I wrote last week of how I had finally held a real-life (in the flesh) copy of The New Yorker in my hand for the first time. Well guess flipping what. At Gatwick’s South bloody Terminal in a WH Smith’s there were five, staring back at me. Now either this is because suddenly the magazine has become accessible to us English buffoons, or this is all a dream that is taunting me with each sneeze, cough and poo particle life likes to throw at me.
As expected, my usual fear of flying ejaculated with each bump and grind. Luckily it was a pretty smooth flight, with only three (seven) toilet trips during the three-hour duration.
As we were landing, the lady in front of me was telling her daughter off, shouting ‘YOU DON’T NEED TO PUT YOUR WHOLE ARM ON THE ARMREST!!!’ Well what the hell else is an armrest for?! Poor girl. I was tempted to shout back ‘YOU DON’T NEED TO SHOUT WHEN THE PERSON YOU’RE SPEAKING TO IS SAT A MERE FEW CENTIMETRES AWAY FROM YOU’, but annoyingly I kept such cheekiness restrained to my internal dialogue.
My week’s generally been pretty uneventful, although we had to wait three hours for our room to be ready which just seemed stupid when all we were waiting for was for the room to be cleaned, not someone to check out, which does not take three hours. Then when we finally went into the room, I discovered that I needed to do some rearranging: the nightstand and lamp was between the two single beds in the double room, nowhere near a plug, so how the hell was I gonna be able to read? This was awful! I moved the nightstand to a more suitable place, and shoved the two single beds together to make a crappy double – I do like to elongate. A cleaner complained a couple of days later (the first cleaner was fine with it) and moved them back, separated. Ergh. Then the next day, the first cleaner was cleaning my room again, obviously pitied me, and shoved them back together. What a babe. Shoutout to her. She has nice, dark hair, too.
I’ve also been kept awake and woken up by some interesting sounds deriving from next door, which I’m sure is revenge for my verbose meditation I do out on the balcony each morning.
Yesterday, I looked out onto the green opposite, and next to my dad (sunbathing) there was a couple making out. Immediately I hid behind the curtain for fear of being considered a pervert, quickly realising that I looked far dodgier hiding behind a curtain than I did yawning and staring out from the balcony. I soon chuckled to myself at my own ridiculousness, but eventually grew sad in longing for someone to make out in public with. I miss that kind of blatant lack of care.
I don’t understand why parents let their toddlers and very young children were fluorescent bikinis. The whole point of fluorescent bikinis is surely to bring attention to the wearer’s body, and why would a right-minded parent want to bring attention to their child’s body? My daughters won’t be wearing one until they’re old enough to punch me in the face and tell me otherwise, and the same with my sons.
There are two very strange men who eat at the same restaurant as me and my dad, and I’m still uncertain of their relationship. One is older – perhaps in his sixties, although it’s hard to tell because of his weight – with white hair, glasses and a British accent. He is very overweight, walks with a cane, has quite a tight face and is very quick to anger. Yesterday he thought that the waitress had short-changed him, so quickly bellowed his outrage. The very patient waitress quickly explained in as best English as she could that she had not, in fact, short-changed him, and suggested that he was just confused. He looked pretty guilty afterwards and apologised many times before hobbling off and looking quite upset. So what’s so strange about this guy?, I hear you ask. Well the guy he is almost always with and eats with and shares a room with (I know this from observing that they use to same card to get the hotel discount for their drinks) is a young, blonde European man (early thirties or late twenties) with a green flame tattoo on his left arm, a very stern face and glaring eyes that burn anyone that dares look at him or his companion – especially me. In fact, every time I see them, they are together. Until their argument becomes too heated and one of them storms/wobbles away. Every meal, there is an icy tension between the two, neither smiling nor looking like they’re happy to be there. Very interesting. Are they an estranged father and son? Initially, I thought this could be the case. But the different accents already made that questionable, and while this doesn’t remove the possibility, the deductions I had already made from the single hotel card implied that they’re sharing a room together. Would an estranged father and son really share a room together? But then if they were arguing so much in public, why would they share a room together anyway? It would be a nightmare with no way to wake up! The age gap seems too substantial to suggest a friendship, and the bitter attitude they seem to ejaculate – why do I love that word so much? – towards each other would oppose the concept of friendship. A romantic relationship, however. Love does not listen to reason; love breaks the boundaries of rationality and logic; love explains why these two seem to be full of resentment, yet still continue to be together and not separate. After all, for all the anguish and pain we may feel, we still try our best to hold onto those that we love.
A northerner sat near to me the first night we were here, and I was stunned by his stupidity. His complaints about the menu were beyond idiotic, as he stated his outrage at the “Englishness” of the menu. ‘I’m not gonna want to eat here each night,’ he said, ‘If the menu’s gonna stay the same and full of stuff I can eat back home, what’s the point?
‘Peri peri chicken. You can get that at Nando’s!’ I fought the urge to facepalm into my pea soup. For those of you who don’t know, Nando’s is Portuguese cuisine. He continued, ‘And all this seafood! I can get fish and chips back home!’
‘We’re by the sea, you imbecile!’ I wanted to roar, ‘Fish and chips here is not the same as the soggy mush you get by the polluted grey sea of our soggy home. At least here it’s fricken’ fresh!’ Sigh. Humanity.
Another northerner disgusted me this holiday. After discovering she was pregnant from eavesdropping on a conversation she had with her daughter by the pool when I pretended I could read, I had already decided she was deluded from how she told her daughter that ‘praying to God is the only way the baby will be a girl’. Fucking hell. Then came dinner, where I saw her drink a bottle of red, and head off to have at least three fags. Mother of the Year Award goes to…! THEN came breakfast where she decided it would be lovely to FaceTime Grandpa on FULL FUCKING VOLUME so the whole room would have their breakfast’s ruined with the sloppy small-talk Gramps vomited to try and keep up with the family holiday. ‘How many bottles have you had?’ he questioned.
‘Only one actually! Okay maybe two…’ she grinned and giggled.
‘Ha ha ha! Remember to keep in budget!’ he responded.
‘Ha ha ha! Remember other people are eating their breakfast in this fucking room.’ my internal dialogue snarled.
‘And maybe next time I can join you!’ Oh dear. Fatal error, Gramps. The room waited in silent, tense anticipation for the dramatic reply.
But alas, I cannot remember that reply so it must have been very dull and inconsequential. Lucky Gramps, eh.
FaceTiming at mealtimes seems to be a regular occurrence here in Portugal. The Portuguese seem to do it too. It is bonkers. I have never experienced something so absurd in my life. Even the time when I saw someone take a shit on a frozen pond, only for his skateboard to get wiped in it – I filmed this exciting moment for the good memories. Or the time I had a raging fever on Scout camp, hallucinated and thought my wellington boots were trying to kill me, quickly followed by a trip to a dreamy field of wheat and field mice and strawberries than I took a much-needed piss in, which happened to actually be in my six’s tent all over my friends’ sleeping bags. We weren’t friends for much longer. Seriously? Do these people have no respect for other people? You could argue that it is effectively just like having one other person joining the meal, but then you would be an idiot. The sort of people who FaceTime in a restaurant during a meal aren’t the type of people who are going to put earphones in and keep their vocal volume at normal levels: they shout at their phones, especially when the connection wavers, and they turn the volume of their damned devices up to full, just to be extra considerate to their table so everyone can hear. Sigh. Humanity.
I’ve had a cold most of this week, which is ironic considering how I didn’t have one in England, where it is far colder and wetter than here. Yet in both Portugal and Cape Verde (where I was lucky enough to spend my Christmas) I seem to get them. At least they don’t shoot me down to the floor anymore like they used to: a sign that I’m really well on my way to recovering permanently. Realisations like that remind me that life is very much worth living.
I don’t understand what boobs have to do with motor and home insurance. Reading this week’s The Portugal News, I stumbled across an Abbeygate insurance ad, in which a blonde woman is standing with her hands resting on her hips, smiling away and showing the world how curvaceous she is. Okay. But how is that relevant to the company? It’s not like it’s insuring boobs, so why do boobs have to play a part? Don’t get me wrong, I like boobs, but I can’t help but find such an ad inappropriately dismissive of the modern woman, who, I know, has far more going for her than blonde hair and boobs. Although looking at many of my teenage peers’ profile pictures on Facebook, that is sometimes difficult to remember.
The tomatoes here are gorgeous. Normally I avoid tomatoes like I avoid dog shit: if I see it in plenty of time, I step over it, but if I don’t, it ends up going down my throat anyway. Despite loving everything tomato-based, I normally have to squint and drink lots to help trick my judging brain into thinking that I’m not really ingesting tomato. Portuguese tomatoes have been very different. They are juicy, not acidic – unlike the gross ketchup here…which is weird – and actually feel like you’re eating a fruit. I love fruit. And now I love tomatoes. Portuguese tomatoes, anyway.
Books I’ve read this holiday so far are as follows:
- An Inspector Calls by J.B Priestley (again) – although, earlier this year, I’d started to dislike the play I once loved, after reading it once again a few months later, my love has returned and I admire the political and social messages it presents.
- Sand by Hugh Howey – a birthday present from my darling friend Maddie, Hugh Howey has followed up his excellent Wool trilogy with an equally excellent dystopian thriller. His fluid description allows the reader to visualise what is going on in this alternative future very vividly, with characterisation to empathise with and root for.
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (again) – wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Read, read, read.
- Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King – with King being my favourite author, I wasn’t too shocked that I liked this book. With a slowish beginning, I did struggle to get into the narrative because of the unusual form of prose, however when I was in, I was hooked. Very emotional and satisfying.
- The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (read by Simon Vance) – I fricken’ love Sherlock Holmes. He is definitely one of my favourite literary characters, mainly because he is just so bloody cheeky. He will lead people along believing something that appears to be true, until suddenly he jumps out from behind a curtain and destroys those beliefs with a smirk and a smoke and a stroke of the violin. God, I admire him. Conan Doyle really was a genius to invent such clever and interesting narratives, however the continuity issues between some of the tales did irritate me. After all, that is what makes the individual stories so clever, so why couldn’t Doyle put a bit more effort into safeguarding the same delicacy between stories?
I despise scare and guilt tactics. Whoever tries to next use them against me or against someone I love is in for a helluva ride. That’s what friendship is.
Happy birthday to mia sorella, Jamie, who turned 17 this week. I hope I don’t see you on 17 and Pregnant later this year, and I’m sorry Facebook didn’t let me send you a birthday nude that I know is all that you wanted. Although I know you probably won’t read this for a couple of weeks, I look forward to you laughing and telling me how wonderfully funny I am.
I also read in The Portugal News this week that donkey milk ‘is said to be the closest milk produced by an animal to human milk.’ Jesus Christ. What next? Penguin penis is the closest penis to human penis that surgeons can use to replace my misplaced penis with? I hope so.
Portugal’s been okay, but Albufeira is way too touristy for my liking, and seven days was a bit too long for staying somewhere so dull, possibly worsened by the lack of – dare I say it – teenage presence. As Kanye once said, ‘my presence is a present, kiss my ass’. Nevertheless, I got some sun and some well-deserved rest before the explosion of revision and exams commences, and the battle against GCSE controlled assessments continues. Hell, I’d be an arse if I didn’t say I was grateful, but I’m looking forward to heading home tomorrow.
And the biggest news of the week: DEADPOOL IS GONNA BE RATED R! DEADPOOL IS GONNA BE RATED R! Thank you @VancityReynolds for making the fan’s dream come true. Now we can finally see Wade Wilson with a mouth and be proper naughty and plagiarise my inner thoughts on the big screen THE DAY AFTER MY 18TH BIRTHDAY. Delicious.
Ha ha! So funny <3.
poetic rage 