Symi has some last minute deals!
Spam always amuses me. Not the meat product, nor even the Monty Python song, but the random emails that come in. There are a couple dissected and ridiculed in ‘Symi, Stuff & Nonsense’, as you may see later this year. Today though it’s the turn of Booking.com to wheedle its way into my inbox.
‘James, Symi has some last minute deals!’ (The exclamation mark is all important; you can hear the joy in the email’s voice.) Yes, well, I am sure there are some lovely last-minute deals on Symi, but I don’t actually need them as I live here. But what else do you have on offer? Symi from £45.00 per night – okay but I work in Euros. How about £49.00 for a night in Rhodes? To which I answer, Again? I can, apparently, stay in Ixia for £62.00, though it is not explained to me why I should. I am offered a ‘genius’ deal (how do they know I’m a genius?) for a night in London for £27.00 which is very generous, but it will cost me at least €600.00 to get there, and probably take three days what with boats and things. Or maybe Novi Sad?
Novi Sad is in Serbia, as I am sure you know, and it’s only £14.00 per night at whatever property they have me lined up for. I think I went through or near it on a train (the journey is also in the new book out later this year) but have no huge desire to go there. Oh, I just scrolled down and there’s more: “Vienna, Sibiu, Bucharest, show me more, show me more!” that’s blazoned across the bottom of the email as if the backing singers from ‘Grease’ have joined the celebrations with my ‘Last minute deals (exclamation mark)’ email.
I don’t know. I’ve been to those places already – which is why they get flagged up. Well, most of them. You’d have thought something as advanced as the alligator-rhythm, or whatever this called – algorithm, that’s it – that programmers programme into these sites would be able to think outside the box a bit. I mean…
‘Hey, Walt! Lets’ see where this guy has been to before and suggest he goes there again!’
‘No, Hank! Let’s think of some way we can suggest places he wants to go to! He clearly likes travelling but has no budget! He’s more likely to book somewhere new!’
‘Good idea! Say! How about Symi? He’d love that!’
Exclamation mark.
