This isn’t about the wee birds that flutter around my garden, or a reference to a feature in UK tabloids from the eighties. In this case, TIT stands for This Is Tenerife, which was part of a weekly column I wrote for Tenerife Magazine. It was, as Google AI nicely puts it, “A humorous satirical weekly award featured in news roundups. It highlighted a specific local bureaucratic blunder, funny contradiction, or farcical news story from around the island.”
The reason I’m dragging it up from the past is a post I saw on social media. It was about AI and how it’s prone to dishing out misinformation. That’s hardly a revelation. What struck me was the author was using it as an example why human copywriters were superior to AI. This argument overlooked an important piece of information. AI only knows what it knows from the human-produced content it trawls. The post made me think of the howlers I’ve seen over the years. The first one which popped into my head involved a tour operator whose website entry for Playa Paraiso on Tenerife described it as being near a scenic nature reserve with flamingos and salt pans. Holidaymakers booking through them were in for a huge disappointment as the Playa Paraiso with flamingos most definitely wasn’t the one on Tenerife.
Thinking of that example, led me to think of others from TIT of the week. In a way, the absurdity of many of them gave an insight into the quirky reality of island life.
Assaulted at a Fiesta
A woman was enjoying a parade at a fiesta when a man she described as being red-faced and intoxicated assaulted her, hurling insults as he shoved her off the pavement. Apart from such a thing being a rarity (in countless fiestas, we never witnessed anything like it), what made it even more bizarre was the perpetrator was the mayor of the municipality. He was a controversial character, always in the news for one thing or another. The reason for the assault was the woman was waving a Canarian flag (the unofficial version) which incensed the mayor, who allegedly stated he wasn’t having that flag flying in his town.
Thankfully, no flags.
Do as I say
Then there was the council (ayuntamiento) which hosted a workshop to teach local businesses how to use social media, even though the council itself didn’t actually have an online presence on any social media channels.
It doesn’t make sense
One week, representatives of Tenerife’s Auditorium warned press they couldn’t take and use photographs of the building. The next, they launched a competition . . . for the best photograph of the Auditorium.
Neither does this
A neighbourhood community in Costa Adeje wanted the local authorities to curb the noise levels from pubs and clubs in the resort. Basically, people went on holiday to a purpose-built holiday resort known for its lively nightlife and liked it so much they moved there, then moaned about its lively nightlife.
Mirador de Humboldt did eventually open, and it was fab. Now, once again, it’s fallen into disrepair.
Waste of money
European funding being wasted turned up regularly. One of the best examples was Humboldt’s Mirador above the Orotava Valley. Construction began in 1999 and was completed in 2005. Bureaucratic shenanigans meant its opening was delayed for so long that it fell into disrepair, and more funding was required to renovate a building that had never been open to the public.
And repeat
Millions were invested in the building of a Casa del Vino (wine museum) in the municipality of Arona. The council announced its closure before it even opened. Despite the money spent, locals reported the building was nowhere near completed, rubbish from it was dumped into nearby ravines, and historic artifacts from the building were destroyed. Where the money actually went is a question that was debated regularly with projects on Tenerife.
When there was no road, the coastal path was empty. Now there is an access road to the car park.
A parking problem
This was a cracker. El Sauzal’s Council invested six million euros to create a coastal path along with its own parking zone in a bid to attract more visitors. They demolished four hundred illegal buildings along the coast to create it. In doing so, they also destroyed the roads leading to these settlements. Basically, they ended up with a car park that had no road leading to it. Classic.
Ouch
One of the magazine’s other writers happened to be on the first outing of an open-topped tourist bus in Santa Cruz, a journey he described as starting out in Cliff Richards Summer Holiday fashion and ended up like a Tenerife remake of Speed. One of the problems was nobody had taken into account the height of the bus or how low tree branches along the route were. Apparently, passengers ‘up top’ had to hit the floor to avoid being decapitated.
Simply jaw-dropping
A crowd of locals were relaxing on the sundeck on the harbour at Puertito de Güímar when a car came screaming toward them. As there had been reports of cars ramming into crowds not long beforehand, there was panic and chaos as people scattered, trying to get out of the way. The car skidded to a U-turn halt just before it reached the sunbathers. Turned out it was a marketing gimmick to promote a new model. It beggars belief anyone in involved with the car’s marketing or the council who approved it could think racing a car toward a crowd was a good idea.
There are times when you can play in the snow in Teide National Park. As for skiing, only the Guardia Civil get to do that.
I could go on, and on, and on. But I’ll end how I started, with the source that always proved a rich seam to mine, mainstream tour operators and their human copywriters.
Don’t forget to pack your skis
Having apparently swallowed information from a hoax website, one major operator decided to promote Tenerife as a winter ski destination. Not only did an article on their website advise holidaymakers they could take the cable car up to the top of Mount Teide and then ski back down. There were even examples of what items of ski wear to take.
And this was long before AI. When we point that accusing finger at misinformation, it’s worth remembering AI is only the messenger.
