Well it is now Friday and I had a restless night at El Fawlty Towers.
It was a hot and sticky night. So first thing, I went to see Don Basil to complain that my room had no air conditioning. I didn’t expect him to put some in but I really wanted to point out that the blurb on the hotel web site led readers to believe that air conditioning was throughout the hotel and it is obviously not.
“I am sorry senor, but the room with air conditioning is occupied already” said Don Basil “but you have an electric fan on the sideboard”
“Well that’s hardly the same as Air Conditioning is it? “ I responded.
He looked hurt, “But Senor, it is a three speed fan”.
I gave up.
I went back to the dock area this afternoon. I only wanted to find out where to go on Saturday to catch the cruise liner. I made sure it was during daylight hours so I would not be accosted. Huh!
A man stopped me at some crossroads. He was very slightly built and totally bald. He reminded me very much of Yul Bryner, or is it Deborah Kerr? I get them confused. Anyway, he held out a card to me and said something in what sounded like German, then in some other languages. He then asked “English?” I nodded yes. By now I had automatically taken the card and looked at it just as he said in pretty good English, “you want sex with woman?”
The card had little on it that I understood but did have in large letters -10% so presumably I was being offered an introductory 10% off jiggery jiggery etc etc.
In exasperation and to get rid of him I said “No thanks I’m gay”. He just turned and walked away!
I was so upset that the bastard believed me! I wanted him to argue. At the very least, I surely warrant a doubtful look with a statement like that. I shall never watch the King and I again. Always thought it was a crap film.
Las Palmas has a very long and wide promenade following the shore line. It seems crowded now, in November, so God knows what it is like in the height of the season. There are many runners and joggers. All shapes, sizes and nationalities. There are runners all day going up and down.
Either that or power walking. Striding out as fast as some can run. That sort of thing makes me very thirsty in weather like this so I can only watch for a short while before going for a drink. And the whole promenade is lined with excellent bars and restaurants to sit and watch these lunatics kill themselves.
Throughout the day on the prom there are buskers as well. Mainly musicians but some doing other acts.
Tonight there was a musician. Very typically Spanish looking, but wearing a kilt and playing the bagpipes. Sounds ridiculous but he was good, very good. He even jazzed up Scotland the Brave and it was great. Up until now I’ve never liked the bagpipes. For no other reason than they are Scottish.
A white faced clown set up and, using two large sticks with a couple of strings suspended between them, managed to make huge bubbles from a bucket of bubble mixture. You know the little round things that kids blow after dipping to make a stream of bubbles? Well this was the same but on an industrial scale, as the bubbles were, when successful, at least three to six feet big. I watched until one blew across the promenade and burst on some guy’s pizza as he was eating it. In very vociferous Spanish he told the clown where to put his bubble sticks. Well worth two Euros in the clown’s hat.
Last night I watched as a living statue prepared for his evenings work.. He was fastidious in so far as the silver make up was applied, his coat and hat touched in with spray paint. He really was professional about the way he set himself up. It took two beers for him to get ready (as I am on holiday I measure time now in beer time) and he was already half in costume when he arrived.
Tonight I saw another living statue. He was bending down on one knee enacting doing some task on the promenade and didn’t move at all. I had seen him ahead of me as I was walking from one watering hole to the next. So I stopped about fifty feet away and just watched. Well watched nothing happening really. I wanted to see someone throw a coin to see him spring up or something. Or for someone to inadvertently get too near, so he could leap up and surprise them as they do. He was so still. After ten minutes I got bored and thought I’d throw a coin and went up to him, only to find it was a real bronze statue of a fisherman descaling a fish. At times I feel such a f***** idiot.
Well tomorrow I get on the boat. I wonder what adventures await.