GOOD news is scarce right now as Donald the Doofus vandalises the entire planet.
But one tiny ray of sunshine has managed to burst through the gloom — is back.
The TV show that did for themobilityscooter what Knight Rider did for the Pontiac Firebird is being booked for another outing on ITV.
And I’ll raise a glass of sangria to that.
But producers had better move fast — not just to secure the services of the actors who gave us Iberia icons like Madge, Geoff and Kenneth.
Because — and yep, we’re back to the bad now — soon they may be the only British tourists left on the Costas, or anywhere else in ,if protesters get their way.
As the holiday rush kicked off, dusted off their TOURISTS NOT WELCOME banners once again and waved them about like a matador to our doomed bull.
The streets of were swarming with 150,000 fiery protesters at the weekend, angry at Spain’s , with many laying the blame squarely at the door of their once-cherished visitors.
The demonstration was one of 40 across the country. The message is loud and clear. It’s no longer a welcoming “hola!”; for the 18million British tourists who visit each year — it’s a big fat, “Vete a la mierda!”;
Spaniards are also blaming each other for the rise in tourists, and last week they introduced new rules aimed at stamping out holiday lets and Airbnbs.
Now, if someone living in a residential complex wants to rent out their place, they must first seek permission from the neighbours.
Meanwhile, moves continue to clobber Brits hoping to swap bin for beach bars and join their fellow 300,000 expats, with a planned 100 per cent property tax.
Even if you do manage to make it over to Spain or any of its sun-drenched islands, you’re likely to face some argy-bargy.
Majorca staged a protest on Saturday, imploring tourists not to come, declaring them to be “the source of our problems”;.
And you may have read Flying Eze’s recent dispatch from , where hire have been vandalised and the terrifying message “Kill A Tourist”; was sprayed on to a wall.
Even bigger protests are planned this , with airports set to be targeted.
So it won’t be someone in Arrivals holding a placard with just your name on. It will presumably also say: “Now, get back on that f***ing plane!”;
It’s all getting a bit loco.
But is this really what Spain wants? To scare off all these walking wallets?
Are these protesters saying that they don’t need the more than €200BILLION generated by the 90million-plus people who visit each year?
That equates to around 12 per cent of Spain’s entire annual GDP — one hell of a lot of dineros to be flushing down the baño.
Rude and ungrateful
And us Brits are responsible for a big chunk of that. We pour around €17BILLION into the country each year, slurping sangria and polishing off paella.
Be careful what you wish for, amigos.
Brits may be creatures of habit but we also have our limits.
It won’t take too many “tourist go home”; banners being brandished in our faces for us to say: “Adios!”;
We won’t stand for our cherished — and expensive — being ruined by rude and ungrateful hosts.
Britain invented the package holiday so we have a whole host of places to jet to for our holibobs.
Indeed, Spain is but one of a growing atlas of beachside breaks where we could spend our hard-earned cash.
And we’re increasingly happy to do so.
— a stone’s throw away from the Costa del Sol — has seen a huge boom in Brits swapping straw donkeys for real-life camels, with a record ONE MILLION of us holidaying there last year.
Ditto Cape Verde — “the African ”; — a couple of hours on from the Canaries and where Brits now make up a fifth of all tourists.
Spanish authorities need to get a grip on the chaos. If they don’t, they will only have themselves to blame when their housing crisis becomes an even bigger financial headache.
Because while we’ll be sore about losing Benidorm, we’ll soon get used to the brand new series of . . . Agadir.
A CHINESE restaurant in Spain has been caught passing off pigeon as duck. I’m surprised they bothered faking it, given the Far Eastern country’s love of exotic delicacies.
I once went to a fancy Chinese restaurant and was asked if I wanted the “tourist menu”; or the “traditional”; one.
As a man of the world I of course opted for the more authentic list of dishes.
Until I saw what that was – variously cooked internal organs plucked from creatures at the more obscure end of the guest list.
I wished they had had something as straightforward as pigeon.
TUCK IN TO CHEF STORY
BEFORE this week I’d never heard of the chef Charlie Trotter.
And when I did I wondered, incorrectly, if he was the bloke behind those pricey ready-meals you get in . (No, that’s another Charlie.)
Charlie Trotter, I have since learned – after watching a fascinating about him this week – was a fabled chef in .
He was up there with and Heston Blumenthal, producing lip-smacking (if a bit poncey) cuisine at gob-smacking prices before his hectic lifestyle caught up with him.
Well, turns out this fiery maverick was the inspiration for Jeremy Allen White’s character Carmy in hit TV drama The Bear.
So if, like me, you’re a fan of that riveting Sky Atlantic show (and even if you’re not) I recommend giving Love, Charlie: The Rise And Fall Of Chef Charlie Trotter a watch when it comes to Amazon Prime on Monday.
’s arrival in sent my mind back to the ’80s when me and my smutty young pals invested all our energies into bagging a copy of 9½ Weeks on VHS.
Securing this 18-rated “sex film”;, above, was not easy but those that did manage to get it – sadly not me – vouched for its raunchiness.
They would subsequently let slip exactly how exciting they’d found it by giving it the very telling nickname 9½ W**ks.
TALENTED AIMEE IS RIGHT TO BITE BACK
AS someone who has very much not been blessed in the dental department, I have become a fervent fan of .
star and her fantastic fangs have hardly been off the telly this year with her excellent turns in and White Lotus.
Aimee is a stellar actress but also a traffic-stopping siren.
She is mesmerisingly beautiful. And I say this not in spite of her bite – but BECAUSE of it.
Aimee gave an interview this week in which she said she is fed up with talking about her gnashers and would rather people discuss the characters she plays.
OK then, I’ll give it a rest.
Suffice to say, I think we will be seeing a whole lot more of the amazing Aimee as TV and fall over themselves to give her new characters to get her into.
(Sorry).
POOPER BOWL IS MY BUZZ
has revealed he fancied building his own bowling alley at his village-cum-home, until wife Cherry gave it the kibosh.
The terracotta-topped troubadour said his missus didn’t want the kids turning into spoilt brats with their own private lane. Good for her.
There is nothing more enjoyable – or grounding – than tipping up at the local bowling alley.
My kids love a visit to the ten-pin joint down the road from us, where they can guzzle on pop and shovel in chips while thrashing their surprisingly crap old man.
But there’s one element of the experience that you simply can’t get from a private lane.
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve returned from my go to witness a sea of fellow bowlers pointing at me while guffawing at the screen showing my score, where the kids have changed my name from “dad”; to “poohface”;.
COVID TRIALS LUNACY
HOW depressing that scores of people are still being prosecuted for flouting often ludicrous rules five years on.
Covid “criminals”; are clogging up the , having to defend even the most piddling infractions.
Some claim they couldn’t keep up with the rules. One woman got clobbered for booking the “wrong”; PCR test in the UK after returning from hols having already done one test abroad.
Having lived through that bonkers time, we can all sympathise. Can we really be confident we always followed “the rules”; to the letter?
Our courts are struggling enough as it is – more than 70,000 cases were still waiting to be heard by September.
, who knows a thing or two about prosecutions, should step in and stop this waste of public .
