Afternoon:
10°c
When it comes to summer holidays, our family likes to take the path of least resistance. The family motto “If it can go wrong, it will” is not so much born out of abject pessimism as bitter experience. After a fateful trip to Ibiza, booked when we momentarily forgot we were parents, I was adamant I would never fly again. So last summer, the path of least resistance involved staying at home.
My husband wasn't keen. “If we stay at home, something will go wrong with the house,” he said darkly. Lo and behold, no sooner had we settled down to watch season five of The Sopranos than water started dripping onto the TV. Next year, we resolved, we would go away.
Determined to follow the path of least resistance, we chose Mallorca. So far, so bland. But here's where we went wrong. Anxious to avoid a package holiday, we booked a pretty farmhouse in a remote part of the island. Granted, it took hours of driving up and down a dirt track shouting: “Is that it? Is that it?” before we located the front door but you couldn't fault it for charm.
So charming was this rural idyll that by the next day we started having fun, even laughing. Unfortunately, we were laughing so hard we didn't hear the burglars driving up, forcing open the window and making off with all our money. As they sped away, we were still splashing about in the pool. Only when we went in to have lunch did we discover the open window, the missing iPod and the stolen phone.
It is not easy reporting a burglary in rural Mallorca, particularly if you don't have a degree in Catalan. It took four hours at a police station plus three visits from the police to dust the place for fingerprints. The police were great but the rest of the holiday was spent going “what's that noise?” as dusk fell.
The day after the police report was filed, we decided to leave the farmhouse for a day at the beach. Only we drove over some glass, got a flat tyre and had to take the hire car back to Palma airport.
The holiday continued in much the same vein (mild food poisoning, dodgy weather, crap restaurants where the most basic meal cost 50) until we were relieved to be flying home. Of course, no one warned us that Palma airport is the seventh circle of hell. After spending two hours checking in and two hours getting through security, the chastened traveller is greeted with toilets so overflowing with poo and Kotex that they almost hurl.
“What was the best part of the holiday?” we asked our three-year-old a few days later. “Watching Madagascar,” she replied. There you have it. You can spend £2,500 on flights, villas, car hire, water sports and ice creams — or rent a DVD.
* Great news for pregnant women. For those not strung out enough by the Government's guidelines on avoiding blue cheese, raw fish, red wine, unwashed salad, pâté and coffee, how about the effects of swine flu on your unborn foetus? Fear not: everything will be fine so long as you avoid crowds. It's OK for your partner to take the Tube to football and festivals, though: presumably, the Government feels there is no danger in said partner covering you in swiney kisses for nine months. Wake me up when the craziness is over.
Curse of the weatherman
How I'd love to shoot the weatherman who professed back in May that Britain would have
a “barbecue summer”.
Thanks very much. Get our hopes up, why don't you? Didn't you realise that the havoc wreaked by such a statement would extend far beyond the glut of burgers and sausages clogging up the freezer?
Women need little incentive to buy frilly summer tat — one rash opinion was all it took for the high street to be cleared of maxi dresses, sun tops and improbably short shorts. Smashing at a barbecue, all right — in Ibiza.
And is anyone else sick of having soggy summer toes? Perhaps some enterprising person at the BBC could replace the weather forecast with a wardrobe forecast.
Just let rip, David — it's ever so sexy
Pundits are already debating whether David Beckham's “come and have a go” antics on the LA Galaxy pitch will have damaged his image. Are they kidding? It couldn't have gone better if Simon Fuller had choreographed the whole incident himself.
However skilled he might be as a footballer, Beckham's off-pitch identity is one of a hen-pecked husband: a slightly foolish-looking one who spends too long in front of the mirror teasing his hair and complimenting his wife.
By letting rip at the jeering Galaxy crowd, in one fell swoop Beckham repositioned himself from Arm Candy to Action Man, ready to leap over the barrier and defend his own honour.
Never mind the billboards of Beckham lounging around in his Armani pants — those unfettered bursts of rage are far sexier than any crotch shot.
