Beside the Seaside

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In Which I Spend A Strange Night In A Parallel Universe

March 17, 2008 by Mike

Gibraltar

Route: Tarifa - Norwich - Tarifa - Norwich - Tarifa - Norwich - Gibraltar

Me again.

Back in Spain-ish. I flew in to GIB but got no further.

It isn't just road-signs and currency that change either side of the Gibraltar-Spain border. Whereas ex-pats and tourists across the border go happily native, snoozing through their siestas and shopping late into the evening, over here everyone starts work at a reasonable time, works through the afternoon and leaves at six. One reasonable excuse being the need to beat the traffic that builds up at 6.40pm every day when the plane from Gatwick touches down -- the plane carrying me -- and the main road in and out of Gibraltar is closed. That's because the runway *is* the main road, and airline pilots are loath to play 'chicken' with the rush-hour traffic.

Anyway, where was I? That's right. In Gibraltar. The bike is stored in Charlie and Squeaky's workshop 'til morning. Rather than bus back to Tarifa, and do the return journey in the morning, I'd much rather sample Gibraltar for the evening. Not the Gibraltar of apes and rocks and fridge magnets for the tourists. On this occasion I find myself in the Gibraltar of those who live here.. I'm tempted to say 'of the locals' but so many of those who live here are incomers. I feel at home: it's just like Notting Hill.

Listen to the mix of accents: the locals speak English with a uniquely off-key Spanish accent and Spanish (I am reliably informed) with an almost-but-not-quite English accent - often in the same sentence. Tonight, they are outnumbered. Cock-er-nee, mock-er-nee and Glas-gee, Barnsley to Bolton and all points inbetween. If there are any Brummies here they keep it under their sunhats. Which is kind.

It's St Patrick's Day, and lo and behold I found myself in a public house. Well, you gotta, don'cha? The strangeness of being in Little England on the shores of the Mediterranean is as nothing compared with the sight that greets me in the Lord Nelson. The pub is rammed with sweaty, fleshy revellers; most are wearing Ireland football shirts, all are stumbling under those ridiculous mushroom-a-like top hats; it's gridlock at the bar; the band in the corner are murdering "The Irish Rover". So far, so Paddy's Day.

But look closer. The band are squashed into one corner of the room: over their heads, swaying in time to the music is the Union Flag. Symbol of pretty much everything that Ireland isn't. I may be the only person sober enough to have noticed. (It can't be that the crowd is so into the music that these things don't matter. Having exhausted their Oirish repertoire with a short stab at "Whiskey In The Jar" the band have started to desecrate the Johnny O'Cash songbook. Even the soaks at the bar are starting to grumble.)

And that's when it hits me. All these pissed-up lads from Barnsley and Bermondsey and the rest -- the young men with the buzz-cuts or short-back-and-sides, the granite chests, tattoo'd biceps and matey, Guinness-fuelled self-confidence -- they're all squaddies. Soldiers in the British Army. Wearing green, drinking stout and cheering Ireland's national day. In Gibraltar.

Hmmmm. Not only am I the only person sober enough to think this strange, I'm probably the only person in the Lord Nelson old enough to be thinking: Death On The Rock! Death On The Rock! Death On The Rock!

It's the end of history.

I can't do much about being the oldest person in the Lord Nelson, but it doesn't take me long not to be the soberest.

And.. I'm back besidetheseaside.

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