All is not sweetness, love and light here on the
Mediterranean shores of the flying paradise that is Oludeniz. I'm here for the
13th Annual Air Games which should be a festival of exuberant free
flying fun with displays of supreme airmanship, extreme acrobatic ability and
superhuman nuttiness, on all of which I shall report in due course. But first
there are a few matters to address.
First, of course, there were the mosquitoes, now sorted out
by a combination of soothing unguents for me and extreme aggression for them.
The final solution for the mosquito population of the hotel room has been a
success and we have eradicated malaria from the region. I'm expecting a World
Health Organisation citation at any moment.
The other room-based affront to my health and general
welfare is my co-habitant’s snoring. Not possible to measure accurately in decibels,
Luke’s nasal tremors are more easily recorded on the Richter scale; an Avro Vulcan on
take-off would barely register above the din. The solution to that, it appears,
is mouldable silicon ear plugs and weird though it is to go to sleep cocooned against
the world of sound, I finally slept a full seven hours blissfully unaware of
his nightly struggle with respiration. Had Armageddon arrived I would have been
the last to know.
Oh and there’s the temperature range, of course; it’s
30-plus on the ground, but near-freezing at altitude. The solution was to ditch
the flying clothes and go for shorts and tee-shirts, suffering a bit of a chill
after take-off in order not to burn up on re-entry to the beach-o-sphere. And
then, at the end of the day, to take a prolonged dip in the breathtakingly cool
depths of the hotel pool.
But there’s one more obstacle to enjoying the holiday. We have jointly managed the various
assaults on our numerous senses. We have conquered pain and disease and
discomfort, but my oh my, what about a senses of style? What fresh hell is
this? People from all over the world are congregating here this weekend,
flaunting the latest in flying gear, leisure wear and cool, cool threads. So
why in the hell would the East Europeans think it was acceptable to take to the
promenade in fashion throwbacks from the seventies?
My eyes! I thought budgie smuggling had been abolished long
ago. The last time I saw trunks that skimpy they were being sported by the late Sir Jimmy
Savile, in preparation for a charity fun-rummage through a local children’s home.
Do have a lovely day, if your retinas have not been
irrevocably damaged by that image.
No comments:
Post a Comment