A few days ago Hilary went to Amsterdam for a long weekend to celebrate with a dozen workmates (all women of a certain age) her forthcoming retirement. Going by the racket they made when they all met at our house on Friday lunchtime - before anyone had a drink stronger than tea - I imagine the Dutch may have wished the specialized in nice, quiet, well-behaved hen parties of 20 year olds. She bought me a present from Amsterdam. A packet of tulip bulbs. Tulips From Amsterdam - geddit? She is very obvious, that Hilary.
But it got me thinking about Turkey's tourist PR logo which, after some time trying to decipher it (it looks quite like the corporate logo that footballers wear) I worked out it was a tulip. Apparently some PR company were paid largish amounts of money to come up with this. Now I know that Turkey is the home of tulips. I have known this for a long time. But nearly every non-Turkish person in Europe - and perhaps the rest of the world - sees tulips and thinks "Holland" "Netherlands" "Dutch". I read something a few weeks ago that said however much money the Turkish tourist board throw behind the tulip logo they are never going to change this.
So should the tourist board cut its losses, hire a new PR company, and come up with a new logo? If so, what would it be? And I am already rejecting The Hazlenut as national logo (although it is just as Turkish as The Tulip).
