Tony's Party

Con La Misma Sangre

She was attractive rather than beautiful, an olive complexion and jet-black hair in keeping with her Latin origins. The merest kiss of polio had visited upon the beginning of a life otherwise blessed.

We meet in my recurring nightmare, a personal and perverse interpretation of La Guernica, where I am the unfortunate centre of attention in the bullring, a picador has just probed his lance between the shoulders of my unwitting and unwilling adversary and the blood is running.

The fight it is not a vocation, for it was not my choice of work, but rather, under peer pressure, I was invited to enter the ranks of brutality and bullying, under the thin veil of glamour and bravery.

The sun is in it’s zenith, seemingly contributing to expectation, and she is there again, as always, up in the stands, waving her white handkerchief, signifying dis-satisfaction at the below par performance of her torero, for I belong to her.

But, am I a coward, or simply tired of this cruel spectacle? My pink cape, a tool of the trade to attract the wrath of an injury-weakened bull, is unfurled as I begin the last tango in this dance of death. The animal advances as anticipated, in a choreographed shamble, breathing heavily, snorting confusion…. I haughtily simper forward, only to slip on the bloody sand. As I go down, the animal seizes the surprise opportunity and I am gored just above the spleen…………

It is at that point sleep, hand in hand with nightmare, trip over conscious horizon, leaving me wreathed in perspiration, and an ache in my gut. There is no girl, although the smear and smell of blood is in the air, and a white handkerchief lies at the foot of an untidy bed.

The battle has been lost, and will be lost again during tonight’s return, when she will again be in the stands, handkerchief in hand.

Jive Bunny

Old Harbour at Night

Waiting for her fisher man

UDF in action

Idiot B ..........more

Idiot B in Spain 2

For the first couple of months Idiot B familiarised himself with the new surroundings to his new life, met the locals, and nursed his alcohol habit, courtesy of the larger and cheaper measures served at all hours of the day and night. The change in lifestyle from London was difficult at first but he soon became comfortable with the more relaxed attitude to life, assuming it was the sun which slowed everyone down and kept them smiling, it certainly worked for him, turning his skin from a pale puce to a shade of mahogany in a matter of weeks.

The local population was at least as cosmopolitan as the area of London which had been left behind. Quite apart from Spaniards, there was a heady mix of not only western Europeans and Latin Americans for the island had strong links with Central and South America, he had even encountered a Russian girl, quite how she had arrived there was another question. The fact that they had communicated in Spanish was even more spectacular, as his new hobby, a further effort to blend in or should that be ingratiate? Himself, was studying the local lingo..