The ultimate geek dream-in

Last night, I had the following dream:

There's been a jail break and Spidey has chased the escapee criminals to Baltimore where they've hit the radar of one Jimmy McNulty and his affable partner Bunk. They're investigating the guy's infiltration into the Bodymore, Murdaland's criminal population. Spidey arrives in town and immediately starts busting heads, including Snoop and Cheese, who run off in defeat. Undeterred they hire Venom and Carnage's symbiotes who turn Snoop and Cheese into rabid savage G-Symbiotes with sideways guns and flat-caps on their musuclar mutilated alien bodies. They attack Spidey who is defeated and slumps off. Meanwhile Bunk and McNulty have tracked the escapee criminal to a warehouse where it turns out he's working for... Doc Ock... yep, Doctor Octopus entrusted this man with the secret whereabouts of a special formula that can make ordinary men grow octopus arms and superhuman strength. Doc Ock gets the formula back and immediately disposes of the escapee man. Spidey teams up with McNulty and Bunk who have issued warrants on symbiote Cheese and Snoop, who are tearing their way through the Western district destroying all the walls so Spidey has nothing to hang on to. Spidey turns up with Hulk and Wolverine and they go to town on the evil gangsta symbiotes. They defeat them and then a rumble hits the ground... They turn round and Doc Ock is standing there with a legion of superhuman octopus-armed corner boys... holding McNulty and Bunk hostage.

TBC - cos then my alarm went off...

I can't work out if this is a really weird fan-fiction or the best dream ever.

The Year of Gigging Dangerously - chapter 1

The Year of Gigging Dangerously chapter 1

E

I’m playing the new album for the first time in front of a home crowd. Mum’s in the audience, in a position of royalty, on a plastic seat I brought her from backstage so she could rest her swollen feet. Other family members are in the audience. The electricity is palpable. I’m backstage drinking a beer waiting for the rains to come and drive everyone into my tent so I can entertain them and bewitch them with my acoustic strums. I finish my beer and walk into the Portacabin where I replace my empty with another full bottle of Dutch courage. My fingers are stiff and cold. I can’t warm them up. I imagine the first song will be robot strumming.

Rob’s standing next to me for moral support, and free beer. I take a long sip and prepare myself for another pre-gig piss. The stage manager walks past and I smile at him. He glowers and walks over.

‘How many beers have you two had?’
‘I dunno. Three each?’
‘You know they are for everybody not just you. We have a lot of acts on today.’
‘Aren’t seventy per cent of them too young to drink?’
‘Fair’s fair. If we run out, you have to go and buy me four beers. Understand? I know you’re the artist here but no one takes the piss out of me. Understand?’
‘Understood.’
‘Listen, understand this. This day is not about you. Understand? It’s about the community. Yeah? This is a community event. Understand? You are on the community stage. Yeah? Artists on the community tent do not go onstage drunk. Understand?’
‘I’m not drunk. Don’t question me. I am the key to you sounding good. I’m writing your introduction now to give to the compere. Because, you know what? They don’t know who the fuck you are. Understand? Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good. Glad you understand. Enjoy your beer. You’re on in ten minutes.’

*

‘When you on?’
‘In five minutes.’
‘Could I come up and beatbox in one of your tunes?’
‘Erm… I don’t know. This is the first time I’m doing this material. Maybe in a few gigs time.’
‘The opportunity is now, bruv. Besides, this is the community stage. Give back to your community.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘Let me know, yeah?’

*

‘Next up, we have a very special act. I’m sure you’ve all heard of him. Who here is a fan of Nikesh Shukla?’
‘…’
‘Brilliant. He’s going to rock your socks off. Are you ready?’
‘…’
‘Excellent. Please welcome him onstage. He used to be known as Yam Boy but now he wants to get married so he’s calling himself Nikesh Shukla so no one thinks he looks like a potato and because he is all man. Put your hands together and welcome your favourite comedy folk poet, Nikesh Shukla.’
‘…’
‘Err… hello. Thanks for your warm welcome. Are you ready to folk?’

*

I play the first song so quickly that no one can hear any of the words, meaning they miss the main conceit of the song that makes the chorus so damned hilarious. It’s hard to write about playing music so averagely without sounding like Flight of the Conchords or Spinal Tap. But when the sheer amount of bands in London outweigh any semblance of fans, it’s important to document the triers and the doers and the deluded and conflicted.

I’m so desperate to impress my mum. The only reason she’s come to see me is because this is one of those cultural festivals that celebrate our combined heritage and she was going to be here anywhere. To have her son perform, on essentially the care in the community stage, is a proud moment for her. She will tell me afterwards that she didn’t understand a word of what I’m saying but I keep darting my eyes over to her to see if she’s digging the vibes. She’s staring at me with a vacant smile to give me the illusion she is paying attention, when really, she’s wondering what time Jay Sean is playing the main stage.

In order of importance from less important to most important, these are the people you need to impress at gigs.

Other bands: they may want to book you to play with them, or collaborate or think of you favourably down the line. Also, if you get famous before them, they’ll remember you and jealously tell all their mates in the pub they blew you off the stage. Of course it works in reverse too. And you’ve got a famous contact to call in. It pays to be friends with all the bands you play with on the off-chance they beat you to the fame spot.

A&R man: you really only need to hold his attention for one and a half songs because the poor underpaid fucker goes to so many gigs, he has lost his attention span completely. He now goes to gigs because he’s heard good things about the band or because he wants to say good things about a band so when they’re discovered, he was the first to hear the good things that were initially said about them that led to more good things being said about them. Also, A&R don’t sign bands anymore. They sign albums. So you don’t really need to impress him that much. Remember your independent spirit, go it alone, sell CD’s outside Topshop. Think of the dividends.

The three fans there for the music: once you get past the fact that the crowd comprises of the other bands’ friends, and you’re slick at playing your songs, you’ll start automatically start scanning crowds for the three real music fans left in the audience and you will turn your entire performance to face them so they can blog about you to their friends and add you on Myspace. Once you’ve hooked them in, you’re waging war on the machine man.

Your brand new girlfriend/potential new girlfriend: watching you gig with maximum confidence will make her want to bone you more. And she’s one more person to convince you’re good, cos once you’ve hooked her in, she’ll start inviting her friends down to see you, and your fanbase increases.

Mum: there’s no one more important in this world than dear old mum. She rues the day she let you buy a guitar instead of an accountancy calculator. You’re doing this for her validation. The better you play, the more she will love you.

By the time my between-song banter has garnered bemusement and I want to berate the audience for leaving in droves or watching me politely and hating me, I notice the tent is starting to thin. The second song is quite stiff, played with a heavy strumming hand and a quiver of nerves in my voice as I mangle words and images into a mess of half-executed messiness. The third song is marginally better, though desperate in tone, wanting to retain the audience I walked in to. Unfortunately, the act before me was a community dance project where disadvantaged kids learned traditional Bollywood dance and now it’s me, singing stupid songs about comics and politics. The shift in tone and content is uneasy, meaning that I am no longer relevant to anyone who came in to see some cutesy Bollywood steps or their children. My mum is looking around at the unrest in the audience and I want to switch her focus back to me. My next song is a well-known but odd cover version, like when Elbow did ‘Independent Woman’ or Travis did ‘Baby Hit Me One More Time’. People know the song and sing with me. I’ve managed to regain their confidence momentarily. At the end of the song, someone shouts to me to ask if I know any Bollywood songs. I don’t, I respond, but instead sing them a song about my favourite Bollywood actress and how she helped me to question my own opinions of identity. It’s a sweet sombre affair and the yawns are now audible. No one cares. And why should anyone care about a stranger’s issues.

By the end, I have run out of energy and enthusiasm. They don’t get me, I decide. All they want to hear is Bollywood and bhangra, not pastoral comedy folk. It’s the wrong festival for me. The wrong crowd. The crowd comprises all the archetypes present in my family, and funnily enough they never come to my gigs unless I’m playing at this particular festival and here I am, and all I can see is the curl of their collective lips. I come to the end of a song and glance at my watch to see how long I’ve got left, I’ve got to the point where I’ve lost perspective on how long I’ve been onstage. I’m not wearing a watch. Half-looking at the idiotic MC at the side of the stage, I ask him if I should do one more. Unfortunately, I forget the amplifying equipment in my face and it booms out over the tannoy.

‘No more, no more, please no more,’ some middle-aged woman sat cross-legged directly in front of my mum’s chair squeals. Mum smacks her round the back of her head. She turns round and screams at my mum. ‘Your son is awful. My son could do better.’ Mum stands up, all 4feet and 8 inches of her and points an accusing finger at the screaming woman. ‘Your son is a wanker,’ she retorts venomously.

‘My mother, ladies and gentlemen,’ I quip and the audience laughs with me, suddenly we’re in unison, we’re working, we’re finally gelling. I’m about to launch into another song, another cover version they’ll all get. But before I can, bhangra-dancing his way on to the stage is my friend, the MC with the worst introduction skills in Christendom, grinning like a happy Larry, bhangra-ing over to me. ‘Who would like to hear one more? Eh?’ he coos to an unforgiving crowd.

Our telepathic goodwill connection is lost. They revert back to hating me. ‘No one. Get him off. Get him off.’

My mum is still standing and turns to face my detractors. No one can see her in the melee of apathy. ‘You leave my son alone.’

‘Haha, mummy darling defending you eh?’ coos the MC.

There’s nothing for it, I decide, and sing a jangly version of ‘Baby Got Back’ by Sir Mix-a-Lot which gets teenagers laughing and giggling, oldies furious and offended and my mum embarrassed she ever spawned me and celebrated my artistry in a field of her peers. I leave the stage and the soundman stifles a laugh as I walk past, telling me to not worry, fuck em, I did a good set, I smile blankly, the MC chases me and tells me I have 5 minutes left if I want to do an encore. He tells me I should be proud of the way my mum defended me and I did a good job but I should have done some Bollywood covers. He follows me as I make my way to the tent containing the rider. It’s still full and we’re near the end of the set. I open a beer, down it and open one more. I place 15 beers in my bag and go to find Rob.

Rob greets me with an outstretched hand. After all I forced him to endure, I owe him a beer right? Mum sits on her chair like the Queen of Sheba. People walk past her tutting. I walk up to her shy and slightly embarrassed about the whole thing.

She looks up at me with an aww shucks, parents just don’t understand look. ‘That bitch is lucky I didn’t beat the fuck out of her,’ she tells me seriously, like I’ve just fluffed lines in the school play. In one fell swoop she has reduced me to teenage panic and esteem.

‘At least we got free beer eh?’ says Rob.

The Year of Gigging Dangerously - prologue

This is a prologue to my diary of gigging in the last year.

The Year of Gigging Dangerously

Prologue

‘So, there’s no PA system, no stage, no microphone stand, and nowhere for me to plug in my guitar?’
‘What do you expect man? This is a coffee shop in India, not Wembley Stadium.’
‘Yes, but when you booked me for the concert, you told me you had everything I need.’
‘Most performers bring their own equipment.’
‘Oh.’
‘So make the music.’
‘On what?’
‘You understand music, you will work out what to do.’

This is my moment to shine. This is my moment in the sun. I am an international troubadour. I am a wandering minstrel. I can get through this.

‘Do you know any Bollywood covers?’

I try to erect a microphone stand out of the materials before me. I watch Blue Peter. I watch the A Team. I am prepared for anything. I can get myself out of tight spots. I look around for something, anything that might act as a microphone stand. The only thing that might work is a hookah. I grab it and wonder whether I can balance one on top of the another. Not going to work. I take a table from the corner and put the hookah on it. It’s the perfect height. I balance the microphone precariously on top of the hookah. It rolls around a little. I ask for gaffa tape. Surely they have gaffa tape. The owner looks at me and arches an eyebrow.

‘You break it, you buy it.’
‘How much are they?’
‘£200 each.’
‘It’s cheaper to buy a microphone stand.’

When the gig comes around, I ask him what time I should go on. He tells me whenever I’m ready. He won’t introduce me though. I should be professional enough to do that. Ultimately, when the time comes, all the people sat drinking lattes and devouring cakes see is a man with an acoustic guitar stand up and launch himself into a song about how monkeys will one day take over the world. Bemusement doesn’t quite accurately describe the mood. Especially as four bars into the song, the microphone cuts out.

The microphone one of those cordless radio mics, prone to receiver signals from mobile phones, taxi ranks and anything with an electronic signal. The receiver of the microphone is plugged into the back of one of those colourful JVC hi-fi systems that you buy for your teenager because it has lots of flashing lights and digital screen prompts on it. The JVC hi-fi is my PA system. It’s connected to the speakers on the veranda where the performance is taking place. The guitar has no microphone. Thus, anyone sitting inside the café can just hear my singing. The microphone is too far away from the receiver to work effectively so sizzles and fizzes with staccato syllables making no sense. The audience loses interest and returns to cake and coffee.

A helpful granny sat nearby eating an ice cream sundae with her fingers smiles at me dumbly and calls me over.

‘Walk around. Play. Walk around. Play.’ She smiles. I smile back, turning back to the audience who has instantly forgotten those vital first four bars I have already played. I try the microphone once more but it’s still cutting out. People look up at the staccato sound bursts wondering what’s causing them. At no point do they pay me any attention. At this point in time, my ego is buzzing, crying out for attention and the old lady’s advice seems the best. I launch into my most uptempo song, imagining myself as a mariachi man, serenading tables with my song about superheroic justice, political intrigue and Machiavellian pets. People start to tear themselves away from the vice in front of them and listen to me for the few seconds I arrive in their radar. As soon as I’ve moved to another area, I’ve lost them. Cake and coffee, cake and coffee. I can hear the buzz and thump of the speakers gurgling with input and suddenly, a house beat reaches out of the hi-fi system and into people’s ears. They start tapping their feet and smiling. Normalcy has been resumed. I stop playing, my cheeks burning, and my fingers strumming lighter and lighter. Looking inside, I can see the manager of the café sipping an espresso behind the counter reading a newspaper. I de-strap my guitar and walk in, arms aloft in the universal sign for ‘what the fuck man!?’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d finished. That first song you played was weird.’

I'm dreaming of a white Diwali

Diwali is the only time I get religious a year. And every year falls into the same pattern of arrive, tea, pray, fireworks, eat, loosen belt-buckles. It's like traditional Christmases and follows the same protocols every year. You leave every light on to remind yourself of the light that exists in us all. This year was no different in its events yet carried this sense of bittersweet sadness. We all sat in the circle. Dad and his brother, having been through the toughest year of their lives were forlorn. The singing began, the ancient spiritual chanting of the Hindu prayers designed to bless us and celebrate god and give us luck and enlightenment for the year to come. My family has no sense of melody or rhythm and so the singing is always out of tune and time, each person singing their own version of the song, creating a messy paroxysm of celebration. This year new moods pervaded our family circle. Grandfather sat and blessed the accounts of the business. Everyone was sat in silence, staring at their fingers joined at the palm in prayer contemplation. The singing started with its usual awkward stop-start melody-less cacophony. Dad sat, staring at the carpet, defeated, not able to give himself to the spirit. His brother closed his eyes and sang his own tune, breaking into a passion that contradicted the defeated persona he has been emulating for months, singing with urgency and belief, throwing all his eggs into the prayer basket. There was no triumph this year as we all stared at our books, reading the lines slowly and robotically. Usually, when the moods prevail, the singing is fast and frenetic sung with a world-beating chest-pumping eloquence. However, none of this came to play last night. I was moved by the contrast between father and his brother as they sat next to each other, parallels wanting the same end-game. I was moved for the first time ever by this religious experience. Suddenly the lack of melody and the out-of-tune singing and the inability to sing as one in unison became a moving piece of work, an empassioned prayer, a need, a desperation tinged with resignation as father and brother contrasted each other, one going through the motions, the other believing in the power of prayer for the first time in months. He closed his eyes, tuned the rest of us out and had his own private dialogue with his gods, celebrating them so that they might celebrate him in return. Tears streamed as we neared the Hanuman Chalisa, the melodious pure chant of unity and togetherness. We couldn't hold it together. We couldn't get through it. We stumbled and suddenly, amidst the atonal dissonance, there was one voice singing, a plea, a request, a delicate urgent call for help, a despair manifesting itself upwards to the sky.

We hugged each other like it was our last time together. We stood there looking at each other smiling with sad eyes. Yes we all had problems, yes there were forces at play seeking to destroy our spirits but here we were, all stood together as one, finally, as a family.

My dad's brothers and I put our shoes and socks on, opened the back door and walked outside to light some fireworks, none of us wanting to stand in the cold and rain but needing to get through this one little traditional that each passing year we acted out begrudgingly. I walked outside expected rain to dilute my hair. I saw the delicate flow downwards of big snowflakes descend like a message from the dark ether up above. It was snowing hard. The grass of the back lawn was sprinkled with frosting, a candied sugar of anamoly. It was snowing on Diwali in October. It was a Diwali miracle. We laughed to each other. Maybe this strange circumstance was our turning point. I lit the first firework and it erupted upwards in a quick succession of silver canon blasts, erupting above our heads into stardust and blue bolts streaming outwards wildly in the snowstorm. It was soon over and we sat inside feeling like a family together against the odds, like the last gang in town, for the first time all year. Suddenly, through the bittersweet taste of aniseed and sadness, we took stock of our own private Diwali miracles and thought maybe things were finally due a change.

I'm dreaming of a white Diwali, like the ones I never knew. May our days be merry and bright. Om shanti shanti om.

short story: Terror Steam

I’m not a boob man. I like dumps like a truck, truck truck. I like big butts and I cannot lie. Boobs haunt me, pointy nipples of dextrous anxiety, low-swinging chariots of impractical soft beautiful plump pomp, inviting you to drown in flesh. I was a boob man once. I danced with undulating careening breasts, dizzyingly cushioning me, holding me, caressing me, letting me love them. But then I ruined it all when I went to Morocco.

Marrakech was a mystery of markets, mint tea and mystique, framed by minarets. This much we learned from a BBC holiday programme. We were sold and we booked our tickets that night. So did her parents. On the exact same dates. Like a prescient harbinger wrapped in fuzzy family values.

We flew over to our first jaunt in Africa, excited by uncharted territory, armed with intrepid bumbags, pictorial guidebooks and lots and lots of sun block. We were to spend a week with her parents, trawling round souks and listening to exotically-accented French, which was okay with us, it was only a week and they were lovely. They had booked us a two bedroom flat to stay in and hadn’t asked for any money for the accommodation. We were quids in and ready to blow our saved wads on souks, sex and souvenirs. Holidaying with the in-laws would be relatively painless and cheaper than a regular holiday with hotels and every meal out. Plus, they were old and British and thus likely to need to rest from the demanding sun regularly, leaving us to wander the city by ourselves, and love each other romantically and nauseatingly. We had not factored in her parents’ lust for life, zest for exoticism and hankering for time spent with their youngest child and her significant other.

They could not leave us alone. They would wake every morning and bang about in the kitchen till we woke up and sought tea, at which point they would pounce and demand our itinerary for the day. I being the lazy easy-going artiste was always up for sitting and watching the world go by, spontaneously bursting into wonderings round streets. She being the countryside-dwelling fashionista, was up for walks in hills and walks in souks. Somewhere in the middle was where the parents came in. They joined us everywhere. They would make an itinerary, ask what we were doing and then change their plans to come with us, saying ‘ooh, that sounds nice’ at everything we said we were doing. They would acknowledge that we needed time to ourselves before disregarding everything and tagging along anyway. It made me feel like I was the king of Marrakech; they obviously felt I knew something about the city’s big secrets. It made me feel like it was the 50’s and the unmarried couple had chaperones.

It was fucking annoying. Having two spare tyres filling up your boot killing any idea of romance and consistent metaphor-usage was not my idea of a holiday. We would go clubbing, they would come. We would sit by the pool; they would be in our shadow. We would haggle with marketers, they would order us to pay a reasonable price. It was like being on holiday with my own parents, except I had to maintain decorum at all times, the illusion that I was a nice boy, not screaming and crying inside, stomping about. I couldn’t be rude. I couldn’t be annoyed. I had to be the smiley happy clappy boyfriend at all times. At least if it had been my own parents, I could have reverted to teenage strops, moans and slammed doors. She maintained her decorum too, we did owe them as they were paying for our accommodation. And so the holiday went, until one day, we found something we knew for a fact they had no interest in doing. We booked it instantly.

We planned to go to a hamam, a traditional Moroccan steam bath. There were many scattered over the city, and some catered to Western spa standards, offering a posh heavily-scented service to dust-ridden travellers. Mum and dad had no interest in doing this, so we booked ourselves a special romance package, one that involved a rose bath for two, some champagne, smellies and the promise of nudity. We were sold. They accompanied us to the hamam to book our spot. We walked through an insalubrious neighbourhood. They worried about our safety. They marvelled at their gladness they were doing something else. We arrived at the spa, a heavily ornate carved wooden door led us into luxury. On arrival in the well-to-do reception, the mum sussed that it was in fact a good old-fashioned spa and decided to book her and dad in for a steam themselves. The receptionist asked if we all wanted to be together in a cubicle. The girlfriend said no. Mum said that it would be fun. My heart ached for some alone time with my naked girlfriend. Dad’s heart ached for a cold beer. And that was that, we were booked in together.

That afternoon, I changed into my swimming trunks, wrapped a towel around myself and tried to shield my manhood from my future father-in-law in the changing room. He respectfully did the same. We were tired from a day of haggling and meandering and were in desperate need of a good steam to air out our weary pores. We entered the steaming area and were pointed to our cubicle. Two benches lay either side of a gaping doorway. Steam sifted through the air looking for oxygen. I gulped down my remaining supply and sat on a bench. The dad sat next to me and we made small-talk about a particularly persistent snaggle-toothed salesman from earlier. Eventually the girls entered in their swimsuits, she was in a particularly alluring bikini, her mum in a respectable one piece. We sat down and repeated our snaggle-tooth small-talk. Steam was ushered in through the vents. It was scented and tickled our noses. We all smiled awkwardly at each other. A petite loud woman walked into our room and took one look at the girls and shook her head loudly.

‘No tops…’ she demanded. She pulled at the mum’s one piece swimsuit till it was down around her waist, her breasts flapping out and bounding over the top of the cloth. She was topless. Everyone expressed surprise. The woman stood firm in her insistence of the dress code. I immediately closed my eyes out of respect for future in-law middle-aged breasts. I heard my girlfriend take off her top, in that familiar

:clip:
:plink:
:shuffle:

sound I was so familiar with. Everyone laughed nervously. I was deathly quiet. This didn’t change matters. I was in a room with my girlfriend’s topless mum. Her boobs were on display.

‘This is a surprise’, the mum exclaimed breaking the thick blanket of silent scented steam as she was scrubbed at with eucalyptus soap. We all agreed. I kept my eyes closed and my mouth shut. Now was definitely not the time to be flippant or embarrassed, each would show that I cared about boobs and I certainly didn’t want to anger the dad or make him think I was a sex-crazed boob perv. He sat a few shuffles away from me. He was in a room with his daughter’s naked boobs and his wife’s naked boobs and a guy he was certain was intimate with her daughter’s naked boobs. It couldn’t have been easy for him. I was in the middle of a new twist on the old Oedipal nightmare. We were all silent. I couldn’t open my eyes. I didn’t dare. I didn’t want anyone to think I was sneaking a peak. That would be embarrassing. I didn’t want dad to say something like, ‘Seen something you like.’

I was scrubbed at violently with eucalyptus soap by the loud petite woman. I was a little scared as I was enjoying it, a little too much. I didn’t want to get aroused by a soap-down in the same room as my girlfriend’s mum’s naked boobs. I pretended to get soap in my eyes so I had an excuse to keep them closed. They stang after a while with a need to see things and would every now and then flicker open and I would catch a blur of leathered flesh dumplings in the corner of my eye. Life didn’t get more hellish than this.

My friend Brown Bear had once said that you should look at your girlfriend’s mum to see what your girlfriend will look like when she’s old. It was one of those cheesy things you read on a jokes page of Balls magazine or something. I wondered if this rule extended to mum-boobies. I suppose how many times are people ever in this situation. I wondered if I should have a look. I wondered if the dad/husband would notice. I wondered what was going through his head. I wondered if he was wondering how many times I had seen his daughter’s boobs. I looked at my girlfriend’s boobs quickly, just to remind myself of what I was dealing with, why I was suffering politely in the corner, whether she deserved my polite sufferings, whether this hellish holiday would make or break us. They were a playful size, definitely worth suffering for. I started to get aroused. I hit panic stations. This was hell. I needed the ultimate mood killer. I stole a glance at her mum’s boobs. They were massive, old. I shut my eyes guiltily and quickly and they stung with the wrongness of life’s foibles and faux-pas’s. I felt like a sex-crazed pervert. All the while, she and her mum were making the most inane of giggly small-talk, enjoying our discomfort in an effort to scale beyond their own embarrassment.

‘Alright there?’ her father suddenly asked me. He asked in such a way that basically said, ‘Get a good look did you?’

‘Yeah, fine, just some soap in my eye.’

‘Right,’ he countered.

I burned red under my sweating pores. I felt my cheeks get even flusher. I felt my mouth get even dryer. And the fucking eucalyptus smell was getting right up my fucking nose. Stupid fucking smell. The girls fell silent, whispered, giggled. I could feel them empathising with me. This was a Freudian nightmare, never was a misused cliché so apt.

Later, I showered in silence, feeling dirty, embarrassed and under the microscope. This was surely a test. How did I react in such a situation? Surely, a flying colour pass would issue me good potential son-in-law status.

Later, we ended our spa session, lounging in luxury on beds, with cups of mint tea. We lay in silence, not a word to say to each other. What was there to say? ‘Nice jugs… your missus is more than a handful… you take after your mum…’ Nothing was appropriate. I sipped my tea. The sugar formed an unsavoury syrup texture at the back of my throat.

Later, we returned home, bewildered by how the day had unfolded. I took my girlfriend into our bedroom and we tried to talk through my humiliating psychological breakdown. She could offer me no suggestions for a cure. I would have to live with the scarring forever.

Later, we told them we were going out to eat at an old Moroccan restaurant that served traditional food and had a bizarre chandelier callisthenic belly dance later on in the evening. Would they like to come?

‘No, you guys go. We haven’t left you alone all holiday. Go and be a couple.’

All the while, I wondered if her mum thought I was looking at her breasts.