TEN CHANCES FOR EUROPE

I’ve been thinking that what I do, getting off on the fantasy of travel, albeit cerebrally, is not very different from dabbling in online pornography. I’ve gone so far as to concoct Mae West lines in my head. “If travel is the new sex, heaven help us. The foreplay is so boring.” I had packing in mind.

Now Anthony Lane has gone and expressed a similar thought on the subject of online fantasy travel as pornography in this week’s New Yorker, a themed issue about “Journeys.” “I like to spend an idle hour surfing the site,” he writes, “planning languid weekends in little-known spots; the technical term for this is ‘pornography.’” The site in question is Ryanair’s. Lane has written a fine piece on Europe’s discount airlines, Ryanair, easyJet, but mainly Ryanair. (Note to travel agents: Do not reveal your profession should you ever find yourself in the presence of Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary. He's not a fan.)

Anyway, she who hesitates is lost. Please know that I thought this thought before I read Anthony Lane's thought.

It’s a fascinating issue, with articles about cannibalism (The Donner Party), immigrant smuggling by Chinese sharkheads, The Mayflower (a book review) and a short story by Martin Amis, “The Last Days of Muhammed Atta.” You remember him. He was the lead September 11 hijacker. Not exactly traditional destination travel-magazine fodder.

Wanderlust, travel yearnings. There’s some overlap between libido and the impulse to journey; understandably people talk more about travel than they talk about sex. They may even think more about travel than they think about sex, though that by no means is a given. Scottish researchers recently analyzed the behavior of 500 individuals who subjected themselves to speed dating. The event was organized in conjunction with the Edinburgh Science Festival. (I wonder if the researchers are aware that organized speed dating is a possible violation of the Geneva Convention: utter torture.)

According to the The Scotsman, researchers identified the best “chat-up lines:”

The top-rated male's best line was “If you were on Stars in Their Eyes, who would you be?”, while the top-rated female asked bizarrely: “What's your favourite pizza topping?”

Well, we knew that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. What we may not have known is that talk of travel makes the heart grow fonder:

Conversation topics were also assessed. Only 9 per cent of pairs who talked about films agreed to meet again, compared with 18 per cent who spoke about the subject found to be the most suitable for dating: travel.

It is thought women's taste for musicals clashed with the male liking for action films, while talking about "great holidays and dream destinations" made people feel good and appear more attractive to each other.

Now, what would happen if women starting asking men what their favourite pizza topping was the last time they were in Italia?

Speaking of which, here’s a chance to win a trip to Italy, and nine other European itineraries, between now and September. Sponsored by the European Travel Commission and American Express Travel, there will be 10 biweekly drawings starting at the end of May. Enter once, and you are eligible for each subsequent drawing. Enter by May 26 to be eligible for all ten. To enter, click here. For the Official Rules, click here. Here's a list of the prizes in order of the drawings:

Drawing 1 Spain
Drawing 2 Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland
Drawing 3 Germany, Austria
Drawing 4 Italy
Drawing 5 Ireland
Drawing 6 France
Drawing 7 England
Drawing 8 Portugal
Drawing 9 Czech Republic, Hungary
Drawing 10 Sweden