That’s it folks, no more photos. I’ve just been looking at our latest batch of holiday shots and I’m a shocker. I have yet again managed to ruin shot of various beauty spots across the north of Spain with my demonic camera face. It doesn’t help that the wife is a natural in front of the camera who will embellish any shot with the way she might look at you. Bitch, as she says herself when she sees someone with a decent bikini body, even though she has one herself.

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This country is starting to stink. A&E closures in places like Roscommon; the shortage of special needs assistants in schools this September; news reports of an old woman on a trolley in a hospital corridor, mortified because the only person to see her in her nightie up until then was her husband of fifty years.

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My brother-in-law’s Spanish girlfriend Maria summed it up. “I love Irish funerals. They’re brilliant.” She’s right. Forget about the James Joyce, Riverdance and The Crack. Our greatest gift to the world is showing other races how do a proper send off.

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I’m nervous about people who go to the same place on the continent for their holidays every year. It isn’t the lack of imagination. It’s the smug stories about how they’re treated like locals at the village fete or how they taught the lady in the patisserie to say go raibh maith agat. Seriously, these actual locals probably think you’re cuckoo.

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Did you know that Turkish men never shave themselves? They just led the fuzz build up and then go for a bit of pampering at the local barbers once a week. I learned this yesterday at the Turkish place where I get my hair cut. And here’s the weird thing. I can’t wait for my hair to grow again so I can go back for more me-time at the hands of the Turks.

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