The holiday whooshes by with indecent haste. Tonight was our 7th of 13 nights at the resort. But we only just got here. That can't be right. We're so established that a man at the pool sets up the same sun loungers for us each day and we have a reserved table at the restaurant. New guests arrive, pale-skinned and stressed and look to us as village elders' "Yes," I tell them, "You can get pasta at lunch. A man will make it for you especially, although I haven't tried it myself as pasta seems like a weird desire on a tropical island and if the pizza is anything to go by it's best avoided anyway."
The newbies nod at me and my wisdom. I don't tell them about the breakfast pancakes just yet. Let them mentally digest one thing at a time.
I actually don't talk to anyone if I can help it. Luckily the people I wrote about the other day don't seem to have read my blog (or are taking my rudeness pretty well), though to be honest I am not entirely sure which people they were anyway. I am such a native that all the lobster tourists look the same to me now.
We're not going too crazy on the all-inclusive booze (if anything the best thing about all-inclusive is the unlimited water), though today I had a couple of beers with lunch and then another one on my sun lounger at about 3pm and then we travelled beyond the realms of our tribe to the other bar (about 200 metres away) where the non-Beach Bungalow people dwell and had a couple of drinks before dinner whilst we played Scrabble on my iPad. Did we have two more drinks with dinner? We may have. For some reason my memory goes a bit blank at this point.
The bar was pretty much empty at 7, but the woman who was employed to sing various power ballads started work on time anyway. Is this a tough gig or a great one for her? She is a very decent singer, but my guess is that it's not easy to progress on the Maldivian circuit. You could end up singing in the bar of one resort for your whole life. Maybe she'd like that. And whilst the other employees seem to work seven day weeks and be on call all day long, as a singer she has to do a couple of forty-five minute sets every day or so. Showbiz rocks at every level.
Anyway she belted out her songs to the three people who were in the general area, reminding me a little bit of the Flamenco dancer I saw years ago in a late night bar (and if you don't know that story then I recount it again in the Metro on Friday - I think). Also she sang "Let me see what love is like on Jupiters and Mars" which made me like her more. And it's more scientifically accurate that way because if there are parallel universes then there are infinite Jupiters. Though in that case it should also have been Marses. Unless Mars is the centre of all the parallel universes and the meeting point and there's only one of them. I imagine that's what she was implying. A controversial thesis, but exciting nonetheless.
I'm not taking the piss here. Believe me if I was asked to sing some Maldivian songs I think I might make rather more errors than that. I actually think the multiple Jupiters makes the song better. And John Majors and Tony Blairs (amongst others) know how much I enjoy the comedic addition of an unneeded s.
I read more about medieval England, marvelling that the people I was now (re)learning about lived only 400 years before the ones who'd discovered Uranus and the safety lamp and electro-magnets. The world stayed the same for such a long time and then changed so rapidly. Hard to countenance that Edward II and Humphrey Davy might be only a dozen generations apart. Still too much distance for the Davy Anus Guard to be of any use to the unfortunate king (which is why Davy never bothered to invent it). But I was delighted to learn that Edward II might actually have escaped to the continent and an unfortunate porter might have been murdered in his place (unlikely, but possible) Peter Akroyd is very good at discovering this fun little stories.
I am nicely relaxed, slightly tanned (and got first mild sunburn today) and I know where you can get waffles. It feels like I have been here forever and I don't know what day it is. I am hoping this might mean that we accidentally miss our flight home and we get to stay here. I've done fuck all. Can you tell?
