I just spotted a hilarious news story that's doing the rounds. My good friends Alastair and Barry at Activities Abroad - a genuinely excellent tour company that I'd recommend to anyone, decided to have a bit of fun with a recent promotional email. And why not? You need to stand out to have any chance of people reading this kind of thing.
They took a look at the names of people who tended to holiday with them.
There has never been a Britney, Kylie, Lianne, Dazza or Shannon on one of their holidays. Whilst the most common names of people who take Activities Abroad holidays are John, Sarah, James and Alice.
The email, headed "Chav Free Activity Holidays", was signed off "Nuff said, innit? The Activities Abroad Team".
It was meant as a bit of fun I imagine - but there was some deeper meaning I think. Let's face it - one of the most oft-repeated holiday nightmares is the one about the 'awful family we ended up stuck with next door'.
Anyway the email has gone seriously viral after being picked up a by a blogger - a different voice - who thought the sentiments expressed in the email were 'a nasty piece of smug class warfare.' 'Don’t ever let anybody tell you that class is not a live issue in Britain,' she states. Unfortunately the blog doesn't have an 'About' page so no real clues to the bloggers' identity.
Alastair fairly robustly responded on the blog - and perhaps made his case a bit to aggressively.
The comments ran and ran. The one that caught my attention was this one though:
fing bunch of middle class priks, just talking bout this means you are
tossers, u think u r standing up for chavs?!! u would hate me and the
the rest of the chavs and the [.....] whatever just to look at us!!!
stick with ur own kind u do good w****
The writer called himself 'Wazza'.
I still can't decide if this is someone taking the mickey, but Wassa hits the nail on the head good and proper...
I bet Wazza wouldn't be seen dead on holiday with any of Activities Abroad's nice middle class Sarahs and Johns - just as much as they'd steer miles clear of trips with him. Does that matter? At all? Really.
I wonder how Ali and Barry feel now though? Delighted with the tons of traffic this has generated I imagine.
There's a great radio interview with Ali on 5 Live with Nicky Campbell too. Hilarious. Nicky tries to sound outraged about it, but everyone ends up laughing. Nuff said. Innit?