Come Fly With Me

www.paulcoia.com


Hey it’s good to be back. I’ve just returned from an awful lot of holiday and just a little bit of time travelling.

The holiday was in Portugal’s sunny Algarve whilst the time travelling was back to the fog bound days when Britain had an empire of fat, posh people with gout who would stick their veined, bulbous, noses in the air and order the working class to lick their boots, prepare dinner and service the wife in return for a bit of floor to sleep on and a half hour off on Christmas day to get deloused.

Other than Polish builders I thought no one had to put up with that sort of condescension these days, until I went on holiday and found enough “attitude” coming my way to make me feel I’d slipped in to a Charles Dickens novel.

In going on holiday I had joined the lowest of the low, the shoeless class known as The Ordinary Unwashed Rabble In Search of a Tan, or TOURIST for short.

All year round I carry a briefcase and laptop when I get on board a plane but till now I didn’t realise that these were secret symbols of a special club or lodge where people had to be nice to you. Board a plane wearing a T shirt and a pair of shorts and dare to travel economy, and you may as well shout “I want to wipe snot on your face” as you will be ignored, pushed and pulled, and end up feeling like something the scullery maid scraped off her master’s dinner plate.

I’m not a bad person. I don’t go around kicking walking sticks away from old grannies – though I did once accidentally bump in to Joan Collins – so why were my usual smiles met by surly jobsworths from the minute I joined the conga lines waiting to check in? Why is it OK for the plane to be seven hours late and for airport shop assistants to talk to each other rather than me as I’m waiting to pay for my newspaper? Why is all eye contact with us tourists banned along with obviously obscene swear words like Thank You or You’re Welcome?

I can understand that the tourist uniform can seem scary. The men with one earring, and footie shirts strained over the belly while the missus wears gold Birkenstocks with mini denim skirt and a cropped T shirt to show off the crazy art work of stretch marks and cellulite mixed with Bruce Wayne’s Bat signal on the lower back. But we’re not all like that. We may take over beaches with strained, and stained, Speedos and our women may go topless while imagining they look like a Footballer’s wife, but they know really that unless Manchester United sign Arthur Daley they’ll never be that wife.

So, vacations are actually a two week fantasy for us Tourists. But why can’t others join in with us and go along with it?

The planes used for The Ordinary Unwashed Rabble In Search of a Tan are a bit like an old groupie that’s been passed around by many previous owners, and the trolley dollies who look down on us, sorry, look after us, are made to wear garish coloured dresses with so much cheap nylon that the static could light up Detroit for a winter. Whilst captivated by their rhythmic gum chewing perhaps I only imagined their downturned mouths and the announcement of “Please turn off any electrical devices, just as we are turning off our personalities and smiles until we can get shot of you lot”.

Tavel as a business person and you get a sandwich and a cup of coffee but travel as a tourist and everything costs more. “Oh, you want to sit do you? That will be extra sir. A cup of tea? That’s ten Euros. You want toilet paper? That will be another three Euros but it’s extra for soap and we can arrange for someone to wipe your bottom for another twenty.”

The sandwich was so stale I had to dunk it in my tea but I managed to slip the rest in a wheeled bag the passenger in front had dragged aboard to save paying for an extra piece of luggage in the hold. I’m sure he had his kids in there along with the whole family’s luggage, three inflated lilos and a hired minibus to take them from Faro airport.

As if things couldn’t get worse, the bus from the aircraft to passport control found me standing next to former politician and reality show contestant George Galloway. There’s always something that upsets your stomach on holiday isn’t there?

But I did like the welcoming attitude of the Portuguese, even down to the English language newspaper laid on at the airport to introduce us to their culture. Amongst the advice on sunscreen and binge drinking, there was a wonderful story on page ten of the Portugal News (dated 2nd August if you want to check) about a man who had shot his neighbour.

Jose Correia was jailed for the attempted murder of Jose Macedo but tried to excuse himself by saying he believed his neighbour had sodomised his cat and had turned the animal homosexual.

At least Jose had understood the necessity for those around us to join in the fun of our holiday and make us smile. Next time The Ordinary Unwashed Rabble In Search of a Tan come to town I wish someone would tell the airlines.