Way back in the 19th century when it was just fine to shoot and bayonet anyone in a hot country not wearing a red jacket and pith helmet, Walter Bagehot wrote some stuff down about the English Constitution, perhaps peeved that the Americans and the French had already done so years before. We had not bothered to put pen to paper because the English class system made it unnecessary for the lower orders to think about such things. They were busy dying in their droves in the Mills, Mines and Factories of the smoke filled blackened North. Either that or they were dying of tropical diseases in places they couldn’t spell while singing ‘All things bright and beautiful’ as their innards dissolved into a putrefying morass of over excited gut bacteria. The Aristocracy just assumed they had the right to rule while stuffing foxes full of gin and lead and pouring pheasant blood onto their babies heads. They had no need therefore of a written book of instructions on who and how to rule a country.

But. The new rich, the expanding bourgeois merchant class and factory owners, thought they needed something to support their own claim to be a ruling class. Cutting off the heads of the nobility was a bit too ‘French’ and in any case would get in the way of making money through stealing diamonds, selling opium and telling huge woppers on the stock market about how much money they could make from building railways.

Walter duly provided. On Monarchy he wrote:

“Above all things our royalty is to be reverenced, and if you begin to poke about it you cannot reverence it…Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic”.

Let daylight in upon the ‘magic’. Yes, let that sink in.

Daylight has not only been let in, the curtains have been removed and burned, all of the lights in the house turned on, spotlights hired and trained on the front door and the bare shiny arse of monarchy stands on the threshold mooning at passers by. Not only can we see that there is a hairy wart on the left buttock, we have also been shown a fleeting glimpse of a part of the body that even one’s mother has not seen since we were in nappies.

Mexit, or whatever it is called, has shown the magic to be, well rather tawdry. ‘The Family’ is just another family. Philip does not shit rainbows, the Queen is yer granny working very hard at keeping up appearances, Charles has forgotten where the phone is, Wills is muttering “fuck, fuck, fuck, please let me be king” while Andrew lurks in a dark corner thanking his lucky stars that his nephew’s choice of wife has rather overshadowed his misdemeanours with the barely pubescent (allegedly). Ann is in the shed kicking a corgi to death. Edward does not exist.

Speculating on which tinge of the ethnic rainbow a future royal sproglet will be, seems to me to be but a minor infringement given Monarchy’s role in such far away places such as the Americas, the Caribbean and India. “There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack” was amply demonstrated in the Amritsar massacre, the Mau Mau uprising and the Herculean efforts at starving the Indians through not lifting a blood soaked finger in famine relief. Lets face it, the Monarchy has not got a great track record in fostering Equality and Diversity throughout history, with a few exceptions. Having a white skin did not stop the Irish being royally shafted as the last potato they had was sent to Croydon, and neither did being of white Dutch descent prevent the Boers being herded into concentration camps. An Equal Opportunities massacre.

Contemporary shenanigans have followed more recent uproar over a TV programme. It is as if the professional stokers of hate in the British press have nothing better to do than sell papers using the tried and tested methods of, er…stoking hate. They went a bit nuts over depictions of the Windors on the telly.

The Crown – the monarchical orgy fest produced by Netflix – is a work of fiction! What!? Are they actually telling me that a story about Monarchy, which is a fictional concept based on a fictional divine right justifying itself through myth and legend with as much truth value as Noah’s Ark, is a made up farrago of lies? Walter Bagehot already knew it was a magic trick, designed to fool the public into not asking questions about how they got their wealth and privileges in the first place (hint: it has something to do with sex, money and murder).

Are they really suggesting on Netflix that Prince Charles is not a waxwork effigy of emotion crying for a Camilla shaped comfort blanket, Philip is not an imperial throwback with a penchant for shooting ‘slope eyed, fuzzy wuzzies’ or anything furry scuttling around the woodlands like a ketamine fuelled wood louse? Princess Ann is actually the glamour puss ooozing sexuality out of every fetlock while Margaret sits morosely chewing cigars and draining hope out of a gin bottle? The Queen herself does not actually exist. What we see is a facsimile of a person, and an abstract in hats as a metaphor for duty and a commonwealth so devoid of importance it ranks alongside the applications of leeches as a cure for syphilis. 

What next? They’ll be telling me others things are not true! 

What, Humpty Dumpty wasn’t an egg? Noddy was actually a permanently drunk closet racist who hated bearded men with over large auricles? Grizzlies prefer bidets?

I think we must be told (but not at speed in a Paris underpass*). 

*too soon….or did that not happen as well?

Camborne is many things.

To some, it is the cultural capital of their lives. A hub of dazzling creativity and sparkling innovation that shines as a beacon in the darkness illuminating its close neighbour, Redruth, showing it up to be the shoddy, rat infested, crust wiping cultural hell hole it is. The best thing to happen to Redruth was when the Twilight Zone burned down taking with it into history the bendy eyed lager swilling pond life that passes itself for manhood. Camborne’s cultural centre is the ‘Spoons’ which on a hot day is host to lively singing and friendly beer fuelled banter that only results in a visit the local cells if the men outnumber the women or if they run out of pasties or something amusing to say.

Camborne has its rugby, several pasty shops and a statue to one of the greatest engineers this country has ever produced. Its railway station is world famous, especially on Wednesday, and was once home to the Girls Grammar school, an institution of such repute that girls as far away as St Day would attend to avoid impregnation and an early grave that otherwise awaited them.

The population of Camborne is on the whole civil due in no small part to the relatively flat nature of its high street. From the church to the town clock, around the bend of Tyacks hotel and then up through Trelowarren street to Tesco. There is no need to struggle for breath like they do in Redruth whose hill is known around the county as the Cornish Everest. Why there was a need to build Redruth there on the side of hill is lost in history. Camborne was good enough, and there was no need to imitate perfection. Camborne needs Redruth like whisky needs custard. 

The nineteenth century bard of Cornish history, Gustavus Innuendo ‘Denzil’ Penberthy wrote in his book ‘A Most Invigorating and Intellectually Demanding History of the Mining Towns of Carn Brea and Surrounding Areas’ (1896): 

“Wasson with this bleddy ‘ill in Redruth? T’was well known that Camborne already had a ‘ill that was famous enough to ‘ave a song, so it can only be down to Redruth folk being so bleddy teazy that they continued what was Redruth, wot we know as West End, right on up the ‘hillside in th’ope that they’d get a song too.” 

Well, twenty thousand Cornishmen know the reason why they didn’t. Because people don’t sing songs about a shoddy, rat infested, crust wiping cultural hell hole no matter how many hills they have. Rome was built on seven hills but who sings songs today about “Going up Roman hills coming down?” For all their aqueducts, peace and public health, the Romans never got a song about their hills. If Nero couldn’t get a ditty penned about what fun it is in a wine soaked orgy fest, where vestal virgins are ‘buy one get three free’, what chance Redruth? It was ill situated from the off and it is easier to catch syphilis than it is a bus from outside the railway station. 

Camborne is many things, but mainly it is not Redruth.

Jeddah reminds me of Redruth, apart from the lack of hills. It has that same pointlessness in its location. One difference is of course the glaring lack of half naked young ladies lying in pools of their own vomit at two in the morning clutching half empty bottles of vodka WKD while a dog sniffs hopefully at the cold kebab between her knees. What the two share is the inhospitable geography. In both places you can’t help but think what is the point? What is the point of building a city in a desert? There are no gambling dens and strip joints as there are in Las Vegas. Neither are there any bars and therefore cabaret acts by washed up has beens from the 1970s.

Deserts are hot places and thus inhabited by sand ants, who only emerge for an hour at a time, a few dung beetles and the wind. It is coming to the end of winter, and the temperature if replicated in England would have the redtops printing “Phew, What A Scorcher” headlines, giving them justification to find the most revealing bikini clad young ladies cavorting on Brighton beach to put on the front page. It has not rained here since Noah parked his boat on a nearby mountain. It is not likely to rain for another 40 days and 40 nights either. 

In 1930, the spot where this hotel is, was just sand and a few scattered rocks, a characteristic it shares with the surrounding thousand square miles. Old Jeddah was a fishing hamlet way back in 522 bc. Some bloke and a boat sailed up the coast from Yemen, found a cave and some comfort in the shade of a date palm. With only a monkey for company in the ‘winter’, he slept most of the summer venturing out only for a piss and a date in the early morning. He never did think about building a city, rightly guessing that the infrastructure required would be beyond his intellectual and engineering capability and had yet to be invented in any case. 

In 1920, a British New Zealander Major Frank Holmes set up a Syndicate in London to explore for oil in the Middle East. His Arab name later was ‘Abu Naft’ – the Father of Petroleum. He was some boy, negotiating with the Saudi king in 1922 for access. So, next to nothing in development terms for centuries and then in the space of 100 years we get Jeddah. And Kuwait and Bahrain…all built on the proceeds of back gold. This is the complete and utter triumph of engineering ingenuity over nature. The temperature here will soon be an ‘average’ of 36 degrees during the day. Yes, That’s ‘average’. I can look forward to temperatures in the high 40s in July. That is physiological death. Standing in the main street will insure a sense of impending doom and an overwhelming feeling of suicide. Redruth can be like that and I’m sure thats what it will be like in Jeddah too if I go outside for too long. 

The Yemeni fisherman and his monkey of 522bc would be astonished to see what now exists. He’d spit out a date and crush a grape in wonder.

In 1976, the summer was so hot that Camborne ran out of ice cream and children played in the fountain in the square. People greeted each other and agreed that at least they had no hill to climb in the high street. Camborne is many things, and as hot as it can get for a day or too, it is not physiologically inhospitable. The rain soon returns to a chorus of moaning about the ‘bleddy weather’. It has now rained relentlessly from 1976 to this very day, so that now we crave a heat wave.

Well, stand outside here for 10 minutes in July and see how long your ice cream lasts. 

The sun has but a couple of hours left to share its warming light while the sea breeze accompanies its setting glow. Ripples along the sea shore are gently caressed into wavelets that break gently upon the rocky shoreline singing the soothing song that we all know. One is bathed in light, life and love from the elements. It is truly life affirming. Palm leaves rustle overhead. The black headed, sharp winged Terns dance just above the sea’s silvan surface looking for the tiny fish that the elegant long legged white egrets may have missed. Every fifty metres or so along the waters edge, the long stiletto billed kings of fishers stand deadly still on duty ever watchful for the foolish to come close to the surface. The only thing that moves is their crest as the wind catches. Mynah birds hop and search for everything that might resemble food. They are as common as jackdaws and seem to gather in small flocks of five or six. They are distinctively coloured with a black head, a vivid yellow eye stripe, a light brown back, black wings with a striking white bar on each. They chatter and cackle and forage, and seems to care not for the scrawny cats that lounge about. There are no blackbirds, blue tits or magpies. The herring gulls are replaced by a different browner species of gull that behave in a similar way but with a lesser harsh call and not quite so much cheeky bared faced aggression for your food. It is probably the lack of pasties and the tourist chips on offer that force them to act more naturally like the sea scouring fish eating birds they are.

The Corniche paved walk is perhaps a foot higher than the water, and the tide’s reach measures in inches rather than metres. All along a stainless steel railing provides perches for gulls and the resting ice cream holding arms of the families that come out after work.

After about thirty minutes inhaling the Red Sea breezes I turn inland back towards the hotel. This part of the walk takes me through the city’s blocks of residential homes in the now classic grid pattern of modern cities. What strikes me about this part of the city is of course that it is modern Jeddah, even the mosques are no more than 70 years old. There are no 16th or 17th century street patterns or buildings anywhere near that age. There are numerous plots of land within the blocks that by the looks of them had been buildings, but now have been completely demolished leaving rubble and brown dust blown squares, some the size of football pitches. They are of course litter strewn. The cats do not come down this way, they stay at the Corniche. There are no dogs either. Come to think of it, I don’t think I have seen or heard a dog since I arrived. Even when passing the houses, there are no dogs barking as you pass the gates. I think they have all been eaten or died in the summer sun.

Cars. There are three colours. Mostly white, some grey and a few black. They all look the same, and appear to come with mandatory damage. Rare is the car without a tell tale scratch or dent. The reason is very clear to see.

Whatever else the Jedi are, they are not good drivers. I’ve no idea why, but they just seem to take the attitude that when driving, everyone else should do the looking out. They drive in a bubble of imagined impunity, an impunity which the evidence all around clearly demonstrates is a complete chimera. They drive fast, they drive close and they seem to think that looking at a mobile phone is just fine because everyone else will take evasive action should they stray into another lane. This attitude towards other road users even seems to apply to those in front of you, and especially when you are also driving in their blind spot. A quick toot on the horn is all that is seemingly required to announce one’s presence before moving forward and across in any case.

The gap between theory and practice could not be more stark. Everyone thinks everyone else will take evasive action. They don’t. They just don’t. If you drove like this in London, you would be dragged from your car, beaten senseless and sent to France in a veal crate. Perhaps because a prang is so common they don’t think much about it?

Hence the scratches, dints and dents. As I stopped to cross the road I heard a scrape and mild thump that you just know means metal upon metal. A driver wants to join traffic from the side of road, and of course adopting the Jedi attitude that others had better watch out for the pull out, backwards into oncoming traffic, and after a cursory glance (if a glance there had been), front offside wing meets front drivers side wing. It is not a proper bang, not one big enough to result in the call for an ambulance. The two drivers just stop and sit as with no more passion used than if they had just farted. It seems all such a common experience to rank alongside breathing in.

A colleague at work, who just happens to be English, earlier in the day told me about his driving test in Jeddah a short while ago. This was in order to get a Saudi driving licence. Mind, I’d no sooner wish to drive here than I would risk clipping my pubic hair with an old rusty chain saw. The ‘test’ took place in one of those dusty rubble strewn squares right next to the Saudi Aramco oil installation. The tester armed with a clipboard and an over casual insouciance towards road safety, bid the testee to drive around in a circle. This he did without getting out of first gear, because the car did not like second. After a round or two of swirling up the dust he was told to stop and was presented with the fact that he qualified for a licence.

The next day a missile hit the oil dump, severely damaging the storage tank. It matters not a jot because worrying about being hit by a missile while sitting in Jeddah’s traffic is akin to worrying about your haircut while parading your scrawny scrotum in a nudist colony. It is misplaced worry to say the least. The missile actually enhanced the driving test centre, providing a new layer of dirt.

Anyway, it is getting late and dinner calls.

The dust settled after the coming together of metal against metal. A mynah bird quipped ‘Kahlil Gibran’ and a prayer was said for the sons and daughters of the road. I carried on through the streets back to the hotel and caught the orange ball of the sun just as it lowered towards the horizon.

Time for a 0% beer methinks.

There are two types of people in the world.

There are those who have read Fifty Shades of Grey and those who wish the protagonist had been bound, gagged, and thrown to the fishes while still wearing his gimp mask, a very long time before he thought of picking up a pen or indeed opening the sticky lid of his laptop. There are those for whom blue cheese is one of life’s delicious post prandial treats and for others it reminds them of the smell of the headmaster’s armpits seconds before the cane rips a new welt into the buttocks. Some people believe in the wonders of scientific medicine and are content that their children are not scabrous, flaky skinned pox infested malodorous vectors of infection while others live in Totnes laying their children to rest to the sound of whale songs, wishful thinking and regret.

What seems to unite everyone on the planet is their love of animals.

The difference is how they express that love. In Scotland for instance the grouse is tenderly nurtured and protected from their natural predators. Food is abundant and their habitat is kept pristine to ensure they can breed and proliferate. There are oil paintings on the walls of ancient castles as pictorial odes to their status as most favoured bird. There is even a whisky named after the famous ground nesting featherling. Love knows no bounds right up until the moment when a dog is set loose to scare it into flight, and just when it feels it has got away, it feels half a pound of hot lead up its arse. We then express our love for the bird by roasting it, smothering it with red wine gravy, and slurping copious amounts of Bordeaux before belching and falling asleep in front of a roaring log fire as the mist rolls across the moors outside.

In Spain, the black bull is a symbol of virility and strength, often let loose in the streets to frolic and gambol willy nilly. They always miss the china shops as they run, but with unerring accuracy always seem to find the most pissed local to ram a horn into. A buttock is the preferred option, but failing that a bull will take anything on offer, be that belly or neck. The Spanish love them, and seem to get great enjoyment from putting themselves into the path of rampaging death before retiring to quaff a barrel of Rioja and singing songs about the old days of grape crushing and maiden courting. The bull seems to enjoy it too. It probably does not know that it will later suffer a bolt between the eyes and end up as myriad cuts of meat for the barbecue. Oh, how we love beef. Apart from vegetarians that is, they are the yin to a carnivore’s yang.

We love puppies, baby rabbits, little yellow fluffy chicks and spring lambs jumping with pleasure among the daisies in the fresh Spring air while their mothers chew lush grass, clover and clumps of mint totally unaware of the portent it signifies. We love those lambs so much we devote a whole cuisine to them: marinade, roasted, barbecued, curried… Little baby calves are loved in a different way depending on which sort of person you are. There are at least two types of calf killers. Those who eat the calves that are born as part of milk production, and those who pretend the calves don’t exist and are content to let them be put in dog food as surplus to requirements. The third group are French.

We all love animals but in two different ways. We either anthropomorphise them by giving them names and pretending they have human characteristics such as love, loyalty and intelligence. Or, we eat them.

Even then there are two ways of eating them. You are either in the group that carefully selects which bit is for the roasting tin, spit or frying pan. This decision is based on how close to muscle tissue it looks, and which bit gets, ironically, thrown to the dogs. Or you are one of those for whom no bit of an animal is off limits. The divide between these groups is usually the English Channel. There are a few funny folk, usually up north or the poor, who relish a bit of exotica as long as it’s cooked slowly with bacon, onions and served with beer. An important aspect of this is that it should not look like the bit of animal it actually is. That ringlike piece of chewy tissue could be a section of intestine or it could be something related anatomically to gut, but located at the distal end of whichever animal it provided a service for. Offal is a minority sport in England, south of Watford. The further north and west you go, the more it appears to be the staple diet. They do like a pie in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Have you ever wonder why the meat is hidden in pastry? Don’t look too closely, just enjoy the taste. That meat in a Cornish pasty you think is beef? Since when were impoverished tin miners able to afford prime chuck steak? The Squire would have scoffed that, leaving entrails for bal maidens and scurvy ridden urchins to mix with the village turnip as an Easter treat.

Cats.

Can’t eat them, can’t run them over (easily). The Egyptians loved the little buggers ascribing spiritual significance to them. They even gave one a name, “Bastet, the daughter of Re”. Egypt is not that far from Jeddah and perhaps this long association with deity accounts for why there are – what’s the collective noun for cats, a ‘chinese restaurant of’? – hundreds of them lazing and strolling along the park. You either love them or you don’t.

This lot are a curious bunch. Almost universally scrawny, flea bitten, hairy rags on legs. They must be feral. They are definitely not someone’s fat pampered well groomed pet with a name and a bell. At about 6 at night when the sun is going down, the families of Jeddah stroll up and down what we would call a promenade, but they call it the Corniche. Then, you get to see why there are so many cats. They are the community’s pets that live on the Corniche but are fed by the community. The other reason why there is a plethora of pussies, is of course that being wild, as soon as a female is of kitten bearing age they are fertilised. Ruthlessly. It is not uncommon to witness a coupling in full view of childen eating their ice creams.

“What’s that big cat doing on the back of the little cat mummy?”

“Ah…that is Allah’s will being made manifest as a glorious reminder of the eternal wheel of creation.”

“Oh, I thought they were fucking…”

There are two types of people in the world, the sacred and the profane… and you can tell which is which by how they look at cats.

Being a fully paid up member of the master race can be embarrassing.

I don’t mean riding at full speed in a panzer tank across the Northern plains of Europe is a cause for blushing. I don’t think Rommel in North Africa cared much about the effects on his ‘social media likes’ as he crushed the nearest Arab and his flea bitten camel under the steel heel of his jackboots. The Stuka pilot probably never uttered “oh, sorry” as he rammed a bomb into the mouths of Polish children. Eichmann’s cheeks never reddened when ordering the extra cans of Zyklon B. These and other peccadilloes never cost Hitler a single nights sleep nor sent him scurrying to a New York based PR firm to cover his discomfiture after being found out waving his dick in the faces of 6 million jews while shouting “whose ze daddy now?”. Having only one testicle never held him back in the embarrassment stakes. It should have. If I woke up and found out I had only one ball, embarrassment would be the least of it. I’d have given up hope of a proper ‘tea bagging’ then and there and scurried off to hide under a bush in Northampton.

But, we are not all the same. Shame and embarrassment come in all sizes, and of course are both dissolvable in alcohol. Who among us has not got our tits out after a sherry and not only boasted about it, but took pictures to upload to our social media accounts only to be reminded the next day that the Whats App group was not the ‘Helen’s Horny Hen Night in Newquay’ but your firm’s internal HR group which includes the CEO who just happens to be a teetotal born again Christian who never “sups satan’s syrup”.

I’ve done embarrassment. Once in the back of a taxi in Cyprus, and a couple of times at a student nurse party involving a bottle of Rioja, a card game, over confidence and a degree of willy waving nudity. At no time did I think I might be shot, taken behind a skip and beaten to death with a dead cat or deported to a Premier Inn at Heathrow. However.

As I walk the streets of Jeddah in the hot sun, I observe the local populace at close quarters. This divides into two groups. The Saudis and the Non Saudis. The latter group outnumber the Saudis by about 10 to 1. There is a third group: Me. The Saudis are conspicuous by the almost uniform adoption of their culture’s dress. The non Saudi’s appear to be mainly from the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia. They also have a similar form of dress. You might have seen them in films like ‘Carry On up the Khyber’, the ‘Best Marigold Hotel’ or in the ‘The Ganges’ curry house in Bethnal Green.

What they don’t look like is me. I kind of stand out in white shirt and shorts. The hat and sunglasses give me that ‘windswept and interesting’ look, a bit like a lost Micheal Palin whose film crew has disappeared into a bar leaving him wandering the streets talking to a non existent camera. As I pass little children, they can’t help themselves. They are too polite, or shocked, to point at me but I can feel the incredulity boring into the back of my skull. In St Ives, I’m just another local blending into the background. Here, my white face and hat stand out like the newly delivered sperm stain on an intern’s black dress in the Oval Office.

I’m thinking this as I stand in the queue at the local mobile phone shop.

I’m here to buy a Saudi SIM card. I have one already ready, issued by a firm called STC. I think that stands for ‘Shitty Telecommunications Company’ as the coverage is, well…shitty. We take for granted our phone coverage in a city, especially when you are trying to book an Uber or when using Google Maps to find out which pub you have just been thrown out of after showing your mates your half empty Adolphian scrotum. Mobile roaming, being what it is, does not ensure you can use the phone when you might need it the most. This does not matter in Camborne. I can find my way from the White Hart to the Kebab shop at midnight without using google maps or a compass. There do not seem to be many wifi hotspots in Jeddah either. So, if you should find yourself upside down in a dumpster without your trousers and a falafel sticking out of your arse, you need a decent signal to extract yourself from this minor inconvenience.

So. I’m outside the ‘Mobily’ shop to buy a ‘Mobily’ SIM card. Now, there’s a ‘Friday afternoon’ name if ever I saw one. Correction, over here its a ‘Thursday Afternoon’ as this is when the weekend starts. If I started a new phone company I’d search the thesaurus or Greek mythology for a suitably classic name. I’d avoid ‘Cornwall’s Unlimited New Telecoms’ though. Might cause embarrassment. Don’t think of the logo.

It is a pleasant 26 degrees in the direct sun. I am nearly in the middle of a small crowd outside the shop. Two security guards are busy herding everyone into a two metre distanced queue. This is a concept familiar at home, but to this lot is obviously a very difficult thing to work out. They mill about doing an impression of a swarm of termites high on the fermented juices of fallen fruit. There is shouting and a line kind of forms but then drifts into a free form dance routine. They all seem to come from India, or the Khyber Pass. I am the only white man in the city. It feels that way. Eventually after much waving of hands, sticks and Arabic shouting at men who speak Hindi and Urdu…and one Englishman, a line does start to hold. I am number 12 in a queue outside the shop.

It is not moving quickly. Tectonic plates shift faster. The evolution of the mammalian eye was quicker than this, so I resign myself to standing in the sun slowly beginning to fry. There is commotion and talking and a general buzz but as to actual action, sweet Fanny Adams. Occasionally the shop door would open and a man falls out clutching his precious SIM card. The bastard.

I have time to watch the birds and count the leaves on a nearby tree. I’m using so much time, I discover I’m slowly learning the language. I think I know Saudi for “whose that twat in the hat?”, for a security guard starts pointing at me to a Saudi Mobily shop assistant. I sense something is up. They both walk over to me. What have I done? I’ve not uttered ‘come on you bastards’ even if I have thought it. There is a long snaking queue of malodorous ingratitude in front of me. I’m not going anywhere soon.

Except I am. The Saudi chap comes over, points and says ‘Come this way’. I am being bumped up the queue and go straight into the shop to be served ahead of the whole of Calcutta* waiting behind me.

This is the embarrassing bit. Obviously the only white chap in the crowd, it’s as if my Imperial privilege still has some clout among the fuzzy wuzzies and spear carriers. I might as well have a red coat, a pith helmet and a Union Jack. I am escorted past the great unwashed and ushered into the air conditioned interior. Surely, the natives will revolt when I step back outside. I wish I knew what the Hindi word for ‘cunt’ is, for I swear that is what will be muttered. We British may have colonised many countries, nicked their wealth and fettled their women but say what you like, we have manners, we are not queue jumpers. Imagine pushing to the front in your local chippie or the post office. We even queued going over the top in 1914! I felt like apologising to the mass of humanity gathered outside for queue jumping for no good reason.

Thing is, I didn’t get a SIM card after all that. Apparently as a foreign visitor I’m only allowed one at a time, and as I had a valid STC card that was it, shitty as it is. The Germans wouldn’t have stood for it.

*Yes, I know its Kolkata know…

Over twenty years ago, in a city far away, people got out of bed to start their day. They did ordinary things such as shaving bits of the body that sprouted stubble overnight. Some don’t mind this growth, while for others it must be got rid of. Men shaved as well. Coffee was made, perhaps a breakfast of eggs and toast. Suits chosen, shirts and blouses ironed, kids sent off to school. Another ordinary day starting with a commute on public transport or battling the cars on the highway. Familiar sights and sounds greeted them, taken for granted. Police sirens, traffic noise and in the odd patch of quiet, sparrows chirping. Newspapers bought, cell phones ringing, coffee wafting down the street in the myriad throw away coffee cups bought at Starbuck’s or some other outlet promising to start your day with the proof that you are living the dream. So many people, so little connection, as offices get filled in yet another daily round of accounting, development, marketing, banking, planning, selling. 

The most challenging things faced were perhaps a deadline closing in, a difficult boss or colleague, a project losing its focus. Perhaps head office had sent another memo wanting information on some obscure issue by yesterday. For others the work is dull, easy and routine. Just another day. Just another dollar. 

Until the ear piercing scream of jet engines far far too close inserted itself into consciousness, then swiftly followed by white heat engulfing blackness. The kids will not be picked up, that memo will not be sent, the report will go unwritten. 

Ordinary people, ordinary lives. Extraordinary event. 

Whether you believe it was a conspiracy, or whether you believe it was an attack by Jihadi fanatics, matter not one jot. The effect was the same. 

The sky fell in and war was declared, not on a country (at first), nor upon a people but upon an ideology. Stupidity sided with mendacity and raw naked power, for it conflated a particular ideology with the lifestyle and belief of over 1.6 billion people. That is nearly 1 in 5 of us. It sought out an enemy, found one and then bombed the shit out of it. 

September 11th was a turning point in history. It reignited age old suspicions and poured napalm on to an already festering conflict. There was indeed an enemy wishing the destruction of Western globalised capitalism, but since that day millions have suffered because of the discriminate actions of powerful nations who could get popular support because in the end, we are woefully ignorant of people we don’t mix with, and who ‘dress funny’. 

As I sit in the office in Jeddah, I can see across the city to the Red Sea. My vantage point is four floors up providing me with a broad expanse to look down upon. The houses around me are only one or two stories high. There are clumps of high rise gleaming towers sparsely dotted around the skyline, but most of the city is street level for miles around. It is flat, very flat. Minarets point their fingers into the sky indicating where the numerous mosques are. Far away to the east, a line of blue hills in the haze rise up, otherwise this is a vast flat desert plain now built upon by one of the three largest cities in the country. 

In the afternoon, the blue ribbon of the Red Sea between the city and the sky, becomes a white wave, flecked topped flow, as the current and the wind picks up. Tankers queue up on the horizon. Many are on their way to the Suez Canal to feed our ravenous taste for oil. It is peaceful. At lunch time the nearby muezzin call the faithful to prayer, one of five a day. A colleague in the office takes his mat and goes through his prayers. 

You know of course that Saudi Arabia is a deeply religious country and that it was Saudis who flew the planes on that September day. You know that a Washington Post journalist was lured to the office in Istanbul and was killed by Saudi secret services. Perhaps you have heard that Saudi women are now allowed to drive! And, as Boris Johnson reminded us…Saudi women look like ‘letterboxes’. These things have truth to them, but they don’t tell the whole story. 

I have often thought that we like to generalise from the particular. I often do so deliberately for comic effect. In fact, stereotyping is useful because it allows us to make sense, quickly, of a complex world. And there is often a grain of truth in stereotypes. That’s why we like them and see them as funny as well as prejudicial. 

Racist stereotypes are the stock in trade, not just of some comedians, but of anyone travelling to foreign parts.  Mix race with religion and we have a very potent brew. 

”Muslims are terrorists’. 9/11 taught us that. Beards and backpacks are to be feared, and ideally shot on sight, even if you are from Brazil. 

The crazy, stupid thing is that Islam and Muslims are not one huge monolithic bloc who all think, act, or believe the same thing. They can’t agree on the dates for Eid nor what passes for morality. Some of us know there is the Sunni-Shia divide for example, but that’s about as far as our knowledge goes. I know sod all about it. My feeling is that it is one of of the three Abrahamic religions, which along with Judaism and Christianity, has created vast swathes of the modern world.

As an Atheist, I have little faith in their pronouncements or belief systems. Their sacred books to me are the scribblings of pre scientific poets, pedagogues, patriarchs, piss takers and psychopaths. The Bible, the Torah and the Qu’ran are as sensible as guides for life as a telephone directory is for navigation, only twice as dull. Ok, there are some good bits hidden in the bible, some would say Solomon’s Song is a bit rude, but the fixation with blood sacrifices, virgins and genocide is a bit far fetched.  Each of the big three is riven with internal contradictions, schisms and internecine strife. There is no such thing as a Muslim, or a Christian or a Jew. These are big words which, within the context of real life, are meaningless.  

But do all muslims want to kill me? If I listen to the British Press and the foamy flecked rantings of some American right wing nut job commentator, I might as well be walking down the street with a target on my chest. According to some surveys, nearly 40% of Conservative voters think Islam is a threat to the ‘British Way of life’, and within the Tory party itself, Islamophobia runs deep in its DNA. Don’t take my word for it, read what a Tory Peer thinks. Notwithstanding what a ‘British Way of Life’ actually is, this anti Muslim feeling is pure ignorance and prejudice stoked by years of front page rantings by the Sun, Mail and Express in particular. 

I confess that my lack of experience and lack of exposure to Islam, and more importantly to people who call themselves Muslim, leads me to feel uneasy and discomfited. It is natural when we become surrounded by things we don’t recognise.

As I take an evening stroll along the Red Sea, I am surrounded by families and couples. The majority of the men wear the long white gown called a thawb, and the traditional Saudi headdress, known as the ghutra. Some may think that it is worn to keep away the heat from the scorching desert sun, while others argue that it is an age-old tradition that is very popular among Saudis. One important component of wearing the ghutra is securing it on the head. It is often seen that even when a Saudi man walks fast his ghutra never falls off. It is the igal, the black rope-like cord, that holds the ghutra in place. Not many people are aware that the present day favourite in the Kingdom — the red and white-checkered ghutra — has its roots in far away Europe. It is believed that it was introduced in ancient Arabia, while others say it arrived in Saudi Arabia only a few decades ago.

Many, perhaps most, of the women are of course wearing the full black burqa. The term burqa is sometimes conflated with niqab. In more precise terms, niqab is a face veil that leaves the eyes uncovered, while a burqa covers the entire body from the top of the head to the ground, with only a mesh screen allowing the wearer to see in front of her. The burqa is also not to be confused with the hijab, a garment which covers the hair, neck and all or part of the chest, but not the face.

And boy have we got our knickers in a twist about all of it. For years women argued that they should be allowed to wear what they like. But not when it comes to the burqa. It is not strictly true of course, even in the liberal West. There are are times and places for getting your tits out in public. There are social strictures and consequences wherever you go in the world. Some are enforced by the police, others by shame and alcohol. In Jeddah, women can wear almost what they like, but just as you would at home, you choose more or less modesty depending on the context, your values and culture. A skimpy bikini is fine on a hot summer’s beach, but not for evening cocktails in the bar at the Carbis Bay Hotel. Your team’s football shirt is fine fixing the car or at the match, but you would would be foolish to wear it in more formal situations. 

Superfically, the Saudis are different. Their clothes say so. However, in just one conversation in the office overlooking the Red Sea, my colleague and I quickly agree that the most important thing we all want, is to be born, grow, live, work and age in peace. Food, Family and Friends are what matter. There are always a few psychopaths willing to kill for their version, but they can be found in all religions and in none. 

Over twenty tears ago, in a city far away, the day started with a call to prayer. The song wafted over the rooftops mesmerising in its ritual. Strong sweet coffee was being brewed and breakfast of flat bread, eggs, falafel and hummus shared around the family table. Children prepared for school, women put on their make up, taxi drivers nearly killed each other and other drivers during the morning commute. Thawbs chosen, shirts and blouses ironed, burqas cleaned, kids sent off to school. Another ordinary day starting with a commute battling the cars on the highway. Familiar sights and sounds greeted them, taken for granted, the squawks of the myna birds and calls of the swifts. Dogs roamed the streets looking for tit bits and skinny cats sat in any shade they could find. 

The most challenging things faced were perhaps a deadline closing in, a difficult boss or colleague, a project losing its focus. Perhaps head office had sent another memo wanting information on some obscure issue by yesterday. For others the work is dull, easy and routine. Just another day. Just another Dinar. 

Until the ear piercing scream of a cruise missile far far too close inserted itself into consciousness, then swiftly followed by white heat engulfing blackness. The kids will not be picked up, that memo will not be sent, the report will go unwritten. 

Ordinary people, ordinary lives. Extraordinary event. 

Trains, planes and automobiles provide you with any number of opportunities to reflect upon the vicissitudes, banalities and embuggerancies of everyday existence. Waiting at check in, security, in departure lounges and in platform tea rooms on a cold foggy night in Crewe affords time to observe ordinary and extraordinary folk, if one can be arsed to lift one’s gaze up from the screen for a moment. The rich variety of individuals on display nonetheless morphs into patterns of attitudes and behaviours, and extreme levels of fuckwittery last heard when “It’ll be all over by Christmas” was exclaimed by a squiffy Field Marshall over sherry before dinner at Number 10 in 1914.

Travel takes us mentally into zones of discomfort, of disquiet and of stress. You have given over control over your whole life to strangers who hold your destiny in the palms of their hands. The pilot, the train driver…and yes the taxi bastards of Dubai who deserve a special place in hell, one in which the demon’s trident is particularly pointy and the scrotum clamps are spectacularly efficient ‘on the press’. The pilot and the train driver may well share your fate should they stray into misjudgment. The taxi driver however thinks they are immortal. They’ll find out they are not, when I stick the end of my nail file into their jugular from the back seat the next time they decide lane discipline is for losers.

Security Staff, Border Guards, and policemen should be given the respect they demand, even if they do not deserve it. It is amazing how the possession of a gun provides one with a certain ‘authority’, especially if that is backed up by the State. There is of course a proportional relationship between the possession of a gun, a uniformed testosterone fuelled machismo and the likelihood of a ‘mishap’ should one be ill informed enough to question the patrilineal lineage of a peak capped, shiny booted, ill educated but eager officer of the law. You must remember that they are armed with batons, boots and lubricant.

Airline officials also have the power to make or break your day simply with one wink or phone call to the assembled cohorts of law and order lurking in the background. A smart suited airline official may be pretty and helpful, but say the wrong thing and you’ll find yourself naked, with bag over your head, chained to the wall in a cold room, being shouted at in a language you don’t want to understand while an Alsatian takes a hungry sniff of your testicles (if you have them). This scenario only seems to apply to men. Women seem to get let off with histrionics at a security gate with a “Calm down dear, its only an internal examination” before being led away to a quiet room in a nearby psychiatric institution specialising in psychotropic medications as a first line treatment.

Don’t mention the war. Any war. They are not funny and you have no idea whose side they were on. Sod’s law dictates they were on the other side. Even in the UK, I think you’ll find officials tend to be recruited from those with an ‘Authoritarian Personality’ whose childhoods were spent picking the legs off spiders, using a magnifying glass to burn a wood louse and keeping a collection dead birds in a box in the attic. You can tell them by the unblinking eyes, a barely perceptible tic and lack of an ability to put more than two words together without the veiled threat of bodily harm. Innocuous phrases such as “May I help you?”, “Please stand there” and “Bend Over” all have sinister undertones.

We all know this, and I think this is partly why we carry a subconscious fear or sense of unease when travelling. We have all heard the stories about over exuberant, pissed or arrogant relatives detained in foreign airports. Shouting at officials at Passport control, in an attempt to get your point of view across in a language they don’t understand, with an attitude of imperial arrogance and unfounded entitlement rooted in a complete ignorance of history and then expecting respect, attention and understanding, is a folly of such enormous size as to equal the opening of a children’s home during the reign of King Herod. You’d be better off standing in front of a tank in China, founding a Gay Atheist Society in Alabama or expecting the French to make you a decent cup of tea.

“What did happen to Uncle Jimmy, Mum?”

“Sush, darling, some things are best left to God”.

At Bahrain check in, I dutifully turned up with the relevant documentation which in all good faith should see me safely across the border. “Das Paperien, Bitte!” purred the dark brown eyes behind the mask at the desk. Gulf Air, as it seems all airlines, seems to hire only beautifully uniformed women to do the first dirty work of sorting out who has the right to cross the frontier. I handed over my passport, my check in details, my negative PCR test certificate, return flight details to Dubai, my bank card, RAC membership and my Gold Card Membership for the “I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue Appreciation Society”. Ironically, she did not see the funny side of the last one.

Another airline official was called for. This time a beautifully besuited young chap whose smile belied the power he had to make your day an absolute fucking nightmare with just one phone call. “How long have you been in Bahrain, Sir?” The use of ‘Sir’ in a five star hotel is mandatory and is often said with seeming sincerity. The use of ‘sir’ by anyone whose services you have not asked or paid for can be a precursor to “walk this way” “may I have your passport” and “I vill ask ze questions”. In the same way that you just know that the wonderful, hedonistic, reckless, short but erotic experience you are currently enjoying will be followed by years of regret, servitude, a large mortgage and a slow descent into decrepitude spent alone in your own hovel, then you just know ‘sir’ can be the gateway to sorrow, pain and repentance.

Anyway,

Turns out that I was checking in on the 14th Day. The rules state I was to have 14 days of quarantine in Bahrain before being allowed to fly into Jeddah. So, a minor discussion with Saudi officials in an office somewhere to check what 14 days actually means resulted in a decision that 14 days means…14 days. Not 13 and most of 14 days. Not 13 days, 23 hours and 15 minutes. I already knew this. So did the company that booked my flight out of Bahrain. But we don’t count. In the end the only things that count is what officialdom thinks count.

Arguing with officialdom is as useless an enterprise as Canute’s tide bending exploits, the Charge of the Light Brigade or expecting a coherent answer from the orange skinned Ex President of the United States. What Trump shared with officialdom is that they can both be factually wrong in your eyes, but it matters not one tiny jot.

As I stood awaiting the answer, I overheard a ‘discussion’ at the next check in desk between…yes, a Brit and the Gulf Air check in official. It was not necessary to hear exactly what was being said, suffice to note the rising volume and pulsing neck veins. The sense of jeopardy started to increase. I foresaw a consulate being contacted, letters to MPs and a family mourning the disappearance of a much loved father, husband and beer mat collector.

My decision came through. It seems that they agreed with my assessment of the situation in that although I was checking in on the 11th hour of the 14th day, that because the flight was at 0230 on the 15th Day, I had indeed spent 14 whole days in Bahrain. It’s great when there is agreement on such basics as calendar interpretation and simple sums. Suffice to say, all papers were in order and off I went.

As for my neighbour, well it seems all was fine in the end and he strolled through to the next step of security.

As we left, I thought I saw the Gulf Air chap wave away two burly policemen, batons at the ready, who turned with, I swear, a disappointed look on their faces.

Such are the things one sees in transit.

I am three hours ahead of you, as I am reliably informed by my computer’s ‘world clock’. This means my mornings are earlier than yours, as is everything else that follows it. So, compared to you in the U.K. I am indeed the early bird that not only catches the worm, I can also relax as my competition is still safely tucked up in bed. They are fast asleep, having wild or foreboding dreams about being on safari while still in their pyjamas, winning the lottery, or the world coming to an end as a meteor crashes into Rochdale obliterating the few remaining survivors of Covid who were reduced to eating each other due to the shortage of imported food from the EU.

The worms around me, however, have been caught on the hop, unaware that my day starts three hours before they were expecting it. Half of them are fuming because they were promised that time differences would make no impact if they just watched English clocks. The other half are just happy that they have taken control of English time, just as I bite their heads off.

The third half stay deep underground saying “I told you so”.

Being ahead in time means I can make some predictions, as I know the future. Well, ok, I know the future three hours before you do.

The first that I can make with a very high degree of certainty is that the sun will rise. I can even give you almost an exact time it will do so. The darkness envelops you while still asleep in bed, but for me the early light creeps over the blue horizon to burst into an orange yellow ball low in the sky. As it does so it’s rays touches the skin giving an immediate and gentle warmth. A glass tower block opposite me suddenly sparkles white and orange as the sun catches its myriad windows. Swifts take this as their cue to fly at very low level screaming for their breakfast feast of low flying insects.

So yes, the sun will rise. I’ll bet my sanity on it.

I predict that the muezzin at the three local mosques, at about 5 am and then at four more occasions throughout the day, will sing the call to prayer. This will cut across the hotel’s music at various times throughout the day so that we will be treated to a curious mix of ancient prayer and modern pap. It is fair to say that the call to prayer has more musicality than the combined output forced upon us as we eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. The call of course informs us that God is great and that there is no God but Allah, and then helpfully reminds us that prayer is better than sleep.

Better than sleep? I really hope that my pilot was not so busy praying that he is dog tired as he tries to land us in Jeddah. Some might believe in the power of prayer, but when it comes to aviation I rather put my trust in science, technology and a pilot who stays awake long enough to realise his engine’s on fire, the wheels are down for landing or that he actually has enough fuel to arrive at the destination without doing an explosive belly flop in the desert. Perhaps 9/11 was after all a tragic accident as a result of the Muslim pilots praying all night and thus not spotting their trajectory into the two, soon to be, towering infernos. I predict that explanation will have no traction with the bosses of the US military-industrial complex who prefer to think that bombs are better than sleep because God actually blesses America.

This prayer call has been going on for 700 years, five times day. I think by now that the local populace has got the message. I have.

Denzil Penberthy, and ‘Boy’Trevaskis (who was 80 if he was a day), once visited a mosque in search of 70 virgins he heard were on offer to any pilgrim that the Imam thought was sufficiently pious. How could they possibly have 70 virgins? The last time he had heard of virgins was that Camborne had run out of them in 1973. The same had happened to Bodmin in 1959 so the men had had to resort to goats. I predict a riot when Denzil finds out the virgin promise is for the afterlife.

What else can I see?

Well, the current respite from Trumpian insanity will be short lived. Joe Biden has been given the keys to the asylum but has probably already forgotten where he has put them or which doors need to stay locked. Those who should be inside behind locked doors are outside, while many of those locked inside should be outside enjoying the fresh air. It’s an inverted world in which reward often goes to the greedy, the powerful, the lucky and the criminally insane. Money not only talks, it is its own reward, and the only aim. Jesus didn’t want much to do with it, Buddha saw it gave him no lasting peace, I’ve no idea what the myriad Hindu Gods thought about it and the Prophet was too busy eating dates in the shade of a palm tree and spitting the stones out at the dung beetles scurrying around in the clumps of camel poo to care.

Had he known it, the prophet had right there the germ of an idea for the sport of clay pigeon shooting, he just lacked shotguns. And clay pigeons. And the English gentleman’s penchant for shooting anything that flew, swam or stood on four legs. He could have made some money out of that idea. Instead, the heat got to his head so that he fell asleep dreaming of virgins. Come to think of it, followers of Jesus were also focused on virginity? What’s that about then? What is so special about wanting access to a clam so tight that you can’t get a credit card into it. What makes it so appealing to old men whose memories of the embarrassing sex they enjoyed many moons ago is tainted by nostalgia and exaggeration?

I can also see that Brexit will be a rip roaring success, that we will green the economy, that the social damage done by the financial crisis will be healed and that coronavirus will evaporate like a stream of piss in the heat of an equatorial midday sun. All of these good things will be followed by the ushering in a new utopia, characterised by sugar and spice, all things nice and rainbows and roses. Traffic lights will turn green upon approach, toast will land butter side up and Boris Johnson will utter a complete sentence that will not only make sense but will omit pauses, harrumphs and Latin. Katie Hopkins will acknowledge her sins and throw herself upon the mercy of the Church and stay indoors while never appearing in print ever again save to advertise her collection of own brand and well worn dildos for sale. Her large selection of exotic butt plugs will be free – collection only. Devon will admit the errors of its ways and will adopt the jam first method of afternoon tea. Trains will stop at Camborne on a Wednesday.

All of this I can see because I’m ahead of by three hours.

Now, I’m away for another long toke on the Shisha pipe with its interesting vapour.

Qatar, Bahrain and Dubai.

I’m led to believe it is the same in Jeddah, but I’ll let you know.

Mind, I think it is the same everywhere.

Contrast, opposites, variance, call it what you will, but there is no escaping the fact that there is often a gulf in quality as wide as a fat hippo’s ass between one plate of food and another. Price is often a steer on this but not always of course. You tend to get what you pay for. Unless you find yourself in an unregulated taxi in Dubai, the ball crushing embrace of a Redruth maid pissed on Prosecco or anywhere in London if you should turn up looking like a tourist with a sign over your head that says ‘gullible twat’. Money, and what it can buy in those situations, bears no association at all between cost and value. I’d also keep away from the tempting offer of a Nigerian prince who has come into several million dollars of cash but only requires your assistance, via your bank account, to help him access it. Pay those prices and the only thing you’ll get is a sinking feeling, followed by bitter disappointment and the overwhelming desire to drink yourself into the gutter where you will be overwhelmed by sorrow and your own vomit.

But otherwise, yes pay a bit more and you can, or should, expect a subsequent rise in quality of the offer. Denzil Penberthy found this out to his detriment when paying a fiver for a hand job round the back of the Twilight Zone in Redruth, only to find out the ‘hand’ in question was arthritic and had about as much grip as that of a week old corpse. “Bleddy ‘ell, I ‘ad to finish it myself”. Boy Trevaskis (who was 80 if he was a day) nodded in recognition as he himself was also a fiver lighter than he’d been earlier in the evening. Everyone knows you should pay at least £10 for a Redruth hand job…or get it for free by marrying. Serves Denzil right, the cheapskate.

As I was saying.

The Via Brasil Restaurant on the 28th floor of the Wyndham Garden Hotel offers an ‘all in’ dinner called a ‘churrascaria’. It is one of those rooftop terrace bar/restaurants which I believe are doing a decent trade during these covid times as eating indoors is verboten. I’m not often to be found in the queue for a ‘Brazilian’. I tend to like certain things to be left well alone, but in this case I’d make an exception. Brazil is famous for its Nuts, Football and well mown lawns. To that little list I can add the chef’s special, served up with suitable theatre and alcohol. The view over the city at night was breathtaking. Pity the ‘music’ wasn’t though. Imagine modern formulaic booming dance music which was matched in its banality by its volume and a speaker system far too heavy on the bass. I had to ask it to be turned down several times. The sound was so badly distorted it created a vibration in the lower bowel that threatened to end the evening’s repast before it had even began.

But the food, oh the food. Sublime.

Churrascaria is a method of both cooking and delivery. It does not do it justice to call it a barbecue served at your table. The waiter brings over huge skewers and slices the meats to your liking. It’s an ‘all in’ because you order a churrascaria and then it just arrives. And keeps arriving. Vegetarians and vegans need not apply, as this will disgust you in any case. All the meat you can eat, all the different cuts and cooked as you like it. Tender and tasty. Moist and Moreish. Beef, Lamb, Chicken, Pork. It just goes on and on. It is served with a side salad but this is just an afterthought. Six little ramekins which contain just enough salad to feed a chicken on a diet.

The menu has just two options: Either with or without alcohol. That’s it. That’s your options. Those of us who feel overwhelmed by choice and find it hard to make a decision have nothing to fear here. You either want the ‘all you can drink’ booze option, or you don’t. If you choose the without booze, you still of course can order what you fancy, it just does not come unlimited while you eat. Wisely I chose the ‘without’.

There are children dying in Africa of malnutrition. Sorry to bring things down a notch, but there are. There are badly nourished children at home as well, some of that is my fault. I have been known to snatch half a pasty from a little child’s grasp, gull like, and run away laughing hysterically at my impertinence. Yet, the amount of meat on offer here would feed a family for Christmas, Hannukah and Eid. It is opulence on display, in a region that displays its opulence like a stripper displays her nipple tassled tits in a Las Vegas bar. All, big and in yer face but without the wobbles (so I am told).

The bill was a bit eye watering, or that could have been the rum.

But that was yesterday.

Then we descend into Hell’s Kitchen. Gordon Ramsey would not last 5 seconds in this place. It was called the ‘Turkish Grill’, chosen because it had an open air restaurant and anyway how bad can a grill be? It had the benefit of being cheap. Very very cheap.

Its relationship to Turkey was about as authentic as me blacking up and singing Bob Marley songs about Redemption in a white working man’s club in Rochdale. None of the staff were Turkish, which in hindsight is a bit of a give-away. Another red light was the menu. You know the sort. A piece of laminated card with pictures. The sort you find in Redneck cafes in Alabama in which bloated obese good ‘ole boys drink Tennessee whisky as an aperitif while their wives stay at home mending their white hoods. The pictures are the biggest work of fiction since the Bible and are to be as trusted about as much as Boris Johnson’s promises on Brexit or a City banker running a committee on financial ethics.

The ‘chicken wrap’…well. Frankly, an embarrassment. The Pitta wrap was scorched and the chicken, such as it was, was an ultra thin grey slime pasted to the inside. It tasted of nothing. A mountain of rice, as bland in taste as a whitewash wall, flattered to deceive. I’d get more taste from the inside of a wallpaper paste bucket which in truth would be more pleasing to the eye. The pineapple smoothie was superficially sweet but then left a layer of slime around the mouth that only a double whisky could shift.

It was cheap.

It was not very cheerful.

Denzil got more value from his fiver.