Wanted, yet rejected

Today’s tale is one of two halves.

Early this year we received an unsolicited email via the blog.  Comments are very much welcome but if someone wishes to get in touch with us privately there is a facility via the About Us page.  From time to time people drop us an email via that, often old friends or colleagues who want to get back in contact.

This email though wasn’t someone we knew, instead it was from a research assistant from a TV production company.

In the UK there’s a series called A Place in the Sun where the resourceful and determined presenter puts all her efforts into finding a new home overseas for that week’s guests.  Over the course of 30 minutes the re-locators and the presenter (UK TV trivia note: for 11 years she was the cloak-wearing centerpiece for the adverts for the financial company Scottish Widows) search for and investigate potential homes.

Anyway, the UK has A Place in the Sun; the US has similar programmes.  And it was a researcher working on behalf of such a programme who contacted us.  She’d read the blog, she said, and thought it was lovely.

We sounded just the sort of people who’d be perfect for the programme they were planning for Cyprus.  How would we like to be in front of 100 million households searching for our ideal home?

How would we like that?  Ummm, not a lot really.  Not really our sort of thing.  Even the mention of 100 million households is enough to cause mild panic.  Actually, Ian just fell about laughing at the idea.  We have rats in the pomegranate tree and often go to bed in the rain.  It’s hardly glossy American TV fodder is it?  Afterall, us Brits are known to be eccentric but there are limits.

Besides that, we already have our house so we’re hardly candidates for a programme about house-hunting in Cyprus.  So we emailed a polite reply saying that we were sorry but it didn’t seem appropriate as we’d already found our house.

Back pinged the reply (have they never heard of weekends in TV-land?) from the researcher.

It really didn’t matter that we’d already found a house.  They could just fake the whole thing work around that.  They’d find a couple of suitable properties, they’d film us at those and then at the place we’ve bought and renovated and no one would be any the wiser.

Sadly that wasn’t enough to tempt us so we parted ways.  No doubt she is scouring the internet looking for suitable volunteers.

Meanwhile, in the other half of our tale, we offered up the contents of the blog to a travel-based website.  They aggregate from a number of sources providing a one-stop resource to travelers.  Want to know the best restaurant in Ramalla or where to get a pedicure in Provence?  Their site will tell you.   As part of that they include relevant blog information to provide further colour and content.  Their section on Cyprus contains 1 (that’s ONE) blog, with 2 (just TWO) entries, the most recent of which is from the middle of last year.

Thinking that AradippouTales would make a nice addition to their Cyprus information we went through the process to get the blog added.  This morning we had an email back telling us that we’d not been approved for inclusion.  Actually the email subject was;

Your blog Aradippou Tales has been rejected

Hardly the best way to start the day.  Apparently we are ‘certainly charming but not travel-related enough‘.

Feeling this was a little unfair we winged back a quick, polite email asking them to reconsider.  We referenced the lack of other material, the fact that information on how to get here was easy to find but that information on life here wasn’t, that the blog is used as research material by potential expats and by people visiting on cruises, that we provide colour and context to add to the available dry factual information.

Compelling arguments, no?

Well, it matters not, the email bounced back as undeliverable.  There appears to be no chance to query the decision; the email address that happily sends out the ‘sorry, you’ve been rejected’ emails does not accept incoming mail.  And a quick mooch around the site makes it clear that no other email addresses are available.  Presumably the judge’s decisions is final.

So, a mixed bag here in AradippouTales land.  On one hand we’re good enough for 100 million households, on the other we’re charming but, well, no thanks.

Still, the sun came out for a while today.  Regular readers of the blog know that is a rarity in February; regular readers of Lonely Planet won’t ;-)

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