I had a weird dream last night. I found myself sitting in a bar, watching some flamenco dancing and suddenly my cell phone, as our American cousins call it, lit up with vital news from the UK. The lying liar Boris Johnson had been called lying again and was resigning as an MP. He had to be lying. My suspicions about this being a dream – a nightmare, even – seemed to be confirmed when I heard that Priti (she isn’t) Patel would henceforth be known as Sir Priti Patel. Then there was a knighthood for the member for the Victorian Age, Jacob Rees-Mogg for services to c*ntery. Oh and Dame Mrs Jack Lopresti. Then I didn’t wake up because it was all true.
Not that I really cared too much. I have a holiday to get on with and some careless sunburn to protect, having ignored my partner’s warnings that my neck was already red raw before I nodded off yesterday afternoon. You may have guessed from this titbit that the weather has improved since we arrived in Formentera and if we are really lucky it will only be 3/4c cooler here than it is at home by next week, though definitely not as sunny.
That the weather is better, or at least hotter, at home bothers me not one jot. Warm, sunny weather is, after all, the main reason we go abroad in the first place and indeed the reason so many people choose to live abroad. If my friends in Old Blighty are enjoying hot sunshine while I am enjoying not so hot sunshine and from time to time no sunshine at all, I couldn’t care less. I’m happy for you.
We are in a hotel that’s a combination of half board and all inclusive. We are enjoying the former, not least because we eat quite enough already and unlimited Estrella at my age would render me incapable of getting out of bed most mornings. You can buy the ‘free’ Estrella for a charge of around €6 a pint which is an illustration of how expensive everything is over here. The lady at the reception desk pointed out that the local bus service on the island is free to use which is just as well given how expensive everything else is.
One thing I was dreading was the great sun bed race in the morning. 20 years ago, we stayed in a vast hotel in Ibiza and if you wanted a sun bed anywhere near the hotel, you had to be up and about at around 6.00am. People weren’t reserving sun beds: they were reserving space on which to put their sun beds for when they were unlocked at 8.00am. Sun bed secured, they would then join the family for breakfast. An old friend of mine, a burly ex copper, used to do the opposite when he stayed in such a hotel. He’d wander down at 8.00am for a leisurely breakfast and then head to the pool and remove towels from sun beds and lie on them with his family. If someone challenged him – and once they had seen him, they rarely did – he would direct them to the reception desk where signs urged people not to try to reserve sun beds early in the morning. Now go away, he would say, using rather more agricultural language.
The Animation Team still isn’t doing much animating, save trying to get people to clap when one of them is singing along to a laptop in a karaoke kind of way. The night before last, we had a rendition of the Doors song LA Woman, a cheery number about prostitutes, and the audience were merrily waving their arms and clapping along as the local lad did his best Jim Morrison, albeit without exposing himself. Morrison may not have expected such a reaction to one of his more memorable tunes but he was such a ghastly bloke, who cares?
Almost finally, it’s the Uefa Champions League (UCL) final tonight between Abu Dhabi and Inter Milan. There are probably more Italians here than Mancunians but it doesn’t look like the game will be screened here. All I can say about that is simple: I could not give a toss. The football season has been over, at least for me, since last month, maybe earlier and I can’t be bothered to spend negative energy moaning and wanting Manchester City to lose, although given the choice…
It’s time to get back to TV Reviews by Victor Lewis-Smith – as funny a book as you will ever read – and soon The Full English by Stuart Maconie. There is no full English here – the German bloke next to me yesterday was tucking into a cheese, onion and tuna ‘HOMMALETTE’, something which made me pine every so slightly for some black pudding and fried bread. But not for long.
Hopefully, there’s still time for Boris Johnson to give me some kind of resignation honour. After all, if Andrea Jenkyns is worth a dame hood – and she really isn’t – then a peerage surely awaits?
