When you suffer from extreme vertigo, don't go on cable cars

Why do normally intelligent human beings jettison all common sense when they go on holiday? Example: If you know you suffer from vertigo, you would never apply to become a steeplejack. Equally, doing the tango across The Bristol Suspension Bridge in a gale would never be on your list of must-do's. So why on earth did my wife and I, who suffers even more than I do, decide to go on a cable-car in Madeira? It wasn't even a spur of the moment decision. It was planned the previous day. It's like saying to each other..."d'you know, I fancy having a severe panic attack tomorrow. How about you?"

As you enter the small cable-car at the Funchal Town station, a young lady armed with a digital camera aims at your happy, smiling, English tourist faces. Interestingly, the two sickly, marble-white expressions and 1-stone weight loss on arrival at the summit station must be more common than I anticipated. No one rushed up with stretchers, tranquilisers or psychiatrists. Instead they tried to flog us the over-priced picture of ourselves taken before we entered the jaws of living hell. Our ticket included a visit to the tropical gardens, which that day (as were all the days on our holiday) shrouded in a cold, damp mist. Be honest. Would you normally visit any botanical gardens knowing full well in advance that it would be covered in a thick blanket of fog? No. But we did. And so did many other British tourists in silly shorts wearing goosebumps in the mountain gloom. "Never mind," we said to each other, "going back down probably won't be quite so bad..."

Stiff upper lip...resolve...

Another 1 stone weight loss back at the Funchal Station, there was at least some partial sunshine to soothe our shattered senses and warm our corpse-like body temperatures.

In our case, there was never any opportunity to get sunburnt, but returning to my original point...what can possibly drive fair-skinned people (usually British) who are normally quite sensible at home, to strip down to their new swimming costumes on the first day of their Mediterranean holiday, bathe in the fiercest midday sun, and then emerge covered head to toe in gallons of calomine lotion the next?

And food. There's a sense of adventure and there's crass stupidity. Why try a foreign dish you know instinctively is going to make you vomit? Why eat in a local back-street restaurant that even the cockroaches refuse to inhabit? And why are we, as tourists, attracted to buying sheer

rubbish in exorbitantly-priced shops staffed by rude people; always things we don't need and that we'd normally give to a charity shop back home? The whole idea of any holiday is that you relax and refresh your mind. You certainly don't want to expose yourself to a week or two of bleeding credit cards or to rely on the grim reaper to be your holiday rep...

"Being alive is bad for you" scientists warned today...

Don't eat this, don't breathe that, don't go there.. scientists are forever warning us about the dangers of simply existing. "Oh you mustn't blink" they say, "tests in Copenhagen have shown that blinking is dangerous. You'll wear out your eyelids and your eye sockets will turn to jam." Or waking up in the middle of the night and going to the bathroom. "You mustn't do that", warn a group of scientists, "tests have shown that you'll wear out your feet prematurely. Feet need uninterrupted sleep." They also warn, for once quite sensibly, that peeing in the bed whilst your feet are asleep is both unhygenic and, if you and your partner sleep together, extremely anti-social. Unfortunately, because all these scientific warnings appear in the newspapers, they must be true. If, right now, you "Google" feetmustsleep@nuttyscientist.com, I guarantee you'll find hundreds of websites dealing with every aspect of snoozing, snoring tootsies: from curing feet with insomnia to downloadable i-lullabys for toes, heels and soles suffering sleep deprivation...also quite probably, the name of a Canadian rock band from Calgary.
You then realise that for every Scientist's grim warning, some corporate bank account is swelling ever larger from each nurtured public panic. So, what would your scientific warning be? Answers please to the editorial departments of the world's popular press. Let's get everyone neurotic about installing cat flaps...

Meanwhile, back at the Vicarage...

...The morning sun was glinting dangerously on the sherry decanter. Mrs Bark-Slackbottom, the Housekeeper, was watching clouds of dust dancing in the sunshine. "What's the point of it all?" she pondered as a particularly large length of wiry purple fluff performed serene somersaults and then headed for the side table next to the bookshelf. The one she'd just meticulously polished. "You bastard" she screamed, then remembered that she was in a House of God. Well sort of...it was the Vicarage.
"You called?" replied the Vicar, standing at the door in his blue-striped pyjamas, a blessed cup of organic Bredon Hill Plum Wine in his hand. "Sorry Vicar" she replied, flushed and flustered, "I just can't keep on top of it all...soon as you dust a surface, it all settles down again, and you have to go over it, and over it. I tell you, it's not doing my tennis elbow any good in the slightest...the bastards."
"Do calm yourself Mrs Bark-Slackbottom. Life is much too short to worry about...
oh dear, you've missed a bit on the sideboard over there. And look at the window ledge. All those dead flies. And Fraulein Zonda von Krebb will be here shortly to discuss some of her very efficient, tried and trusted ways we can get more parishioners out of the Dog and Catbasket and into Evensong every Wednesday.
She's virtually guaranteeing a packed house.... although she's warning that the hymn singing may be a bit high-pitched. Really Mrs Bark-Slackbottom, you must be more diligent in your cleaning endevours! God will not be pleased! Incidentally, the cord has gone in my pyjamas. I don't suppose you can fix it before Fraulein von Krebb arrives. That silly salute she always performs when she sees me. I get so carried away by the moment I'm bound to let go of my pyjama bottoms and wouldn't that be embarrassing."
"What sort of tried and trusted ways Vicar?. You want to be careful. These Johnny Foreigners..."
"She's female Mrs Bark-Slackbottom. That makes her a Janet. Or a Jordan with massive mammaries and an obscene bulging bank account to match. Please get your genders right."
"And she's a Lutheran. You can't trust a Lutheran. Bastards, all of them!"
"In the eyes of our Lord, we are all equal Mrs Bark-Slackbottom. Now, please would you repair the cord in my pyjamas. Oh dear, look at the time. She'll be putting her fist through the front door any minute. My God, that's her approaching now...the drinks cabinet is locking itself!"

TO BE CONTINUED....(by You?)
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"Meanwhile back at the Vicarage"