The people of Mauritius are very friendly and genuinely pleasant. Even the beach hawkers are little to no trouble and seem to leave you alone if you're not interested.
A couple of days ago one approached us and was very chatty. He wanted to know where we were from, guessing we were German, which didn't help his cause. When he found out we were English he seemed very pleased and complimented us on the fact that we were not all white and pasty like the rest of our countrymen (flattery in this case was going to get him nowhere). He named loads of places in England to demonstrate that he knew where we were from and then asked me what football team I supported.
He was a bit wrong-footed when I told him I followed the fortunes of York City, who he had obviously never heard of. "Oh yes," he said, "They're in Division 2 aren't they?"
"I wish," I replied. Though with a bit of luck they might be next year.
He supported Liverpool and was most amusing about their mixed fortunes this season and in fact he was so genuinely effusive about everything that you couldn't help but be entertained by his shenanighans. Even though we all knew he was only here because he wanted to sell us some of the tat that was draped around his arm.
He was funny though and persistent in the face of something that certainly had not looked like a sale from my firm "No thanks" as he had originally approached.
Everyone here has us already married off and he told me that I could buy something lovely for my wife. If I was any kind of comedian I would have said, "Oh God no, she thinks I am at a sales conference in Birmingham," but I just smiled, hoping that the speculation of a man trying to sell me bracelets on a beach was not legally binding in this country and we had just become betrothed.
He finally realised that we weren't going to get anything and began to move on, but was not giving up completely. "If you need anything, you just ask for me," he smiled. "My name is Del-Boy, but people also call me Lovely Jubbly!"
I wondered if Derek Trotter was the best role model for someone hoping to sell things to a gullible public. But it was another example of him trying to ingratiate himself by the use of references that we, as English people would understand. If we had been German, no doubt he would have supported Berlin United (sorry not very good on football and can't spell Burussia Munchengladbach) and talked about how Becks beer came from Bremen and said "They call me Herr Heinrich Humperdinker" or whatever the Aryan equivalent of Del-Boy might be. Surely he wasn't Del Boy to the Germans or the French. That would mean nothing to them.
You had to at least admire his research skills.
Today he approached us again. "It's me! Remember? Del-Boy?" At least his kept his story straight. He was full of smiles and flattering chat and a slightly more insistent sales pitch, but I was not biting. "Maybe on Wednesday or Thursday," I lied, trying to get rid of him.
"I am not working here on Thursday," he snapped back, "You must find me on Wednesday."
I pretended I would, but intend to hide in my room the whole time that day.
I don't need any of Del-Boy's hookey gear.
And I worked out who was almost certainly responsible for stealing my pants and changing my beer into wine. Let's blame Georgia, shall we? She's a convenient hate figure for almost all of you it seems (and for those of you who didn't like the entry, remember that even if she were to Google "Georgia" - and who only googles their first name except Cher, Jordan and Lulu - then it's going to take her a long time to work her way through all the thousands of entries to find my silly blog and even if she got there she doesn't speak English, so I think she's safe from what was, as usual, inappropriate self-mockery). Today as I ate my lunch she was shooting a water pistol into her father's unflinching face. He tried to ignore her and didn't join in with her game (as most of you correctly realise, it's really the parents who are cunts), but she kept on firing, laughing sardonically to herself. Not realising what a prick she was.
The twat.
