Tubby tourists in shorts herald the return of life to abnormal

THEY’RE back! I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but where I am the tourists have come flooding back. It was all rather sudden and took me by surprise. I know it had been in the papers, but I’d assumed folk would be cautious, and I’d read that many – like me at any given time, virus or no virus – would still be too scared to venture anywhere.

But, no, in they breenged, full of that bovine entitlement that inevitably accompanies the sin of tourism. It’s a scientific or anecdotal fact that, generally speaking, other people are not as sensitive or timid as the present writer.

All the same, the brazenness took me aback, and I was reminded anew that there’s a world out there that’s not as decent and unostentatious as ours. The roads were our first clue. Having become used to tottering along on foot without getting flattened, suddenly we were diving for the grass verges every 10 seconds.

There were camper vans and everything. Secretly, I admire camper van drivers. They don’t care what anyone thinks even after being witchhunted – understandably – out of many areas when lockdown started. It’s not that I admire thick-skinned people. I don’t. But I do so wish that I were one.

Also making a return to our motoring lives was the 40mph saloon car driver on the 60mph road, caring not a whit for the tailback behind him.

Meanwhile, at the other extreme, tailgaters too reappeared, though they’re usually locals showing visitors they know the roads right well, a solitary skill in their portfolio of useful abilities in life.

It’s been bliss without the tortoises and the tailgaters. They’re a sign of life returning to abnormal.

This sense was amplified at the village supermarket. Suddenly, it was packed again. The first anomaly I encountered was a tall young tourist, obviously proud of his suntanned legs, which suspiciously Continental limbs he deployed to propel himself daringly the wrong way down the aisle. All tall people are arrogant – it goes with the lofty territory – and I was sorely tempted to headbutt this specimen in the nads.

But, soon, my attention was drawn to the fact that an appalling aspect of his appearance was being repeated all over the shop. Suddenly, after months of sartorial decorum, it was full of people wearing shorts.

Round here, during lockdown, one saw no shorts other than on cyclists causing danger to other users of 60mph bendy roads. Well, no one expected better of these morally apathetic narcissists.

But to see shorts in a supermarket was shocking. To be fair, it wasn’t the obscene Lycra of

Dafydd the Only Cyclist in the Village, but mostly these Baden-Powell affairs baggily billowing north of sandals and short, woolly socks. The wearers – as I pointed out to them – were generally tubby, proving the adage that travel broadens the waistband. The wonder of it is that their wives – it’s always men making this spectacle of themselves – have never pointed out how ridiculous they look.

However, observation of your species leads me to believe it’s precisely this refusal to say anything judgmental that makes a successful marriage. A pal discovered this the hard way when, forced by his missus to say something other than “Aye, fine” when asked for his opinion of her latest outfit, said it made her look like Henry the Eighth and got banjoed with a frying pan.

The wearer of shorts is the Man With No Mirror. Shorts are the baseball cap of the legs. It’s said that every time someone dons a pair of shorts, an angel dies of a broken heart. Yet, as with the camper van tribe, I almost admire the brazen fartiness of it.

So, calmly and keeping our opinions to ourselves (see above), we just accept that the camper vans, slow drivers, tailgaters and people in shorts are back. But let’s be generous and agree that it takes all sorts to make up a world. I just wish they wouldn’t come anywhere near me.

Same old songs

A TOP study has found that people forever favour the music of their youth.

Researchers at the University of Westminster and City, University of London, found that tunes and ditties absorbed between the ages of 10 and 30 stick around our heids till we die.

This is undoubtedly true. When young and listening to progressive rock – prog (music for intellectuals and aesthetes) – I assumed that, later in life, I’d have moved on to classical and jazz, which I have.

But, still, I listen to the rock of my youth.

Controversially, I wrote recently that there was no new music under the sun.

My generation had done it all. However, in a highly usual development, it turns out I was talking bilge.

At present, I can’t stop listening to ethereal Norwegian singer Aurora, and some other stuff I can’t recall at the time of going to press.

However, it’ll be Foxtrot by Genesis on ancient vinyl, along with my dogeared copy of The Lord of the Rings and youthful collection of boiled eggs (brown and white), which will accompany me to the grave.

Tourists flock to Skye pre-pandemic