Tag Archives: beaches

Sun, Sea, Sand… and Stabbings

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When we think about long, warm, sunny weekends and bank-holidays at the beach, we can’t help but imagine lilos, sun-tans and sand-castles; deck-chairs, donkeys and ice-creams; and, of course, a massive police presence, and an ugly, oppressive air of horror and trepidation….

Wait a minute… what?

Perhaps I should clarify: I’m talking specifically about sunny days on a Scottish beach.

Ah, now it all makes sense.

During our recent spell of good weather (which at the time of writing is still ongoing – I don’t know who’s been sacrificing children to Ra the Sun God, but whoever it is, please don’t stop) our family headed east-to-west for a day out at Troon’s South Beach. If you’ve never been to South Beach before, I can assure you that it doesn’t invite any comparisons whatsoever with Florida, save for the high number of Goofy bastards milling around.

It was 26 degrees. The sun was fierce, the sand hot to the touch, but the beach itself was calm and peaceful. A light, balmy breeze caressed the assembled sun-worshippers, some of whom were skipping, some slouching, some splashing, but all of them just enjoying the day without kicking sand – literally or metaphorically – in anyone else’s face. We were happy to join them.

It helped that we’d chosen the section of the beach farthest from the town itself, which we could see curving and fading into the distance along the coastline, with its gaudy amusements and hellish postcard pomp. It wasn’t all good news: being so far away from ‘civilisation’ meant that we were outwith comfortable walking distance (and within uncomfortable melting distance) of the nearest available ice-cream. That was the price we had to pay for peace; the cross we had to bear, and, yes,I have just indirectly compared our suffering to that of Jesus Christ’s – another saintly man who was cruelly deprived of ice cream on a really hot day.

Anyway, our kids loved their time at South Beach. It was a picture-perfect, peaceful day, but not without its oddities. For instance, the policemen and -women who kept popping their heads up over the dunes for a little look-see every now and again, like illuminous meerkats. Or the heavy police presence in general. Or the mounted officers clomping their horses up and down the streets that ran parallel to the beach.

We didn’t understand it until we got home later that afternoon and learned that we’d arrived on South Beach one day before the one-year anniversary of the occasion when 6000 teenagers from all along that stretch of coastline, and from the bruised and battered heart of Glasgow, swarmed upon South Beach after answering the rallying call of a Facebook event invite.

They’d arrived by the train-load and fought, fucked and frolicked in the surf and sand-dunes, fueled by a cocktail of booze, bravado, pheromones and amphetamines. Officers on horseback had thundered down the beach trying to herd and repel the stampeding teens. Hundreds of sets of handcuffs had glinted in the sunlight, the closest thing to a sparkling diamond bracelet many of these young people would ever wear. It was absolute chaos.

These days, as a responsible, slightly dull father of two young children, it’s easy for me to tut-tut-tut at these weed-and-speed-whacked William Wallaces who re-enacted Buckfast Braveheart on the beach. But if I’d been a west-coast young ‘un with nothing better to do on a sunny bank holiday, and stumbled across that Facebook event notification, I’d’ve been supping Buckfast in my shorts down the train station before you could say, “Let’s do this! Who’s got the Vengaboys CD?!! No-one? What? They’re shit? Are they? … Oh, ha ha, yeah, fooled you, I was only joking… ha, YOU FELL FOR IT. I WAS ONLY JOKING! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?? COME BACK! I HATE THE VENGABOYS, YOU KNOW THAT!!… I WAS ONLY JOKING… I was… joking……”

That’s why the police were there. In case of a repeat. Which there sort of was. Maybe an echo is a better description. If it was a sequel, it would be Jurassic Park 3. The same pot, essentially, but just a little bit lamer, tamer and smaller. On the day we left, somebody was stabbed in the leg. The next day – the true anniversary – a mere few thousand drunken teens descended upon South Beach. A drop in the ocean.

Troon isn’t alone. Going to Largs or Ayr or anywhere along that coast-line on a sunny weekend or public holiday is like walking on to the set of an all-zombie reboot of the D-Day landings. It’s like God himself scooped up every ned in Glasgow and dumped them down on the sand.

Scotland doesn’t get much sunshine, so when it strikes it has a profound effect upon our brains and bio-chemistries. Other parts of the world get summers: definite, verifiable summers. We, on the other hand, might only get one sunny day throughout the whole season, or a disjointed string of sunny days spaced weeks or even months apart, so when we see the sun we scramble to condense three months of glee, glugging, gallus patter, fish batter, sun-stroke, chip-pokes, tugs, chugs and drugs into one single, savage day. It’s like that Paul Simon song re-rewritten for Hell: 50 Ways to Leave Your Liver.

But try adding 6000 ways to that.

You don’t get this kind of behaviour on the beaches of the east coast. I wonder why…

Hmmm, I think I know why…

But that’s a can of worms for another time.

Memories of Marmaris – Pt 2

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Ah, Marmaris is beautiful. Nearby Turunc is beautiful. Everywhere I went was beautiful. On a jeep safari I saw sweeping, dusty fields, lit by the sun like the Benicio del Toro bits in Traffic; lush green forests winding over rugged rock; the snaking mountain roads skirting panoramic views you would be happy to fall towards to your death, spending your last moments snapping like some demented Japanese tourist. Out on the boats there were beautiful bays (to call them sun-kissed would be a cruel underestimation – the bays were sun-fucked); gently swaying palm trees planted in hot, jagged sand; giant, hazy-green hills standing guard over the coast-line in the distance; and water at the beach so pure, clean and clear you’d have thought it was invisible.

Tequila Islam-er

Turkey has a secular government, but culturally it’s predominantly Muslim: although you won’t find much evidence of this in Marmaris. Unless the Qu’ran’s been rewritten to include passages like this: ‘Blessed are they who cut about with their lips hanging out of their bikinis and drinking alcohol until they projectile vomit in each other’s mouths’.

You’ve got to love the woman on TripAdvisor who raged about her experience in Turkey, drawing particular attention to ‘the bloody singing from that mosque at half four EVERY morning!’ Love, I’d be annoyed if I had to put up with that racket outside of my window in Grangemouth, Scotland. Multiculturalism or no multiculturalism, I like my sleep, and if it was disturbed by a recording of some bearded Brian-Blessed-alike booming out holy shite even before the seagulls had started their daily wailing, then those speakers would be getting chucked into the River Forth. (so too, probably, would my dismembered, headless corpse, but at least I’d meet my death after a half-decent night’s sleep) But you’re on holiday in an Islamic country. Thomas Cook can’t make the Muslims renounce their religion and stop praying for a week just so you can have a nice, quiet holiday getting drunk and reading Jackie Collins’ novels by the poolside with your tits out.

Och Noo the Aye

On my first night in Marmaris, a Turkish tout asked me where I came from. ‘Scotland,’ I replied. He then made a particularly eerie noise. ‘I’m sorry?’ I asked. The penny soon dropped: he was trying to say: ‘Gonnae no dae that.’ Excellent. He then implored me to ask him, ‘How no?’, whereupon he ejaculated: ‘Just gonnae no!’ (allow me to make it clear that I’m using ‘ejaculated’ in the sense of ‘issued forth’, rather than suggesting that the poor little man was so excited by the prospect of imitating Ford Kiernan that he shot his bolt).

Another chap could tell me all about Falkirk, as ‘one of his ex, ex, ex, ex, ex, ex, ex, ex, ex girlfriends (his words)’ was from there. As usual, the Marmaris definition of relationship is stretched to its very limits.

In the idyllic, sun-soaked bay of Turunc I encountered a man who could do a more impressively accurate Glasweigen accent than anyone of non-Scottish extraction in the history of the world. I wanted to take him home and place him in a circus somewhere. These people had done their homework. But you know why they’d done their homework, right? Correct. Every one of those cunts was trying to get money out of me. Which leads me to this next section…

The Real Hustle

Yes, Marmaris – and I’m sure all of Turkey itself – is beautiful. And, despite it being a relatively poor and horrendously corrupt country (if this piece was on Wikipedia, this is the point at which it would say: citation needed), the people are generally nice. But they do want your money: all of it. And the ingenuity they display in trying to part you from it is breath-taking.

It begins at the airport where you have to hand over an English tenner to a highly-uninterested and award-winningly grouchy customs officer. This is a down payment on all the rest of the money you’re going to have to spunk away over the course of your holiday.

My coach driver stopped off at a small café bar about an hour out of Dalaman, where I experienced my first taste of Turkish creative accountancy. Gambling correctly on me being a clueless first-timer with no idea of New Turkish Lira’s value, the little boy behind the till (well, nobody seems to use tills – they rack up your bill on a calculator) lovingly sold me two cans of juice, a large packet of crisps, one packet of chewing gum and a bottle of water for the equivalent of 7.50GBP. So much for Turkey proving dirt cheap, as I’d been promised by all who’d been before.

Then there’s the constant touting, more bloodthirsty than anything you’ve ever experienced before. One typically sunny day, my then-girlfriend and I decided to eat at a restaurant by the marina. By the time we’d downed our hideously expensive Cokes, we were being frogmarched to a jewellery store by a wee guy who spoke no English. This was after listening to a long, eloquent speech by the proprietor about how in this small world, this global community, we must all be brothers and help each other out – ostensibly by buying hideously expensive Cokes from him, and then diamond rings and leather from some dodgy cunt mate of his in town. We managed to get free glasses of water from the jewellery store owner before he sussed out we were paupers and swiftly sent us packing. I think the look in my eyes that said ‘How fucking much?’ tipped him off.

Speaking of tips, there are tip boxes everywhere. On the sides of buildings, in the backs of taxis. I wouldn’t be surprised to find them in the backs of Turkish ambulances. ‘That’s 7.50GBP for a fractured wrist, and an agreement to buy a diamond bracelet from my dodgy mate for a broken leg.’ It’s like Turkey’s handed over the responsibility for its economy to Ryanair.

If things get out of hand, Scottish people, you can always phone 'The Polis.'

Although most of the bar workers are genuinely friendly people, you won’t remember – or care about – this after day three. Certainly my tolerance to touting underwent a radical transformation. I went from cheerfully engaging in banter with every touter who chanced his luck, to imagining their sweet, sweet collective deaths at the bottom of the ocean.

People, Turkish jaikeys presumably, even crashed roll-ups from me as I walked down the street. Not that such occurrences are unheard of down Falkirk high street, but still. Which reminds me: if you can find it over there, which I managed to do, don’t buy any tobacco. The packet may say Golden Virginia on it, but you can bet your bottom dollar (it’s all you’ll have left after a week) that the contents have been swept up from a barber’s-shop floor and cut with desiccated camel shite.