To the Beach!

It begins the next day when Shirl heads out to find that perfect café beside the sea, where she can sit with the water lapping at her toes to drink a glass of retsina in the tranquillity of a Greek day.

Well. What can I tell you?

The first beach she comes to transports her both to San Tropez (what with the glitzy cost of it all), and also to hell, what with its regimented lines of wooden sunbeds and parasols. To traverse what was once the seashore, one must have legs as thin as ice lolly sticks as one squeezes sideways through the rows of basking flesh, sagging breasts, and overhanging bellies, all the time trying not to look at anyone, while trying not to breathe in too much of the Hawaiian Tropic and Bvlgari Opera Prima cloud mix, or look in anyway out of place. Which is exactly what Shirl is, and she becomes more so when she double-checks the prices on display: ‘Sunbed €15.00 each, umbrellers, €10.00. Includes a piece of fruit and a wet wipe.’

Shirl moves on.

The second beach she encounters appears, from a distance, to be what she wanted: a small bay, a small café, blue water and… Water Sporties for all the falmalies, no insurance needed.

She moves on.

Third time lucky, they say, and the third beach our Shirl comes to is exactly what she wanted. Quiet, hardly anyone else around, trees for shade and a small, rundown café at one end. Outside, there are round metal tables and uncomfortable wooden chairs, and inside, is a man with an over-enthusiastic moustache and, when he greets her, a remarkably unplaceable accent.

‘Lovely loydy,’ he pours through his facial hair. ‘You have come to my kafeneion. For this, I am, um, delighting.’ He clutches his chest as though she just agreed to donate him a kidney. ‘I am Costas. Pleases, you, er, you take seat. I have best ouzo. Seet, seet.’

‘Costas, can you do me a favour?’

The moustache twitches at this change in the standard script. ‘You want me, um, to do you flavour? Of course!’ All the benevolence in the world oozes from his expression. ‘What can Costas do to make lovely loydy, um, happy?’

Shirl eyes the gentle lapping of the Aegean against the shore and, closer to hand, a table and a solitary uncomfortable chair, and asks if he can put them both beside the sea.

‘You want me to put table and chair by, er, the sea, and this makes lovely loydy very, um, happy?’ Costas asks, with his moustache furrowed in thought.

‘Please?’ Shirl pleads with the coy smile of the hopeful young.

‘No,’ Costas says. ‘This I cannot do.’

‘Oh!’

‘Yes. No. We have the new Beach Low number five-thousand ninety-two which says I am Natura Two-Thousand neetwork. I am of the eighty-percent Natura where I am not permitted the sunbedding. Because of, um, the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), I must not put, er, anything within three meters of the water, so, um, you, loydy, you want me to break the low for your dream? Ah, gamisu, I say. I am not, er, criminal.’

A thought occurs.

‘But, if you want, you come on my brother’s boat tomorrow and I make fudge with you. You have the insurance, yes? Because we can only do this now with insurance and a license, you must buy, er, a license, then you come on my brother’s boat, and I make fudge with you. Yes. This is how it will be.’ Shirley tries beach number four, and there, she finds her place by the sea. It’s a restaurant, within spitting distance of the water, though you’d have to be a good spitter to manage it, but it’s as good as she’s gunna get, and, well, it’s not Spain, is it?

The Taverna

‘Well, I’ll tell you what it’s not,’ says a man at the next table. ‘It’s not Spain, is it?’

‘Oh, Phil, you’re so clever,’ replies his chuckling wife.

Shirl suspects a second honeymoon is taking place, but it’s not doing very well, and the couple are just as unhappy here as they would have been staying there. Wherever there is.

Bolton, probably.

Ignoring their voices, she applies her attention to the menu. Rather, menus, because there are two. One is ‘Al u Card’ and the other is for ‘Turist.’

She begins with the Turist menu, where there is a delightful catalogue of haphazard spelling, including ‘Local Lamp Stew’ and something she can’t fathom, ‘Charcoaled chicken wings ruthlessly rimmed.’ She hardly bats an eyelid at the ‘Diet Cock’ of the drinks section and checks out the Al u Card.

‘You on your holidays, luv?’ The man who’s possibly from Bolton uninvitedly invites himself into her world. ‘I can tell. Can’t I tell, Pet?’

‘He can tell.’

‘Now, I’m not saying I can always get it right, but you’re the colour of a B200, and that says to me… What does that say to me, Pet?’

‘Says you’ve just arrived.’ Pet finds that hilarious.

‘The B200, see, that’s off white. Not like the A346, which first came out in a cream colour and used to be the only milk float used in South Manchester…’

Bolton is close enough, Shirl decides, though sadly, too far away to send him back to.

‘He studies milk floats,’ Pet unnecessarily explains across the gap between tables as though she were sharing the secret of the Epstein Files.

Luckily, their plates arrive, and they become distracted. As does Shirl when she is asked to order. She goes for the Gordon Blue non-rimmed chicken, a Greek Slade and a small jug of retsina. While she waits, she contemplates the sea, holds a discussion with an inanimate object, and is having a lovely solo time when Bolton returns, this time, chewing.

‘You on your own, luv? Just you and the pillar?’

It’s actually a support post, and Shirl knows this because her husband used to work in decking before he was made redundant by non-recyclable materials, but she says nothing.

‘I’m planning some private time with a rock,’ she says to shut him up, and it actually doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

‘Now, we had some rock that time, didn’t we, Pet?’

‘We did, where was it?’

‘Blackpool. Aye, you can’t beat Blackpool, can you, love? I know it’s not Spain, but we like to do things different now and then. They employed the A270 in Blackpool, now, that’s an interesting story…’

To bring the unwanted conversation to a close, Shirl regards the Al u Card menu, realises its title is Dracula backwards, and compares its listing to what the annoying couple are eating.

‘Enjoying your Uni Shito, are you?’ She smiles sweetly. ‘I’d have gone for it myself, but I’m not good with sea urchin eggs.’

Pet pales.

‘I see you went for the full option.’ Shirly arms herself with the Dracula menu as her guide. ‘Dreams of the Ocean, is the dish’s name,’ she informs them. ‘An enlivening combination of freshly catched uni, which are sea urchin eggs, served with a compote of black garlic and cherimoya beneath a layer of pangrattato, nestled beside a comforting cherimoya slice, and served with matsutake mushromps and topped with shito, which, strangely, is not a spelling error. Enjoy.’

Pet passes out, and Phil, fast fading, follows. ‘There we go,’ Shirl tells her support post. ‘Now it’s just us and an un-rimmed chicken.’

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Concludes tomorrow (you will be pleased to know).

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Arrival

And the crossing ends some time later, as the already-red are read the riot act in a virtual rep email and warned to stay out of the sun even though they are on their hollibobs, but it’s too late anyway, and they trapse off with their luggage and vomit-covered children, leaving Shirl to arrive on her island and contemplate the get away from it all-ness of the place.

Here she is. On her island.

Heaven on earth.

Well, a concrete landing stage crammed with mopeds trying to get on as passengers disembark, some to be met by a host with a piece of card, others left to fend for themselves. Shirl’s booked through Booking.com and she has to find her own way to her accommodation, so she ignores the calls of ‘Oi, need a room love?’ that were once, ‘Hellos, lovely loydy, I have very special price for you, you come this way, yes?’ and sets off. She fights her way bravely through the next wave of over-ripe sunbathers trying to leave for the airport, the trucks trying to get on the ferry, the couple having a very public tongue wrapping contest, and the lothario calling ‘I gunna miss you’ to the weeping teen girl who doesn’t know he’s actually calling ‘Ah, gamisu,’ which translates roughly as what the couple having the tongue wrapping contest will be moving onto shortly. (My dad would have used the phrase, Foxtrot Oscar. I’ll leave that with you.) Valiantly, Shirl puts her head down and her heart up, and battles through the throng to leave the teaming quayside and make for the town she can see across the bay.

To get there is a walk, but she’s on her new adventure, and besides, it ain’t Liverpool, is it, love? No, it’s one of the busiest yet narrowest roads she and her fellow escapees have yet encountered. It leads her beside the sea where fishing boats are tied up to furry rubber tires, and where a machine is driving piles into the water, hopefully to widen the road because she was nearly knocked in the water by a Mercedes. On the other side, meanwhile, steps run up the side of a steep hill, and house lines of bedraggled refugees waiting to be processed, papered, sent elsewhere to wait for years before being sent to another country that can’t or won’t care for them. And then comes the bus, which leaves only sideways standing room on the water’s edge and a cloud of fumes that brave Shirl takes as part of the experience. She gasps for water and finds it warm, before soldiering on towards the town where the road finally widens a little. Her fellow Jarrow Marchers filter off in various directions, and Shirl is left alone to make her own way. Undaunted, she uses her phone to find directions.

Google Maps says there’s a road right beside her, but it’s clearly the sea… Oh, the arrow thing is meant to point that way… No, still wrong because the ‘road’ is made of stone steps. There’s an alternative route just a little way along, but there, she finds the same, and on examining the landscape, she realises her accommodation is at the top of the hill. Further investigation reveals the bus that avoided her is the one she should have been on, and the last Mercedes has just left. It is now midafternoon, and too hot to walk, so she waits for a taxi. It is now early evening, and she’s still waiting for a taxi, but as it’s clear none is coming, she sets off up the hill on foot and instead of following Google Maps, she asks a local and is far more successful.

The Accommodation

As the saying goes, ‘The best reward often lies at the end of the stoniest path.’ There, at the end of a very stony and steep path, she finds her Booking.com accommodation. However, this is a real building, and not an AI-generated wish-list of what isn’t on offer, and only vaguely resembles what was advertised.

Hey ho!

Her virtually unassisted assistant has sent an email that reads, ‘The key is in the door,’ and she smiles at the quaintness. What was advertised as one thing is actually a trad village house by the looks, painted up in blue and white, with shutters and everything. There’s even a round, metal table and two uncomfortable wooden chairs outside, oh, and how lovely, a bougainvillaea around the door. Thinking it perfect, she steps into…

Ikea.

Or a waiting room in some municipal building.

Flat, boring, modern furniture in what looks like fake beech. A sink with no plug, a fridge with no door on the ice box and something dubious in the veg tray. There’s a sofa which looks like her one at home, another table cunningly camouflaged in the same beige wood as everything else, and a set of shelves holding ornaments so random and useless she wonders why bother. The stone-effect floor bears an arbitrary rug whose only purpose is to send angels who don’t fear to walk on it straight to their orthopaedic consultant, and there’s a side table sporting seven remote controls with one battery between them.

Through an arch at the back, she finds a nondescript bed, and a wardrobe that houses an iron but no ironing board, a mousetrap but no mouse (tiny mercies come to mind), and a spare pillow with no case. Luckily, there’s an air conditioning unit because the apartment is as hot as a blacksmith’s armpit, but to use the much-needed accessory involves a charge of half her holiday cost again, so she opens the window to look out onto the sweeping views of next door’s washing. At least they still use cloth nappies, which Shirl rather approves of; not for her the three-ply, allegedly absorbent sheets containing sodium polyacrylate and throwaway plastic. Let the holiday begin.

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Continues tomorrow…

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Act Two – The New World

Shirley steps off the plane and takes her place in a two-hour queue for her EES checks. Thanks to no-farage-on-a-small-boat man, and other self-serving idiots, Shirl, the family from Hull/Hell, and even social media ‘influencers’, must prove they have fingers and a pulse before entering sacred EU land. Those with EU passports sail past, collect their free drink, receive their lei from the Consular General, and take advantage of the complimentary golf buggy from the nearby five-star resort for self-indulgent clowns who only think about their own wealth. Finally, Shirl, or Shril as she already thinks of herself among this madness (but mainly because I keep typing it wrong), is through the biometric chicane and out into the searing heat of a 35° Greek morning where her onward transport awaits. No longer is this a banged up old banger from the late 70s, now, these days, it’s either a top of the range, gas guzzling Mercades, or a silently driverless, creepy, automatic self-directing electric car with no charm. Or it’s a banged-up old banger from the late 70s. She takes one of the choices and heads to her next destination, affectionately known as the ferry across.

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The Ferry Across

Once upon a time, these boats sailed in the manner of Mama Mia! with all the villagers aboard transporting their ugly fish and uglier companions amid authentic Greek laughter, old ladies in black, jovial fishermen with enthusiastic moustaches, and assorted, slightly salted old sea dogs. Never more, however. Shirl is directed by a teenager in uniform who tells her to wait behind a crash barrier with the others keen for a large boat to take them across the water. There, among Temu-bought luggage and no sign of the travelling companion, she waits in the blazing sun as the less well-heeled pass out around her, and someone sneezes. On hearing this, half the convicts put on a mask, while the other half say illness generally is a conspiracy against fascist democracy put around by socialist seagulls. At this point, the family from Hull disagree and piles in to make their views known, and Shirl takes a pace away from the ensuing carnage.

Eventually, the ferry pulls in backwards, opens its arse-end and deposits its last meal onto the quay. The last meal appears to consist of Strawberry Mivvy coloured once-white people in nothing more than string bikinis and net curtaining, and sleeveless football t-shirts and swimming shorts, with no regard for gender. Some carry luggage and search vainly for a taxi, while others clamber from one overfilled vehicle to another, ready to be bused off to a hotel in a vague part of the island which will, in stories told later, look like the brochure once they have finished building it. The more easily bewildered tourists just hang around and get in the way. The local traffic pulls off the ferry, with the gypsy van filled with children that may or may not be theirs, plus carpets. The farmer comes next with his two bewildered goats in the front seat, and his wife in a rocking chair in the flat bed back, followed closely by the local football team (under 11s) in a riot of away-game blaspheme and joyfulness.

Once the ship’s last movement has cleared the concrete, the teenage official (who is probably 20-something but Shirl’s getting on a bit now because it’s been a long journey) blows an official whistle and gives an official sign and puts the foot passengers on their starting blocks as the cars and trucks pile on, and then another whistle lets everyone rush among them to take their life and Temu-Vuitton in their hands to secure a passage. Everyone must show a ticket, but the paper ones are rejected along with the old folk who don’t have a smartphone and therefore can’t get on, but our Shirl manages to secure a footing, flash a screen, drag her case upwards and find a seat in a plastic bucket up on deck.

Taking the shade beside the fume-belching funnel — because someone was sick across the other side, and the family from Hull’s five year old is playing in it — she watches the sea knowing she will soon be swimming in its turquoise luxury along with the abundance of jet skis, wind surfers, pleasure boats, day-trip boats, swimmers, used nappies, parascenders, plastic floats, weary fishing boats, plastic bags, children, fag butts, divers, and a large gathering of pouting influencers with their cameras because someone’s rumoured the sighting of a live fish. And the crossing begins…

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Continued tomorrow…

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This week will be different. I have a long/short story for you which I will post in instalments day by day. Should you feel the need to share these posts with your friends, real or social-media virtual, feel free.

A few of us were chatting recently, and the classic play/film, Shirley Valentine, came under discussion. Most people know it from the film adaptation of the Willy Russell one-woman play, and I must admit, I’m one of them. I don’t mean I am a one-woman play, I mean I never saw it at the theatre, but I remember walking past when it was on in London in the late 1980s, and wondering who was playing the part this week? The star name seemed to change so regularly, gradually becoming less ‘star’ as the run ran.

Originally, the play was commissioned by the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, and premiered in 1986, with Noreen Kershaw directed by Glen Walford. It moved to London two years later and was released as a film in 1989. Now you know.

However, when we were discussing the story, the question around the table was: What would Shirley’s experience of Greece be if the story happened now?

So, with thanks to those who fuelled the discussion, here in a seemingly never-ending set of slightly sceptical scenes, is the movie treatment for ‘SV 2025’ which comes with the subtitle read in a gravelly voice: ‘Just when you thought it was safe to return to Booking.com…’

(If there’s any problem with my using the name Shirley, I can easily change it to Burly because, let’s face it, she’s put on a few pounds since 1989.)

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Act One – Liverpool

We start in a similar way to the original, only the dog opposite has eaten Julia McKenzie, and who can blame him?

Shirley does her shopping online, so she rarely goes out, and she’s booked her holiday with Booking.com and earned a Genius discount of 0.05%. She had to do it this way, because there’s now a coffee shop where the travel agent used to be, and that’s where the husband works, because every industry in the area has now been given over to coffee shops with the exception of one Subway, and the hotel which now houses disgruntled voters from Clacton who had to flee Farage, and because there were too many small boats in the south and never was seen a departing farage on any.

Escaping the post-Tory sorry-story state of the country with no O, Shirley receives her booking confirmation and braces herself for a 3.30 am flight from the most obscure airport possible because it was the cheapest, and prepares to fly to Greece. Only, it’s not Mykonos this time, because it costs €1,200 a night to stay there, and that’s without breakfast. As she waits for the day to arrive, she does some last-minute shopping (online) and then, because the trains are on strike, has to walk to a post office to ensure her passport is sorted. Sadly, the nearest post office is 100 miles away, and she doesn’t yet qualify for a bus pass, so she’s tramping back in the rain when she sees her old schoolmate. Said old schoolmate is now a very respectable online chat-and-cam star who invented the straight equivalent of the Grindr app, and who does outcalls for rich clients, but only if they swear an affidavit stating they have never met Donald Trump. She gives our Shirl a cup of tea and a change of underwear before swiping right on her phone — and she’s away to her next client.

Getting There

The big day arrives, and Shirl’s off to the obscure airport for a night of hanging around, drinking cheap coffee for an exorbitant price and trying to stay awake. The family from Hull makes sure she does, what with the two-year-old off the leash, dad on the lash, and the five-year-old with a toothache. Mother doesn’t care; she’s on the Bacardi at three in the morning ’cos she’s on her hollibobs.

Shirl meets another friend who is to be her travelling companion, but who immediately strikes up a conversation with a transgender TikTok influencer on a mission to find the ‘authentic Greece’ and disappears with her/him/they/it/which/why. Shirl’s on her own for the rest of the week. Yay!

Flying with Budget Air is no budget activity. For a start, Shirl’s paid for her basic flight, she even paid to choose her seat and to get on first (just in case the thing takes off without her). Because she’s on her first ever holiday, she paid extra for a glass of warm water and a biscuit left over from the 1912 Antarctic expedition (well, Scott didn’t need it) and added a little more to have the right to an extra piece of luggage in the cabin which was taken off her at the gate anyway. She could have pre-ordered a snack from the in-flight catering department, but they only had anagrams on offer: Budgie tar, Airbed gut, and a Gabie turd, for which she might have needed a bite guard, and, to understand the kids in the next row, a brat guide. (These are all anagrams of Budget Air. It took me ages with the Scrabble board!)

Should there be an emergency on board a Be a Turgid flight, it’s £1.00 in the slot for the gas mask to come down, another £2.00 to use it, and £3.00 per hour to rent the lifejackets. Onboard toilets now cost £5.00 a go, so she doesn’t go, and you can’t use cash, only cards.

Four hours pass. Painfully.

And so, we land on a Greek island that isn’t Mykonos, and which isn’t Santorini, because you can’t get in there without a cruise ship, and it’s not actually Greece at all, but a backlot at Shepperton, apart from some cutaways which were filmed in Majorca on a set left over from ‘Evil Under the Sun.’ Whatever. Shirl’s now in Greece.

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Continued tomorrow…

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As today is a national holiday, many people will be taking up residence by the seaside, I assume. So, I thought I would look through my folder of photos and see if I could find five different beside-the-sea shots. This should go some way to prove that I do sometimes visit other parts of the island, though a couple of these were taken in the winter or early/late season. There are two taken at Panormitis because I was selecting thumbnails and it was hard to see, but there you go, and here’s the first one.

What am I doing on this bank holiday? Well, I continue to read through and check the next mystery, I have some admin to do, I want to vacuum my office carpet, no, I really do because I spent 20 minutes yesterday sweeping it with a stiff brush, and it’s perked up no end, but now I need to do a deeper clean, so that’s something thrilling to look forward to. Then, I must set up next week’s blog…

I’ve written this thing based on a film about a woman coming to Greece and falling in love with it, and I’m going to post it next week in instalments starting on Monday and finishing, all being well, on Friday.

All I can say is that you’ll either appreciate the satire or you won’t, but I wanted next week off, so I’ve got this prepared in advance.

Here’s a line from the introduction. See if you can guess what’s coming: The question around the table was what would be Shirley’s experience of Greece if the story happened now?

You can start reading on Monday. Have a good weekend.

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