Andy's Glasses

I took this picture this morning at breakfast while Mel went to get her muesli, oatmeal, yoghurt, fruit and as many other healthy options as she can fill her bucket with. I waited for less healthy stuff to arrive. Figuring: I’ve got all year to diet and sort out any heart issues, vein blockages, arterial difficulties. Oh! All year is the next 15 hours. So I just clicked my camera to upset a friend in England with whom messaging was occurring. Just to cause him some grief. Because I’m a bad and horrible person, through and through. And then I looked at the picture and, even though I know none of the people in it and, have no desire to meet them, it is a lovely photo, evocative of the total vibe here. Although being ‘new years’ here, (and possibly there) that vibe is shattered by the constant Hispano-Techno music blaring out of the PA. I invented that type of music. It’s loud, fast techno with words in Spanish. Or possibly ‘Techs-Mex’. Shame you can’t share it. Goes like this: “BOOM!!BOOM!!BOOM!!BESSA-ME-MUCHO-BOOM!!BOOM!!BOOM!!DES-PACITO…” rinse and repeat.

The party started at breakfast. As I was finishing my 3rd latte of the morning, those around me were in margeritaville, sipping mimosas or having vodka shots with their pancakes. And why not? You’re only 24 stone overweight, why not load up on beer at 9am?

By the time ‘water aerobics’ started at 12, there were 50 drunk North Americans in the pool splashing round. It was fun. But everything is fun here. Maybe I should rethink the timeshare plan. The I could come next year and probably save at least $5 on the total cost! And just for an investment of 20k. Looking better value all the time. 4000 more trips and I’d break even!!!

The worst part is, even with all the gloating and sending photos like this around to upset those in damp, dark, dismal London, we’re going home tomorrow. Noooooo…
Mel better get up to speed on spicy margaritas or there’ll be trouble.

Happy New Year all, may it bring happiness joy and (you have to say, even though no-one’s assassinated Putin yet), peace.

A xxxx

I have hundreds of tv channels in my hotel room. In fact, 237. And 236 are Spanish, French, German, Russian (?) or Japanese. One is in English. CNN. Which could be worse; it could be Fox News. But that’s in Spanish. Probably showing a Democrat bias here in Mexico. I don’t know.

What I do know is, if that’s the only channel available which we can understand, my knowledge of American current affairs has skyrocketed in the last 7 days. From ‘nothing, couldn’t give a shit’ to a position of deep understanding of all political and social affairs concerning our once-colony to the west. And along with that understanding comes a great relief that we’re no longer responsible for what they do. The Boston Tea Party was a blessing.

Congressman George Santos is big news. A little man in big trouble. He was the first Brazilian gay man to be elected in New York. Or anywhere. As a Republican, even, a party so mired in conservative shit they quake at abortion, shudder at same-sex marriage and take up arms if anyone tries to stop people shooting schoolchildren. They’re also a party not renowned for tolerance to ‘forriners’ either. But Georgey Boy pushed their buttons and won his seat. Fair and square.

Other than the ‘embellishments’ he may have, sort of, accidentally, put on his cv. Just a few ‘pen strokes’, no harm intended, no foul committed. Right. That’s sorted then.

George is the dark-haired, gay version of Boris Johnson. Men who just lie and lie until they get caught. Then they lie some more to get out of it. And then get caught more.

George claimed to have graduated from a prestigious New York college. He didn’t actually graduate anywhere. He then went to work for Goldman Sacks. Except he didn’t. He claimed to be Jewish. “My grandparents escaped the holocaust!!!”, he stated. Then said he was just “Jew-ish” because he has so many Jewish friends. Not much difference there then. And he was virtually bankrupt in January but somehow amassed $700,000 since whilst not employed.

He gets sworn in on Jan 3rd. Unless he lies under oath whilst that’s happening. Which is a possibility. He can only be removed by various complex processes. The easiest one being grassed out by a guy called Kevin McCarthy who wants to be the speaker of the House. But Kevin doesn’t have enough votes to win and feels ‘outing’ Santos would lose him… well, one vote, which he can’t afford. So he’s thus far said nothing.

So this serial ‘embellisher’ will be in government next week. Because no-one needs to trust their government, do they? We Brits know that only too well.

God Bless America!

Happy Friday

A xxxx

The rains returned to this part of Mexico this morning. No problem, so we swam in the rain. It’s warm here anyway and what’s the worst that can happen? You get wet. But then yoga was abandoned half way through because it didn’t merely rain, it cascaded down in biblical fashion. And the instructor was understandably concerned… about his speaker getting wet. Never mind a dozen flabby old Canadians and Brits fucking drowning doing ‘Cobra’, he was concerned for his ‘devices’.

So we did the only viable thing you can do in such circumstances: go to a timeshare presentation and face the hard sell for an hour and a half so Mel could get a free massage in the Spa later. Though it was amusing. It went like this:

This holiday cost you so many dollars (they don’t have pounds here), which works out at so much per day. All your other holidays cost you so much more per night, per person, per flight, per anything else we can add in to confuse you. That works out at 620 dollars per calendar night of full moons taken over the next 7.3 years. If you add on food (otherwise you’ll starve) and drink (otherwise you’ll be sober) and free umbrellas in the rooms, that works out at $36,497.22! If you join our ‘club’ (they’re all fucking ‘clubs’) we’ll discount your future rates at our hotels, plus every other big-name hotel in the world!!!!, (except the ones not included), all at minimum of 20% discount, maximum of 55%!!!!, which is like for free!!! (Most will be fully booked at the time of the first 7 attempts, the rest will laugh when you mention ‘The Club’). PLUS!!!!, we’ll add in a free week of something for every 10 weeks during which someone in the family sustains an injury, AND we’ll give you lots of other things which, if added up together… SAVE YOU ALMOST NOTHING OF ANY VALUE!!!! So just give us $20,000 and sign here.

As Dale Carnegie said: there’s one born every minute.

Alas though, one dies every minute too. And in today’s minute, it was Pele. Who was, for purposes of the next few weeks, until the obits and the dedications and the endless (I hope) documentaries run out, ‘the greatest footballer ever’. For me that works any time but others may choose another ‘god of the game’ in due course. Possibly an Argentinian. Or two.

Raise a glass for Pele. I loved watching him play like no other before or since.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

There’s so many things to do here. I’m more than satisfied with the core activites: eating. Drinking. Sleeping. Lying in the sun which finally, yesterday, made its statement of intent. Ok, and the ‘stretch’ or ‘yoga’ class at 10 to keep Mel happy. She’s never happier than when balancing on one foot and her nose with both arms in the air and the other foot… I’ve forgotten where that went. Mine went sideways onto the floor with the rest of me at that point. Of course there’s swimming but we always swim before breakfast on holidays. Mel does that at home. I refuse to do it anywhere that requires shoes. Or a coat. But on holidays, in we go. She swims her 1.5k and I do 47 metres. Doggy paddle is not fast.

But then there was Zumba. Zumba? You know, dancing round really energetically until you sweat a lot and fall over. Well, that sounds like me. I love dancing and I’m great at falling over (see above). The class was 10 women and me. Would I have been there if the instructor hadn’t been so gorgeous? YES!! I refused to look at her at all in case someone might misconstrue it as ‘objectification’. So, obviously, I did it all wrong. But it was fun.

Today we tried ‘water aerobics’. This is really brilliant. You stand in a swimming pool, making sure you’re not shaded by any trees which might upset your tan and do yet more dancing whilst watching two really loud Mexican guys having the time of their lives whilst managing to avoid giving any instructions. On the basis that no-one applauded them for giving the few instructions they did give, but everyone whooped and yaaayed and clapped when they twerked. What would you have done? Then you all high five as if you’ve scored a winning goal at the Etihad and go back to the pool thinking ‘WTF?’

This afternoon we went to a cocktail making… lesson? Show? Instruction? Whatever, it was just an excuse to drink a few cocktails during the sunlight hours. Not that Americans and Canadians appear to have any such qualms even when not attending a lesson. Us Brits just eat blueberries and drink water. I just can’t do beer with my cornflakes. (As if I’d eat cornflakes when there’s so much good stuff to ruin the diet with).

Some people have complained that my last blog was a bit insulting to Americans. Particularly those… of a certain dimension. I’ve now realised this error. Because there’s loads of immensely fat Canadians here too!! I never knew. I’ll re-work the statistics overnight, as soon as I’ve finished my 9th margarita.

Happy who-knows-or-cares-what-day-it-is

A xxxx

Here’s a question for you, after my extensive (all the people here), longitudial (3 days) and very statistically valid (because I think so) study of cultural norms and habits in the populations of the entire continent of North America. This is the question: what do you call a fat Canadian? Answer: an American.

This is a three part study, Americans, Canadians and Mexicans. Based mainly on the dimensions of the box you’d need to store one person. Only the first two of those groups feel the need to enter a swimming pool with a drink in one hand and a phone in the other, like our model above.

Mexicans are easy because they’re already box-shaped. In fact they’re lovely. All of them. Ok, the murderous ones in Acapulco and Mexico City not so lovely, probably, but the ones here are fabulously smiley, friendly and delightful. And they’re all of a type. Short, squat, solid and square. Every single one of them, male and female. Except for the babe who took our Zumba class this morning who was beyond gorgeousness with levels of slimness and athleticism not otherwise seen in the general population. Every food that is nominally ‘Mexican’ is fried. They fry fucking everything. And do it very well. But is that healthy? I must question, however tasty it makes food. And Zumba? Yeah, well, desperate times, man.

Canadians are nice people. Not all, but most. They’re big, friendly and quite tall. And they drink a lot. There again, no-one comes to an ‘all inclusive resort’ not to drink a lot. They’re almost normal size, but taller. But if you find someone speaking with that kind of accent who weighs in at 350lbs, that’ll be an American. Not even a fat American. You really have to scale the heights to become one of those. This is a normal person of the USA. A colossus. Requiring a box six foot long, 5 foot wide and 5 foot deep to accommodate him/her. Some are quite friendly but best avoided at meal times.

Tomorrow we’ll concentrate on the other dominant grouping here in Mexico (and everywhere else in the world), Orientals.

There is one other British couple here. I met the man-half at breakfast piling, I kid you not, about a kilo of blueberries onto his plate. I told him that indeed, if you eat 10 blueberries a day, the oxidising effect can prolong your life by a year. However, if you eat 1000 a day, you will not prolong it by 100 years. You’ll be in hospital being sick. Your body can only metabolise so much good stuff, just like bad stuff. The rest is wasted. He’s from Birmingham so I’m not sure how much he understands.

But I’ve resisted the urge to ask anyone ‘where are you from’, you know, just in case they get upset and I get sacked for racism.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

And things to do in Mexico when it rains.

You do…

Yoga!!!

Because you can. And because there’s not really a lot else to do when you’re on a beach, by a pool, geared up for sunshine activities and the sunshine won’t play.

And I’ve always been a bit ‘judgmental’ (vast understatement) of yogis, always sneered at their everything, found no comfort in what purports to be some kind of physical activity but in reality is 17 paths to sleep. How wrong I was! Almost.

We started rather strangely. It’s about breathing. (Like I haven’t worked out how to fucking breathe yet). Cover your left nostril, breathe in deeply through your right one.

My first thought: but there’s no cocaine here.
My second thought: really? Breathing through individual nostrils? That’s gonna make me live longer? Ok, go with the flow… I looked at Mel on her mat with her finger up her nose and was so close to just ‘losing it’.

It did improve. There again, it couldn’t get worse, from that start point. We yogi-ed it up a bit, got a bit ‘warrior’, we downward dogged, did some other horrible things which produced more pain than good, one felt, but you have to do something indoors, why not this.

We stretched, we kvetched, we limbered, we did some balance stuff. We fell over. Ok, I fell over. But you have to. Otherwise you’ll never reach… levels of yoga-ness… to which… errrr… you really need to be.

Then we had a swim. Well, rain’s wet, swimming pools are wet; its a good fit. And it is warm here. Pleasantly so. But the pool’s long. Like 60 metres long. I can do 10 lengths of a 25 metre pool easy. Then I might do another 10 if I’m not bored. But 60 metres in one go? Holy shit, that’s hard. No idea why. We walked along the fabulous beach here. Whilst holding an umbrella.

And the rest of the time we ate. Ok, and drank.

I’m not saying life’s bad here. Just wet.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

It’s amazing. The wonders of modern travel. You can leave home in London and arrive at a super, seaside resort on the coast in Cancun, just 19 hours later. Ok, I won’t moan, its unbecoming for someone so lucky to have this ultimate of ‘1st world problems’, but 19 hours!!! So that’s a 10 hour flight and nine hours of total bollocks, bullshit, time-wasting, waiting and, in my case, total impatience. I mean, I’d have paid more for convenience. How much would it have cost to have a private jet pick us up from our local park, drop us effortlessly at a helicopter pad in Cancun which would have us to our hotel in 14 minutes. That would have cut about 8.5 hours from the trip, meant we could have eaten a lot more, drunk loads more margaritas and been so relaxing that the additional £138,792.44 would have seemed worth it.

Hindsight.

Never mind, we’re here!!! In Playa del Majures and its… pissing down. Grey skies, like we get at home, pouring rain, like we get at home and room service, like I get at home. But…

It’s warm. Wonderfully, barmily, tropically warm. Because (as far as I’m concerned) we’re in the jungle. I share the 5 year-old’s view of geography. If its lush, dense, tall and green and stretches for more than 22 yards; its a jungle. Unfortunately that means snakes but haven’t seen any yet. THANK GOOOOOOOODDDD. Because I share Indiana Jones’ view of snakes.

Decided that, although we’re ‘all inclusive’, I’d miss out on the tequila for breakfast. Just for today. As we did a ‘stretch class’ straight after and I thought being sober might make it easier and better. I was wrong. The guy who took it was your normal smiling, charming Mexican happy person, or appeared to be until he started with the ‘now take your left leg, wrap it round your neck three times and pull both arms in opposite directions whilst bending 90 degrees from the waist’. Little fucker. Just another sadistic bastard but this time with a Hispanic accent.

So I’m fed, watered, latte-ed up to the eyeballs and its still raining. But I don’t care. I’m care-free, don’t ‘ave ta do nuffink and this place is fantastic.

Very happy holidays

A xxxx

It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be afraid. Apparently. They didn’t sing that at Gatwick airport on Christmas Eve during a train strike, border control strike, nurses and ambulance strike and pilots strike, did they? Ok, I lied about the pilots to enhance the story. But really, its hell here. Bob Geldof’s starving Africans were lucky to have avoided the South Terminal in late December.

That may be some kind of exaggeration too. I do that. To get sympathy. But trust me: it’s HELL getting to Mexico for a winter-sun, white sand, super-luxurious, free-sombreros, all you can drink Marguerita-fest, a charitable event to raise awareness for the ‘worms’. The ones at the bottom of a bottle of Mescal tequila. We’re all wearing ‘save the worm’ t-shirts and are trying to instil vegan values to enhance our battle against this cruel and senseless tradition. Worms have feelings too, ya know!!! Oh, they’re not really worms anyway, more, maggots. And as such have the most under-developed sensory system of any animal outside of East European football clubs.

I shouldn’t complain. I leave that to Mel. She’s a pre-emptor. I only complain about bad shit that’s happening or happened, and about Arsenal, whereas she’s already complaining about things that might happen next week. Foresight. Foremoaned is forearmed. Though only about holidays. It’s her way of coping with this post-covid, will-it/won’t-it happen mentality instilled upon us over the last 3 years. She’s not really a complainer generally. It’s just the insecurity and unpredictability of travel which causes her (and me) stress and concern and always have a lingering doubt that it won’t actually happen. Will be cancelled. We’ll be turned away for sneezing at check-in. Fog. Rain. Snow. Air. Water. Covid. Strikes. Death.

And that’s it so far. I must admit. Gatwick’s never looked more beautiful. Of course, I’ll keep you appraised of all eventualities.

Happy Christmas!!!!

A xxxx

A massive day for all Scottish men and women. And everyone else in between. Because Madame Sturgeon, slayer of the Salmond, purveyor of Evil, daughter of Satan!!, has decreed that in ‘her’ country, there are no borders or barriers between the genders, all nine of them. And you can truly be ‘whatever you wish to be’ in that land of Braveheart (who ‘transed’ in 1679 to be the Queen SHE always wanted to be) and Roberta Burns and Billie-Jean Bremner.

Yes, the wokes have won, north of the border. So if you remain in the unenlightened south, where men are still men and women reserve all rights, but you fancy spending a few hours in a changing room or public toilet, or maybe a prison, of the alternative gender assignment, just hop on a train to Glasgow and perve away. Its legal up there.

What Sturge et al have actually done is got the maths wrong. Its not a socio-philosophy problem but just numbers. Because to avoid causing upset, stress and confusion in a very small group of people already upset, stressed and confused, they’re prepared to the throw the safety and security of half of their population (the gel half, as in gels with wombs and bits and pieces of the more expected nature) under the fucking bus of obsessive political correctness.

Everyone is entitled to ‘safe spaces’. Even women. And by allowing (the possibility) of some 6 foot 7 caber-tosser with a long, red beard and a kilt to stroll into a ladies loo because he ‘identifies’ as a woman and is dressed in a kilt, just ain’t right. To stop him (if yer ‘ard enough) would be to refuse HER basic human rights.

I love Scotland. They make some of the finest Scotch anywhere. Errrr… And I love a good Scotch. But, really? This is ‘progress’? Really???

Happy Friday

A xxxx

It’s been a bumper week for me, musically. I recorded a ‘history of Fleetwood Mac’ and have been watching. It’s a different one. Not new but different to the previous 10 ‘histories of Fleetwood Mac’ I’ve watched. This one going right back to the Peter Green days of ‘Albatross’ and ‘oh well’. Following the tragic death of Christine McVie the other week, tv goes into ‘obit-mode’ and that’s just fine with me. Any old footage of Stevie Nicks is good footage. And the music is just as good today when sober and drug-free as it was in 1979 when none of that applied. In-juuurring, innit.

But in last Sundays paper was a feature about another favourite. In fact, the only musical favourite I have born this side of 1979. Taylor Swift. And I love her too. Not in ‘that way’… ok, a bit in ‘that way’ because, if I wasn’t such a post-me-too, super-woke, non-objectifying egalitarian icon!, I’d be prepared to woolf whistle.

Yet its not about that. It’s about the music and more, it’s about the woman.

The songs pretty much speak for themselves. And every 66 year-old British man with grandchildren can easily relate and empathise with how difficult it is to grow up as a teen girl in Mississippi. The boys, the clothes, the angst, it all resonates. Period pains in the shadow of burning crosses whilst dressed full cheerleader mode; we’ve all been there.

But those lyrics are simply brilliant. And she writes them all. That, however, is the easy bit. The hard part is keeping control of your songs, your music, your life, when you’re a one-person industry and everyone wants a piece of you. A big piece. Yet little Taylor not only fights the musical giants (Sony, Spotify, Alexa) on her own behalf, she insists on better deals for those less fortunate, who don’t get 4 million downloads a week. The strugglers, the unknowns, the grass roots of the music biz. And she wins. Then she engages her fans. Previews new songs and albums to them, privately, meets them, has them over for girly nights (we’re all girls, Taylor’s fans, its just a matter of how you identify) and actually listens to them. Which keeps her ‘in touch’ and off the pedestals that other ‘grounded’ stars seem to hoist themselves onto.

Ok, and she’s a total babe.

I think I’m ready for some more football in my life now. It’s been almost a week and its taking its toll.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx