Health warning to start. Lots of alcohol and UV stuff in today’s blog . I’m not a great one for sunbathing so let’s start with the booze. Tequila. Back to music again Isabella aged 94 . I’m sure you’ve heard of “ The Eagles “ Most famous for “ Hotel California “ You can check out but you can never leave. Sounds a bit like me in my room during the Big V. But they also recorded a song called “ Tequila Sunrise. “
“ Take another shot of courage,
Wonder why the right words never come,
You just get numb.
It’s another tequila sunrise
This old world still looks the same
Another frame.”
Now, I’ve had a Jack Daniels at night, I’ve had a Scotch, I’ve had a glass of wine and I am planning on a Pimms this weekend ( only problem is making a Pimms just for two when the lemonade bottles are so huge and go flat so quickly after opening ) so, I am thinking there is going to be a lot of Pimms drinking. But, not had any tequila. Largely, because I don’t have a bottle in my over-flowing drinks cabinet. I’ve had it in the past, but it’s not one of those alcoholic drinks that get better with age. And you have to be careful not to buy a brand that uses as worm in the preparation. Because that was the traditional Mexican/ Native American way of making Tequila. Stick a worm ( or two ) in while it’s brewing. From memory ( and I was involved in running a cocktail bar called Che some years ago ) I think it needs to be special kind of worm as well. Not the little creatures you find in your garden . I re-read my very first blog yesterday and was reminded of the lady I saw on my last walk around the park who was saving worms from destruction by moving them off the path.
The Margarita and the Tequila Sunrise are the two most famous tequila based cocktails. But, why am I rattling on about tequila first thing in the morning? The answer is that it’s very good for you. It has an agave flavour. It’s good for your bones, it’s good for your skin, it’s healthier than most so-called health drinks. And it helps you to sleep. Well, particularly if you down a whole bottle before bedtime , I suppose. So, when they sang of a Tequila Sunrise, I am thinking, they weren’t talking about waking up to a gigantic tequila based hangover, but a good seven to eight hours sleep after just one or two cocktails. I am going to get a worm free bottle and substitute it for milk on my cereal tomorrow and let you know the result.
Then there was the champagne popping as Liverpool won the Premier League title last night without kicking a ball. Chelsea beat their nearest rivals Manchester City ( a mere twenty-two points behind ) 2-1 and it was job done. As you can imagine social distancing went out of the window in Liverpool last night as the fans thronged the streets. And social distancing went out of the window in Bournemouth during the day.
I rarely watch anything on tv that resembles the news, but, even I watched in horror as half a million people descended on the South Coast, It was like a scene from a Disaster movie with a rent-a-crowd of extras. There are only about 200,000 people who live in the Bournemouth area anyway. Most of them are in wheelchairs or of an age when they’ve retired to the coast for some peace and tranquility. I spent my very first holiday in Bournemouth when I was about 11 years old. Yes, I was a bit deprived when it came to hols. My dad only closed his shop on Thursday afternoons and Sundays and was scared to take a real holiday in case he lost a customer or two to one of his rivals. One old-fashioned like him the other a Greek-Cypriot stylist.
Later in our lives we went for a weekend to Bournemouth every year with our friends Len and Clemy and Robby and Ros as our wedding anniversaries were close together . We always stayed at one of the kosher hotels down there and had a routine of picking a weekend when Bournemouth were playing at home and Robby, Len and I would buy tickets in advance and walk there after lunch on the Saturday. This was long before the club made the heady heights of the Premier League and they were useless. The ground was unfinished with one end a building site. But, it became a part of our routine every October.
The hotels weren’t the best either. I remember complaining when a leg fell off our bed in the middle of the night and the owner/manager told me I had nothing to complain about because there was a kid staying there and all four of his legs had fallen off the night before. The hotel had a bar that nobody used. Jews ( except for me ) don’t really drink and HMRC actually investigated the establishment because they refused to believe the declared bar takings.
But, the 500,000 who descended on the town and its beaches yesterday weren’t going to a kosher hotel ( there is only one there now anyway and it’s ultra-orthodox so not for the likes of me ) They were heading for the beach and as I am sure you know created a major headache for the police. I can only hope these idiots also created headaches for themselves from too much sun. You will recall that I once devoted a whole blog to the brilliant song, “Sunscreen “ I hope they didn’t take sunscreen either. I hope they got burned to a frazzle, I hope even now they are slapping on calamine and aloe vera to alleviate the pain. I hope they trod on jelly fish and can’t put their feet on the ground for the pain of the stings. I hope that Portugese Man o’War thingies bit them. I hope they got their cars towed away. ( 5000 parking tickets given out. Hurrah ! ) I hope they all got stuck in massive traffic jams on the way home and couldn’t find a toilet that was open. I hope that this extraordinary experiment in seeing how resistant half a million people mingling side by side on a beach can be to the Big V actually works. Because, if it does, it can save a fortune in looking for a vaccine. All I know is that if I was given the choice of either becoming a human guinea pig for a Big V vaccine trial or spending three hours driving to Bournemouth, one hour looking for somewhere to park, two hours on a crowded beach with millions of others and then driving back for another few hours nursing my sun burn and a parking ticket, then I would be saying, here’s my left arm, stick the needle in. What was that famous line from “ Jaws. “ … “ just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water” ? Well, I hope I am proved wrong, but I don’t think it is.
Apart from the above idiots the hard luck story of the week has to be the bloke who ordered a brand new £200,000 Lamborghini Huracan, proudly drove it out of the showroom and then twenty minutes later reduced it to a mangled wreck on the M1. Seems the car had stopped after having mechanical problems ( well, you expect those in a cheap car like that, don’t you ? ) and was hit by a van. I don’t know how much the van cost or whether or not that was also a write-off or whether tequila or champagne had anything to do with the incident. But, I am sure that had a little sunscreen been applied then the whole incident could have been avoided.
Anyway, the hoovering and dusting and general cleaning of my through room calls. My wife has gone to the tip for the first time since March and I want to have it all clean and sparkling by the time she returns.
Next blog on Sunday if I am spared so have a good weekend, a good Sabbath and stay safe,