We spent the afternoon on the beach. It was overcast but warm and it was great just to relax reading my book, occasionally looking up to ogle the women like the pervert that I so clearly am. But you know in a funny and unthreatening way, like Sid James in the Carry On films, so you still all love me.
Right?
Let he amongst you who is without sin on this issue, cast the first stone. Or more probably cast the first glance, before looking back at his book and pretending that he's reading it.
Biarritz is a big surfer town and before long a handsome young couple with surfboards came and left their stuff right next to ours. They were in their early twenties and both blond and in great shape. The girl was especially attractive and pneumatic and although she was French she spoke great English and was clearly funny and clever and not vain like some pretty young people can be. Perhaps I was envious of this lucky young fellow who was escorting her (There's no perhaps about it. Like most men on the beach I would have crawled through broken glass and rusty nails laced with anthrax and the ebola virus, just to be repeatedly kicked in the testicles by her beautiful foot), but he didn't actually look all that. For a start he was English, but he had a bit of a weasley face and slightly receeding hair and a somewhat unpleasant manner. He didn't seem to appreciate that he was here with the most beautiful woman on the beach or if he did, he had somehow wrongly concluded that he deserved this. Many of the male surfers were Adonises who clearly lived outside the boundaries of society and were so physically and romantically attractive that even I was considering going out with many of them. This fella had neither the looks or the stature of the romance. Sure he had all the right clothes and equipment, but even on first (jealous) impressions it was clear to me that in four years time he'd be sitting in an office in the City, his long hair cut short, his bald patch expanding. He deserved this girl as much as I did. Which is to say not at all. Though at least I was prepared to go through the broken glass/testicle ritual to prove my devotion. This bloke had done none of that and yet somehow seemed to be commanding her complete attention. Life can be so unfair.
But like I say. Maybe my views on him had been prompted by envy. I decided to get on with reading my book and accept that now I've fallen off the roulette board, having never even got near to staying on a surf board, it was time to leave the fruits of youth to the young.
The couple headed off into the sea in their wet suits that clung so tightly to every curve of their bodies (I expect, I was reading the book), but I was able to conclude that this fella hadn't wooed his lady because he was packing anything out of the ordinary - no I wasn't. I was just looking at the girl one. And the more attractive boy ones. I'm not gay.....hmmmmmm.
An hour or so later the couple returned, glistening with salty brine (in my imagination at least). The girl especially was laughing and had clearly enjoyed the exhiliration of the surf. The uncool future and current merchant banker put down his board in a way that made him look like he thought he was cool and the girl excitedly dropped her board on to the beach. Her board made minimal contact with that of the ridiculously fortunate young man. It can't matter than much. Surf boards are designed to withstand the vagueries of the world's oceans; in the confusion of the breaking waves they must crash against each other and other surfers all the time. Plus remember the board had been dropped by the most wonderful woman on the beach and possibly in the world. And let me remind you that the weasely bloke had got or done nothing so far to indicate that he deserved or even appreciated his good fortune.
As her board lightly clipped against his, he looked up at her and said in the sharpest and most unpleasant way, "Fucking Hell, watch out!"
"Sorry," she smiled sweetly, "Did I hit your board?"
"Yes, you did, " he barked crossly, "Jesus Christ, be careful."
I wouldn't have raised my voice to this woman if she'd been kicking my glass encrusted, ebola filled testis for the thousandth time. I'd still have been saying, "Thank you. Thank you so much for doing this for me. I don't deserve your time or attention. Thank you." But this arrogant and stoat-featured youngster had the audacity to publically berate her for causing a minimal amount of contact between their two surfboards. I'm telling you now girls, if a man is more interested in a big bit of wood (or fibreglass or whatever it is) than in you, then it is time to get out of there. Unless you are really ugly and have a bad personality, in which case you might have to put up with it. But if you've got any self esteem and can back it up with intelligence and/or good looks then chuck that shrimp back in the sea where he belongs.
Maybe it's just the ignorance of youth this time. Maybe that bloke doesn't realise that this woman will be by far and away the most wonderful thing that happens to him in his pointless and self-obsessed life. But I was so astonished by his rudeness that I almost got up and offered myself as a replacement ("OK, I may be twice your age, unable to stand steadily on the land, let alone on the surf and have a stomach that has been mistaken for a giant turtle by three separate marine biologists this afternoon - I've put on half a stone this week, proving that travel broadens the waist - but I would never speak to you like that and if you want me to prove it, help me break these bottles and put on your hobnail boots"). What did she see in him?
But apparently she must have at least partly enjoyed being talked to in this way, because within fifteen minutes they had begun a rather serious petting session right there on the beach. It was actually quite embarrassing. He even unhooked her bikini top. I didn't know where not to look. So decided it was probably best just to look. Before realising I was no longer just being amusing comedically lecherous, but was actually a dirty old man (worse a dirty and resentful old man), so I picked up my stuff and wandered further up the beach.
This has to be the most tragic thing to have happened on this date in the whole of history. I can't think of anything worse.
