Gotelé and bowler hats
We form impressions about places. Ask me to describe Morocco and I'd say reds and oranges and hot and noisy with strong aromas. I wouldn't talk about snow and ice even though I know there's plenty of snow and ice in places and at times in Morocco. In just the same way some of those impressions are now dated. The Britain in my childhood was a pretty austere place and while my my contemporaries wore terylene shorts and brown plastic sandals to play out men going to work in offices really did wear bowler hats and carry folded umbrellas. My guess is that you'd have to go some to find a bowler hat in the city nowadays, at least in an everyday context. In Spain a lot of those cliches come from the South, from Andalucia and from the past. Very few people would think bagpipes as typical of Spain (but try going to a festival in Asturias or Galicia and avoiding them) but they might think flouncy frocks and bulls. I heard a programme on the radio the other day that made me think o...