SINGING your praises is par for the course in the travel industry. But making 200 of your customers join in – well that’s just too much.
Such was the fate that befell Backchat at Heathrow’s Renaissance hotel last week. Backchat was just finishing a light breakfast before checking out Gulf Air’s new Airbus, when a sight to make the toughest journalist weep came into view.
Not a closed bar or a returned expenses form, but something much, much worse – the barbershop quartet.
What relevance did this bunch of red and white striped fellows have to Gulf Air the assembled hacks whispered.
Well, soon all was cruelly revealed.
First was a little ditty nicely titled Viva Gulf Air. This extolled the virtues of the Airbus A330 and its remarkable on-time performance, all captured in these immortal lines – “The A330 will leave right on time and climb up, up through the skies.”
There was more, but that was the best bit.
Then the tunesmiths finished with a commercial which basically went like this. “Up, Up, Up and away with Gulf Air”. Sung in a cheesy advertising style.
Phew it was all over and not too painful.
Er, no.
The odes to Gulf Air just kept on coming.
Including the participation number which had us leaving our bacon and eggs and mumbling something about “Tura Lie Ray”, which apparently had something to do with 50 years’ flying from Gulf Air.
Eventually, and with Gulf general manager UK John Evans hovering in the wings with an imaginary shepherd’s crook to get them off, the barber boys left.
Guests were stunned, bacon went cold and Monday morning in the office did not seem so bad after all. Those boys certainly left their mark on Backchat.
For the past week the line “Bah, Bah, Bah – Bah, Bah, Bahrain – Bah, Bah, Bah – Bah, Bah, Bahrain – Bahrain to Heathrow..ow..ow..ow,” to the tune of the Beach Boys Barbara Anne – just won’t go away.