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"Kurdistan seeks to recover from war" said the headline.
Now, one thing that has always struck me as strange is that countries, unlike companies, don't go in for rebranding that often. OK, we have Myanmar (which the BBC obstinately insists on continuing to call Burma), and we had the post-colonial rush of name-changing, culminating in the insane renaming of Upper Volta (reasonably descriptive) as Burkina Faso (not). But these were more principled changes, rather than rebranding for image reasons. And as for the Congo v Democratic Republic of Congo...
Then there was Turkey, which spent a few years trying to call itself something else because it was fed up with being confused with the bird. What it should have done is sue the bird as a matter of intellectual copyright.
But the whole set of countries that should go in for rebranding, don't seem that keen so to do.
I refer, of course, to the whole fleet of governances whose name ends with "-istan". Let's face it; if you are thinking of countries that you might define as "friendly", or "ah yes, I must visit that place some time", anything ending with "-istan" is only going to be the choice of the young, deliberately rebellious, and, most likely, not-very-rich. Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan (honorary member), Kurdistan (not even a country, but still fucked), Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. No, none of them scream to me "yes, that's the luxury beach place. Must visit".
Pakistan, for example, could rebrand itself "YaZZaZ!" Now, there's a place that would get the hungry holidaymaker excited. "Visit YaZZaZ!! The happy country! (BYOB)".
++++++++++
I resigned half my job yesterday. Well, not really; I actually resigned about a fifth of my job (producing ID Asia) in salary terms, although it was about a third of my job in terms of aggravation. And I haven't resigned now. I've resigned on February 28th, 2008, which will be the second anniversary of me starting it. So, they've had five months' notice. This will mean either (a) they get in a replacement as soon as possible and then push me off it with the minimum notice (a couple of weeks, I think), or (b), more probably, they pretend that it hasn't happened until February 14th 2008, at which point they get into a collective panic and offer me a significant pay-rise to carry on. Which I will probably turn down (but, as they say, never say never).
I feel better already.
++++++++++++
Now, one thing that has always struck me as strange is that countries, unlike companies, don't go in for rebranding that often. OK, we have Myanmar (which the BBC obstinately insists on continuing to call Burma), and we had the post-colonial rush of name-changing, culminating in the insane renaming of Upper Volta (reasonably descriptive) as Burkina Faso (not). But these were more principled changes, rather than rebranding for image reasons. And as for the Congo v Democratic Republic of Congo...
Then there was Turkey, which spent a few years trying to call itself something else because it was fed up with being confused with the bird. What it should have done is sue the bird as a matter of intellectual copyright.
But the whole set of countries that should go in for rebranding, don't seem that keen so to do.
I refer, of course, to the whole fleet of governances whose name ends with "-istan". Let's face it; if you are thinking of countries that you might define as "friendly", or "ah yes, I must visit that place some time", anything ending with "-istan" is only going to be the choice of the young, deliberately rebellious, and, most likely, not-very-rich. Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan (honorary member), Kurdistan (not even a country, but still fucked), Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. No, none of them scream to me "yes, that's the luxury beach place. Must visit".
Pakistan, for example, could rebrand itself "YaZZaZ!" Now, there's a place that would get the hungry holidaymaker excited. "Visit YaZZaZ!! The happy country! (BYOB)".
++++++++++
I resigned half my job yesterday. Well, not really; I actually resigned about a fifth of my job (producing ID Asia) in salary terms, although it was about a third of my job in terms of aggravation. And I haven't resigned now. I've resigned on February 28th, 2008, which will be the second anniversary of me starting it. So, they've had five months' notice. This will mean either (a) they get in a replacement as soon as possible and then push me off it with the minimum notice (a couple of weeks, I think), or (b), more probably, they pretend that it hasn't happened until February 14th 2008, at which point they get into a collective panic and offer me a significant pay-rise to carry on. Which I will probably turn down (but, as they say, never say never).
I feel better already.
++++++++++++
