We have returned (reluctantly) from our seven days of (mainly) sunshine, enjoying the delights of Benalmadena by day and the flesh-pots of Torremolinos by night. But what did we miss?
Snow, damp and cold, mainly, by the looks of it...
The news doesn't seem to have been any different to when we left - Trump is still an arsehole, all the political parties in the UK appear to be in-fighting, the Middle East is still a hell-hole, and "celebrities" continue to wallow in the back-slapping mêlée of the awards ceremony season. Among other non-fake news: Britain's
most reviled rip-off merchant supermarket giant Tesco announced a merger with Booker cash'n'carry (so they will continue to peddle even more bulk-buy shit upon the masses); that over-hyped "talent sponge" GaGa drew
the smallest audience in four years for the American SuperBowl with her interval show; we gayers received some unlikely support from a group of "leading retired bishops", who
criticised the church's intolerance of homosexuality;
Mein Kampf the Daily Mail was exposed as an "unreliable news source" (surprise, surprise) by Wikipedia; and - far more relevant than the
"courgette crisis" - there is
a threat to Britain's fish'n'chips thanks to a strike by Icelandic fishermen.
We missed celebrating the 90th birthday of the magnificent
Leontyne Price, "national treasure"
Denis Norden's 95th and the centenaries of the peerless Zsa Zsa Gabor and of the romantic novelist Sydney Sheldon. We waved a fond farewell to the fab (out-gay) actor
Alec McCowen, to comedy writer
Alan Simpson (who with Ray Galton was responsible for some of Britain's best-loved comedies such as
Hancock's Half Hour,
Steptoe & Son and the
Frankie Howerd Show), and of course the headline-grabber
Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, socialite, "It-Girl", model and friend of Prince Charles.
We may be back in the cold and damp, but the daffs, snowdrops and cyclamen are all heralding the fact that Spring is just around the corner. And, as is traditional, we have brought back a little sunshine-and-tackiness-combo from our trip. Here, on this Tacky Music Monday, is the remarkable Dolores Vargas and
Se va a Covadonga!
Sigh.
