I Want Candy, We All Want Candy

Exotic, erotic and a tad esoteric. I'm not quite sure how the term 'candy' became so ingrained in pop culture.
One of my mainstream touch points is undoubtedly the Bow Wow Wow version of the song 'I Want Candy', bellowed out by the feisty Annabella Lwin, who skipped the bark and went straight for the bite.
In fact, sexual angst and real estate seem to be perfect bedfellows, and the ensuing heat is certain to fog up the office widows. Have I passed that all too familiar landmark; the veritable point of no return? It's close, but no cigar just yet.
Last week I attended the sixth installment of the annual AOCAP Conference in Singapore. For those not up to snuff with their industry acronyms, the long play version of the name is Alternative Ownership Conference Asia Pacific. Was that a big yawn from the cheap seats? Okay let's go for the shorter version.
One topic that caught my attention was the drift of the term 'timeshare'. Set for relegation, the once familiar tag has now been re-jigged as a seemingly more respectable 'vacation ownership' or 'alternative ownership'.
Perhaps the Ministry of Silly Works is hard at it again.
There remains nothing as verbose than a reformed sinner.
Heading up to the hill bearing a heavy cross, the very life has been sucked dry, bolstered by a soulless sense of trying to fit in.
Timeshare remains a known in a world gone banal and bland.
Growing up, many of us had an edgy aunt or uncle who was perhaps out on the fringe, only visiting on the odd occasion.
Mine was a hip, older stepuncle who drove a soft-top Porsche, rocked up to our house with a different woman on each of his visits and carried a hip flask filled to the brim with Makers Mark bourbon.
My recollections of him remain to this day of fast cars, tall leggy lady friends and just enough angst and dark humour to take the edge off of a brand new razor. I can't remember what happened to him, and time vanishes the past at an agonisingly fast pace.
Maybe it's better to retain the dream-like apparition when the alternative is far more mundane.
When playing cards you call a spade a spade, so what's wrong with 'timeshare'? It's one of the oldest leisure real estate products out there, and for all the bad raps, the sector has a strong legion of satisfied buyers, impressive products and has also provided careers for many property professionals.
At heart I continue to be a hotelier and note that many of my colleagues look down their noses at the concept of focused selling and marketing.
Hotels are of course the only domain of elegance, grace and refinement… not. These days everyone can travel and the bad omen of mass tourism is a modern day plague of epic proportions. Just check out the latest version on YouTube of travellers behaving badly. My point is that people living in glasshouses have no business throwing rocks or, in an Americanised version, firing assault-grade weapons.
Any branding person worth his grain of salt will tell you that a stereotypical name has to be understandable, approachable and ultimately touch a chord in the consumer deep down in those dark places where jacked-up emoticons rule supreme.
My point is this: let us return to a kiss. Keep it simple for the masses and the truly stupid folk who inhabit our every waking moment. Bring back timeshare as a standard bearer and banish all pretenders to the sin bin. Go out, find a girl named Candy with big lips and a tad too much make-up and let nature run its course.