This is the third and final part of the Sunburn diaries. Every word written here is true. Part 1 and Part 2 can be found here and here!

Part 3

I once went out with a girl from Finland. Trainee javelin thrower. Sadly she chucked me.

So, in Greece doing a very passable impression of a snow globe. There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and there he stood. Bespectacled, bearded and wearing a duffel coat. It was 35 degrees Celsius.

“Hicky kovelainenen nokia hup hup heniekenb basta Lasse?” he asked. My javelin thrower dalliance stood me in good stead (Foreplay was a tad traumatic, what with her arm strength) as I recognised the Finnish language.

He held a can of tuna and began to twang the partially opened lid like a dolphin friendly juice harp.

“Twangly twang ikeloien pente arrikola?” He asked

“Mumbeerlenksi suomi arkande prestatyn,” I replied, hoping that telling him that I don’t like butter on bread rolls would suffice.

He smiled, raised the tin and twanged some more. The twang of his can became the signature tune of the holiday.

How Ma Fightback and I guffawed when we heard him in our vicinity! Although it was a different story when he was twanging his can at 3 in the morning outside our bedroom window.

Think of Deliverance’s duelling banjos and you will start to understand our concerns. Twanged canned tuna possesses a a sinister sound.

A Final Tip For Gingers In The Sun!

Always carry a fridge magnet of Roy Orbison with you.

When in sunny climes, look for a cave. A spot of troglodyte existence is always enjoyable and the cave is dark and cool.

The best caves, the ones with stalagmites and stalactites to watch during your stay, are normally occupied by hermits.

Often a broken heart has caused their hermityness. She done him wrong, upped and left with the milkman, baker, butcher or cobbler etc. The poor lad can’t cope and so naturally finds a cave to sit and mope in.

This is where the fridge magnet of THE BIG O comes in handy.

Place the magnet at the entrance to the cave. Then hum “Dum Dum Dum Dum Doo Wah”.

Hermit will have heard Orbison warble about the broken heart and he will be drawn to this sound. When at the entrance to the cave he will find the fridge magnet, pick it up and venerate it like an Orthodox Icon.

Then nip in, nab his perch in the cave and so have a Sun free holiday watching those naughty stalactites and stalagmites grow!

You will have to share the perch with a rather hirsute skinny bloke but at least you can perfect your Travelling Wilbury’s back catalogue.

But make sure you leave after two weeks. There is a danger that twelve or so years down the line the old Orbison Fridge Magnet Trick may be played on you.

“Alas,” said he to himself, “what kind of people have I come amongst? Are they cruel, savage, and uncivilized, or hospitable and humane? I seem to hear the voices of young women, and they sound like those of the nymphs that haunt mountain tops, or springs of rivers and meadows of green grass. At any rate I am among a race of men and women. Let me try if I cannot manage to get a look at them.”

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