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…
No comments:
Post a Comment