and dance to, the exotic easy listening sounds of bongomatic, xylophonatic Martin Denny, Les Baxter and Arthur Lyman. It’s now possible to purchase everything from mugs to menus, from leis (Hawaii flower garlands) to palm trees. You can send a hip birthday card featuring a bongo-banging beatnik care of artist Shag. or have a lewd tattoo of a topless hula girl indelibly inked onto your arm courtesy of Sailor Jerry. And you can get together with like-minded Tiki enthusiasts at gatherings such as the Hula Festival at the Waikiki waterworld in Zeulenroda, Germany, or the Tiki Beach Fest in Long Beach, California. You can even take a holiday and be lectured by a Tiki nerd aboard a working freighter en route to the Marquesa Islands, or opt for the more luxurious - if sleazy- sounding — Crusoe’s Retreat Honeymoon Special on Fiji. Travel’s the real (and sometimes surreal) deal. The US enjoys the shrunken monkey head’s share of Tiki culture. and so the upscale Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco is the last place you’d expect to find a Tiki lounge — let alone the mighty Tonga Room. And not just any Tiki lounge, an original and sumptuous bar-restaurant in the Polynesian Pop style that dates back to the mid-l940s. Here. on honeymoon, my wife and l sipped fruity rum cocktails from chilled plastic coconuts served by a smiling Hawaiian waitress
104 THI LIST 2-16 Nov 2006
wearing a swishing grass skirt. A band. set up aboard a thatched
roofed boat. floating in a giant .
pool, played bongo drums and E
xylophone to announce a thunderous downpour of rain each and every 15 minutes. As someone once sang, heaven is a place . . . San Francisco is a long way to go for a drink. Scotland‘s one and only
Bar in Ayr - might have closed down. but board a train to London
V of the river on wealthy Park Lane.
the basement of the London Hilton is home to the UK branch of the international Tiki chain Trader Vic‘s (the cavernous venue hosted
' the London Lau Poly Pop festival
this summer). South of the Thames. on Kennington Road, the South London Pacific bar serves classic Tiki ‘potions‘ and is home to the weekly club Hula Boogie. where resident DJ Miss Aloha entreats you to stomp your feet.
The beauty of these venues. aside from the obvious cocktail and swing dance-based delights. is that they are the perfect places to
Tho atone hood: of Easter
Island Inspire lel design (loft). Below: the Tonga Room In San Francisco.
FACTFILE
Further information The best place to start is wwwkonakaicom, a site that provides links to just about anything you w0uld want to know about Tiki culture. For more personal insights, visit
the chatroom wwwtikiroomcom. Eating and drinking Tiki culture
Tiki bar — Butlin's Beachcomber i
originated in the many bars and restaurants that sprang up across the US in the postwar period. and drinking
cocktails and eating seafood in
atmospheric surroundings remains a and you can take your pick. Noth www.critiki.com and www.tikibars.net for details of venues around the world.
popular pastime. Check out
Shopping If you're into Tiki, you and your pad have got to look the part. right? Go to wwwatomic-tikicom for retro clothing and accessories. then visit wwwtikifreakscom for stylish fixtures and fittings for the home. Literature Of the thousands of websites dedicated to Tiki, there are two literary sources that provide Polynesian Pop with plenty of colour: wwwbookoftikicom — the closest thing to a Tiki Bible — and
www.tikinews.com. The second
network and learn more about this most kitsch of cultures. And it‘s all
thanks to a sailor from North Yorkshire. who upon setting foot on Hawaii was mistaken for a god by the locals. and. a year later. stabbed to death by them. roasted
edition of James Teitelbaum's book. Tiki Road Trip, will be available in 2007. Music Vegas Vic's internet radio show broadcasts Tiki sounds out of
America's gambling central at
www.live365.com/stations/brianeh. For a wide range of exotica and easy
listening sounds on CD. visit
and eaten in a misplaced act of
to answer for. and he certainly paid a high price for it.
deiftcation. Captain Cook had a lot :
wwwultraloungecom. and for real
retro, make the trip to lntoxica at 231 Portobello Road. London. Beautifully decorated in the Tiki style. the record
. shop sells nothing but vinyl.
? Three of the best
2008
As Edinburgh Zoo '3 Garden Team Leader, Simon Jones gets to travel all over the world. He picks out his top animal viewing spots — apart from Edinburgh, of course.
I Leipzig, Germany It's not acceptable any more to display animals in barred cages; the barriers have to come down. This 200 is a perfect example of change. All the new exhibits have a very modern feel to them and all the old ones just feel like you are walking back in time. In Leipzig they now use a little psychology to change the viewing experience. with barriers created from electric fences or water (something primates tend to hate). In Pongo Land, a multi animal exhibit. you can get within 10 feet of, say. an orang-utan or chimp and having no physical barrier in front of you. It's an amazing experience.
I Paignton, UK The topography of the site has allowed them to create views that give the appearance of the enclosures melding into one. That way, you get animals that wouldn't normally be seen together looking as if they are right next to each other. Its positioning near the southern coast of England allows them to create a much more tropical feel with regards to plants than, for example, Edinburgh, which is an important part of making the animals feel at home.
I Bronx, US New York‘s massive SOD-acre zoo is one of five in NY run by the World Conservation Society, who employ more people for in situ conservation than any other body in the world. My main reason for liking the Bronx Zoo is Congo Land, their immersion enclosure. After seeing the animals through tiny peepholes you are shown a shock documentary showing the links between humans and primates. At the end of it, up roll the screens and right in front of you is a whole troupe of gorillas (behind glass. of course). (Interview by Suzanne Black)
I For details of events at Edinburgh Zoo please see
www. edinburghzoo. org. uk