Suffolk: furious about being called 'curious'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/18/suffolk-curious-county-slogan

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A new drive to market the attractions of Suffolk is causing a commotion in the county – notably among its MPs – and all the disagreement seems to stem from just one word – "curious". According to the East Anglian Daily Times, local Conservative MPs have made rather vehement comments about the new Visit Suffolk's campaign, "The Curious County" – a marketing plan dreamed up to lure visitors to the county by the Ipswich-based agency Condiment.

MPs for Bury St Edmunds, Central Suffolk and Suffolk Coastal have variously described the campaign as "idiotic" "meaningless, if not positively dangerous" and "a euphemism for something not quite right", while Waveney's MP confessed he didn't understand the slogan at all. Condiment and Visit Suffolk have defended the campaign calmly; the controversy and the Twitter hashtag #proudtobecurious have helped the story to go viral – manna for any marketing initiative – but opponents are adamant that, in the words of Central Suffolk MP Daniel Poulter, MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, "It has got to be stopped."

Maybe the county's MPs haven't noticed the latest tourism developments – slow, sustainable travel, interest in the delights of the voyage itself, a kind of gastronomy of the senses that takes its cue from discovery of our natural world, our islands' exotic history, British mystery and myth and, yes, the journeys of curiosity we make that bring them to our attention. Maybe their problem is that they are hopelessly out of step with prevailing trends. Or is this a willful misunderstanding of the word itself? Such high levels of fury would lead anyone to believe that Visit Suffolk and Condiment were attempting to brand the area as "the peculiar county", or "abnormal Constable country".

In my dictionary, curious means "eager to know or learn something" or "to express curiosity". It also carries a secondary meaning of "strange or unusual", the antithesis of pre-packaged travel, where all our experiences are homogenised and made uniform; if travel truly broadens the mind, then perhaps the experiences it yields should be strange or unusual, unexpected and surprising – anything else would mean that we were merely commuting to our holidays.

Is "curious" the right adjective for Suffolk? I'd like to think so. As an attempt to encapsulate an area in a single pithy phrase – one that says something about its hidden promise – "the curious county" is far-sighted, latching as it does on to the idea of taking your time to discover something about your surroundings and taking that spirit of adventure on holiday with you. My ancestors are from Suffolk, I lived in the county for about four years in my early 20s and I have since driven across it in a three-day journey of the senses in, of all things, an electric milkfloat.

I have explored the fabulous architecture of Lavenham, Long Melford and Bury St Edmunds and taken long walks around the coast from Kessingland to Aldeburgh, joined by the fluting of oystercatchers and the warbling of skylarks. I have even stood at Britain's most easterly point, the slightly disappointing Euroscope at Lowestoft Ness, and all of those definitions of "curious" still ring true. Suffolk is one of England's most distinctive counties, alive with history and wildlife, set in a landscape where high technology rubs shoulders with half-timbered villages such as Kersey, Yoxford and Nayland. It is home to the Adnams Brewery, Snape Maltings – the home of the Aldeburgh Music Festival – and Southwold, a picturesque seaside village which, since 2006, has also been the home of the Latitude Festival.

Suffolk is a place where the visitor's curiosity is manifestly rewarded. Moreover, in the words of Albert Einstein, "Curiosity has its own reason for existing," and, by being curious about your surroundings, you are exercising one of the defining qualities of our species.

If this all comes across as a paean to one East Anglian county, then by all means suggest an alternative slogan that would capture attention for your home county or your favourite British holiday spot – "Magical Middlesborough," say, or "Devon is Heaven." For Scotland's capital, formerly the "Athens of the north", the slogan "Incredinburgh" was mooted, but has been rejected by councillors. Over to you.