Achtung Baby.

Britain used to have an Empire and it was the largest Empire the world has ever seen. The French, Dutch and Portuguese have also had a crack at world domination and made a fairly good job of it. The Greeks and Italians under the guise of Romans are legendary for spreading their respective cultures and the benefits of their wisdom. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was the second largest country in Europe after Russia at its peak, but what about the Germans?

The Germans have proved a dismal failure at world domination despite at least two serious attempts. Even during the great land grabs of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries they were non-starters apart from a few footholds in Africa. In all other respects they are a great nation. They have a fistful of Nobel prizes, some of the greatest composers ever born and have been one of the world's industrial giants. They are a proud and warlike nation, however, they are rubbish at conquest. 

One of the enduring legacies of our formally vast Empire is that a large portion of the world speak English including the Americans who make most of the film and music which is exported to the rest of the globe. This is great as it means that I can converse with waiters and bar-staff with no problems at all when I'm holiday. Not so the Germans; no-one speaks German except the Germans and a smattering of their neighbours. This means that to converse on the world stage they are forced to speak English. Considering they are the financial and industrial powerhouse of Europe and carry the most political clout in the EU, this constant reminder of their inadequacies must be extremely galling for them.

In the order of world's rankings for languages spoken, German comes a laggardly 10th with Spanish third and English second if you include non-native speakers (fourth if you don't). More people speak Japanese than German. Clearly then, the point of the EU is to conquer Europe by economic stealth and pass a law to make everyone speak German so they don't feel left out when on holiday. No wonder they appear austere and sour most of the time, it's a lack of good holidays.

Uninvited Guests

Well, here we are, back from holiday and what a fine holiday it was. We went to Los Cristianos in Tenerife and stayed in self-catering apartments a mere stone's throw from the seafront. The holiday was highly satisfactory in every respect except one, our unexpected flatmates.

I don't have anything personal against cockroaches, I am sure they are fine fellows in their own way but I would rather not share a room with the freeloaders. We found three initially so I searched the flat from top to bottom to get rid of any more. As the little beggars can fly I thought they may have come in via the windows so I closed them all to ensure no further problems.

We returned to the apartment that evening and found one in the kitchen and another in the bathroom which I hastily dispatched to cockroach heaven. Using my Sherlock Holmes-like powers of deduction I decided they must already be in the hotel and not sneaking in from outside.

We spoke to the receptionist in the morning who made the appropriate shocked noises. She appeared to write something down and promised to pass it on to the management. She did the same thing the next day when we reported we had found two more. We also mentioned it to the cleaner who also made the correct shocked expressions. She went and got a can of spray and waved it in the general direction of the corners of the room and then fled faster than a teenage shoplifter. Later that night we found a baby one on the bathroom floor and another hanging in the shower curtain.

I don't know much about cockroaches except that they like the damp and darkness, they can hide in the walls and breed anywhere.
I had worked out that they were coming from the bathroom so I blocked up every possible access point and liberally sprayed the room and doorways with a tin of cockroach killer. We kept the door shut and left the bathroom light on day and night to discourage the little critters which seemed to work.

I decided to ring the holiday rep anyway in case of similar reports. I spoke to a couple of people over the next two days from our tour company who both promised to get our rep to contact us but she remained suspiciously absent.

We spoke to the receptionist again just to see if there was any interest from the management. She picked up the phone and gabbled in Spanish for a few minutes then asked us to pop along to the manager's office. We walked in and were met by a girl in her very early 20's. 'Ola' I said are you the manager.
'Si' she replied.
'It's about the cockroaches' I said expecting her to know what I was talking about as she had just spent a few minutes speaking to the receptionist.
She appeared to be deeply confused and replied 'no speak English'. We spent about five minutes going round in verbal circles before cutting our loses and retreating. Call me a cynic but I think she was playing dumb.

I don't know the protocol for cockroaches as we have never had a problem with them before in all our years of going away. I would have thought it was something the hotel management would take seriously but apparently not. We have never had to try and contact a holiday rep before either; perhaps they are all shy and elusive creatures. It's certainly not a complaint as it didn't ruin the holiday and if we had made more of a fuss, they would probably have changed our room or even our hotel; I would have expected a little more support though. Anyway, we have come home now and we shall add our review to the hotel website while the uninvited guests multiply at an alarming rate behind the walls.