What is it with Malta and the colour turquoise? It seems to me that if you want to make a success of any enterprise in our islands... turquoise is one colour you have to avoid. Keep it off all corporate logos, literature and so forth... And why do I say this?
Well... in the past I have noted that any business starting up here and in Gozo that is in any way associated with the colour turquoise is doomed... sometimes before it even starts.
Take the German brewer Lowenbrau: They began producing a version of the well-known German beer at their custom-built brewery in Qormi some 23 years ago. I must say, their beer was very good and healthy competition for the much longer established Farsons brewery, and let’s face it, competition is never a bad thing. Their bright turquoise trucks became a familiar sight around the islands and I was led to believe that their brew had become established among our islands’ beer drinkers.
So what went wrong? Why did things suddenly turn pear-shaped for Lowenbrau Malta? I have no idea, but suffice it to say those trucks suddenly disappeared, seemingly for good.
One turquoise corporate down... several more to go. Probably the most high-profile demise of one such company was that of the former scheduled bus service provider Arriva.
For no more than a couple of years their turquoise buses were a more than familiar sight on the roads of Malta and Gozo. And since I have been suspicious of anything that colour for many years, I could have told both the government of the time and the company itself that their mission here was doomed from the moment those peacock blue vehicles first appeared.
Then there was the unfortunate case of my, one-time favourite shaving foam. This came in a bright cerulean blue-green aerosol can. I used it for years until... one day it disappeared from the supermarket shelves. Naturally I asked the proprietor when it would be back in stock, only to be told it had been discontinued.
I tried several other brands of soaps and gels, but I truly missed my favoured brand. So I wrote to the manufacturer and asked for an explanation, why it had gone – apparently – permanently AWOL. They wrote me a very nice letter back saying that shaving foam technology had moved on since my preferred brand first came on the market and suggested I try their latest and greatest product – “and here’s a voucher to enable you to get 10p... (yes p)... off your next purchase”.
Poor Chaz never stood a chance; overnight his eatery went from being a modestly unsuccessful hunters’ bar to a totally disastrous bistro
Needless to say, when I did try the ‘latest and greatest’ it wasn’t a patch on my old favoured friend. I simply put it down to the curse of the turquoise can.
Which leads me nicely on to my very good friend Charlie... or Chaz, as he is affectionately known. Chaz was a reasonably successful accountant, and like any number cruncher I’ve ever known, he was neither the most dynamic or charismatic human being on the planet.
So it came as something of a bolt out of the blue (or turquoise) when one day two years ago, he solemnly informed me that he was giving up his profession and had leased a bar/restaurant in the south of the island. As he said: “It’s the up and coming area, I can’t go wrong.”
Er... I reckon he would have been fine if he’d followed my advice and refrained from, first of all calling his bistro ‘The Kingfisher Restaurant’... and secondly decorating the establishment in a lurid shade of... yes, you guessed it: bloody turquoise.
Poor Chaz never stood a chance; overnight his eatery went from being a modestly unsuccessful hunters’ bar to a totally disastrous bistro.
OK, I’ll grant you the fact that his chef would have been capable of ruining toast, his waiters were probably recruited from the lower echelons of the Sicilian mafia and the demeanour of mine host, Chaz was better suited to running a mortuary... but his colour scheme certainly didn’t help.
Bankrupcy was the inevitable conclusion. Fortunately, Chaz still had his accountancy to fall back on and he’s doing fine thanks once again.
So, whatever you do... when starting a commercial enterprise... avoid the dreaded turquoise.