Coco and Celine

I found an old notebook I'd had when I went to Spain in late 2008 with my friends Jon and Jim. A lot of what follows was a collaborative mind-spurt with them, and much fun it was too.

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In the airport on the way there we spotted a small squat old woman who resembled Ann Miller as 'Coco' in Mulholland Drive. That is, if Coco had bleached her hair and been a nouty Manc with a long-suffering and hard of hearing husband in tow.

After perpetual squabbling at the gate we heard her exclaim, with a slight crack in her voice, "just SHUT UP!" Much, much later, safely ensconsed on the Costa de la Luz, we spotted them by the side of the swimming pool. "There's lots of brollies," the husband said reassuringly. "THERE'S NO BROLLIES!" she snapped.

We made it our business to track them.

By the delicious and varied soups in the hotel restaurant:

Husband: Fancy any of these?

Coco: [in world-weary tone] No...not really.

By the pool again:

Husband: At least it's a soft surface to walk on.

Coco: HMPH!

It became paramount that we got near them at baggage reclamation on the way back, but sadly they must have been staying another week to torment each other in the Mediterranean sun.

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The PA around the swimming pool was highly unpredictable. Sometimes it would play a varied selection of music, other times it would fall silent. More often than not it played the same three Celine Dion songs on constant repeat.

It was soon obvious to us that Celine lived feral in the hotel grounds, dressed only in a filthy towel with a hole bitten into it for her head to go through. She would eat rubbish out of the bins and occasionally perform lightning raids on the kitchens, prompting the chefs to chase her maniacally with meat cleavers whilst yelling "¡PUTA!"

She'd forgotten how to talk but could still sing all her songs perfectly. At night she would go down to the beach and bay at the tide, trying to drive it back as she splashed in the surf, pooing in the wet sand.