MARBELLA —the view from my terrace
I’m back in Marbella and the weather here is perfecto.
I made a fleeting visit to the UK last weekend for sporting and social reasons, and was reminded of precisely why I’m moving to Spain. It can be summed up thus: lousy weather and lousy hospitality.
It began with a ninety minute queue to clear Border Control at that undelightful little windswept Nissan Hut of an airport at Bristol — should we Brexit, you can easily double that — and ended with a delayed Easyjet flight, an argument over hand versus hold luggage and the duplicity of selling Priority Boarding then failing to provide it. There’s a little plug for you, Sir Stelios.
It’s Sunday and therefore another precious day of rest before resumption of the battle with the Spanish language at Enforex.
This week was actually quite enjoyable as I was in a class of four and the teachers preferred conversation to the litany of verbs, verbs and more bloody verbs.
The only remarkable incident occurred on Thursday when the classroom door refused to open and we found ourselves locked in.
Now I am no hero, but my slight paranoia of being trapped in a small room — hence my dislike of flying — even with two beautiful women, far outweighs my fear of heights. And so I volunteer to climb out of the third floor window and edge my way — Daniel Craig style — along a six-inch wide parapet to swing from a girder onto the balcony beneath. I did suggest to Enforex that they might need to consider reviewing their emergency evacuation procedures when the door finally opens an hour later. But in all honesty, dear reader, the true reason for my ‘heroics’ was an urgent need to pee.
Did you drop your car keys, Bernie?
Saturday, and I wake to find myself decidedly under the weather. Plans for a run, a day on the beach and a bar in which to watch the Premiership Rugby Final, followed by some obscure sporting event involving two teams from Madrid, are shelved. Eventually I perk up enough to go for a walk, and an hour later I find myself at the far end of the Paseo Maritimo, in other words, in Puerto Banus.
Now, for those of you who don’t know Puerto Banus, it really should be twinned with Cheshire’s Alderley Edge. In other words, it’s the Land of the White Bentley, and don’t expect to hear much Spanish spoken. In fact, as Alderley Edge is also the Land of the Overpaid Footballer, you’re likely to hear more Spanish spoken in the Botanist.
In Puerto Banus, Spanish is very much the third language with Russian leading the way, closely followed by English.
Puerto Banus — spot the Bernie and Natasha lookalikes
And here’s another thing: from every Ferrari or Lambo parked on the main drag, steps a diminutive Bernie Ecclestone lookalike and a leggy Russian prostitute half his age. Okay, they may not all be prostitutes… but let’s not go there.
And that, for some reason, got me thinking about older men and much younger women.
Now please, dear reader, accept that what you are about to read is written only in the interest of objectivity.
Just what exactly is wrong with an older man dating a girl half his age? I have a 65 year-old friend who is married to a 30 year-old woman. And before she met him, she was married to a 60 year-old chap, who sadly died. And before that, to another man twice her age, who also sadly died. There’s a pattern emerging here.
Now — in my objective opinion — there are actually certain advantages to this arrangement that are missing from the more, shall we say, traditional relationship. You know, the ones that usually end in the divorce court.
Let’s take this step-by-step; first we’ll look at what the woman can get from this arrangement (let’s not call her a girl — it’s patronizing and smacks of Dave Lee Travis).
Sadly, the male partner will almost certainly die first, particularly if there’s a large age gap. And that, of course, is not a positive; it’s extremely distressing. But if she’s 30 and he’s sixty or older at the outset, and looks after herself, she should still be relatively presentable by the time he carps it, even after for 25 happy years.
There will be no arguments over Pop Master, or what Captain JT Kirk’s middle name was (Tiberius, by the way). She can still go clubbing with her mates while he watches the back catalogue of Dallas with his cocoa. And he will never bob off to the toilet with her copy of Hello Magazine.
Ok, so that’s about it for the female, but I would advise her to check that a few boxes are ticked before commencing the relationship.
- The male should have his own hair and teeth, and, while a little middle-aged spread is acceptable, he should at least be able to tie his own shoelaces.
- No problem if he consumes industrial quantities of Viagra as long as he can remember where he keeps it. And whether he’s taken it or not.
- Look for subtlety in your man: avoid someone whose Bentley keys ‘accidentally’ fall onto the table with his AMEX Platinum card, or tells you that he used to play for Manchester United when two Google clicks on your phone will confirm that he’s a Billy-Bullshitter.
- Try and pick someone who actually looks younger than he is and doesn’t fall asleep in front of the telly before The Nine O’clock News.
Other than that, ladies, you’re good to go.
And so… drumroll… now to the male partner. What does he get from the arrangement?
First the obvious:
- Sex
- More and even better sex.
- Even more and much better sex. So good that he may even die while having terrific sex. Way to go!
Then there’s the questionable kudos of being seen in the company of a beautiful but much younger woman. That brings us neatly back to ‘Bernie and Natasha’, but does ‘Bernie’ actually give a damn when he’s getting numbers one, two and three?
Well, that’s about it for today mis amigos.
In my next post I will update you as to the successes of Marbella Rugby Club and have a little rant about one thing that I really have a problem with in Spain — dog shit.
Hasta Manana chicos!