Malta 2006 - Day 11

There’s a girl on a sun bed just in front of me. She seems to be on her own and very independent. About mid-morning this bloke appeared and as he walked passed her he gave her a room key. Neither of them spoke or even acknowledged each other. She took it and he went to a sun bed behind and to my left, sat down and began reading The Sun. it looked to me like these two had had a row. There was no more communication between them until about an hour later when he got up and walked over to her. As he approached she suddenly got up and walked off with a face like thunder. He was left standing by her sun bed looking lost and confused. For the rest of the day the only time they ever came within a few feet of each other was when he wanted the room key. I don’t know what you’ve done mate but I just hope it’s not the first day of your honeymoon that’s all.

I was in the lift when the doors opened. The big bloke was standing there and just about to walk in. I got out.

“I’ll get the next one,” I said.

The waitress was unusually chatty this morning at breakfast. “It gonna be another ‘ot one,” she said gloomily, “it very unusual to be so ‘ot now, we ‘ave ‘ad a heat wave. It will be 38 today. In May we ‘ave some rain and always after rain we are ‘ot. But it sometime gets even ‘otter……”

This was all very well but I was still trying to mentally convert 38 Celsius into Fahrenheit and was losing track of what she was saying. What is it now? Multiply by 1.8 and add 32? Or is it the other way round? Bloody hell they don’t make it easy for you do they? That’s 38 times 18, that’s 684, well I think it is, hang on it might be 694, no it’s 684 but where’s the decimal point go? OK, right, that’s 68.4 plus 32 that’s 100.4, bloody hell……..

“One year it was 40 and once we ‘ad 50…….”

“Hang on, I’m still on 38,” I suddenly said, “you know in England the temperature rarely reaches above 98.7 Fahrenheit.”

“Oh, 98.7?” she said, “What is that in centigrade?”

“98.7?” I said with a fixed grin on my face, “oh that’s…….”

Jesus Christ, it’s bad enough multiplying by 1.8, how the hell do I divide by 1.8? 98.7? Why did I say 98.7? 98.7 divided by 1.8? That’s ridiculous, I can’t do that, it’s impossible. Why didn’t I say 180? That’s a lot easier to divide by 1.8 but it’s also a ridiculous temperature. She was still looking at me waiting for an answer. I was determined not to lose my calculation for 38 centigrade which was just being stored in my memory so I spoke again without any idea of what I was saying. I wasn’t going to multiply 38 by 1.8 again, not for anybody. A spurious stream of gobbledegook came out of my mouth while I mentally wrestled with decimal points.

“The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog add a nought and don’t step on my blue suede shoes,” I said.

Oh this is going nowhere. What I need is one of those mentally impaired people who for some reason can perform huge complex mental calculations in the blink of an eye or play complicated pieces of music on first hearing.

“Get me a savant,” I suddenly shouted.

“Yes sir, what can I do for you?” a man shouted back at me.

“A savant, not a servant you fool,” I shouted back at him.

But to no avail, he’d disappeared and so had the waitress.

She came back shortly though, carrying a calculator. She placed the calculator carefully on a table. He was a short man with a faraway look in his eyes.

“98.7 is the equivalent of 37 Celsius. Ask me another,” he said.

Quick as a flash I said, “What day of the week was the 9^th September 1741?”

Even quicker than a flash he said, “A Tuesday. It rained for the first time in three months and drought orders were lifted in England. Ask me another.”

I was really getting into it now. “Calculate Pi to 200 decimal places. If it’s night time in Italy what day is it over here? If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper how many picks of peck…if Peter Piper puffed a…if Peter Piper picked a peckle of pickle – I’ll ask you another. How many wigs has Elton John got to the nearest 100? What’s the name of the actor who played Col. Hall in the Bilko series? He always makes me laugh. He was in The Music Man playing the mayor of River City. Oooh, what’s his name? It’s on the tip of my tongue.

“Enough,” someone suddenly boomed, “the calculator is exhausted,” and he was whisked away to help the bar manager calculate his weekly profit and loss sheet.

As he retreated into the distance I cried out, “Just one more question….please….”

“How many bloody more times will I hear Stand By Me followed by Runaway?”