I don’t have any pearls of wisdom to write right now.

This might be because I limit my creativity catalyst – currently a double espresso to one a day.
So for now I’m running on empty.
Therefore, instead I’m going to build you a picture of some of the characters I’ve noticed while I’ve been here, then I’m not going to ask any questions nor assign you, reader a task.
This is just a self indulgent rant for posterity, switch over now.

I’m presently poolside, it’s 17:17 and I can hear the incessant drone of Piaggio and Vespa moped and the occasional spat of barking from a heat-delirious mutt.

At my left is an Italian couple. The woman a chunky forty something, happy to read mostly and warble intermittently in a husky smoker’s voice what sounds like commands of servitude or enslavement, I can’t tell which.
The most interesting of the is duo is the husband, nicknamed “Stinkfly” not nice of me I know, but then it’s more in fun then in rem.. nasty. He’s well tanned and in relatively good physical condition for his age. But he is an annoying bastard.

The pool opens at 9am. You’re not allowed to go in and claim your sunbed till such time. The canny among the hotel guests (only Stinkfly and I pretty much) Get down to the pool at its opening time and grasp the prime real estate. I’m a Brit. I wait patiently in the arbour after a high protein breakfast for the gate to open at 9.

But not Stinkfly. Oh no. He sneaks in through the gate (that’s only knee high) and places his newspapers and towels on the two beds that I want. Bastard. It’s not even nine o clock. Cheating bastard.

My riposte is to shift his two beds to the right, and then to claim a free floating little table and parasol, and nicely position my two beds.

But that’s not all that’s annoying about him.

He’s reading a comic book. Ok it’s a graphic novel big deal. It’s not even a frikkin’ superhero one. It’s a bloody cowboy one.
No. Seriously.

It’s called Tex.
And it’s about a Cowboy.
Did I miss something here? Ok, the guy is old enough to be a cowboy, and hmm, come to think of it does look a little like one, but reading a cowboy comic in your fifties? Never met one of those before.

I’m only halfway through.

This man cannot sit still! Up, down, up down, up down.

He’s not doing anything other than walk down some steps, look at the people in the pool, then go back. He’ll stop and stick his hands on his hips, piercing acquine features scouting the place out.
Then he’ll go and sit down again.
He will read Tex for five minutes. listen to his iPod for ten. Then he’s up again.
Maybe he’ll go the pool and stare at people silently for a bit.

He also picks his nose all the time. Openly, not secretly or in a car like the rest of us.

What should I do reader? C
Pay him at his own rules, ie break the pool opening times but get earlier than him?
Or do I write “idiota” on his crossword (but then that’s his long suffering wife’s not his.

Or should I just use the whole thing as a source of amusement?

After all, he’s *nothing* like me.