New Years Eve arrived and BC and I went along to the restaurant for the celebratory gala dinner that was being prepared. For some reason the hotel staff had split the tables that we usually sat at. This meant that we sat at our table for the evening with strangers instead of the friends we had made during our stay at the usual tables next to us. Rumours spread that it was to keep the Germans and the Brits apart but in reality this had already happened. The evening showed how the cultures from Europe celebrate differently. The Brits wanted to get their food down their necks as quickly as possible and then get smashed, The French wanted to have at least an hour between courses sipping wine and chatting and the rest seemed hell bent on a quiet evening.
Between courses BC and me slipped out to the bar to obtain drinks with the other Brits complaining that a five course meal should finish well before midnight and not take five hours to complete. Neither of us waited for the last two courses as boredom was setting in after three hours and drinking red wine and chewing jellied octopus is not my idea of a celebration of any sort. It was with this in mind that on the stroke of midnight I stripped down to my shorts and dived in the empty pool. A couple of hours later and with several large gins inside me I was standing on the balcony of our apartment and stripped my wet things off and peered out across the water. BC had mentioned that a few of the items she had left to dry on the balcony rail had blown off and as we were on the ground floor I jumped over the rail in pursuit of said items. It was at this point that the motion sensing security lights came on and a couple of passing security guards started to cheer me. All I could do was to smile and take a bow. It was a memorable new years eve.
It does not matter where in the world you go there will always be some Brits who are that little bit louder, more boisterous and ruder than is absolutely necessary. Sadly I met a few on this trip. One is Richard the retard who wanted to fight with everyone and was always complaining. In the end the management did not even bother to take up any of his complaints, mainly against other holiday makers. More than a few people were glad to see him go. The other was a slightly more serious and disturbing matter. One of the attendants at the hotel was dismissed for grabbing a young boy around the throat. So far so good you might think but it transpired that the young boy in question had been tormenting the life out of the pool guard for some hours by throwing things at him and splashing him with water and finally throwing a plate of food in his face. The attendant was immediately suspended and then sacked with a few hours.
The parents wanted a prosecution and pursued matters taking things to the local police station whereupon the attendant was arrested and the father asked if he wanted a prosecution. When he answered yes he was invited by the local police chief to enter the cell with a rubber truncheon and was told not to use his knuckles and not hit him above the neckline as it would leave marks, and was informed no one would be passing by for five minutes. When the father was let out of the cell he was asked again if he wanted to prosecute and he said yes. The attendant was bundled into a police van and taken away to the local prison to await trial.
How do I know all of this? Well the father was bragging and boasting over a good many drinks around the pool to anyone and everyone who would listen that he had knocked the living daylights out of this guy and left him in a mess and was going for a full prosecution. The fact that he was leaving the next day and would not be able to attend and give any evidence was not his concern. He seemed quite pleased with himself over it.
My own take on it is this, if he had of spent less time getting hammered by the pool and kept an eye on his little darling (who was not quite the darling he made out) then an attendant with a wife and two kids would not have been made jobless with no means of supporting his family and would not be requiring hospital treatment and would not be facing jail. Of course the indignant father now had proof that a prosecution was taking place and would be suing the holiday company for compensation. A nice little earner for him. According to witnesses the little darling was smashing glasses and causing mayhem the very next day causing him to be told off by more than one person but not his parents.
I was not proud to be British that day.