Wednesday 23 December 2009

Ibiza: Life on Mars

“See the mice in their million hordes,
From Eyebeetha to the Nawfuck Brawds”


Warbled David Bowie in his song about 70's package tourism “Life on Mars” which was also the inspiration for the TV detective series of the same name about Life before the Internet.


Whilst swearin', smokin', bein' politically incorrect and drivin', a Ford Cortina were all fab in the world before computers, goin' on hols was an odd affair.


Take us, in the world of 30 years ago we went to Mallorca, which in holiday brochure speak was then called Majawka, and we didn't know a thing about it, and once we got there we didn't know a thing that was happening in the outside world.


Newspapers (and only the southern editions at that) arrived 2 days late and you needed a magnifying glass to find the rugby results amongst all the reports about football teams you'd never heard of like Chelsea, Spurs and Arsenal. And if you actually wanted to watch a football match, there was only one night a year when you could do this – European Cup Final night when Liverpool (or Forest or Villa) would show the foreigners how it was done.


Don't forget that Franco had threatened to ban football in Spain unless his favourite team Real Madrid won everything, something that the Scousers obviously didn't know about when the beat Franco's lads in the final when we were in Mallorca.



Totally reliant on our holiday rep, we booked a fun night in an all you can eat BBQ, along with hundreds of others who were all bussed in and seated on benches cheek by jowl with fellow happy holiday makers.


It was awful, but not quite as bad as the coach ride back, full of people too full of pork chops, chips and salad, and more importantly cheap champagne. I've never eaten pork chops, chips and salad since.




Anyway, here's a picture of one of the ritual tortures we were subjected to in the BBQ – drinking from the porron. I've never done that since either.

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