I got another phone call from Google HQ in Dublin last week, this time about the traffic jam promoted as tourist attraction, and business, on Google Maps. ‘Hello, is this Skibbereen Traffic Jam?’, they asked. The call took me by surprise, for some reason I was made to feel guilty, and lost my nerve. Rudely, I hung up on the caller but regretted it immediately. The location/business was then removed from Maps.
But why should I accept this? Fair enough, Skibbereen Traffic Jam is not yet a successful business, in the profit-making sense, but I do see it as a tourist attraction, and doubly fascinating, in that you can simply observe it, the vehicles, the facial expressions, bathe in its murmuring engine sounds, OR you can participate in it yourself (ideally with a car but possibly on foot). For my part, I had completed a street photography project in connection with the jam, and a film will be shown as part of the exhibition opening at @uillinnwestcorkarts the West Cork Arts Centre on 17th September.
In addition, I had begun, in discussion with experienced entrepreneurs, to think up ways of expanding the enterprise by producing actual Traffic Jam, in different flavours, to sell at the famous farmer’s market and/or directly to drivers trapped in their cars. So I have put the location back up on Google Maps as Plódú tráchta sa Sciobairín: https://goo.gl/maps/g6G3uWoNEWZT5yfn9
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