The formless splodge of holiday is coming to an end. It feels like we've been here forever and for no time at all. All the days have blended into one, like time has been placed on a piece of stretchy plastic (like the stuff Stretch Armstrong was made of - do you remember him?) and then alternately pulled outwards and then concertinaed together so the start and the end happen simultaneously. I might get home to find that two hundred years have past by or only a few seconds of your earth time will have ticked by. Who knows? My guess is it's going to come out at about two weeks either way, but only time will tell. Unless time is lying. Which I think it is.
Pretty much all the January 3rd originals have departed now. We are the longest serving guests, like the grandfather of the House of Commons, but most of the familiar faces have gone now to be replaced with new idiots. To be honest we have barely conversed with another human being whilst we've been here and not made friends. If anything I had made enemies. Mainly for no good reason. I continued to dislike the couples who had bad-mouthed their teenage kids (even though I am not totally certain that the people I was showing disdain to were actually the same ones who'd made the comments - didn't matter, they looked like idiots), but they had all left by today and so I had no one to prejudge and irrationally hate. Luckily for me a young French couple had turned up who might well be total bellends and even though I don't have too much evidence of that I decided to run with it and was proven pretty much correct.
They were in their early twenties and had fashionable haircuts and looked attractive which was enough reason to despise them, whilst slightly envying them and fancying them (the best kind of hate). They were both wearing trendy hats, even in the pool and the guy had pink day-glo trunks (and his hat had a leopard-skin print on it) so that was enough to confirm that I was right to silently abhor them. Have you seen that sketch on Limmy's Show with him being a guy dancing in a park throwing a frisby? He looked like that without the frisby. And then, still sitting in the pool, they made a loud video call to some people (their family or friends, either way, clearly some dicks) holding up their smart phone and shouting and waving and generally causing a scene. Go to your room and do that. Stop showing off. They were exuberant and happy and young and I don't like those things. I want to sit in silence on my lounger whilst everyone else does the same and not maintain eye contact or say anything to anyone or be distracted by anyone having fun. And anyone who isn't like me is clearly a wassock.
Another new couple had the table next to us at lunch. They were English but I had already judged them and worked out what kind of people they were and knew I didn't want to get into the situation where we had to talk to them every meal time. But then beer barrel needed changing at the bar and the man said "They haven't run out of beer have they?" in a worried voice, given he'd only just go here. I like beer too and we bonded over this shared interest and I realised I was wrong and he was actually quite nice. He didn't like football (which I had assumed he would as all men seem to) and he made a knowing reference to the film "Ice Cold in Alex". I had totally misjudged him and liked him straight away and thought he could probably be my new best friend. But all my other snap judgements have definitely been right and it is good that I haven't actually spoken to any of the other people to have that confirmed.
My wife is the only friend I need.
Which is lucky.
For some reason during the day I started singing the song "Teddy Bear's Picnic". I have no idea why. But it reminded me of something I haven't thought about for a very long time. Once, when I was about 13, I was on holiday with my parents on a French campsite and one of the boys I met in the pinball room (apropos of nothing) made the claim that his grandfather had written that very song. Me and another boy refused to believe this ridiculous tale and mocked him for his audacity to make up such a lie. The boy insisted it was true. We insisted that it was not. He was just showing off to impress us.
But in hindsight it seems pretty unlikely that you'd make that fact up. If you were going to lie you'd think of a cooler song and a closer relative. Fuck it, if he was trying to impress us he could have just said, "I wrote Hey Jude!" And if he'd fronted it out we might have had to overlook the fact that he wasn't even alive when it was released. In all likelihood his grandad did write "Teddy Bear's Picnic". It made me laugh today to think that we were actually impressed enough by the idea that it seemed impossible.
My guess is that his grandad was
Jimmy Kennedy who wrote the lyrics, (not the tune, so we were right to be suspicious) and who died in 1984, so that proud grandson had a few more years with him yet.
I am sorry for disbelieving you Jimmy Kennedy's grandson. Unless you weren't really him and were just lying to try and impress me and a Dutch boy.
Glad to have got that sorted out 30 odd years later.
