Some Bitching about Beaching
I am sometimes asked about how to look elegant at the beach. It is an impossibly difficult question but here are some rules which may help.
1. Eating
No eating or drinking while standing in a pool; if the hotel offers a poolside bar, you are in the wrong hotel.
No eating while lying on a sunbed. I only tolerate the guzzling of filthy rosé by near-comatose sunseekers on the basis that their hangover will be sufficient punishment.
Gentlemen, don’t ever go to the poolside restaurant for lunch without putting on a shirt, shoes, and combing your hair. Ladies, it’s pareo time. Please, don’t forget. C. Z Guest may be watching from the great pool in the sky.
2. Music and mobile phones
I am sure you have wonderful taste in music but keep it to yourself. Earphones are an excellent way of making more friends on holiday.
Similarly, I am happy that your son and daughter are both so smart and successful that they each have bought an apartment building. But I would rather wait for their autobiographies than hear one of their parents break the news to a distant relative. No phones. Ever. If you have to make a call, wander into the nearest wood or start swimming out to sea.
3. Fashion
No high heels at the swimming pool. Unless you want to look like a hooker. The only possible exception to this rule are hookers, who need to work, just like everybody else.
No crocodiles please, whether bags, shoes, or even the live sort.
No new Hermes bags although using an old one that belonged to your grandmother as a beach bag is quite acceptable.
Speedo-style swimming trunks may have excellent aerodynamic qualities that add at least a knot to your speed through water but they should never be seen in civilised society. Ditto, flip flops. They are the invention of the Devil.
4. More than one is a crowd
If there are thirty empty sunbeds, don’t pick the beds adjacent to the only occupied ones. Similarly, if a lucky sailor has identified a deserted cove, let him or her enjoy it. If they wanted company, they would have booked a cruise.
5. Never book your wife and mistress into the same hotel. Don’t ask. Just don’t.
