Tenerife: Epilogue

Saturday

I'm sitting on a bench outside Tenerife South airport wearing a black suit and my Wayfarers, smoking my last Coronas.  I look fucking incredible.  Some sunburnt jellybean of a man obviously doesn't get it because he nudges his drunk wife (it's 10am) and says 'fakin' 'ell, look at the state of that.'  I don't bother saying replying.  I flick my cigarette on the floor, pick up my bag and walk into the airport. 

The don't really bother too much with checking my bags.  The woman at the x-ray machine mutters something in Spanish to me, I shrug and walk off.  I figure if it's anything important, they'll chase me or something.  It's 17 degrees C in London and it's raining.  This makes me happy as I sit there sweating in my black suit.  I eat a warm tuna baguette from Upper Crust.  The departure lounge is full of kids, running around and being dicks.  There should be separate airports for those with children and those without, I decide.  This will be one of the first things I'll implement when I'm king (along with banning dogs and dreadlocks). 

I dig out this Nintendo DS I liberated from an ex-girlfriend after a traumatic break-up and play a bit of Mario Kart, making sure that my swearing is in earshot of the children and their parents.  Some guy from the Spanish board of travel asks me if I'd like to fill in a questionnaire.  The fucking thing is four pages long and I don't even get a free pen. Filled it out nonetheless…

I thought God must've been on my side when the couple with the baby who were sat behind me on the plane moved to the premium seats at the front of plane.  However, a guy in front of me started talking to the couple he was sat with.  At one point during the four hour monologue about his boring fucking life, he looked out of the window and said 'We're very high up.' 

Yeah, we're in a plane, genius, that's what they tend to do (unless you're at an air show in Nevada possibly…).

After a rather painful four hour flight back, jammed in with Stathams and their wives, I race through passport control and onto the Gatwick Express.  Some kid is having an argument with the ticket inspector.  I'm rested and calm as I look out of the window and onto the zone four estates the train is passing through, quite content in the knowledge that I'll probably never have to visit any of these places in my life.  Still, I've just come back from Tenerife, so let's not all high and mighty about the quality of destinations I visit...One last listen to Life During Wartime, one last thought of Sarah.  Dr Chris, who I'm due to see on Wednesday, will be pleased.  Christ, it'll be nice to have a conversation again.  It'll be nice to sit around with my friends and watch X-Factor and talk about shit. 

I get off the train to see the kid being chased down the platform by the ticket inspector.  The inspector is shouting 'CUNT' at the kid.  The kid turns around and gives the ticket inspector the finger before he disappears into the melee of the underground.

Welcome back to London.

Tenerife: Day Four

THE BLESSING

I’m blessed (or cursed) with an almost photographic memory.  Regardless of how much I’ve had to drink, I can not only remember everything I’ve done, but almost every conversation I’ve had.  If I ever tell you I can’t remember what I got up to last night, it’s probably because I don’t want to talk about it.  

DEAD SKIN MASK

It’s 9am and I’m sticking to food that doesn’t look like it’s been reheated eight times.  I’d twig a ropey grapefruit, but an old sausage?  I’m not chancing it.  As a result, I’m on the healthiest diet I’ve been on for about fifteen years (excluding the Coronas deathsticks).  Trouble is I’m feeling bad.  You want to know why I’m feeling bad?  Well whether you do or not, I’ll tell you: I’m sunburnt from head to toe.  The only parts of me not red are the bits I’m saving to bust out on my wedding night to whatever lucky girl it is I can get drunk enough to agree to marry me.  I can’t sit down, I can’t lie down.  Even standing up hurts.  But I’m English and I’ve paid to be here, so I’m gonna sit out in the sun if it kills me.  (It probably will kill me.)  I won’t let a bit of agonising sunburn stop me getting even more sunburnt.  Blitz spirit, etcetera. 

I’m sat by the pool, surrounded by the usual suspects.  An elderly German couple has already questioned whether I’m at the right hotel or not, to which ‘Deal with it’ was the only thing I could think of dishing out in response.  Still, I’m in a good mood.  I’m relaxed.  I want…what do I want..?  This is a feeling I’ve not experienced before…I WANT TO LISTEN TO SOME REGGAE. 

Anything with a syncopated beat usually dries me right up.  It all sounds the same and, hand on heart, I can’t tell the difference between Bob Marley and UB40.  Maybe it’s the sun or the tits or the sound of the waves lapping up the cigarette butts and beer cans from the night before, but I really want to listen to some reggae.  I have no reggae on me.  The nearest I can get is the bit in the middle of Live

And Let Die where McCartney puts on that embarrassing accent.  So I listen to that song three or four times. 

Then the ‘entertainment’ starts. 

Three guys behind a PA system with two other guys pretending to DJ behind them start to sing Copacabana.  Joy.  Next thing I know, I’m sat next to a swimming pool filled with pasty white English people who are waving their arms in time to an all-male version of I Will Survive.  This is too much for my small brain, so I flick my iPod to Slayer’s wonderful ditty about Ed Gein, Dead Skin Mask.  Lord, I’ve got some song-writing to do when I get home. 

OPEN TRAVEL

I booked this little excursion through those monopolists of internet package holidays, Expedia.  They hooked me up with the lazily-named Open Travel to drive me to and from the airport.  Getting from the airport to the hotel was fine, even though I had to tip the bastard.  Open Travel were supposed to send a fax to the reception of the hotel to tell me when the taxi was coming to pick me up.  A fax?  Hi, the 1980s called, they want their out-dated form of communication back.  One can only assume that it was only a few years ago they stopped using telegrams.  Anyway, this is Spain, so maybe they’re really into faxing shit.  Who am I to knock their culture?  Fuckin’ English. 

‘Got a fax for me?’  I ask the man at reception.

‘Room number?’  He doesn’t give a fuck. 

‘5015.’

‘No, nothing.’

Cunt hardly bothered looking.

I shrug and wander back to my room to crack one out over some out Red Tu-I mean, look at the BBC News website and keep up to date with current affairs. 

Fuck you, I’m on holiday. 

I call up the number for Open Travel.

‘Hi, I’m-’

‘You’ll have to talk slower, I don’t understand.’

I speak very slowly, and for some reason, far louder.

‘I booked a trip back.  There should be a fax in reception for me, but it isn’t there.’

‘I fax it.’

‘Well it’s not there.’

‘I fax it.’

‘It’s not there.’

‘The hotels, they always do it.  I fax, they lose.  You check, then call me.’

‘I’ve checked.  It’s not  there.’

She sighs.

‘All the time this happens.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Well I can’t deal with it now, you call me back in half an hour.’

She rings off.

I watch some more BBC News and call back in half an hour. 

She doesn’t answer.

Two hours later she eventually phones and asks me for my name, which she thinks is ‘Batley’.

‘Close enough, yeah.’

‘I fax it.’

‘It’s not there.’

‘I fax it.’

‘Well they don’t have it.  Can you fax it again?  Why don’t you just fax it again?  Simples.’

Think she thought I was taking the piss out of her accent by using that fucking Meerkat thing.

‘I go to the office and call you back.’ She sighs.

‘Ta.’

She rings off.

I lean out of my balcony and check out the bar.  Pencil Eyebrows is back!  I put on some cologne and this nice t-shirt I’ve kept for such an occasion and skip (second time in a week) downstairs. 

‘Hey.’

‘Ola.’

‘I’ll get a beer, please.  You want something?’

‘No, too early for me.  Maybe later though.’

‘Sure.  So, er, how’s things?’

‘Things?’

‘Yeah, things.  Stuff.’

‘I’m good.  So busy with work.’

‘When do you knock off?’

‘Knock off?’

‘Finish, finish work.’

‘Oh, finish.’ 

She mutters something to herself in Spanish and then says ‘About seven.’

Which is about the time my phone rings.  I kill it twice here: 

1.        It may be funny and ‘ironic’ in East London, but having your ringtone as Crazy Frog isn’t so cool when you’re out of Hipsterville.

2.       I had this conversation with the woman from Open Travel, during which I got increasingly louder:

‘Hello.’

‘Mr Batley, I can’t find your booking.’

‘Oh.’

‘Do you have the Expedia booking reference?’

‘Not on me right now, no.’

‘Do you have a paper or pen?’

‘No.’

‘I looked for your booking, but it’s not there.’

‘Well I got down here, didn’t I?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well I did.’

‘I don’t know if there’s anything else I can do.  Maybe you can come into the office.’

‘On the last afternoon of my holiday?  Because you didn’t sort your shit out?  No chance.  I’ll get home and then get you guys to reimburse me for fucking up.’

‘Just come into the office this afternoon.’ 

‘Listen, wasting my money is one thing, but wasting my fucking time is another.  I’m bored now.’

I hang up.

Pencil Eyebrows has gone. 

I finish my beer and leave the bar.

THE 1970S

Veering right out of the hotel the evening before did me no favours, so I go left this evening.  Los Christianos.  I’m drunk on beer and annoyance.  Fucking Open Travel.  I’m writing a strongly-worded letter of complaint when I got home.  (The only time a letter of complaint has resulted in anything of any note for me was from Domino’s.  Got a free pizza.  Fucking karma, man.) 

Los Christianos is a little livelier.  There are people here and not all of them are wheelchair-bound or a few years off death.  I find a restaurant where they’re playing Queen.  Good enough for me. 

Set menu.  Fuck it, I like Led Zeppelin and I like the 1970s, so I’ll get a prawn cocktail and a lasagne.  Don’t berate me for being in Spain and not eating paella.  Firstly, I can’t stand paella and secondly, it’s not like you go to London and eat fish and chips or pie and mash.  In fact, if I’m not mistaken, most of the best restaurants in London have their roots based in French cuisine. 

But I'm not in London.  And who puts fucking sweetcorn in a prawn cocktail?  Seriously?  I can’t eat the stuff ever since Matt with the unexplained burn scars on his face from university told me this story about his mate who got a piece stuck up his urethra from having anal sex with a girl who had some on her pizza the night before.  Probably a fucking Domino’s. 

The lasagne was alright, though.

I’m watching the ferries in the harbour carrying more drones to waste their cash in this mecca of innocent tastelessness.  I get to go back home tomorrow.  Back to riots and people telling me I’m destroying the environment whilst in the breath recommending a place I can buy some focaccia bread for £15 and boasting about who their new coke dealer is.  Christ, I miss London. 

The music’s working out in this place.  Steve Miller Band, The Cure.  Oasis’s Whatever reminds me of a few friends back home in a really quite lovely way.  The Unholy Trinity.  I get a bit homesick.  I’ve only had two actual conversations since Monday; one was with Pencil Eyebrows and the other was with that cow from Open Travel.  I don’t know either of their names.  I should probably go back to the hotel.  Or maybe see what’s going on in Los Christianos.  That bar up there looks fun.  I don’t know. 

So anyway, I got a bit drunk and I don’t really remember what happened…

Tenerife: Day Three

BLUE PENIS

It’s 8am and I’m not hungover.  Breakfast of stale croissants and black coffee.  Old couples are giving me looks of pity and suspicion and I pretend to text my non-existent girlfriend back home.  ‘At least I’m not waking up every morning next to some fat motherfucker I hate’ I write in my draft messages, saving that little nugget for later, thinking that one day it might come in useful. 

By 9am I’m sitting by the pool, trying to turn my alabaster skin into an attractive shade of brown.  I’ve spotted two men reading actual books – one has The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and the other has a Bear Grylls autobiography.  I’m just about to settle into Sparks Lil’ Beethoven album when some Europop, which seems to come from nowhere, almost makes me fall out of my sun lounger.  In front of me what looks like a guy dressed as a giant blue penis (I think he’s supposed to be a fish) and two very attractive club reps start up a dance routine for, well, nobody, really. 

Proof (if you need it):

I go back to my room.

SISTER LOVERS

It’s about 11am, I go to the bar and order a Bloody Mary.  I still haven’t seen old Pencil Eyebrows from my first night here and I’ve lost her number somewhere.  Her replacement, who can’t really speak English, seems to hate me.  Consequently, I don’t tip her.  Vicious circle.  I take my dreadful Bloody Mary down to the pool and find a quieter place, away from any areas that seem in danger of being made to have any ‘fun’. 

Despite feeling myself relaxing (Dr Chris will be happy), I must admit that I’m pretty bored.  I get another cocktail.  And then I get another one.  And then I listen to The Rolling Stones.  Hipster I may be, but musical snob I’m ain't.  I’m not one of those assholes you get stuck talking to at a party who claims to hate The Beatles just because it makes them seem edgy.  I don’t care how many records a band has sold, all I care about it whether I like their music or not.  And The Rolling Stones, well, I love The Rolling Stones because they make me want to do bad things to good people… 

Lying down, straight ahead, are two absolutely gorgeous sisters in their early twenties.  They’re sat next to their parents, but both look like they’ve been dragged against their will to this resort and are slightly underwhelmed by the OAP water aerobics and the Stathams.  Tell me about it, babes.  The older one, I think, is almost certainly checking me out from behind her aviators.  Who can blame her?  I’ve got my shirt off and my silver-speckled chest hair is sparkling in the sun.  I’m fucking Edward Cullen.  Hang on, her sister’s also checking me out.  Probably.  The parents will be cool with it - I think they’re German.  I didn’t come over here for any of that sort of nonsense, but sometimes, when the stars aligned correctly and when God is smiling on a boy, getting laid isn’t an option, it’s inevitable.  I’m also totally wasted.  On my own.  In the afternoon. 

So I’ll probably end up having a threesome with the sisters, right?  I mean that’s what hot sisters do.  I’ve got the internet, I’ve seen the world.  Maybe I’ll tell them about the band...Maybe they’ll catch me listening to Stop Making Sense…Maybe I’ll tell them I work for MI5…everyone fancies a bit of danger.  Thoughts of James Bond in my head, I decide the best way to seal the deal is show off my athletic prowess by taking a swim.  All those beads of chlorine water falling off me, wet hair.  Who could resist?  So I step into the pool.  Fuck, it’s actually pretty cold.  It takes me about five minutes to get totally in.  I swim around for a bit.  I’m a shit swimmer and for the most part look like I’m drowning.  I get scowled at by a grandmother and almost killed by some cunt with tribal tattoos doing lengths. 

That should do it.

You know that bit in Casino Royal where Daniel Craig gets out of the sea in the Bahamas?  Well it wasn’t like that.  I stubbed my fucking toe on the steps.  Plus, this was a swimming pool in Tenerife.  Plus, they’d both fallen asleep.  Guess that threesome’s off the cards.  Your loss, ladies.

I light a Coronas and go back to the bar.  I’m perched up there next to three American men.  It’s impossible not to earwig on their conversation because they’re talking so loudly and so emphatically.  These guys are right about everything.  Turns out they’re soldiers.  They all look like Jason Bourne.  Quite what they’re doing here, I’m not sure. 

‘And if I’d seen him drinking a white wine, I would’ve been, like, “Man up, dude, have a fucking beer.”’

‘He’s a fag?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Did you report him?’

‘Course I did, bro.’

‘Hey, what’s the film with Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore?  You know, “You can’t handle the truth”.  That one’

‘I dunno bro.’

And then they just keep saying to each other ‘YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH’.

It’s A Few Good Men, you dumb cunts.  Everyone knows that. 

I may have a temper on me, and every now and then my tongue gets a little too loose, but I’m not stupid enough to pick a fight with three soldiers, so I just downed my beer and fucked off back inside, where I passed out until the evening.

VERONICAS

‘Veronicas Strip.  That’s where everyone goes out, la,’ a good friend said to me before I left.

‘Sounds like a style of pubic hair.’

‘Nah, went once, had a reet good time up there.’  My friend is northern.

I decided it was time for the spring chicken to leave his coup, so I ventured up the coast towards Las Veronicas.  It was a ghost town.  Empty bars pumping out five year old house music, a few pissed-up groups of L.A.D.S., planning on puking before the sun had gone down.  The only place that was playing anything remotely passable was some tattoo parlour which was blearing out Guns N’ Roses.  No, getting a tattoo on my sunburnt arm in Tenerife, still slightly pissed and on my own is not a smart move. 

Any couples or girls (and they were few and far between) walking past would get hustled in by the lone guy standing outside on his own (who was more often than not a Brummie).  They didn’t hassle me.  Nope.  The only approaches I got were from couples who wanted me to take a photo of them (ungrateful cunts they were, too) and homeless guys.  I fended off the homeless guys by pretending I was Italian.  For some reason it seemed like a good idea at the time.  ‘Mi dispiace’ (went out with an Italian girl once and that phrase came in very handy on several occasions) I slurred in my best Michael Corleone accent. 

I considered going into one of two strip clubs I passed,  but I’ve been surrounded by tits all day, and besides, I’m not here to think about sex (although the Wi-Fi in the hotel is kind of destroying that). 

Took a few photos along my walk…

Classy.

Fund Grube.  A fucking elephant.  That's my idea of shopping in paradise.

Probably not affiliated with the Café de Paris on Coventry Street in West London…

Would’ve popped into Waikiki Beach Fun-Pub if they weren’t playing a techno track with the questionable line of ‘Whatever happens, I’m taking you home tonight’ repeated over and over again by an angry man.  Could be Martin Tomlinson's next project...

And then there was this place…

Pretty sure it’s a hotel, but looks a little like a prison.

As I walk along the beach, back to Pensioner Villas and those two sisters who I’m never going to sleep with, I notice some tennis courts.  Christ, they look familiar.  And then I catch the name of the hotel they’re attached to – La Siesta.  They were the tennis courts I used to play on with Sarah twenty years ago. 

I sit on a bench outside and smoke a filthy Coronas.  ‘When I get back to Blighty, I’m definitely giving up,’ I lie to myself for the thousandth time. 

‘Also, when I get back, I’m going to Barden’s and Efe’s and I’m gonna appreciate all the wonderful nightlife I’ve got on my doorstep.’

If I ruled the world, it would be mandatory for every half a mile to have a basement bar that played my iPod on random, had miserable bartenders (with hearts of gold) and sold cheap scotch from dirty tumblers. 

I finished my walk back and the busiest place I encountered was Mystique Swingers Bar, which was full of grey-haired, pissed Brits.  Did we really win the war so we could get drunk and fuck someone else’s spouse? 

Bollocks. I’m going to bed. 

Tenerife: Day Two

KALTES KLARES WASSER

I probably should’ve have remembered that it’s not the 1980s and that it’s probably okay to drink from the tap in a foreign country, but out of all the things I learnt when I was a kid, my fear of foreign water is one of the most prevalent (along with the seven times table, I’m a whizz at the seven times table).  Anyway, the day before I’d consumed three glasses of Champagne, several beers and a bottle of red wine.  In the good old days I’d have had that as a starter before I went out to the 333 to see Selfish Cunt or whatever, but this is 2011 and I’m 31 years old and I can’t handle it quite so much anymore.  The persistent heat and humidity, my moderate alcohol consumption and my distrust of Spanish tap water I think explains the dream I had where I was on a quest to find a Calippo.  Any flavour would do, but I found a freezer full of the lime variety.  No matter how many Calippos I shoved down my dry throat, they did nothing to quench my thirst.  Of course they didn’t – I was having a fucking dream.

Ever the early-riser, I awoke at 8am and braved the breakfast buffet.  Although not on the same scale as Spanish tap water, buffets give me the fear.  Look at that cunt next to me using those tongs to pick up some sausages.  He looks like the sort of chap who doesn’t wash his hands. I’m not using those tongs.  And how long have those sausages been sitting there?  Probably yesterday’s leftovers.  Better skip the sausages and try to find an apple or something. 

Billy No Mates, eating an anaemic fry-up on his tod.  I’m a big fan of my own company, but the novelty of sitting at a table in a crowded place and eating a meal on your own wears off pretty fast.  I sip some of my tepid, watered-down orange juice as I spy the couple on the table next to me downing glasses of Cava.  Urgh, alcohol.  My best friend and my nemesis.  Fuck this, I’m going back to bed.

WATER AEROBICS AND NICK CAVE

It’s 2pm and the half-sleep of my hangover is broken by a fucking Venga Boys song screaming out from the pool area.  ‘It’s kids on pills who are here to drink and fuck!’ I say to myself and no one else.  I skip out onto the balcony (probably the first time I’ve ‘skipped’ anywhere since I was made to in P.E. at school) to witness a bunch of morbidly obese pensioners waving their arms around in the pool.  Dammit.  At first think they’re all having some sort of fit in unison, kind of like a gaggle of telepathic epileptics, but then I realise they’re being guided by a pretty girl in a neon blue outfit.  Water aerobics.  I have a good laugh at this for at least five minutes before my hangover kicks back in and I retreat into my room to swallow two more paracetamols. 

I’m wasting my time sitting inside and feeling sorry for myself.  I need to get some sun.  I need to GET. MY. TAN. ON.  Might even take my shirt off today.  I pack a little bag with my iPod, a couple of books and my Ray-Bans.  I’m in the process of getting changed when the maid knocks and then, without hesitation, comes straight in.  I’m not going to lie here, she saw my cock.  Wouldn’t have been so bad, but she looked a little like Gollum.  She gets my ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign and puts it on the door, slamming it after her.  Considering all the wrinkly old pricks she must stumble in on every day, I probably made her fucking year.  Happy birthday, Sméagol. Good job she never saw my ring... 

In the process of getting my shit together to go out, I decide to slick my hair back like Nick Cave.  Now, I’m not a huge fan of his and I’ve never really investigated that much of his work.  This is primarily because I used to live with this ketamine-addled cunt of a housemate in Clapton several years ago who would constantly ram The Birthday Party down my throat, pretending she really liked it and that she was, like, really, like, out there and pushing, like, you know, the boundaries, man.  You know the type.  Still, one can deny that Nick Cave is a cool motherfucker.  And what do you know?  I look alright with my hair done like that.  I’m embracing my thirties.  Justin Bieber killed the fringe.  It’s time to move on.  I am now a man.  Finally.

Posing in the bathroom.  Hipstamatic, obvs.

You’re welcome, Tenerife. 

So I hit the pool.  I’m the sort of man who looks better with clothes on.  This is partly due to my nice wardrobe and partly because I’m a pasty, skinny motherfucker.  I’m flanked by two Stathams who both have barbed wire tattoos around their biceps.  One of them has passed out with a copy of The Sun over his jelly stomach.  I put my iPod on and lie back.

OBLIGATORY FLASHBACK SEQUENCE

It’s 1991, I’m 11 years old and the most exotic place I’ve ever been to is Wythenshawe.  I’d like to think that my parents waited this long for a family holiday because they didn’t want to take any babies on the plane (very wise), but in reality it was probably due to financial constraints. 

Anyway, where do we go for our first holiday?  Tene-motherfucking-rife.  Playa De Las Americas.  I fell in love for the first (and some would argue the last) time on that holiday.  She was a sexy little thing called Sarah and she was 1 year my senior, which is a mammoth of a gap when you’re that age.  Sarah and I hung around all the time, playing table tennis and looking for lizards.  She taught me how to play pool.  Badly.  Obviously, only being 11 years old, I didn’t really think about fucking her over the Space Invaders arcade game in the foyer or anything like that, but my heart did beat slightly faster when lovely little Sarah was around. 

My soundtrack to that holiday was Stop Making Sense – the seminal live album from 1984 by Talking Heads.  I’d borrowed the tape out from Eastleigh library. It cost me 30p. The kids at school, one in particular (I think his name was ‘Stuart’, but I could be wrong) gave me a very hard time for not listening to MC Hammer and instead trying to put on the six minute live version of Life During Wartime during some classroom party.  Fuckin’ gay music.  I think he’s an estate agent now.  Anyway, here I am, lying in the sun, 11 years old, listening to this classic record with this gorgeous girl beside me.  Life don’t get much better.

TANNING

Mr Statham to my left, Mr Statham to my right, some old dear who’s having breathing problems in the pool, straight ahead.  I flick on Stop Making Sense and listen to it from the start to the end, thinking about my first love and where she is now. 

Stop Making Sense has been re-released time after time and I’m now listening to the remastered, extended version, which is about twice as long.  However, I still get the same shiver down my spine when David Byrne says ‘I’ve got a tape I wanna play you,’ before breaking into a stripped-down version of Psycho Killer.  Then I think that maybe an 11 year old kid shouldn’t have been listening to a song called ‘Psycho Killer’ and maybe that’s something to do with the reason I’m here on my own.  Then I remember that Sarah lived in Shrewsbury, which is dangerously close to Wales and decide that I probably had a lucky escape. 

There are tits everywhere.  Even the guy who’s fallen asleep with a copy of The Sun on him has it open at page 3.  Unfortunately, I’ve now seen enough breasts in my life for this not to be something exciting.  I mean what do you think tits are gonna look like?  They’re not going to be green or anything.  They just look like tits.  (Saying that though, Rob, if you’re reading this, we’re totally going to Browns when I get back, yeah?)  I’m in Spain, anyway, they’re all relaxed about that sort of stuff.  They probably wouldn’t even mind if I got my…no, no, just listen to your iPod and pretend you’re asleep. 

My God, sunbathing takes it out of you.  At 9pm, I mustered up my last remnants of strength to wander down to the beach and eat some garlic prawns.  I looked out at this rather nice little sunset and watched the sea turn black.  The overfriendly waiter kept calling me ‘man’ like I was some sort of fucking hippie (probably the Nick Cave haircut).  Wonder if Sarah’s thinking about me right now.  Probably not.

Tenerife: Day One

DISCLAIMER

Choosing a name for your blog is rather like choosing a name for your band – all the best ones taken, so in order to roll that motherfucker out into the public domain, you’ve got to settle for a bad one.   I could think about it longer and come up with a name that's not quite so dire, but that'd mean you, dear reader, would have to wait longer before this beautiful blog was before your eyes.  The trick is to bite the bullet and just get on with it, even though you’re slightly embarrassed about whoring it around. 

PREAMBLE

A few weeks ago, my GP, the affable Dr Chris, told me that I was suffering from exhaustion coupled with mild anxiety.  Fucking hell, I’m turning into Edward Norton in Fight Club (before he wises up and bones Helena Bonham-Carter).  Good job I’ve got a holiday to Tenerife booked up, eh?  It’s tough being as important and as popular as I am.  Sometimes life just takes its toll, man…

JOURNEY

It’s 5am on Tuesday 12^th September 2011 and I’m feeling dreadful because not only, as I’ve just told you, it is 5am, but also because I’ve spent the day before throwing up.  I’m pretty sure it was those sadistic bastards at Domino’s.  That’ll serve me right for trying to broaden my life experiences by ordering a half-and-half.  Perhaps it was God and Baby Jesus telling me to cut down on my carbs and saturated fats.  I do love a bit of divine intervention.

This is probably the first time and the last time I’ll see the 6am ghosts at Dalston Kingsland station.  Despite living in the same part of the same city, we exist in different time zones.  Our lives never touch and right now I feel a bit like an imposter, or worse, a tourist.

Fuck Gatwick.  I’m more of a Heathrow man – they’ve got a Paul Smith in T3, which is where I bought the striped scarf I’m wearing right now and is also probably the reason that the thing the big ginger rugby player I’m sat opposite to is whispering to his girlfriend (who is way out of his league and almost in mine) is about my sexuality.  I care not.  Even if I were that way inclined (ladies, I’m not), it’s 2011, who cares?  John Barrowman.  Jodie Foster.  Tom Cruise.  Everyone’s at it.

Anyway, it’s around this time that I realise that I’m slightly out of my comfort zone.  Sat at departure gate 38, surrounded by elderly couples, parents with babies and loved-up couples.  Not a hipster in sight.  A lot of beige and crew cuts going on here.  A lot of baggy trousers and Hawaiian shirts.  I’m dressed in a black suit that fits a little too snugly.  I think this is about the time that I accepted I am a hipster.  Fuck it, there are worse things to be.  Like a Nazi or the singer of Elbow.   I should’ve been prepared for this.  Tenerife isn’t some sort of hipster Mecca.  It’d be different if I were going to…Christ…where do hipsters go?  Williamsburg?  Yeah, it’d be different if I were about to board a plane for Williamsburg Airport in the centre of Williamsburg for a secret Daft Punk gig in Nick Valensi’s basement.  As an aside, I am aware there is no Williamsburg Airport and I also seem to be the only person in the world who thinks that Daft Punk are shit. 

Monarch Airlines.  The bastards have already charged me £8.99 each way for the privilege of booking my seat online in order to avoid a £50 charge for making them do it at the airport so I’m being rude to the staff who are just trying to get on with their jobs.  They probably hate Monarch more than I do. 

Bumpy take-off.  I have this theory that the cheaper the airline, the worse the pilots.  It’s not unreasonable.  When I fly BA, I expect Maverick (second Tom Cruise reference in this post, maybe I am turning…) to be at the helm, guiding us through all the turbulence and Russian missiles.  When I’m flying Ryanair, it’s more like that old alcoholic guy from Independence Day who dusts the wrong crops.  You know the guy I’m talking about.  But I’m comfortable with dying.  We’ve all gotta go sometime, right?  Besides, it’s a pretty dramatic way to bow out.  And I’d be in such esteemed company as Buddy Holly, The Busby Babes and, er, Aaliyah.  They’d probably make the anniversary a British Bank Holiday.  I digress.  Talking about death again.  Bloody goth.  It’s not like I’m flying Aeroflot or anything.  Chillax m8.

The inflight entertainment could’ve been a little better.  I refused to shell out another £2.50 for some headphones (which I could keep!) to hear it, so instead I was subjected to an episode of Glee about a cheerleader trying to fuck a guy in a wheelchair whilst my iPod belted out Queen’s A Day At The Races as the soundtrack.  Then I watched a Cee Lo Green concert with DMX shouting ‘motherfucker’ and ‘nigga’ in my ears.  However, the icing on the cake was Will Mellor’s White Van Man.  This pretty much consisted of our cheeky hero trying to avoid a parking ticket inspector and a fat guy in a wife beater.  I tried to read my book, but the tractor-beam smile of that Manc cunt was too hard to resist. 

Despite there being so many old people on the plane that it smelt like a charity shop, all I noticed were the fucking babies.  There’s one, two seats to my left, gargling and crying its way through the fucking flight.  Cheers for that, Baby.  The mother’s putting on a silly voice.  The mother’s clapping.  In public.  Everyone else is silent (except for the fucking baby, of course).   The baby’s rattling a box of Smints.  Can you overdose on Smints?  Oh, now it’s crying because its ears have popped.  That’s what happens on planes, you stupid fucking baby. 

Probably should move on from the baby thing seeing as I’ve recently become a Godfather…Sorry.

SPAIN

They just don’t give a fuck in Spain.  I was out of the plane, through passport control and into my taxi in about five minutes.  I try to talk to the driver, but he already hates me for declining the front seat in favour of the back one.  Then I have to tip the bastard and the smallest note I have is 20 fucking Euros.  Sometimes I wish I didn’t have such a kind and generous heart.

Mediterranean Palace, Playa De Las Americas. 

I’m queuing for about 20 minutes to check-in, but I don’t mind because they’re giving me free Champagne.  I get through three glasses and they go to my head because I haven’t eaten anything in almost 48 hours due to those cunts at Domino’s poisoning my guts.  I unsuccessfully try to flirt with the receptionist. 

‘I’m sorry, we don’t have a smoking room you requested.’

‘That’s okay, I gave up two weeks ago, so I’m kind of glad you don’t have it.’

‘If you want a cigarette though, you can, just don’t disturb the other guests by having one of the balcony.’

‘You’ve done that before, right?’

‘No.’ 

She hands me my key.

'Your room is 5015.’

‘5015, yeah?  Okay, see you later, babes.’

Nothing.  Cold.

My room’s nice.  So is my view.

So this is what stressed-out adults do – they go on holiday.  Christ, I can see tits from my balcony. 

‘Wonder if I could Spiderman them from here,’ I joke to myself.  I laugh a lot. 

Armed with a pair of shorts and this nice striped singlet I bought from Topman, I wander down to the pool via the bar.  I flirt, this time a little more successfully, with the barmaid, who pours me a Singapore Gin Sling, which didn’t have much Singapore or Sling in it. 

Try to put some sun cream on my back.  This is what I need a girlfriend for, I think to myself, annoyed that I look like I’m having some sort of stroke whilst trying to apply the stuff.  

The couples seem a lot older than me, but in reality there’s probably only about two or three years in it.  Cancerous tans aside, everybody here is very, very white.  It’s odd to be taken from the cultural cauldron of Dalston and dropped into what looks like a BNP summer camp for grown-ups.  I’m sure they’re all lovely, though.  Not a racist amongst them.  But, Christ, there are a lot of Fat Jason Stathams.   Also, it appears that I am the only male reading a book.  Fuckin’ homo.

It dawns on me that since the Domino’s catastrophe, I’ve had nothing to eat.  The Champagne and the gin have absolutely killed me so it’s probably the right time to get another drink.  I prop myself up at the bar.  It’s only 6pm, but I’m on holiday, so I’ll get drunk when I damn well want.  After a few beers I ask the barmaid from before, who is now my friend, where the best place to eat is.  She draws me a little map and puts her phone number on it.  It’s always nice to have options even if she has drawn her eyebrows on. 

I leave the bar, completely ignore her advice and go to some Argentinian steak place.  I eat some unseasoned, sparsely garnished skirt steak and drink a bottle of wine.  (Fuck you, I’m on holiday.) 

Feeling sick and quite drunk, I decide that I need a cigarette, so I walk down to a ‘supermarket’ by the beach and for €1.90 buy a pack of these:

I’m lying down on the beach smoking a Coronas (my new brand) and thinking about the title sequence to The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin.  I skim a few stones, but I’m not as good at that as when I was a kid.  Maybe it’s because I’m left-handed.  They don’t make stones for left-handed people.   Cheers for that, Mother Nature. 

Deciding that to the passing couples, the sight of me drunk on my own, badly skimming stones and chain-smoking these vile Spanish cigarettes might look like I’m building up to some sort of emotional suicide-bid, I retire to my room and pass out. 

Day one over.