Colm O'Regan: A guide to holiday small-talk - and warding off snobbery
Comedian and Irish Examiner columnist Colm O'Regan pictured in Cork. Picture: Denis Minihane.
It’s properly back now. Holiday small talk. Asking if “ye have anywhere planned?”
We can get away with “yerra, somewhere handy” for a few years before the children start lobbying harder. But I don’t envy those who have to compete in the Authentic Destination competition.
I’ve been the Authentic Snob in my time. This wasn’t snobbery born out of a life spent travelling Silk Roads, eating locusts, and hiding from khat-smugglers.
I just went to a few places that were a bit different yonks ago and then never stopped talking about them. When people used to “anywhere-planned?” me, I’d reply “No, still a little broke from the Japan trip”.
Before the 2002 World Cup, I was there, claiming it for myself as if I were the first Irish person on Japanese soil since Lafcadio Hearn. (I wasn’t even the first Dripsey man.)
It didn’t last long. Soon I met someone who had ‘done’ Japan better.
“Oh, you were in Japan, too, Colm? Isn’t it amazing? We went up to the hot springs where the monkeys have learned how to have Jacuzzis. Did you go there?” I didn’t.
Just as there will always be someone with a better tan than you, there will always be someone with a more adventurous holiday than you.
So a few strategies can be useful to ward off authenticators.
You’ve just finalised your trip to Lanzarote when Bhutan-Billy enters the chat. He/she may have brought penicillin to villagers and fought off illegal loggers. They’re about to ask if you’ve anything planned.
Don’t bow your head apologetically and mutter “Nowhere special.” Instead, act like Lanzarote “will be a nice break after The Year We’ve Had.”
Don’t elaborate – just make it sound like a movie could have been shot about what you’ve been through.
This deflection of the conversation away from Mr Intrepid will make any tales of swamp-infested mosquitoes seem trivial.
Or you could just lie outright. Suppose you’ve just arrived back from Costa Del Stella Artois having picked up no more culture than a metre-long tube of Smarties.
Just pretend that you couldn’t go out to see anything because of ‘The Riots’.
The ‘wellness space’ is convinced anyway that there are rakes of riots not being reported in the lamestream media so you should be able to describe your two weeks of sun-induced coma in the Playa Del Irlandais Resort as something akin to The Year of Living Dangerously.
This is a high-risk strategy but worth a shot.
Just because you haven’t been to the plateau of Karakorum or the lost cities of the Khmer, there’s no harm in having a quick look through Wikipedia and finding out even more obscure sights to see, in the hope your Ranulph Fiennes wannabe-friend hasn’t been there.
“And did ye have a good time in Siberia? I was reading somewhere it has the biggest collection of six-legged ponies. You didn’t see that no? AH well, maybe the next time ye are there.”
Even if you yourself has never been further than Holyhead, it doesn’t matter. You successfully dented their holiday and may even avoid having to look at their photos.
The most powerful currency in Ireland is guilt and it’s the only one we can print ourselves. Unless the voyager has in your social circle owns a dhow or travels by container ship, chances are they’ll have to fly.
This is where you suddenly develop principles: “This Climate Change thing – I can’t in all conscience contribute to it just to satisfy my own selfish wanderlust. No, this year, for my children’s sakes and their children’s sakes we’re going to Trabolgan.”
And the best thing about guilt – It’s so authentic.
