Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

Although the vast majority of the paid posts which we do are accepted without any problem, now and again you get a rejection, usually because we’ve missed something or other in the requirements or simply because we’ve mistyped a URL for one of the links.

Fair enough in those cases, and they’re generally easy to fix and resubmit.

What’s becoming more and more common though are rejections because the advertiser decided after he’d bought the advertising that really his criteria for acceptance weren’t those that he had stated originally ie he changes the goalposts. Now I do accept that it can be difficult to know in advance what you really want from a blog based advertising campaign but what’s not acceptable is to put a “ban” on someone who has written a post in good faith.

For instance, I recently received one of these “bans” which stated that my blog wasn’t hosted in the UK and didn’t cover female topics. In fact, it is with a UK host and this just goes to show that the advertiser doesn’t know that 1and1.co.uk actually hosts sites in Germany; regardless of that it is a UK hosting company. No, my blog doesn’t cover female topics but then the advertiser didn’t ask for blogs that did in his requirements, so why should it?

Or what about the one on plastic surgery who decided to pull the advertising after everyone had written about it in their blogs? Why loudlaunch agreed to let them do that, I don’t know.

Finally, there are the advertisers who choose not to approve posts for a very, very long time. This gets them free advertising all that time and they may well not approve the post at the end of it. Both Wendy and me are sitting with a number of posts for well over a month with no pay for them yet. Interestingly, sponsoredreviews only requires you to leave a post online for 30 days, yet how will the advertiser approve such a post if we, as we are allowed to, have deleted it once the 30 day limit is reached?

We’re at one of the crossroads of Europe so find that people are stopping here enroute for another major tourist site somewhere in Europe.

It’s very common for people to be coming from Paris enroute to somewhere in the Valencia or Alicante area as we’re pretty much at the half-way point and quite convenient for the motorway exit.

Going the other way, it’s almost always Avignon that people are heading for. OK, Avignon is nice but there seems to be more to see in Nimes, there’s the Pont du Gard, Arles and, for the nature lovers, the Camarge, all around two to three hours drive from here. And those are just the highlights because there are lots of other places to see in that area.

So why’s it always Avignon that they go to?

Simple. It’s got the biggest “name”. It’s why people go to Paris or to Rome or London. They usually start off with places that they’ve heard other people talk about or have seen in films or on TV.

Those coming the longest distances are the worst for this. Both Australians and Americans will almost always start with the “big sights” and, in many cases, only ever go to those “big sights” and thereby miss out on the real culture of the countries that they visit. Visiting in this way means that they are constantly surrounded by their fellow tourists hitting the “big sights”.

I’m not saying that they shouldn’t visit the big sights, but that needs to be balanced by visits to other places around the country. It’s much better to spend a few hours going round a small museum exhibiting a broad range of art than try to get round the Louvre over a day and thereby find that you get to the point of thinking “oh hum, another Matisse”. For that matter, probably the best place to see as Monet did doesn’t have any of his paintings at all!

If it’s not sunny, that’s the most common question that we get asked.

It’s also the hardest one to answer.

For instance, right now the weather forecast is saying that it’s sunny when it most definitely isn’t. How come it’s so wrong? Simple really: we’re mid-way between the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean and the weather station is on the coast.

So, once you get out of the main Summer season, it’s quite common for the weather here to be very different from that on the coast. That’s not to say that we get cold weather as such because ordinarily it’s t-shirt weather for 10 or 11 months per year. However, it may be cloudy here when it’s not on the coast. And if it’s cloudy here, it’s probably pretty chilly in the mountains.

You don’t need to go as far as the mountains for it to be chilly though. The Winter usually starts on the western side of the village of St Paul de Fenouillet. Rather strangely, it can be t-shirt weather on the eastern (and higher!) side of the village and snowing on the western side at the same time.

We seem to be getting more and more popular with the Spanish looking for a short break outside Spain.

As we’re within two hours drive of Barcelona, it’s an easy trip for them yet it’s a very different area than they’re used to. For one thing Barcelona is a very active city whereas we’re in a very quiet area. However, people tend to like to get away somewhere “different” for their breaks and although we’re right beside Spain the local culture is very different.

But then it’s always been like that. So we’ve no idea why we’ve started picking up Spanish guests in increasing numbers. They all love it though!

Yesterday was the typical September day over here right up until the late afternoon when it became a little cloudy to the west but now it’s the miserable weather that you’d more typically associate with the west of Ireland rather than the south of France.

It’s become quite cool at night too.

Both aspects are unusual for here as ordinarily we’re running around in t-shirts from March to January.

If this is a sign of colder weather coming along this Winter maybe we’ll need to get some more snow chains. No rush yet though as the snow doesn’t arrive at the ski resorts ’til November.