool's Day is the first day of the guiding season. That is when the guide fees go up and when many companies start their summer programme. In fact, I have been slightly busier in March this year because air fares tend to go up on that day as well andmany people slip in early to take advantage of cheaper fares and budget winter tours. Easter is really the time when you expect to be busy but sometimes there is a little dip afterwards. For extended touring the six month period from mid April to mid October is pretty hectic, the rest of the year erratic. This is one fo the things that appealed to me when I started guiding - having the winter off to travel myself. I did some pretty long trips in the January/February period, which is very dead in Britain, but now prefer to stay at home writing, seeing the children, working on the house (plasterer repairing downstairs as I write) and picking up the odd day job and short extended tour.
Tomorrow's tour is an eight day whizz through England, Scotland, northern and southern Ireland and Wales. It is an ingenious tour which requires a couple of early starts but fits in plenty of places by dint of missing out the west of Ireland and staying in Glasgow instead of Edinburgh - better hotel and situated for the ferry to Belfast. It also has three guided tours by local guides - Edinburgh, Blefast and Dublin - and walking tours of York, the Irish national stud (horses not he-men) and Waterford. There are several optional tours, a highlight dinner and a hectic last day that takes in Stonehenge, Bath and Cardiff. Sounds exhausting but it works and proves what I have been saying for years - that leisurely tours do not sell in this business.

This brings us to the gap between what people want and what they say they want. Ask a tourist before departure whether he wants to stay in traditional inns with lots of character and he will say 'Yes' even 'Youbetcha!' but he/she will be far more likely to complain about the size or state of his room and conditions of the hotel. Give him/her a modern box where all the rooms are identical and you are unlikely to hear a squeak. Likewise, ask them if they want a leisurely tour with lots of free time to explore and they will agree that it sounds good, but if you put such a tour in the brochure, then no-one buys it. It has been done. My company designed a ten day tour very similar to their one week highlights tour of Britain but with more two night stops and free time - it only ran once in the whole summer it was published before being dropped.

So fasten your seat belts (a big deal these days - in case we get sued) hold tight and enjoy the ride...
Eddie

Just had our annual meeting for the company I do most of my work for. I should be in the Highlands enjoying sunshine and snow and maybe tasting whisky but my schedule was changed to accommodate this and other meetings this week - bit of a pain really but necessary, I suppose. The company needs to get people together to communicate their priorities, our screw ups, the importance of customer loyalty, repeat business, etc. We use the opportunity to see people we have not been seen for months, to say hello to new people and, sadly, to say goodbye to an old friend, Bryn Williams, who is too ill to tour (a stroke stops him writing clearly or moving easily) but who came up from Wales to let us know, which was good but a shame as well. Toru directing a curious business - you become tied up with it for months on end to the exclusion of everything else and then you end the tour and forget the people soon afterwards and do not see many of your colleagues for months - maybe the business is a bit too competitive to make close friendships (too much rivalry).
Anyway, will be away next week on eight day tour, back for Easter Saturday, six days off with maybe a little guiding for American high school groups here at this time and then another eight day tour.
Enough work - always a worry in an unsecure business - but not too much.
E