Whale Shark- Sharm El Sheikh

This is the lovely Whale Shark I saw when I went diving in Sharm, Egypt a couple of years ago.

Thankfully someone in my group had a really good underwater video with her and took this footage, and it was as special as it looks. The gorgeous juvenile whale shark swam right towards us and at around 4 metres away, turned and glided past us in the most serene fashion.

Anyone who has ever been scared to dive- see what you're missing out.

I can't wait to be back among the fishies, 8 days and counting. Bring it on.

Proof that men can't shop.

If you have a spare ten minutes (and you probably have as you're reading this), read this wonderful account from my friend Peter on his recent travels to Jerusalem. It's like a sketch from a monty python film and it had me in stitches, the bitter determination of the shop keeper vs. my lovely friend who was so keen not to hurt anyone's feelings.... hapless male shoppers beware!

Here goes:

I come across a shop with proper displays and a till rather than some guy with a money belt, and head on in. I have a look at the nicely painted wooden carvings on display and think that they’d be something suitable for my parents. Within 0.5 seconds the obligatory cheery salesman appears out of nowhere.

“Hello my friend” says the broad shouldered, baggy-clothed Mr Salesman, an exaggerated smile poking through his unshaven tanned face.

“Hello” I reply. “I’m just looking, thank you”.

“You see something you like?”

“Well these are quite nice” I say, pointing at the wooden carvings. Big mistake.

I can see the salesman do the mental equivalent of flexing his fingers as he prepares to get stuck into a routine he’s probably done countless times before.

“For these, I can give you a very good price”. Here we go. He trots off and returns with a calculator.

“Actually I’m happy just looki…” I begin to say.

“These were carved and painted by hand by authentic Byzantine monks” he proclaims proudly. ‘As opposed to fake Byzantine monks?’ I think to myself. He picks up one of the carvings and points to a little sticker saying ‘Made in some Byzantine monastery’ (I forget the name). Evidence if ever I saw it. Nonetheless they are very well made, feel nice and solid and I can see my folks liking them, so I decide to see where this goes.

He picks up three of the carvings – one of Jesus, one of Mary and one of the disciples – and lays them out on the counter.

“I’m only really interested in these two” I say, pointing to the carvings of Jesus and Mary.

“For you” he says “I give you 3 for the price of 2”.

For me? Aww shucks. This would normally sound great, but as they’re not labelled up with any price whatsoever he could name any price he wanted and I wouldn’t know any better.

“Now, you are from England?” he asks. I nod. “OK, so I will make this easy and give you price in English pounds”.He taps furiously into his calculator with the accuracy and speed of a touch typist. After pondering the end figure, he looks up proudly and says, “For you, for the 3, I can give you a price of 80 pounds. Not 120 pounds, but 80 pounds”. Even with the amazing ‘3 for 2’ offer, that’s still about £60 more than I was intending to spend. Unsure of what to say I stand there looking gormless as I ponder how best to politely excuse myself. My thoughts are interrupted by his next offer.

“Because you say nothing, I offer these for 70 pounds”.“Oh?”“60 pounds”.

The cheerfulness is gone, and now he’s looking at me with a serious business-face. Still somewhat stunned by my unintentional bargaining skills which has seen the price plummet by 25%, I realise it’s probably my turn to put forward how much I think they’re worth, and barter until we reach a price agreeable to both of us.But I’m not going to do that. As I’ve said, I loathe haggling with a passion, and I’m not going to spend an inordinate amount of time playing psychological games with a man who’ll be considerably more experienced at this than me.“Thanks, but no thanks”. This is what I should have said. Instead, my aversion to offend kicks in.

“Sounds good” I lie. “I…errr…just need to go and draw out some money”.

I am pleased with myself. It gives me a perfect excuse to leave the store and never return. This is – of course – a rather mean thing to do to the guy, but at least I won’t be there to see his disappointment when he realises that this mug won’t be coughing up.

“Ah – no need!” he says, reaching under the counter and pulling out a card reader. “I take visa”. He looks at me expectantly.‘Hmmmm’ I think to myself. Quick thinking time.

“But I prefer to pay cash” I respond. For a little while we debate the merits of paying by cash vs paying by card before he eventually says

“OK, well I prefer cash too”.

A narrow escape! Now I can get myself out of this awkward situation. But the salesman has other ideas.

“Let me take you to the cash machine”.

I insist this isn’t necessary and that he should stay with his store. Surely it’s not a good idea to leave it unattended?Undeterred he marches me to a cash machine only slightly out of his shop. I stand in the narrow alley, facing a cash machine that looks suspiciously like those you’d find at the pub and charges £1.50 for each withdrawal. Numerous sheets hung across the alley walls provide makeshift protection from the sun, but the heaving sweaty crowds barging past still make things unpleasantly warm.

“Here you can get money”.

“Ummm….great!” I exclaim, exasperated.

Now I know that at any time I could just have said “No thank you” and walked off with him yelling at me. Instead, I continue with this charade and formulate a plan of utter genius.I put my card in the cash machine. I then intentionally type in the wrong pin. My request for money is declined right in front of Mr Salesman.

“Oh no, my bank has frozen my account!” I say, over-acting my disappointment.

He looks at the screen and frowns.

“It says you have entered the wrong pin” he says matter of factly. Damn his eye for detail!

“Mmmm yes, the bank changes the pin when the account gets frozen.” He looks at me with a somewhat unconvinced look.

“I’ll come back later when I’ve sorted it out”.

This isn’t good enough for Mr Salesman, who beckons over a fellow shop-owner. They speak in Hebrew and shrug shoulders while looking at me and at the cash machine. Mr Salesman turns to me and says “Try it again”. Well, if I must. I insert my card as the two Israelis stand either side watching the screen intently. I type in an incorrect pin and re-enact the ‘Oh no!’ routine when I’m declined cash again. There, that’s it. No money for me, no money for you. But they’re having none of it. I barely see my card ejected from the cash machine before Mr Salesman has grabbed it and put it back into the machine.

“Please….try again.”

A look of semi-desperation falls upon his face. He’s not going to let me go that easy. This time I hesitate, and with good reason. Enter a pin incorrectly 3 times and the bank will lock me out of my account. For real. I’m out of ideas beyond hitting ‘Cancel’, grabbing my card and running away as fast as the crowds would allow. But I don’t do this.

You know how in movies when the hero taps a ‘disarm’ code on some nuclear bomb with only seconds to spare, and the whole thing is filmed in super slow motion? Well, that’s what this was like, only instead of being a hero saving the world, I was the idiot intentionally typing in the wrong pin because I didn’t have the balls to say “No”. I tap it in and a message pops up. It didn’t say ‘Nuclear detonation imminent’, but it might as well have done.

The ‘Account Locked’ message meant that my financial lifeline had been cut, leaving me with just a small amount of cash in my wallet. Boom!

Mr Salesman frowns.

“Now it says your account is locked”, “Well I did say” I regale, weeping inside.

Still, at least it’s over now.

“Guess I’ll have to call my bank now”.

He latches onto this statement like a bloodthirsty leech.

“No problem!” he says excitedly, marching me back into his shop.

He walks round the counter, puts a phone on the desk, picks up the handset and stands poised to dial.

“What’s the number? I dial them for you”. I look at him incredulously. Does he never give up? Does he not know how much he is tormenting me? Of course not – as far as he’s concerned I’m a guy willing to pay well over the odds for a set of ‘handmade’ wood carvings. It’s probably no less than I deserve. It’s time to be honest, say I don’t want them, and walk away. But no.“It’s OK, I’ll use my mobile” I say, pulling out my phone from my pocket and waving it in the air.

“That will cost you money” he says. “Please, use mine”.

I convince him that the banks number is an international freephone number. What I’ll do is pretend to call the bank, and when he’s not looking I’ll wander out of the store, never to return. As if reading my mind, he gives me a chair and sits down next to me. I sit down, pretend to phone the bank and hold a fake conversation about my locked account.

Mr Salesman listens intently as I get angry and gesticulate wildly with the imaginary customer service person. I sigh, roll my eyes and point to my phone as if to say; ‘Sorry about this but they’re being rubbish’. Not once does he get out of his seat. I continue the act for a further 10 minutes.

Finally, I see a look of resignation on his face as I hang up and tell him I’ll have to wait 4 hours before my account is unlocked. He makes one last desperate attempt to persuade me to at least try his card machine, before eventually accepting that I’m going to be the fish that got away. He tells me that he’ll set aside the carvings and to come back once I have access to my funds, and puts a business card in my hand.Needless to say, nobody got any gifts.

All the gear, no idea.

Winter sun beckons, and this year, we’re going to nail another one of those ‘really ought to visit’ places as a diver, Ko Tao.

When this holiday was first dreamt up, we fancied ourselves as fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants youngsters, visiting Trailfinders (in the City, perhaps first giveaway that we were clearly not cut out for such shenanigans) and booking flights only. Steve told me about the wonders of the cheap beach huts, charming in a locust infested way, and only a hop, skip and a jump away from the sea front. Here we would mingle seamlessly with the locals, save money, and be at one with the spirit of the island. We’d arrive, we’d book. Lovely.

You might say therefore that I was a little surprised when a somewhat overworked and overstressed Steve announced that he’d been thinking about it and he quite fancied pre-booking somewhere, and not just any-old-where, but that he would rather like a swimming pool.

Not an over the top demand, but this soon became, ‘it must have a pool bar’ then ‘it must have several pool bars and a restaurant’ and eventually we found ourselves booking the deluxe suite at a tiny little luxury resort built by local architects into the edge of a cliff with an eternity pool designed quite brilliantly to give a seamless expanse of water. Pool then sea…..and you can’t see where one ends and the other begins. Have a look.

A far cry from the ‘locust infested local spur of the moment book when we arrive hut’, but I guess as you get older it gets tougher to take these kind of gambles with your hard earned holiday time- and of course, I’m more than happy to go along for the ride.

Anyway, this has spurred on my excitement about how long it is until I get to be at one with the fishies again….only 4 weeks away. I’ve opted for all my presents to be diving related so I’ll be the classic, ‘all the gear, no idea’ diver. But I’ll look good. Earlier today I placed an order for a black wetsuit and matching fins and when the person in the shop said, ‘we’ve only got those fins in turquoise and white, will that be ok?’ I shuddered at the thought of the clashing and said I’d rather wait until the sleek black ones were delivered. I might be 30 metres under water, but it’s no excuse to look a mess.

viva espagne

The time has come for another mini holiday. I have to say, there’s rarely been a time when I’ve been so f**king excited about going away and it’s no reflection of anything bad in life….simply the lack of sunshine in the UK.

The gods are smiling upon us for a change as neither Lara or crack head Grant are going to be in Spain when we’re there, which means both Steve and I can drink til our little hearts content and not listen to Lara’s incessant whinging and whining and self absorbedness. That’s not to say we won’t be spared a blow by blow account from ‘Jingle Jangle’ (Steve’s mum’s boyfriend so named as is ultimate chav and wears a lot of gold which makes this noise- kind of) about just how awful it’s been trying to look after her (yes, we know funnily enough we did it for 2 years when you went into hiding in Southern Spain!).

Anyway, on the upside is the fact that there’s a nice big cold pool, air conditioning, a mum who’s always so delighted to see her one fully functioning prodigal child that she has to wait on him (us) hand and foot, and a lovely sandy sun kissed beach. I’m going to get a tan if it’s the last thing I do, and I’m not going to let my Maldivian loss of skin pigment fiasco stop me.

We fly out tonight and rather than the usual ‘Ali waits getting increasingly agitated about where Steve is and why he’s running late, again!’ I’m going to make my own way to the airport, check in, go through to departures, do some gratuitous duty free shopping, get myself a McDonalds (it’s a ritual at Gatwick) and a good novel and a lovely cold white wine spritzer and put my feet up and he arrives when he arrives. Bliss. And if we don’t get to sit together on the flight as I get preferential boarding….ah well. I’ll wave at him sitting next to the screaming babies and hugely obese women from my extra leg room (and only 30 inch legs) seat.

I love going on holiday.

IoW

Pack-o-rama! Last night I excelled myself in the packing stakes by filling my 85 litre ruc sac with mostly shite which I won’t wear, won’t use, but makes me feel much better about the whole camping experience….like what? Well…this:

x2 pairs knee hi-boots
x1 pair green wellies
x2 pairs flip flops- one gold, one silver
x1 pair- trainers

x3 sun dresses
x3 scarves
x2 hats (one woolly, one summery)

X1 double air bed and foot pump
X1 giant tent with two sections

Plus all my clothes, which I can’t list as, well frankly, I’m too ashamed.

The weather forecast is looking, on the whole, pretty good and I’m hoping that my wellies will be redundant, apart from some flinging.

So then, time to mastermind the logistical nightmare that is transferring all this crap from Belsize Park to Clapham South. I’ll be back on Tuesday with some amusing stories from the weekend no doubt. I’m most looking forward to seeing La Winehouse (and seeing if her face really is that hairy), of course the old Rollies, and very unpopularly with Dan and Jonathan….Snow Patrol.
(Soft) Rock on!

La Verre du Vin SVP

Paris seems a million miles away, well, at least 350 or so.

Last night we very almost missed our Eurostar home after Steve insisted on buying another bottle of Champagne from the supermarket. Unfortunately for us, with only 45 minutes to spare and a 20 minute cab drive to Gar de Nord, the old lady in front of us in the queue decided to have a mentalist attack at the checkout, and declared, piece by piece, that ‘someone has smuggled these things into my shopping basket, they are NOT mine’ (in French of course). After off-loading her entire trolley painstakingly, whilst cursing under her breath she then had a moment of clarity and realised that ‘silly me, they are my things after all’. Even though we were very likely to miss our (non-refundable ticket) train, we still found this hilarious.

Right then, Paris.

So, on Saturday night we went to the bar where Sex and the City was filmed, if you’re ever in Paris head to the massive Kenzo store go into the building, hit 5th floor on the lift (it’s not marked, it’s far too cool for that) and enter the world of Uber Parisian posing.

Don’t expect to be smiled at, or to be spoken to in English and expect to be given the once over by everyone in turn, repeatedly. Luckily, I was feeling fairly comfortable with being a chic Londoner in this Parisien haunt, so I held my head high and strutted around as best as I could muster, which as it turned out, was pretty good.

Several Bellinis later I was propped up at the bar, being well, one can only describe oneself as ‘a right f**king twat’. I don’t know what got into me, apart from the Bellinis. At about 10pm we were shown to our dinner table, an amazing glass domed affair at the top of the building and truly a stunning place to eat…if only I hadn’t have been too drunk to appreciate it. I had a yummy lobster and crab ravioli for starters and then king Gambas for my main, and we bickered throughout the entire meal. Hurrah. Totally my fault- I didn’t think the food was very good. Infact my main was downright DULL. When we left I was so drunk I can barely remember sitting in a bar called ‘Jade’, or getting home (or apparently getting lost on the way home and crying).

At some point I smashed a glass in the bedroom and cut my foot as the room and towels were covered in blood in the morning. I called Steve a c**t for no reason and was generally an embarrassment and an idiot! I'm almost 30, it's disgraceful.

Goes without saying that an almighty slice of humble pie was eaten on Sunday morning, and I trailed around feeling very sorry for myself after several encounters with Le head in le throne. What a looser. Steve delighted in the tables being turned, and took the piss constantly for the rest of our time away, which was to be fair, well deserved.

Anyway, we did the Eiffel Tower- waste of bloody time, but the ice creams at the bottom were great. It was much nicer sitting in the sun drenched park at the bottom, watching the world go buy, eating baguettes and strawberries and listening to the little quartet clarinet, violin, flute and miscellaneous instrument who were jamming under the tree for many hours.

We then went to see Mona….felt obliged really. She has her very own wall, and really is quite small, but lovely all the same. A little shopping on the Champs Elysee and then off to dinner on the Left Bank in the Latin Quarter, place called Reminnet. Absolutely fantastic snails and some very very rare Thon (tuna). If you ever go to Paris, you must go…but you also must book as it’s one of the most popular traditional restaurants and it’s very tiny.

We managed to avoid any of the political rumblings as a result of Sarkosy being elected and on the whole had a wonderful time away….the crazy granny was just the icing on a very yummy cake.

And as if I hadn’t put on about 3 stone in the past 3 days with excessive pastry consumption, Steve and I are off to our fave haunt, Chez Bruce again tonight. Not gratuitously I hasten to add, his long suffering mum is over from Spain and it’s a belated 30th bday celebration, I’m just along for the ride. Yum. I think I am becoming a proper bonafide foody

Off and away

I'm about to be signing off and once more placing my lovely blog in the hands of a guest blogger...I'm not going to give any clues away, but I'm sure you'll have no issues guessing who that might be.

The castle that we're staying in is called Lickyhead castle....but I can't find it anywhere on the web, so I'm slightly concerned that it doesn't exist. If that's the case, I'll be back blogging before you know it!

Over and out x

The snaps...I kept my word!

Ok, so before I embark on the stories I outlined in my earlier blog of today, I'll amuse/bore you with some holiday snaps. I really really tried to not be in all of them, but it's hard when you're only on holiday with one other person. That said, I've attached below some of the ones which made me laugh. I have also attached some of our brushes with nature, as you'll see.

R.I.P Angela. My gorgeous fish, who I caught and was eaten. We will not forget you.



The snorkelling jetty



The sunset. Gorgeous.



Me and Steve P



My handstand...impressive ah?



The view from the seaplane



Steve- Floating in the waters off Kuredu



Harry the Hermit crab- my only friend on our deserted island



Oh, and this dude was there too.



Happy feet



The corporate world is far reaching as ever. f**king Becks.



Happy Ali



Me and Pretzel



Ali 'Bond' (Jenny)



Pina Colada from a coconut, yummy!



Yes dumbarse, that's a baby metre long white tipped reef shark, by our beach bungalow



Spalding the Spider, who liked our outside bathroom. Lots. Wanker.



Sunset from inside the diving boat



Another lovely sunset....gets a little monotonous this ah?



Me on our deserted island



More vanilla sky

Fun- you make me sick.

My boss, soon to be ex-boss, seems to have a crippling disease, an extreme aversion to any type of fun. She is the kind of person who would sit through a seminar all day and then leave at the prospect of mingling and drinking at the bar afterwards. And this isn't down to shyness as the women is a ball breaking uber bitch, basically.

She just can't stand to be in a situation where she might let her guard down, or have to make small talk, or actually laugh, smile and relax.

Today is my leaving 'do' at work. 'Do' as it's just at Abacus, the meatmarket bar in the city, full of smarmy city boys in suits with bags of money, but no souls, and with regular shipments of Essex girls who get dolled up after their shifts in New Look and come into the City to try and snare one of the aforementioned rich-but-lacking-in-soul men. Usually I leave them to it, they are welcome to each other, but today, we're venturing into their world for 'happy hour'.

Perhaps it was the word 'happy' that struck fear into my bosses heart, but she has suddenly been struck down with a terrible case of 'food poisening' which is funny considering

a) She's stick thin, because she doesn't eat after 6pm. That means no dinner, ever.
b) She's a vegan. Tell me, which variety of undercooked vegetable causes such a condition? An undercooked turnip perhaps.

So basically, her aversion to fun has meant she's faking an illness. She said she was 'thinking' of giving us her credit card so we could go out and buy champagne. 'Thinking' not doing. We won't see the credit card, or her.

Now, don't get me wrong. The evening would be terrible if she were to turn up. Why? Because she doesn't get on with anyone and my ex-boss, who was fired before Christmas is turning up. I can only hint at how bad this situation got, but lets just say, the police are involved, as are some mild erm , threats to personal safety. I think it would have been quite funny to see them both scratching each other's hair out and screaming at each other, but i'll settle for necking cocktails, and dancing badly.

I hope I never get to an age where I can't see the point of having fun, laughing and letting my hair down. Last week in Leeds one of the bars we went to (the Living Rooms)was full of people all over 40. We weren't sure if we'd walked into a birthday party by mistake, or whether this was just a gathering of older people who wanted to get out and have fun. Either way, we left feeling uncomfortable, just as we would have done if we'd have walked into a bar full of 16 year olds. Funny that 'comfort' in being out relies not only on your venue, the music, lighting, company of your friends, but also so much on whether or not you class your fellow revellers as 'like' you. But isn't that dull. Does that mean I'm only relaxed when I'm in a bar with lots of outgoing bubbly,middle class late 20's professionals, with a penchant for cheesy music, and expensive tastes. And when I describe that, I conjour up images of really awful people. Strange.

Last night I had the most revolting dream ever. I dreamt that Steve and I were eating raw chicken breasts coated in some kind of hallucinogenic drug...he munched his down and said it was tasty but I remember chewing on the rubbery flesh and woke up feeling quite sick.

In other news, I've packed my bags with the following essential items for holiday:

1) Bikinis- x6
2) fins, mask, logbook and diving computer x 1 each
3) Flipflops- x2 one gold, one silver.
4) Summery dress- x3
5) Linen trousers- x 1
6) Vest tops- x 6
7) T-shirts x 1
8) Long sleeve top- x1
9) Bras and knickers x10 (don't know why as never wear either on sunny hols)
10)Books, sunglasses, cosmetics, sun cream and other products.

Pretty good capsule packing that ey?! Steve on the other hand packed the following:

1) Socks. SOCKS. x 5 pairs.
2) Long sleeved t-shirts- x3
3) Jumpers- x 2
4) T-shirts by Diesel- x 15
5) Shorts/boardies- x10
6) Pants x 10.
7) Flip flops.

31 degrees and sunny every day and the boy packs socks. He's not taking trainers so I'm scared he might wear them with the flip flops. Thank goodness the yanks are there, and are bound to be dressed much more distastefully than us.

Blog-unteer

As a fairly new blogger, I hadn't realised that for reasons of consistency, one must seek the input of a 'locum-blog' whilst one is holidaying for any length of time. This my first lesson in blog-etiquette.

So, between 9-22 March, I have enlisted the help of my friend, whose name I won't mention as she might well fancy some crazed anonyblogging, to help fill the desperately unhappy void whilst I'm away. Ok I'm kidding myself, no-one reads this or gives a toss, but it's a lovely thought that someone might actually be pleased to find a well written, thoughtful, tasteful blog rather than my usual self indulgent crap.

So enjoy! And don't be too disapointed when I get back!