So yes, I’m in Spain, on holiday with Jenny and her brother’s family, who are predominantly Swedish. We’re about 50 miles up the coast from Malaga, where I kind of imagined I’d be safe from the oafish English dwads of Torremolinos, but you can’t contain all of them in the established chicken-in-a-basket resorts so inevitably some of them have made it up here to Nerja. It’s easy to sound snobbish about this kind of thing, but hey, I’m a snobbish middle class wanker, so what do you expect. Last night I was wandering through the streets and saw Paul Shane from Hi-De-Hi holding court outside a pub called the Coach and Horses, and if I’m not allowed to guffaw loudly and snobbishly about that, I’m not sure that there’s any point in living.

On the flight over we sat in front of a family of six. They were a fused together family of two parents, each with their own set of two kids, and we know this because the mum got pissed on the flight (at not inconsiderable cost – Monarch Airlines might be cheap, but they know how to charge for undrinkable booze and inedible food) and started shouting “Aren’t I A Great Stepmum?” to the two kids who weren’t hers. They agreed that yes, she was an excellent stepparent, which didn’t stop her asking for repeated reassurances several times during the journey. After we landed, she leaned forward to me and said “Sorry if we were annoying”, and I smiled and said “don’t be silly, we barely heard you,” because I’m a complete f*cking hypocrite.

Picking up the hire car at Malaga Airport was amusing, if you enjoy the suffering of others – Schadenbastard, I think it’s called. I left Jenny with the task of getting the bags off the carousel, because the Spanish baggage handlers were placing one bag onto the bloody thing every five minutes just to raise the fury of the British holidaymakers to a frankly unsustainable level. I was eventually given a car key and the exact location of the car – but obviously I couldn’t find the car, because it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. I couldn’t get back into the terminal in order to behave like a red, sweating, furious Englishman unless I went back and got my passport, so I went back to get my passport, and I got back in to the terminal, and then they gave me a revised location for the car, but it wasn’t there either, and eventually I found the bastard parked up in some desolate corner of the city at about 11pm. I celebrated by getting in and driving the car about half a mile before realising that I hadn’t switched the lights on, so in panic I stopped on a sharp bend on a motorway slip road shouting “where are the f*cking lights?” Jenny, bless her, started reading the manual. “Congratulations on choosing the Ford Focus for literally years of driving amusement.” Fortunately I found the lights before being shunted up the backside by a juggernaut. I’m a great driver, really, whatever I’ve said in the past, but not on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road.

We’re in the ground floor of a villa somewhere in the hills above the town. Upstairs live the owners, a couple from St Albans. I was born in St Albans, but I haven’t revealed this to them yet – I’m waiting for a moment of horribly stilted conversation before I break this news to them, which will then provide palpable relief to everyone within earshot. I’m eating squid at every opportunity, I’ve had a few bottles of San Miguel, but now that I’ve met my deadlines for The Independent (about 6 hours ago) the basic plan is to do nothing whatsoever. During another stroll around town this evening I observed that some bloke called Robert will be performing a selection of songs from the shows – culminating in “The Phantom Of The Opera” – on Thursday night at some bar or other; while another bar – Blanco Y Negro – promises that “Every Night Things Happen At Blanco Y Negro”, which is about as vague and catch-all a promise as anyone could muster. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Every Night, someone counts the takings at about 4am at Blanco Y Negro.” So my plan is still to do as little as possible. But for all the whining, I’m glad i’m here. It’s not often I get to wear a linen shirt and shorts and lounge around reading Brewer’s Rogues, Villians and Eccentrics, looking like an idiot.