His favourite was a wee nugget he’d drop with an infuriatingly knowing smile, like he was in on a joke I wasn’t old enough to get.Listen hen,” he’d say. “All you need to do to have a good life, is play the game.For a long time, I didn’t like that advice.Playing the game” to me felt deceptive, or even a bit calculating.But the older I get, the more I see that if life’s a game, it’s better to approach it as such – and playing it willingly is about accepting your reality, and deciding to make it the most fun it can be.
Croatians were historically good at this, according to the tour guide I had in Dubrovnik back in 2018.Caught in the middle war between Ottoman and Roman empires, the medieval city had a wonderfully sleekit range of medieval religious iconography – with Islamic prophets facing east, and Christian saints facing west.
It meant that while the two sides raged, merchants in Dubrovnik profited from each. They saw the game, and played to win.It must feel like winning the worst kind of lottery, if you pick a quiet, serene place to live and suddenly the biggest TV phenomenon out of your nation is driving tourists down your street in their droves.And there’s no doubt that the village’s fragile infrastructure really is struggling to cope, between roads being closed off for filming, prop wagons popping up left, right and centre, and a 136% increase in tourist footfall since the show aired.Economic boosts are great, but only if there’s a town left to benefit from them, right?
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