h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>>Tangiers is mainly islamic - but not wholly so.

According to your figures - "these days the foreign community runs more into the hundreds....in a total city population of over 300,000" - the non-Muslim population of Tangier is considerably less than 1%.

>>>female visitors are not made to be unwelcome by the citizens

I didn't say that.

>>which saying there are 'only males' on the streets

I didn't say that either.

>>If you have ever visited a market in Morocco you would see that there are not only men on the streets anyway.

Where is this 'on the streets' fixation coming from? I believe I was quite specific about the fact that I was talking about cafes - as were you in the entry.

In Morocco, as you no doubt know, the cafes are the preserve of the men, and Moroccan women do not patronise them. The women are more likely to be found in the patisseries (which are not the same as cafes). This is not a comment on religion, this is a fact of social life.

>>I wrote the guide from my own personal experience

But you've written the entry in the style of a guide book and you've given people advice and recommendations in quite a lot of detail. So although you say you've written entirely from personal experience, you haven't presented it as a personal piece. And this is right and proper, since EG entries are supposed to be generalised rather than personal.

>>How many travellers do you know that speak much more than English anyway?

What a funny comment! I know plenty of travellers who can speak languages other than English (including myself).

>>Anyone visiting Tangiers would not experience any language barriers.

Actually I don't care about language barriers, I just thought that it was basic information about a place that people should know. Why is it odd to say what the native language is?

>>Thanks for the comments but I do feel that they are a little unjustified

Whatever. I realise that the 1950s expat thing and the 1960s hippie trail do attract a lot of people to the city. All I'm saying is that you have focussed on a small aspect of this ancient city's history based around the activities of a bunch of foreigners.

Gubernatrix

Sorry you don't think the article contains the information and opinions you want, Guber.

Like I said, though, it is supposed to be a brief article giving basic information to first time visitors. I wasn't planning on writing an in-depth history and social comment on the city - just the kind of information I would have liked to have had when I went for my initial visit.

I thought that after saying the city was once administered by France and Spain and the fact that it is mostly an Islamic country would have been enough for people to work out what languages are spoken. It's great that you, as do I, speak foreign languages, but in my experience most westerners don't but rely instead on phrasebooks.

You seem to under the impression that only the foreign ex-pats are non-muslim in Tangiers. This is quite simply not the case.

Obviously you've travelled a lot, as have I, but it's a shame that you feel you've got to keep quoting things back at me and using confrontational words like 'fixation'. I don't see why you've felt the need to be so provocative.
As I write and edit for a living I thought it might be nice for a change to write a brief article just for fun - I don't find it fun however to argue with someone who has no constructive criticism to offer - only negative opinions. As you will see from the rest of this thread I have been fully open to other suggestions made by other editors - but then again, they didn't express themselves in quite such a rude manner as youself.

Woah, hang on a minute, mate.

If you look back at my original post you'll see that all I did was suggest a couple of brief bits of information to include, and comment that although I liked the piece I thought it was a bit one-sided.

That's what Peer Review is for. You're not obliged to accept my suggestions at all.

I was offering honest opinions in the spirit of Peer Review, and you were rather sarcastic about them, truth be told. Therefore I probably responded with less restraint than I would usually exercise, so I'm sorry that you were offended.

Well, sounds like we do agree on something then.
I have no problem with suggestions etc etc - none at all. The way they are delivered though makes a big difference. If I sounded sarcastic then that's cos you're suggestion were put forth in a manner which seemed to me to be just negative comments instead of constructive criticism. If you didn't mean them to come across that way, then that's fine...but they didn't read very well.
I think the Peer Review system is excellent and until now I didn't have any problems with what had been suggested. As I mentioned, I have written and edited my whole working life and am used to 'suggestions' being voiced by my paying clients...but when pieces are being written for 'fun' for a non-commercial site I do expect positive suggestions instead of negative criticism.
I think H2G2 is an excellent (that's an understatement) site and plan on writing much more, time and other commitments allowing, and I don't like to get off on the wrong foot with anyone but you have to be careful with how posts are worded - written down they don't necessarily come over the same way as we think or say them.

Anyway, I might put in a little bit about language as per your suggestion but I don't really want to include any negative comments on the male/female divide as I think it could put women off going to the cafes etc and western women shouldn't really have any problems, providing they follow their common sense in choice of cafe. I was there on one visit with a girlfriend who was treated like a princess wherever she went - by the moroccan men and women alike....don't know why though - I thought she was a cow.

Shake on it?

I'm sorry to be so dim, but I really don't understand the title. I tried googling 'edge of time' in case I was missing something obvious, but it didn't really help. I expect it's a well known phrase or quotation that I ought to know, but don't. Could you help me here, or perhaps think of a clearer title?

Just out of bed so this apologies if my explanation is fuzzy -

Tangiers has various different almost conflicting histories - like Guber has said there's the ancient islamic history, there's the european administered history and there's the clash of the two which still exists today. You can see the old colonial aspects still seeping through the modern influence as you can the islamic.
It's the fact that nothing seems to have actually died or disappeared in it's history I'm, referring to.

If you go right into the Medina, (the 'real' Tangiers), the almost literal mazes of twisted lanes and streets the place feels very, very medieval. If you walk through the streets of the Ville Nouvell you could be in the streets of modern southern France or Spain; if you pick your hotel or hostel carefully, (or not carefully depending on which side of the fence you lay) you could be back in Tangier's not-so-distant past populated by 'the beats' and artists of the 50s and 60s.

The ghosts of the city's ancient and modern history still lurk in Tangiers and look as though they'll never disappear altogether - like when you're decorating and find layers and layers of wallpaper underneath your own, each one an illustration of tastes at the time.
That's what I was getting at really - Tangiers seems (to me) to exist outwith the 20th/21st century - to have a foot still in every century since its creation.

Make sense?

Aha. Well it could be worth putting some of that into the entry. I do appreciate the fascination of time-stratified cities. In its own way, Thessaloniki (to take one I've written about - A753581) is like that.

But for me the phrase 'City on the edge of time' doesn't convey that. The idea of the ancient, the not-so-ancient, and the modern existing side by side (and, let's face it, the Med and the Aegean have plenty such) doesn't seem to lend itself to a single, snappy phrase. Just a debating point, really. Maybe over mint tea.

By the way, when you write
>The 'Hotel Continental', one of the more distinguished hotels of the time, used by members of the British royal family, Winston Churchill and others,

this is a bit ambiguous - probably better to say 'used by members of the British royal family, and by Winston Churchill and others'

Also, the reference to Del Trotter will be read with blank incomprehension by many of the international readership of this site!

How about 'The City of Tangiers - A Conglomeration of the Ages'?

Actually that's probably a bad suggestion for reasons I can't quite put my finger on...

Of course, it would be entirely possible to eliminate any kind of add-on from the title giving you the freedom to liken any aspect of your entry to ages past without really having to qualify it as part of the title. Or you could alter the add-on to refer to geographical location to the benefit of those who failed geography in school

Or you could leave it alone and defend it as you see fit.

I still think it's a great entry

Title ammended to just "Tangiers"...original, eh?
I've also put in a short para about the languages spoken.

Thanks again,

JTR

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