Postcards From The Edge (of the pool)
17 September 2001
Sorry to rub it in. (The suntan lotion, of course.) Just a cheeky factor 4 for the moment, build up a lovely golden base before we get onto some serious bronzing with the old vegetable oil. Pass the Pimm's, dear. Why do columnists on holiday insist on getting someone to fill in for them, leaving a little picture of themselves at the bottom of the article so you don't forget it's usually them that fills that space? If I had a readership of thousands of 9 to 5 workers who never see south of Cornwall, earning a thousand pounds a month if they're lucky, I'd be sure to rub their faces in the fact that not only did I earn five times as much as them and do a fifth of the amount of work as them, I also got five weeks of holiday a year and got to spend them in the sunniest places on the globe. Let's face it, if you're going to leave yourself open to burglary by blaring out the weeks when your house is going to be unattended, you might as well piss a few people off at the same time. Take me, right now. (No sniggering at the back.) I'm laying in a hammock, a mere three metres from an ice-cold swimming pool. The temperature outside is an estimated 31 degrees. If the sky was a shade of Dulux it would be Mediterranean Azure or Dolphin Blue, and it's entirely devoid of cumulo-nimbal blemishes. The fridge is well stocked with lager, white and pink wine, and watermelon; the freezer features ice cream, ice cubes and vodka. The barbecue is still out from last night's feast. It's eleven thirty, and I'm the only one up. It's the detachment from the rest of the world, as well. Leave the mobile turned off. Don't give anyone the phone number of the villa. And only listen to foreign radio stations. Anything could happen between now and the time I get home: no news, no intrusions, nothing to shatter the idyll of the best kind of solitude. When the biggest question you have to ask yourself is 'Beach or Pool?' or 'Wine or G & T before dinner?', you forget all about the things that really mattered to you a few days earlier. Suddenly the residual crap that flooded your dreams in the working week, refused to leave you alone for months on end, gets sweated out in the sun and wiped off onto the beach towel. And damn, does that feel good. It can't last, of course. Every day that goes by seems like two days nearer that dreadful Monday when you walk through the office doors again, people asking you how it was and reminding you with every breath of what you left behind. When you take off your watch and see the tan lines; when you pick up your photos from Boots; when you go to the VD clinic to get checked out, if it was that sort of holiday. Every little recall of the time is a desperate attempt to hang on to the world that seems a thousand miles away, and simultaneously a painful reminder of the life you almost lived Maybe that's why journalists don't stress the point. What if you pissed people off so much they bombarded you with their own postcards every time they went away? Imagine getting a hundred messages a day from people having a better, more relaxing time than you, a hundred fuck-yous for being smug, over-privileged and untalented. Maybe they should pay exorbitant sums for ghost writers to fill in while they're away, so it looks like they work so hard they can't spare the time to have a holiday. Maybe they'd get letters of sympathy, invitations to dinner, offers of villas for a week or two. Maybe I'm on to something. If any passing journalists want someone to fill in, my email's just below. Cheers.
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