Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
between the football match in
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
and an old-firm derby. And even
being in goal was dangerous, as they decided that any shots should be taken from as close as
possible, firing the ball repeatedly into my genitalia and then trampling all over me as they
failed to stop in time.
Over an hour this brutality lasted, and by the end I was the one battered and bruised with
cut knees, broken sunglasses, a suspected broken finger and swollen testicles. Having worked
themselves up into a red-faced, sweaty mess they then stripped off and all jumped into the
pool, dive-bombing each other and splashing about so much that most of the water seemed to
be thrown into the garden. As usual I couldn't get in with them; no sensible adult would have
tried as it resembled a shoal of angry, feasting piranhas, but my job, like that of an attendant
at a local public swimming baths was to spot trouble and dangerous high jinks and a couple
of times I had to grab a flailing six-year-old as they struggled to stay afloat. They would then
cough up a litre of pool water, look a bit sheepish for a few seconds and then dive straight
back in.
But finally, and thankfully after half an hour or so, they seemed genuinely to have run them-
selves into the ground. They actually seemed tired, spent even, meaning that the last hour or
so of the party would be a relative doddle, with them just lying around without the energy for
further noise or exertion. A veritable breeze.
'À table!'
Natalie shouted to indicate that food was served and off they trudged, hot and ex-
hausted to the table. I surveyed the spread: Coke, lemonade, fizzy green stuff, chocolate, vile-
coloured sweets, jelly, lollipops - basically a smorgasbord of E-numbers. We may as well
have injected them with amphetamines. And all that was without the mountain of imported
crisps that I'd brought back.
British cuisine is often unfairly marked down, more so for the way things are cooked rather
than the ingredients themselves, but from the country that brought the world Fish and Chips,
the Sunday Roast, Game Pie and Sausage and Mash, one should add the humble crisp. The
French just don't get it! The most exotic flavour they have apart from
fromage
is peanut. Pea-
nut! Who in their right mind would eat peanut-flavoured crisps? They taste like a jar of pea-
nut butter with added sawdust; add an alcoholic aperitif to the mix and your mouth feels like
it's been patioed. And you should see what they've done with Monster Munch. It's similar to
what Steve Martin has done to the
Pink Panther
films, an ugly thing indeed. But because of
this culinary blindspot, every few months I drive back to the UK and stock up on crisps and
other assorted snack food products that simply don't exist in a country that scoffs at the idea
of convenience food in a bag. It's a kind of reverse booze cruise, we call it the 'Junk Food
Junket' and I'd done my home nation proud with a selection of Wotsits, Skips, Twiglets and
chilli-flavoured crinkle cut.
