A carneval to leave you cold.

So, for a reason unbeknownst to man, flatmates suddenly dropped the puta madres idea. And decided to go as… flowers. An extreme change of mind if ever there was one.

The thing was, my principal aim was to incorporate my fur jacket into my costume for warmth come the night. This would be impossible as a flower, so for some reason – panic in the chino, the pressure of having 10 minutes shopping time – I decided to go as a dog. (this is not entirely unrelated to the flowers. The boy flatmate was going as the gardener. I would be his pet).

I wish I hadn’t gone as a dog. Because I didn’t really look like a dog. With my dog collar, and S&M leash, I kind of looked more like a goth, but in beige.

Anyway, re-re-wind, the day commences at 9 o’clock. Spanish Pastries. An error if ever there was one. Why is it only in France that they can make pastries? Spanish croissants have to be cut with a bread knife, and even then they retain their shape and taste of dried chip fat.

The coach ride is long, and they play 300. The film about the Spartans. They have nice bodies. When I am not looking at their bodies, I look out the window. The hills looks like Craig David’s scalp; braided into bushes.

Once in Cadiz, we paint ourselves. Unfortunately the brown paint, allocated to Doggy Rosa, does not look like face paint, it just looks like dirt. The flowers are great though, and we have a mariposa - a butterfly - which dances over the flowers, and which I, as a dog, try to attack.

In brief, I’m not sure what the premise of Cadiz Carneval is. I read about it on wikipedia, which promised me live music and comedy. This is not what there was. There is only one way to describe it: it is a massive, massive, MASSIVE piss up in front of the cathedral. A kind of “we’re taking your idea of wine at communion… and running with it. A very long way”. Super Sol the supermarket, in preparation, has got rid of its vegetable section to stock more alcohol. The day drink is teeth-melting tinto verano, and the night drink Ron. Ron: not the abbreviation of cool name Ronald, but rum. Amber, ethanol-y rum.

The costumes, however, are incredible. And a great gauge of the time. New this year: teams of Amy Winehouses, with shiny beehives and outsized syringes; spectres of the credit crunch (plastered with signs saying sale, discount, closing down); and the great man who came as Facebook. Look! There he is:



Timeless classics included homages to aforementioned wine god Don Simon and, of course, human sanitary towels, complete with blood and little black hairs. And they say chivalry is dead.

Shout out also to the 86-year-old lady who came dressed as a baby. In a diaper, with no tights. Having tried to speak to her, I’m not sure if she knew what she was doing or who she was, but nice effort anyway nanna!

Later, after sangria in the sun on the side of the sea, we eat patatas asadas. Baked potatoes. You choose what you put in, except you can’t have what you want which is obviously baked beans. I ask for a bit of everything. When the lady gets to the mushrooms, I guess from looking at them that they are from a tin.

“They are from a tin” I say to my friend.

“Mira,” he replies, “it all is”. And right he is: it is all from a tin. Carrot. Beetroot. HAM. And, this is the worse bit. Cheese. Tinned cheese. Oh no they did-en! Oh yes, yes they did.

As the night progresses, coherent bands of surgeons or slappers separate off into odd pairings. A school girl has shenanigans with priest on a bench (and she’s consenting!); Facebook looks like he might punch a dominatrix nun. Later, I see (a male, I think) Amy Winehouse pissing against a wall. It is all very confusing.

Definitely not confusing is how cold is it. By this point, I am wearing my tail as a scarf and have stuffed some of the flower’s cardboard leaves down my top because I have seen tramps use this nifty insulation technique.

Our bus isn’t until 8 in the morning, and, freezing and undrunk, we trudge the streets, which are wet with wee and beer. Finally we find a bar with soft square sofas. One person at a time dances, allowing the others a short nap. Dancing alone is never fun; when your friends are sleeping and you’re semi dressed as a dog, it is even worse.

The two hours between the shutting of said bed bar and the arrival of our bus home at 8 in the morning are two hours of my life I will never have back again, and never want back again. We buy Spanish omelette sandwiches to hold against our central organs if nothing else. We huddle. We consider weeing on each other for temporary heat. (No one mentioned this, but I know we were all thinking it.)

Somehow, we survive the night. I have never been so happy to be in the direct firing line of a coach’s exhaust pipe bursting into action.

But by a little after lunch time, we are home, home, and it is home. My bed is hot, my socks are off, and I sleep until 8 that evening, a deep dreamless daytime sleep.

The earth is flat, therefore my flat is the earth?

Wherefore I have gone over the top. But it is well good.

So I was about to sign up to live with an anorexic and an unctuous business man (O Tony Baglioni, did I not learn anything from living with thee??), when I saw paper fingers of phone numbers tickling the breeze. I called, I ran - up 5 stairs, with no light, feeling the walls like a blinky on braille - and the door is opened by about 8 people simultaneously. Oh and they are young and smiling and not anorexic or business men and it is like a film. Actually it is like a film. Exactly like a film. Auberge Espanol. But do not see it, it pretends to be happy but it is depressing and sad and I don't think you'll like it.

But back to flat. The walls are yellow, and the sun terrace is red, with a plastic table and muscly cactuses, and sketched mountains in the distance. The kitchen is clean with denim blue cupboards and there is a wooden thing with tall jars of jammy tarts and tins of sweetcorn and balsamic vinagre.

My bedroom has a cold grey marble floor and high ceilings. Josephine Baker dances on my wall, Charles and Di kiss, and they are joined by a new picture of Huevos con chorizo in a fatty breakfast smile. I bought very inexpensive bedclothes from a chino (trans: chinese shop but also chinese man) which have turquoise circles and scratch me. And I will buy a lamp too, because you can never have too much light.

But I like it here. There are the italians - Simone and Gabriella, who come from the stiletto heel of Italy's boot and are beautiful architecture students - the Spaniard - Omar who is very clever and in a metal band called Dilemma - and a French girl who I haven't met but is called Amelie so is obviously going to be great.

We eat together off brown glass plates, mountains of chicken prepared by Mama Tullia. We drink together in featherlight plastic glasses, vino Don Simon, patron saint of street drunkards, 80 centimes the litre. The italians give me their accent for my Spanish, I give them the art of the braaaaappp. And gun hands. (They use both when we play Trivial Pursuit; it is not the time or the place, but how are they to know?)

And this weekend we are coaching, as a team, to Cadiz carnival where we have no accommodation and will have to cultivate Vodk-coats to survive the night. We shall dress as Puta Madres. Hos wielding babies. They have yet to let me know whether these babies will be dolls or whether we have to secure a real one... Shouldn't be too hard either way; those pesky registers don't bother me when I'm on the continent!

Grenadine turns into Granada

I have come to place where they sell tuna paté ready mixed with ketchup, and many men look like hedgehogs.

Goodbye Paris with your fur and your fizzy wine. Hello Granada. Neither Canada nor the Caribbean but apparently a nice place a bit upwards from Malaga in Esh-pane. Who knew?!

At least it starts well. Dad takes me all the way to Luton without even once telling me in pulses to “STOP. BEHAVING. LIKE. A. PIG!”. And even pays my excess weight charges (baggage not blubber.. I think. Thanks Ben!) to Easyjet.

On the plane, I sleep on the man next to me because he is soft. Soon, we are to land. Hola España! It all rushes back: Una cerveza por favor! Montañas! I do like mountains generally and these ones are particularly great. From the air, they look like piles of ash, squashable, moveable, manageable, like cat litter.

And then we touch down and I am in Spain. Flying’s funny like that. And dayyyyuum son! Or rather sun. It is hot in herre. 18 grados, papa! Mr. fur hat comes off.

I see unsmiling girls with thick eyeliner eating pizza-flavoured crispy puffs. I see signs in Spanish. Doner Kebap. Just a ‘p’ different, but it speaks volumes. Everything is new and strange. I am Ariel singing “I wanna be [pause] where the people are”. Or rather Aladdin and Jasmine where they’re on that carpet...

I am slapped out of this festive moment by arriving at Hostal AB. Where I am to stay. A pipe-cleaner of a girl leads me to my room. It has but one dying light bulb and the air tastes like cigarillo.

I am saved by a man called Paul Fox. Also at Durham, we know each other from Tonk Hector’s oral classes. We meet at the cathedral and even though a gypsy wearing a Kickers t-shirt tries to make me buy some heather, it is beautiful. Where my hostel is, is straight streets and high-rise buildings, with green and white plastic sunshades. But here the streets are thin and odd and cobbled and feel hand-drawn. We wander, we talk… and thar-she-blows! I find 50 euros on the floor!

Dinner is on me. A strange affair in a deserted pizza restaurant with a flamenco show. I’m not sure what I think about flamenco. It requires great bodily control and all that but it does rather make one look like a horse. It certainly makes this woman look like a horse. Her tufty pony tail does not help. But anyway, the best thing about the meal is that the food comes through the front door. A.k.a from another restaurant/ a man on the street.

The next day flat hunting begins. You find flats by reading adverts in the place in phone booth where prostitutes usually put their cards. I visit some crackers. A place that smells heavily of dog (there is a dog there) and cheap cheap banana sweets. A place with two Cypriot sisters of forty, with grey faces, grey dressing gowns and Malboro reds. A place that has no windows. Not a one. Not a single window. A place with windows… but Taiwanese midgets.

All of these places I see. None of these places I can bear. And it is Valentine’s Day. There was a time when I was 14 and got 2 cards through my door, and only half of them were from my dad. Now I am 22 and allein, ganz allein. In Host-hell AB.

Once again, I am saved by a man called Paul Fox. And an invention called buffet libre. Fresc Co is the Best Co in the world. Rafts of salad components, pizzas, soups, pastas, chicken in yellow sauce, little, bashed-up fruits, whippy desserts, beer, coffees and infusions : as much as you like, 10 euros. 10 piddly little eurons. And, as a Valentine’s day gift, a bottle of 8% abv Lambrusco Rosado given – given! Can you imagine! - to each couple. The hall (for it is a hall; of the church- rather than Harry Potter kind) pings with bottle pops, and happiness. Maybe not happiness for wives brought here 12 years running by sweaty husbands. But for Paul and I, and our many, many plates, happiness is here.


Fast-forward three days, and happiness is found in less edible, but better things. In lying on hot white stone in a park with strong sun on my back. In seeing “Mong. Because Mong is your friend” oil paints in the Chinese shop. In having found a good flat. With 2 Italians, a Spanish boy, a French girl, a sun terrace and no smell of dog/sweets. And in listening to Blazin’ Squad in my new yellow bedroom, writing this.