Alexis Colby Celebrates Her 40th Birthday – It’s the new 30. With a little bit of arthiritis.

My one-hour delay on Irish carrier “Nofrillsair” (how the pilots eventually make up the time in these situations still baffles me) was nothing compared to the poor experience of Speedy Gonzales and his wife, a friendly Mexican couple, who were seated next to me on the short 90-minute flight to Barcelona. Mrs G wept most of the flight, which he felt obliged to explain. In non-existent English. They had missed the lunchtime flight from Luton by five minutes because of traffic, were forced to pay again for 2 more tickets and wait 6 hours for the next flight. Poor sods. Afterwards, rather than leave me be with my new Mark Haddon book, they wanted to talk about Iraq, the Royal Family and the Falkland Islands. I told them the Falklands “War” was just an excuse to get Prince Andrew out the country. After a nice short snappy 100km bus ride from Girona, I reached a gay bed and breakfast in Barcelona around midnight, checking in with and checking out Nacho, a comical, friendly and utterly apathetic Spaniard, who rented out rooms with red duvets and red bedside lamps in a large building north of the Eixemple area. My room made me feel like an escort. There was no money on the bedside table in the morning (I am a good boy now) when I headed to the nearby resort of Sitges. The temperature inside the train was almost 30 degrees and made all the more uncomfortable by a large woman standing over me. Talk about frying pans and fire. Hot? If you’d have thrown me against a wall, I would have stuck. Permanently. I fell off the train like water through a sieve and lightly cooked, I encountered other sweltering members of the Big Brother “experience.” Dylan’s best mate Sandra, Helen, one of Brian’s old zoo buddies, Bonnie, a short-haired southern lesbian and her girlfriend, Venus Williams lookalike, Valerie. A brief supermarket sweep without Dale Winton and a ten-minute cab ride later, we opened up to a beige-bricked slice of heaven, balconies stretching out in all directions like the house was waking from a mid-afternoon siesta. A small wooden bar rested near the marine-blue pool where I grappled with lesbian Lindsay Lohan, aka the lilo, Sienna the inflatable kid’s shark defeated everyone in its path and Dylan used his rubber noodle to overcome his swimming phobia.

As posters and early “Life of Brian” memorabilia adorned the walls, the first key “event” was the smuggling of Andy into the Big Brother house, Brian’s own big brother, a surprise guest from Milwaukee, one he had not seen for two years. Brian was told Rachel had disappeared to the supermarket under the pretext of forgetting to get limes for Gin and Tonic whilst in reality she was sitting in an airport waiting, waiting and waiting for Andy’s arrival, just a few minutes apart from that of Dylan and Brian. Once at the house, Dylan sent Brian to the bar to get him a G&T and his brother just emerged like a jack-in-the-box to a chorus of cheers from us and tears from little brother, who stood there perplexed and in total shock. I was in shock too. We still had no limes and lemons are not the same. Over the next few days, though, lemons turned into lemonade in the baking sun, temperatures rarely dropping below 27. Little by little, following Andy’s example, new housemates were introduced into the house to stir things up and provide the entertainment. No-one regretted a thing as Jean-Michel arrived to bellow out Edith Piaf’s famous song, his boyfriend Andreas, who, apparently could get lost in a paper bag, took four hours to get there. Buxom party animal Anna showed up with a friend in toe, Larisse, who had signed herself off work sick with a bad back the same morning she arrived and then spent as much time as possible avoiding the possiblity of a return-to-work tan. She could have used Andreas’ thick factor 60 suncream. Scientists are thinking of smearing it on cracks in the ozone layer. The three went into the sea by the gay beach in town, which contained a thousand clones, all wearing differing shades but same size Abercrombie tops and Aussiebum bottoms. Same size equals tight. One does not need to breathe. Apparently, it’s overrated. When Anna emerged from the sea in the style of Ursula Andress, outdone by a hoard of gay men, practicing the same move, her mascara had run. Dylan told her it was fine. She looked like a Chinese panda. As we necked seafood and Sangria at Santa Maria restaurant, back at the ranch, the booze was also going down as often as Rachel into the pool. Justin and Jo argued, made up and argued some more. Helen, an inspiration in her own right, who had been fiddling with her boobs and tubes, had her kidneys seen to by Spanish doctors n the Hospital del Mar, Sandra belted out the classic “Leave Brian alone”, we all knocked out Tainted Love and obviously happy birthday as a Tiramisu cake was wheeled out during a birthday barbecue. Further treats lay in store as Bonnie wrote and performed a song to Brian to the tune of “I will survive” with adorable girlfriend and actress Valerie excelling as a backing singer as she had as a drug-dealing ho. Bonnie was far more coordinated at this task compared with the first time I met her at a barbecue when she sprayed my trousers with tomato ketchup. Wrong sausage, love. Crouched beneath the bar, and with one foot in a bag of shit, I also helped Dylan to put on an X-rated puppet show of the owl and the bear, which involved a sexual act, that did not please the stuffed and moulting bear. That’s best left alone.

With little news filtering in from the outside world, we relaxed by the pool, learned of the reasons why Brian just cannot see fat people (having had his nose broken and mullet yanked by a fat person in the 80s), why he hates being part-Belgian (they are dull and have no point) and his utter contempt for the talentless Posh Spice and Jade Goody (enough said, I can’t blame him there.) Unlike the persistent Miss Goody, Lee was the first to go/ be evicted from the Big Brother house. You are live on Channel Four, please do not swear. Fck that. Davina the taxi is coming to get you. You have thirty seconds to say your goodbyes. Possibly after that nice break, though, a few Hellos are a little more more likely. Now if you’ll excuse me, for 15K, Heat want me. Well, heat has had me and sunkissed, I got back to London 14 hours ago.

 

Ramble on the Rambla

My much-needed week break in Barcelona got off to a flying start, albeit eventually. Escaping grey colours and shadowy relationships, I was in generally good spirits at Luton Airport as a Polish toddler had kept me entertained me by running away from his mother every time she tried to sit and have a coffee. I often feel like that. I used to scream when she left the room. Now only when she enters. He got the better of her for an hour! I did not even mind too much when the X-ray security team spilt all my loose change on the floor and as I bent to pick it up, my belt-less trousers almost came down. Then, the blood started creeping down the wall. My mother called whilst I was buying a toothbrush to tell me that “Andrew was not well again, Keith and Linda could not make it up after all because of his diabetes and Elana has had trouble breastfeeding and that Ilan Aarons, a friend from Scouts 20 years ago, was now living in Germany and that I should not get robbed”. Then the cracks in the walls. BAD Time. Budget Airline Delays. Ours was at least not an unoriginal excuse. The pilot picking us up had hit a bird. Presumably, this was not an aggressive attack on his wife but a winged creature, who was betrayed by his sat nav and flew straight into a fireball. Once respects were paid at his immediate cremation, we were allowed on board, where I was subjected to two women chatting about Kylie’s fears of turning 40 and a “shall I dump him or marry him dilemma?” I told her at the end to finish it, though I did not say for his sake. We all need to stop analysing and start living. Already irritated, people decided to clap wildly at the end of the flight, in appreciation of a murderous pilot, who had carried out a job he is not expected to fail in and belatedly. You’d think we had just defeated the Luftwaffe. God, I hate audience participation.After arriving in Girona, I jumped on a bus, arriving just after 1, at my hostel, which was still under construction. Although I did eventually fall asleep in my nice private room for 12, it dawned on me that my hostelling days were probably behind me. A lack of air conditioning, snoring strangers, broken computers, lifts that don´t listen and a check out policy even for people staying all combined to slowly drive me nuts. The city itself, you cannot fault. It was a little confusing at first as the main streets weaved in and out of each other, surprising for an urban grid system planned by the Romans. But then they always had it in for suffering Jewish martyrs. Cafes con leche, estrella beers and walks down the Rambla, where chickens, rabbits and birds went stir crazy in cages, conmen tried to rip off gullible tourists and Native Americans play panpipes for money in front of designer shops few have the pesetas for. I also observed how much better the Spanish seemed to take better care of their health, diet and appearance than the English and North Americans. Generally speaking. That said, I do feel that in the humour stakes, the English are light years ahead.

After a month falling in love with Spain, Lucasz, my Canadian friend from a lifetime ago, arrived in tow with Melissa, a blonde tattooed smiley punk, who talked with a slightly irritating inflection as though everything was a question, was tattooed everywhere, pierced everywhere, even Jesus was on her ear, which may expain why some people have struggled to find him. She was pro choice for plastic surgery, which seemed odd as I never thought people had nose jobs against their will. She was a vegan, who quit her hairdresser job in Canada by sending a postcard home. She spent eight hours in a Spanish A&E while we were there as her ankle tattoo showed signs of a blood infection. The very sight of it, and her other tattoos, made me need a siesta. That is why Lucasz and his media colleague Wes, an amiable ubercamp bearded man, went out instead. We tried bars on the gay scene, among them, one called Zeltas, where Melissa (blonde punk) stole the thunder of the male dancer on the podium by doing yoga stretches in front of him and on the second night, I met Rui, a 34 year-old Madrid-based sales manager from Lisbon, who offered me his fluffy pillows and hotel room for the evening. Thoughtful man. Melissa was less thoughtful the following day when she screamed I had a love bite on the Rambla. Rui, apologising after, said he wanted to give me a souvenir. Somewhat embarrassed, I had already got some postcards, I told him.

The OTHER sights I saw plenty. The Gothic quarter, Picasso Museum, the beach with its harassing masseuse, who looked like she was kneading bread not relaxing this British pensioner, markets with pain au chocolats the size of your feet and cheeses whose odours would knock you off you them. We took a sweltering bus ride to Park Guell, which was made all the more heated by a busdriver, who insisted on cramming the bus to capacity and then some. This was not London. As nice as Mrs Pavarotti’s cleavage seemed to be, soft, I thought I may ask to sit on the roof at one point. The park offered great views of the city and Gaudi-inspired buildings, one of which, according to Melissa, looked like Fraggle Rock. Gaudi’s most impressive creation has to be the towering Sagrada Familia, given to Gaudi by a Barcelona businessman on the basis of Gaudi’s blue eyes. Apparently he had a premonition that the task would be completed by a bloke with blue eyes. So Gaudi got the job. It was kind of like my bizarre interview here. I could not help thinking that for all the impressive detail of Jesus and his posse, Gaudi’s vision and attention failed him at a crucial time… when he was killed by a tram in 1928. Still, they all end up with bizarre endings. Picasso went so mad at the end, he was painting pigeons that did not even deserve to go on the fridge and Van Gogh cut off his ear and mailed it to his girlfriend. Poor cow. Expecting something from Amazon. Imagine her surprise. An artist´s life is not a happy one. A traveller´s one is not an easy one.

Mine got no easier as I moved out of Centric Point Hostel and into a noisy Hostel Paradiso, where I learned Finnish people are attractive but a little on the bland side, Americans are funny to laugh with and at and hostel staff are generally useless. I moved out of there and into Hostel Centro for some rest. Although this was a dingy private room with musty wallpaper, a crackly tv and with the ambiance of a monastery, I was in heaven. It is the type of hellhole you’d be grateful if Norman Bates owned. At least there would be some action. Other than that a budgie twittered in a cage the size of a matchbox. Down the street in the Plaza de Catalunya, there were several protests. One was carried out by monks against the situtation in Burma, another for rights for transgender folk and I tried to drum up support for Operation Pigeon Wipeout but with no luck as the bastards continued to plague me, assault me and try to shit on me.

Shortly after, Lucasz headed home after five weeks, Wes contemplated France and a somewhat stooped Melissa with a 100 litre rucksack on her back keeping her almost horizontal, she headed to Zurich on the bus. I headed to the airport in Gerona, having enjoyed breathing in another city, albeit one with lots of noise and graffiti, and I learned that I can be more forceful with my opinions, that when people are fighting to be heard, I can walk away and not try bring it back to centre, and that a smile changes everything. I also learned that the Spanish are not the most advanced nation in airport etiquette and that having three flights to London, Luton and Pisa take off from the same gate within 10 minutes is not probably going to change that reputation.

I arrived back to miserable skies and pouring rain but my world.. it seemed a lot less grey for it.

Miami Vices

“Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light.” I am surprised to be able to see at all after being awake for 15 hours, three movies and much of the 4,000 miles between London and Detroit. Still, awaiting me was not so much a star spangled banner but a rainbow coloured one in Miami Beach, my final destination, where I arrived with a dried out plane face and a bag of salty pretzels at midnight, the one day after the Superbowl rocked into town.

I had spent much of the flight concerned by the green shades over Florida on the US weather map whilst the rest of the mainland was merely aqua blue. The tornado, which had battered the northern part, had subsided. What was this development? In addition to hurricanes, I came to Miami to get away from emotional ones, also for my birthday, my 33rd, almost one third of a century (for which I bought some blue gel for my mid-life crisis) and to see my Orlando-born friend Christina, who used to grace these grey shores with her presence before returning to the land of sun, palm trees and old men on skateboards clinging on to their youth, and in South Beach, quite literally. Immigration in Motown did not believe me that “visiting my friend” was my reason for coming. He suspected I wanted to stay. He asked if this friend was female and if I planned to change my marital status whilst in the United States. Was he working undercover for my mother? I did not think a one week visit would be enough for THAT?! Can I get to know them first? I should have told him I was here to be the next American Idol but his protruding eyes deterred me.

I will skip daily accounts of what happened as it is merely the freedom, the anonymity and the feel of the sun on my shoulders that I love but there were definitely things I remember.
The Clay Hotel where I stayed found itself buried in the heart of Washington Avenue and Espaniola Way in the Art Deco patch, which stretched far and wide. Even the skyline was dotted with banks, skyscrapers and apartment blocks in the traditional pastel and symetrical style. I shared a room with three others. A terribly dull Canadian from Ottawa, Oliver a young Belgian bartender from Pittsburgh or somewhere with a P and Sylvio, an only-Italian speaking sextagenarian, who had run every country’s marathon for 40 years. With a lot of shoulder shrugging, broken Spanish and scribbling, I actually managed to get to know him quite well as did Oliver, who saw his temper first hand when he was thrown from the top bunk at 2am by Sylvio for making too much noise. I tried to sleep through it. After Oliver moved out, Dublin Dave moved in. Gaydar told me he was gay. The number of briefs he had bought, the toiletry products and the Abercrombie shirt were hints. He gave me a two-minute potted history about why the Irish hate the Brits as we stuffed ourselves with pancakes on the lively and expensive Lincoln Road.

My accommodation was not far from there and 2 blocks from Ocean Drive, the scene of many a movie including Birdcage, and just in front of the adjacent South Beach. As rainbow flags flapped in a gay breeze, this was a relaxed place but not for the faint-hearted. It is Pec Valley, Land of the Bicep, Zip Code.. well unnecessary. Everyone there, man and woman, black or write, young and old, is toned and oiled to within an inch of their lives. It took me half an hour to take my jacket off on the beach. I would have gone into the sea with a puffer jacket on if I had had one with me. They do push ups, press ups, sit ups, chin ups, jump ups. I can barely get up. They are bronzed chocolate brown to perfection. I am cherry red and making my mosquito bites bigger. They are sprawled out. I am sat cross legged in my socks, hiding my blisters. They are in long shorts, regular shorts, short shorts and what-is-the-point-of-those-shorts. I am in a track suit. That is a lie… it was a shell suit with air conditioning. It was refreshing to see an older gentleman go by on a skateboard and a well-fed lady perched precariously on what looked like a kids’ bike. That gave em two fingers. I sat there listening to my CDs next to a couple of angry African American lesbians and a topless straight couple, the woman was buying a thong from an older lady, who really should not have been wearing one. I stayed off spaghetti the rest of the week.

Though enjoying the sun, I was unable to stand more than one day on such a beach and so made a few local trips. I went on a tour of the city, which included a boat trip around Biscayne Bay, where there were miniature islands housed with real celebrities. “John Travolta owned the 24-bedroom brown mansion with the removeable roof over there (yes, in the 1980s) and Gloria Estefan parked her Miami Sound Machine here”. J-Lo had to sell hers when ex P Diddy moved to the same island. B*stard. The Jewish museum, the art deco and the fancy hotels and bars were all impressive, especially for a city in danger of a good beating from the elements between July and November.

At the terribly tourist Gator Park, gateway to the Everglades, I jumped on a boat with a bunch of foreigners and headed into alligator waters. Accustomed to big creatures snapping at me back in Manchester, I was not that afraid here. As it happens, alligators are supposed to have brains the size of a peanut,which is why they have everything they need resting on the water’s surface – eyes, nose and ears – because they are basically the animal kingdom’s retards. “They won’t eat you” came the cry from the tattooed trailer park trash, who drove our boat. “Crocodiles, like Bush, will hunt you down and smoke you out, these guys would just drag you under and drown you,” she continued reassuringly. Equally as reassuring was the Steve Irwin character, who put on a wildlife show for all of us in front of the bleachers next door. Whilst lifting up a skunk and explaining the dangers of skunk spray, he squeezed a hidden bottle of water into the crowd of Italian girls, who duly wet themselves. I and this Australian did too, for different reasons.

Struggling to get the Beach Boys’ Kokomo out of my head, I set off on my penultimate day, at the crack of dawn, for a five-hour bus ride to the Florida Keys, and in particular Key West, 90 eeny weeny miles from Bush’s Cuban nemesis Fidel Castro, who is still sitting up and eating grapes in hospital. Kennedy could not get him, Johnson could not get him, and, it seems, nor has cancer. Still, one does not wish harm on anyone. Except perhaps a fellow beer-guzzling podgy Cuban, who alarmed me at just before 7 in front of my hotel by asking me if I wanted anything sucking or if I wanted to suck something and he was talking a different type of Cuban cigar and these are not banned in Miami Beach. Anyhow, though you may wonder, I politely declined, looked away but remained afraid of tucking into my drizzly ham and cheese empanada in case it gave out the wrong message. This is not really the US. This is Central America. Covered in all its glory.

I boarded the late coach and ended up talking with a 35 year-old Chinese IT guy from DC, who had never been out of the US. This became clear when he asked me if “we get Youtube in Britain”. I felt for someone in IT, this was probably one of those candid camera moments you regret forever. Common language. Different people. He was not the only one. After 160 miles down US Highway 1 (which stretches to Canada) we reached Key West, the southern most point on the US mainland, and I seemed to talk to people whose brains had gone in the same direction. I bought three T-shirts off this local girl, who seemed to struggle with the conversation when it continued beyond, well, “Hello”, if truth be told. Even though I was there in the moment, I felt like it was a satellite link with a ten second delay before a response could be proffered. The guide to the impressive and interesting Ernest Hemingway house was, I am convinced, on some acid trip as he whistled through stories about the renowned American writer at a verbal pace akin to Concorde. If Ernest had been on his own tour, he would have still blown his brains out. And sooner. The flight home saw me sat next to a South Dakota nurse, who warned me of the dangers of organic lettuces and asked me if we not only paid income tax in England but whether we voted, “you know, what with the Queen being in charge of everything.” There is only one queen in charge of my life. And he is typing this. As always, though, there are some Americans who do get what you say. The younger, educated and travelled ones are often in a different league altogether. My newly-wed friend Christina, who owns the Marimekko store in Miami, and her Washington Post husband Michael are but two. There were also two Jeremies, who did.get me. Or was it the mojitos. One was an attractive, entertaining, gay and Jewish lawyer residing among the neatly manicured lawns of flash suburb Coral Gables, which should be a soap opera, who proved entertaining and interesting in equal measure. We sat at a bar and told a fellow drinker that he was Golan in Lord of the Rings. Needless to say she believed him and gave him his business card. The other guy from Massachussetts was met in a bar and was in the US Army 82nd Airborne division and about to spend 6 months in Colombia. Something to do with drugs. Or his boyfriend. Perhaps both. We discussed all manner of things and agreed that since the war had cost America $30 billion that Bush should sell Texas for $45 billion, make a profit and use it to buy Cuba. Most of Havana is already there. There are apparently more than 1 million Cubans in Miami (2.5 million Hispanics in all), the biggest population centre outside of the country,.and they live in the ingeniously-named “Little Havana”. We all passed through Coconut Grove and Coral Gables, places which belong in a Jackie Collins novel.

After a slow and tranquil start, my evenings there, surprisingly, took on the content of a Jackie Collins adventure. The black drag queen with big hair tucking into a plate of fries was one sight at the Palace, one of Miami’s friendly sea-front bars. Another was Jeremy, the Massachusetts guy, and his friend Richard with whom I drank, ate and wandered into some of the fanciest lobbies, restaurant and pool areas at the Delgano, Sagamore and National. We walked in like we owned it. How they did not believe I was trash with my “I have been to South Beach” T Shirt, is a mystery. They must have thought I was part of Hugh Grant’s entourage. I played the bumbling Englishman well, years of practice, it seemed to work its magic. Particularly at Twist, probably the busiest bar in the area. Seven bars on four floors and teeming with gay-for-pay strippers/”dancers” and others. One evening, a Puerto Rican barber proved intersting company whilst a few nights later, I got a tap on the shoulder. I really must sue that plumber. Two guys from Toronto, Steve (24) and Andrew (32) started talking to me. Not long after, boy do guys make it clear what they want, Steve asked me back to his hotel room, which he was sharing with his friend. I asked what about his friend. A wink and a cab ride later. and we were back at the hotel. I got back to mine to see the promise of dawn rising early. I could see clearly then. I hope to stay as clear-sighted now..